Pirate and ninja, in equal measure

Prior to the beginning of this course in January, I certainly did not appreciate the concepts of pirates and ninjas as I do now. I also certainly wouldn’t been as tickled as I was to have the following conversation with my 10-year old daughter yesterday:

K: “Mom, I have to find a ninja school to enroll in!”

Me: “But, K., ninjas aren’t seen or heard so you’ll have to be really quiet. Are you sure you’ll enjoy being a ninja?”

K: “I know they’re quiet but they also climb walls. I have to go to ninja school to learn to do both!”

Anticipating the end of this course and indeed the end of my graduate coursework, I would say that I have learned the value of being a pirate and a ninja, in equal measure. I have learned to be a stealthy and quiet ninja at times, and an inquisitive and reflective pirate at others. I have filled my tool belt with both quantitative and qualitative research methods, designs, techniques and procedures. I understand the difference between positing a hypothesis and identifying a foreshadowed problem and how to proceed when researching each one. I know now how to find giants and how to stand on their shoulders when they have already done the hard work for me. I also know how to tell when they really aren’t giants at all.

After two and a half years of exploring this curiosity and that whim as a way to pay some of the household and tuition bills, I have just accepted a full-time job back in my original profession of Human Resource Management. Since I am thinking constantly anyway about this new role, I’d like to use this blog post to reflect on how I can use this course’s lessons to improve my performance at this organization and how I can translate my new-found skills and abilities into success for the business.

Two weeks from now I will begin working as an HR manager for a relatively young organization which contracts with government agencies to provide hardware installation and support. The company has doubled in size in the past year to about 70 employees and anticipates needing to double again within six months. I will be HR person #2; hired to develop a competitive and sustainable employee benefits program as well as to build a full corporate curriculum covering customer service, organizational policies and procedures, leadership development, and performance management.

In the past, I have tended to approach new jobs and business relationships where I am expected to play an expert or advisory role, as a ninja. I naturally prefer to provide proof for my recommendations through credentials, past work samples, and statistical data. Now, I can add to this tendency, my new skills in finding quantitative research in peer-reviewed journals and in assessing the validity of studies, to develop my recommendations. As this company is in start-up mode, I foresee a specific need to research and clearly communicate study results to management, about best practices for emerging companies around benefit plan design (what types of coverage, plan designs, and employer/employee cost sharing percentages), management:staff ratios, and employee training among other things. I’ll also use these studies to encourage data-driven reflection by the leaders prior to developing and implementing our new structures and policies. I hope to also propose and test hypotheses about what will happen in this particular company with variables like expected enrollment levels, productivity standards, and transfer of learning rates from classroom to desktop. Even though I will not (purposely) undertake experimental research in my new role, I will still be able to quantitatively “study” the impacts of new programs, policies and procedures even without any formal control groups.

But I am most excited about altering my approach to be more like a pirate. I can consider this new job as an opportunity to conduct an ethnography. In the coming months and hopefully, for even longer, I will be able to live within this organization and culture, both as an observer and a participant. As I advise the company’s leadership about ways to develop and grow wisely, I will likely need to serve as a mirror in some cases and to be an interviewer in others. I anticipate formulating grounded theories over time about what works and doesn’t work, and what motivates or discourages. I also hope that there will be one or more employees, managers, or departments who will be great case studies in superior customer service, effective process improvement, innovation, or cross-border teamwork. I also look forward to using qualitative methods to develop a new performance management system. I know already to begin with dialogue and interviews about what performance is and should be and what the culture can possibly support in the way of tools, forms and procedures.

Regardless of the design, a constant respect for ethical behavior will be necessary. I will apply the required researcher behaviors that we identified via our grounded theory activity to my role. Obviously, I will need to ensure confidentiality for all employees and managers, as well as to manage the risks of any “research” I conduct. I will also ensure that when I leave the organization, the leaders, the employees and the business will be in a better place and a stronger position than where I find them.

Undoubtedly, a mixed-methods approach will best serve me and this organization. I look forward to being a pirate and ninja, in equal measure!