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3 Tips to Communicate in Times of Fear and Uncertainty

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Fear and uncertainty can bring a wave of emotions and stress within an organization. In times like this, leaders are often in a position where they need to provide an action plan, counter sweeping statements or acknowledge feelings in way that will not only communicate the next steps but also calm their listeners.

Here are some effective examples to structure your message to deliver it in a clear, focused and empathetic way.

1.Use points in time to communicate an Action Plan: 

Communicate the next steps using logical points in time. This gives the listeners clear focus and allows them to see practical actions and progression. Example: “As of April we will be putting this project on hold, by mid May we will re-evaluate the bottlenecks and resources needed to complete it and in June we will notify all departments about the new timelines and action items.”

2. Focus on a solution to Counter Sweeping Statements:

Counter generalized statements by focusing on a single solution that makes your point. This will help your listener look at things through a different perspective. Example: “Overall, yes, we have seen a decline in sales, however, we have come up with a few solutions. Specifically, we are going to boost our online sales and training.”

3. Recognize and Acknowledge Feelings:

Acknowledge a person’s feelings of fear and uncertainty by recognizing their question. This shows empathy and connects you better with your listener.  Example: “We welcome that question”; “We appreciate you asking”; “We were expecting that response.”

Although we can’t control how a person feels during times of fear or uncertainty, we can help calm their nerves and answer any questions with confidence. When we use structured communications to deliver an action plan, counter sweeping statements and acknowledge feelings, we will calm our listeners and deliver our message in a clear, focused and empathetic way.

Are you ready to power up your communication skills? Join our Think On Your Feet public workshop on the 19th and 20th of May, 2021. Find out more. 

The Tools of Change

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How to improve collaboration, problem-solving, innovation, and decision making.

People outlive ideas

In the past, ideas have lived longer than people. Once they were established, ideas would be changed only slowly and over several generations. Technology and science have accelerated the rate of change and now the pandemic has collapsed decades of transition into months. People will now outlive many generations of ideas. This means that we need to improve our ability to change ideas. Unfortunately the way we have been taught to think makes changing ideas very hard to do.

Establish, not change

Our whole thinking system has been designed to establish and prove the truth of ideas. We have neglected the development of tools for changing ideas. Some dominant ideas have recently been challenged by necessity, for example the idea of office work was dominant over home working. Another dominant idea was that everyone in a team has to be present at the same time. Dominant ideas get locked in and it should not need a pandemic to change them. We believe that the ideas we hold at the moment must be right, otherwise we should not hold them. The whole basis of our approach to thinking is that you progress from the right ideas you hold to a refinement of these as you get closer and closer to a perfect perception of reality. The whole YES/NO system is designed to preserve and defend ideas and to reject any attempt to change them.

Change through rejection

With the YES/NO system change can come about only if the current idea is rejected. An idea must definitely be shown to be wrong before there can be any question of changing it or even considering the need to change it. What if the idea is not wrong but becoming less relevant and less valuable? Our approach is binary – yes or no, right or wrong.

Confrontation and clash

Since change can be achieved only by rejecting the current idea, any new idea must take the form of an attack on the dominant idea. The defenders of the existing idea hasten to resist and to reject the threatening new idea because it does not fit into the dominant way of looking at things. So the dominant idea becomes strengthened in defence and the new idea becomes more forceful in attack. In the end there is a head-on clash between the new idea and the dominant idea. This process was shown beautifully when naval designers started to put forward the ‘ridiculous’ idea of ships driven by screws instead of paddle-wheels. In the end the clash between the new idea and the old idea was settled by an actual tug of war. A screw-driven ship towed a much more powerful paddle steamer backwards through the water. Rarely is the clash so neat or the outcome so decisive. Too often ideas meet head on in conflict. For practical purposes one or the other idea triumphs and the remaining idea is subdued – but neither one is changed.

This is the ‘swap’ system that has been our chief method for change. In this swap system two opposing ideas grow ever more rigid and fierce until they meet in a head-on clash.

Scientific method

It is only in science that the clash system of change works tolerably well. In science you reinforce the new idea with so much evidence that it triumphs over the old one. Even so the defence of the dominant idea is fierce, and many new scientific ideas have been accepted only long after they were first suggested. The clash method in science works only because the new evidence can be assessed by objective and repeatable measurement.

Outside science

Outside the empirical world of science the clash method is very wasteful, because evidence is rare and incomplete so new ideas have to be looked at and assessed through the dominant ideas. Looking through these dominant ideas you can see only material which agrees with those ideas or disagrees. The material which disagrees is by definition wrong. Without objective measurement you have no choice except to judge subjectively; and you can judge subjectively only by using the only available framework for judgement – dominant ideas. Thus even an idea which is so right that it will eventually create a new framework must at first be rejected when looked at through the existing framework.

Even more difficult

Often it is impossible to change an idea that can be faulted. This is because ideas are affirmed not simply on logical grounds but also on emotional grounds. This means that the YES which affirms them is not simply the absence of NO but satisfies some emotional need. A person who is determined to believe in flying saucers travels to Norway to examine the wreck of a saucer that is said to have crashed there. If he finds nothing, then clearly the wreckage has been removed by the government in order to pretend it never happened. If he finds the wreckage of an ordinary. plane, then clearly the government has substituted the plane deliberately to mislead the investigators. So lack of actual evidence for the flying saucer is actually evidence of the conspiracy to hush it up and hence evidence for the saucers, since you do not hush up something which is not true. The idea becomes an impregnable myth which resists all evidence to destroy it.

Necessity is here now

Quite apart from its dangers and waste, the clash system of change is very, very slow. It is slow because you have to wait until ideas are obviously wrong and falling apart before you even try to look for new ideas. It is slow because you do not actually set out to look for new ideas but wait for them to happen. It is slow because the old idea sets about defending itself and rejecting the new idea for as long as possible.

The pandemic has changed this – once dominant ideas are no longer working. There is a need for new ideas to be designed, but we have not learned how to do this in a more constructive way than the battle of “I am right and you are wrong”.

We have learned the need to be right

From the earliest age there is the absolute insistence in education on the need to be right all the time. Encouragement and approval, which are emotionally necessary to young children, are used only as rewards for being right. Being wrong means being rejected by the teacher. Later on, when this.emotional support from the teacher is less important, being right is still tied directly to the child’s self-esteem. Status in the class is tied to being right. Being wrong is a matter for shame. In this way being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. Since in the clash system the only way to change an idea is to admit that it is wrong, this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulty in changing ideas. How many politicians or leaders admit they were wrong on some issue and change their ideas?

Tools for change

We have not been taught the tools for constructively changing ideas. Our thinking is based on the YES/NO system which is an anti-change system. Truth and untruth are pitted against each other with the usual certainty on both sides.

There are alternative thinking methods that enable individuals and groups to explore and develop ideas constructively. This is parallel thinking and is made easy to communicate and use through the Six Thinking Hats method. Teams use this to solve complex, contentious issues, effectively and quickly. It is achieved without defeating ideas or people. The approach is not about consensus and compromise but about a genuine exploration of the topic without taking sides. It is a method for creating value and encouraging people to change their own minds.

There are Lateral Thinking methods for changing perceptions and concepts. This is essential if we are to create value and solve intractable problems. No amount of excellent logic will create new ideas, as logic alone is entirely dependent on the starting point or premise that frames the situation. Lateral Thinking is a set of methods for deliberately changing our starting point and the concepts we use. What if there is more than one right answer? Lateral Thinking provides tools to escape a dominant idea without attacking it, by deliberately creating alternative concepts.

Don’t wait for the world to return to “normal”. The individuals and organisations that thrive are those that not only adapt to change but who also play an active role in designing the future.

Find out more about BRG’s de Bono training programmes, which accelerate the innovation process and help develop strategic thinking competence. Or join our upcoming public event: Virtual Collaboration with Six Thinking Hats.

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“This is an adaptation from the original which first appeared in the book ‘PO, Beyond Yes and NO’ by Edward de Bono. Republised under licence from the copyright holder deBono.com.”

Virtuous Radicals: How Some Companies Achieve Positive, Large-Scale Impact on Society while Others Fail

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By Jennifer Reimer

 

 

How can you and your company achieve greater impact on society?

Serious social and environmental challenges threaten the sustainability of human populations. Millions of Rands are spent each year on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes in South Africa and many large corporations have made commitments to socially responsible actions. Yet there is little evidence of a positive impact of these socially responsible actions. This threatens the positive future state of our society and environment.

At the same time, the future workforce, which will largely consist of millennials, is looking for greater influence on society and our planet through their workplaces. Engaging, motivating and empowering them is on the minds of leaders in South Africa today.

These are key challenges for the future leadership of our workplaces. To cultivate a positive interaction with our society and environment and to ensure a positive future state of our businesses and planet, it is critical that we understand the leadership qualities and processes that will guide these positive interactions. We need to know how these leadership qualities permeate through an organisation, empowering and inspiring the future workforce.

In the face of these challenges, we need to ask; Why are many companies failing to make a significant impact? Are there companies that have shown significant positive impact? What makes these companies different?

Jennifer Reimer, an associate of Business Results Group, and strategy and sustainability consultant is currently conducting her PhD research to discover why some companies have a large-scale positive impact on society and others do not.  As a leadership capability company, we aim to provide you with more information about the leadership and management qualities that can be cultivated to ensure a positive future state of your businesses and our planet. The findings of Jennifer’s research will be made available to enable BRG and our clients to better understand what drives some companies to have a significant positive impact on society while others do not.

In the first phase of her research, Jennifer interviewed employees and stakeholders of South African companies, all of whom reported to engage in socially responsible actions. She found that some companies fail to have a significant positive impact on society, and calls these ‘Moral Traditionalists’. They are trying to do the ‘right thing’ but have little impact.  Those that do tend to have a large-scale positive impact have very specific qualities that differentiate them from their peers. She has termed these companies ‘Virtuous Radicals’ and the world needs more of them, especially as corporations grow increasingly powerful, and humanity’s grand challenges remain unresolved.

The difference comes down to the beliefs of leadership teams and how they permeate through the company to influence the company’s role in society and company processes and actions.

The results include:

  • The three key factors that characterise the companies that have a large-scale positive impact – Virtuous Radicals;
  • The qualities of the leaders who are behind the Virtuous Radical companies;
  • The four actions that leaders can practice to cultivate the Virtuous Radical belief system amongst their employees.

Why is this important?

  • Companies want to ensure that their precious investments are, in fact, positively impacting the intended beneficiaries.
  • The ‘millennial’ population, soon to comprise 75% of the workforce, wants to know how they can make a difference at work and the results suggest some ways to do this.
  • To transform companies, leaders and employees for the future world of work, we need to understand what qualities are needed and what drives them.

Become part of the change

In order to learn about how the company’s leadership beliefs permeate through the company to impact employees, stakeholders, greater society and the environment, we invite you to participate in our 15-minute survey. Kindly click on the appropriate link below.

Survey for C-level executives

Survey for managers and employees

Participants will receive a summary of the first phase of the research immediately upon completion, and a summary of the survey results in a few months. Participation is voluntary and confidential. Your name, organisation and responses will be kept completely anonymous. Thank you in advance!

How Do You Create Business Value?

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By Adam Rampton

In the past three months, I’ve been to China twice, each time working with different Fortune Global 500 companies that are all wrestling with the same challenges: changing market conditions, accelerating competition, and the tensions inherent in trying to maintain local connectedness while ensuring global reach.

In a world of increasing volatility and change, more organisational agility is needed. This puts tremendous pressure on HR leaders and professionals who want to create business value – they are increasingly asked to maximise ideas and outcomes that are inherently in opposition to each other.

Some examples that HR leaders and professionals must effectively tackle include the following:

  • Achieving short-term results and long-term growth
  • Improving customer service with reduced budgets
  • Building collaborative teams and having individual accountability
  • Increasing speed to market and quality
  • Enhancing local relevance/connectedness and driving global brand unity
  • Doing more with less

The CHROs and HR leaders at the multinational corporations operating in China that I work with recognise that their HR professionals and business partners need help navigating these paradoxes and managing these tensions effectively. A new mindset and skillset is needed. The changing business environment requires it and demand is high. These CHROs are working to build the supply side so that HR is better positioned to create real business impact now.

In the seventh round of our global HR Competency Study (HRCS), two new interesting themes emerged:

  1. HR professionals who ‘navigate paradox’ have the highest impact on business results.
  2. Navigating paradox is not done well by HR.

Effective paradox navigators tackle conflict head-on and help their business leaders do the same. They shift from the traditional mindset of ‘either/or’ logic to one of ‘and/also’. These professionals focus on managing tensions that will unleash creativity and new insights.

Seem impossible? You’re not alone. To help you get started, here are four simple steps to strengthen your ability to navigate paradox and position your business for success:

CLARIFY THE POLES

Most business strategies fail in implementation because of unresolved paradoxes. Effective HR business partners will recognise these paradoxes and help their business leaders clarify the poles. What do we mean by “do more with less?” What short-term results are most important? How will we measure them? What does long-term growth look like? Where do we need to innovate?  How do we create space for and encourage experimentation?

Average leaders ignore one pole. Poor leaders swing back and forth or demand both. Great leaders see the inherent tension in both poles and bring the right people together to collaboratively clarify and address them.

DEFINE THE BEST ALTERNATIVE OUTCOME

Once the poles are clarified and we know what we’re trying to achieve, we work through a series of divergent and convergent processes to define the best alternative outcome. A useful tool is illustrated in the matrix below. This matrix helps to further clarify the poles where needed and, more importantly, provides the basis for divergent and convergent discussions to determine how best to move from current state to desired future state.

In this example, the strategy is to ‘achieve 20% EBIT while investing in long-term growth’. For each pole (light blue), the leader and team further clarify the poles by defining degrees of success (dark blue). Next, they identify where they are today and where they want to get in the desired future state (grey blocks). Spending enough time on this step helps the team align to define the best alternative outcome collectively.

SEE OTHER’S POINT OF VIEW TO FIND COMMON GROUND

The tool outlined in Step 2 helps teams see points of tension and begin unravelling paradox in a productive way. They are able to identify potential trade-offs. Effective leaders help the group converge (focus) using simple questions and then diverge (expand) to consider different options and viewpoints. They strive for integration, avoiding ‘either/or’ answers opting for ‘and/also’ solutions instead.

They ask questions like “where do we agree?” and “where do we disagree?” They listen.

In essence, good leaders and HR business partners lead through a series of divergent and convergent cycles to see other’s point of view and find common ground. This allows the group to align with the best alternative outcome and prepare to take first steps.

TAKE THE FIRST STEP

Built on the strong foundation created in the first three points above, these first steps should be easy to initiate. Outline specific first steps – things the leaders and teams will do in the next 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months – to demonstrate progress and maintain clarity. Sometimes these first steps will include two steps forward and one step backwards. Be consistent and help your leaders do the same by adjusting operating mechanisms, measures, and incentives to reinforce the desired future state. Take a whole-systems view to enable and sustain the desired change.

Paradox matters. It’s inherent in day-to-day and organisational life. Effective leaders embrace this fact and assemble the right stakeholder team to clarify and address paradox head-on. In HR, paradox navigation skills are the largest predictor of business impact. As HR builds this skillset, it will be better positioned to drive business results by helping leaders clarify the poles of paradox, define the best alternative outcomes, see other’s point of view to find common ground, and take the first steps towards the desired future state.

This article was originally posted on rbl.net

If you’d like to learn more about preparing HR professionals to navigate paradox, contact us at info@brg.co.za. Business Results Group is the exclusive Africa partner to Dave Ulrich’s RBL consultancy group.

 

Critical Lessons from Start-Ups for Human Resources

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By Darryl Wee

The news is constantly discussing how digital start-up companies are disrupting their industries. Interestingly, when I examine these companies further, I find that many practices which are common among start-ups to drive more value in their businesses that HR should also consider adopting.

Are there lessons that HR can learn from start-up companies?

1. Start by Resolving Pain Points

When I listen to CEOs from successful start-ups describe the ideas behind launching their companies, 95% of the time the business was designed to resolve a real-life problem they faced: a specific pain point.

In HR, we should adopt a similar perspective, by looking at organisational pain points. Notice I refer to organisational pain points, not only HR pain points. HR can create the most value by looking outside of our core function and to the entire organisation.

In order to do this successfully, we must approach the pain point from the perspective of the customer and the business as a whole. We must examine how, as an organisation, we can resolve an issue for the business or customer. The solution may bring us back to some HR policies or practices; however, our analysis should not begin inside the HR function. It is important that we look at the issue strategically and from the outside-in, and not from the inside-out.

I am not suggesting that as HR we should not represent our function, or use our functional expertise to address said issue, but I have found that when HR operates as a business leader rather than just as a functional expert, more value is created. The business as a whole benefit from another pair of eyes, analysing an issue with an external lens. Once we have clarity on the pain point and how we may want to respond, we can then add our HR lens to explore additional solutions.

If we are looking at resolving HR pain points, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of our employees and honestly look at what is and is not working. In order to make a real impact, we must minimise our emotional defensiveness from the perceived effectiveness of an HR solution, and really listen to what our customers are telling us.

2. Think Big, Test Small, Learn Fast

After launching their products, start-ups develop, improve, and adapt when necessary. Frequently, after these numerous improvements and tweaks, the original value proposition of their product is significantly different from the end result.

In many larger organisations, there is an expectation that the product be 100% perfect prior to launch.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no matter how much we plan, unexpected things can happen that we are not prepared for. While I do believe that we must be very thorough in our work, I also feel that a more agile approach allows us to react more quickly, focus on solutions, and accomplish more optimal results.

The ‘think big, test small’ methodology is being implemented throughout many organisations. I have noticed that even government ministers are using this terminology. I would believe in this concept but take it one step further: ‘learn fast’.

For years, Dave Ulrich has inspired HR and business leaders to ‘think big’. From my perspective, we should always plan our actions in order to have the most significant impact on the entire business. By thinking big, however, we should not be deterred by the size or complexity of the issue or solution at hand. ‘Testing small’ is an excellent means of quickly piloting a solution to ensure its feasibility and scalability. Start-ups constantly send prototypes that are 70-80% finalised for beta testing with the intent of receiving meaningful feedback before the full product launch. The company expects imperfections but is committed to obtaining insights into potential shortfalls and oversights as quickly as possible. This agile approach allows organisations to act swiftly in refining the product before the final launch.

The third element is to ‘learn fast’. Testing small is not effective or useful if we are not learning from customer feedback to adjust our products and solutions accordingly. In some cases, we see companies rapidly realising a more compelling and practical application of a solution or product, so they ‘pivot’ their focus entirely. As HR, we should also learn how to be agile, and pivot to boost our organisation’s value and total impact.

I am sure that there are many additional lessons we can apply; however, in following the theme of this article, I believe that HR can actively help reduce organisational and individual pain points by ‘thinking big, testing small and learning fast. Utilising this methodology, we will increase our impact on the people within our organisation.

This article was originally posted on rbl.net

Contact us at info@brg.co.za to equip HR to drive more value in your organisation. Business Results Group is the exclusive African partner to Prof Dave Ulrich’s RBL consultancy group.

 

Neuroplasticity: Upgrade Your Brain

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by Adam Gale

Focus, creativity and stress-management are all things you can change with a bit of brain science.

WHAT IS NEUROPLASTICITY?

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to form new synaptic connections between neurons. It’s what enables us to learn new things.

We’re at our most neuroplastic as babies, but as we get older and become more efficient at doing things we already know how to do, we get less neuroplastic. In recent years, however, scientists have discovered that adult brains are far more malleable than they’d previously thought.

WHY DOES IT MATTER TO ME?

Because it means you’re able to improve things that you didn’t realise you could. Whereas before you may have thought there was no point trying to improve because you were congenitally unimaginative or irredeemably scatterbrained, now you have no excuse.

‘Neuroplasticity is happening anyway, we don’t have to do anything to make it happen,’ explains Dr Jenny Brockis, author of The Future Brain: The 12 Keys to Create Your High Performance Brain. ‘If you are exposed to new stimuli, your brain will rewire itself in response.  But if you choose to, you can literally upgrade how well your brain functions in areas like memory or focus.’

HOW CAN YOU USE NEUROPLASTICITY TO UPGRADE YOUR BRAIN?

We are creatures of habit, whether we like it or not. If we’re in a situation often enough, our brains will form such strong pathways that our responses become automatic. It’s similar to riding a bike or using a keyboard.

Unfortunately, our brains can just as often form unhelpful habits as helpful ones: giving a speech automatically causing unnecessary anxiety, for instance. If we want to harness our inherent neuroplasticity to replace bad habits with good, we simply need to practice applying the good habit in a given situation instead of the bad one, until it becomes our ‘new normal’.

It’s hardly rocket science (or indeed brain surgery…), but it works. To increase your chances, Brockis advises picking one thing to work on at a time. ‘New synaptic connections are incredibly fragile when they first form, so you’ve got to nurture them and make sure they stay intact by going back to them and practising. It’s a bit like when you learn to drive a car for the first time – it’s clunky and horrible at first but with repetition and time it becomes much easier,’ Brockis says.

Don’t expect a one-off fix, however. Vigilance and discipline are required. ‘We don’t break habits, they just get weaker if we can replace them with a new, stronger habit. But when a bit pressure comes along, the stress levels go up and we default to the old ways. The brain’s hardwired to go back to the simplest route it knows best.’

WHAT IF YOU DON’T GET THE CHANCE TO PRACTISE YOUR NEW GOOD HABIT?

Rewiring how your brain responds to something that happens regularly (your nightmare morning commute, let’s say) is a lot easier than when the trigger happens less frequently.

Public speaking, for example, is something that for many people only comes along once or twice a year. It’s not impossible to use neuroplasticity to your advantage in these situations, however. Visualisation has been proven to activate the same parts of the brain as actual practice does while focusing on a positive past memory can help to improve your mindset.

ARE THERE LIMITS TO NEUROPLASTICITY?

The short answer is we don’t know. The research is still in its infancy. However, it would seem unlikely to expect you could transform yourself from, say, a numbers dunce to an arithmetical genius, just through a spot of practice. Some things are just hardwired.

But progress is possible where before we assumed it wasn’t. It’s a particularly relevant message for older workers, who might face the prospect of having to retrain mid or late career. ‘The more we use our brain to continue to learn new things the more plasticity we retain. That old saying of “use it or lose it” was right,’ says Brockis.

Old dogs can learn new tricks then, but only if they keep trying.

 

This article was originally posted on Management Today.

Contact us at info@brg.co.za to book Dr Tara Swart and achieve peak brain performance through neuroscience.