Are you all there?

If you are a James Bond fan you will be familiar with the character of Q. A
geeky individual who comes up with some very clever stuff that helps Bond
maintain his edge. Well, at Complete Coherence we are lucky enough to
have our very own Q, or O as well call him (his name is Orowa Sikder).
Having an O is an invaluable asset in any company especially when youre
using science to facilitate human development. O is one of the most brilliant
people I have come across. O was crunching numbers the other day on our
Leadership Values Profile (LVP), one of our developmental assessments built
to measure the sophistication of an individuals values. Weve done a few
thousand now which means that O has a lot of data to work with.

One thing the LVP can reveal is how different your values may be in your
personal life compared to your values at work. O noticed a pattern that he
brought to our attention. Specifically, the values of individuals in an
organization often tend toward an organisational norm. In contrast the value
systems the same individuals operate from at home are much more diverse.
This suggests that many organisations are either creating a monoculture or
that many people do not bring all of their uniqueness to work.

This may not be that surprising. After all, we know that our values are
predominantly forged by our circumstances and inner development. But it
does spark a couple of questions:

What is happening in an organization to make people feel they cant bring

all of themselves to work? Is it costing them energy to play the part when
they show up?
Are you, as a leader, inadvertently suppressing the diversity around the
table to such an extent that you are killing meaningful debate and impairing
the wisdom of the crowd?
Which brings us to the main point of my blog. Diversity in business is not
just a matter of ethnicity, race, age, education or sexual orientation. The
real power of diversity comes from people with different value systems
which drive different view points, different ways they the see the world,
offering multiple perspectives to generate more innovative answers.

In order to unlock the disruptive and innovative power of the crowd, we

need to have more meaningful debates to generate better results and more
sophisticated nuanced solutions. In a VUCA world we need teams and
organizations with greater values diversity.

To understand how to unlock the power of diversity and develop your

organizations true competitive advantage you might find the blog by my
colleague and CEO Dr. Alan Watkins helpful. Or even his recent book, 4D
Leadership: Competitive Advantage Through Vertical Leadership
Development.

Understanding someone else is transformational

Ive served on three executive boards in my career and if I look back on the
most challenging times, I am sure that if I had had a better understanding of
everyone on that board, we would have been much more effective.

When youre dealing with a group of senior executives, by the very nature of
where theyve got to, they are all pretty strong characters. That is great, but
without an understanding of their value system, you can come up against all
sorts of challenges. As a HR director one of the key parts of the role, on each
of the boards, was to ensure the effectiveness of the executive team.

The Leadership Values Profile (LVP) is an assessment that provides a deep

insight into how people understand and view the world. If I had had that
kind of insight, without a doubt, we would have made decisions in a more
informed way. Not only that, but we would probably have made quicker
decisions and even, in some cases, we would have made different decisions.

I remember one, more recent, occasion when I was trying to get a particular
point across to another senior colleague and for some reason I just couldnt
get him to understand; I felt as if I were speaking to him in a foreign
language. I simply couldnt help him understand my point. I looked up their
LVP and realised they were an extreme example of a particular value system
which, by way of short-hand, we call uber orange. The different levels of
value system evolution, within the LVP, are designated different colours.
Orange represents someone who understands the world from a commercial
perspective and would want things explained in that way. Once Id
understood their perspective, I changed the language I was using to get my
point across. I didnt change the message, but just changing the language
made the difference and we were suddenly on the same page. That
experience was really powerful.

If Id understood where other people were coming from earlier in my career,

I would have handled some people very differently. Seeing the results of
someones LVP totally helps you understand where the other person is
coming from. As a HR director thats especially important; understanding
your execs and the way they view things is incredibly powerful.

In all my years as a HR director, I havent seen any other assessment that

gives you such a deep insight into individuals, the way the LVP does. I think
a lot of assessments are very interesting and in the moment they tell you
something about yourself, but Im not so sure theyre all useful from a
developmental perspective. The LVP is useful because you gain an
understanding of yourself and others. Not only that, you can use it
developmentally for yourself, which you cant do with a lot of other
assessments. Its not static and it looks at the whole of your life, not just
how you show up at work.

If Id had the LVP in my leadership toolkit when I first started out, it would
have made my working life a lot easier!

Synopsis

Companies need people who can think high quality thoughts on a consistent
basis. They need innovators, who are able to generate great ideas, spot
opportunities and define the things that provide a competitive advantage.
The way we really get ahead and stay ahead is to become smarter than
everyone else. And that starts with physiology.

Believe it or not, your heart is not just a pump; it is directly relevant to

business performance and results. We know that there is a proven
connection between Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and performance. A 24hour HRV assessment can reveal how much energy a leader has, whether
that energy is being used efficiently or being drained unnecessarily, leaving
them feeling exhausted, or whether they have enough energy in their tanks
to get them moving and last the course. We can then use this data to know
exactly what they need to do to improve. This can make the difference
between a stellar and a mediocre career. The good news is that we gain
more energy and think more clearly if we learn to influence our HRV.

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