Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • How Neuroscience Is and Will Revolutionize HR

    How Neuroscience Is and Will Revolutionize HR

     

    In December of 2014, my then four-year-old son started having seizures. After three of them occurred in a short period of time, we went to see a pediatric neurologist who first did an electroencephalogram (EEG) to begin to identify the cause of the seizures so we could determine a course of treatment.

    Utilizing this technology as well as other techniques, she put our son on a medicine that has controlled his seizures. He hasn’t had one in over a year, and we are thankful for the doctors, the scientific discoveries and the technology that made this a reality.

    Neuroscience has long been connected to understanding neurological disorders like seizures. It is also frequently used for explaining behavior, specifically behaviors tied to clinical diagnosis. However, neuroscience is beginning to infiltrate the workplace giving us the ability to use brain science for talent assessment. The EEG used to understand my son’s seizures is now being utilized to understand a variety of talent management questions, as Dario Nardi points on in his article “Your Brain at Work” in HR Magazine.

    As we move forward into the future of behavioral assessment in the workplace, I believe neurological assessment will begin to gain ground to complement, and maybe even take the place of what is most commonly used now- the self-report assessment.

    Why? Well, because it’s more honest. Self-reports are just that- self-reported. Monitoring brain activity points to a more objective approach to understand who we are and why we behave the way we do. Because of this, brain based assessments can help:

    • Create self- awareness in employees to aid in the understanding of who we are (personality) and why we behave the way we do.
    • Improve team building & talent placement by helping individuals and companies understand how to better work together.  This will help companies answer the question, is there enough cognitive diversity on our team?
    • Build better training programs through customized learning. Neuroscience can help us understand how individuals learn best and cater training and development to personalized needs.

    Whereas brain science and the technology related to it is exciting to see in the talent assessment industry for the same reasons it is valuable in medicine- it aids in diagnosis which aids in better decision making- my family’s example also points to the need for caution in utilizing the technology.

    When we went back last month with our son for his yearly EEG, the results still showed a “discharge”, as the doctor referred to it, in the left hemisphere of his brain. She explained to us that it was happening very infrequently, but because it was still present, there is a likelihood that if he were taken off the medicine, the seizures would begin to reoccur. Knowing that this area of the brain is tied to language, I asked her if we should be concerned about any issues in his language development. She said no. Given the amount of frequency seen, she said, it would have to be occurring 20-30% more than it is in order for there to be concerns about his language development.

    This example points to why I’d be hesitant to utilize the technology (and you see I did not list it above) in selection because of the potential discrimination issues.  It could lead to discrimination in hiring against individuals (like my son, who does have a diagnosis of epilepsy) based on factors that are not tied to an individual’s ability to perform the essential functions of the job. I would hate for someone who isn’t as knowledgeable in the science to see “discharge” on someone like my son’s EEG and assume has language issues, when he in fact does not.   However, given a multiple-hurdles approach to assessment, EEGs could one day be a valuable selection tool as well, just as they are used as one technique among many to determine the best course of medical action.

    So for all you talent development professionals out there or those aspiring to be, take more science classes. No field, even HR, is immune to the need for a strong STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education.

    How do you see neuroscience shaping human resources? Does it excite you or scare you?

    Like this post? You may also like:

    The Psychology Behind Why People Support Certain Presidential Candidates

    and

    Use Your Brain- Both Sides

  • 7 Ways to Ensure You Take a True Vacation

    7 Ways to Ensure You Take a True Vacation

    I’m getting ready to go on vacation for a week. On Saturday, we will leave town for white sand and sun, and I will be leaving my computer at home. This will be the first time I’ve been on vacation since I started the business almost five years ago bound and determined to completely disconnect.

    If you know me or have read many of my posts, you know I hate the whole focus on work-life balance. Work is not separate from life, it is all life and we should be doing something we enjoy enough in our working life to not have to “balance” it with all other aspects of who we are and what we do.

    However, I’m becoming increasingly aware of the need to disconnect from the real world, which so often is consumed by the technology that allows us to always be connected to work. And it is time for me to totally disconnect. I’m committing to not checking email for a week, not checking or posting on social media (if you see posts on social media from me while I’m gone, don’t fear, they’ve been prescheduled by my marketing guru), and, except for maybe reading a good business book with my toes in the sand, not working on anything related to work while gone.

    But being able to totally disconnect does not come without hard work beforehand. And I’m swamped in this reality this week. Here’s what I’m trying to do this week and focus on to be able to uphold the commitment of disconnecting next week that may help you as well:

    1. Be proactive. I’m working to be prepared for what I have going on when I return. For example, I’m facilitating a three-day leadership retreat that starts the Monday after I return. I just finished the materials for this training on Monday. My normal M.O. would be doing this while on vacation. I had to block off time on my calendar a few weeks ago to make sure I had scheduled time this week to get this done.
    2. Delegate. I’ve sent the materials for this training off to someone else to proof and compile as well as other things I know need to be done while I’m gone.  And she will do these things better than I could do them anyway.
    3. Get some things to get excited about. As if sun and sand aren’t enough, and they are, I got some great book recommendations from family and friends and was like a kid in the candy store picking some things out at the bookstore last week.
    4. Prep those around you for your absence. Consider this post a part of this, but in addition, I will be making calls and sending emails this week to the clients I’m working with currently to let them know I will be gone. It takes more than just your out of office email notification to do this effectively. It goes back to being proactive and setting up expectations beforehand.
    5. Leave your device(s). I won’t put my laptop in the car with us when I leave.  My laptop is like an appendage to me (I make decisions about purses solely around whether or not my laptop will fit in it). This will help with the temptation to check email, because I have not gotten in the habit of checking my email on my phone. I will take my phone with me, but I will use it only to take pictures of my kids playing in the sand and sun.
    6. And to that point….realize why disconnecting is important. Although I try to maintain a strong presence and awareness with my husband and my kids, I know often my work and constant connectedness is a deterrent from being fully present with them.  I will be fully present on vacation, and my hope is that this will help me create positive habits to be more fully present at all times.
    7. And finally, realize you aren’t that important. I can go off the grid for a week and the world will keep spinning. In fact, some things might spin a little better because I am off the grid.

    So if you need me this week, call Taylor. She’s great and can help you with whatever you need.

    What advice do you have for setting yourself up for a successful and true vacation?

    Like this?  You may also like:

    HR Happy Hour:  4 Ways to Take a Successful Retreat

  • 4 Tips for Succeeding as a Woman in Male Dominated Career Field

    4 Tips for Succeeding as a Woman in Male Dominated Career Field

    Today’s post comes from a guest blogger, Sara Beth Wilcox.  Sara Beth is Project Manager with a large construction company.

    With high aspirations to be an architect, I went to Auburn University and spent a year in the program before my professors told me what I already knew: I was not a good fit.  I switched to Building Science and found immediately that it had all the things that made me want to be an Architect and was a better fit for my interests and skills in organizing and scheduling activities in a sequence to reach a finished product.

    As a reflect on my work, there are four key observations and advice from my first ten years working as a female in a sea of males on construction sites:

     

    1. Shake it off.  People are going to assume, and usually will ask if you are the secretary when they walk into a construction jobsite trailer.  Once people are informed that you are not the secretary, they usually have additional comments about the fact that you are a female in construction. Sometimes these folks are genuinely interested in what got you interested in construction, sometimes their comments are mean and intended to be so. Work to learn how to discern between the two and when you encounter the latter, let it roll off your back then get in your car and turn on Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off”.  I find it impossible to remain angry after a good “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate …” sing along.

    2. You can be a part of the team and still be you.  You can be a part of the team without having to be “one of the guys”.  About 99% of my coworkers hunt. I do not.  And I do not have to hunt for them to like me.  Support your team by sharing in their excitement when they kill the big buck or call in the turkey but do not try to tag along or fake interest unless you genuinely enjoy it.  Have your own interest and use those to your advantage.  In addition to already mentioning Taylor Swift, I am going to further perpetuate the female stereotype here: I really love to bake. And, I have found that my co-workers and field staff are usually more willing to help me when I bring homemade cookies to a meeting, this is known as the ultimate win-win.

    3. Be real.  I was at a conference recently speaking on a panel with other women in construction. A fellow female panelist advised the high school students we were talking to: ”NEVER let them see you cry”, the “them” referring to male counterparts. I was more than a little taken aback by this statement and disagree completely. We all deal with things differently. Unfortunately, when I am stressed I cry.  I wish it wasn’t true but I have tried my hardest and there’s just no getting around that knot in my throat when I experience a major disappointment or setback at work. This does not happen on a regular basis, but it has happened and will happen again. I try to seek privacy but sometimes it is just too late. I am not ashamed by the fact that I deal with stress differently than my male peers, it is who I am.

    4. Work hard; comparisons aren’t necessary.  Construction is hard work. It is physically and emotionally (see above) taxing on me. Do I have to work harder to prove myself because I am female? Do I make the same as my male co-workers? I honestly have no idea.  (I am able to focus less on fair wages because I trust the company I work for. I recognize not everyone has this luxury and am not suggesting that it should be overlooked if you think as a female you are making less than your male counterparts.) I work hard because I love what I do, I do not want to let my co-workers down, and because it is the right thing to do for my company. Someone smart once said “Comparison is the thief of Joy.” So true, and it’s also the thief of productivity. The less time you spend comparing yourself as a female to your male coworkers, the more time you have to give your job your all!

     

    Be Yourself. Work Hard. And don’t spend much time thinking about being a female in a male dominated industry. When you do come across something that distinguishes you from your male counterparts: recognize it, embrace it, then get back to work!

    Are you a female or a male in an industry dominated by the other gender?  What is the best advice you have for navigating in your role?

  • Being a Great Leader Is a Lot Like Being a Standout Salesperson

    Being a Great Leader Is a Lot Like Being a Standout Salesperson

    Through involvement in a community group, I had the opportunity (or drudgery, depends on how you look at it, I guess) to sit through six companies presenting their “solution” to a need. After they were all done, it was obvious which company was the best. And everyone, meaning about ten people, who had heard the presentations, agreed. When was the last time you had ten people agree on something easily? Yeah, that’s what I thought; hard to think of a time when you have, right?

    With this being said, the obvious winner knew what they were doing. But it wasn’t because the salesperson from the best company was the most dynamic or attractive. I think one company thought sending the most attractive and nicely dressed female was going to do it for them. They must have thought she was going to be able to distract us from realizing that their product was inferior… but I digress….

    We often think that winning the award for best leader also involves characteristics like charisma and attractiveness. However, what hit home for me in seeing the round robin of presentations was a clear comparison and contrast of what makes a good sales pitch versus what doesn’t. Turns out, many of these things that make a good salesperson can also be applied to cultivating a great leader:

    1. Know your audience. Who are your people and what makes them tick?  What are their pain points? Adapt your communication and style to address these things.  In other words, canned sales pitches usually aren’t that effective.
    2. To get to know people better, ask good questions to calibrate your audience.  Clarify expectations and needs.
    3. Shut up.  Ask good questions (#2) and then listen thoughtfully. Cater your responses to what you hear (back to #1).
    4. Think like a marketer. People pay attention more when you talk in the form of analogies and visuals that tell a story. Facts are needed, but they are boring.   Appeal to the heart first through storytelling to grab people’s attention and then back up what you are saying with facts to make sure the head gets it.
    5. Your facts should mostly be in the form of results achieved. I was blown away by how the best company framed their entire discussion around the key results factor the group was looking for (#1) and had multiple client examples to prove it.  Most of the others focused on the facts of how they would do what they do, not why to do it. The “what” doesn’t matter if you can’t capture the “why”.
    6. Be authentic. People can spot a phony from a mile away and they can see past the short skirts and the corporate jargon. Being authentic involves:
      • Developing a distinct personality and brand (see #4) that is true to who you are and the company you represent.
      • Telling the truth.The best company was honest upfront about the things about their systems and offerings that weren’t perfect, but provided details on how they are working to address those issues.
      • Believing wholeheartedly in what you do and wanting to tell people about it not to make a sale, but because you know you can meet a need and help.

    Are you a leader who thinks like a salesperson?

  • Why Communities Should Focus on Building Social Capital and How They Can Do It

    Why Communities Should Focus on Building Social Capital and How They Can Do It

    I drive within a 50-mile radius of my home quite often to meet with clients or potential clients. On one particular drive from one town to the next, the highway used to be lined with dozens of nursery wholesalers. Thousands upon thousands of trees, shrubs and plants used to grow along this stretch of the highway and many of the remnants of these nursery farms can still be seen.

    Why would all of these nurseries locate side by side? Wouldn’t that increase the proximity of their competition, thus decreasing their potential sales?

    This small, rural Alabama phenomenon about nurseries can also be said of Silicon Valley. While the companies in this region don’t necessarily compete for customers due to proximity- most of them have a global sales footprint- they most certainly compete for labor, as the nurseries did at one point in time as well. Wouldn’t the competition for labor (and real estate/land) in such close proximity to each other drive the prices on everything up leading to a diminished ability to remain competitive or produce as large a profit?

    Turns out, the opposite is true as The New Geography of Jobs  points out.  The proximity to the social capital of your industry leads to value and competitive advantage, not the other way around.   And it creates a snowball effect.  The more technology companies that locate in Silicon Valley, the higher likelihood that more will come because it creates a community that is desirable and attractive to similar companies and the talent who work for these types of companies.  It creates a “thick” labor market.

    While we’ve been talking a lot about individuals developing their social capital in order to grow their competitive advantage, communities can and should foster the growth of social capital as well.

    But what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do the organizations that create the jobs, thus producing the demand side of the economic equation provide the key to community growth or does the supply side, the people, create the growth?

    Most economic stimulus policies focus on driving the demand or organizational side of the equation. Tax incentives focus on getting companies to locate in a community, and these packages continue to become more and more competitive. Some research even points to the fact that the ROI of many of packages isn’t there.

    By and large, communities do not focus on stimulating the supply side of the equation through stimulus-type measures. Yes, communities work to improve their educational infrastructure and outputs to improve supply, but this doesn’t guarantee an increased supply of labor, especially in high growth or in-demand areas.

    Because of the sheer power of social capital at a community level, stimulating supply side economics should be more of a focus for communities wanting to grow.

     

    Some ideas for doing this include:

    • Pay off the debt of students in high demand skill areas in exchange for them living and working in your community. This has been done for a while in rural communities and medical fields, but we are now seeing communities do this in technical fields like engineering and IT.
    • Pay the best to come to your community and others will follow. If you want a good example of this, check out the Washington University example in The New Geography of Jobs  on page 198-199.
    • Create hubs for collaboration or co-work spaces in your community. This “turns isolated innovators into a real community, a creative ecosystem designed to maximize knowledge spillovers.”
    • Incentivize entrepreneurs to come to your community through business incubation and accelerator programs. Although different, this can play quite nicely with creating hubs for innovation and co-work spaces.

     

    Basically, all of this comes down to bribing people instead of bribing business. Because social capital is the competitive advantage driving innovation today, communities would do well to begin bribing people, not just business. Just make sure you bribe the right people- those with the skill sets and connections to drive innovation and create a multiplier effect of job creation and community growth.