I’m Thankful for This One Career-Changing Day

Career Changing Day

Thanksgiving causes me to introspect, to assess my life regarding my good fortune. Last year at this time I wrote a blog about poverty and how to manage employees who live with it. This year I will turn the attention back to the most memorable day in my career, with the help of a SHRM HR Storytellers video available on SHRM.org or on our C-Suite Analytics video page.

This video is about a bad day that became a good day…though I didn’t think that way at the time. The story you will see is about a very bad experience for any HR professional, and it includes this dreaded instruction from the CEO: “Turnover is high so HR, go fix it”.

Redirecting my Career from HR To Cutting Turnover

This story is the genesis of my completely re-directing my career by taking one idea…how to cut turnover…and launching my second-half entrepreneurial work life. Without this one day I would have never written a book, worked on all 6 inhabited continents, or even have written this blog.

I’ve been researching the difference between happy people and unhappy people for a new book, and one distinction is happy people realize that what seems like a bad event in their lives might prove to be a good event. That’s what this video and story are about. And for HR professionals the greatest lesson is we must coach our executives to get those very, very important people management things right.

Have a great Thanksgiving with those you love.

I was proud to take part in SHRM’s HR Storytellers project to share my HR journey. Visit SHRM’s HR Storytellers page to listen to my story – no membership required.

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