What do you do with your time?

I often get asked to run time management courses.  Managing time should be easy – write a list of things to do and get on and do them.  So what gets in the way?

Take a look at this Paradox graph –

Harrison Assessment Paradox report

The Harrison Assessment Paradox report explores 12 paradoxical pairs of behaviours, or behaviours which can appear as seemingly opposite. Each of the Paradox graphs has 4 quadrants which demonstrate the potential effects of the balance between the two behaviours.

Every individual will have their own unique set of Paradox patterns; this is a sample report, against an avatar named Andrew Jones. His patterns are indicated by the red dots with the shading around, and the hurricanes, which demonstrate behaviour under stress.

Look at the 12 graphs in the report and the 4 quadrants of each graph…

Ask yourself what do people in each quadrant spend their time doing?

Here are just a few examples –

Insightful Curiosity

(top left)

High Open Reflective, low Certain – people spend their time going round the loop of asking for more opinions/ideas before forming an opinion.  This can appear fluffy and indecisive.  The opposite, however, may have an equally detrimental effect – people who are sure of their ideas and don’t engage with other viewpoints often spend time mopping up the mess.

Instinctive Logic

(top middle)

High Analytics low Intuitive – someone with this pattern may spend inordinate amounts of time collecting data even when a similar task has been completed before.

Opportunity Management

(top right)

High Analyses Pitfalls low Risking – people get bogged down with all the things that could go wrong, stay in their comfort zone and may spend their time using old methodologies rather than risk a new one.  The opposite ie, high Risking low Analyses Pitfalls – can result in more time spent unpicking when things go wrong.

 Self-Actualisation

(2nd row left)

High Self-Acceptance low Self Improvement – these people can spend time defending and justifying their  own point of view from those who query it.  The opposite – Low Self-Acceptance high Self improvement – these people can spend time beating themselves up for all the things that went wrong/could have gone better and are unlikely to recognize their achievements.

Combination patterns

If you look at each of these combinations of paradoxical traits in turn its not difficult to see how people spend their time.  Individual Paradoxes can also interrelate between each other to create further patterns of behaviour.

One pattern which is particularly significant is a combination of high Warmth and Empathy (Coaching Mindset paradox) and high Helpful (Equity Mindset paradox). These people spend so much time looking after others, doing their jobs for them etc they often put their own jobs second.  They also invariably end up with no time to consider strategic planning in the Opportunity Management paradox (top right).

If you would like to know more about the Harrison Paradox approach and how patterns can help or hinder success do get in touch. pat@quadrant1.com

Pat Hutchinson, Quadrant 1 International Ltd

What Makes HR Look Good in the Board Room – if indeed they even get there!

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

What Makes HR Look Good in the Board Room – if indeed they even get there!

Its easy to see the results of the Sales Director, the Operations Director and to review the numbers of the Finance Director.  These things are tangible and measurable and tend to receive the majority of the Board Room focus because of this very nature.

Most organisations will tell you that their people are the most important resource they have and that looking after them and developing them is paramount.  So why is it that the person who is Head of HR is often not represented on the Board and if they are, they often have to shout loudly to be heard?

The answer may be contained in just one word: ‘evidence’.  People are not machines; they cannot be counted as a stock number and additionally, unlike stock, they have a thing called choice!

There are no norms – all people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist

Fernando Pessoa – Late 19^th Century Portuguese Poet

Hence HR people are often left with unquantifiable results.  Being experts in their own field they can see what strategic decisions have to be made in relation to developing a productive, engaged workforce but with no statistical evidence this can be hard to justify.

Dan Harrison’s 30+ years of research into what makes people successful in the workplace, in particular roles and working in particular teams now gives us the very analytics needed to:

• Identify the success behaviours required to perform in a particular role
• Produce profiles against which to recruit successful candidates
• Assess for leadership, BCs, values-based behaviours, remote working EI and much more
• Conduct progressive engagement surveys upon which to make strategic engagement decisions as well as individual ones

Armed with such analytics, the HR professional stands a much better chance of making effective business cases in the Board Room!

If you would like to know more click here, or please contact me at pat@quadrant1.com

www.quadrant1.com

Don’t expect feedback from internally referenced people

The feedback black hole

You’ve just completed a great project, met the deadlines and brought it in on budget. You are feeling good but nobody says a word? As days go by nothing comes back and you start to doubt your success. The internal dialogue ramps up to a point where you become totally focused on whether or not you did indeed complete a successful project. You venture to ask a couple of questions of the people from whom you may have expected some positive feedback but the bemused looks set you back even further so what’s going on?

What’s happening?

Unconscious behaviour patterns are playing out here. You may have a high need for recognition and appreciation because your external reference system means you value other peoples opinions, external qualifications etc in order to measure your own success. Internally referenced people, on the other hand, measure their success against their own internal measures. They include the word ‘I’ to a large degree in their conversation and don’t need others to tell them they have done a good job. They will be bemused when externally referenced people ask for feedback and unconsciously view it as ‘needy’.

No feedback needed, thanks

Internally referenced people don’t take kindly to feedback because unconsciously they have a high degree of certainty that they are right (they are not always of course!). The unconscious thinking is that ‘if I don’t need feedback then nor does anyone else’. Consequently they don’t give it out and if they do it can sounds contrived and awkward. This type of behaviour can often come across as ‘confidence’ and will invariably help the internally reference person up the promotion ladder. They can also be very hard to give feedback to so here is a tip for you –

If you want to give feedback to an internally referenced person start with ‘Of course you probably already know this ……..’

If you would like to know more please get in touch with us 07768 92224 or  pat@quadrant1.com. Sign up to our newsletter

All Procedure should increase choice – the ultimate paradox!

Life is a paradox! Nothing is ever absolute as Yin Yang tells us. Flexibility is the name of the game and those who demonstrate it are generally more able to succeed in the world. Living by rules alone creates barriers and structures and limited thinking. Rules are often maintained long after they are obsolete. Living with constant choice, on the other hand, can create chaos for those involved not knowing what is likely to happen next and often paralysed into inaction because of it.

In an ideal world ‘All Procedure Should Increase Choice’. In other words the rules are there to create a platform of understanding from which to launch new, creative ideas. Take the rules of the road for example – without them chaos would reign and travelling from A to B or even C, D or E would become chaotic and traumatic.

Are your rules helping or hindering?

So next time you have a minute take a note of the rules (written and unwritten) that you abide by within your working environment. Are they helping or hindering creativity and progress. Equally are there some areas where rules might give people the confidence to break out of their comfort zones and make progress? Food for thought. Enjoy!

If you would like to know more about paradoxical success please get in touch with us

07768 92224 or  pat@quadrant1.com

Does your organisation value trust?

Does your organisation value trust?

In my work as a leadership facilitator, I often work with organisations who include ‘Trust’ or ‘Trustworthiness’ in their company values.  This is a worthy value indeed and is often described in terms of accountability, responsibility for outcomes, transparency and supportiveness – again all very virtuous.  So why is it that when I ask groups of employees about their company values, they can only just about remember them and find it difficult to describe them in meaningful terms?  Of course, the first reason is sometimes obvious – they have been imposed on them from above and employees have not been given the opportunity to engage with the values and work out what they mean in terms of behaviour.  In which case they remain just words that appear on the walls of the organisation or on the website but not in the hearts of the employees.

But let’s take a deeper look –         

In reality, as an employee, you are asking me to trust my fellow employees to complete projects and tasks that are going to keep both internal and external customers happy.  Seems simple enough?  So, what gets in the way? Perhaps a delve into unconscious behavioural preferences might give us some answers.  The following continuums of preference will help us gain some insights.

Specifics – Big picture

People who prefer to work in the detail of a project are unlikely to trust the person with a big picture perspective to ‘do the job as well as I can’.  The big picture perception is that ‘this person will never get it done because he/she is so bogged down in the detail so I can’t trust them to get it done within the deadline’.

Internal Reference – External Reference

Internally referenced people don’t need others to tell them the way things are going or whether something is going to work – they simply ‘know’.  They are not always right of course but that’s ‘just the way it is’.  Externally referenced people measure their success externally i.e. someone else’s validation or a measure such as a degree, medal or certificate.  Internally referenced people see this as ‘flakey’ as externally referenced people often ask for feedback.  So, trust flies out the window here too.     Externally referenced people can view the internally referenced guy/gal as arrogant and ‘can’t be told’ so is obviously untrustworthy.

Procedures – Options

Procedural people get things done by following a procedure which has either been tried before or has been clearly laid out for them.  Options people review different choices and will often rewrite new procedures, much to the annoyance of the procedurals.  Definitely can’t be trusted because they change their minds!  Procedurals on the other hand, from the perspective of the person who prefers choice,  can’t be trusted to get creative and come up with new ideas and innovations!

Considerers – Doers

Considerers like to take their time to consider every aspect of a project before setting off.  ‘Oh we’ll never get this off the ground’ shout the doers. ‘If we want it done by the deadline considerers can’t be trusted!’  ‘Woha – hold back’ shout the considerers to the doers.  ‘We need to think this through – if you are just going to take off, we will make mistakes and get it wrong’.  Definitely can’t be trusted.   

And of course, there are many more unconscious patterns that make us either unconsciously trust or mistrust people.  These are extreme examples but nonetheless common in organisations and at grass roots level are far more dominant than the values passed down from above.  So now we have conflict and are in need of an answer.

The answer is simple – recognition and acceptance.  Recognising these patterns and valuing them all is paramount to success. Put a detail and global person together and they will come up with an excellent answer. A procedural person will put an options idea into practice and follow it through beautifully.  But trust will only come about through awareness of and capitalisation on, behavioural preference!

If you would like to know more about behavioural preferences and how they affect our results please call Pat on 07768 92224 or email pat@quadrant1.com

Pat Hutchinson is the co-author of Brilliant NLP, the Brilliant NLP Workbook and How to be Confident with NLP.  She is also the author of How to Sell with NLP all published by Pearson Education.  She has been working with leaders using NLP for 21 years.  For more information about Pat please see her Linked In profile

Happy Trusting!