Our mindset is vital in whether we are open or closed to opportunities.
In this video, we explore five ownership levels that describe our openness to new opportunities. The shoe salesman story illustrates how two people can see the same opportunity in two very different ways.
The Eisenhower Matrix helps you decide whether urgent means important. It helps you to prioritize your work and helps you focus on what’s important right now!
It will also help you to stop doing those tasks that add no value to you. In this video, we share why the Eisenhower matrix is such a powerful tool for making you more productive and effective. Learn how to use the tool and access a free downloadable template you can use as much as you like and share with your colleagues and friends.
Critical thinking is an essential part of the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers. Here’s a link to the free download https://bit.ly/urgentversusimportant
Use critical thinking tools to ensure you’re focusing on what matters.
Critical thinking follows creative thinking or task analysis; it helps you to prioritise where to spend your time. They work by eliminating bias, which means you will make more objective decisions rather than relying on your gut or what you like to do.
Whether you are awash with ideas or overloaded with tasks, the ability to critically evaluate where best to spend your time and what will add the most value and make you most productive is an essential skill.
With the Ease versus Impact Critical Thinking Tool, you can ensure you are focused on the highest value activities all the time.
Critical thinking is essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers. This is a free downloadable resource that wiill help you, but don’t keep it to yourself; feel free to use it and share it; you can access it here:
At Thinking Focus, we believe teams and business units underperform not by choice but because of self-imposed and organisational constraints.
We help people adopt a growth mindset that unlocks interference and accelerates the adoption of new behaviours, which leads to greater organisational performance.
We are privileged to work with some amazing clients. We particularly enjoy our ongoing work with a global med-tech company, working with a passionate, determined and driven team.
Thinking Focus prides itself on agility and adaptability, and during the significant challenge of COVID-19, we demonstrated that for many of our clients. Here’s how we adapted for one of our valued clients in a matter of days.
Social learning theory (SLT) shines a light on how we start to learn as children and continue to learn into adulthood; we mimic and model the behaviour of others. Also, we are adept at modifying our behaviour for varying situations and within the different social groups we spend time within.
If we do learn from others and our environment; then who are your people learning from? What are they actually learning? What or who is influencing their behaviour?
What interests me is how organisations can leverage social learning for better organisational outcomes in their performance and culture.
In 2017 Thinking Focus was challenged by a global automotive manufacturer to help them to develop soft skills in their frontline manager population. They had several requirements: the solution needed to be flexible and run in short sessions to suit their operation; have minimal preparation time and use in-house skills; and it needed to be interactive, fun and without the formality of academic and theoretical references.
Our research into a possible solution led us to consider many options and it became clear that the modelling of behaviour and the effect that peers had on each other’s approach to work was a significant factor. This led to extensive market research and the creation of a solution that we called ‘What Would you Do?’ (WWYD).
WWYD has been carefully engineered with a blend of mechanisms that inspire behavioural change. It incorporates gamification to engage and motivate participants to get involved and stay engaged. It creates a psychologically safe space where participants can be vulnerable and feel comfortable openly sharing their experiences; both the good and not so good. A facilitator manages the discussion, to probe and ask questions (coach) and to help the group understand the thought processes behind the actions. It uses everyday situations (scenarios) to enable the safe exploration of implications and consequences, all in a group forum. Sessions conclude with reflection and public commitment to underpin micro-changes in behaviours.
WWYD is a learning solution that adopts the same fundamental attributes of social learning that we have all been naturally doing all our lives.
What is social learning theory?
Social learning is doing what we see, modelling our behaviours on the behaviour of others and our environment. We are like chameleons; able to adapt our behaviours in different social contexts. We learn this through observing the behaviours of others whether that be home or work, friendship, sport or social groups.
Our ability to develop and adopt new social behaviours, attitudes and emotional reactions comes from imitating the behaviours of our parents or peers. Social learning is based on the behaviour modelling theory, where people learn new things by observing others.
The psychologist Albert Bandura is Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. Bandura considers humans to be active information processors, able to think about the relationship between their behaviour and its consequences. Humans possess the ability to choose, to intervene without merely imitating the behaviour of others.
In the 1960s Bandura undertook a series of experiments to understand the effects of observational learning on children’s behaviour. His findings underpin his 1977 theory, where children learn social behaviour through the observation of others. Children draw their behaviours from a variety of sources: parents and family members, friends and teachers, even fictional characters. These behaviours are interchangeable between boys and girls; they are not limited by gender.
When children observe others, they encode (the way we store information) the behaviour. They may then reproduce that behaviour later. However, the likelihood of them later imitating the behaviour is influenced by several factors.
Children are influenced by people who they consider to be like themselves; this is a factor in them being more likely to imitate behaviour modelled by others of the same gender.
Children are also influenced by the reaction of the people around them. When they reproduce a specific behaviour, how they are rewarded or punished will affect their likelihood of repeating the behaviour. Reinforcement is an important factor in influencing behaviour; this can be positive or negative. Reinforcement can be internal; a feeling of warmth when you do something that makes you happy. Or externally, from the recognition of others. Significantly though, it usually leads to a change in a person’s behaviour.
Children also consider how others are treated before deciding to model their behaviour. If they see the person positively rewarded, they are more likely to model that behaviour. The opposite is also true; if they see an adverse reaction towards a person’s behaviour, they are unlikely to repeat it. A person learns by observing what happens to others (known as vicarious reinforcement).
Children are more likely to identify with a role model when they possess a quality they aspire to have. Identification is different from imitation; imitation usually involves copying a single behaviour. Identification, however, consists of the adoption of a number of behaviours, such as values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom they identify.
How does SLT work?
SLT is considered by many as the bridge between traditional learning theory (behaviourism) and the cognitive approach. SLT focuses on how mental (cognitive) factors are involved in learning.
While Bandura agreed that classical conditioning (think Pavlov and his dogs) and operant conditioning (learning through reward and punishment) impact learning greatly, he also contributed two other ideas; mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses, and behaviour influenced by the environment through the process of observation.
Mediating processes are the cognitive intervention, where observed behaviour is not routinely followed but where cognitive reasoning takes place. In other words, our imitation of behaviour is not automatic. This mental evaluation takes place between the observed behaviour (the stimulus) and the decision to copy (the response) or not.
Bandura proposed four mediational process:
Attention: The extent to which we notice or are exposed to the behaviour. We are exposed to many behaviours each day, and many don’t even register and therefore pass us by.
Retention: Our ability to recall a behaviour. We need to form a memory of the behaviour to perform it a later time.
Reproduction: Our capability to perform the behaviour as it was modelled to us. Our ability to reproduce is not always possible, for example if we are limited by our physiology.
Motivation: Does performing the behaviour even register, in terms of importance? What rewards or punishments exist; do we consider it worth the effort?
WWYD was designed to meet all four mediational processes
Attention is captured in several ways: • The format is group discussion – peers share experiences related to the debate. • Scenarios are contextualised to the participant’s role- they are practical and not theoretical, presenting situations people can relate to. • There is progress and jeopardy, which increases involvement. Tuning out, even briefly, could have consequences with a missed opportunity to score points or lose out entirely on the meaning of the discussion. • Scenarios are set up to encourage debate; some have the added pressure of time constraints. An ‘against-the-clock’ feature causes cognitive conflict, self-doubt and the possible consequence of being frozen out of the round. • The scoring range includes minus points – creating further jeopardy which increases concentration and engagement.
Strategies for retention: • The socialising of experiences means that participants can use another’s experience to help prepare themselves for the model behaviour. They can learn from what their colleagues did well and where they struggled. Participants can also ask questions to develop their understanding further. • The everyday situations are explored through debate. Participants test and probe ‘what if’ situations, their assumptions and biases and the implications of a course of action; as well as exploring what unintended consequences there might be. • Each scenario offers up four options which are deliberately designed to be ‘imperfect’. This ambiguity causes cognitive conflict with the participant having to justify their choice.
Building capability for reproduction:
• Each scenario debated is concluded with a reflection step. Reflection is where the participants connect to the outcomes of the discussion. There is a debrief where participants determine what the desired behaviour should be. They are coached as a group by the facilitator, to consider the model behaviour for their organisation. The group decide what is and isn’t acceptable through reasoned argument.
Motivation: inspiration to learn and apply new behaviours
• The inclusion of gamification techniques both engages players to actively participate and it motivates them to stay the course. While scoring points is a factor, their main purpose is to keep participants focused and attentive. ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) and the friendly competition makes for a high energy session. • At the end of each WWYD session, participants are invited to personally reflect on what they have learnt, sharing any realisations they may have had. • Each participant is invited to publicly commit to one change in their behaviour in front of their peers. This public commitment is a psychological connection, a cognitive reinforcement which increases the likelihood of follow-through.
Seven reasons why you should be more interested in SLT.
It’s already happening within your organisation. Understanding how it is benefiting you will unlock best practice and result in wider shared knowledge.
Find out where it might be working against you. Typical indicators of issues to be resolved can be: culture, productivity, engagement, poor adherence to policy and processes. Who do you want your people modelling – are you leaving it to chance?
Test the understanding of your internal communications. How effectively is your message getting through? SLT can help to ensure the message you intended has landed, by involving your people in the dissemination process.
Your people can collectively decide the ‘right’ way. Build consistency through shared discussion, debate and exploration.
Develop a broader understanding, by sharing perspectives across the organisation. Help your people improve their decision-making, with a greater appreciation for the ‘system’ and how it works. As a result, you become more efficient and effective.
Unlock tacit knowledge. Every organisation is flush with unwritten rules and processes, undocumented knowledge that allows the ‘system’ to work. Socialising the learning across everyday situations will surface these valuable yet hidden practices.
Surface key issues. Organisational politics has a devastating impact on productivity and efficiency. Socialising learning cross-functionally in a safe environment can bring the problems into focus and will encourage your people to own and solve the issues.
There are benefits for your people too.
They learn that they are not alone; they realise that issues and challenges are more common, in other areas of the business – not just theirs.
They build internal networks and support mechanisms which helps them to solve problems quicker and collaborate more effectively.
Their mental wellbeing improves with an outlet to vent, share and gain perspective.
What does it look like in practical terms?
Understanding the principles behind social learning is one thing; bringing it to life is entirely another. How leaders behave is crucial; your people are looking to you.
How you behave when things go wrong will set the tone. Because people learn through observation, employees will look at how you behave in every situation, and they will make a judgement. They are considering if your behaviour is what they want to copy, measuring it against their own values. How your behaviour makes them, or others, feel will impact their decision too. Your people will evaluate how others react and decide whether to model your behaviour or not. The challenge is that you, as a leader, are not in control of their thought process, or how they choose to interpret what they see. This means authenticity is vital, and the need to be a role-model is more important than perhaps any of us thought.
So, what could you do?
Build social learning into your meetings; allow for an opportunity to review your work with three questions: • What have we learned? • What should we be doing more of and why? • What is stopping us from being the best we can be?
Consider how you make your sessions feel safe. Allow people to speak their minds and express their opinions – it clears the way to the problem-solving. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to run sessions face-to-face or online. Create a forum for the group to be open and to share. Invite people to commit to an action – a new, better way of doing something.
Coaching is a proven tool for developing people one-to-one. What if you could group coach? Imagine a one-to-many facilitated discussion with purpose. You could solve common problems, build soft skills through discussion of contextual situations and share experiences to develop a shared vision of what ‘good’ looks like.
Build social learning into your training interventions
Reinforcement is an essential factor for influencing behaviour. Consider what are you reinforcing, knowingly and unknowingly. Are you proactive in celebrating when people model the desired behaviours? No reaction at all can leave people unsure if they are doing the right thing. Positive feedback helps to reinforce behaviours. Similarly, when behaviours are below the expected standard, challenge and coach people to understand why the standard exists and the implications of falling below. And I did say, coach, not tell! Coaching takes time; time you may feel you don’t have – but it will have longer-lasting effects. ‘Tell’ is just a reprimand, and we all know this has limited impact and doesn’t last.
Some of your people will have aspirations to grow and develop. Think carefully about their mentor or internal role-models. We know that people are more likely to model the behaviour of others when they aspire to gain the knowledge, skill or attributes of the other person. Who do you want them to model?
The final way to build social learning into your development portfolio is through simulation and gamification. The trend towards the use of gamification has been growing. When you combine relevance, context and simulation, it really does bring social learning theory to life. The primary aim of any intervention is to create behaviour change, making things fun and exciting alone won’t cut it. Learners need to feel a sense of reward for the right behaviours or consequences for inappropriate ones. Gamification can add progress and jeopardy aligned to the desired outcomes. Decisions can be tested and explored in a safe space; participants can project the effects of certain behaviours and see how the implications would play out.
Conclusion
Social learning is how we naturally develop. As small children we learn through observation to mimic the values, beliefs and behaviours of others. Social norms also impact on which models we choose and whether to adopt new behaviours or not. This poses several questions for business leaders and learning professionals:
• Who are your people modelling their behaviours on? • What values, beliefs and attitudes are they adopting? • Who has the most influence on your culture? • Are your people adopting your desired values, attitudes and behaviours? • How are you, and your leaders, modelling the way? • How do you control the narrative and the observation process?
If you are not already, you should be influencing the social learning experience. How you approach people who fall below your expected standards will have a significant impact on whether they choose to model the desired behaviour, or not. What consequences do they observe others face when they fail to live up to the values? What reward mechanisms exist when they do model the way?
Your people expect consistency; this is how they measure your commitment to your behavioural standards. Your people managers need to model the way; they need to hold others accountable and celebrate those who live up to the expected behaviours, values and attitudes. You cannot condone or accept poor behaviours just because of their perceived business performance. When you do this, you are telling your people that behaviours don’t matter, they are now a weapon to use to engineer the outcomes you really want.
Challenge your people to own the issues but consider how you go about it. You must be prepared to equip and empower them properly. For clarity, equipping means that people are given the tools to think and plan effectively, the targeted development they need, the resources they need to execute and access to decision makers to ensure that effort is not duplicated and plans and actions are aligned.
True empowerment means giving people the autonomy and permission to go fix things. Experience suggests that whenever leaders ‘pretend’ to empower, they don’t fully let go and, when they inevitably intervene, impose or cast judgement, it almost always ends in tears.
Your people are already modelling the behaviours of others. They are constantly making choices about which behaviours to follow. Remember that their motivation might not be primarily concerned with what is right for the organisation. Their choices might be for social cohesion and the benefit of the social group. They may not want to stray away from existing group norms for fear of being outcast, driven by the fear of not belonging.
Are you prepared to leave the values, behaviours and attitudes you want to see in your organisation to chance?
How many well-intentioned organisational transformation fads, sorry, projects are you going to embark on before you address the brutal facts that it’s your people who can make the most significant bottom-line impact? And that goes both ways, by the way.
Let’s list a few of those so-called transformation programmes; Lean, Six Sigma, TQM, offshoring, digitalisation, virtualisation, artificial intelligence. All of them start with the best intentions, yet, if McKinsey are to be believed, 70% will have failed to deliver their intended outcomes.
Take the late 90’s and early 2000’s which saw a plethora of large businesses in pursuit of the holy grail of cost reduction offshoring their call centres – only to find that the brand damage was too much to bear. A mass U-turn ensued, and we are still reminded today that our contact centres are UK based!
Every year Boards of Directors are challenged to grow, become leaner and deliver a better yield and rightly so. The problem is they’re so focused on the tangible and the measurable they ignore what’s really important – their people. People are viewed as a cost that can be trimmed in hard times, not the asset that can deliver significant value. People are intangible; they’re unpredictable; they’re amazing and frustrating all at the same time.
“culture eats strategy for breakfast”
Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker once said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, and yet despite this erudite insight, we continue to overlook the potential in our people. We give them poorly trained managers who fail to inspire or motivate and to compensate we turn to another fad, another silver bullet destined to fail due to lack of proper involvement and engagement. And so, the vicious circle continues.
The brutal fact is your people need leadership, direction and above all, purpose. Jim Collins shares the importance of purpose in his book, “Good to Great”. He argues you should recruit for fit with your purpose not merely someone who can do the job – this is the first pillar of the ‘good to great’ journey: getting the right people on the bus.
When you consider that your managers are responsible for 80% of your workforce, (yes, 80%!), that’s an awful lot you’re leaving to chance with poorly trained managers! Yet we continue to under-invest in this population: the sheep-dip of knowledge and skills doesn’t work without an embedding strategy or high-quality coaching and mentoring; rendering any development you do a complete waste of time and money. Worse, this lack of proper investment in skills only serves to unwittingly sabotage strategic projects and transformation programmes, so you lose out twice! Worse still you keep repeating these mistakes!
The pandemic has exacerbated things, companies have, understandably, adopted a conservative approach with everything in a holding pattern, waiting to see how the world evolves. It is over a year since the onset of the coronavirus, a year in which managers have been left to fumble their way through without the skills to support their teams remotely.
Yes, things remain unclear, the future uncertain, but the past has taught us that your people are your secret weapon – or your Achilles heel. You will need to trust them to execute the short-term strategy as you navigate to clearer waters. So, isn’t it time you started to invest properly in your managers and develop the capability you need, and your workforce deserve?
I get it: remote working and managing are scary things, and no more so than in times like this. There’s an overarching feeling of uncertainty about the world – it feels as if your work situation changes as often as the news headlines do!
When you’re so used to having direct access to information about how everyone is doing, losing that can give you a sense of being out of control that’s hard to come back from. You can no longer mobilise people into instant meetings, have mini one-on-ones over a coffee, or even catch up at the water cooler.
Despite this, as a manager, it’s important to make sure you have the right mindset for working at home, for the sake of leading your team effectively. You need to be comfortable with the uncertainty around you (or at least appear like you are) as, for the most part, you can’t change that. However, what you can do is create certainty, as much as possible, within the team.
Think to yourself, “What can I control in this situation?” and you’ll find it comes down to two main things: what you need to achieve in the immediate future, and how best you can support the team.
Reduce the usual timeframes you workaround. While three months may have been a reasonable length of time to look ahead previously, we can hardly predict what will be happening in three days now. If you limit your plans to the next day or so, you can have a much more decisive say in how it will turn out, which helps keep your staff focused on getting their jobs done. Focusing on the time frame that you can control will help the team members regain their sense that they are in control of the situation.
One thing to note, though: be prepared to balance the control you have over your team’s work, and the control they have. It’s great to give tasks out, as that helps focus the team and provide direction for the day. But you’ve got to let individuals have a say in what they do and, particularly for remote workers, how they do it. Every time you take control of something that you did not need to, you weaken their sense of control; and that risks increasing their feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.
Everybody’s going to have a different schedule when working from home, and having an overbearing boss demanding they send the finished product to his or her inbox every hour is going to cause unnecessary stress. Trust in your team to get the job done, to help them create their own sense of control.
Take on a mindset that assumes the best of your people. When things go wrong, understand that it is because everybody is feeling a little stressed right now, and this was just a mistake. Do not personalise mistakes, or assume that they are happening because people are not as focused as they would have been in the office. Just because you cannot see the work being done anymore does not mean that they are not working. Let’s face it, the team has managed to carry on working when you were in a meeting or popped to the loo; they will also be working even though they are not at their usual desk.
Be curious about your team. Use this time to get to know them a little better, so that if things do go wrong or off-schedule, you can identify if they’re struggling with working remotely. Previously they will have relied on close colleagues for support, so now’s the time to reach out for yourself. There’s probably something you could be doing to make their lives and work easier! Even if there isn’t, they will appreciate knowing that you care.
Having the right the mindset about how we work together is an essential key for success as a remote manager. If you can bring control back to your immediate surroundings, and make a conscious effort to see the best in your people, you’ll be one step closer to nailing working from home.
We are looking forward to attending the Festival of Work, a fantastic new event run by the CIPD, and showcasing our game-based learning resource What Would You Do? (WWYD).
Running in London on June 12 and 13, the Festival of Work
combines the CIPD’s Learning and Development and HR Software and Recruitment
shows, with an added element focusing on the future of work.
It should be an informative and inspiring event for HR and L&D professionals – and we’re hoping some of them might like to drop by our stand and try out What Would You Do?
Based on concepts of peer-assisted learning and psychological
safety, the game aims to prepare managers for potential workplace situations
before they occur in reality.
We’re firm believers in the power of game-based learning, and we’ve witnessed the benefits for ourselves while introducing What Would You Do? to L&D practitioners.
So this blog takes a look at the reasons why game-based
learning is so effective in helping to solve business and management issues.
Read on to find out more.
Why use game-based learning?
It unlocks latent tacit knowledge and skills
All employees have knowledge that’s almost never
utilised. Game-based learning can unearth this hidden potential by bringing
people together to discuss everyday scenarios, and share knowledge and insights.
It brings
learning to life
Fed up with not getting ROI from your training
investment? When learning lacks practical application, it fails to stick. Gamification
brings teams together to discuss how the theory they’ve learnt in the classroom
would work in practice, test meaning and find a solution to common issues.
It removes
friction and improves collaboration
Gamification makes learning social, which improves collaboration,
communication and team work. It helps to break down internal friction and
barriers by increasing awareness of peers’ roles, ideas, perceptions and
experience.
It
removes silos and presents the bigger picture
Specialised teams (silos) can be susceptible to a lack of
communication, an insular perspective and unhealthy internal politics.
Game-based learning brings people together from different teams, increasing
collaboration and communication, creating continuity, and helping individuals
see issues from a wider viewpoint.
It creates
psychological safety
Gamification creates a safe environment for players to
share thoughts and ideas, and to discuss and debate issues in the interest of
playing the game. This means players can be more open, communicative and
creative without fear of failure.
It’s
engaging and fun!
Traditional training can be uninspiring and fail to
resonate with learners. Instead, when people focus on a game, they are so
engaged, they don’t even realise they are learning!
Find
out more about our game-based learning tool What Would You Do? by visiting stand
F11 at the Festival of Work on June 12th and 13th at Olympia London.