Engage the Neural Net

Do you make a list for everything?  Or perhaps you prefer doing things on the fly. Do you know someone who lives their life through lists?  By nature I’m not much f a list-maker, unless I’m under pressure, in whig a list hops clear my head.  What is it though that makes us list-makers?  

Last week it's was widely reported that male and female brains are wired up differently.  According to the research by the University of Pennsylvania, neural circuitry in women make them more adept at at multi tasking; while men are better at perception. Naturally, this reinforces all the old stereotypes about men being from Mars and women from Venus.   At the same time, it also backs up the research undertaken by Roger Sperry on the left and right hemispheres of the brain performing different types of functions - left logical, right creative. His work won him a Nobel prize in 1981.

Apart from the aforementioned reinforcement of gender stereotyping, there is a hint of the so what? about the research. But that would be a mistake.  There’s a very powerful message behind this story, are goes far beyond to list or not to list.

Most people are familiar with the left/right brain split.  What is less well known is the principle of the triune brain - 3 distinct stages of the brains evolution. The reptilian brain governs automatic functions such as breathing.  The limbic system controls emotions, the flight or fight syndrome held over from man kinds earliest days.  More recently the new cortex has developed and controls logical, rational thinking, the higher level thinking that sets us apart in the world.

If you take those 2 sets of research and combine them (left right brain with the limbic system and neo cortex), you get 4 quadrants, each with their own distinctive pattern of thinking. A part of why people behave differently and are good at different things is because their brains are wired up differently.  Understanding the power behind these differences and harnessing them brings out the best in people.  It also offers an opportunity to reduce conflict and increase collaboration.

The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument HBDI) is a psychometric tool that creates a visual metaphor of the brains map, revealing the preferences for thinking and behaving.  

One high profile example of the power of taking a whole brained approach is Coca Cola and how they applied the principles and tools behind the HBDI to the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay in the UK.   

My own team understands the power of the HBDI and we regularly use it within our own business.  Building our own team profile has enabled us to work together more effectively and given us a powerful approach to managing projects, communication and problem solving.

We have also built those principles into our ExtraMILE process, helping to align individual strengths and preferences with team and organisational goals.  It’s amazing what the brain can do and understanding more about how it drives behaviour, makes a real difference to performance outcomes and job satisfaction.

Where is Your Engagement?

Studies regularly report the benefits of engagement to the organisation  Direct benefits such as increased productivity, reduced absenteeism and turnover are often quoted; as well as indirect and still important benefits such as employer brand, volunteering and being more proactive with personal development. All of the above is very valuable in an increasingly competitive business world, but I get the sense that organisational leaders believe that engagement is something you do to to people - run a survey, roll out initiatives.

 For some reason decorating comes to mind.  Running a survey can be a bit like preparing the wall for the first coat of paint.  Once the wall is prepared its time for the first initiative (sorry coat) - but not before we've applied some masking tape, don't want to paint another area by mistake.  Then it's time for the roller and your chosen hue. But who asked the wall if it wanted to be painted - and in that colour?

In the first of a series of three videos on HRZone, Professor Yannis Georgellis from Kingston Business School explores employee engagement and in the interview makes 2 particularly interesting points. First he explores the locus of engagement.  Individuals are not necessarily engaged with their day to day work.  It could be the people they work with, or even something outside of work altogether. It could even be a unique combination that changes over time. And every individual could have their own unique combination. So a one size fits all approach is never going to work.

 We all know you can't make someone love you and equally you can't make someone engage with your organisation. What you can do is learn and understand what that person cares most about most, recognise them and act on as many as possible.  If you’re not interested in the same things, there’s
a problem.  At work it’s the same, build as many of those ingredients into the (work) environment as possible. Some of those things may be hr policies like flexible working and flexible reward packages.  Other actions that can be taken bring me nicely to Professor Georgellis’ second point.

At the end of the interview the professor touches on matching talents with what individuals care about.That simple statement is for me a cornerstone of engagement.  Using my talents to deliver on something I care about is deeply satisfying and naturally I do the best job possible.

I watched a film last night called Ip Man - about a Win Chun Master who refused to teach so he could devote more time to himself and his art. Eventually he realised he cared more the plight of his family and his compatriots.  Channelling his talent for martial arts through his need to fight for what he cared most about changed the Japanese occupation of China.  It also enabled the emergence of Bruce Lee, probably the worlds best known matial Artist. Ip Man was his Mentor.

Matching talents to interests isn’t necessarily straightforward. Not everyone immediately recognises their strengths and motives, yet alone finding a way to align them with organisational needs.  This is one reason for us developing the ExtraMILE process.  Through clearly defined stages the process uncovers the power within the individual and develops or strengthens the organisational processes to align and utilise that power to exceed expectations.  Oscar winning Director Robert Altman put it well when he said - “The role of the director is to create a space where actors can become more than they ever dreamed of being”

If you’d like to know more about the ExtraMILE process, leave a comment or use the contact form on the Emenex website.

Trainer, Train Thyself

I've recently completed re-designing our Company website, which launched on 1st September.  No big deal you might think, but until I took on the project around 2 months ago, I knew pretty much nothing about web design, HTML or any other programming code. I'm pleased with the results and I hope you are too. If you're reading this, you're on the emenex.co.uk website.

So, what did I learn from this experience and does it have wider application/implications for  learning and development?

Technology is revolutionising the value chain

The Emenex website is powered by Wordpress, which virtually eliminates the need for knowledge of a programming language - as long as you can work out out how to use plug ins and widgets.  These little applets drop into Wordpress' content management system  (see, I'm a technical wizard already!) and enables you to almost endlessly customise any one of thousands of templates, many of which are free.  

However, the seemingly never ending choice, raises other issues.  If you can do almost anything, then why not do it? 

One example I recently came across is managing creative talent.  A manufacturer who needs creative talent, has recently been going though a re-structure.  As part of that process, it has considered sharing creative resources with its US parent.  This will mean that instead of creating new designs, it will simply adapt existing ones.  That reduces costs and simplifies processes, but what will happen to the creative people in the UK? Technology has simplified their role, but at the same time taken away a key ingredient for job satisfaction.  Creativity is this Company's competitive edge.  Lose the creative element and the UK division risks losing its competitive edge.

Looking at it from another perspective, how is Wordpress changing the web design industry? If I can create a website, knowing little or nothing about web design, then so can anyone else.  Web design used to be all about technical know how - the black art of coding,  php, C++, Java, Python. Facebook might need all of these (and they use all of them), but for the majority, it's just not necessary anymore.

Wordpress and other platforms brings Technology to the masses and shifts  the value we place on technical expertise. Speaking to a friend of mine, Chris Lee  www.bigcheesedc.com describes how his business has come full circle from being a design and branding agency who moved into the web design space.  With the advent of content management systems, he has moved back to his roots developing creative content. Nowadays his clients take day to day control and management of their websites and Chris provides the expertise around branding and identity  Although its been a difficult transition, Chris says it has been a positive experience. 

What this highlights for me is the importance of recognising where and how you add value to your clients. In a dynamic business environment, your expertise can quickly become redundant, regardless of how often you update your technical skills.  The ability to recognise how client needs are shifting is equally, if not more important, and to move your offer and value proposition to keep pace with shifting expectations.

Which brings me to the second point around my website development experience.

Build the website backwards

Because of the myriad of options available to the novice website builder, I started by thinking about what the finished website would look like, what it would or would not do and the messages we wanted to convey.  

In my work with organisations supporting them in managing change, a constant indicator of the likely success of any strategy was whether the senior management had a powerful vision of the future and how well that was communicated in their organisation.  In the same way, the success of  the website's development was largely due to the discussion around the vision and purpose of the website. It took some time for the clarity and understanding to emerge between all the stakeholders, but it was time well spent, minimising the time spent on implementation, Pareto's 80/20 rule comes to mind.

Another benefit was that because i knew what we wanted, the technology just became a matter of how.  I didn't need to spend lot of time researching all possible options, I just needed to find a plugin to add video, or a plugin to encode text and formatting. Technology became a means to an end, rather than the focus.  

This also reminds me of our work on the ExtraMILE model of employee engagement and development.  The model describes the key drivers for employee engagement.  We spent a lot of time trying to find the technology to automate a questionnaire for an individual and organisational survey based on the model.  

What we originally lacked was the vision of how the model could be used within organisations. We focused on the technology, not the value to the wider market. However, as we shared the model with some long standing clients, it became clear that the model was more far reaching than we originally realised. This has given rise to new opportunities for us and added value for our clients, whether or not they already have embedded an engagement or talent management strategy. The technology has taken a back seat as we focus on the value.

Aligning talents and passions

Right through the website development experience, I was constantly challenged to bring the website to fruition.  This suited my career orientation of challenge and sat perfectly with my interest in technology. Being able to deliver something for the organisation that was new, interesting and challenging made for the perfect assignment.  One of my favourite youtube videos is the RSA’s take on Dan Pinks’ Drive.  It’s on the front page of our website and puts some evidence and research behind my experience with our webiste.

Imagine if you could better align your own talents and passions with your organisation’s needs, how would that work for you?

The Dark Side

This week is the 40th Anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It’s one of my favourite albums of all time. As I listened to it again this week, it struck me that I don’t listen to albums much any more.  More often than not it’s a play list on my iPod or 8tracks on the web.  

And that is a shame, because although I get to hear lots of music I like, I miss out on the experience of the complete album, carefully crafted, with tracks thoughtfully chosen to create the whole experience and capture a mood, idea or moment.

Dark Side is an album that makes this point.  One of the stand out characteristics is its connectedness, not just to the listener, but also in the way every track is connected.  The LP (that’s long player for the digital generation) was conceived as two pieces of music, one per side.  Although a couple of tracks were released as singles, e.g. Time, it's when the album is taken as a whole that everything comes together.

New technology brings many benefits and the advent of portable digital music has certainly brought many, but it as have the potential to destroy - that’s why its called disruptive technology.  It’s been happening for centuries - remember the Luddites?, but is there a point at which we lose more than we gain from the impact of technology?

I made a connection between my Dark Side experience and a book I’m currently reading. In Arc 1.x, a New Scientist collection of articles, Samuel Arbesman proposes that in the near future only computers will be able to make new discoveries. He suggests that in the relentless pursuit of advancement, the world has become so complex that we are reaching the point of being unable to understand the world we live in.  He quotes Don Swanson, who described this complexity as “undiscovered public knowledge”.

What this says to me is that as we create new ways of doing things, introducing new technology to become more efficient, faster, smaller we are in danger of losing the connection with the world and the people around us.  Danny Hills in Scientific American calls it the transition from enlightenment to entanglement - a point at which we no longer understand the systems of our own making.  We are at the point where we can do almost anything. Whether we should do it, is now a more important question. Are we still able to understand the consequences of our intention?

Dry Stone Walls, Holons and Organisations

Recently Ive been walking in the Derbyshire Dales. Even though I live in Yorkshire, it's one of my favourite parts of the country. The weather was kind and the scenery - even though spring hadn't yet sprung, stunning.  One of the things that characterises the Dales are the dry stone walls.  It's easy to forget they are not a natural feature of the landscape - they are man-made, but they just seem 'right' and add to the landscape as much as any natural rocky outcrop or waterfall.

Reflecting on my weekend, the concept of holons came to mind.  A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. In a dry stone wall each stone is an individual, has its own identity and, at the same time, is part of a larger whole. To exist as a wall, the stones must conform to a structure that has rules. To survive, the wall must continue to meet the intended purpose. Within the larger structure, smaller systems and structures exist. Each stone has a relationship with each adjacent stone and with the rest of the wall. There is no bonding agent other than the relationship between the stones. The careful placement of the stones, keeps them together and creates the wall. Building the wall in this way, enables it to flex and move with its environment. Building a wall requires craft and an awareness of the landscape where the structure will be built. The wall needs to be carefully maintained; rebuilding a wall requires far more resources than maintaining one.

Holons exist in organisations too.  The organisation is an entity on its own, but existing within it are functions, departments and teams.  And of course a team is a group of individuals organised to deliver purpose.  Sometimes though, as with dry some walls we see the landscape but not the individual stone. Yet without each stone there would be no wall.  

When building a wall it is said that once you pick up a stone you can't put it down again until it has been placed in exactly the right spot. The builder evaluates each stone carefully to assess its value for a particular purpose and then handles it respectfully to realise its potential.  That sounds like talent management and succession planning to me. Whatever the size and shape, no matter how big or small, each stone plays an integral role in becoming something bigger. 

Imagine your organisation as a dry stone wall, what would that be like?

If you'd like to know more about the art of dry stone walling, the Derbyshire Branch of the Dry Stone Walling Association would be happy to help I'm sure (other Branches are available) .  If you'd like to know more about how developing individuals can add value to your organisational landscape, contact us.

The Gorilla in the Room

I’m sure that you've come across the elephant in the room – the thing that everyone sees but cannot (or dares not) talk about.  But what about the Gorilla in the room?

Research by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris demonstrated why, when focusing on something specific, we tend not to notice other things going on around us.  In their research on selective attention, 2 groups of students pass a basketball as they bob and weave around each other. With all the movement, counting the number of passes is difficult and requires a lot of concentration.  Try it out for yourself Test of Selective Attention before reading on.

You can also learn more about perception and focus in Dan’s TEDx presentation on Seeing The World As It Isn't.

Now you’re back, I hope I didn't give the game away in the title of the blog.  Around only 1 in 8 people will see the gorilla. It may seem strange or even implausible that someone in a gorilla suit goes unnoticed, but the research shows that the level of focus needed to achieve a particular result, gives rise to some unintended and unwanted consequences.

In a related experiment, Trafton Drew found that 83% of radiologists missed a matchbook sized picture of a gorilla when they were examining medical slides for cancer nodules.  They only saw what they what they were expecting to see and disregarded anything that didn't fit their reality.

In the current business reality of austerity, it’s not that hard to get fixated on cutting costs for example.  With total focus on one thing, it’s easy to lose the bigger picture, or miss out on opportunities for innovation.  That’s one thing that Steve Jobs apart. As well as being fanatical about detail, he could also see the bigger picture.

One unintended consequence of a cost driven focus is the impact on employee engagement.  Management is reduced to completing tasks without considering their effectiveness or contribution to the organisation’s purpose. Staff feel increasingly under-valued and stress levels increase. Have you ever tried squeezing play dough?  The harder you squeeze the more it slips through your fingers.

I’ll leave you with a question.  How is selective attention impacting on you and your business?  Where is your focus at present and what might you be missing?

Is there a gorilla in your room?

Thanks to my friend Ann Herrmann at Herrmann International (www.hbdi.com www.hbdi.co.uk) for bringing this to my attention. 

From a Negative to a Positive

Don't you love digital photography? Take as many photos as you like, edit them, upload them, email them, even print them. And if you don't like them, delete them. Everyone is a photographer now, but I feel something has gone missing.

I went to a small exhibition recently where the photographer had used a 100 year old box camera, made the plates herself and could only take 6 photos because that was all she could carry. Each photo could take up to one hour to take and there was no second chance, so the composition had to be spot on first time.  Then there was the developing.

At a recent client meeting the subject of developing negatives came up.  It made me think about the art of photography and in particular developing prints in the dark room.  Developing photographs, like people, is an art.  It takes time, the right mix of ingredients along with the patience and expertise of the photographer.

And it needs time and patience. As the image develops, the fine detail and contrasts slowly emerge. Too soon or too long and the photograph never achieves its potential. It's a difficult balance, a bit like developing people. Too fast people burn out, too slow and they fade away.

In a digital world, there's still space for the personal touch.

Remembering Alice Pyne

Last Saturday following a six-year battle, 17 year old Alice Pyne succumbed to cancer. Over the last 2 years, Alice inspired thousands of people by documenting her story in a blog and in particular her bucket list. It wasn’t a list full of completely unachievable things –although she still had dreams. One dream was going to Kenya (she got to Kent - ya), but it was also a list of things that she could achieve, like enter her dog Mabel in a show and buy a static caravan for her charity.

One of her dreams is that everyone creates their own bucket list and it got me thinking. I thought bucket lists were about big things and they are. But they are also about the small but no less significant things, silly things even. It’s about momentum, starting small and maybe even staying small, but always moving on and having fun along the way.

So Alice, here’s the first item on my bucket list – tell people about your dream and invite others to start theirs. Buckets are for filling, start filling one today.