Fancy That Bunny!

On my way back from a meeting in North Sydney yesterday, I passed a car that had instead of the normal alphanumeric number plate, a single word; BUNNY.  This in itself is not necessarily unusual.  After all, in the car park downstairs, I have seen MYDARL and PWNAG, although the latter one I have yet to decipher, except to think it may have some reference to the owner's views of his/her partner!  What did set me thinking was, as I passed the car, I saw that the driver was a middle-aged, balding man.  Given my assumption that not very many middle-aged men would voluntarily drive in a car called Bunny, I was sufficiently startled to slow down and give the car another viewing.  It was only on the second pass that I noticed the small logo in the rear view mirror that showed that this was the car of a very keen fan of the South Sydney Rabbitohs. 

It would appear that there is some debate about the origin of the word "Fan".  According to Wikipedia and also to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it can be traced to "fancy", which was a 19th century term from England that referred mainly to followers of boxing. The word emerged as an Americanism around 1889. It can also be traced to a shortened version of the word "fanatic", and the word did first become popular in reference to an enthusiastic follower of a baseball team. Curiously enough, Fanatic itself introduced into English around 1525, means "insane person", which sadly could be the term used to describe Matthew Chapman.  Chapman was the fan who shot and killed John Lennon in 1980, claiming that he was only doing what the voices in his head told him to do.

"So where is he going with this line of reasoning?", I hear you ask.  Well, it is this.  Almost all of the HR practitioners with whom I have worked exhibited high levels of professional devotion and diligence to their work, often to the extent of regularly working extremely long hours.  The key difference between those who were professionally diligent and those who were totally engaged was in the alignment of the individual either with the HR mission or the Corporate aims. They were "fans" of the way things were.  Not necessarily to the point of having the Company name as their number plate or tattooed on their forearms.  But to the extent that they continuously displayed high levels of discretionary effort.  They were fully committed to the cause.

One of the key strategies that needs to be being reviewed now by HR and Business Leaders is how to rebuild the Employee Value Proposition.  One of the impacts of the recent GFC has been and will continue to be, unless addressed, a reduction in the discretionary effort and commitment from employees who have seen such change and turmoil within their businesses.  Those businesses who have had significant and numerous changes and lay-offs of staff will be most impacted.  We have seen a reduction in organisational stability and trust; individual development and training has been cut back, often to nil or web based only and social office networks have been eroded by redundancies.

There are no easy actions to put in place. There are no guarantees of stability that can be made, however it is possible to begin to set and manage expectations so that sudden disconnects are not experienced by employees.  Communication channels must be strengthened and commitments, once made, must be followed through no matter how small.  Traditional training paradigms should be examined for future relevance and resilience.  The potential for peer-peer training and knowledge transfer as well as more flexible and self-managed programs should be reviewed. In all of this, HR has a major part to play, both in developing the strategies at an Executive level, as well as implementing the necessary solutions and services to drive success on the ground.

And Finally...

Talking about how deeply fans engage with their subject, I leave you with a quote from Alfred Hitchcock, when talking to the mother of a fan who would no longer wash in the shower after watching "Psycho":

"Then, Madam, I suggest you dry clean her."

All the best,

Jim