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The collective intelligence we looked at in part 3 is also found in other ants. Experiments with one group, ‘lepticthorax’, effectively demonstrate how one individual’s behavior can influence those around it. By including each individual in the decision making process they enable or cause the simple actions by one to generate more sophisticated actions by the group. This building of collective intelligence is in some ways similar to attempting to create synergy in teams. A state of synergy in a team is reached when the team outcome is better then the best result that could have been achieved by any one individual in the group. Perhaps the best example of this behavior is the way these tiny ants set up a new home. One ant on finding the ideal location will head back to the group and physically collect and carry back a colleague, then both will inspect the location, both will go back and collect another colleague each… and the four will inspect… and then eight and so on exponentially (snowballing effect) until the new location is fully occupied and work begins.

Participants in many of the leadership and team building courses I conduct often complain that although they, after training, attempt to adopt a more enlightened approach to management and leadership, their bosses are still locked in their old, power and position driven, hierarchical practices. How to break this nasty vicious cycle… train the bosses first, after all leadership comes from the top… doesn’t it?

By the way if you want to see how humans get involved in such leader / follower behavior (not too sure about the collective intelligence aspect) take a look at this video: http://sivers.org/ff

Point: if you are never given an opportunity to lead and you believe you have earned the right and have the skills perhaps you need to use the free blank resume form and to start a process to lead yourself elsewhere!

Tip: USUALLY THE EXPERT IN ANY JOB IS THE ONE ACTUALLY DOING IT however IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY CAN LEAD OTHERS TO DO IT AS WELL!

“Collective intelligence”, how about that as a concept for getting things done…

The legendary Army Ants gain their fearful reputation and devastating power because they are driven by an obsessional purpose combined with an extremely high level of determination and use what is known as their collective intelligence. The amazing thing is that this all happens with no one individual taking control. Instead they all act as individuals and control (or lead) themselves. “Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computer networks” (ref: Wikipedia). In other words Army Ants really do practice management from the bottom up where each individual is empowered to act.

If we as managers and leaders are to implement effective empowerment and invert the corporate pyramid to put the customer at the top, as current business realities demand, (as does proper thinking), we must ensure that staff develop the right attributes. If those at the customer interface don’t have (or develop) their own sense of being powerful, are unwilling to be obsessed with the customers needs and wants, (as against stroking the boss), are not effectively inspired to use their own positive levels of motivation and don’t feel free to inform enthusiastically what the customers are saying, (good or bad), no collective intelligence will occur.

We often talk about staff empowerment in modern business however ants have achieved this state naturally. If simple ants use it so effectively, why can’t the intelligent top of the food chain… us… do it so well? Because we humans are totally driven by our need for self-satisfaction or gratification… we are basically selfish! So what can we as leaders do to at least move a little further along the evolutionary path (remember ants have been around 100 million years) and thus achieve at least some of the team sophistication levels of ants? Here are a few suggestions… never discipline in public, encourage the free flow of ideas, destroy inter-staff rivalry, reward teams rather than individuals, encourage those who encourage others, revere those who act in the common good, beware of creating states of ‘group think’ and never implement a ‘staff member of the month’ program or a competitive sales incentive scheme and always…

VIEW MISTAKES AS LEARNING, NOT AS A REASON (OR EXCUSE) TO WHACK SOME FOOL!

Ants management and moving (scurrying on) update the resume resume time?

Recent economic woes must teach us all that the quality of our management and in many cases the weak and unethical behavior of some of our renowned business leaders means we need to get back to some basic principles.

Some basics of business and some more ant antics…

OUTPUT QUALITY. Another ant variety, ‘Rattue’, can teach us about partnering with our suppliers and customers. They team up with a caterpillar that supplies them with food in return for their protection from predatory spiders. Dangerous intruders cause the caterpillar tap when they approach. The interesting thing is that the supplier (caterpillar) speaks the ants’ language. The most successful finance salesman I ever new was an ex-roadwork’s construction contractor. His customers dealt with him because he understood their industry, the machinery they needed and the financial aspects of their business. How much do we know about our customers and their problems and how well our solutions really fit or just flog product? As an ex financier I am still amazed by the antics of each new generation of bankers who at best are inept and at worst, incompetent or dishonest.

NO ANTS TO BE FOUND. A few years back in a past crisis the Internet business and the infamous problems it had including many failures is a prime example of how businesses lose track of what their customers need. As an example, I had great trouble trying to change my web host due to poor communication practices of my ‘supplier’. One of their staff even said, ‘for that price you don’t get any service or advice just a space on our server’. After 3 months, 20 or 30 emails and a couple of expensive phone calls to the US from Asia where I was stationed at the time, I was finally able to complete the change. Many Internet companies forget that people deal with people and that they need to personally communicate with individuals. Badly worded, jargon filled, technical, anonymous, do it yourself forms are not effective communication devices, particularly when problems arise. This of course is reinforced by much of the financial documentation we still suffer today with many customers not really understanding what they are signing up for. I once had a financial adviser even admit, when I was trying to write an investor information seminar for him, that he would rather not be too explicit as they still relied on “smoke and mirrors” in his industry. This guy at the time of writing with investments under stress still avoids his “customers”… an ant that would rather not be found. Good business is about listening to your customers, then saying what you will do and then doing what you say and being around when needed.

Are we listening for the tapping caterpillar, do our staff have the cutting attributes they need, has anyone listened to a dissatisfied customer lately to analyze our organization’s shortcomings… or…

IS THERE A SPIDER AT THE DOOR?

Part 3 Army Ants and Intelligence!

Who cares what ants do… I’m busy with crocodiles… (‘When you’re up to your backside in crocodiles its hard to focus on the fact that your original mission was to drain the swamp’)

So what can we learn from ants?

Ants have been around for about 100 million years and in their terms we are beginners when it comes to process management. ‘Yeah yeah but’ you may say… they’re just stupid little crawly things acting on their instincts… true, however, what a well honed set of instincts they have, consider this…

INPUT QUALITY. Leaf Cutter ants are so ‘quality conscious’ that they back up in case of disaster by delivering the bits they bring to ‘the office/factory’ to different areas so the entire colony doesn’t collapse if some bad stock turns up. What about the quality of our supply chain, are we exposed? A major technology company not so long ago publicly announced that one of its key divisions suffered millions in lost revenue (and I guess market share) because their single chipmaker had a factory fire. Who decided to buy from a single chipmaker, let alone one with a single production facility? How diversified is our supply chain, have we looked lately?

PRODUCTION QUALITY. Ants’ competence management is so well refined that they even have different physical attributes to handle specialist tasks. Leaf Cutters come in different sizes and shapes, to suit their role. How is our competence modeling going. Do we hire for what we need and train for the shortcomings? How long has it been since our managers looked at the competence requirement for their department and presented a proposal on how to fix the gap? Does HR test applicants against the job spec before hiring or do they still send in ‘the best of a bad bunch’?

[ Looking for a better ant hill? You'll need a resume so take a look at the free blank resume form and examples! ]

A management lesson for us all… “NATURE DOES NOTHING USELESSLY” (Aristotle) and if we want to succeed in developing our organization (and our own management and leadership skills) neither should we.

Ants and leading managing part 2

Finally…

5) Facilitative Listening This goes beyond even empathic listening because it implies and requires that you are able to extend an especially helpful approach to the other person or people. A crucial factor here is “the capability to interpret the cognisance or self-awareness  of the speaker and the extent to which you are hearing and observing genuine ‘adult’ sounds and signals as distinct from [the senders] emotionally skewed [‘child’ or ‘parent’] outputs”. Again according to Business Balls ‘facilitative listening requires that you as listener will pause to think and prepare your responses during the exchange’, which is not a common trait with many listeners. They go on to say, “facilitative listening contains a strong additional element of being interested in helping the other person see and understand their options and choices”. To be a facilitative listener ‘you need to be devoid of any selfish personal motive, other than to extend help and to place the other person’s interests are at the forefront’. In my experience sound practitioners of this form of listening are able to use effective questions rather than making long winded so called ‘statements of fact’ to help the sender get where they need to be in their conversation and thoughts.

As I said the type of listening we use can have considerable outcomes in terms of our relationships and we all have a natural tendency to use one type or another. Again different situations or message senders will tend to influence our listening behaviour. I guess the most important thing to understand is that there are different forms of listening or listening behaviours and whether you see them as a hierarchy of “seven stages” or “eight levels” implying ‘improving progressions’ or you just accept my “five types” model you must be aware of how you are perceived as a listener and the consequences.

references

(1) http://www.managementblog.org/archives/2010/04/09/seven-stages-of-listening/

(2) http://www.businessballs.com/empathy.htm

To continue listening…

3) Listening to understand. Business Balls states here “you listen only to the content and fail to receive all the non-verbal sounds and signals, such as tone of voice, facial expression, reaction of speaker to your own listening and reactions”. “Attentive data-only listening is typically driven by a strong personal results motive. It can be highly manipulative and forceful.” With this type of listening no effort is put into trying to build a relationship with the speaker. Here the listener is often asking lots of questions to reaffirm facts and can akin to the interrogator or inquisitor type of behaviour as described in the Johari Window model. This form of listening can at its best become listening to learn or active listening and can be quite difficult as we as listener attempt to come to “grips with new ideas or views to consolidated some long term memory”(2).

4) Empathetic listening or as Tom calls it “listening for the intersection where someone else’s experience meets our experience on which we can build trust.” Business Balls describe this as ‘listening with full attention to the sounds, and all other relevant signals, including: tone of voice, other verbal aspects – e.g., pace, volume, flow, style, emphasis facial expression body language, cultural or ethnic or other aspects of the person which would affect the way their communications and signals are affecting you.’ “This requires you to have an overall collective appreciation through all relevant senses of how the other person is feeling you able to see and feel the situation from the other person’s position.” With this type of listening “you are also reacting and giving feedback and checking understanding with the speaker. You will be [selectively questioning,] summarizing and probably taking notes.” Here you will be able to disagree constructively, signal understanding and use appropriate emotion controls. If you are able to engage in this type of listening behaviour you will be able to create an “improved relationship” and hopefully reach a state of “mutual awareness” with the other party.

If you are having trouble getting anyone to listen to you, perhaps its time for a change, so take a look at the free blank resume form to find some better listeners!

go to listening skills part 3

As human relations and communication are probably the most important issues we face if we are to be successful in our careers the discussion of the central communication skill of listening is always an important topic. Bearing in mind we are all different, possessed of different personalities and natural tendencies in how we deal with others, it is still worthwhile to look at what is an optimum approach in our communications. Obviously we deal with different people and different topics with more or less attention however there is still a need for us all to at least have a grasp of what styles are most common and what the consequences of using (or overusing) one or another of these styles will do to our ability to relate to others.

According to Tom Foster (ref:1) Every conversation can be calibrated, has a platform and he states there are seven stages of listening. The website Business Balls (ref 2) on the other hand states there are eight levels or types of listening

Both listening models referenced (see part 3) that I have used as the basis of this discussion start with not listening. To my way of thinking if we are not listening we are not listening therefore I don’t think point one in ether list is valid so I will ignore it other than to remark that we all have a capacity to physically or mentally block out what is being spoken and assigning it as background noise.

For my five types of listening I do admit I have relied in building this model heavily on both the articles by both Tom Foster and Business Balls and I suggest you visit their sites as they provide excellent information.

Ric’s FIVE TYPES of LISTENING

1) Pretending to listen or giving into your own thoughts or other distractions whilst trying to give the impression you are engaged with the speaker. Now we all know that this happens when the topic or the speaker are boring or we are say trying to hear what someone else is saying (eavesdrop) in a social situation. As Business Balls states when we are doing this we tend to use “stock nods and smiles” and non-committal verbal responses. If you do not maintain eye contact or even stare blankly others can easily tell you are not listening. You must realize that this behaviour is easily recognizable and for most is considered patronizing and extremely rude. If you are to maintain good relations you must avoid this behaviour at all costs and it is best if you find yourself doing this apologize for being distracted and politely withdraw from the engagement totally. The term I use is “sorry I’m very distracted at the moment perhaps we could have this conversation at another time”. Obviously if it is your boss you are listening to you must force yourself to concentrate and make sure you do not allow your distractions to let you down or your actions could be a career limiting event.

2) Listening selectively, listening to respond or as some call it biased listening. This is where I believe most listeners sit and in men I like to call this testosterone listening. The main listening purpose if you are in this mode is to find points of disagreement or weaknesses in another’s point of view so that we can you to reaffirm our attitude or argument. You may have some “interest and perhaps some flexibility in respect of the words spoken and your reactions to them, however because you are not thinking objectively and purely putting your own interpretation on what you are hearing by making the words fit what you expect or want them to fit”(2). Even if you are more benevolent in your attitude to what is being said much of your mind in this state will be preoccupied with plotting a response and usually the full message will be missed and misunderstanding will be common. This form of listening behaviour is damaging and over time and a number of interactions can destroy relationships.

see types of listening part 2