In Practice

Reflections On Your Decision Approaches#

Compare your approach to decision making with the approach of your colleagues.

In which part of the process do you feel you are most comfortable?
In what circumstances has your collective Decision making worked particularly well or against the way you would have liked?
What actions could you take to improve the effectiveness of your collective Decision making?

Now you may have some idea of your own Decision making process and how you are likely to naturally think through and ‘process’ a situation.

Once this is clear to you – then the next step in this powerful learning process is to see how your ‘Pattern’ links with that of someone else. Where are the areas that you can ‘trade’ strengths and where do you find it challenging to communicate? Also where is your most natural place of interaction and how does this affect your relationship?

Once you have experienced the profile Patterns of one or two of your colleagues in this way – then the power of how the team fits and works together is very revealing.

We will examine common threads and typical ways of thinking and behaving – Patterns which are challenging to learn more about or modify. We will learn, of course, how to optimise and build further on our strengths and how to motivate others through theirs.

Once you come to recognise the various applications of this technique, it can have a tremendous impact on your working life. It is unique in its application as a means of helping self-awareness and self-development – assisting you to optimise your own natural energy and build positively on your interaction with others. It will allow you to manage your own life more effectively as your appreciation of the dovetailing qualities of all of the facets becomes increasingly evident and tantalising.

Low Decision Motivations Creating Problems#

Sometimes it is possible to expend far too much effort in overcoming low areas of motivation. It will be damaging and self-defeating to focus all your energy on overcoming your low areas, while ignoring and taking for granted your high areas.

A person may develop a habit of focusing too much on low areas if s/he or she spends a long time in a situation where the low areas are genuinely required. Such a Pattern may also develop if an individual is in prolonged contact with powerful people who are high in the areas in which s/he is low, since such people will naturally put a high value on those areas. This occurs where parents differ significantly in their Action Profile® Pattern from a child.

A high performing lawyer that had previously been Action Profiled® asked for his son to be Profiled. He could not understand why his son had no plans for when he left University . The Father who had exceptionally high Pressuring Evaluation and Strategising had a son who had very little of these Motivations. Instead his son had high Opportunity Seizing. The result was pain and difficulty for the Father watching his son who he expected to achieve the same degree of discipline and pressure in the same way – creating lots of tense moments. In turn there was acute pressure on his son who felt that he was letting his father down and constantly a disappointment. By sharing their Action Profiles® The Father recognised what he was constantly doing and the son saw how that could be so irritating for his father. Also that the son had many Decision attributes including being able to pick up the pace and change direction very quickly that his Father would struggle with. Shortly after graduating, the son in a social setting saw the opportunity for the career start which he took and landed a spectacular job.

tip

Trying to boost a low area through sheer force of willpower simply does not work. It means that the high areas are unappreciated, poorly used, and not allowed to fully develop. Failing to understand our own Decision Pattern can result in a huge waste of potential and is self-defeating. This can however, be recovered through the use of awareness and Decision Pattern techniques.

Principles For Improving Effectiveness#

Improvement in Leadership and Management performance can be achieved by:-

Recognising that your own and others’ Action Profile® Patterns are simply energy, neither good nor bad . They only become appropriate or inappropriate depending on how they are expressed in a given situation.
Recognising that individuals need to conform to their Action Motivation as fully as possible. In so doing they are able to have a high degree of job satisfaction. Their motivation is high and they are more effective. They take more initiative and can be more creative.
For maximum effectiveness it is necessary to learn how to orchestrate your own and others’ Action Motivations in relation to the demands of the various tasks, roles and situations you have to manage

You need to know what Motivations are necessary for what situations, remembering that your instinctive tendency is to feel there is more need for your own high areas than may be the case.

You need to know how to rely on, develop and exploit your high areas. The more you can gravitate toward situations that genuinely require your high Motivations in full strength, the more fulfilled and effective you will be.

You need to know how to hold high motivations in check when they are not needed and how to increase or compensate for low Motivations when they are needed. High areas can be used to compensate for low areas. Strategies can be developed that achieve the same result as the application of a certain Action Motivation but through a different means.