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The Motive

It is probably obvious, but is often overlooked—in order for improvement to take place, there must be a basic desire for improvement. A motive, if you will. There are two components to this motive for improvement—organiza­tional and personal.

Organizationally, there are three constituencies that are contributors to, and benefactors of, the working culture. These three constituencies are:

• The Owners
• The Customers
• The Employees

Each of these constituencies have both a contribution to be made and an expectation to be received, that surround the basic reason for being.

rganizationally, there must be a general mindset that allows and requires each of these constituents to improve their productive contribution, and as such raise the overall reward or benefit they receive. Additionally, individuals within the organization must have a personal motive to improve their personal worth, to not only the organization, but to themselves.

The Mirror

If behavioral effectiveness (personally and organization­ally) is to improve, the first challenge is for an individual (or a team) to observe its own behavior in a clear fashion. This needs to be done in a non-pejorative fashion through an introspective reflection. This must be done in a blame­less manner—that is, fault finding is not the motive. While interpersonal collaboration may be practiced, it is only to confirm an individual's observation of their own behavior.

This process of self observation is to help an individual become more

conscious of their thinking in a given situa­tion. This is because we believe:
• Behavioral effectiveness is determined by the quality of thinking behind it.
• The quality of thinking is determined by how much of bear on our thinking in a given situation.
• We have five dis­tinct, but interre­lated, capacities we bring to bear on a given situa­tion, whether we are conscious of them or not.
• These concepts apply equally well to an individual or
a team. Put another way, there is a composite mental capacity of a team as well as that of an individual within that team. This model applies to both.
These five observable behavioral attributes are shown in Figure 3, and described in the text that follows.• Self-Worth—creates a sense of presence. A high level of self worth is based on a sense of uniqueness—a sense of significance—significance to self and significance to others and to the task being engaged in.
• Intent—is about the values we choose to live by—the values we assent to for guiding our behavior in a given situation—the basis for justifying our behavior and decisions to both ourselves and others. The greater our capacity to be conscious of the values behind our choices, the more open we will be to being challenged by and to reasoning with others, upgrading the quality of decisions.
• Networking—is an externally oriented mental capac­ity, used in choosing how to engage other people. This is the process of deciding whom we seek to influence and who we wish to be influenced by.
• Accountability—is concerned with the material world. Actions must be taken and measurable outcomes achieved. Someone must assume accountability for making this happen. This mental process determines what individuals demand of themselves as well as what they demand of others to achieve the end results agreed upon—either "I'll do it" or "That's not my job."
• Attitude—In the implementation of a project, vari­ances, disruption, and dissonance are certain to occur. The issue here is how a person or team responds to these things. Our stance can be, "Who do we blame?" or "What can we learn from this?"

Our premise is that this model describes the way the mind does work. It does not prescribe the way it should work. The issue is our awareness of those processes and our ability to consciously manage each of these capacities.

Personal observation and calibration of each of these attributes are indeed possible—some easier than others. We have developed a grid that assists with this calibration effort, which enables calibration of each of these attributes at four distinct levels of performance. Let us demonstrate a sample of that grid by presenting the calibration of Accountability.

To be Continued