Should you trust your gut in business?

Michelle Silver

We’re often taught in business that decisions should be made based on facts, data and evidence. And it’s definitely important to consider all of the above when making an important decision. But relying on evidence alone can leave you with just half of the picture.

As emotionally intelligent human beings, we have also been gifted with something else which can be just as powerful as cold hard data – intuition, or gut instinct.

Do you sometimes just know something to be true without even knowing why? Have you ever known something is the right thing, or the wrong thing to do – contrary to what all the evidence is telling you? This is your intuition speaking to you. It’s a very useful tool that we all possess, but not everyone uses.

What is intuition?

It’s often said that the gut acts like a second brain. The brain continually takes on board unconscious information and automatically filters it through past experience and knowledge. This happens instantaneously as the unconscious mind is so much more powerful than the conscious mind, and intuition is the resulting feeling you get based on this unconscious processing.

It has also been widely reported that intuition is a right-brain function alongside creative thought, art, music, senses and emotion, whereas analysis takes place in the left hand side of the brain, as does reading, analyzing information, understanding languages, etc.

So how can listening to your gut instinct help you as a leader?

1. Intuition can help us to keep an open mind, and be open to opportunities and new ideas that our rational minds may close us off from.
2. Likewise, our gut can act as a voice of caution at times. Trusting in this early warning system to steer clear of a risk which may have been mitigated on paper by facts and figures can be priceless.
3. It can help us to be a good leader and colleague, allowing us to sense when something may not quite be right with a team mate. We are then able to adjust our approach to find the best way to deal with that person or situation for the best outcome.
4. Our intuition links into our values; it can help to guide us towards finding the right path and purpose so that we can feel fulfilled in what we are doing.

In this podcast Pat Hutchinson, Quadrant 1 MD, talks to Gerry Murray on his Leading People show about how intuition helped her carve her own career path to lead her to where she is now…

Learn from the past

Think back about situations or opportunities where you’ve used your intuition to guide you that worked out really well. Try to remember how you intuitively felt as these situations were developing, and what it was that your gut was telling you.

Things don’t always work out. It is important to reflect back on situations from the past where you’ve trusted your gut but that haven’t worked out as well as you wish they did. What can you learn?

As with everything, balance is key.

Relying solely on intuition and failing to sufficiently analyse a plan or problem can lead to making non-logical decisions. Avoiding analysing situations whilst at the same time mistrusting your intuition can leave you paralysed and unable to make a decision at all.

For all aspects to be in balance, intuition should be combined with good analytical skills to help you sense the important factors, while at the same time analysing the risks to arrive at a logical and well-considered solution. Next time you are faced with a decision and you’ve spent some time considering the facts, spend a minute checking to see how you feel about the situation, what are your gut feelings telling you?

Paradoxical Leadership Technology

Paradox Technology measures how employees manage 12 paradoxical pairs of behaviours, each of which relate to an important core value.

All of the Harrison Paradoxes relate to leadership and have a great impact on the organization which can either create a positive culture or a dysfunctional culture.

You can find out more about balancing Paradoxical traits, like intuitive and analysing, here,  or you can get in touch at pat@quadrant1.com or on 07768 922244

10 Leadership Skills to Measure and Develop

Great leaders possess specific strengths outside of their technical knowledge of the job they do.

As a rule leaders tend to gain their positions through demonstration of exceptional skills in the operational side of their roles together with an enthusiastic and optimistic attitude and relevant experience. Operational expertise and experience are relatively easy to measure and as such dominate the decision making process of leader selection.

But what about the rest?

Most people would agree they would like their leaders to be competent, knowledgeable, visionary, progressive and decisive with excellent interpersonal skills, innovative and open to new ideas.

How about a propensity for self improvement, a desire to lead, an outgoing personality, a reasonable level of self acceptance, a balance of analytical and intuitive skills, a balance of diplomacy and frankness and a balance between assertiveness and helpfulness. There is an endless list of traits we would like our leaders and upcoming leaders to possess.

Here are 10 Leadership competencies you can be measuring and developing in your leaders…

Communication

Promotes & presents clear vision & initiatives. Speaks up regarding concerns, listens effectively, provides timely and helpful information, and takes responsibility to confirm communications are received.

Energising People

Motivates others to achieve goals, articulates a common vision, engages team members, relates openly, and empowers others to achieve.

Learning Agility

Gains knowledge from experiences, successes, and mistakes, and applies that knowledge to new situations or responsibilities.

Problem Solving

Perceptive and logical when identifying problems, finds the source or cause of problems, and thinks through potential difficulties of the solution steps.

Resilience and Perseverance

Persists in the face of adversity, obstacles, or setbacks including effectively managing a crisis and quickly adapting to change.

Achievement Orientation

Consistently achieves objectives, accepts difficult challenges, seizes opportunities, and has a high level of energy and enthusiasm.

Impact and Influence

Influence others to achieve goals, enlists their cooperation, appeals to their interests, builds trust, and negotiates mutually beneficial and sustainable agreements.

Innovation

Experiments with different ways to improve processes, efficiency, and/or effectiveness while maintaining focus on the desired objective or result.

Leading People

Takes responsibility to achieve the organization’s mission, provides clear direction, promotes team participation and cooperation, and accepts decision-making authority.

Problem Solving

Creates effective strategies and long-term plans to seize opportunities, anticipate issues and risks, draws from previous experiences, explores industry information, and collaborates with the right Individuals.

The Harrison Assessment Leadership Behavioural Competency framework measures people’s individual skills and areas for development against 10 essential Leadership Competencies in an objective way.

Each competency is made up of a series of essential traits, desirable traits and traits to avoid. Development candidates complete a short, online SmartQuestionnaire^TM. Responses are then mapped against each of the Harrison Leadership Competencies which can then highlights areas of strength and areas for development both for an individual and for a team.

As well as the Leadership Behavioural Competency other standard, pre-defined behavioural competencies are available. Bespoke behavioural competencies can be developed according to the requirements of your organisation and built around your own set of required traits and behaviours.

You can download a sample Behavioural Competency report here.

If you would like to find out more about the Harrison Leadership Behavioural Competency, other pre-defined competencies, or indeed about creating a bespoke competency, please call us on 07768 922244, email pat@quadrant1.com or leave us your details and we will contact you.

Is Your Company Brave Enough to Face the Truth?

Pat Hutchinson

Most people use data the way drunks use a lamppost: for support rather than for illumination.

– Alexis Fink, General Manager, Talent Intelligence and Analytics, Intel

There are any number of ‘talent analytics’ software offerings on the market right now.  Most offer to make the analysis of trends in already existing data such as staff turnover or absenteeism, easier to assess.  Some organisations use them to great effect, others not so much.  There are however, very few organisations offering talent analytics based on what makes people effective in the workplace.

Advanced analytics are designed to support development interventions which will generate an engaged, progressive culture that is vital to the success of any organisation.  Such a culture will not only increase productivity, it will reduce absenteeism and staff turnover.   Interventions are often seen by the C Suite as a ‘nice to have’ in the light of lack of solid evidence.  HR specialists continue to make their case for interventions but often can’t compete with their operational colleagues who can provide data and statistics to back their arguments for specific actions and therefore investment.

So what could research based on what makes people successful in the workplace do for organisations?

Employee Engagement Expectations

Engagement is a two-way process and surveys should form the foundation of progressive conversations between employer and employee especially if the aim of the survey is to keep talented employees.  This is just not possible if surveys are anonymous.  All an anonymous survey can highlight is that someone, somewhere in the organisation is not happy about something.

With advanced analytics, you can ask the right questions, and analyse real engagement factors and expectations – such as development, authority, communication, remuneration expectation – across individual, group, and organisation levels. This ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains their best talent.

Who will be Your Next Leaders?

Expensive assessment centres are universally used for identifying upcoming leaders.  They can take anything from half a day to 5 days and sometimes more to make a selection.  The cost of taking people out of the organisation, and employing specialists to run such centres as well as venue costs, hotel bills (during non-Covid times) all make this a very expensive but still relatively subjective exercise. Current norms are preventing us in many cases from running traditional Assessment Centres but that doesn’t mean you can’t still identify top talent and potential leaders accurately and effectively.

Companies who use predictive behavioural analytics to develop a framework for remote and automated online assessment can continue to screen for potential talent across areas including role-specific job success eligibility and behavioural success factors, leadership competencies, emotional Intelligence (EQ), engagement and retention factors, cultural fit aligned to organisational values, remote working compatibility and more. This means even if you can’t run a face-to-face assessment centre you can still get in-depth analysis to support the search for and identification of talent for your organisation.

If you would like to know more about how to provide analytics upon which to make strategic decisions about the development of your teams and staff contact us at info@quadrant1.com and/or visit our website at www.quadrant1.com

Talent is not just for HR

Many organisations assume the responsibility for talent management lies solely with HR. An effective and well-organised business will take a collaborative approach, sharing the responsibility across all core functions. This enables the talent strategy to be linked to the core business objectives. (more…)

Employee remuneration expectations – frequency or value?

Employee Remuneration Expectations – managing for engagement

In this article on employee expectations we look at ‘remuneration expectations’ and how they impact employee engagement.

We all want to be paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work and remuneration is certainly near the top of employee expectations. It is not, however, the primary motivator for a good many of us and vies for position with the quality of the workplace environment, being appreciated and having a competent, responsive manager.

The organisational view

Most employees understand that a company has different pay grades and that they cannot expect to earn more than someone else who does the same job. Having said that, the increasing problem of those being paid below the living wage can create tensions for many companies.

If you want to earn a higher salary, the excepted way of doing it is to take on more responsibility and possibly undertake further training.

For those who want higher pay, this can often be the sticking point, particularly if they are not self-motivated enough to develop their own careers.

The individual’s remuneration expectations

Asking the right questions, and analysing each individual employee’s real engagement factors ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains their best talent.

Remuneration Expectations

Employee remuneration expectations can vary depending on the amount of pressure they are under, the type of work they have to do and the environment they work in. Even individuals in a particular office might have different views about whether they are paid enough or not.

Wants High Pay

• The desire to earn greater remuneration
• A competitive and career minded individual will more likely see their worth in the amount that they are paid, or have the potential of earning, compared to someone who just wants to come in and get their allotted work done.
• Wanting higher pay can be a signifier of personal ambition which could mean that a top performing team member may look elsewhere if they don’t achieve what they hope for. It can also be a pipe dream where an individual wants more pay but is not prepared to get the work and study done to reach their target.

Wants Quick Pay Increases

• The desire to have an employer who offers relatively frequent pay increases
• Linked to the desire for higher pay, is the need for them to be delivered quickly. Most businesses have a yearly incremental increase in salary but that might not be enough for some employees. This could be a sign that they are moving quickly up the ladder or it could be that their ambitions are outstripping their actual ability.
• Impatience can be a virtue but it can also signify that an employee is more likely to look round at other companies rather than stay put and contribute to the development of an organisation.

Self-Motivated

• The drive to achieve including taking initiative, wanting challenge, and being enthusiastic about goals
• Those who want to develop their own careers necessarily have to be self-motivated. This can be a difficult one to gauge particularly if the employee is deluding themselves about just how much they have in the tank for climbing the corporate ladder.
• There may well be good signs for self-motivated behaviour such as learning new key skills and being open to challenges and these can mark out an employee as someone who needs to be handled sympathetically and nurtured if they are to stay with the company.

Does everyone in the group have the same remuneration expectations?

Finding out what employee’s remuneration expectations are can be highly enlightening; by using Harrison Assessments engagement and retention analytics we can explore them in detail.

What can we interpret for this group?

• This group considers earning higher pay levels to be only moderately important and thus, it is only moderately important to carefully explain how higher pay can be achieved.
• This group considers quick pay increases to be unimportant. Consequently, this group is probably not going to be too impatient about achieving higher pay.
• This group has a strong tendency to be self-motivated independent of consideration about remuneration.

Using Harrison Assessments Talent Solutions to understand remuneration expectations

Managers can measure an number of key employee expectations, the intrinsic behaviours that drive individual and group engagement. This helps to understand any differences between an employee as well as looking at the overall group or team’s expectations. These insights facilitate the essential dialogue between employee and manager, fostering a shared responsibility for engagement to build a culture of employee engagement.

Managers can use the Manage, Develop and Retain report as a guide to getting the best performance out of an individual member of their team, and shows how mis-matched communication and management styles could potentially demotivate a talented employee. Instead the report suggests how best to develop and engage the employee, what type of tasks to delegate and behaviours to watch out for that could impede performance.

Employee Engagement White Paper

• This employee engagement white paper will outline why this is the case and what is needed to achieve a greater impact on organisational performance.
• It includes some key areas relating to engagement in the workplace and a crucial 3-step guide to assist with the application of engagement analytics.
• Written by Dan Harrison, Ph.D. – Organisational Psychology, developer and CEO of Harrison Assessments, this white paper is a must read for anyone involved in employee engagement.  Request your copy here –