Capability
For a business to fulfil its purpose and achieve its financial objectives it must have the resources and capabilities that are necessary to meet the needs of its customers. However, whilst having a good product and/or service is essential for this, it is not enough; access to co-operative intelligence is also required.
The following scenario explains why this is the case: A member of your team is in a group problem solving activity with a customer’s team and they experience pressure that they cannot cope with. This might well threaten their need for security which results in them experiencing strong emotions, leaving their intelligence temporarily compromised. This occurs because strong emotion switches off peoples higher brain functioning. This leaves your team member in a state where any contribution that they make could potentially be very damaging. Co-operative intelligence has now been lost.
So, regardless of the quality of the product, service or the technical intelligence of the individual their mind has ‘switched off’ and their ability to contribute positively to group problem solving will no longer be available. In fact, if the situation continues the team member can add to the problem rather than contribute to solving it.
On a day to day basis this is likely to be happening with individuals and within teams across your organisation. This impacts on team work, efficiency, co-operative intelligence and has damaging consequences for the entire organisation.
Ultimately, this diminishes your organisations ability to use its resources effectively to enhance the meeting of customers needs because group problem solving is an essential skill required to move up the value chain with customers. To bring about group problem solving, leaders must have the skills of facilitating co-operative intelligence which is an integral part of forming sustainable commercial relationships.
Strong relationships with your customers coupled with the specialised knowledge that your organisation can provide gives you an edge over your competitors. However, this is only the case when your leadership have the skills to promote a culture that enables people to work well together.
The Human Needs approach includes the specialised sequence of skills designed to create sustainable long term relationships with customers and stakeholders where real problems are solved and opportunities realised. Some of these skills include:
- How to identify the skills and resources of your staff so that the best use can be made of their talents
- How to give people opportunities to learn and stretch themselves and thereby become more committed to their work
- How to support another person in accessing their own intelligence to solve problems that they were unable to solve on their own
- The skills of getting people to take ownership of their work, thus reducing your workload and increasing their job satisfaction
- How to build sustainable relationships with customers and colleagues that give rise to shared and co-operative intelligence