Evolutionary Provocateur

Changing Workplace Resources

HRMA Fraser Valley hosted a Changing Workplace  Symposium which I attended as both a participant and a speaker. One of the presentations covered Intergenerational Reward Preferences: Implications for Business and was the result of research conducted by students in the HR PRogram at Kwantlen College. While the title is long the research is well presented giving readers insights into what is the same and what is seemingly different among employees of mixed generation. Their students, based in Langley, B.C. are looking for practicums but if you are not close geographically you can still take advantage of their research which is at www.wherepeoplegotolearn.com

For the free article called The Case for Getting Radical about Retention which serves Human Resource Professionals go to http://www.frominsighttoaction.com/organizational_personal_resources/e-zine_archives.html

2010 Olympics and Performance

On March 14th I attended a sport, culture, sustainability dialogue program hosted by students in the Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue for Simon Fraser University in  Vancouver, B.C. It touched a number of points for me that signal a time to move beyond old modes of we-they and power-control dynamics. Several assumptions were at work:

Assumption #1. Athletes represent the elite of athletes, therefore they must also be the elites from society.

Jeff Adams, ParaOlympian and Olympian pointed out that athletes are not born with silver spoons in their mouth. Many have overcome huge levels of adversity to get to where they are.

The opportunity from this reality is to use the athlete's  journey as a way to remember that is it not what life gave you but what you make from the life you have that truly counts. Those who would point to the disadvantaged as the disempowered and victims can use the inspiration that many of the athletes offer to elevate their own position to a stronger and better place of contribution.

Assumption #2: That VANOC or the Government should do what must be done...or nothing will happen.

This apparently ignores the incredible innovative thinking that governments are rarely capable of. The institutional framework was not designed to embrace and support innovation. Working with multi-levels of government has been an interesting enough journey as jostling for lines of authority and power interspersed with how much accountability and responsibility any level of government either can or are willing to accept.

The opportunity is to insert the BIG WE...what can WE collectively do together with each party playing a role. Up until Wednesday, I knew what VANOC was, but not what it has been doing. What i do know is that no agency can uplift victims, carry the disempowered and disenfranchised. This is the time where a collective effort with out of the box thinking is the only kind of thinking that will truly create sustainable results. It commands every ounce of self-leadership capacity dormant in each individual to come out and play. The legacy then, becomes the contribution of each person’s highest level of leadership in the process leading up to and during the games.

Assumption #3: Not really an assumption but the question was raised on the idea of combining the ParaOlympics with the Olympics. Once again, Jeff brought forward information that really indicates the energetic driver for what the experience is all about.

The motto for the Olympics is: Faster - Higher - Stronger

The motto for the ParaOlympics is: Mind- Body-Spirit

Athletics is a vehicle for elevating the disadvantaged to a higher level of achievement. Which motto do you think will truly inspire the highest level of human potential?

What does Belief Have to do with Performance?

Everything and nothing. It depends on how you use belief to achieve performance but WAY more importantly, if beliefs that have been unknowingly adopted by a company inhibit or limit employee performance, then wouldn't you like to get out of your own way?

The oft quoted Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or can't; you are right" has not stopped companies from unknowingly working off of a built in set of limitations operating subliminally as a belief system.

So what is a belief? What does it sound like? Belief has many faces. Sometimes we think of belief as mental models. An easy example of that is: self managed teams don't work. For many self-managed teams do work, but the conditions, circumstances, and outlook initiated a totally different process and outcome.

If the organization/company believes that it is a victim of market conditions, then new legislation impacting its viability is a surprise; in fact pretty much anything that impacts failure is a surprise and success then becomes more of a happy accident.

Raising the subliminal to the visible is an important tool in the sustainable business kit. Habits often reflect beliefs. 'What are we doing over and over again that is not giving us the results we seek?' Ask this and other deep questions you will soon start noticing patterns that reveal direction operating below the conscious radar. This is the place where action leads to results of a higher order.

Beliefs, limiting or empowering, are also held within each individual who work for your company/organization. Every element of their contribution is embued with their perception of what is or is not possible or achievable. You can only implement what you can see and believe is possible.

Making a personal list of what you believe is achievable is a good way to expose what guides action. It is the results that truly show how belief gets put into reality. Track back from the results and you will gain insight into what took you there and whether that belief still serves.

Leadership and Tacit Knowledge

It was refreshing to note recognition of innate intelligence, or tacit knowledge, as the source for what Ram Charan calls Know-How in his new book. Seeing the world through a wide angle lens is a natural result of being in touch with innate intelligence and this has real value for times when the cognitive or mental process is not enough to embrace the complexity of decision making, information, or the mind gym that helps explore and examine a problem from as many ways as possible.

When Peter Senge introduced spiritual intelligence in the Fifth Discipline and then later The Dance of Change, he gave us a way to talk about energy and spirit that offered credibility to the larger human resource. It is no accident that HeartMath provides us with an understanding of the heart as an intelligent processor for our emotional take on the world AND that the limbic processor is around 80, 000 times faster than the cognitive. Yet for some reason, we continue to rely on only the cognitive mental in times where the ONLY lens that functions is the wide angle multi-dimensional one. Spiritual intelligence is the vehicle to access the innate wisdom and knowledge each person has.

The road to innate intelligence lies in a journey...the hero''s journey because it involves looking more deeply than the color of your suit or tie. In the next post we will take the first of a series of steps that lead to the core or innate talent, unique to each individual and the anchor for self-leadership, a wider way of seeing the world and its possiblities, personal and organizationa;.

Growth or Protection: Performance by Choice

This is the last of a six part interview between Dawna Jones (moi!) and Dr. Bruce Lipton on the scientific logic behind deep learning to achieve personal and organizational upgrades in achievement and performance. Enjoy!

How the Unseen Creates Limits to Achievement

The fifth of a six part interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton explores how beliefs or perceptions stored at the subconscious level drives achievement of both individuals and organizations.