Do you have low performers who insist they know how to sell, or provide great service and yet when you observe them, they are clearly not doing these things well?  What causes the void between what people know and what people do, and how do you close this ‘knowing-doing’ gap?  Interested in the answer?  Well read on…

While there are potentially a number of factors contributing to this all-too-common scenario, there is usually one dominant one.  That is, a lack of meaning.

As humans, we are meaning makers. We assign meaning to everything from words to events, people and places, concepts and ideas, tasks and activities and the list goes on.  The things that carry strong meanings, move us.   Often we’re prepared to make great sacrifices for the things we hold dear and value highly.  While things we assign little or no meaning to, we show indifference or don’t even notice.

The one constant here is that our behaviours are directly linked to the meanings we make.  The meanings we create in our mind are unique and individual to each of us.  Little wonder then why we can find it difficult to understand others’ behaviour  and why we judge other people as ‘motivated’ or ‘not’, based on our own meanings.  Knowing this, you can now see that everyone is ‘motivated’.  Yes, even the lowest performers are motivated, they just may not be motivated to do what you want them to!  Or they may be more motivated to stay in bed a little longer in the morning than get up and come to work on time.

The meanings we hold in our mind send signals to our neurology to respond.  This is known as ‘neuro-semantics’.  This brings about an emotion or a state.  These responses then habituate and become our behaviour in everyday life.  Where you see a strong response or emotion, including passion, determination, pride, resilience etc, you can guarantee there is strong meaning.  Where you see indifference or disregard then meaning is low.

While this may seem simplistic, it is also very profound!   Knowing this now means that trainers and managers can change behaviours by working at the level of meaning.  Instead of continuing to show, demonstrate or train people how to perform key tasks, we can increase performance by assigning new or increased meanings to tasks.  That means focus less on the HOW and more on the WHY.
Some specific skills are required to influence the meanings people assign because the mind does not work at just one level.  For example if you were to ask a person why they do or don’t do something, you will only get their conscious response.  This represents their lowest level, or frame, of meaning where as our behaviours are driven from the higher frames.  Often people are not even conscious of their higher frames until someone brings them into awareness.   The higher frames of meaning drive the lower frames and so behaviour is mostly non-conscious.  I know – scary isn’t it!

It takes practice to get to these higher frames, but the potential to make change here is significant.  Also knowing how frames of meaning are constructed and how they can be re-constructed is essential to bring about change.  For some people, just creating an awareness of their higher frames and how these influence behaviour is enough to bring about change.  Others may require a skilled coach to assign new or increased meaning to help them achieve desired outcomes.  A good coach can also change the meanings which may be restricting growth and development, such as un-resourceful meanings assigned to our own self worth, our abilities or to how others perceive us.  The possibilities are far reaching and very achievable.

Exercise:

To experience a taste of what I am talking about, conduct this easy exercise.  Ask an interested and willing participant if they would be happy to share some of their thoughts with you about a goal or objective they want to achieve.  An instance where they have an intention of doing something or achieving something but just aren’t getting it done would be great.  Taking a piece of paper and a pen ask them to write the answers to your questions starting from the bottom of the page and working their way up (to represent the lower and higher frames of thought).

Ask them the following.  For each answer they write, ask the next question about that answer.  This is not an exact structure so adjust as necessary remembering your intention is to tease out the higher frames of meaning.

“Write down your goal/objective on the bottom of the page.”

“Above that now write down, why is it important for you to achieve/complete this?”

“Why is that important to you?” (referring to the reason they wrote down)

“Why is that important to you?” (keep repeating the question or try some of the following)

“What’s even more important than that?” (always referring to the last reason they wrote down)

“What do you believe about the importance of that?”

“How is that important/valuable/meaningful?” (continue to vary your questions just a little)

Keep asking until they run out of things or they start repeating themselves.  If you have done this correctly you will have teased out some of their higher frames of meaning and chances are they weren’t even conscious of them until you bought them to the fore.  Give the person time to reflect on what they have written and ask them what insights they have gained from the exercise.  This process often provides the necessary data to re-ignite their desire or conversely they may finally recognise why they aren’t motivated to achieve their goal, and give it away without guilt.

This is just a fraction of what can be achieved through neuro-semantics (NS).  If you would like to know more of how NS can enhance performance in your organisation, give Amalgam a call.

Alternatively, you could ignore this and continue to do the same things you’ve done in the past in the hope that things will change in the future.  Competitive edge starts in the minds of your people and NS is the technology that can shift and shape those minds.

Get your managers and supervisors to attend training

Leaders are your best tool for obtaining feedback, monitoring performance and developing long-term positive behaviours in their teams.  Leaders must be in on training efforts, from the beginning.

Don’t try to squeeze too much in to one session

Work with manageable session lengths and discuss with your trainer the amount of content that should be introduced in each session.

Cover the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’

If employees understand what your big-picture business goals are, and how their individual efforts impact the business, they will be more motivated and will take personal ownership of their goals.

Consider the training environment

Make the training environment fit the message.  If your push is for improved presentation and service levels, make sure the situation is both professional and inspirational.

Finish training with a commitment to action

Set targets. Have your managers and supervisors, as well as their teams, involved,

Focus on the KASH to create change

KASH

• Knowledge
• Attitude
• Skills
• Habits

is a proven technique for targeting performance improvements and developing effective training programmes. To train effectively you must ensure you develop all the KASH areas of the people or teams you work with.

Example: You want a person to ask searching questions with customers. Be sure they have all the KASH they need to be able to perform this task consistently and effectively.

Knowledge – do they have the knowledge of what questions to ask, how to ask these questions and when to ask them? Do they even know why they need to ask questions?

Attitude – do they have a positive attitude towards asking searching questions, do they care, do they want to question their customers, are they willing to apply their knowledge?

Skills – do they have the skills to ask good questions, have they practised, drilled and rehearsed these, do they ask questions skilfully, elegantly, masterfully?

Habits – is asking questions becoming a habit, do they perform this task naturally without thinking and do they do it consistently with every single customer?

If you focus on only one area of KASH then you are risking the person not making the changes you require. Even if one area of KASH is missing then performance is hindered. Can you imagine having the knowledge, attitude and skills to ask good customer questions but not making this a habit? This scenario would be a waste of human potential because there weren’t systems in place to create a habit. The same applies if you leave out any of the KASH elements.

Measuring training ROI begins with knowing the objectives and goals of your training programme. While not all training has a clear and direct link to bottom-line results, all training should have an outcome so you can quantify the results. For example you may provide safety training with the goal of reducing accident rates or reduce costs associated with this. Customer Service training might be aimed at boosting customer satisfaction, improving customer loyalty and/or generating lifetime customer value. Sales training may have a number of different objectives such as increasing sales volume, increasing margins, reducing the cost of sales, reducing the impact of competitor activities, changing your mix of business or any number of other things.

To calculate training ROI, you must know the total benefit gained from each programme. And the best way to do this is to compare measures within a group of employees, both before and after training. Measures could include average sale value per customer, time spent with each customer, wastage, product returns or employee retention. Then you must tally up your costs – including training fees, materials and trainee’s time away from work.

In the long term, you will be able to quantify the success of your training programme by comparing the investment in training with total cost benefits over a period of time.

A Simple Formula

A simple formula to calculate the net gain derived from your training budget (as a %):.

Net Gain (Total Benefits – Total Costs) x 100
Total Cost of Training

Ten Tips to Boost Training ROI

1. Clearly and carefully identify the outcomes and results you want to target for improvement.

2. Produce updated KPIs (where needed) to hold people accountable after training.

3. Ensure outcomes/KPIs are aligned with the business unit’s strategic goals and objectives.

4. Involve a training professional early in the process so they fully understand your needs.

5. Have your training professional develop the material and then run a pilot to fine tune training

6. Ensure managers and supervisors attend sessions to demonstrate the importance of training.

7. Elect internal advocates to ‘sell’ the training and support change.

8. Ensure managers lead change by modifying their own behaviours in line with training.

9. Finish training with commitments to action – set measurable targets and time frames.

10. Give new skills time to master and develop, provide necessary support for change to happen

Engagement at work is a serious issue when you consider the cost to businesses of low engagement. A 2006 Gallup survey indicated that only 1 in 4 NZ employees are actively engaged and a huge portion of employees are neutral.  Essentially that means the difference between those that go the extra mile and the majority who merely turn up and do the minimum required.  The survey estimated that this lack of engagement costs NZ businesses $3.7 billion per annum.  Ouch!  And this figure doesn’t even take into account the ‘human’ cost including low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy, general unhappiness and stress to name just a few.

But this sounds all very negative doesn’t it?  So let’s look at the positive side to the engagement equation.  Given the importance of the issue and the vast amount of research conducted, many businesses have worked to improve engagement and have reaped the rewards as a result.

A host of research exists to demonstrate the direct correlation between people’s level of engagement and company’s financial performance.  Finally we can provide the evidence those bean-counters have been looking for – phew!  Here’s just one researched sample from Rutgers University.

Companies (USA) with high engagement:

• Contribute to a 12% higher share price.
• Produce $27,000 more sales per employee.
• Create $18,600 more market value per employee.
• Generate $3,800 more profit per employee.

In case you’re not convinced still, then consider these words from Jack Welch, author of “Good to Great.”

“Employee Engagement First.  It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energised employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.  That’s why you need to take measure of employee engagement at least once a year through anonymous surveys in which people feel completely safe to speak their minds.”