I looove the movie Jerry Maguire. It’s one of those movies I watch whenever it’s on TV, along with The Wedding Singer or The Sound of Music. Everytime I watch it, I unpeel another layer and discover that I love it even more, especially for its classic quotes from Tom Cruise (aka Jerry Maguire):
“Show me the money!”
“Help me help you!”
“You complete me.”
And my personal but perhaps more obscure favourites (and go figure, they’re all from Cuba Gooding Jr. aka Rod Tidwell):
“You are hanging on by a very thin thread. And I DIG THAT ABOUT YOU!”
“You bet on me like I bet on you.”
“See, some dudes might have the coin, but they will never have the kwan. Truth, love, respect.”
I find that quotes and lessons from Jerry Maguire can be applied to several moments of my life, in the same way that folks claim that episodes of Friends frequently parallel their own lives. Let’s take last week as an example… I facilitated an HR metrics course and was challenged left right and centre about the standard HR metric formulas and some example calculations. After all the explaining and defending, I felt exhausted and exposed. It was a tough morning and I wondered if this is what it felt like being in Scared Straight!.
I snuck out at lunch for a walk around the block to clear my head and just chill out. The morning was disaster, disaster I say! I felt like I was arguing with the students and defending my work all morning. Then it hit me that I’ve seen this pattern in the past. All the best teams I’ve worked with and all the successful endeavours I’ve been a part of, they all started off with good, old-fashioned have at ‘er debates.
I needed to keep in mind that people are new to this measuring thing and everyone has gotten used to measuring turnover or absenteeism in one way. Being presented with one standard formula as the end all and be all is a difficult pill to swallow. At the initial stages of anything, people question everything and that’s a good thing.
It’s only through different perspectives and by questioning everything do you think through everything, make good decisions and are ready to defend/explain them at any time. By questioning what I was doing, these students were thinking, learning, and absorbing, getting ready to go out in the world and apply their knowledge and defend it to the ones who question them. This was just one of those times that I needed reminding to keep my ego in check because at the end of the day, it’s not all about me.
And yet sometimes it is. Here’s where Jerry Maguire and my life intersect once again, with Rod standing in the locker room and screaming at his agent Jerry:
“See, that’s the difference between us. You think we’re fighting, and I think we’re finally talking.”
Filed under: HR - the career, Productivity | Tagged: HR, HR Metrics, Human Resources, Jerry Maguire quotes | 2 Comments »

What I would like is to hear from folks who are using Twitter for work and using it well. And most importantly, show me the money! I want to hear whether or not you can prove it’s working for your business.
One of the biggest challenges with change is that you are so often stuck with the old view of things. How many of you out there had to change organizations because you were still seen as the office junior, who photocopied and made tea, even though you had been there 10 years and were completely in charge of the recruiting function? First impressions stick and then solidify, making it twice as hard to have people treat you differently.
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