New Leeson Life

As part of my work over the past few years I've spent a lot of time in project meetings relating to HR Systems implementations - first UK wide, now global. I'm not a systems guru, or an IT geek (in fact the thought of me tinkering around with tech would make my brother - our family's actual IT guru - cry with laughter) but I love a problem to solve and the utopia of reliable, accessible, agile data that drives all the transformational activity we as a business want to achieve is one I've been determined to reach. Consequently, solving that problem landed with me.  It's not glamourous. In fact if you want to send most HR and operational people into a mild coma, you could do worse than start talking about data fields and user profiles and interfaces. The challenge with HR and systems is that HR people LOVE the front end. They are crazy about shiny techy toys, about getting stuff online, about social and intuitive and all that jazz. But they don't want to lift th

I have done a very silly thing. With just 13 months to go until my 40th birthday I have signed myself up to be in a dance show. It all began rather innocently when I found out about this brilliant dance studio, run by ex-West End and Royal Ballet dancers that offer classes for all ages and abilities. I danced in my teens and early twenties and it was my first love, before even Jason Donovan. I wasn't bad at it either. So when I found this place I wanted to recapture some of the pure joy that dancing first gave me. And it was cool because, along with the very bendy glamourous young things, and the cutest toddlers in tutus you've ever seen, there are enough other 'old birds with day jobs' to make me feel safe. And, oh, its brilliant. I adore it.  Except this week something happened. With just 5 weeks to go until this show (that seemed like a great idea at a distance) reality has hit us. You see, we aren't dancers. We don't do this every day. We are a bit s

I love writing. I enjoy the way it organises my thoughts. The way it allows me to think a thing through to a conclusion of kinds without interruption. But I haven't done much of it recently. Partly because of, you know, life. Partly because the last but one time I wrote a post - on what HR isn't - some charmer felt the need to respond with a comment along the lines of "I think the lady doth protest too much". Which I took to mean "Yeah, yeah, HR is whatever I say it is so stop pretending to be something you're not and take some notes in my disciplinary woman". Ironically I think he was trying to sell me his services. Not ironically, I think he had a point.  HR is what other people think it is. And lots of people think it's something akin to a note-taking, argument-refereeing, employment-tribunal-avoiding, counselling service. I sat in a seminar the other week, surrounded by senior HR types, with a panel discussion on  how organisations with clear