Editor’s Note: With the Academy Awards drawing near, TLNT again asked some prominent thought leaders to write about their favorite movie from this past year with a HR or talent management theme. We’ll feature one each day leading up to the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 24.
If wishing made it so…
The movie Ted sucks. Not because it wasn’t funny. It was, in parts.
No, Ted sucks because we must evaluate it against its potential. Seth MacFarlane + R rating = holy crap. This is going to be wheels-off funny.
It wasn’t. The best parts of the film are all in the trailer. Damn, I hate it when Hollywood screws me over like that.
HR needs to put a cork in all the wishing
The main character in Ted wishes for a buddy. The buddy comes in the form of a plush, talking teddy bear aptly named Ted.
In HR, we are a wishful clan. We wish employees would stop doing stupid stuff. We wish our managers respected us. We wish our executives gave a damn about the most important asset — the people.
We wish we had a real profession that got more respect. We wish we weren’t all that soft. We wish people would care more about the stuff we care about … like (insert your own thought) culture, recognition, retention, diversity, etc., etc., etc.
We wish people took our certifications seriously. We wish SHRM were (insert your description) stronger, better, bigger, more strategic, more tactical, etc., etc., etc.
We wish. We wish. We wish.
Here’s the truth: stop all the wishing! Stop dreaming, stop screwing around with your time.
Wishing doesn’t make it so. Never has, never will.
Squandering potential
You want respect? Earn it. You want a different reality? Go out and create it.
Stop. Wishing. Now.
What hurts both this boring movie Ted and HR is that we both have potential … yet we find creative ways to squander it. We fumble on the one yard line. We have the potential to score, but alas, we don’t.
Potential — that’s a loaded word. When you’re young and people say that you have potential, it’s awesome. When you hit middle age and people say the P word, it’s a slap in the face. They’re secretly kicking your ass with that word.
Ted had the potential of being one of the funniest movies ever, like Blazing Saddles funny. They had the right guy in Seth MacFarlane, and the right format, but something watered this down.
They should be sitting at OUR table
Who did it? Hollywood? The word police? Seth himself? Jackass producers? I have no idea.
Truthfully, we’ll probably never know. The potential was there. The ingredients were there. And they found a way to fumble on the one yard line.
In HR, however, our movie isn’t done yet. We can choose to put away the childish crutch of wishing, or we can force change — in ourselves, in others, etc.
The organization is ours. We’re really the most important function in the whole damn organization. Everything else — finance, sales, IT, marketing, operations, etc. — they are ALL secondary to HR.
They should be sitting at OUR table … or wishing they could.
That is our potential — believing that, doing that.
But jeez, for the love of Christ, stop all the damn wishing!