Interviews from HR Innovator magazine

Wall of Wisdom

Jim Wall
National Managing Director, Human Resources
Deloitte Touche
Wilton, CT

After beginning his professional career in academia, Jim Wall followed his wife into the HR profession. Her relocation to the Boston area from Michigan presented him with the opportunity to explore other career options. After an interview with what would eventually become Deloitte & Touche, Jim made the shift and hasn't looked book. In this interview, which has been excerpted from Martha Finney's new book, The Human Resource Professional's Career Guide: Building a Position of Strength (with Jeanne Palmer, Pfeiffer, 2004) he talks about the necessity of serving the team as an essential career-building philosophy, rather than merely serving oneself.

What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

There are two pieces of advice, actually. Take complex situations and render them simple. We have a tendency to take simple situations and render them complex. Acknowledge and deal with the complexities, but try to translate all that into meaningful action.

The second piece of advice came from the former managing partner of Touche Ross, Ed Kangas: God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listening, particularly in the line of work we're in, is far more important than talking. If you're going to understand a situation for all its complexities and be able to interpret and lead people, you have to first listen to and understand what issues they have and their perspectives. Listen carefully and often.

What is the best piece of advice you have to offer those on the way up?

Worry less about yourself and worry more about the work you're supposed to do and the value that it can add to the business or enterprise you're associated with. If you do your very best work and look for ways to add value, then all the rest of the stuff falls into place.

Businesses are dealing with increasingly complex problems. It used to be that they could isolate a problem, or a series of problems, into a particular category or place. And certainly for our clients we see that the nature of the issues that we face are far more complex -- whether it's from the human side of the enterprise, the technology side of the enterprise, the multicultural aspect of business, the fact that an HR person would be called on to deal with the SARS virus, destabilization of economies, war, pestilence. You've got to have a broad-based understanding of business and a really broad understanding of how things work to find that place to add value and solve those problems.

What do up-and-comers need know that you didn't need to know 20 years ago?

Being a strategic business partner begins at the very beginning of your career. The rarified air is not reserved for the people who have put in their time. In fact, not only do you need to better understand the nature of the complex problems the business is dealing with, but you need to be able to execute and effectively implement that which you have suggested be done. There's been a long-held view that the strategic business partner no longer has to deal with the implementation and the tactical stuff. Nothing can be further from the truth. I've seen the shore littered with HR careers of people who have thought, "Okay, I've put my time in doing the tactical stuff. Now I want to go in and do strategy." That may have been true at some point in time. It's not the case anymore. You have to be able to effectively implement and lead teams that implement solutions to complex problems. And that's something that you have to learn by practicing and failing at - as well as succeeding at - very early in your career. I don't think that you can take a remedial course in that.

Many really bright people who work in human resources say, "I want to get an advanced degree; what should it be in?" I say, "Not human resources." Take a Masters in Business Administration. You need to be able to understand the complex environment in which you're living and supposedly dedicating yourself to serving. HR is important work, and it is a discipline, and it needs to be learned. But in terms of academic study, no. If you're in the for-profit sector, a general business administration degree is a good one.

What is the best thing new entrants can do to prepare themselves for their future career?

Learn the business.

What is the worst thing they can do?

Become myopic and focused only on their little piece of the pie and not on the big picture. The HR profession today is not for the faint of heart. Although I think it may still be viewed that way by some, it's really quite the contrary. There are tough and scary issues that really good HR professionals who are seen as strategic business advisors are called on to deal with. Hunkering down and hoping the storm will pass - or letting the opportunities that are initially disguised as problems pass you by - is a big mistake. There are easier ways to make a living.

What risk did you take in your career that paid off?

I confronted the senior leadership of the firm. As a result, we made the right decision when we were getting ready to make the wrong decision. It paid off for the organization, and it paid off for me. I was seen as someone who would stand up to someone of greater position of authority, power, and responsibility.

But I think less about what people think of me and more about what they think of themselves as a result of having interacted with me. I'm a behaviorist in that I believe that people's sense of ethical self-esteem drives how they behave and what they do. The more you can ethically make people's self-esteem go up, the better off you are.

This article originally appeared in the October 2004 issue of HR Innovator magazine. Reprinted with permission.