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  • Just One More Thing...

Stop Wiggling!

  • February 26th, 2025
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Man in a blue shirt gestures with one finger raised. The text reads "Just One More Thing..." on a gradient background. The Talent Strategy Group logo appears in the corner with the tagline "Science + Simplicity.

“Just One More Thing…” is a short-form way that I share ideas, questions and guidance with more substance than a LinkedIn post and less academic rigor than my articles. I hope you find it valuable.

If you want to succeed in HR, you’ll get things done. You’ll get important things done. You’ll get trivial things done. Your reputation will be as someone who gets things done. So why would you want an HR strategy that sounds like you’ll never quite get things done?

Our first step in client HR strategy design sessions is to identify HR’s few big deliverables. It’s very common in those discussions for HR leaders to state their intended deliverables using “wiggle words.” A wiggle word is one that suggests that you’ll do something to help achieve an outcome, but that you won’t actually promise to achieve it.

Let’s explore eight wiggle words that have no place in a high-quality HR strategy:

  • Foster: You foster a child or a dog, doing your best to produce a great outcome but not guaranteeing one. We need a stronger commitment than that in your strategy.
  • Embrace: No word sounds more like the start to a slogan and less like a true deliverable than this.
  • Support: It’s great that you’ll support an outcome, so tell us the results you’ll produce to do that. That’s your deliverable, not supporting something else.
  • Endeavor: Gee, you’ll try hard and hope it happens! No. As a famous character once said, “There is no ‘try’ .”
  • Enable: This is typically followed by “by doing X.” Cool. The “by doing” is your promise so lead with that.
  • Steward: I assume you work on a 1930’s cruise ship and you’ll be bringing me dinner? I have no idea what you’ll be doing if you steward something.
  • Partner: We all love a good partner, so what exactly will you be delivering as a good partner?
  • Shepard: “Then the HR leader and her trusty sheepdog rounded up all the wayward employees and put them safely in the barn for the evening.” Just stop it.

Wiggle words are sometimes just a lazy word choice that needs thesaurical attention. Other times, they are us not being willing to take the risk to make a big commitment to a meaningful outcome.

I know you can get things done. Make sure your HR strategy sounds like you want to.

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