At one point in my life (1999), I was in massive debt (about -US$320,000) because of a business venture gone wrong. I got a job for a multi-national based in Singapore. By nature, I have always been a positive and responsible person – always putting in 100% of my effort to get the job done. And when I went to work for this company. I thought I could make a difference in the organization (as many people do when they first start work), I was confronted with people blaming each other and not cooperating, I thought I could help. 4 and a half months later, the unimaginable happened, I became a different person! And one I didn’t like to boot. I became cynical and started blaming others too, I stopped cooperating and I became part of the culture that I though I could change.

One day at breakfast, I saw what I had become and knew it wasn’t me. I needed to discover the powers that could change such a positive person into a negative individual who only did the minimum required instead of his usual 100%. Psychology and its applications to groups and workforce, where the directions I sought. And that’s where I looked for answers to rediscover my identity as a responsible, positive and effective member of the workforce

Part of the reactions caused in our “environments” are related to expectations of others we work or live with. The CBCI is a foundation tool that identifies the way a person’s brain communicates. When an individual has an awareness of how peoples actions relate to their brain processing – or in DC language “what colour glasses they are wearing”, it gives a foundation to reason instead of reaction. In essence, the CBCI helps people to react less to actions related to a persons genetic disposition of brain communication.

This is a 360º perception profile. It deals with the way a person believes they fill their personal emotional drive, and the reality that is perceived by others. The tool provide an analysis of the gaps between different environments of superiors, peers and subordinates. While the CBCI deals with the genetic aspects of processing, this deals with the environment cultivated emotional drives that affect our motivation. When a person becomes aware of the gaps in perception, realizations are made about personal actions within those environments and how they are affecting (even taking away from) other peoples emotional needs. This leads to the ability to adjust behavior to be more congruent with what a person “Wants to Be” and therefore affect the environment they work or live in.

Well, for productivity, I would have to say Nestle, the attitudes of management and their ability to Bring out the Best in their employees was demonstrated in the implementation of a significant company wide initiative while superseding the sales goals. The original belief was that due to the amount of extra effort required for the initiative that sales and performance targets should be reduced. The transformation happened when the management applied DC psychology strategies with their employees, and attitudes toward their place in the organization was shifted.

For organisation “alignment” though, I would say MTV Asia, transformation came after a series of programs that allowed individuals to Live the MTV brand at work which in turn affected personal fulfilment and turnover as well as sales across different departments

Don’t Need Suck!
In group dynamics, each individual will have specific emotional drivers and needs that motivate them as explained above. While individuals do have different priorities of these needs, and may fulfil them differently, the needs are the same.In a closed environment such as a department, a small company or a project group, some of these foundational needs are limited in the amount of emotional gratification that can be distributed amongst its members. When one or two members fill their own emotional needs first and take a majority of the fulfilment, they leave others with less or sometimes no gratification in these areas.

Three of the main emotional drives and needs that are sucked are:

1. Feeling recognized, significant, important
2. Feeling secure and in control
3. Feeling of diversity and variety

When our basic emotional needs are taken away, we use our “Reptilian Brain”, and React like lizards, instead of acting intelligently. This happens often in organizations such as:

• Someone takes more credit than they should
• Someone makes decisions that affect you and you cannot do anything about it.
• Someone doesn’t at least acknowledge your efforts or ideas because they think THEY know better.
• Someone takes all the fun and diverse projects or tasks and leaves you with the mundane jobs.

The people who do this are the Need Suckers in an organization, and greatly affect productivity

Yes we do, but we are first developing our Directive Communication Franchisees to take on much of the demand that comes from expansion. These individuals are specially chosen for their passion to make a different and their ability to put aside their own ego. They also undergo training for 3 ½ months before getting their certifications in order to maintain quality. We are looking to get into the Americas in 2010 and Europe in 2012

As long as there are unfulfilled people at work, there is much to do.

Wow, that would be a very long answer. First, these strategies came from desperation. I had no money and was in massive debt and knew I would never get out by working for an organization. These were the creative reactions to a hopeless future, a future I didn’t want to live.

I am inclined to agree with Mr Garner simply because the definition of “Intelligence” is no longer defined as an academic notion. Even with the CBCI you will find that genetically we learn differently simply because to the process of interpretation or the way our brain “communicates” In my book Identity Intelligence, I define intelligence as “the ability to supersede “reaction” and act rationally in a given situation.

There are 2 equally important dates for May/June, the first, May 10th is our next recruitment for Directive Communication Licensees in Malaysia, and June 3rd is the Graduation dates for our 7 Singapore Franchisees.

Directive communication is a psychological methodology that allows an individual to influence the actions and reactions of groups. The applications for this depend on what kind of group dynamics you would like to create. For example, if you were applying it to leadership, one could bring out leadership qualities that would inspire the employees to enjoy their work and increase effectiveness. If we applied it to service, it would take the form of cultivating a service culture that was reinforced through personal fulfilment from delighting customers. Some other applications can include productivity, sales, project management, quality assurance, branding and organizational development. DC creates environments that support higher levels of group effectiveness in the discipline its applied to.

Results are what matters. Over 41% of individuals who attend directive communication workshops continue to practice it and use the DC tools they take home. While a 2 day workshop can make a huge difference for an individual however, it may not make such an impact for the total organization. For this purpose we have created a results guaranteed program that actually implements DC psychology practices into an organization. This is our 6 step Creative Synergy program

It is true that DC trainers are more expensive than the average trainer, but then again, HR and training managers can measure the results after a DC training. This is because DC training is NOT knowledge based but action based, so trainees have a different perspective of how to approach their jobs after experience DC. I guess the question is, would you rather spend RM2,000p/d on giving your people some “knowledge” that will most likely not get implemented; or, provide them with a more effective and accurate perception that will improve their performance from 5% to 20%, but costs RM5,000p/d?One must also consider the time employees are spending in training, if they don’t come back with implementable actions to improve their departments of become more effective in their job, then an organization looses the time that employee could have contributed to the bottom line.

Most DC programs are SDF approved for funding which helps to reduce direct cost to the company. And, DC trainers do a pre-training exploratory investigation and follow-up to assist in implementation.

And, as far as I know, there is no other 3 and a half month program that Guarantees ROI results like our Creative synergy program. This program either costs USD1 if we don’t meet result targets, or USD24,000 if we do. So is it cost effective when you know you will get a measurable result that gives you a specific return on investment? You decide.

One Singapore based manufacturing multi-national that applied DC in 3 departments increased its bottom line substantially by saving over S$17,000 per week in wastage.Another – the Malaysian division of a fortune 100 organization increased motivation and efficiency to implement and spear head a new global initiative requiring 30% more work from its 1800+ employees, while exceeding sales and growth goals for the region. This was a DC leadership development program

An international retail chain from Singapore increased its customer service standards and logistics effectiveness (inclusive of service) to cultivate an increase of over 12% customer loyalty.

Directive Communication was developed for Asian multi-cultural environments, so there are more Asian organization (or at least foreign organization BASED in Asia), using DC than in other parts of the world. The exceptions started using it in Asia and then disseminated it to their non-Asian branches

Directive communication is a psychological methodology that allows an individual to influence the actions and reactions of groups. The applications for this depend on what kind of group dynamics you would like to create. For example, if you were applying it to leadership, one could bring out leadership qualities that would inspire the employees to enjoy their work and increase effectiveness. If we applied it to service, it would take the form of cultivating a service culture that was reinforced through personal fulfilment from delighting customers. Some other applications can include productivity, sales, project management, quality assurance, branding and organizational development. DC creates environments that support higher levels of group effectiveness in the discipline its applied to.

Results are what matters. Over 41% of individuals who attend directive communication workshops continue to practice it and use the DC tools they take home. While a 2 day workshop can make a huge difference for an individual however, it may not make such an impact for the total organization. For this purpose we have created a results guaranteed program that actually implements DC psychology practices into an organization. This is our 6 step Creative Synergy program

It is true that DC trainers are more expensive than the average trainer, but then again, HR and training managers can measure the results after a DC training. This is because DC training is NOT knowledge based but action based, so trainees have a different perspective of how to approach their jobs after experience DC. I guess the question is, would you rather spend RM2,000p/d on giving your people some “knowledge” that will most likely not get implemented; or, provide them with a more effective and accurate perception that will improve their performance from 5% to 20%, but costs RM5,000p/d?One must also consider the time employees are spending in training, if they don’t come back with implementable actions to improve their departments of become more effective in their job, then an organization looses the time that employee could have contributed to the bottom line.

Most DC programs are SDF approved for funding which helps to reduce direct cost to the company. And, DC trainers do a pre-training exploratory investigation and follow-up to assist in implementation.

And, as far as I know, there is no other 3 and a half month program that Guarantees ROI results like our Creative synergy program. This program either costs USD1 if we don’t meet result targets, or USD24,000 if we do. So is it cost effective when you know you will get a measurable result that gives you a specific return on investment? You decide.

One Singapore based manufacturing multi-national that applied DC in 3 departments increased its bottom line substantially by saving over S$17,000 per week in wastage.Another – the Malaysian division of a fortune 100 organization increased motivation and efficiency to implement and spear head a new global initiative requiring 30% more work from its 1800+ employees, while exceeding sales and growth goals for the region. This was a DC leadership development program

An international retail chain from Singapore increased its customer service standards and logistics effectiveness (inclusive of service) to cultivate an increase of over 12% customer loyalty.

Directive Communication was developed for Asian multi-cultural environments, so there are more Asian organization (or at least foreign organization BASED in Asia), using DC than in other parts of the world. The exceptions started using it in Asia and then disseminated it to their non-Asian branches

When you wake up on Monday morning, you jump out of bed with a smile, spend some time with your family and think to yourself: “Wow, I get to go to work today!”, and as you walk out the door with excitement. when you arrive at work, you greet your colleagues and friends and feel a sense of pride for what you will work on today. During the day, you may get frustrated when things go wrong but your friends and colleagues support you and you work together to solve problems if you can. As 5pm approaches, you are not worried about the time, you are concerned with achieving your personal goals for your work and you end up leaving about 5:22 with a sense of achievement.

Organizational culture is about how you feel, and how you personally succeed (or don’t) in an environment. that environment could be a team, a department or an entire organization. Do you feel you add real value to your group’s objectives, do you feel you have purpose through your organization? The answers to these questions define the type of culture you have.

According a study we did in 2014, “Awareness” is the key to the type of organizational culture that is created. When people in an organization are aware of how their own actions are affecting others, and aware of why others do what they do, plus a general understanding that people want to succeed in their jobs… it becomes easier to deal with situations intelligently. When people are unaware, they misunderstand others processes, intentions and perceived incompetencies and “React” to them creating more reactions from others…

And the second element (which is related to the first), is Leadership. When the leaders are unaware, they create most of the organizational culture problems.

But it is usually not the leaders fault… and this is the third factor contributing to culture: “Feedback”, most leaders do not get feedback about how their actions or inactions are affecting their people. they often think they are doing the right thing while others see their actions in a very different way. these “Perception Gaps” are a major cause of poor leadership. And, feedback to teams and managers alike should be instant to clearly identify the issues when they happen, good and bad.

Every employee is a “Culture Revolutionary”. We do not see the development of culture as part of the company, the company belongs to the shareholders. We find that when the culture belongs to the people of the organization, they take care of it and nurture it. A sense of ownership provides empowerment to solve employee problems “they” feel is preventing them from their success. As owners “they” create their own Guiding Principles that they want to live by… and these principles determine the behaviors that support an ideal working environment to work in, be productive in and succeed in. Employees feel they are successful when they feel they add real value, and their role to treat other in such a way that all gain personal success in the process of achieving company objectives

• Egotistical Assholes! people who have achieve leadership positions but don’t remember what it was like as an employee and now use their position to gain a personal sense of power and importance. People who feel they are better than others because of their achievements.
• Lack of awareness! People who think they are doing right, but really have no clue to their effect on others and the organizational culture.
• The Top Down Misconception. When culture initiatives are created, they are usually top down, the assumption being the few people at the top know more about how to improve performance than the 1000 “regular” employees under them… and these few top people can get everyone to buy in because their idea is so good.
• In the PFB era (Post FaceBook) we are now in much more control or our emotional gratifications than we ever were before, and we expect our gratifications fast… because we can. So if a culture initiative does not start to show Visible results in a few weeks at most, people disengage and then the initiative become an uphill battle where management push and people ignore.

The easiest and most cost effective way to visibly affect organizational culture would be incorporating gamification and measurement systems to culture/values related objectives.When Performance Measurement and Gamification are combined, it provides a fun platform for creating a high performance culture. Here are some strategies and tools we use to get fast results.

Create a Work Gamification System – 8 sections:

• Start with identifying the culture goals connected to organizational performance objectives. These can be Leadership, Cross-departmental Cooperation, Effective Team Work, Innovation, Customer Service…
• Identifying the behaviors required to achieve the culture goals
• Identifying the emotional drivers that will motivate those behaviors
• Theming the gamification concept to make it more fun
• Create the mechanics that will elicit the emotional drivers that support the behaviors
• Identify the reward systems within the mechanics
• Find partners who will support you and benefit from the goals
• Set up instant feedback systems to show progress

We use a Work Gamification Game called Performencia that groups play for one day that takes them through the process so they have a complete gamified work process in line with objectives. This can be seen at www.gamification.coach

Identifying and Removing “Perception Gaps”

This is an essential part of culture development. Most managers want to be good leaders, but they do not get the feedback required modify their behaviors. Their own perception of how they are acting and dealing with situations is often very different from the perception of the people they manage, and this creates Perception Gaps where the manager continues the same behavior because the people around them do not feedback that they are having negative effects on the team and culture. It must be easy for people to give feedback without taking too much time to hassle.

Closing these gaps requires awareness and the ability to get honest feedback. The Closure of these gaps can also be connected to gamification with a 360 tool that shows progression. We use the EDMA 360 Feeback Emotional Drive tool

Instant Feedback on Desired Behaviors with specific reference to Culture Goals

FAST and EASY are the keys to success with Measurement and Feedback…  Speed of behavioral feedback is essential for behavior modification since Clarity is needed to effectively “connect” the specific attitudes and thoughts that made that behavior happen (good or bad). But getting managers and team members to give “regular” feedback is not that easy. So it needs to be fun… connecting it back to the work gamification, and it needs to be easy and take seconds to create feedback data points.

Creating and connecting behavioral data points regularly with practical culture objectives also supports overall performance reviews,but reviews you can see as they are created and it also sets up for interventions in performance if you see a sudden drop in positive events or an increase in negative events.

We use the Squadli Perfermance Management and Review App to achieve this. The app uses point weighted emoji and awards that are given to team members based on positive or negative behaviors that affect specific (and connected) objectives. Team members can see their team rank, top objectives they contribute to, and the top 3 of each of the emoji and awards. The web dash also shows all teams and team members in performance graphs and relates them to objectives… and the best part is it takes less than 20 seconds to create a data point. 

Find Your Culture Evolution Benchmark

To improve culture you need to know where your culture is and what that means to the results and behaviors of the people within it. Using the Culture Evolution model, we measure the culture as a starting point, then measure the culture as it evolves adding the metrics to the work gamification and rewarding those who are contributing to its evolution. We use the Organizational Culture Assesment Tool – CCEE

Communication gap awareness 

Improving culture requires awareness of how people communicate and interpret their world. Different people get clarity in different ways which also means different processes of HOW to do things. This varied interpretation of “The Right Way” to do things including communication, creates misunderstanding and animosity due to lack of awareness of the genetic “Ambiguity Relief” processes behind them. Many profiling tools try to provide a full personality snapshot but the reality is that it just makes things more complicated and only the HR people know what is going on… not the “people” who are perpetuating the organizational culture.

The Colored Brain psychometric tool identifies and measures the genetic Ambiguity Relief Process of how the brain gets clarity (the clarity process is responsible for the action sequences we use, our decisions, and even our learning). Since the tool only focuses on this one factor and doesn’t add in motivators or risk adversity profiles, it is very easy for Everyone in the organization to understand and apply the 4 Colored Brain processes and how to understand their unique process and synergies with it. The Colored Brain system takes the culture connection and gamification further by linking everyone in the organization to each other… letting people know who is in their “Danger Zone” and giving system intelligent tips on how to improve productivity with each person, lead them better, and even have better relationships with them. ​