Emotional Driver – Employee Engagement – Business Profit Formula

Hello, My name is Yulia Reinshmidt. I'm a CEO at CastEffect, Business Filming Method.

I want to present you with a successfully implemented and tested method to raise your financial and organizational results – Business Filming.

Business Filming method is all about implementation and upgrade of existing methods and knowledge in the organizations: improving sales, customer service and management results and make more financial incomes – make more money.

One way we do it is by identifying the emotional driver that makes people to perform effectively in the organization. This emotional driver is one of the big secrets a company may make a real positive difference in its financial results and make more money.

This is the formula:

Emotional driver for better performance brings to better employee engagement. Employee engagement drives higher profit to the business.

Emotional employee engagement = higher profit to the business:

There are many recent researches and reports on this issue. One of them, the Gallup Q12 Meta-Analysis showed a study of 23,910 business units compared top quartile and bottom quartile engagement scores and found that those in the top quartile averaged 12% higher profitability.

So, how do we identify the emotional driver? Here are the initial steps:
There are 2 powerful tools we can use:
1. Visualization
2. Creative writing
These are tools that scriptwriters use to create an entire new world of content for their masterpiece.

Visualization:
Try visualizing and imagining your employee at his workplace:
1. How does he appear to work every day?
2. Does he choose to stay alone ("a lone rider") or contact his team members ("team player")?
3. Is he active in your team meetings?
4. How does he behave when meeting his direct manager?
5. Is he dedicated to his missions and tasks?
6. How does he manage his time schedule?

Think about:
• His mood,
• His concerns,
• His dilemmas,
• His behavior when he's confused.

Explore his drivers and motivators:
What is he looking for to achieve as a personal success: Self fulfillment? Power? Control? Recognition? Friendly environment?
Ignore the financial reward part: as most of the researches prove, people will stay at their workplace if they feel happy and satisfied due to their contribution and personal impact on significant decisions.
Arrange enough time in your busy schedule for this imaginary tour – this will be worthwhile for you!

Creative writing:
Once you're able to imagine in details the situation, take a pen and write (actually write, don't type, no computers here!!) an imaginary dialogue between you and your employee.
Think about explorative questions you'll use. These are the questions you'll need in order to understand your employee's needs and motivators. Think about possible answers, and how you'll react to them.
Finally, find a friend, colleague, family member or any other person and exercise.
Do that at least 5 times, until you feel that you actually have already been at this meeting.
Schedule a meeting with your employee – don't wait until annual feedback and appreciation meetings occur.

Now you are in the way to identify the emotional driver for performance. This is your chance to grow your profit through your committed people.

I started here to present you with a successfully implemented and tested method to raise your financial and organizational results – Business Filming.

As our potential customer, we offer you to pay us our basic expenses,
and the rest - from your success.

Join us!

Providing feedback with supportive leadership scriptwriting tools

Today's leaders are looking for the right models, which better increase business performance, employee motivation, workplace relationships, relaxed work atmosphere and employee satisfaction. In parallel, they strive to create high business results, efficiency, commitment, cooperation and cohesion among their employees. They are actively taking part in a work environment, where employees do not see themselves develop long-term commitment to their organization, and are not afraid of frequent changes and shifts from one job to another.
One of the key management concepts that provide the best outcomes for today's leaders is called "Supportive Leadership".
During innovative corporate workshops, "supportive leader" learns to be a competent manager who applies various skills, including:
• Communication skills
• Inter-personal skills
• Professional expertise
• Delegating
• Excellence encouragement
• Awareness and understanding of the concept of compensation
• High technical capability

They are expected to behave as understanding, considerate, trusting, respecting, helping, caring, sharing, encouraging and empathic individuals. According to one study, a supportive leadership exists when managers allow their employees to fail without fear of being reprimanded or punished. This enables the managers to earn their employees' commitment and control the effort of fulfilling the mission in time using more effective manner (Brown and Lee, 1996).

Scriptwriting techniques for supportive leadership feedback test
One of the major opportunities of "supportive managers" to utilize supportive skills and behaviors is during processes of providing feedback. It has been said about this process that "Few managers want to deliver it, most subordinates don't want to receive it. Yet, there is little improvement without it "(Murray Johannsen). Feedback is also an opportunity for the "supportive manager" to examine the employee behavior in the past and to reflect the expected behavior in the future. However, in order to succeed in the task of "providing supportive feedback" and turn it into a positive growth mission, the manager has to develop his understanding skill. Understanding should relate to an exact identification of the employee's motives to behave in one way or another.

To help managers implementing the feedback successfully, I usually use a scriptwriting technique taken from the film making world during my leadership training workshops. In movies, characters exist only if they do something, describing the behavior or their particular character trait. Imagine you're scriptwriters are working on a specific scene, depicting two characters, a manager and an employee during a feedback meeting. To make this meeting interactive you should write a dialogue.
To create your audience identification with your dialogue you build a "preliminary background story", in other words:
What was going on before that made you decide this scene will be of feedback meeting?
What each one of the characters had done before and as a result of their actions you felt you should insert a feedback meeting scene?
What were the motives of each character behavior and were these motives in some way connected?

Supportive feedback meeting (illustration)

Let's take for example the following "preliminary background story":

An employee was asked by his manager to prepare an important document for his company's major project – a type of strategic tender offer. The management set very tight and demanding deadlines for this project. The employee's assignment included quite a big task of information gathering from his colleagues. He became stressed and tense as a result of lack of time. The document wasn't prepared on time and the delay dragged the other project-related tasks. The project manager also found himself in a stressful situation due to senior management dissatisfaction of the way he controlled the project process. He asks the employee to come to his room for an urgent meeting.

Now, our manager character has to implement a supportive technique of asking questions and reflecting responses. It will be effective for you to use the two following tables:
1. Recommended questions to ask based on their related "rules of thumb" to assist the manager to identify employee behavior motives.
2. Possible responses with their related possible motives characteristics

Supportive Feedback Meeting questions - Table no.1

Question (manager)	"Rule of thumb" for employee behavior motives identification
"What did you feel when you received the task of preparing the document?"	1. Decide to take the first step in identification of problem solving by using Powerful Questions. Use less 'Why?' And more "What" and "How" | 2. Strive to understand than to be understood
"What was the exact phase when you felt you couldn't accomplish the task? Did It happen when you had to provide the document or a few days before?"	Remember that there is much more than meets the eye - Understand that behaviors are the result of one's point of view
"Which obstacles have you experienced?"	Remember that people are different - employee behavior should be examined in respect to his skills and limitations of his personality
"What did you expect from your colleagues? Did you expect them to assist you? Did you ask for their help?"	Reflect the results of choosing to behave that way or another - without judging and without comparing between other employees' performance
"What do you think will happen in the coming days?"	Allow the employee to understand his own motives and offer a solution acceptable to both parties
"If you could, how would you change what was happened?"	Make sure the employee understands what the purpose of a feedback is, and why it should help him grow and develop personally and professionally
"What do you think you can do now to improve the situation?"	Always remember the purpose of the identification: to change behavior – not to change people
"How would you like me to help you next time you face the same situation?"	Make the feedback being a memorable experience of empowerment and motivation to produce positive results

Supportive Feedback Meeting possible answers - Table no.2

Question (manager)	Possible Answer	Possible Motive Characteristic
"What did you feel when you received the task of preparing the document?"	"I felt that I won't be able to do it. I didn't have enough time, but I decided to try anyway and cope with the stress"	Employee characteristic - increasing demands | Task characteristic - tight deadlines | Organization characteristic – strategic tender offer
"What was the exact phase when you felt you couldn't accomplish the task? Did It happen when you had to provide the document or a few days before?"	"Actually, I don't remember. I felt that way all the time. I wasn't sure what to do"	Employee characteristic - lack of self confidence | Task characteristic - requirements to implement creativity in fulfilling the task | Organization characteristic – inflexible procedures and strict targets
"Which obstacles have you experienced?"	"Well, I didn't know who I should talk to about that. Everyone was so busy with their assignments. I also got an impression that I'm expected to do this all by myself. After a day or two I realized that I need some more information from other guys, but I didn't know who might help me with that. You know, I'm new to this business..."	Employee characteristic – insecurity, lack of knowledge and experience in fulfilling the tasks, expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - a task too structured and inflexible | Organization characteristic – reorganization in teams' structure, entrance to a homogeneous and cohesive team (not open to new perspectives)
"What did you expect from your colleagues? Did you expect them to assist you? Did you ask for their help?"	"No, I didn't. It seems they have their own habits...They didn't like the ideas I presented in our last team meeting"	Employee characteristic – expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - lack of opportunities for personal expression and lack of teamwork | Organization characteristic – reorganization in teams' structure, entrance to a homogeneous and cohesive team (not open to new perspectives)
"What do you think will happen in the coming days?"	"I'll be happy if you could advice me..."	Employee characteristic – expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - requirements to implement creativity in fulfilling the task | Organization characteristic – indisputable authority of the managers
"If you could, how would you change what was happened?"	"I would try to ask my manager to have a team meeting and discuss the possible creative solutions for completing the task. Maybe then I'll feel much better and do my best. And get to work with the veterans here – they probably can help me a lot!"	Employee characteristic –expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - requirements to implement creativity in fulfilling the task | Organization characteristic – strategic tender offer timely submission
"What do you think you can do now to improve the situation?"	"Talk with you every time I feel that way and try to ask for assistance from the team"	Employee characteristic –expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - requirements to implement creativity in fulfilling the task | Organization characteristic – strategic tender offer timely submission
"How would you like me to help you next time you face the same situation?"	Talk with me :)	Employee characteristic –expectations to get assistance from the executives | Task characteristic - requirements to lack of opportunities for personal expression | Organization characteristic – strategic tender offer timely submission

And now imagine the real world: you're a manager and you need to provide your employee a feedback and identify the motives for his behavior. Write the same dialogue when you are preparing for the feedback meeting and try to think about possible answers to your questions. Try to reflect in your own words your employee's answers.

Done? You're ready to go!

After the meeting prepare a "supportive feedback" to yourself:
• How did I function?
• Have I understood exactly the motive of my employee's behavior?
• Was I able to reflect the results of his behavior?
• Did I suggest possible solutions to the complex situation?
• Did we find together the solution that best suits me?
• What would I change next time I provide feedback?

Good luck!

Note: This article is partly based on the results of a recent discussion entitled "Necessary communication skills in providing a feedback" I initiated in LinkedIn.

Improving Employee Engagement by Group Dynamics Principles

In recent years many organizations have begun to implement creative training tools, inspired by work techniques from theater, cinema, visual arts and music production and based on certain aspects of Emotional Intelligence (EI). These tools are implemented mostly during formal corporate group training workshops and team meetings and informal group conversations and even during lunch time breaks. These tools are based on group dynamics which is developed in these occasions.

Analysis of these meetings shows significant improvement of the participants' level of motivation and active engagement long after the sessions ended. Studies conducted over the past decade examined this phenomenon and have proved the following claim: A group activity, based on collaborative and creative problem solving, creates higher emotional involvement of the participants. The level of emotional involvement created during these group processes is directly related to the participants' motivation level and thus improves business performance.

To explain this claim we must first examine the main principles of group dynamics:

1. The individual need vs. group's need

Naturally, every group consists of individuals. Every group aims to achieve and accomplish goals, willing to produce a tangible product or result. Individual members of the group often desire to play a major role in the group, to influence and contribute. Participation in the group enables them to affect the progress of the group towards its goals and take joint responsibility for the group's results.

2. The emotional aspect of group behavior

In his early studies Freud has noted the difference in behavior between individuals and individuals as group's members. Belonging to a specific group makes people feel, think and behave in a more complete and clear manner. Uniform intensity prevailing at the group during activities increases emotional involvement of the group members and makes them want to take part in the group's unique atmosphere.

3. The organizational benefit

Another aspect of group dynamics is act of supportive leadership with an emphasis on collaborative creativity. This aspect was observed in many organizations. Participation in these processes develops both the employee and his manager, since it has advantages and benefits to both parties. When participation is active and the involvement of employees is consistent with the goals of the organization - both parties benefit. Therefore, one of the organizational challenges is to explore these standards and adapt them in various group programs.

4. Emotional involvement and inter-personal conflicts

Despite what was said before, one must consider also the flip side - the degree of emotional involvement of the group members has direct impact on the processes and results issued by the group - sometimes this effect is positive but in some cases it can also be negative. One should consider the existing connection between the group's tasks and the inter-personal relationship of group's members. The assumption is that conflicts associated with the task are significantly influenced by the group's ability to fulfill its goals, unless these conflicts lead to inter-personal conflicts and negative results. In this case, the task relies on team leader / facilitator's shoulders: he needs to recreate an atmosphere of team cooperation, listening and positive approach.

In this context, it's important to comment and say that the group leader's efforts shouldn't necessarily concentrate on achieving unanimity. A research on creative processes in the group by Theodor Adorno, a German sociologist, psychologist and musicologist, pointed out, that we shouldn't necessarily aim to create harmony of unanimity, which sometimes is in fact false, but rather to enable the appearance of conflicts and contradictions, which creates a valuable statement for the group and for the entire organization.

Let's examine one of the leading models of group dynamics and try to figure out the possible ways to raise the emotional involvement of employees in the organization based on this model.
The model is based on 4 stages and was developed by Dr. Stuart L Tubbs, Professor of Management Darrell H. Cooper Chair in Leadership, author, leading leadership consultant and a contributing editor for the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies.

1. Orientation: Group assembly, diagnosis of the problems to be solved and an initial assessment of options for solving. In this stage, the individual becomes aware of the opportunities for self-fulfillment and personal mark. He's able to actively participate in the discussion regarding problem solving, explore its various aspects and examine the source of this specific recurring problem.

2. Conflict: The group's members discuss and suggest possible solutions. The discussion is active and energetic, includes variety of opinions and contradictions and involves all the group's members. As the following stage of orientation, the individual is already part of the group, and is affected by the groups' atmosphere. He feels completely free to legitimately express his opinion and to take the opportunity to influence the rest of the members to identify with his thoughts. There is a role-playing recommended technique, taken from an actors' coaching exercise, which allows participants not only to express themselves but to experience the ability to adopt various points of view.

Some guiding questions that could occur at this phase and promote the work progress towards the next phase (consensus or agreement) are:
How the character might have thought about this situation?
What means would he use?
What action would he choose to take?
How would he try to explain the problem to others?

3. Consensus: This is the right time for the group to settle down, agree on alternatives and discuss the conclusions of the implementation process. During the consensus stage familiar feelings of "group pride" is formed. In fact, after the group has faced all the conflicts and contradictions in a positive way, and managed to get to a unified agreement, members experience mutual understanding and empathy. They realize that each participant has a personal part in the group task success. These feelings lead the group to formalize a tangible and applicable product.

4. Closure: This stage occurs after the group finished its tasks. The group's outputs are ready and now the executives expect to begin the process of implementation and integration. This phase is very challengeable for management level in the organization. The goal is to leverage the motivation created during the three previous stages and to execute all the decisions and conclusions being made. At this stage the individual expects to take an active part in the process, continue to influence and express himself.

Conclusion
Corporate leaders, who understand the significance of group dynamics stages in producing a culture of positive employee engagement, are able to increase effectiveness, improve performance and provide better business results in their organization.


Yulia Reinshmidt is CEO, Director of Training and Lecturer at CastEffect, cutting-edge training company specializes in innovative and unique training method for employee engagement and knowledge retention of leadership, sales and customer service skills.

Movietraining™ - knowledge distribution tool

Based on a true story - Ann, a training manager in a company with multiple locations has a headache

Ann, a training manager in a company with multiple locations, was until the morning proud of her latest achievement: two months ago all of the company branch managers passed a series of training sessions, where they were updated about the company's goals and learned innovative methods to improve their sales' skills. Managers actively participated and expressed interest in the material. At the end of the training she received great feedback and she was very pleased.

"This morning, before I set to talk to you", she tells me, "I went as usual at 8:30 to the office; I opened the computer and the first thing I saw was an urgent summons to my boss's office, VP human resources. I entered his office a few minutes later, and at the entrance I already felt that something was wrong..."

"Ann", he told me, "Yesterday Ned (our VP of Sales) stopped me in the hallway and he was very concerned and nervous. He told me he studied last month reports, and he was surprised to find no increase on sales, as everyone expected, and everything stays the same as at the beginning of the year – it seems too slow, salesmen are tired… "

"Yes", I said, haven't any idea how to respond.

"Ned claimed", My boss kept firing at me, "that he made some checks yesterday and discovered that no branch managers had initiated any new move – they didn't gathered their teams for weekly meetings, didn't guided their deputies. Instead they continued to handle only the daily routine activities - inventory management, branch maintenance and dealing with customer complaints. He just can't figure out why the company decided to spend so much money on expensive training, which eventually yielded no results! He intends to request an urgent meeting with the CEO on this issue as soon as possible! "

My boss took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. While I focused all along the floor, frantically looking for an escape route close to me, to jump way down, probably directly to the main warehouse on the ground floor ...

"Ann", My boss said coolly after a minute of absolute silence, which seemed like eternity, "I ask you to submit to me an urgent detailed report on the latest branch managers' training. I want to know what was there every minute, I want to know who said what and when, I want to know who was breathing, who was blinking, who was scratching his head. I want to know everything! "

"Fine", I said.

When I went out of my boss's office, I felt as if all this company's future is laying on my shoulders right now and of course the future of its entire staff. And as you know me, I don't really have large shoulders ...
I went back to the office, I took several deep breaths and after a few minutes of thinking and focusing I decided to call Tom, a branch manager, who I like and have good contact with. I promised myself to take an objective attitude and especially to listen to Tom, but it didn't take me more than 5 seconds to tell Tom everything. He, in his turn, surprised me by saying:

"Ann, I assure you, there is no a single branch managers who doesn't agree that the training was excellent. But the problem is not with the training! The problem is something completely different!
When I returned to the office after the training I felt good - I felt I learned a lot, I got an important insight, but when I tried to remember certain subjects from the training sessions I found out that I only remembered the summary at the end of the day. I actually liked one advice based on a case study from another company, but I couldn't concentrate and understand how I can apply it in our office.
The next day we received a large new stock of products for the holidays. Two weeks later the IT team installed a new system of collection (you must remember what pressure we had during this time period), and I was fully occupied and busy with my daily work. Two weeks ago, when things calmed down a bit, I tried to actually remember some of the things we learned at the last meeting, especially the issue of how to handle sales objections, and I'll tell you the truth – I didn't remember anything.
I avoided scheduling a staff meeting - if I can't get myself to remember all the insights I have learned, how could I possibly pass them to 200 employees?? "

I stopped Tom for a moment: "Let me understand what you're basically telling me. You say that if you had the means to remember what you had learned, to know how to implement it in our branches and to pass all that knowledge to your employees – would you have done more?"

Tom said: "Absolutely! One can't rely on what I remember, it won't make me achieving better results, it can't provide me with tools to improve sales and it won't bring the expected change!"

"I understand you perfectly", I said, and for the first time this morning I had a smile upon my face.


I assume that you, the reader, as a training manager in an organization with multiple locations or an expert in sales training, probably had faced or will face the situation described here. How can knowledge be shared in large organization with multiple locations so it will make a positive impact on the company's business results? How can one find the solution which will have the optimal cost - benefit ratio for the organization?

Ann is smiling because she is aware of a solution to this issue.
Recently a new product called Movietraining™ , developed by CastEffect, was introduced to the market, which provides a solution exactly to this issue. The product is a short, focused and result driven process based on tools taken from filmmaking process. This process implements four principles which make it so effective:

1. Learning process - the participants create content for corporate training video using scriptwriting techniques, where they provide a unique and customized interpretation to sales skills and how to improve corporate sales. The customization enables managers like Tom to use the trained material for their specific needs.
2. Documentation of the learning process for using in future ongoing training – it provides a solution for managers like Tom, who only remembered a small percentage of what they learned during the training sessions.
3. Production of training video - directing, photographing and editing scripts from the learning process to be used for creating training video as working toolbox for managers like Tom to distribute knowledge acquired by them to their employees.
4. Additional Training Kit, which includes a list of written principles, conclusions and recommendations for future ongoing learning.

...on his way to distribute training knowledge...

Ann can still save the situation - she will gather the managers once again for a short training session. They will experience all phases of the Movietraining™ - and I'll wait for a phone call from her and read in the newspapers a report about the significant increase in her company's business results!

Want to learn more? Read about Casteffect - Employees produce Sales Training Videos

I would love to hear your opinion, share knowledge and experience.

Sincerely,

Yulia Reinshmidt,

Co-CEO, Content & Production Manager,

CastEffect

yulia@casteffect.com

Writing your success script - Tip #4

Tip #4: Writing your success script – What do they REALLY mean? The importance of subtext in sales and service situations

Don Corleone: I'm gonna make him an offer he won't refuse. Okay? I want you to leave it all to me. Go on, go back to the party. (The Godfather, 1972)

Ask yourself: how many times each day you are selling something to someone? An idea, an initiative, a message, a product, a service?
In such a situation – would you admit that most of the time you were concentrated on what you had said and not of your customer's response?
And if you were concentrated listening to what your customer says - do you feel that you really understood what he was trying to convey to you in his words?

This "transmission" I talk about is transmitted in two channels simultaneously: The open channel (the text itself) and the hidden channel (non-verbal – the speaker's real intention). This hidden channel is called "subtext" in the cinematic jargon. Sometimes, there is a full similarity between the text and the subtext, but the real challenging situations are those which suggest a clear dissonance between these two.
Subtext, or the ability to "read between the lines", has a crucial role in communication between the seller and the customer during the sales' process or service's process. The success of both parties in this process (which brings to close a deal) is related to, among other things, the mutual ability to read the mutual subtext and its correct interpretation.

The world of subtext is a non-verbal world. It is communicated by facial movements, gestures, intonation. In a film script the subtext has a very important role in the characterization process and in building a dramatic conflict between the characters. This visual medium allows the actor to express the same sentence on two levels simultaneously - verbally, as written in the text, and in a non-verbal manner as subtext.
For example, the phrase "I love you." I want to introduce an alternative to direct this scene: the girl says this sentence while lowering her gaze, lowering her voice, holding her head, blushing and tearful – we as the audience experience her great excitement (situation shown in the case where the love of the couple is in danger or in a situation where the girl finally decides to reveal to her friend her hidden love.)
Second alternative can be: A girl says “I love you” as she stands motionless, her hands pressed tightly to her body, she is very pale, looking terrified and frightened. We as spectators feel that she is in great danger, she is very afraid of the character whom she told this sentence (her lover?) or afraid of some other people that are listening to them.
Note that as spectators we experience enormous difference, while listening to the exact same sentence. The screen writer will write subtext in the script to assure that the right message will pass to us, the spectators, most effectively.

Now let’s go back to the world of sales and service and find out how we can use subtext during sales training using the following case study:

Case Study
Sales or service phone call provides a particularly interesting challenge in understanding the subject of subtext. In such a type of communication with the client the visual sense becomes irrelevant, and thus one cannot interpret the subtext through mime or gestures.
In one of the call centers we trained sales and service representatives in "reading" subtext during the first 30 seconds of the dialogue. Along with the representatives we’ve classified three typical figures of clients: childish, adult and authoritative. All figures underwent a characterization of their features and repeated patterns of behavior.


After this phase, participants wrote conversation's scripts with each of the characters, when the emphasis was on three stages of the conversation: conversation opening, the dramatic turning point and the decision as a result of that turning point.

The practice aims to develop and train the participants' senses to identify the customer's subtext by his way of phrasing things, his tone, his breath and background noise, in order to avoid emergence of extreme conflicts during the dialogue - screams, tantrums, phone slams, threats, getting angry.

Participants wrote different scripts based on dialogues with these three types of customers. These scenarios demonstrated the suitable working methods resulting of the right identification of subtext. Then, once staged, filmed and edited, these scenarios have become internal corporate training videos.

The result - increased quality of service (the talks were shortened, the tone has become more service like, there weren't significant customer complaints), the high sales results were following and the motivation of service and sales representatives improved very significantly.



Want to know more about this positive change? Read more about Sales training videos and Service training videos.
I would love to hear your opinions, learn from your experience and share knowledge.

Question For You: In cases of multi-cultural corporate communication training – how can we implement subtext technique?

Sincerely,
Yulia Reinshmidt
Co-CEO, Content & Production Manager
yulia@casteffect.com
CastEffect

Our next post will be tip #5 - writing a screenplay about the meaning of service values – "service beyond imagination"

Writing your success script - Tip #3

The Third Tip: Writing your success script - a management tool for intuitive decision making

"You cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours". (White Queen to Alice from "Alice in Wonderland", 2010)

This morning, a team leader in financial company faced a difficulty in making a decision how to resolve a conflict created between the two veteran employees of his staff. Many managers face such situations on a daily basis. The manager has two ways to deal with this challenge:

One way is to ignore, deny, suppress, threaten...
Another way is to use own intuition: take the time to think, imagine, step into one's shoes, identify with, find associations from the past...

In my opinion intuition is a combination of many factors, two of them are using imagination and storytelling, based on Dr. Daniel Cappon approach described in his book "Intuition and Management".
Creating a story (from a narrative view and images' slideshow views) reminds me the work of a screenwriter. The fundamental difference between a screenwriter and novelist is the ability to describe only the situations that have a visual justification because the final product is something that has to be photographed. One will never find a sentence like "He was extremely moved at it" in a script. Instead he will find: "He was excited, tears were streaming down his face, and he was shaking all over, his daughter standing next to him supported him so he wouldn't collapse."
This method of writing in such a detailed way is in my eyes an excellent exercise technique for developing intuitive management.

The exercise addresses a situation of a conflict between two employees and is performed in two stages:
Background: you as a team leader should take a decision regarding a conflict that broke out between two employees in your team.

Step One: Try to imagine in great detail, as if you had to write a future scene, how you will handle this conflict: What things you will say, what tone and volume you will use, will you sit or stand at this moment, will you move your hands. On the other hand - each of the two employees are speaking to you in this situation - what will each of them say? What can you learn from their face expressions? How will they move their hands?

Step Two: Change roles and step into each of your employees' shoes. Write the script again from the point of view (POV - point of view) of each one of them.

What are the differences you have found between the two versions? And what can you learn from that? Do you "see" the right solution for you for this conflict? If so - write it as soon as you can!
If you try to analyze the exercise you will quickly get to the conclusion that what made you change the way you think is the second stage, the stage of the POV (Point of View).

The next case study will demonstrate you how it worked in practice.

Case Study
Recently I conducted an interesting conference for 60 executives of the national major call center. The purpose of the conference was to raise awareness and generate insights for the annual training process, based on patterns of change management and creating a new intuitive leadership approach.
The metaphorical theme of the conference was sports, the work was done by discussions in the plenum and six subjects were defined as success accelerators: Individual added value, breakthrough, corporate communication, effectiveness, management procedures and dealing with crisis.
The managers were divided into three groups according to three types of POV inspired from the sports world: coach, player and audience. Each group had to record three stages by each POV: Definition of the ideal leader by his functioning and characteristics, setting constraints that prevent him from performing these activities and finding solutions (tools and actions) in order to overcome these barriers.
Each phase during the teamwork was translated into a cinematic scene, was dramatized by the managers and presented the situation from these three POVs.

At the end of the conference, many insights were gathered into organized management code, and each of the managers was asked to choose single insight, and implement it in his group during the following month.

The conclusion:
The operative ability to find a solution and make a decision was achieved by creative thinking and looking at the situation from different perspectives. One of the managers told me: "The ability to leave my private circle, to look at the situation from a different perspective, telling myself the story from this perspective - this is a tool that will help me in many future challenging situations of decision-making".

Want to know more about this positive change? Read more about CastEffect Management training videos and CastEffect Leadership training videos.

I would love to hear your opinions, learn from your experience and share knowledge.

Question For You: In which cases do you recommend using POV techniques for training and learning processes?

Sincerely,
Yulia Reinshmidt
Co-CEO, Content & Production Manager
yulia@casteffect.com
CastEffect

Our next post will be tip #4 - writing a screenplay about subtext in sales and training situations - what do they REALLY mean

Writing a success script - Tip #1

The First Tip - writing a screenplay about conflict resolution
You must be familiar with the following situation: You are aware that there is always the same recurrent situation you are facing, where you take bad decisions, leading to an unwanted outcome. You are aware that this situation is problematic, you are aware that the result will cause damages to you and to your environment, and yet - you do the same mistake again and again. You're stuck!

Case Study:
After extensive diagnosis process of the company's management, it was found that the company suffers from a number of unhealthy symptoms in its daily progression. For several months, the management has tried to internalize the issue, find the behavior patterns that cause the appearance of these symptoms and especially talk about it. One of the topics, which made a big fuss, was the issue of gossip within the organization.
But, it was necessary to move forward - it was necessary to offer real applicable solutions, alternatives that will lead the organization to new behavior patterns and make it healthier.
Is there a method that can take forward the organization from being stuck in this problematic status into a bright and clear view of potential solutions?

Creative film-related thinking is here to help. The managers experienced this type of thinking using the "sliding doors" method and creating their own content based on a creative process of film making. This content reflected the various possible outcomes (positive and negative) of potential solutions.

"Sliding Doors" film, which was produced in 1998, tells a person's life story, a story which could be completely different just if a single train would have been late ... If Helen will catch the train she will live go into one path of situations, if she will be late she will progress in a different path. The film belongs to the current post - modern genre, in favor of non linear plot, which is not committed to the pattern of intro - conflict - climax - resolving conflict - the end. The plot structure is derived from the events. One can locate the epilogue in the beginning of the plot and the prologue in the end. Events can occur in parallel lines and there is no focus on a single line. The plot is a mix of perspectives and narrative lines which meet and separate alternately.
The film serves as our inspiration: how the decisions I choose exactly in the same situation can affect the results? What happens when I am aware of all options and I choose consciously to choose the one that will bring positive outcome?

One executive said: "I understand now, that we as management should allow a number of communication platforms for personal expression in our organization. Because we weren't aware of this to this day, employees took the easy way to gossip - but paid an expensive personal price. Let sit down and think how we can encourage people to express themselves thus improve the communication in our organization! "

Want to know more about this positive change? Read more about CastEffect Film making and Corporate Training Videos

I would love to hear your opinions, learn from your experience and share knowledge.

Question For You: What other films you recommend to use for the issue about solving conflicts?

Sincerely,
Yulia Reinshmidt
Co-CEO, Content & Production Manager
yulia@casteffect.com
CastEffect

Our next post will be tip #2 - writing a screenplay about sales skills in multi-branch companies