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Tony Bowie

January 2018 - TD Magazine

This activity shows managers how to share their visions with direct reports in a way that makes sense.

Turn Off the Tell-a-Vision

South African Board for People Practices (SABPP) Chair Marius Meyer died in late January. He served as chair of the board for two years; prior to that he was CEO of the organization for eight years.“This is a very sad moment in the history of South African human resource management and a huge loss for the entire African HRM professional community,” said Charles Cotter, an independent learning and development strategist, commented on LinkedIn. “Dr. Marius was a remarkable leader and pioneering trailblazer, and his legacy has been cemented by his indelible HRM professional footprint and influence.”Tony Bingham, president and CEO of the Association for Talent Development, commented, “Marius Meyer was a champion for our field for many years, and his influence was significant.” Meyer and Robin Probart founded the ASTD branch in South Africa in 1997 and were strong supporters of the association and its international conferences. Meyer was an advisory board member and head of research for the African Society for Training and Development.The human resource development (HRD) practitioner, consultant, senior lecturer, author, and manager facilitated training and consulting interventions for more than 100 companies and lectured in HRD at the University of South Africa, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Johannesburg.“Marius had a deep passion for HRD and an incessant commitment to increasing the credibility of HR professionals at all levels in organizations across South Africa,” said Alan Hosking of HR Future magazine. “Marius was responsible for a number of subsequent innovations in the HR profession, including HR Audits and the appointment of HR Professionals as Commissioners of Oath. As such, Marius left a significant legacy.”Fondly dubbed “Mr. HR Standards,” Meyer raised the profile of the SABPP locally and internationally. Under his leadership, SABPP enjoyed many successes, including the development of HR Standards and a National HR Competency Model, as well as alliances with other countries.“He had a passion for leadership, strategy, governance, change management, and people development,” SABPP wrote in a tribute. “Marius was a regular speaker at local and international conferences and an author of 22 books and 150 articles on HR standards, HR competencies, and HR risk management. He served his purpose to the fullest and created a legacy that all of us need to protect and advance to greater heights.”Meyer was a member of the Institute of Directors and a founding member of Talent Talks, South Africa’s first talent management platform and magazine. In 2017 Meyer steered the process of developing the first South African Leadership Standard, and during his time as CEO of SABPP, the Minister of Justice approved SABPP HR professionals as Ex-Officio Commissioners of Oaths.He helped create South Africa’s first HR Governance framework as a blueprint for HR directors to add value to boards, councils, and other governing bodies. Meyer recently received a lifetime achievement award from the SABPP board and was subsequently retained as HR Standards Thought Leader for SABPP.“What a tremendous loss for South Africa, for the global HR community, for the education profession, and for his many friends and his family,” Nicola Columbine, founder and managing director of Integrative Consulting, wrote on LinkedIn. “He was an amazing inspiring leader, a passionate professional, and a humble human being with a generous spirit who made the time when he could to help and support others to learn and develop and strive toward excellence.”

In Memoriam: South African HR Pioneer Marius Meyer Remembered

The Power of PlayFighting off giant sea creatures and spiky turtle men to save Princess Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom. Building a ladder to the moon out of trash, musical instruments, and slices of pizza while dressed as a rabbit. Racing a big squid car through an outer space race track called Rainbow Road.You may think I’m describing plots to summer movies or the ramblings of a child’s imaginations. You would be mistaken. I actually am describing a typical Saturday morning for my wife, Jennifer. No, Jennifer is not from a magical land, nor a figment of my own imagination. Come Saturday morning, Jennifer is a gamer. Her games of choice always are of the creative, whimsical, and playful variety.I already know what some of you are thinking:  What does this have to do with training and development? Aren’t video games a waste of time? Isn’t Nintendo for children? In this post I postulate that not only should we encourage our clients to play, but that time spent doing so is of tremendous benefit toward our goals as development practitioners. The more childlike and whimsical, the better!  Let me explain. During the week, Jennifer works for the Burn Rehab Unit at a major East Coast hospital. Her typical patients have burns covering more than 90 percent of their bodies, are in tremendous physical and emotional pain, and if they make it past the first few weeks, have a long hospital stay ahead of them. It’s Jennifer’s job to help in the rehabilitation process, which can range from wound care, to helping patients sit up on their own, to teaching them how to walk again. Recovery is only possible with continual work, which is often very hard and painful for the patients. Excruciating as it is, day after day, Jennifer and the Burn Rehab team take their patients through their activities and treatments as they make incremental progress toward recovery. The toughest days for Jennifer, she tells me, are the days she spends time with the family members, and all of the emotions that come with those interactions. In spite of this challenging job, Jennifer always has a huge smile and an infectious laugh. Even her patients, who usually are in pain when they see her, adore Jennifer.So back to taking on the whimsical world of Nintendo, Jennifer says, “With my job, I need this time just to keep my sanity!” She’s right. For us to be fully engaged, as Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz describe in their book The Power of Full Engagement, we need a rhythm between push and release, between drive and recover. We need to recharge those batteries. As Ginny Whitelaw describes in her latest book, The Zen Leader, we often take better care of our electronics then we do ourselves. When our iPhone battery is about to die, we plug it in to recharge it, but we often don’t take the time to recharge our own batteries.I realize that for some of you, this seems like common sense. Those of you with a strong preference for the Driver and Organizer patterns of FEBI (that we covered in "Driving Beyond Distractions" and "Giving Form to Those Brilliant Ideas") may be less convinced that playing Nintendo can have benefits like helping you be better at your job. So for you left brainers out there, research shows that happier people are more helpful, creative, prosocial, charitable, altruistic, healthier, live longer, are more likely to marry, stay married longer, and have more close and casual friends. At work, happy people take fewer sick days, receive better evaluations from their supervisors and from customers, stay loyal to their employers longer, show more helpful behaviors, are more innovative, have lower corporate healthcare costs, and have lower turnover rates. And our research shows that play—bringing out the FEBI pattern called the Collaborator—correlates with positive emotions.The Collaborator pattern loves to have fun, to engage others, play in the give and take of relationships, and see both sides of a situation. Imagine how powerful this pattern could be if you need to engage your employees while navigating an organizational change, or to solve a complex problem. The Collaborator is often left out of the very situations where she is most needed. In such situations, especially for those that normally approach them with the Driver’s urgency or the Organizer’s seriousness, you may need to be more intentional about summoning the Collaborator. When we sense this is the case with our clients, we can help them to recognize the power of the Collaborator in their work and to learn how to engage this pattern.One of the best ways to engage this energy is with playful movements: rocking, swinging, dancing, or maneuvering around obstacles in a video game. Build a fort with your kids, play ball with the dog in the park, or just be silly for no reason whatsoever.So next time you have the urge to shrink to the size of an ant and play in the digital grass on your TV screen, I say pick up that joy stick and get your game on!

Tony Bowie

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