Investment in Human/Intellectual productivity improvement is the major source of sustainable competitive advantage.

In the last release, the best practice theme was how HR can address the issue of how to make people change ready, how they need to rewire their brains, thrive on chaos and complexity and maintain high performance in fluid situations. We discussed the kinds of intelligence and thinking necessary for high performance and the techniques/ approaches people need viz . brain- training , mental literacy and accelerate learning. These are the meta skills for the 21st century hyper competitive environment.. The challenge HR faces is making people agile, nimble and creativity adaptable.

In this release, we will build on the points discussed in the last release esp. the concepts of IQ, EQ, SQ, AQ & PQ. I would argue that EQ covers SQ, AQ and other forms of the related practical and creative intelligence and IQ and EQ combined make PQ. Though more fundamentals and vital, EQ remains neglected in the 20th century. No more now. Latest research conclusively proves that the difference between the starts and also-rans is not IQ but EQ. So the best practice for none and the future must be to make the individual and the organization emotionally intelligent. We will discuss the Star Performer Model shortly for improving the human productivity by adopting nine behavioral strategies, but before that it is essential to understand the role of emotions/feelings and how emotions determine and control behavior.

The word 'emotion' may be simply defined as applying 'movement' either metaphorically' or literally, to core feelings. And it is emotional intelligence, rather than intellect, that motivates us to pursue our unique potential and purpose, and activities our innermost values and aspirations, transforming them from things we think about to what we live. Emotions have long been considered to be of such depth and power that in Latin for example they were described as motus anima, meaning literally "the spirit that never moves us."

Contrary to most conventional thinking, emotions are inherently neither positive nor negative, rather, they server as single most powerful source of human energy, authenticity and drive, and can offer as a wellspring of intuitive creative wisdom. In fact each feeling provides us with a vital and potentially profitable information energy minute of the day. This feed back- from the heart, not the head- is what ignites creative genius, keeps you honest with yourself, shapes trusting relationships, provides, an inner compass for your life and career, guide you to unexpected possibilities, and may even save you or your organization from disaster. It is not enough, of course, just to have feelings, or we'd all be genius. Emotional Intelligence requires that we learn to acknowledge and understand feelings -in others - and ourselves and those we appropriately respond to them, especially the information and energy of emotions in our daily life and work. A more complete definition is as follows:
Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection and influence.

Why emotions come first ? Why are they central to happiness and performance? Why they drive our behavior?
There are important questions and we must grasp the answers because Start Productivity is about learning and implementing star behaviors. And behaviors can be effectively learned, internalized and applied only if we can be High EQ individuals. That the logic!!
Let us now come to the Star Performer Modal developed and tested at Bell Labs by Dr. Robert Kelley, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S.
The model confirms that there are no fundamental differences (cognitive, psychological and social) between average and star performers.
The productivity mystery lay not in the test scores but in patterns on the job. Day -to-day work strategies and results led to the assessments of the people. It wasn't what these stars had in their heads that made them standouts from the packs, it was how they used what they had.

                                                      Stars are Made, Not born
                                                  The Star Performance Model
                                       (Developed by Robert Kelley and Janet Kaplan)

 

The model shows two categories - cognitive and technical skills and 9 work strategies - that influence high productivity.

While cognitive abilities neither guarantee success nor differentiate stars, that shouldn't imply they are unimportant. Every job and every work environment requires a certain amount of cognitive ability. Without it, you won't get in the door; if you do slip in by chance, you probably won't last long. But once you have passed the cognitive hurdle, having more cognitive ability (IQ) than the requisite amount does not seem to yield star performer benefits.
The model depicted in the figure ranks the strategies in order of importance. For example, initiative is ranked first and show-and-tell ranks ninth. The second aspect of the model is that the work strategies closer to the center must be demonstrated earlier than those in the outer rings. The Nine work behavior strategies work together, not in isolation. You must draw on all the star strategies to achieve great results. Being good at just one or two is not good enough.

Targeting behaviors that build Productivity Muscle - The Nine strategies

Let us explore the contents of the mode:-

1. Initiative: Blazing trails in the organization's white spaces

Going above and beyond the accepted job description or busting out of everyday work routines to offer new, often bold, value-adding ideas, doing so for the benefit of coworkers or the entire organization and following through diligently to ensure the implementation and is not just window dressing.

2. Networking: Knowing who knows by plugging into the knowledge Network

Proactively developing dependable pathways to knowledge experts who can help complete critical path tasks. When called upon, one can share one's knowledge with those who need it. The goal is to minimize the knowledge deficit that is inherent in every brain-powered job.

3. Self-Management : Managing your whole life at work

Much more than time or project management, this work strategy helps one proactively create opportunities, direct one's work choices, ensure high job performance and curve out one career path. It allows one to develop a portfolio of talents and work experiences so that one 's value to the company increases.

4. Perspective: Getting the big picture

A multidimensional skill that allows one to see a project or problem in a larger extent and through the eyes of critical others - customers, competitors, coworkers and bosses. Having broad perspective enables one to evaluate the relative importance of various viewpoints, so that one can improve on the product or develop better solutions to problems.

5. Followership: Checking your ego at the door to lead in assists

A work strategy that involves being actively engaged in helping the organization; succeed while exercising independent, critical judgement of goals, tasks and methods. As a star follower, I have the ability to work co-operatively with a leader to accomplish the organization's goals even when there are personality or workplace differences.

6. Teamwork: Getting real about teams

A complex series of skills that involves taking joint "ownership" of goal setting, group commitments, work activities, schedules and group accomplishments. It also means being a positive contributor to the group dynamics: helping everyone feels part of the team, dealing with conflict, and assisting others in solving problems.

7. Leadership: Doing Small-L Leadership in a Big-L World

A work strategy that employs one's expertise and influence to convince a group of people to come together and accomplish a substantial task. This can involve a range of efforts - helping the group create a clear vision of where they want to go along with the high commitment and trust necessary to get there; finding the resources to accomplish the task; and shepherding the project to successful completion.

8. Organizational Savvy: Using street smarts in the corporate power zone

A work strategy that enables me to navigate the competing interests in an organization, to promote co-operation, address conflicts and get things done. This can involve expertise in managing individual or group dynamics; knowing when to avoid conflicts and when to meet them head on; knowing how to make allies out of potential enemies.

9. Show and Tell: Persuading your audience with the right message

A series of skills involving selecting information to pass on to others and developing the most effective, user-friendly format for reaching and persuading a specific audience. At its highest level, show-and-tell involves selecting the right message for a particular audience or the right audience for the particular message.

21st century belongs to knowledge workers, also called gold collar workers or brain-powered workers. It is also an information economy, emotional economy, connected economy, experience economy, customer economy and intellectual capital economy.