Get a Seat at the Executive Table … and Know What to Do With It!

If there’s anything HR professionals have asked for again and again over the years, it’s that elusive “seat at the executive table.”

Well, guess what? With more organizations realizing that the human asset is their most important asset, you’ve got a greater chance than ever of getting that seat. All you need to do is push a little from your end.

Push on what? Here’s what career development experts say:

–Learn the Overall Business. HR is sometimes perceived as a world unto itself. That’s a perception you have to refute. You do it by understanding all the essential functions of your company, and the accompanying metrics that gauge its success. “You’re in the people business … but you’re also in the bigger business of your organization,” advises columnist Susan Heathfield of About.com. “Spend time every day talking with sales, production, quality and accounting.”

–Know That of Which You Speak. Nothing undermines your chances of promotion faster than not knowing the facts. Your expertise is HR, so when the CEO asks for your opinion on how the company will be affected by a new law or trend, make sure your information is accurate and backed by data, if data can be had. Senior management must know they can depend on you before they make you one of their own.

–Learn the Language. No matter how much you’ve learned and how much you know, it will mean nothing if you can’t communicate with senior management effectively. Consultant Kathy Davanzo, SPHR, president of Pelorus Leadership Group in St. Petersburg, Florida,, made that the focus of her presentation titled, “Got a Seat at the Table! Now What Do I Do?” at the last HR Florida conference. Here are some points she made:

• Know your influence goal. Are you trying to explain, brief, instruct, or persuade? Each requires a different mode of expression.
• Establish trust and credibility by speaking competently, in confidence, and in terms your audience has in common, including facts and figures, options and probabilities, assurances and guarantees, and testimony and opinions.
• Have something worth saying about how to solve company problems or exploit opportunities, in the process educating your listeners on HR trends and their impact.

• Understand the true interests behind your listeners’ positions. They may oppose that new initiative, for example, not because they don’t believe in it, but because their own department budgets can’t support it. Propose it when budgets are more flush and it may pass easily.

• Avoid the four fatal assumptions in communication. They are assuming the listeners understand, agree, care, and are able to act accordingly.

• Always speak with a positive intent, which Davanzo defines as “looking at situations from all perspectives and watching out for everyone’s interest.”

Guide your discourse with senior management with their aims in mind, says Davanzo. ”Remember,” she concludes, “you get what you want and need when others get what they want and need.”