Galindo, author of The 85% Solution: How Personal Accountability Guarantees Success and a consultant with Versera Performance Consulting, highlights three ways that HR professionals can prove their worth to CEOs.

Achieve Clear Agreement

“The first way is putting ownership for results on all initiatives in the organization squarely on your shoulders before the fact [before the initiatives begin],” says Galindo. “If you use a clear agreement, which is vitally important and often skipped, and put it in front of the executives for their input, you’ll get buy-in and success.”

Galindo’s book explains that a clear agreement should be written down, and it should clarify who owns each part of a task. “It includes what each person is expected to do and records a deadline for completing the work. The agreement states who will do what by when.”

Galindo cites the example of a company adopting an organizationwide policy and procedure that requires all staff to clock in and out for breaks. “It’s a big behavioral shift and a companywide initiative involving thousands of people. It’s HR’s role to get clear agreement and support from everyone companywide. When you use clear agreement, it doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself. It does mean that you set the expectation at the leadership level and get input and feedback about what you need and [finalize] that clear agreement … and you’re going to have success.”

Teach Through Examples

The second way to prove your worth to CEOs is to insist on looking back to go forward, proposes Galindo. “HR professionals have their fingers squarely on the pulse of what goes wrong, what managers aren’t handling. Put these examples in front of the leadership by being on the [meeting] agenda of leadership meetings. Talk from the perspective of how the problems were fixed, not what was being done wrong. [Say for example,] ‘Here’s what was learned and how much money was saved.’ Instead of showing who is not performing, show who is performing.”

This is a best practices approach that tells the story of successes to senior leaders who may then bring the information back to the managers in their divisions so they might adjust their approaches and become more successful. For example, you could share the story of the worst performing department in terms of getting performance evaluations done that eventually wound up becoming the best performing department in completing the evaluations in a timely manner, says Galindo.

The stories of success help leaders understand what caused the positive change and strengthens the business culture to become more vibrant, problem solving and forward thinking to achieve more positive outcomes, notes Galindo.

Define Personal Success

The third way to prove your worth to CEOs is to have a professional definition of success for yourself—your vision, your purpose and your contribution to the organization, explains Galindo: “All of this is encapsulated in a professional definition of success.” She shares an example of a professional nutritionist who is often thought of by others [in the industry] as the last person in the health care food chain, providing a service that is often not covered by health insurance. “This health care professional could have the most important role in your life because his or her role impacts your health,” says Galindo. “The nutritionist’s definition of success could be ‘I am a nutrition professional and I contribute to the wellbeing of people.’ ”

For HR professionals and executives, if your mindset is personal accountability for personal success in all your actions, it will start to show in everything you’re doing, stresses Galindo. “It’s the most important thing you can do for yourself and it dictates all your actions.”

If you effectively articulate your own professional definition of success, you can in turn help the CEO and other leaders identify their professional definitions of success, according to Galindo. They can then commit to support others [who report to them] in achieving their personal definitions of success, she adds.

Galindo’s parting wisdom is this: “You must shift your mindset away from being the bucket where all bad things go to being the source and fountain where all great things come from.” For more information about Galindo and her book, visit www.lindagalindo.com.

This article is provided to members of the Northeast Human Resources Association
as a member benefit, compliments of Business and Legal Resources, Inc.