Random Conference Moments - Total Rewards 2011

Day 1 and 2 of WorldatWork's 2011 Total Rewards conference are behind us.  What a blast it's been for a compensation geek - to be surrounded by ideas and debate about some of today's biggest reward issues, to share a building with some of the smartest people in the profession.  I have one notebook nearly filled already.

Lots of great blogging fodder, so expect to see it coming out - a thought at a time - over the coming days and weeks.  Right now, just had to share out a few of my favorite conference moments so far -

Dan Pink's hilarious characterization, in Monday's opening keynote, of the annual performance appraisal discussion.  It went something like "that annual kabuki theatre piece we call a performance review".   I am not a member of the "kill performance appraisals" contingent, but I laughed as loud as anyone.  People were still chuckling about that comment on Monday evening.

Jim Kochanski's (Sibson, "Pay For Performance: The Big Bang Theory" session with Myrna Hellerman) sage advice on encouraging management honesty and fairness in performance assessment and pay decisions through transparency and disclosure: "Never underestimate the power of public embarrassment."  Hear, hear!

Tom McMullen's and Mark Royal's (Hay Group, "Reward Fairness: Slippery Slope or Manageable Terrain?" session) story illustrating how deeply notions of fairness are embedded in our DNA.  They shared the results of 2004 research published by Nature Magazine in which "monkeys that had previously been perfectly happy with a slice of cucumber suddenly stopped accepting it when they saw their partners getting a grape."  Apparently one of the more strident of the apes even threw the cucumber slices back at the researcher in anger, in response to the realization of unfair treatment.  Been there, haven't most of us?

Tuesday's award breakfast, where my local affiliate, the Twin Cities Compensation Network was named Association of the Year.  Kate Lang, who I believe was a founder and the very first TCCN President, was there to accept the award.  As a member, as a volunteer and as a former Board member, I am so proud of our group!  Big kudos to Kate, to Dan Byrne, to Ken Hirte, to Saado Abboud - and all the other terrific leaders who played a role in creating and nurturing such a great organization. Saado, as current TCCN President, also received the award for Workspan Article of the Year.  Look out world, Minnesota is rocking the rewards profession!  Go TCCN!

Hope everyone at the conference enjoys their final day today - and safe journeys back home!

Comments

[Saado Abboud]

Thanks Ann for the synopsis from the 2011 Total Rewards Conference! And yes, it is scary how these folks from Minnesota are storming the world of Total Rewards by surprise ):. Obviously, we are fortunate to be the beneficiary of your involvement with the TCCN Board in many ways!
I kind of agree with David about the "annual kabuki theatre piece" illustration but without the elaborate make-up. It is funny, but is also true in many cases where managers do not know how to "dance" and become the big elephant in the room!

[Jerry Ong]

Thanks Ann for the shout out. With your blog, we now have an international showcase of our achievement !

While we have past and current leaders that played a role in nurturing TCCN, let us not forget about the unsung heroes that work really hard behind the scenes to make sure that we put out the best programs, the best educational classes offered to our memebers, the best secretarial minutes of our meeting, the best fiscal responsibility behind our finance, our ever increasing membership base, and the best communication channel for TCCN. They are the faces behind our Committees led by Gail Swenson (Programs), Kathy Johnson (Education),Hazeil Francios (Secretary), Luke Malloy (Finance), Jan Frisch (Membership) and Bruce Calhoun (Communications). Last but not least, kudos to our members who have given us the support over the years -- without them there will be no TCCN.

[Ann Bares]

Thanks, Saado and Jerry! Particularly for the call-out of all the unsung heroes, the behind-the-scenes volunteers on whom the Association depends. And let's not forget to also recognize those who have stepped up to carry the leadership mantle into the future, Jerry (Mr. President-Elect)!

[E. Jamed (Jim) Brennan]

The keynote speaker's analogy of Performance Reviews as “kabuki” certainly topped my ancient description of the process as The Annual Surprise Party when the supervisor can’t sleep the night before the meeting and the employee can’t sleep the night after.

Gave us a laugh, but is just one more proof that DPink is essentially an entertainer rather than a rewards professional and has little experience with the chaotic process of performance appraisal. In most organizations, performance review meetings are nowhere near as organized, structured, carefully timed, meticulously paced, rehearsed and stylized as kabuki. We could wish. Not that many formal poses and visual cues exither. Nor are shouts encouraged. But both are indeed performances about performance and that parallel gave the entire audience without exception a great hoot. I was sitting between Pat Zingheim and Jay Schuster (or should I say Pat Schuster and Jay Zingheim, since they recently got hitched) and both howled. Jay was still laughing twenty minutes later. A good show and well worth the small cost of an audio recording.

[Ann Bares]

Jim:

I still think your Annual Surprise Party description fits pretty well - unfortunately - too!

[Enrique]

Very nice, thanks for posting :)