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Predicting behavior

March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

This week behavioral scientist John Furey shares some of his scientific discoveries from his MindTime project. I’ve worked with many different behavioral models, and believe there’s something very big here for marketers, leaders, and each of us as individuals.

1. Your MindTime mapping system has been called the world’s most accurate personality test and the digital Myers Briggs of the 21st century.  For we non-scientists, what is the system based on that makes it so informative?

Personality tests such as the MBTI are based merely on describing traits and behaviors, categorizing behavioral patterns. MindTime reveals the drivers behind the behaviors and therefore why we behave the way we do, or as scientists might call it, the adaptive value of the behavior. What is significant is MindTime is looking at causation, not simply outcomes.

Understanding why people behave the way they do, rather than simply describing what they do, provides a greater ability to predict what they will do.

MindTime uses a phenomenological framework—Past, Present and Future Thinking—as a means to understand people. These basic concepts of thought— Past/Certainty, Present/Probability, and Future/Possibility—all have adaptive value; in fact, they explain almost all the concepts of the cognitive mind.

So, by measuring how people think, we can use this knowledge to predict behavior, attitudes, and even the personality traits they manifest. By knowing why a person does what s/he does, and the why and how of their strategy, we can use the knowledge in just about any environment to facilitate individual and organizational success.

 

2. What are the perspectives of Past, Present and Future Thinkers?

Here’s a brief snapshot of each:

3. When people get their individual maps, what insights do they learn about themselves and how does this help them professionally?

Our maps provide people with an in-depth interpretative report on their thinking style. It quickly and accurately helps a person to understand the value they bring to the world. We explain a person’s:

  • Communication style
  • Leadership style
  • Relationship needs
  • World-view
  • What they will resist doing. Knowing our resistances helps us navigate our limitations.

The most common comment we hear from people when they take the MindTime profile is “Aha!! That explains so much about me.”  When used in team building it provides this same kind of epiphany for our understanding of others.

However, while these insights are invaluable I think there is a more significant learning that comes out of all this that impacts our professional abilities in a profound way.

We each know people who we can rely on to bring ideas, inspiration and a sense of possibility to our lives. In fact, this might describe you. We also know people who are much more likely to bring order, planning, procedures and stability to bear. They’re much more engaged in creating continuity than they are engaged in bringing change. Likewise, there are those among us who are more keenly aware of and driven to understanding the meaning of data and facts. These folks bring us depth of thought, a need for truth and trustworthiness and can be relied on to think deeply about things rather than coming up with ad lib answers to good and necessary questions.

Knowing that a person is driven towards creating order and harmony versus being driven towards opportunities and risk-taking versus being driven towards information and analysis of a situation can change the quality and value of our interactions significantly.  It empowers us to manage, motivate, listen and speak in a more empathetic, or at least consciously aware, way.

Empathy, messaging, motivation, management, collaboration, roles, engagement style, motivation, change readiness, adaptability, and so on, are all positively impacted by this basic human awareness of each other.

 

4. How can MindTime help teams of people working together? Why do some project teams work very well and others get stuck?  What could managers do to create more consistently high performing teams?

MindTime can accurately predict how well a team will function at a task or towards a goal in view of the mix of thinking styles of people on the team and the roles people are playing. It can also predict the kinds of pitfalls a given mix of thinkers will encounter, both interpersonally and in team dynamics.

MindTime helps the team understand the thinking styles of each team member so that people can understand and value different people’s contributions. Future thinkers will be focused on possibilities, while Past thinkers will want proof and certainty of ideas, and the Present thinkers will want to be able to predict outcomes. Understanding people’s thinking helps us create the right setup and awareness of what’s really going on instead of leaving us to fix what is bound to go wrong.

 

5. You say that how people think influences how they behave.  Many of us are trying to change behavior as part of our work, like getting people to try a new product or approve a new policy.  What should we know or be doing about thinking to affect behavior?

People’s thinking processes are very difficult to change so the best strategy is to figure out how we can align our objectives with a person—or group of people’s—natural inclination.

By understanding people’s motivation, which you do by understanding their thinking styles, you can align your goals with their fundamental objective (to pursue Possibilities, Probabilities, or Certainties). Alignment becomes a simpler way to elicit the desired behavior.

 

6. If you understand how your customers think, how does that help you market to them?  Can you give us an example?

Sure, but given that you’re going to blog this why don’t I give you two visual examples and brief explanations?

This first map is of a target market for a product. Through a separate study the ads used were found to be messaging a Future audience. They contained works such as: ideas, possibility, and phrases like “What could you do?” And, ”What’s next?” Can you spot the problem here? Why did the campaign fail?

Yes, the target and messaging was to Future thinking, the audience on the other hand was very much Past and Present in its thinking. A total miss.

The second map is of a group of people recruited to help with brand innovation. These were loyal supporters, not just customers of the brand, recruited by a brand community management company. Remember here, as you look at this map, that the desired outcome was brand innovation. Innovation typically starts with Future thinking. Do you see why brands were often less than enthusiastic about results? The recruited brand community had self-selected. They were of a mind to turn up on time once a week and participate by offering their opinions, predictably Present/Past thinking people.

The conclusion was that this audience, which lacked in Future thinking, was not really innovating at all. They were discussing problems that needed solving and identifying other “new” ways that the product might fit with their needs.

 

7. What use of your MindTime mapping system has been the most personally fulfilling for you? What happened?

I remember a specific event. I was asked by a headmaster to work with students and faculty on the opening day of school.  The Sage School was a new alternative school in Sun Valley, Idaho. On the opening day I addressed the assembled school and everyone learned the simple MindTime model and how it works. We mapped everyone in the school and spent the day practicing how to collaborate more effectively.

We learned how everybody has value to bring if we would only see it. And, by pointing out the likely pitfalls in human communication between the archetypes, we gave everyone both an awareness and tips on how to avoid them, or at least recognize them before they became an issue. I received a wonderful letter from the headmaster about a year later telling how enduring this learning had been and how it was still being used in lots of ways. That kind of work makes my life sweet in a really good way.

 

8. What potential application of the system would you most like to see happen?

I would support any application of MindTime that decreases violence in all of its forms and increases human empathy. That’s the driving force behind all of this work; it is an ideal shared by all of the partners in the MindTime Project.

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Note: if you self-identify as a change agent, maverick or rebel at work, Foghound invites you to take  a complimentary MindTime thinking analysis test to get a personalized profile of your thinking style, leadership style, relationships needs, communications style, and what you are most likely resist doing. Click here to get your profile, which takes just a few minutes.

If you’re interested in learning more about the potential application of MindTime for your organization, contact Lois (lkelly@foghound.com) or John (john@mindtimetech.com).

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Language, Leadership, Marketing trends, Organizational change Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

CEO Nancy Schlichting: find the disruptive people

September 22, 2012 By 2 Comments

“Find the disruptive people in your organization. They have the ideas that will drive change,” said Nancy Schlichting, CEO of the Henry Ford Health System, a $4 billion healthcare organization with 23,000 employees.

Speaking at the BIF8 innovation conference last week in Providence, RI, Nancy shared what has helped her transform an ailing health care system and create innovations in health care such as a new  $360 million health and wellness facility that feels more like a luxury hotel than a hospital.

Transforming healthcare is all about leadership, she said. Her leadership approach focuses on creating an “incredible” environment for every person to reach their full potential.  How she has created such an  environment:

  • Making a large organization feel small.  When the board approached her about being CEO of the health care system she was reluctant to take it because she likes being involved with people and creating working environments that are positive, personal and open-minded. The board assured her that being CEO of a health care would not preclude how she like to lead.
  • Saying yes to unusual ideas, like an employee who wanted to be able to creating fun drawings  on the disposable gowns worn by the kidney dialysis staff. “This woman creates this amazing designs on her own time on the weekends. On Monday mornings the staff can’t wait to see what she has that week for them.”
  • Helping people who are disruptors. These, she says, are the people with the ideas that can help you change and transform. One example she shared: a surgeon who wanted to put health kiosks in churches in the Detroit community.  Doing so has been a hugely successful way to help people learn about health and wellness.
  • Hiring people in with non-traditional backgrounds to help you see things in new and different ways. “This is essential,” Nancy stressed. One example: she hired Gerard van Grinsven, a long time Ritz Carlton executive to be CEO of the new Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, even though Bernard had no health care experience. His “otherness” has been a significant reason the new hospital has been so successful in its ambitious goals. (Here’s a link to a video of Gerard sharing his story about going from high-end hotels to opening a hospital.
  • Bringing together different thinkers. Creative ideas happen at the intersections, said Nancy. Bringing different thinkers together across silos creates better ideas faster.

Hearing her talk I was reminding of the wonderful poem by Kaylin Haught, “God Says Yes To Me.”  Imagine if CEOs said yes, yes, yes to more of their employees, especially the disruptive corporate rebels?

Not only would organizations be able to innovate and change more quickly, a wonderful sense of joy would permeate the workplace — even in high-stress environments in struggling urban areas, like the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Corporate Rebels, Innovation, Leadership, Organizational change, Smart company stories Tagged With: , , , ,

Bathroom confessions, leadership truths

May 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

 

“Lois, I need to tell you something,” she whispered nervously as I walked into the ladies room. Then she quickly searched the stalls to make no one from her management team was there.

“I know why the workshop isn’t working,” she said with conviction.

Now I was on high alert, having walked into the bathroom frustrated and discouraged about the leadership workshop I was leading. The topic was on how to lead meetings so  that healthy conversations and differing points of views could be aired to arrive at better decisions. But the energy in the workshop was low and the engagement almost non-existent. Was it the material? Was I having an off day? Do these people not have meetings? Could I turn this around after the break or should I just end it  and put all of us out of our misery?

“It’s trust,” she whispered. “I’m fairly new here and can see the problem. But no one sees it because they confuse friendliness with trust. I have to go. Please, never, ever tell anyone I told you this.”

Yowza. Having worked with this client before I never would have thought that trust was an issue.

Organizational silence = shutting off ideas

After the break I started the session with “organizational silence” research from NYU Professor Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison. (Here’s a great article by Professor Morrison; the chart in this post is from her as well.)

“Perhaps what’s really at play here is nothing about how to lead meetings. It’s about your organization. Meetings simply mirror the culture. In most organizations silence is pervasive because leaders are afraid of negative feedback and harbor beliefs that they know more than the rank and file, and that employees can’t be totally trusted.

“Moreover,” I continued, “We leaders are often trying to protect our status and sense of certainty. People speaking up shake up our status and we often inadvertently shut them down. If not in words, then in our body language.”

Radio silence.

Then one brave young man raised his hand. “Yes, it feels kind of unsafe to say anything at our  meetings. I don’t get the sense that people really want to hear my point of view.”

Then people started talking.  After two and a half hours we were having the real conversation.

How often do we all silence others because of our fears and beliefs? What harm does that do to our companies?

The hidden causes of maintaining silence

“A troubling aspect of the dynamics that create and maintain silence is that they are hidden from view and often unrecognized” says Professor Morrison.  “Management may see that employees are not engaged, but may assume that it is because they are self-interested or not motivated.”

I’m still reflecting on the workshop to understand the real issues.  I have come to one important realization: these executives may have taken away nothing about leading meetings that matter, and it doesn’t matter. What they did come away with is a recognition of that organizational silence exists in their company and it’s not a good thing.

How to break the silence? Professor Morrison offers these suggestions:

  • Don’t shoot the messenger: In terms of prevention, managers must work hard to counteract the natural human tendency to avoid negative feedback. They must not only seek out honest feedback, on a regular basis, they must also be careful to not “shoot the messenger” when they receive bad news.
  • Create safe climate: Managers must also work hard to build an open and trusting climate within their organizations, one in which employees know that their input is valued and that it is safe to speak up.
  • Really want to hear it: If employees sense that those above them do not want to hear about potential problems and issues of concern, they will not talk about them. Managers must recognize this dynamic and convince employees that they do want input.
  • Replace top managers: One way to create such a change (of open communication) is to bring in new top managers. This will not only enable the organization to break from its past, but will signal to employees that there is a commitment to changing the status quo.

There is no easy way to create safe corporate cultures and inviting and accepting differing points of view. I believe it’s a practice. Like practicing your golf swing, tennis serves, meditation, drawing and patience.

We’re never done. We can only be aware that we need to be aware.

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Language, Leadership, Organizational change Tagged With: , , ,

Safety first

March 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One factor distinguishes corporate cultures where creativity, trust, progress and and expedient problem solving abound.  It’s safe to think differently, voice ideas that challenge the status quo, bring up the elephants hanging around the conference rooms.

If the environment doesn’t feel safe to employees, no amount of team-building exercises, awards for creativity, financial incentives for “employee suggestions,” or expensive organizational culture and/or innovation consultants will make a difference.

None.

As humans our brains are wired to perceive threats faster than our logical minds work. When we perceive these threats we retreat, just as we would run if someone were physically threatening us.  (For more on this topic, check out David Rock’s excellent book “Your Brain At Work.“)

People are afraid to speak up at work. They’re afraid they’ll sound dumb, make someone upset, get in trouble with their boss, maybe even get fired.  This fear not only stymies good ideas it can cause tragedy.

The story of  NASA’s Challenger space shuttle is legendary.  People were afraid to speak the truth. And those brave engineers who did were eventually over-ruled by senior executives whose emotions were tied up around fears about “looking bad.”  There were no ill intentions on anyone’s part. But clearly people didn’t feel safe dissenting forcefully enough to stop the shuttle, and the leaders were listening to logic and not hearing in-between the lines. They didn’t sense the engineers’ fears and concerns.  Listening to someone’s words but not the feelings expressed in those words  is half-listening.

11 ways to create safe organizational cultures

The challenge — dare I say leadership 101 requirement — is for leaders is  to create the conditions for safety, model that behavior, and require all leaders to do so as well.  Easier said than done.  We’ll dive into this in more detail in future posts, but here are 11  pragmatic ways to create safety in everyday work meetings and conversations.

  • Open meetings differently:  To encourage everyone to feel comfortable participating, open a meeting by going around and asking each person to comment briefly about the topic. I often ask people to share their insights and observations in a sentence or two.  No one comments on what the person has said, just respectfully listens as you go around the room (or on a conference call.) Two things happen. Everyone’s perspectives have already begun to be shared, even the shy types among us. By speaking and being listened to people are more likely to contribute again. It feels a bit safer already.
  • Focus on what you’re good at vs. problem fixation: when you convene a meeting or a brainstorm session to talk about problems, everyone comes to the table with a threatened mind-set. After all, if it’s a problem, someone’s responsible for it. In addition, the negative stimulates are threat brain triggers and shuts down our creative thinking. A valuable practice to learn is Appreciative Inquiry, which through a different path of questioning builds on a team or organization’s strengths.  To learn more about AI, check out the Appreciative Inquiry Commons, hosted by the Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. The book “Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Change” provides a great snapshot of the practice and its value.
  • Data vs. judging: before rushing to judge what a person is saying, stop. Consider the idea or opinion as a piece of data to be examined. Even if it makes your bile rise, there’s something to be understood in why the view is making you angry. Then apply a little empathy. What’s it like to be that person? Why is this important to him or her.  You’ll glean valuable insights by taking this approach. And you’re showing people that they can express ideas without someone dismissing them or biting their heads off. (Know, too  that we can send this “anger” message in our body language even if we don’t verbalize disagreement.)
  • Listen in between the lines for what’s being felt:  How people talk about something conveys more information than the words themselves.  As leaders, listen for the emotion beneath the words. Acknowledge those as real and important pieces of information. Acknowledge that anger, frustration, and other types of emotion are real and part of our work. “You must be getting pretty tired and frustrated from trying to get people to buy into this. What kind of help do you need?”
  • Don’t let titles interfere: people are no smarter or less smart because of their title. Focus on the purpose to be achieved and listen and value everyone’s ideas.  Then focus on the idea –  before worrying whether Mr. Big Title will like it or not.  Also  invite more diverse people and thinking into meetings. Too often meetings are convened for people with the same titles. This is for directors. This is for senior vice presidents. This is for Level 4 professionals. The same groups can get stuck in a rut. Mix it up.
  • Suspend certainty:  This is the cousin of judging vs. data.  If you make it a practice to challenge thinking and explore possibilities, it gets safe for people to think more expansively and creatively. If you don’t have to be “right,” you free up that pre-frontal cortex to make new connections and see previously unseen patterns. This is how insights and “aha’s” happen.  Certainty confines, asking us not to create art but to paint by numbers.
  • Don’t worry about getting through the agenda: Getting through the agenda doesn’t mean the meeting succeeded.  The question for all meetings is “what do we want to accomplish?”  Digressing from the agenda is often the best way to get there. I was recently leading a meeting and after the opening where everyone shared their “insights and observations” from the previous meeting, we had landed on what we needed to do next. The meeting had been scheduled for two hours. We were done in 45 minutes. The only agenda item we covered was “introductions.” Yet real progress was made. Everyone felt good.
  • What hasn’t been said that should? This is a great question to ask at the end of a meeting. Sometimes people are sitting quietly stewing, or feeling afraid of raising a point. By inviting people to speak up, you often get to the real conversations that need to be had.
  • Look at dissent as learning: When people disagree they are not being difficult. They are raising a different view.  Too often our reaction is to shut them down, get back to the nice flow of agreement and gentle progress.  Insights come from dissent. It’s a powerful way of learning. Help make it safe for people to disagree by sharing a few agreements such as, “it’s OK to challenge ideas, policies and opinions but it’s not OK to attack people.”
  • Ask good questions. Good questions guide good conversations.  Good, provocative questions and respectful listening not only create meaningful conversations, they make it safe for more people to participate in those conversations.  A helpful resource is this  booklet “The Art of Powerful Questions,” by the brilliant folks who started The World Cafe.
  • Laugh more. Nothing is more welcoming and indicative of a safe, friendly environment than hearing people  laugh.

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Corporate Rebels, Innovation, Language, Leadership, Organizational change Tagged With: , , , , ,

GE Innovation Barometer: put on the cape

February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

More creative people is the largest factor in spurring innovation, according to this insightful GE Innovation Barometer 2012 infographic. Play with the chart and see what most spurs innovation in different global regions and countries. Yup. Creative people is almost twice as more important than any other dimension.

Where do you find more creative people to help your company grow?  You most likely have the people, but you probably need to adjust your corporate culture and processes to allow them to be much more creative.  Some ideas to consider. None require big budgets, just slightly different ways to work.

  • Ask questions that light people’s ideas. Ask your people one provocative question at the end of the week. Could be by email. At a kiosk outside the cafeteria or in the lobby. People love good questions and they want to be heard. As a leader you’ll learn much about the organization and your people — how to be a good servant leader, how to help them do more of what’s working, how to create a feeling of pride and possibility. Good questions trigger creativity.  To help spur creative thinking, do the heavy lifting of creating good questions that help people start thinking differently. Some ideas:
  • What went really well this week?
  • What surprised you this week?
  • What are you most proud of this week?
  • Who deserves an “A” on our team this week?
  • If this week were a song, what would it be?
  • What else could we have done?
  • What helped you?
  • What did you learn?

 

  • Put on the Cape (or grab a wand):  It takes bravery to bring up topics no one else is yet talking about. It’s scary to suggest new ideas. So as a leader, make it safe for people to suggest new ideas and to do things differently. Maybe occasionally wear a red superhero cape to show that you really value courage and fearlessness. Once as president of a company I walked into the Friday staff meeting not in my Giorgio Armani suit, but dressed up as a fairy queen, with crown and magic wand.  Many years later I still have the wand. That one morning where I acted so out of character broke the ice during a challenging time. People loosened up, laughed, trusted and started to believe anything might be possible. Oh, and they all still talk about that day and what it meant.
  • Put two chairs in your lobby. Four years ago I heard about a Midwest retailer that put two chairs in its lobby with a sign for “topic of the day.” What the ???? But then people sat down, talked and talked about ideas that matter.  Read here for more.  I love social media and Skype but sometimes there’s nothing like a friendly in-person conversation.
  • No PowerPoint in meetings. Ever. Send those numbing slide ahead of time to be read. But when people get together, use that precious time to have conversations that invite all present to share ideas, connect as people in thinking and caring ways, and together talk about how you can do more of what your company does so well. (Note: talking about positive — doing more of what’s great, also creates a better environment for creativity than “problem solving.”)

There’s much more to share. But for now know that you have incredible potential in your organization.  I see untapped magic and talent all the time.  People are waiting to be invited to do more in more new ways. As leaders, help your repressed creative souls break free.  It’s the only way to innovate all the time, in small ways and big.

What one thing could you do next week to make your organization a more welcoming creative place?

 

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Corporate Rebels, Innovation, Organizational change Tagged With: , , , ,

Social media expose: the passion problem

March 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Supergirl

Social media is exposing a problem in business: many, many employees and customers don’t care much about the business; they’re not flocking to  join Facebook fan pages, participate in employee communities, add comments to blogs.

Take a look around and you’ll find the evidence everywhere.  After all the worries about what employees might post,  working for months with legal to get guidelines in place, and putting that corporate blog and Facebook page in place,  there’s a thunderous echo of nothingness.

The reason? Most people are just not that into their companies.  Sure, their companies may be good places to work, opportunities for professional advancement may be decent, and the company is probably a responsible corporate citizen.  But the passion is missing.

Social media is exposing a significant business problem: bland corporate cultures.  I would suggest that we should be spending far more time on the culture problem than on social media. Of course, the more you spend on the latter, the more vivid you’re likely to see the cultural issues.

In most corporations processes, rules, and values, e.g., integrity and  truthfulness, are clear and understood, but people don’t care about  the company with their head and their hearts.  (Do companies even use the word “love” or talk about feelings?)  The primary reason for this lack of passion is because companies’ purpose beyond making money is unclear.  There’s no meaningful cause or purpose that everyone in the company is together aspiring to achieve.

Pick your study or expert and you’ll see the quantifiable value of a strong corporate culture.

  • Financial growth/profitability: Companies with strong cultures returned 1,026 percent for investors over 10 years compared to a 122 percent for the S&P, according to the business school authors of  Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit From Passion and Purpose.
  • Speeding change, adopting new strategies: “You must create a culture  that motivates people to execute the strategy — not to the letter but to the spirit. People’s minds and hearts must align with the new strategy so that at the level of the individual, people embrace it of their own accord and willingly go beyond compulsory execution to voluntary cooperation in carrying it out.” Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. (Notice the head and heart term again?)
  • Bringing humanity to work: “What we need is not an economy of hands or heads, but an economy of hearts. Evert employee should feel that he or she is contributing to something that will actually make  a genuine and positive difference in the lives of customers and colleagues. For too many employees, the return on emotional equity is close to zero. They have nothing to commit to other than the success of their own career. To succeed today a company must give its members a reason to bring all of their humanity to work.” Gary Hamel, Leading the Revolution.

We’ve heard so much about the potential of social media and enterprise 2.0 to bring  people together in new ways to brainstorm, collaborate, build deeper relationships, eliminate barriers, bring new ideas to market faster.

But if people don’t love your company, don’t expect to reap the big benefits of social media.

The good news, however, is that most companies have a bigger reason for being, a purpose more significant  than simply growing financially.  Someone just has to step up and lead the charge to uncover that purpose and focus the organization around it.

It could just be the most rewarding challenge of your career.

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Leadership, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , , , ,