HCPI Inspiration in San Diego

Nearly two dozen HR leaders from Pittsburgh attended the Society for Human Resource Management Conference in San Diego, California in June, 2005. It was an outstanding opportunity to listen to remarkable speakers, participate in high quality workshops, meet other HR professionals (approximately 25,000 of them!) all and experience a little California sunshine. HCPI colleagues would have loved Malcolm Gladwell's keynote address. (Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point," was nearly the bible for HCPI's creation!) Gladwell told a compelling story to illustrate why we need processes and systems to protect us from our sometimes inaccurate instincts. His example -- the gender bias of international symphonies before the introduction of a screen to obscure the gender of performers. Before the screen there were hardly any female musicians playing in world-class symphonies. After the screen, guess who started playing with the boys? Another SHRM attendee wrote a good article about Gladwell's findings. Read more...