Good morning from Palm Springs, California…

I’ve been here in P.S. since Sunday, my second trip to this part of the country.  Other than having the country’s best airport to fly in and out of, it is beautiful out here.  Desert, mountains, and green.  Both figuratively and literally.

Anyways…

I’m here in Palm Springs participating in the 51st PIHRA Conference, the Professionals in HR Association, the largest SHRM chapter in the country with nearly 3,500 members.  I was invited here to conduct a couple of workshops on Monday and Tuesday of this week to some of the six hundred or so attendees.  In addition, I’m “boothin”, talking to suspects, prospects, and clients about the work Employee Hold’em conducts on behalf of our customers.  Here are some of my observations…

Mashed Potato Bar.

Yes, say it with me… Mashed Potato Bar.  That was the Monday night event, and yes, it is exactly what you are thinking, unless you are thinking that somehow this is a drink.   Take four different types of mashed potatoes, and scoop some into a Sundae glass.  Then move down to the “fixin’s” bar and add your toppings; caramelized onions,  bacon, cheese, pesto, brown gravy, wine gravy with shallots and garlic (ok, you know that was my choice).  The more mixin’ and matchin’ the better.  Add six liquor bars located strategically around the hall, and well, you get the picture.  My new friend John Silver from ITT showed me the ins and outs of the MPB, I think he has been to one of these before.  See what I miss in Indy?

Part of the “fun activities” at MPB Night were furnished by a company called Zobmondo, and their card-game “Would you rather…?”.  A simple card game designed to spur discussions among people, especially if they don’t know each other very well.  The questions on the cards are separated into four categories, Pain/Fear/Discomfort, Appearance/Embarrassment, Ethics/Intellect, and Random.  For example:  Would you rather be married to someone who insists that every electric device in your home be controlled by “The Clapper” or that every piece of furniture have plastic covers?  Or… Would you rather have an arm in the place of one of your legs, or a leg in place of one of your arms? (ew!)    We were encouraged to come up with our own questions, and were awarded with a free drink coupon if we had one of the best.  I liked mine a lot.  Would you rather fire one of your parents, or one of your children.  However,  I was at a table of PIHRA Foundation members (John S. is one), and they ganged up against me to “vote” for one of their own.  What some people won’t do for a free beer.  Sigh.

I ran up against a buzz-saw of a topic on Monday, there is one in every conference.  Since I normally keynote, I’m often immune, but not this time.  The room for this particular workshop held one-hundred and fifty folks, four additional tables were brought in to accommodate another thirty people, and another bunch of people stood in the back of the room for two and a half hours! The title of the speech:  Tough conversations to have with your employees, verbal strategies for addressing conduct, performance, and discipline challenges.  As I mentioned in my Hold’em workshop, with California having the lowest workforce engagement of any state (thirty-eight percent of workers were Fully Engaged, thirty-five percent are Unengaged), it’s no wonder that nearly two hundred people were in that presentation.  However, if they came to my session, they learned with organizations need to do avoid these situations in the first place.

Being proactive vs. reactive.  Pretty easy decision from where I stand.

Is it a little ironic that one of the standard “evening events” at almost every Human Resource conference I have ever attended is “Casino Night”?  Human resources, drinking, and gambling.  The perfect trifecta. Since I don’t like to gamble (takes too long to make the money and too little time to lose it), I gave my golden token (worth two-hundred and fifty chips of play money) to John.  He likes to play Craps, and won some cash playing Red.  Chips were turned into tickets which were then used to try to win one of sixty of so prizes.  We won a coffee-mug and an I-tunes card when one of our tickets hit (well, actually John’s ticket, but I like saying “we”).  He and I gifted the mug/I tunes card to Liz, another new friend I met here in P.S.

My speech yesterday was a new one for me, and is based on my upcoming book, Designing Employee Recognition Programs.  Yes, I know, quite the title, huh?  However, the book did allow me to put forth the following opinion.  If eighty percent of a company’s outcomes are the result of the effort of twenty percent of the employees, shouldn’t eighty percent of the rewards and recognition go to these twenty percent “top performers”?  I saw a lot of heads nodding during my presentation, I think I scored a pretty big win.  I received wonderful comments from attendees, and compliments from PIHRA conference organizers.  All part of living my dreams.

And comments on two new services, both of which are growing parts of my business.  I’m a CDM, a Certified Dream Manager.  And I must admit, I love talking to people about what I do to help employees reach their dreams.  I get funny faces and laughs when people see that title (especially when it is paired with my other title, Chief Instigator).  However, once I start explaining the concept, people love the idea.  I think I’ve picked up a handful of clients.

The second new service is one that I am especially proud of, and falls into the area of “Retraining” in my Four R’s of Workforce Engagement (recruit, retrain, reward, and retain).  I’ve been invited to be a faculty member of the organization iLearningGlobal.  An amazing company with some of the best minds, coaches, and experts in the field of professional and personal development, all delivered on-line via HD video.  I’m using it myself (personal development), using it with clients in my role as a business coach, and providing it to employees in organizations as a way of showing their company’s commitment to their own development.  Take a minute and check out the site.  If you’re interested, drop me an email at marc@employeeholdem.com.  We can talk about how you can use this wonderful tool yourself, provide it as a development opportunity for your employees, and how you can monetize your organization, even when it’s not open for business.

Well then, enough said today.  It is just past 4.33 a.m. here in California, as you can tell, I’m still sleeping on “Indy Time”.   I’m gonna take a walk around town, it’s only about eighty degrees, fairly cool for this part of the world.

Have a great day… and one final question:  Are you living your dreams?