Corporate and Executive Coaching
From the IBM 2010 Global CEO Study, the largest of its kind, where 1,500 CEOs commented on the business landscape and the challenges that lie ahead, some key findings were striking:
- 32% increase in expected complexity over the next 5 years
- Fewer than half admitted they were prepared to handle this “complexity gap jump”
- 60% noted a burst of quantum-changing creativity was needed
When faced with such complex economic challenges as we have today, businesses need to take a look behind traditional creative leadership interventions and approaches to uncover the missing secrets to improving strategy, processes, and performance. (Click here for Dr. Fleming’s Huffington Post article on the Illusions of Pseudo-creativity). When it comes to business consulting, training or coaching services, innovating processes and people seem to require more than just consultant-level information and rote training processes. Perhaps the wisdom of Einstein’s quote is quite timely:
“No problem will ever be solved on the same level of thinking it was originally created on”
But how do we create these types of business solutions?
If your business is like other companies, you have invested in various consulting/training/coaching services and business process improvement specialists, and have found some of the following outcomes as a return on your investment:
- Short-term burst of clarity and engagement followed by an insidious, gradual return to business as usual
- Compliance more than commitment
- A Realization that you solved the wrong problem well
- That there was more ambivalence or avoidance to actually change than was initially thought/reported
- That true team alignment wasn’t as binary and “either/or” as your processes assumed
- Things are more complex and nuanced than what the original consultant program/approach could address
- Human behavior change is the key to leveraging the “rightness” of any expert information
The Grey Matters Way of Training and Development Services for Business & Management
So what exactly is incomplete about most traditional consultant interventions? Why do we see the mentioned outcomes so often in Corporate America? In a nutshell, the answer is this:
Consultants impart information
Human brains distort that information
Most consultant interventions rely on rational processes that do not align to the natural and predictably irrational processes of the human brain; and most corporate clients operate without knowing that they process information in this default-oriented way -for the brain rationalizes that it is indeed logical, thoughtful, and human process centered. Therefore, the verbal means of assessing where clients are will be inherently flawed without a deeper dive into the meta-level underneath these processes which many consultants take for granted or flat out ignore with the many assessment instruments that use stats, pie charts, and over-generalized narratives to feign knowledge.
Do they account for the “bubble above the head” effect that actually correlates more to behavior change than what is stated? We think not. This neuro-level of confusion in client-consultant engagements results in half-truths that are perhaps executed flawlessly, but without the reality that would make sustainable change happen.
Grey Matters International, Inc. Training and Development Services cover a wide range of:
- business process improvements
- strategy and innovation insights
- performance solutions for teams
- culture change interventions
These approaches utilize the world of “practical neuroscience” to include the forgotten level of thinking behind our rational intentions and processes to better create solutions that are effective in the long run. Our patented model can be seen in this visual:
