Monthly Archives: May 2010

Sir Ken Robinson & The Education Revolution

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The day one of my mentors introduced me to Sir Ken Robinson and his original TED talk was the day that I found my higher purpose. Tony Hsieh in his about to be released book Delivering Happiness writes about three types of happiness being pleasure, passion and higher purpose/meaning.

  • Pleasure – My next high comes from public speaking and travel
  • Passion – I’m engaged and time flies when I’m working on great projects and writing blog posts
  • Higher Purpose – I realised this after reading Sir Ken’s book The Element. My purpose is to help instigate an education revolution both in workplaces and the education sector

That’s why I need to share with all of you his latest TED Talk recorded earlier this year that was released this week to the public.

I encourage you to watch the whole video, if (which I highly doubt) Sir Ken doesn’t achieve his learning revolution he could take up a career as a stand up comedian as he has the crowd laughing throughout.

But on a more serious note, his talk is amazing and it is up there with Jamie Oliver’s Food revolution as a modern day crisis that requires action now. I say this as I was somebody who struggled through both the schooling system and intially the university sector. I survived thanks to a passionate teacher in High School who encouraged and challenged me and a mentor in university who is a big Sir Ken fan. So I have managed to scrape through and come out the other side and find my passion. I consider myself lucky, but others may not have those amazing people in their life at the same time and might end up doing something they hate for the rest of their life. This simply isn’t good enough anymore.

My first priority is to bring an education revolution to workplaces, Zappos is all over this with their education pipeline by creating a workplace that develops and nurtures great talent which leads to a workplace full of passionate people.

I also want to help take on the challenge that is modern day schooling and help bring on an evolution that creates schooling environments that fosters learning and to make it a place where children want to go and challenge the ideas that are put to them. Does anybody sometimes wonder when they hear about all the problems of violence, bullying, drugs and skipping class is because the students are bored and unchallenged?

So I challenge you to:

  1. Watch the video
  2. Share the video with your friends and contacts
  3. If you know of people within education or teachers make sure this video ends up with them as they need to be aware of this and can help bring change from the frontline

Lets share the message and help bring on a revolution! Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single click.

What is your secret to passion, drive and….?

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I have had the privilege of speaking at a few forums recently including the chance to get up in front of young professionals and students about my career in HR to date.

Usually I get quite a few enquiries about my drive, determination and passion for all things HR and what is my secret to finding success at such a young age. I’ve found it quite hard to answer these questions. But obviously I was not the only one.

After I watched this video on my lunchtime inspiration session it all clicked. I knew I had passion and ideas but I couldn’t explain the rest until now.

  • Passion: Once I found HR it wasn’t work anymore, it wasn’t about picking the major with the most money. It was using my ideas to ensure that in a nutshell workplaces were sustainable and workforces were sustained 
  • Work: I have big plans to really shake up HR as we know it. But I know that it is going to take nothing but hard work. As Guy Kawasaki said “Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.” I’m up for it
  • Focus: I’m focused to become known the world over as The HRockstar. The kid who really redefined what modern day HR is. Try and stop me!
  • Persist: Bring on the CRAP as Richard St. John puts it. I’ll see you on the otherside of it.
  • Ideas: I am full of them, hundreds come through daily. But I am now ready to start shipping my ideas both within my organisations and to the wider industry.
  • Good: This goes with my work ethic. I found my HR passion at 20 years of age. That is a hell of a long time to get good at it. But I’m starting now and I’ve hit the ground running by reading, listening, watching and doing as much as I can related to HR, people and business
  • Push: I’ve pushed myself through lots of challenging situations from the self-doubt of not thinking I was cut out for university to pushing myself into new cities and industries to build new networks away from my HR circle
  • Serve: This is what I try to do with my presentations, with this blog and with an upcoming business I’m starting. To serve the HR industry and young students by helping them connect with their passion and by mentoring them on how to crush it in the business world and the hidden job market

If you are reading this with self doubt about your career, your studies or your current job rewatch the video and visualize each one of the 8 words and have a think about whether or not your current path is checking each one of those 8 boxes. If it’s not and you want some coaching around it I know of some great career coaches or I can personally sit down or virtually sit down and talk these things out, email me at damon dot klotz @ gmail dot com

This has been a timely post as I am speaking again in two weeks at a forum about young HR professionals in the workforce and I now finally have some concrete reasoning behind the tour de force that is The HRockstar.

Happy reflecting!

Why do we need HR?

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I’m going to summarize an excerpt from China Gorman to answer this one.

“Regardless of the size of your organisation, the essential role of HR is to ensure that the organisations workforce is sustained and sustainable. This is what makes HR the most critical function in the organisation.”

I love this because it’s short and sweet and sums it up perfectly.

If you can see that your workforce isn’t sustained or sustainable don’t wait to be asked, don’t wait for ‘that seat’ at the table, step up and make the change yourself.

What have you done in your career to ensure that your workforce is sustained and sustainable?