Apprentice week 7 analysis, RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 7 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) in building Authentic Emotional Intelligence.

Question: Does your organization currently use an Emotional Intelligence framework to help people increase their EQ and people skills? Read below to find out more about Authentic Emotional Intelligence and how to get the most from your investment to develop the EQ of your team - and yourself!


Review of episode 7: The art exhibition

In this episode's task of selling artworks at exhibition, all-girls Team Eventus dealt all-boys Team Pinnacle a resounding defeat with sales totalling $30,130 against just $5,300. Tactically, the wise use of artist's own client list helped Eventus to victory, while Pinnacle's over-analysis and commodification of the art they were selling badly undermined their efforts.

In the Boardroom specific mention was also made that the girls managed to connect emotionally with their chosen artists, while the "just the facts" approach used by the boys failed to develop the needed rapport and relationship. The "soft stuff" had a real bottom-line impact on Pinnacle's choice of artists and ability to sell convincingly to buyers - both of which were decisive drawbacks. Unable to connect and form real relationships, Pinnacle failed to produce the required results.


Failure to connect

Gavin was squarely in the firing line this week, but had Eventus not won the challenge then Sabrina would have been in the crosshairs, not just as project lead but due to her lack of results. These two individuals share many characteristics - which Sabrina had previously expressed during the pie challenge as "Gavin gets me and I get Gavin" - and these are the very reasons they are now both in danger.

In the art sales challenge Gavin was shown several times saying "selling art is essentially the same as selling cars," which revealed a lack of understanding of his product and was the basis for the disastrous "businesslike" approach to the artists that cost Pinnacle the victory. We've seen this lack of good judgement before, when Gavin chose the performers for the dance show at the Mudgee Pub Night that decidedly underwhelmed the audience.

Meanwhile Sabrina's focus in the art challenge appeared to be on being liked, not on making sales. She seemed to be bluffing her way through and was smiling a lot but remarked herself at the exhibition that it was "two hours in I've not sold anything!" Her performance both as project lead and team member was criticized as indecisive by Mary-Anne who remarked, "I'd like to wipe that phoney smile off her face."

We've seen dramas with Sabrina's behaviour and decision-making in the past as well. Doubtless in her role as Miss Australia she's become highly adept at performing before cameras and speaking with assurance. Yet I'd suggest there's evidence to show she's better in the role of figurehead than action hero. This week, hers was a stellar performance (in the theatrical sense) but one with little substance to show for it, that is, performance in the tangible results sense.

Recall as well during the hotel challenge when at checkout time she offered a hotel loyalty membership to a departing guest who was clearly still irate and whose concerns she'd manifestly failed to address with empty words, smiles and platitudes. This demonstrates a clear lack of ability to read and respond to another person's emotional state.

Both Gavin and Sabrina are very physically attractive, polite and well-spoken. They're both successful in their careers and intelligent (Sabrina makes specific mention of her high-IQ Mensa membership). Based on their facility for interacting and making an initial connection with people it would seem they also both possess a lot of Emotional Intelligence.

So what's going on here?


Emotional Intelligence

People who rise to the top of their field most often possess a combination of smarts, experience and emotional savvy, though it's often difficult to put a finger on this last bit.

I think Emotional Intelligence passes a fundamental requirement for being a "useful theory": it lays an interpretive framework over our experiences to neatly capture what we've all seen happen in the real world. What's more, we can employ the structure this framework provides to take action and change both our circumstances and behaviours.

There's a saying among executive recruiters and HR professionals: people are often "hired on experience, fired on personality."

Supporting this adage is a study of 500 managers on 3 continents, which found that despite their exceptional IQ scores and experience, unsuccessful managers lacked emotional intelligence.

In fact research by psychologist Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence) discovered that emotional intelligence skills account for an astounding 90 percent of the success of senior leaders.

This suggests that traditional cognitive intelligence measured as IQ is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for success as a senior leader.* Dealing with people also requires a high EQ: the emotional intelligence needed to effectively manage negative feelings such as anger and self-doubt, and instead focus on positive ones such as confidence and congeniality.

Clearly IQ is not the only measure of intelligence (see my previous post on Multiple Intelligences) and the "soft skills" measured by EQ are needed to connect with people. Yet as the troubles experienced by Gavin and Sabrina suggest, there's more to relationship-building than high IQ and EQ.


What's difference between sincerity and authenticity?

There's an important distinction to be made between these two terms, and not just a philosophical or linguistic one. Rather, I believe it's one that will help resolve our dilemma over Gavin and Sabrina's behaviours and give insight into the real utility of EQ.

While sincerity and authenticity are often used interchangeably, a closer look at both words reveals helpful distinctions. (Note: longer definitions of each word are presented at the bottom of this post).

Sincerity rules out unwarranted dissimulation, intentional deception, hypocrisy, duplicity, bad-faith commitments, and double-mindedness. It often retains the positive connotation of purity derived from its Latin word sincerus, which means unadulterated. Talk about sincerity usually presupposes some positive standard for good motives, intentions or attitudes against which insincerity is condemned.

Authenticity, in contrast, is captured by the idea of genuineness rather than purity. So the authentic is the bona fide (insurance policy), real (Chinese tapestry), official (commemorative stamp), or authoritative (executive order), as opposed to the fake, imitative, unofficial or unauthorized. For example, an authentic compliment is one that succeeds in praising someone, in contrast to a sincere compliment, which need only be intended to express feelings of admiration.

In addition to distinguishing genuineness from purity, it's necessary to distinguish the internal consistency, or congruence, that accompanies authenticity from that which accompanies sincerity. While consistency is a part of authenticity, it doesn't cover the full meaning of authenticity. Sincerity, however, can be viewed as an unmitigated consistency that limits a full exploration of self and world. Instead of asking what is really going on it says, "be true to yourself," ignoring that the self may be unreflective, insensitive or even destructive.

Take an example from art history: Rousseau and some others in the Romantic movement viewed sincere artists as those who accurately revealed and expressed what they felt. In practice, this often inspired narcissism and exhibitionist displays of the sordid aspects of life neglected by conventional artists. The ideal of sincerity with oneself as congruence allows that the motives for the congruence may have little to do with striving for significant truths or an honest understanding of one’s present attributes.

In other words, it's possible to sincerely wear a mask that is internally consistent; one that you show to everyone around you and that you may even accept as real yourself. While sincere, that mask is, however, not the authentic you. Its purpose is to protect you from interaction with others. In this case, that which protects also prevents you from self-reflection and from deeply exploring your own identity - actions that are terrifying in their potential to undermine the protection offered by your carefully-fashioned mask.

Following the above line of reasoning, the virtue of authenticity is not identical with sincerity and personal acceptance. Authenticity requires interpersonal recognition and group participation. We cannot be authentic in a vacuum, for the very dynamic of authenticity requires that others recognize our authentic identities.

And so for all the protection that we believe they afford us, masks are in fact one of the greatest obstacles to achiving genuine connection with others. Unable to authentically share who we really are, our efforts produce the unintended consequence of alienating us from the very people with whom we seek to build our relationships.

If you wear a mask, no level of EQ will help you in the long run. People know when they're not dealing with the "genuine article" and this can feel like a betrayal, a lack of good faith that may provoke sadness, fear, even anger.


Will the authentic Gavin and Sabrina please step forward?

This is where I think it falls apart for Gavin and Sabrina. They both have highly-developed skills at "performance," at being "on display" and a natural talent for charming that initially woos people ("woo" in the sense of "Winning Others Over").

As mentioned above, they have a facility for making a connection with people...it's the nature of that connection that seems to cause them dramas.

Both are sincere - in fact Gavin's reaction to high-stress situations is to present a mask of such earnest sincerity as to be painful to behold. The problem is, I don't have the impression that either Gavin or Sabrina are being genuine and authentic.

Despite the charming demeanour, they hide their real selves. Evidence of this: in the Boardroom Mark Bouris has repeatedly said he wants Gavin to "stop playing the game," that he wants to know the "real Gavin" - as clear a request to drop the mask as is possible. And irritation with Sabrina's "phoney smile" seems to be growing for what I think are the same reasons.

One possible motive for so closely guarding their selves from others could be that at some point they each came to the belief that they're only valued for what they've achieved, not for who they are as people. Whatever the cause of this belief, the end result is the same: their knack for sincere charm soon turns into to inauthentic schmarm - the kind of slimey, sickly-sweet sycophantic behaviour whose objective is not so much to connect but to ingratiate...and is experienced instead as disconnective, grating and phoney.

Both Gavin and Sabrina possess the gift of connecting with others; it's their own protective mask that causes them to extend only so far...and no further. More's the pity, because I bet their close friends and confidantes could tell us what warm, kind and lovely people are hiding behind the masks they're wearing.

Both could therefore benefit from the spirit that informs this insightful bit of commentary from an article written by Sabrina herself:

Although we're born with our appearance, we have been gifted with the remarkable and somewhat humbling task of creating our identity. It is time to learn who the people around us really are, regardless of their respective packaging.

The developmental point for each of them is therefore to a) realize how their behaviour is unintentionally alienating people; b) create a safe space for them to cultivate self-awareness and separate the mask (which is nothing more than a limbically-based survival strategy) from the genuine gift of being a "people-person"; and c) help each of them to engage with this self-identity, rewriting the narrative so they can engage from this genuine self rather than the dodgy, and ultimately unconvincing, mask-self.


RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence

Does your organization currently use an Emotional Intelligence framework to help people increase their EQ and people skills?

If so - well done! And...it pays to ensure that the people you're training are on the right side of the Battle inside their Brain while they're learning Emotional Intelligence skills.

That is, you help them to operate from their cortical system (cognitive: reasoning, reflective, considerate) rather than their emotionally reactive limbic system (emotional: fast, reactive, habitual). Or to put it briefly: that they're rationally engaged adults learning useful skills rather then reactive little kids viewing important Emotional Intelligence information through the distorting lens of their own survival strategies.

For more information on how tmc can help you to best develop these valuable skills in your team members (and yourself) contact me directly and we'll talk it over - authentically as well as sincerely!



Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.

Word Origins:
SINCERITY - The Oxford English Dictionary and most scholars state that sincerity (from sincere) is derived from the Latin sincerus meaning "clean, pure, sound" (1525–35). Sincerus may have once meant "one growth" (not mixed), from sin- (one) and crescere (to grow).

AUTHENTIC - mid-14th century, "authoritative," from Old French autentique (13th century), from Middle Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos "original, genuine, principal," from authentes "one acting on one's own authority," from autos "self" + hentes "doer, being." Sense of "entitled to acceptance as factual" is first recorded mid-14th century. Authentic implies that the contents of the thing in question correspond to the facts and are not fictitious; genuine implies that the reputed author is the real one.


Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture
Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Apprentice week 5 analysis, RWA: "The Relationship is the Customer"
Apprentice week 6 analysis, RWA: The FIT model

Photo credits: Gavin, Morello, Heather, Mary-Anne, Gavin with moustache, Sabrina. I'm indebted to this article on Authentic Leadership from the Action-Wheel Leadership website for useful insights into defining the differences between sincere and authentic.
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Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 4 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) on "Coaching individuals for high performance," in organizations and on their own.

To learn more about how tmc coaching can help you and your organization, read this 2-page overview on tmc coaching, learn about the Solution-Focused coaching style, or simply email Todd.


Review of episode 4: Pub Nights in Mudgee

The Boss: Mark Bouris
In the time between last week's episode and this one it seems Mark Bouris has reflected upon and/or received good counsel about his decision making in the Boardroom. I suspect this week we're starting to see more of the good judgment that's made him an Australian business success story.

This time in the Boardroom when both Heather and MaryAnn took full responsibility for aspects of their team's shortcomings - with MaryAnn even offering to forfeit Team Pinnacle's clear victory on ethical grounds - Mr Bouris praised rather than punished their displays of accountability. In addition he came down much harder on potentially misleading advertising and in so doing remedied the errors in judgement that I thought he made last week.

Another development in the Mark Bouris' style this week was what I think is a useful shift in perspective. Rather than pressing each team's Project Lead to talk about the "weakest link" in their team, Mr Bouris made several comments on the positive traits he saw in team members - which recalls the ideas offered in the analysis of episode 2 on giving feedback using the Affirm technique.

Offering someone positive feedback doesn't mean you close the door on pointing out his/her areas of development (which we've all got!). On the contrary, it's a highly effective way to help the person stay on top of his/her emotional reactions and win the Battle inside their Brain.

Neuroscience is beginning to offer hard evidence to help explain what we implicitly know from lived experience. In particular, it suggests that the "Command and Control" approach isn't an effective way to motivate, develop or lead people. When we feel threatened and get defensive our capacity to pay attention, take in new information and process it creatively essentially disappears.

In The Apprentice format, the people who get the most feedback in the Boardroom on their performance (and especially areas for development) are typically the three who are up for elimination. True, this ensures they will pay close attention to what's said, but for one of them the feedback will come too late to be effectively applied in further weeks. This week's trio on the hotseat were from Team Eventus.

This week in the Boardroom

As Team Eventus Project Lead, Heather again exhibited the sort of controlling behaviour that she did in episode 2 when she was put in charge of designing the cereal box graphics. This week did not use a consultative decision-making style and instead quickly arrived at what she thought was the "right" decision on the price for the evening. This was followed by a lot of positive talk (e.g. This is going to be great! It's going to be awesome! Why wouldn't anyone come to a night like this?! etc.) to convince herself and presumably her team that this was the right decision, but this positivity had the effect of making it hard for her team to tell her that they all thought the price was too high.

What ended up happening was the team fell victim to the psychological error of confirmation bias. They saw only the information that confirmed Heather's pre-existing decision about the price - information that ultimately proved inaccurate, since on the night people were unwilling to pay such a high price for the product on offer. Despite a last-minute inspiration to raise more money with a raffle in the bar, her team lost by over $1,000 ($2,814 vs. $3,930).

In the Boardroom Heather was credited with being "passionate and optimistic" but this loss caused her to "eat humble pie". Asked why she should stay, Heather could muster little more than, "I have so much more to give". She was advised by Mr Bouris to improve her management skills, which I'd suggest would among other things involve her learning to hear other people out rather than jumping prematurely to the one, "right" decision. This is a team member with great potential but as Mr Bouris suggested, could definitely benefit from some coaching to frankly assess her own strengths and weaknesses and clearly identify what she has to offer.

This week smooth-talking charmer Gavin missed a trick by failing to think of the table sponsorships idea - a financial blunder that cost his team the victory. Though in the Boardroom he made much of "putting his hand in" and actively participate in every project, and though he was credited with confidence and persuasiveness, he was faulted for seeming unwilling to take accountability when things fail to work out as planned.

As before, Gavin needs to do more than look good and speak well. Mr Bouris pointed out that he is "the guy the team looks toward" when they need leadership and stated, "You've been too measured...I want to see the real Gavin, I want to see the best come out of you from now on." While he is clearly strong at the intangible areas of relationship development and team building, a development area for Gavin continues to be producing tangible practical results - in this case, setting a course of action and sticking to it, not getting distracted by the dancing girls, costumes, making friends and doing deals. While clearly adept at playing to this strengths, Gavin could usefully be coached to become aware of his blindspots and formulate a course of action that addresses them.

It was hard not to feel for Blake this week, whose halting performance in the Boardroom exhibited a clear lack of confidence, even a bewilderment at what was happening around him, and a lack of energy to fight for his own survival. He was faulted by Mr Bouris for not stepping up on decisions and for flying under the radar, which Blake said he "does not do on purpose." Yet when asked why he should stay could only muster: "I don't have the background [in marketing]...I have skills but not experience. [...] I'm here to work for an organization I can build a career out of" - hardly a compelling case of value-add to Mr Bouris' organization.

Self-doubt of this sort is normal and we all experience it occasionally (otherwise we'd risk becoming thoughtless automatons or egomaniacs). The time and place to express it, however, is not the kill-or-be-killed Boardroom setting. This is a clear case of someone whose performance is slipping and could benefit from coaching. A coach could help Blake to a) identify what he wants and b) develop an practical action plan that plays to his strengths, to help him focus less on apologizing for what he can't do and get the best results from those things that he does well.


Real-World Application (RWA): Coaching for high performance

I liked the moment when Mark Bouris mused aloud, "there's some positives there, we've got to try to figure out how we get the best out of them." Above I've suggested some ways that coaching could help develop these three people. Similarly, in previous reviews I've highlighted personality and character traits that would be useful to explore and develop in a coaching conversation.

When I speak to people about coaching, however, I notice there's a lot of confusion about the subject. Since coaching came into vogue in the business world some years ago there's been an explosion in both the different kinds of coaching on offer (executive-, business-, skills-, team-, behavioural-, personal-, life-, sports-, health-, and even dating-coaching!) and the sheer number of people who now call what they do "coaching"...with widely varying degrees of expertise. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions these days about what a coach does and how the coaching process works.

Here are my views on coaching - what it is, what it isn't, and what it can do for you and your organization.

"Hey, I don't need therapy!!"
Some people shy away from coaching because they think it's going to get all soupy, emotional or just too personal...like some kind of therapy or counselling. Broadly speaking, while therapy tends to focus on feelings and experiences related to past events, coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encourages you to move forward. So you don't have to be sick to get better: while therapy aims at helping a dysfunctional person to become functional, coaching helps a functional person to achieve high performance and is action-oriented. The focus is on where your are right now, where you want to be, and how you can get yourself there.

"How's that different from having a mentor?"
Mentoring differs from coaching in both the type of expertise on offer and the nature of the relationship. A mentor typically has years of experience in the field, someone who is able to offer advice from the perspective of "been there, done that." The means the mentor is usually older and more experienced than the person being mentored and the relationship is more teacher-pupil. An important difference from coaching, then, is that a coach does not need any expertise in the client's field of work, while a mentor provides the perspective of "when I was in your shoes and facing the same situation, here's what I did...."

Coaching for high performance
A coach works in side-by-side with you to explore your current situation with the objective of identifying what you want to achieve and creating a plan of action to help you get there. In this process the coach does not have to be an expert in the client’s business - the client is the expert. The coach's expertise in this partnership is to serve as a sounding board and to occasionally reflect back certain information (like recurring themes or patterns).

Note, however, that the coach does not have the answers. The coach's role is to ask useful, thought-provoking questions - ones that encourage you to find your own answers and clarify your own thinking. The real value of a coach is to help you draw on your own wisdom and insight, arriving at your own conclusions and resolve to address the situation with practical action.

In this way a great coach is a little bit like Lao Tzu's definition of a great leader: "...he who the people barely know exists and, when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, people will say: we did it ourselves." Or as renowned psychologist Carl Rogers is credited with saying, "in order to truly help someone we must be able to enter their lives, help them resolve their issues and then exit their lives without them ever knowing we were there."

How can organizations and individuals benefit from coaching?
While it's tricky to put a precise ROI on an intangible service like coaching, here are a few stats that have been compiled over time:

• A study of Fortune 100 executives found that coaching resulted in an ROI of almost six times the program cost as well as a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, 61% improvement in job satisfaction, 48% improvement in quality. (Manchester Consulting Group)
• Productivity increased by 88 percent when coaching was combined with training, as compared to a 22 percent increase with training alone. (International Personnel Management Association)
• A study of a Fortune 500 telecommunications company found that executive coaching resulted in a 529 percent ROI. (MetrixGlobal)
• Productivity among salespeople who had participated in an intensive coaching program rose by an average of 35 percent (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company)

Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

Credits: I gained useful insight and the ROI stats, from Dutchcoach. Photo of Heather by Richard Polden.

Story conference: habits, corporate culture & stories for change

Summary: An article based on content presented at the Celebrating Story conference held last week in Melbourne, Australia. The post talks about how individual habits form, how organizational habits are the corporate culture or "the way we do things around here" and how, during culture change projects, stories can be used to mediate the tension between individual survival responses and participation in the larger (organizational) group.
NB: This post is an abridged version of an article on transformational culture change in organizations due to be available later this month - to request a copy of the article upon its publication, email the author.

Habits are handy

Remember when you first learned how to drive a car or ride a bike?

In the beginning it took a whole lot of conscious, focused attention to learn this new task. Quite soon, though, the movements needed for that activity became more or less automatic. So much so, that sometimes you (like most people) will drive somewhere you've been to many times before and, upon arrival, have no recollection at all of having made the trip.

Similarly, if you try to explain in words to someone how to ride a bike, it's a really hard thing to do. Your long repetition of bike-riding behaviour has turned it into a habit and actually put it outside your conscious awareness, into an automatic set of movements.

The mechanics behind this process work like this. When you first sat astride that bike or buckled up in the driver's seat of a car you engaged in some pretty serious and focused attention, so as not to either scuff your knees or wrap your dad's car around a tree. At times like this, you're consciously engaging your cortical brain - that's the part which engages in complex tasks by weighing different options, considering evidence and laying down the new neural pathways required for learning and skill acquisition.

This is the "heavy-lifting" part of your brain; a processing powerhouse, the possession of which separates we humans from other species. It's hugely expensive to operate in caloric energy terms: it takes about 25-30% of the body's available energy to engage in sustained cognitive activity, like that required to learn a new complex task. That's why after a long period of intense concentration like studying for a test you're exhausted. Even though you were not very physically active, you probably demolished a big meal soon after and had a nice long sleep.

In order to manage your body's resources most efficiently the brain automates as many cognitive activities as possible. New learning is swiftly turned into automatic patterns of behaviour. They become habits and, as you have probably experienced, they can be very tricky things to try to change. As they become simply "the way you do things," they drop out of your conscious awareness. You find you have "imperfect introspective access" to your habits, making them hard to shift and a very powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo.


Vive la différence

Eating the same evening meal day in, day out can be comforting habit. It's efficient, no thought is required and it probably saves time and effort that you can expend on other things.

However, it also means you'll miss other experiences and culinary opportunities. It leaves you exposed if the ingredients for your favourite meal are suddenly unavailable. Your body may rebel against this monotony and develop an intolerance for some of the foods. The point is: the efficiencies that habits can bring can also stand in the way of the flexibility needed to adapt to internal and outside changes.


Organizational habits: Corporate Culture

A similar process happens on a wider scale in organizations. They can be said to have "habits" too, ones that, taken together, form the corporate culture - a concept that is most often described simply as "the way we do things around here". Corporate culture can therefore also be a powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo and, as with the dinner example above, most of the time that's OK.

However for an organization to be flexibly adaptable (e.g. for the organization to move from where it is now to where it needs to be in order to deliver on its strategic goals) many of the habitual patterns wrapped up in the corporate culture will need to change as well.

Now mention “corporate culture” to people in an organization and most will return a blank look, an uncertain smile, or a tentative nod. Having a conversation about culture is a bit like trying to talk to a fish about water - the awareness level is just not very high, because everyone is so completely immersed in the culture.

Any organizational change initiative will very quickly run smack into habitual, automatic patterns of behaviour. The way that people are invited to take part in that change process will therefore determine from the very start how successful the shift will be, and what results will be achieved as the new strategy is executed.


Change can unbalance "The Battle inside your Brain"

Since the habits of corporate culture are powerful forces to maintain the status quo, you need equally powerful countervailing efforts to shift these habits. The thorny question is: will making a powerful case for culture change encourage people to rationally evaluate new ways of operating using their cortical brain networks, or will it represent a source of disruption, insecurity and distress that's seen as a threat and triggers a limbic survival response in each individual?

The way that a change initiative is launched and managed will determine how well you set people up to be on the productive side of The Battle inside their Brain.

Remember that the limbic emotional brain network is where you see the classic knee-jerk reaction - act first, then consider - as it makes decisions first, then seeks justification (or rationalization) for the decision after the fact.

Meanwhile the cortical rational brain network is built to weighing options and alternatives, gathering data and information and then make decisions based on careful analysis and thoughtful debate - consider first, then act. It's in this latter part of the brain that our better nature and true talents as functional adults is located. During a change, you want people to be spending lots of time there and as little time as possible in their limbic survival mode.

What's tricky is that the limbic survival reaction produces powerful emotions and reacts faster than the cortical rational brain. Here's why.


Survival strategies and the Individual

When any change happens in their environment, people will have an immediate response at a very basic level of the brain, the limbic system.

This is a survival response and one that is deeply hardwired - essentially it provides the motivation to focus your attention and assess the situation that you now face in terms of what threats may be present and whether there's action that needs to be taken to ensure your survival.

These survival responses are made up of something that you've no doubt heard of before: the "3 F's" of fight-flight-freeze response.

The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the larger cortical brain, which means that these emotionally-fuelled fight-flight-freeze reactions happen even before we’re consciously aware of them. Now, these reactions have to be fast or they wouldn't be of much use to keep you alive in threatening situations where instant action is required.

The price you pay for the limbic system's speed is that it bypasses the rational cortical brain. Because your rational cortical brain is the part which enables you to consider evidence, weigh alternatives and make well-thought-through decisions, it means that pre-cortical, unconscious reactions can produce some really dumb decisions. Also because the limbic system is a critical part of our age-old, hardwired survival mechanism there's no way to "turn it off". That is to say, you can't NOT have a reaction to things.

The question is, what you do with the emotional energy that results.

Managing this energy requires that people know their most frequent survival strategy: fight-flight-freeze. To use less provocative terms, think of them as gears that you switch depending on whether you need to go forward, reverse, or just be in neutral.

• Forward (fight) is all about action, but it can't be your only survival mode; faced with something bigger and toothier than we are, it makes sense to have other reactions to fall back on.
• Reverse gear (flight) is the withdrawal mode, where you disengage to observe the surroundings for signs of danger and decide whether to re-engage or flee still further.
• Neutral (freeze) in this context is the in-between mode, staying put and being mostly non-threatening and compliant.

These reactions are reactive, not thoughtful. Fighters will unthinkingly attack a change initiative, Fleers will unthinkingly withdraw either mentally or sometimes even physically from the environment, while Freezers will unthinkingly agree and be compliant, but not have any capacity for real engagement with the change.

People in survival mode are in a emotionally high-strung state of limbic lock-down. They will be barely functional as rational adult individuals and even less inclined to participate in groups. Since each person's limbic behaviour tends to trigger a limbic response in others, teams devolve into an animalistic battle of each-against-all.

As each person's limbic response ricochets and intensifies that of others, the group's level of emotional reactivity rises and other team members come to be viewed one of two ways: as competition or food. In such a setting change becomes impossible and people long for the safety and familiarity of habitual patterns - hence why so often a few months after a change is introduced, people revert back to pre-change behaviour patterns.


We live in tribes and tell stories

This may all sound quite grim, a bit like an organizational Lord of the Flies (a.k.a. The Apprentice TV series). Thankfully, two characteristics of human beings offer a way to mediate this state of high tension between individual survival and group participation: 1) we are inherently social animals and 2) we are meaning-making machines.

1) Our social brains. There's something called the default mode network in the brain, which is "what the brain does when it is doing nothing in particular" and involves primarily two areas of the brain.

Researchers don’t agree on all the components of the default network, but consensus is growing that it has two major hubs: the posterior cingulate cortex, or PCC, with the precuneus, and the medial prefrontal cortex. The functions ascribed to those two areas may give clues to what the default network is good for. The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in imagining, thinking about yourself and “theory of mind,” which encompasses the ability to figure out what others think, feel or believe and to recognize that other people have different thoughts, feelings and beliefs from you. The precuneus and PCC are involved in pulling personal memories from the brain’s archives, visualizing yourself doing various activities and describing yourself. [...] Together, these hubs give you a sense of who you are. Their prominence in the network has led some researchers to propose that the function of the default mode is to allow you to internally explore the world and your place in it, so you can plot future actions, including contingency plans for various scenarios you might encounter.*

So it seems that when you're not thinking of anything else, you're thinking about yourself - as defined by your social relationship with others. In other words: as defined through interactions with the group.

2) Stories. A good deal of research has confirmed the human predilection to make characters and narratives out of whatever we see in the world around us. Put simply, we are meaning-making machines. In keeping with the above, it's also interesting to note the role that stories play to promote social cohesion among groups and serve as a valuable method for passing on information. Moreover, stories and narratives play a key role in persuasion: people accept ideas more readily when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in an analytical mind-set.** (Hat-tip Shawn for this article.)


Practical takeaways

God turns you from one feeling to another
And teaches you by means of opposites
So that you will have two wings to fly
Not one. ~ Rumi

Illustration credit: Simon Kneebone, Cartoonist & Illustrator


Our default mode is to define our selves in social terms through relation to others and we tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world around us. We're naturally tribal, storytelling creatures. In this tension of opposites, between the individual's concern for survival and his/her desire to belong to a group, there can be found both the high energy of the emotional limbic survival response and the amazing human capacity for complex thought and meaning-making.

From the very start of a change process, leaders need to use stories and encourage people to channel their emotions into productive behaviours. This can be successfully done in two practical ways:

1. Help individuals to recognize and manage their own limbic emotional reactivity, through awareness of the nine predictable limbic types (see below, Workshop).
2. Engage the group with story, with a narrative journey of change that sets the context, lays out the strategy, invites participation, shows the benefits, engages at an emotional level, outlines the detailed plan, and finally looks forward to positive future state (see below, Consultancy).
   

Are you a slave to your emotions or is your emotional energy serving you?

Workshop: The 9 Survival Strategies - which ones you use and how to put them to work for you (as presented at Melcrum's Strategic Comms conference Sydney, and used by Deutsche Bank, Lloyds TSB Bank, AMP, and other organizations in Australia and the UK).

What's the story of your next organizational culture change project?

Consultancy: To learn more about how tmc helps leaders to effectively engage their teams through times of change, email Todd.



References:
Peter Burow. "The Art & Science of Transformational Leadership."
**Jeremy Hsu. "The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn - Our love for telling tales reveals the workings of the mind," Scientific American Mind, August/September 2008, 46-51.
M.D. Lieberman, D. Schreiber & K.N. Ochsner. "Is Political Cognition like riding a bicycle? How cognitive neuroscience can inform research on political thinking," Political Psychology, 24(4) 2003, 681-704.
*Tina Hesman Saey, "You are who you are by default," Science News, 176(2) July 18th 2009, 16.
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Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart

Summary: This post reviews episode 2 of The Apprentice Australia and offers Real-World Applications (RWAs) on how to give and receive feedback.

Previous related posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management

Analysis of week two

TEAM EVENTUS (winning team)

What was shown of the behaviour the all-female team members demonstrated a team divided... dare I say: catty?

Carmen's comments about team leader Sabrina (whom she had invited into the Boardroom with her last week for potential elimination) were critical and caustic, in keeping with Carmen's central theme of revenge for perceived betrayal. Watch for more fireworks from Carmen's corner as it seems she has not yet learned how to channel her abundant energy into more productive behaviour.

Heather joined in the fray early this week when her desire to use her experience in advertising as team leader was thwarted by Sabrina thrusting herself forward for the role. Heather did not contest Sabrina's suggestion but then seemed inwardly resentful throughout the task as a result - a function of not wanting to deal with a difficult or potentially painful situation. When Heather did apply her experience to the project, we saw another side of her: a perfectionist pursuit of what is right according to her expertise/rules. Working with the graphic designer she repeatedly said, "no that's not it, that's not right" and worked literally up to the last minute on fine-tuning and adjustments - which could have led to disaster. Despite this long time commitment, Heather looked stressed and anxious during the pitch, most probably out of fear that it still wasn't right. In the weeks to come a developmental goal for Heather will be to present her ideas assertively while also making room for other perspectives, adopting a position of curiosity rather than a compulsive quest for what is right according to her own standards.

Sabrina wasted no time in putting herself forward to shine this week - and then manifestly failed to do so. Using her characterisitc forcefulness she effectively nominated and acclaimed herself team leader at the outset (team approval at that point being really just a formality in her mind). In the event, not much was shown of her leadership or contribution to the project aside from her singing voice on the jingle and her delivery of a negative and critical assessment of Heather's design efforts. Worse, she nearly blew what to that point had been a strong team pitch to the Ogilvy execs by getting defensive during the Q&A and arguing with their feedback. Incredibly, she repeated this blunder in the Boardroom by cutting across and attempting to correct Diane Stone's report on Eventus' performance. It's possible that Sabrina talks a good game and fronts herself as being capable of much more than she can actually deliver. In short, she's a fraud and at a certain level she knows it. Her persona is therefore built on tenuous foundations and she will be on perpetual high alert for any threat to its maintenance...which makes her incredibly resistant to feedback and fearful of any assessment of her by others. Her development task remains the same: cultivate modesty and objectivity, greater awareness of others through opening herself to feedback, and learning to deliver feedback to others in a more constructive way.

TEAM PINNACLE (losing team)

Lynton's elimination this week stemmed largely from his over-reliance on data, information and logical, step-by-step process. In his exit interview he seems not to have learned the lesson: he states there is not a lot he would have done differently, says they made the best possible use of the tools and information available, but failed to talk about how he would correct the two major shortfalls: his failure to remember the clients' names(!) and the lack of engagement and energy in his "wooden" presentation to Ogilvy. It's likely that he thought his way was the best way, so despite claiming to have a "dream team" to work with, he insisted on delivering the pitch on his own. In the Boardroom his detached, non-emotional mask began to crack as he continually pursed his lips - a blatant microexpression that may have indicated anger/annoyance, disapproval/disgust, or impatience at not being able to speak, but in any event clearly demonstrated outwardly the emotional distress that he was unwilling to actually put into words.

Jon, meanwhile, was this week's target of Mr Bouris' war on "shrinking violet" behaviour and "fence-sitters" - which seems to be code for everyone who's not making a big noise about their own contribution. I'd agree that Jon seems ambivalent about his role and was too easily brushed aside by Gavin during the interviews - all the more reason for him to insist that some groundwork be set before tasks are undertaken so there's greater role clarity and even debate about how to proceed, before proceeding. So, more Foundation before the Force.

Sam meanwhile got positively manic and made good use of his creative side during the brainstorming session - which is, after all, what a brainstorming session is meant to be about - but then got some stick for being unfocussed. At present there is simultaneously a lot of goodwill towards him and doubts about his youth. That said, he stuck his hand up and took responsibility for an idea in the Boardroom, which earned him kudos from Mr Bouris since everyone else on Team Pinnacle was in prevarication/plausible deniability mode. In the weeks to come Sam needs to keep on being himself and continue to earn the respect of his team members by engaging with them in an energetic, authentic way - in other words, with Heart.


Real-World Application (RWA) #1: Head and Heart

Lynton and Sam offer good examples this week of the contrast between Head and Heart.

HEAD is about data, tasks and learning. It looks like this: get clear on the step-by-step actions, make resources available, allocate them efficiently and leverage them to move forward. Ensure good information flow, analyze data for patterns to apply and exploit. It's logical, procedural, rational and non-emotional.






HEART is about empathy, inclusion and relationships, creating a personal connection so that internal competition does not tear the team apart. Being smart about connecting with the team helps foster a sense of belonging for each team member. People don't work for companies or money - they work for people. As team leader, offering a sense of personal commitment will build authentic relationships between team members, who gladly go the extra mile for you...and for each other.

There's an old saying: "People don't care what you know, until they know that you care." With Sam it seems pretty clear that what you see is what you get - to use the phrase, he wears his Heart on his sleeve for all to see. On the other hand, Lynton's Head-strong efforts to dazzle with his marketing know-how and to put himself forward as the expert presenter during the pitch actually alienated him from team members. It also blinded him to the fact that a joint presentation would have been more compelling because it would draw on the diverse strengths of the team members, including Jon's input from his role as parent, Gavin's charm and easy way with people, Sam's energetic enthusiasm and Andrew's warmth and engagement.

Using only his Head and not his Heart, Lynton failed to engage either his team or the client, and paid the price. His exit interview shows that this lesson hasn't sunk in. Logically, his Head-based behaviour still makes rational sense to him. As yet, he hasn't developed the Heart-insight to understand where things went wrong. Opening himself to emotional and Heart-style engagement with others will therefore be his developmental task in his post-Apprentice career.

Of course both Head and Heart are necessary elements and each is an effective counterbalance to the other. We can get so focused on results that the human dimension, that of emotions and relationships, gets forgotten. Yet it is the central task of leadership to successfuly reincorporate exactly that dimension to to engage people in getting things done.

What does your team or organization do to ensure a good mix of both Head and Heart in decision-making, activities and interactions?

An excellent tool for reincorporating the human dimension, the Heart in an organization, is by enabling people to communicate more effectively by giving and receiving feedback.

Real-World Application (RWA) #2: Giving & Receiving Feedback

Giving feedback: The Affirm
This week Sabrina demonstrated the kind of feedback that many managers give: pointing out what's wrong, challenging decisions with a lot of "why" questions and generally putting the person at the receiving end on the back foot. This highly critical approach focused on the negatives will be interpreted by many people as a threat - and drive them into their limbic, emotionally reactive survival mode.

Rather than offering negative, destructive feedback, there's a tool that helps you to give constructive feedback aimed at a collaborative and mutually-agreeable outcome. Working on the basis that people work better when they are appreciated, a good approach is to Affirm the things you notice that are going well and the resources, skills, talents and attributes that a person has demonstrated.

At first this might seem like a pointless waste of time, just soft-stuff, hand-holding and not getting the point across. Or like those empty compliments that some managers lavish indiscriminately on team member - a load of sickly-sweet, nonspecific and insincere praise. But the Affirm is something else.

Good Affirms are:
Authentic and sincere
Specific and detailed
Relevant to the context

And...they feel really good both to the giver's brain (since it's linked to compassion) and the receiver's brain, since they help position the receiver to win the Battle inside their Brain. Good Affirms calm the knee-jerk, emotionally reactive limbic brain and invite the attention and involvement of the rational cortical brain, where the mental heavy-lifting takes place and whence people produce their most useful behaviour and activity. (Learn more here.)

Receiving feedback: Active Listening

Even if you're not being Affirmed, you will still need to receive feedback from others in order to learn, develop and grow. Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, "O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." And he's right, we gain invaluable insight from the outside perspective that can only come from other people.

Assuming you've won the Battle inside your Brain and quieted the noise of your emotional reactivity, here are some good Active Listening habits to cultivate:

• Reassure/encourage - convey genuine interest, show you're paying attention, keep the person talking by occasionally saying: "I see..." "Yes..." "Say more about that..."
  
• Reflect/paraphrase - convey understanding by restating what the person has said, not necessarily word-for-word but as you've heard and understood it, sometimes taking a guess at the underlying feelings: "You feel that..." "I can imagine you would feel angry that"
  
• Restate/clarify - check that you have understood the speaker's intended message (NB: whether you agree with it or not!): "So if I understand you correctly, your idea is..." "In other words, you're saying..."
  
• Summarize - to highlight important facts, ideas, etc., review progress so far and establish basis for further discussion: "These seem to be your key ideas..." "Let me just check where we've got to so far..."
  

The opposite behaviours can be called listening stoppers:

• Denial - "No, that's not true." Also, body language like lip pursing, rolling eyes, ignoring comments.
  
• Counter-interrogation - responding with questions that attack, criticize or make false assumptions
  
• Offering counter-opinions - Rejecting the other person's point of view out of hand and substituting your own, "accurate" version: "Let me tell you what really happened!"

When team members can learn to give and receive feedback using Heart, it opens the channels to and engages the rational brain to better process the Head-based facts, data and information. A winning combination!

tmc can help you and your team members to give and receive feedback more constructively, interact collaboratively, and more productively deliver the results you need. To find out more - contact me.

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
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Apprentice episode 2 preview, RWA: Conflict management

Summary: This second post in the series on The Apprentice Australia completes the review of episode 1 and offers a preview of what to watch for among the remaining 11 candidates in episode 2 (airing in Australia 21h30 Monday on Channel 9 - for those who missed it, you can watch episode 1 online here).

My previous post in this series argued that a successful team must strike a balance between what I call Role (taking the time to set the roles, goals and expectations at the outset) and Reward (driving forward to achieve those ends with practical action).

On The Apprentice, the drive for results in a stressful, time-limited setting, along with the cut-throat competitive nature of this show, strongly biases the team interactions in favour of fast action over setting clear expectations. In other words, for Force over Foundation.

Now that what Mr. Bouris labelled "shrinking violet" behaviour has been punished with week one's elimination of Jane, that will only increase the drive to more and faster actions.

Real-World Application - Managing Team Conflict

As a "reality" TV series The Apprentice is an artificial environment. In the real world of course people face just as many pressures: to hit the numbers, increase the billing, reduce costs, meet tough timelines or any number of other factors. The end result is the same bias for rapid action in a team.

This bias for rapid action often creates an environment full of people talking past one another and varied (and vying) expectations of the what, how, who and when within the teams. The result is widespread miscommunication and, rather than all pulling together in the same direction, each team runs the risk of devolving into a tug-of-war.

In episode 1 this clash of egos was already evident in the girls' team as Carmen and Mary-Anne butted heads straightaway, there was little consultation by the project leader and, rather than bringing up and resolving differences of opinion, there was a lot of muttered grumbles and second-guessing. These conflicts only came out belatedly in the Boardroom, where there was much finger-pointing and "blamestorming" to make the team's failure someone else's fault. By this stage it's already far too late to manage this conflict effectively.

In a real world team there may not be any Boardroom where team members can to have it out. Instead the conflict seeths and festers, becoming the "dead cat under the table" that everyone can smell, but no one talks about. This underlying conflict in a team is poisonous. More to the point: it has a real and negative effect on team productivity - and the bottom line.

Conflict scenarios produce threats (real and perceived) that trigger people's survival strategies. Once again it's the Battle inside your Brain, as the emotional limbic system takes hold and knee-jerk reactivity fuels the conflict to ever-greater intensity.


How do you manage conflict in your organization?

Effective conflict management in a team means:

• knowing your own survival strategy and hot buttons - those things that trigger an emotionally reactive, knee-jerk response - so you can effectively self-manage during crisis and high-pressure situations
  
• learn (or at least have a best-guess at) what your fellow team members' survival strategies and hot button issues are as well
• during team interactions, be mindful of these hot buttons and, respectful of their fast-acting and deeply instinctual nature, communicate and interact with each other in ways that minimize any potential triggers to an emotionally reactive, knee-jerk response
• when (not if!) despite all efforts people DO get triggered, ensure there's a way to handle the conflict quickly - one that's been agreed upon in advance and can be effectively deployed even in the heat of the moment
  

People are complex, adaptive beings and so, as with all situations where people are interacting, the process of conflict management too will be complex. Handily, there are ways to give yourself the advantage.

1. Learn the nine most common survival strategies that reliably predict the majority of emotional limbic behaviour (I presented the nine of them briefly toward the end of a previous post). This is not about pigeonholing people; quite different and unique individuals will, faced with the same stimulus, react in ways that are consistent enough to be grouped together as a survival strategy style. Use them a lens to view and better understand both your own behaviour that of others too.
   
   
2. Engage in a facilitated process in which each person can talk about their own survival strategy, what triggers them to reactive emotional behaviour, and how they want to be interacted with when they have been triggered. Using tools like the Pinch/Crunch model, this creates the foundation of an agreed way to manage conflict in the team when it happens. Done well, it actually encourages people to have a laugh about their own reactive behaviours, lightens the subject of conflict and removes any taboos and fears attached to discussing sensitive topic of conflict. It gets the "dead cat" out from under the table and helps clear the air!
   

To find out more about effective conflict management and how tmc can help your team or organization benefit from this Real World Application, contact me.


The remaining 11 on The Apprentice - what to watch for:

In what follows I adopt the perspective of what counsel I might offer to Mr. Bouris assuming his job was to develop people to their full capacity and invite them to realize the best in themselves, rather than (as is the avowed intention of the Apprentice format) finding reasons to fire one of them each week.

In the weeks to come, then, here's what to watch for as contestants' mettle is tested and their personality preferences and reactive styles come to the fore - as the Battle inside their Brains continues to be waged. I've also included thoughts on each contestant's likely triggers or hot buttons - the things that may provoke emotionally reactive behaviour as outlined above.

(Caveat: These represent my best-guesses based on what's been shown of them so far. I want to reiterate: people are complex, adaptive beings and, in keeping with my stated intention to avoid pigeonholing, I remain willing to modify my hypotheses on the availability of new data.)


Amy - Thus far Amy has been cool, calm, detached and analytical. She's likely to have an excellent mind for details and numbers and be slow to anger or feel provoked. Her gift is to fulfill the Auditor/Organizer function in a team and as project lead will demonstrate a Tactical leadership style. When it comes to task accomplishment her disciplined, objective approach will offer calmness and clarity to the team. On the people side, she may struggle with managing the relationships and personalities. The key to her success will therefore be to tap into her ability to see the best in people bring it out with encouragement and positive feedback. Her strong achievement focus may cause her to overcommit and set goals that cannot be delivered; if this happens she will find it very difficult to deal with failure. She's also admitted to being nervous around successful people and will feel anxious being questioned by those she secretly fears are better/smarter/more successful than she is. Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Andrew "Morello" - The project lead for the boys in episode one was in his element generating sales, yet he lost his first pitch to the girls because his approach seemed less focused on tangible results and more on being personable - essentially "hire me, I'm a good bloke and I'll do right by you." Andrew needs to tap into his gift to be a Practical Problem Solver with a Democratic leadership style. In weeks to come he must show substance behind the warm personality. He may fall down on more strategic tasks if he fails to channel his abundant energy and good cheer into productive output. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism.

Blake - Did not hear much from this quarter in week one either, but at first glance Blake seems entrepreneurial, happy to get stuck in and highly focused on results and winning. His gift could be the Driver/Completer role, energizing the team with a Commanding/Coercive leadership style. He is by times energetic and other moments reserved and withdrawn so I think that how he manages the energy levels of his emotions will be worth watching. Triggers: being left out, ignored, told what to do, unsupported, being taken advantage of, distruptions to group harmony, rudeness in others, overt hostility and confrontation - also potentially abuses of authority, pressure, feeling helpless/out of control.

Carmen - I wrote a fair bit about Carmen in my last post and I think what to watch now is how she applies the experiences of episode one and whether she tempers her behaviour in team interactions. Mr. Bouris seems to have a lot of faith in her ability to deliver results. The question now is whether she can do so as a productive member of a team.

Gavin - Suave and smooth, Gavin is the consummate charmer and diplomat. His natural focus is on people and relationships and his gift as Promoter/Strategist is to put the right people in place to get the job done with an Affiliative leadership style. The intangible nature of these vital "soft" skills mean that he risks being in charge of successful projects in which he's well liked, gets results...but at the end of the day cannot tell Mr Bouris in hard practical terms what exactly he's done to help make it a success. Like Amy, he's also at risk of overpromising and failing to deliver; such a threat to his reputation could move him to ill-considered action. Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Heather From the outset Heather has used words like ethical and integrity so we know there's a strong focus there. Her gift is to be the Explorer/Motivator with a Mentoring leadership style. Her passion, discipline and dependability will mean she can put in hard work and model the integrity and high standards she holds so dear. This will, in turn, provide a clear sense of mission and straight dealing between team members. As with Andrew, the challenge will be for her to keep her energy focused and face difficult situations without getting thrown off course. If she does get triggered, watch for her to flip into quite punitive behaviour with a clear expectation of compliance with her rules for conduct. Triggers: dislikes difficult situations or painful feelings, mundane tasks and constraints or limitations, feeling dismissed or not taken seriously, unjust criticism - also, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by her standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Jon - Probably the quietest team member so far, look to Jon to deploy his gifts as Visionary Planner with an Authoritative/Visionary leadership style. His will be a solid presence offering the team clear sense of direction in the pursuit of the vision's end goal, a calm certainty about the outcome and will fosters stability and security even in the face of widespread and disruptive change. He'll work well with Gavin and Sam and possibly Sabrina; where it could fall over is if there's disagreement about the norms or there's excessive discord or disorder. Then Jon may revert to quite an inflexible adherence to the original plan even though circumstances have shifted, leaving the team vulnerable and unprepared to handle the new situation. Like the recently-departed Jane, Jon is also be maladroit in playing Boardroom politics and may get ambushed. Triggers: mistakes being made, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by his standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Lynton - In the first boys' team meeting Lynton took charge straight off, coming up with the name Pinnacle and essentially appointing Andrew as team leader. This is characteristic of the Explorer/Motivator's gift, stepping in to set the course and foster confidence in the chosen direction with a Mentoring leadership style. His demeanour is otherwise highly detached, however, and he may unwittingly put people off by seeming aloof, distant and cold. This directive but distant approach may make it difficult to foster a connection with others - leaving him to fend for himself when the knives come out in the Boardroom. If he is able to get closer to others he could be a quite capable leader, but his aversion to conflict (and presumably to strongly-expressed emotions) may make that difficult for him to do. Pushed too far, he will become curt, vengeful and ruthless. Triggers: strong feelings especially fear, intrusive/demanding people or situations, being surprised, dishonesty, out of control situations, overwhelming tasks, feeling inadequate.

Mary-Anne We heard the least from Mary-Anne on the girls' team after she was shut down peremptorily by Carmen during the first team meeting. Mary-Anne's likely to shine as a Creative Change Agent and her Pacesetting leadership style will depend on getting quick results from a highly motivated and competent team. Lacking team experience from her job, to get this to happen she will need to rein in her high-energy competitive nature to win people over rather than confronting them. Her intolerance for what she perceives as incompetence may also be a significant trigger resulting in punitive behaviour, even bullying. The early clash with Carmen (who shares a similar disposition) is a sign of things to come. Triggers: injustice, skirting the issues, others not taking responsibility for their behaviour, being blindsided, lack of truthfulness, feeling weak/vulnerable/uncertain/dependent, losing regard of people she respects.

Sabrina Beautiful and smart, Sabrina has so far demonstrated a highly advanced sense of her own self-worth, bordering on narcissism. Her forceful confidence bowls others over, as when she stated that Eventus should be the team name as it's "Latin for success." In fact it's not (except in the most obscure usage of it) and while no one could have known this, it is an example of how easily she can persuade others to do the wrong thing. Sabrina more than anyone else will react strongly to any perceived threat to her reputation and self-image. If her smiling and charming exterior starts to crack, expect to see wildly erratic emotional reactions from her and a willingness to stick the knives in anyone and everyone else to ensure her own survival. At this point it's so hard to get past the facade she's presented that I can't make any prediction of her likely team role gift and leadership style. I agree with Mr. Bouris' assessment: there's a risk she'll seem to be "All show, no go". Whatever happens, to be a serious contender she'll need to get over herself and focus her undeniable talent and intelligence on being a productive member of the team - rather than continually self-referencing every situation with "me, me, me". Triggers: failure of any kind - particularly not achieving goals, inactivity and slow pace, anything that distracts from achievement/performance focus, losing face/reputation or being overshadowed by others, put in position to fail, being blamed for poor work of others, not getting credit for work done, feeling like a fraud.

Sam - Sam is thus far a largely unknown quantity. What we have heard, apart from the teenage bravado and buzzwords, has focused on the team and people working together. Sam's gift is therefore likely to be a Promoter/Strategist, one who brings people together with an Affiliative leadership style. Sam also seems very rules-focused and will tend either, as in week one, to readily comply with the views of more forceful team members or to act strongly to enforce the rules and create order. Rule-enforcing behaviour like this will cause his perspective to narrow and create blindspots that may prevent him from tapping into his natural gifts, so how he manages challenges to his conception of the rules and how things should be will be something to watch. Triggers: mistakes being made, blaming/criticism, violations of team norms, lack of follow-through, lack of commitment (by his standards), deception and lack of integrity.

Enjoy the show, look for more analysis and insight soon!

Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.
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