A Different Type of Feedback & Coaching Method

In an age where the cognitive components of individual human intelligence are rapidly absorbed by smart algorithms, the next milestone of human performance is emotional and relational in nature. The Kingbridge Institute is now offering a NEW type of learning experience and coaching method beneficial for giving feedback about group dynamics and effectiveness while engaged in discussions.

We have partnered with Mihnea Moldoveanu, Director of the Mind Brain Behavior Institute and Vice-Dean of Innovation at the University of Toronto – to develop the technologies, tools and experiences to help teams develop the awareness, acuity and aplomb to handle difficult dialogues, deliberations and decisions by better understanding their own emotional landscapes and being able to intervene with insight and incisiveness to transform the way they work together.

We are introducing a learning platform that provides a tailored and customized feedback solution for teams who carry out strategic and operational discussions. The tool is designed to diagnose and pinpoint interpersonal blockages to the flow of critical information, breakdowns of trust and hidden biases and power dynamics that undercut the objectivity of their discussions.

This is a transformative feedback solution for giving formative feedback on team member’s social, relational and affective abilities while they are engaged in discussions. Reveals the various degrees of engagement and involvement that people feel relative to each other when communicating.

The social intelligence learning platform – tracks, analyzes and displays variables that give coaches more information about learners’ emotional and physiological states – such as heart rate, heart rate variability and galvanic skin responses – which can be used in combination with a person’s features or characteristic expression and voice analytics to provide even sharper insights of what learners feel while they are interacting with others.

A DIFFERENT COACHING METHOD
The technology – a 360 degree and virtual reality camera is used to capture footage and audio of leaners’ presentations, pitches, meeting discussions, and problem solving sessions which are stored on a secure server. The platform then uses advanced machine learning algorithm’s to identify and map individual users voices and faces and automatically tracks, records, and displays the emotional states of each learner on the basis of recognizing patterns of facial expressions and of voice-related variabilities (pitches, loudness, pitch range, loudness range, rhythm, articulateness) that identify the learners emotional states. Learners can see for themselves the kinds of interpersonal dynamics that their communications – or lack thereof – produce in other participants and they can be coached and briefed on the ways in which their ways of making statements, responding to questions and according or withholding attention from others contributes to the collabortiveness and effectiveness of group sessions.

VALUE PROPOSITION:

  • Learn how your expressions, gaze, body language, tonality, modes of using language, beliefs and perceptions influence your teams ability to effectively engage in collaborative inquiry during discussions.
  • Learn how to become more self-aware so you can read and better understand how your emotional dynamics are affecting group performance.
  • Learn how to communicate more persuasively (great for sales professionals).
  • Learn how to adapt, modify, navigate and self-regulate your emotional states.

IDEAL FOR:

  • Sales Professionals
  • Coaches
  • Negotiators
  • Public Speakers
  • High Performing Athletes
  • Board Members
  • Project Managers
  • Leaders

To learn more about this exciting new technology and experience, visit our website.

Exceptional Leadership, Requires Imaginative Thinking

Leading from Within Image

A few weeks ago we unveiled our second newly designed leadership workshop, Leading From Within, hosted by Kent Osborne. Those that attended the workshop valued one of the leadership tools that Kent shared with us, so we thought we would share this technique with you.

Exceptional leadership demands imaginative thinking. While the analytical thinking of your left brain enables you to manage your business, it’s the intuitive wisdom resident in your right brain that enables you to creatively unlock the knowledge you’ve acquired. Understanding the power of combining logic and intuition is the key to masterfully coaching the men and women directly reporting to you.

Kent’s workshop provided participants with practical, powerful tools for knowing when and how to help your direct reports use imaginative thinking. One tool focused on performance reviews.

Kent directed participants to be wary of spending time discussing performance “in general terms.” This common practice leads to platitudes about what a performer could have done or should have done differently, but it generates no change in future performance and thus adds no value. Instead, leaders should guide direct reports into a detailed discussion about a specific moment in time. The direct report needs to imagine that she is observing herself performing, and from that detailed observation she will literally “feel” both her strengths and her weaknesses. The emotional connection will fuel a specific conversation that will surface meaningful insights about performance improvement.

If your organization wants to get more value from performance reviews, or if you’d like to explore the possibility of transforming the way your leaders coach their direct reports, contact Lisa Gilbert at The Kingbridge Centre and she will discuss how Kent’s work can be customized to meet your learning outcomes.

 

Conversations that Build Trust, Agility, Resilience & Creativity

image for tree post for Michael

Last week at Kingbridge we unveiled our first newly designed leadership workshop, Leading through Conversations that Matter, hosted by Michael Jones. One of the techniques that Michael shared with the group involved using the ecology of a tree to help us understand the distinction and value of learning how to host three very different levels of conversations.

Those who attended the workshop found this valuable so we thought we would share the information with you.

Most organizations are not short of innovative ideas. What they do lack, however, is an environment that allows for the careful enrichment of the soil in order for these seeds of possibility to take root and grow.

What builds this soil is conversation. But not all conversations are the same. The leader’s ‘art’ involves knowing which conversation they are taking part in – and which ones they need to be taking part in – in order to achieve the results they desire.

One picture that helps us understand different levels of conversation is the image of a tree. This image offers a lens for making distinctions between three levels of conversation and how each contributes to growing the culture of an organization.

Level 1: Tactical/Incremental
In Level 1 conversations – the primary question is, “how do we do things differently?”

In Level 1 conversations, the focus is on the distribution of power, influence and getting things done. There is an emphasis on negotiation advocacy, tools, techniques, problem solving, action planning and results.

Level 1 conversations see the enterprise as a mechanical system for which all problems have a corresponding technical or expert-driven response. To extend the tree metaphor, Level I conversations – like the upper branches and the leaves of the tree – are highly sensitized and reactive to changing circumstances. Because they are focused on the performance of the parts rather than the system as a whole, their emphasis is on efficiency-based thinking, quantitatively-driven results and mechanistic responses to problems.

Level 2: Strategic/Transactional
Here the primary question is, – “how do we do different things?”

At Level 2 we see not only the leaves and branches, but their connection to the trunk of the tree as well. Here the focus is on structure and strategy as well as rational problem-solving through policies, technology, detailed plans and systems thinking.

Level 2 conversations shift the emphasis from efficiency to effectiveness, embracing a human resources lens which encompasses human assets and potential, matching people to jobs and working in teams.

Both Level 1 and Level 2 conversations tend to focus on change that is instrumental. They don’t ask the larger questions like ‘why’ or ‘what for?’ For this more profound shift of mindset to occur and to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world, we need to look to another level of conversation.

Level 3: Regenerative/Transformational
With regenerative Level 3 conversations the primary question is, – not on “how we act differently”, but in “how we see differently.”

Here, there is a shift from mechanistic thinking to engaging with the organization as a living system. If the other levels focus on the leaves, branches and trunk, Level 3 conversations examine the soil and the root system underneath.

By ‘regenerative’, I mean conversations that focus not only on the people, the power and the structure of the system, but also on the culture and the sense of place where the leader is also the steward, the sage or prophet, the storyteller and place maker.

At Level 3 there is a greater attention on dialogue and listening together as well as on the regenerative power of beauty, destiny, synchronicity and mythic thinking in which art and poetry, music and celebration carry an equal voice. Generative conversations are participative, reciprocal and imaginative. They involve a collective search for deeper meanings and insights to emerge.

In so doing, these conversations shift the focus from preserving the life of the tree to growing the tree into a sturdy and fertile oak through the constant turning and care of the soil.

Eighty percent of what determines the health of a tree is the condition of the soil – the ‘magic’ that supports and nourishes its roots. In the context of an organization, this ‘magic’ is found within its creative spirit: conversations about what we aspire to, about when we feel vital and alive, about the gifts and heritage from our past and our present challenges and opportunities. These are ‘root’ conversations that focus on the common roots of our shared human experience. As such, they create the fertile ground – so frequently passed over in a fast-paced environment – where the seeds of our future can take root and grow.

It is commonly believed that the fastest way to change a system is with Level 1 and Level 2 conversations. So the overwhelming majority of an organization’s attention is usually focused in these two areas and the typical goal-setting processes that have been used for decades emphasize specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and strategic time-bound results. Yet these rarely correlate with either work satisfaction or real success.

We need to be highly literate with Level 1 and Level 2 conversations while being aware that they concentrate our attention on the most obvious and visible issues. They promote an expert-driven ‘outside in’ response and rarely evoke a fundamental shift of mind when practiced without Level 3.

All levels of learning are necessary, but only Level 3 conversations invite us into seeing new possibilities in the future. As such they take tactical and strategic learning in new directions that could not have been foreseen in advance.

The practice of engaging in Level 3 conversations connects us with how nature itself creates and sustains life. We become allies with each other and our destiny in ways that intellect, tactics, and strategies alone cannot encompass. Our destiny is rooted in the rich soil of intuitive wisdom, the power of place, our heart’s desires, our greatest aspirations, the gifts in each person and the collective intelligence that has called us to be together on this journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Innovating for the Future with Outmoded Mentality?

One of the most daunting challenges for leaders today is how to innovate and stay ahead of the curve.  It seems a herculean task for most and the question is always “why is this so hard?”

The simple answer is that is isn’t hard……..if you are able to shift your mindset away from antiquated (and painfully slow!) bureaucratic procedure into a new paradigm of rapid prototyping and group leadership.  In this new landscape of rapid change and ambiguity leaders can no longer operate a system of ‘approval’ wherein they make the decisions on behalf of the organization.  Rather, future leaders must evolve into a system where their primary function is to create the conditions for leadership capacity throughout the organization.  This shift in mentality and skill set enables agility with rapid decision making and rapid course correction – the cornerstones of innovation.

So how do we get there?  Kingbridge would like to offer the insight that what is required to achieve such an overhaul in leadership is a shift from organizational development to personal professional development wherein individuals take on the accountability for their own education and capacity growth.  In fact it hardly seems possible to do it any other way – trying to shift into a paradigm where rapid decision making is necessary throughout the organization and under any number of circumstances and across skill sets requires networks, systematic thinking and conversational skills.  None of which are things you can really ‘pick up’ during a corporate training session, they all require practice, forums for discussion and most importantly adaptation of this new mindset. Relying on organizational training to equip you with these skills is kind of like trying to learn to swim from a you tube video on your living room floor!

To read more on future leadership trends and their implications check out this paper from Center for Creative Leadership.

Are you leveraging the Informal Networks in your organization?

As a leader have you ever wondered why change initiatives so often don’t generate expected results?  How you can completely re-design a reporting structure and have so little change in the day to day operations and interactions?  The answer according to a recent Partnering Resources article is in the hidden network in your organization that you overlooked and didn’t include in your change strategy – the informal human network.

In any organization we all know who to go to when we need help with research or to trouble shoot a certain computer program or other specific information – and it isn’t always the person appointed by the organization as the expert.  These informal information networks keep organizations running smoothly and can seriously boost productivity and innovation.  So how as leaders can we leverage these networks to affect organizational change?

The first step is identification, particularly the key players in any network.  Maya Townsend, author of Leveraging Human Networks to Accelerate Learning identifies the key influencers of any informal network:

• Hubs are directly connected to many people and, as a result, have the ability to disseminate information quickly. Hubs sometimes become bottlenecks: people so overwhelmed with information requests and communications that their productivity wanes. When this happens, the ripple effects have a disproportionate affect on the network and many people feel the results. They help CLOs spread information and accelerate change by getting messages out quickly and effectively across a wide network of individuals.

• Gatekeepers stand at the intersection between parts of the organization or areas of expertise. They can be the managers who, for sake of control, prohibit anyone from working with their direct reports without them present. They can be the executives who shield their organizations from abusive colleagues. Or they can simply be subject matter experts who can easily and quickly access people in a certain field of knowledge.

• Pulse-takers are the covert influencers within networks. They’re often more knowing than known, and they connect with others strategically. They can be the Machiavellian, behind-the-scenes players or quietly influential informal leaders who people turn to during times of uncertainty. These are the people CLOs want to have on their side during major change initiatives because, with just a few actions, they have the power to accelerate or impede progress.

Once the key players have been identified the task of leveraging the network becomes simplified.  Approach these people, discuss change initiatives with them, gather their perspectives and ultimately get them on your side!  Once you have done that the important information and support for the initiative will spread naturally throughout the organization.

The Kingbridge Insight for this week is to “consider incorporating informal networks into your change strategy”.  It may seem unnatural and even daunting at first but the potential benefits far outweigh the effort.

Get off the Digital Soapbox

With the internet came the promise of global networks, information sharing and mass collaboration.  There has certainly been some of that but many have taken the reach the internet provides as an invitation to hop on their digital soapbox and bombard users with an excess of ‘push’ messaging.

Jeff Pundyk, vice president, content marketing and strategy, at The Economist Group recently wrote an impressively succinct post on this subject and since I couldn’t possibly say it any better than he I have re – posted below:

Source: Social Media Today
http://socialmediatoday.com/jeff-pundyk/2401931/be-heard-turn-down-volume

To Be Heard, Turn Down the Volume

What is it about the Internet that has made everybody so sure of themselves?

You’d think the level of disruption during the past 20 years would have had the opposite effect. Instead, the number of people stepping onto their virtual soapboxes and telling the rest of us what to do and think has exploded. They opine with such surety, such clarity, such force.

I love that everybody has access to the tools of publishing and can act like a media company. I’ve spent years encouraging it. But where does all of this certainty come from? How do all of these people have all the answers? Today I come in praise of a little less conviction and a little more listening. The promise of digital is not the soapbox–that’s the very reason old-school media has been so ripe for disruption. It’s the community. It’s the marketplace of ideas. Without more listening, there’s little learning; without meaningful participation, there’s little chance for engagement. Instead, we have self-proclaimed experts self-promoting. We have commenters turning up the volume.

We have noise.

At the risk of sounding somewhat sure of myself, let me softly suggest that for brands, there is a real opportunity to be heard despite the rising noise. Try thinking about digital as a niche medium. Try creating a specialized community where employees, experts, advocates, and those with a shared affinity can mix. Try seeding the community with content, both your own and content from outside sources, to help organize the community into even smaller groups. Try turning down the volume, saying less and listening more.

Ironically, as more so-called experts raise their voices, the value of sharing real expertise has only grown–but now the challenge becomes creating the right context for that sharing. To be a credible thought partner, brands need to know who their real tribes are and learn what they care about. Create a clean, well-lighted place–or, better yet, join one that already exists. Give up a little control. Worry a little less about yourself. Stop being so damn smart and start being a little more human. In an era when everybody seems to be yelling, a little quiet confidence can go a long way.

And with that, I’ll take my own advice and shut up.

On that note, the Kingbridge Insight for this week is to ask you to consider how you/your organization are engaging online.  Are you part of the conversation or part of the noise?

Big Data, Social Physics and the Value of Face to Face Interactions

What has always been the challenge of social scientists?  The limited, unreliable and more often than not subjective data with which the must work.

Well, according to Alex “Sandy” Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and author of Social Physics, computer networks will remedy these shortcomings. Tapping into the data that flows through mobile devices, search engines, social media, and credit card payment systems, scientists will be able to collect precise, real-time and reliable information on the behavior of millions.

Once we have this data Pentland asserts that science will be able to accurately predict how people will behave in a given situation and accurately assess how information flows through a network of individuals.  And once we know how information flows it can be optimized.

In a recent TedX Talk Pentland gives us the mathematical run down on whether social networks and their ability to spread awareness really contribute as much as they say to improving peoples knowledge and decision making.  The assessment is perhaps predictably both yes and no.

There is no doubt that social networks have contributed greatly to global awareness of a great many issues.  However, as Pentland explains his talk social networks tend to create what are referred to as “echos” where the same information is presented over and over again leading to narrowly informed opinions and ultimately decisions.

In addition, a study performed by Pentland and his team within a local organization uncovered that ultimately virtual interactions contributed very little to the ideas generated and used during group decision making and problem solving when compared to the face to face networking within the organization.

The take home message and Kingbridge insight this week; until social scientists can tap that well of raw data waiting for us in server farms around the world, the most effective and productive interactions- particularly within organizations- still occur face to face.  When we are face to face we can read reactions, question and challenge far more effectively than via social platforms.  In person interactions still come out on top when looking for quality group decisions.

Getting Disruptive Ideas to Market

This blog on bringing disruptive ideas to market was originally posted on Xconomy in July of 2007 however, I continue to get comments on the content and requests to speak regarding this topic so here it is back by popular demand!

I’m interested in how one takes inventions to scale. Obviously, that is what Boston Scientific was all about. How do you get a disruptive idea, in particular, into the marketplace? In my opinion, people frequently take the wrong approach.

Disruptive ideas are very threatening to the establishment, or whoever owned that marketspace before. They may be products or technology like the iPOD (catheter surgery in the case of BSC), or they can be processes or services like Amazon or eBay. Or they can be social ideas like a bike path into the city. They can lead to dramatic changes in the field to which the idea applies. That can mean different people will use and control it. And it will be used differently with a different infrastructure and in different locations. There will be economic implications with winners and losers. And the idea will influence many others indirectly.

So how do you overcome the resistance of the establishment (surgeons in the case of BSC, but it could be academia, professional societies, big companies, the government, etc.)? Hire PR? Most of the PR and advertising guys are great if the idea is accepted, lousy if the idea is not accepted. Your goal is to get it accepted. And that to me is the fun part of business. New ideas grow best with viral approaches and that’s all about relationships and reputation.

Don’t go after the biggest idea first.
A disruptive technology can have many applications. If you get funding for it, the funders will want to go after the biggest application first in order to justify the investment. That’s a dumb thing to do, because new ideas and technologies evolve. They grow like a plant as more and more is learned. And there will be lots of problems early on. If you go for the biggest application first, you will create unmeetable expectations which will arm the establishment with more arguments to destroy you. And even mini-failures will be hard to recover from. Pick an application that is smaller and you can more easily find, or create, champions who will become disciples. Their expectations will be more modest. They will be more forgiving when things don’t go right. Over time they will become your unpaid sales force and your R&D department. You won’t just be creating a product and customers, you will be creating a movement.

And you’ve got to be patient. It took us (BSC) over 20 years to help get the Less Invasive Surgery business going. The ATM for banks took well over a decade to catch on. You can not only be too early for the market because your technology isn’t finished, but too early for the market because customers aren’t ready for it—which means the establishment is going to pull every trick in the book to dismiss you.

At BSC, we took our disruptive catheter technologies and went for smaller niche markets. These smaller markets (for example pediatric cardiology) allowed us to experiment. Our customers developed new applications. They suggested modifications. They came up with great accessories to extend the use and improve the results of the procedures for which the products were designed. I used to even make “care packages” for some inventor docs that would contain special wires, tubing, molds, heat guns, shrink tubing, etc, so they could make prototypes themselves. They loved it. We had friends for life, and gained a few good product ideas as well.

There are lots of other examples of technologies that have enormous applications, where it was, or is, important to debug them first. By doing so, you will not only be learning more about the technology, but also the marketing and communication strategies that you may want to follow if in fact it does become super big. By going after smaller markets first, you can evolve, define, and develop more IP. You can do an awful lot of things that will increase the likelihood of a successful attack on the big market when you get there.

Build in-depth knowledge and trust it in hard times.
If it really is a new idea, you will not only be developing the product(s), you will be developing the language and the science behind it—the ontology and taxonomy for talking about it. It’s hard, but when you get there you will have created that market—and you will own it.

The marketing and funding folk will be pushing hard for you to get some big name scientific and other advisors on the masthead for credibility purposes. Yes, a few may be valuable, but remember, these are people who are already famous. They have nothing to gain (except money, of course, and that can sometimes be a bad motivator) and everything to lose. Finding the unknown younger scientist, engineer, or physician who has the capabilities and desire is much more important. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose. I’ll put my bet on the motivated entrepreneurial type every time. I have a checklist of attributes that we used to pick physicians. Ask me if you’re interested.

Focus.
Traditional business experts will always say you’ve got to focus in order to apply your limited resources effectively. But if you’re dealing with a truly new idea, that may be the wrong thing to do because you don’t yet know where the best spot to focus is. You’ve got to be able to say, ‘It doesn’t look like it from the outside, but in fact we arefocusing. We are taking little pieces of many markets and leveraging the daylights out of it, in order to create a new market.’ If your customers are your partners, and they should be, they can help you make the right decisions.

Always build your credibility and reputation. 
Who do you trust more; someone who is selling you something which you’ve never heard of before, or someone who is selling something familiar from a well-known company? Everything else being equal, with most people, the affiliation with the well-known brand and organization is a reputational asset. So it’s critical to earn the respect and trust of both your customers and the community members, including competitors, of the field you will be working with.

General Georges Doriot, founder of American Research and Development and considered one of the fathers of venture capital, was a charmer and had an enormous Rolodex. He told me that it was his most valuable asset. He was a generous person, a mentor to many and always doing favors for people. But that generosity had an enlightened self-interest to it. The Rolodex represented his relationships and the personal credibility and reputation that went along with it. That was his most important investment.

I think people sometimes get so caught up in the competition of financial results that they forget that the thing that’s going to give them the best likelihood of success in the future is the relationship metrics.

This is all common sense, of course, and pretty obvious. But it’s amazing how often we forget the obvious.

John Abele: Medical Devices to Conference Centre – The Connection

John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific spent the better part of 4 decades pioneering the field of less invasive medicine.  With the undeniable success of Boston Scientific John has since pursued philanthropic endeavors including promoting science literacy for children and projects in social innovation.  John also purchased The Kingbridge Conference Centre & Institute in Ontario, Canada.

So, why a conference centre?  It seems an unlikely progression, medical devices to meetings, but for John the link is clear.  The current edition of Briefings Magazine published by The Korn/Ferry Institute features an article by accomplished author Glenn Rifkin exploring this very connection –  “Growth Through Collaboration: John Abele’s Vision”.

The article highlights how after years of working to convince often ego driven medical professionals and a bureaucratic medical industry to make change and ‘try something new’ that the key to success was collaborative approaches featuring innovative meeting techniques.  One of the most notable outcomes of these efforts is the still widely used Live Demonstration Course.

(Full article here)

In the following video John summarizes in his own words his vision for The Kingbridge Conference Centre & Institute and it’s roots in his experience with Boston Scientific.

Why Purchase a Conference Centre? from Kingbridge Conference Centre on Vimeo.