Hack:
staRHs

staRHs is a very simple way for HR to drive purpose, autonomy and mastery into the enterprise. 

Every colleague can log onto their staRHs account and distribute stars to any colleague who they feel created value for the organisation, regardless of rank or tenure. 

Example from Europe's largest videogame producer: Every quarter colleagues receive a contingent of  between 10 and 40 stars (Intern 10, Junior 20, Regular 30, Senior 35, VP & C-Level 40. Based on the logic that titles reflect insight into value creation and depth of internal network). A regular employee will log on to staRHs and send 5 stars to the cleaning lady for keeping a tidy office (no mean feat in the games industry), 10 stars to a reclusive but brilliant coder. He sends 1 star to each of his 5 direct colleagues and 10 to a mentoring Senior. All he has to do with each distribution is to add a short Twitter-length reason for the allocation of his stars. The recipient receives a message about the recognition in his inbox. He can also review all his feedback and total amount of stars earned in his staRHs account.

At the end of the year a colleague's stars earned during the four quarters are added up. The Board communications how much money the company is entering into the staRHs bonus pool and why. This amount is fed into staRHs and every star now turns into a valuable currency X. Every star is worth the same. staRHs now automatically calculates the colleagues annual bonus based on this data. The virtual currency is converted into hard currency.

What changes?

- Colleagues mindset is shifted from bonus consumption to appreciation of value creation

- No more administration for HR. 

- Management can focus on coaching and interpreting feedback, rather than spend dull hours copy & pasting performance reviews.

- The democratic nature of staRHs  is organically disaggregating the enterprise into value creating peer networks, eradicating or rendering useless any form of hierarchy.

What's more important however, is the real-time and permanent 360 degree nature of the staRHs feedback. Anyone can log onto staRHs at any point before, during or right after value creation to recognise another colleagues impact. This way feedback itself becomes a viable currency for development.

The ruleset for staRHs is extremely simple, based on Derek Sivers leadership lessons from a dancing guy: 

1. Give is the new Get. You have to give all your stars to participate in stars payout / Sivers: Make everything about the movement and the other guy.

2. Stand by your stars. All stars distribution is transparent to everybody. Sunlight is the best disinfectant against corruption of staRHs / Sivers: Be easy to follow

3. That's it. / Sivers: Leadership is overrated

True story from the first implementation of staRHs: A day after going live a senior colleague enters the HR office and commends the team on the effort and intent. However, he noted, it will fail due to human nature. (These are game designers after all, they game systems for a living) This particular colleague noted that he took the responsibility serious enough to invest a whole lunch break into assessing who created value in his view, but this could not be expected of anyone else really. To drive the feedback home he pointed to Anton - a very reclusive, shy and occasionally smelly colleague who was an awkward, nearly autistic fellow, who shied the spotlight and did generally nothing to direct attention to his brilliant coding skills. As an introvert he enjoyed solitude and isolation. This type of person would surely lose in a staRHs environment. He, having invested his lunch break, had allotted several stars to this colleague, knowing of his unassuming brilliance, but again, no one else would do so too unfortunately.

The HR team thanked him and resigned to a disastrous implementation.

Several hours later another colleague entered the HR office. Closed the door politely and asked if he might give feedback on the new staRHs system. He noted, it will fail due to human nature. (These are game designers after all, they game systems for a living) This particular colleague noted that he took the responsibility serious enough to invest a whole lunch break into assessing who created value in his view, but this could not be expected of anyone else really. To drive the feedback home he pointed to Anton - a very reclusive, shy and occasionally smelly colleague who was an awkward, nearly autistic fellow, who shied the spotlight and did generally nothing to direct attention to his brilliant coding skills. As an introvert he enjoyed solitude and isolation. This type of person would surely lose in a staRHs environment. He, having invested his lunch break, had alloted several stars to this colleague, knowing of his unassuming brilliance, but again, no one else would do so too unfortunately.

The HR team thanked him and looked at each other quizzically. No sooner opened the door for another person to give feedback on staRHs and...did you guess it? Anton again.

Several others passed by HR to let them know poor Anton would soon leave the organisation due to lack of a motherly manager who would allot him his deserved bonus payout.

Through his vigilant peers unassuming Anton became the winner in the staRHs system. When HR reflected the above experience back to the colleagues, it became clear that responsible adults do rise to their responsibilities when given a chance.

As a side benefit, staRHs conducts an immediate trust audit on your company. How?

Well, do you think it would work in your organisation? If not - why? 

Don't you trust your peers?

***

Implementation Update.

For larger scale companies, a staRHs introduction seemed to daunting. We opted for a viral approach.

We identified a smaller circle in the organisation, eg. people who successfully passed their probation and gave them a staRHs account with the message: "Hi, great that you have passed probation - would you please recognise those people in the enterprise who enabled you to succeed and who made the decision for you to remain in our organisation."

The recipients of those stars would in turn receive a staRHs account unlock with the message: "Hi, Person X has recognised you as an enabler of his/her success at the enterprise. Would you please also pay those stars forward to show us who enabled you to be such a great colleague?"

That way staRHs unlocks value creation patterns inside the enterprise in an organic and traceable way.

The same logic works with identified high performers.