Introduction
What differentiates a successful organization or company from another that is not? What generates that "plus" advantage between the former and the others? What leads a company to be excellent? Why while some organizations succeed in their reengineering implementations, total quality management or continuous improvement systems, others fail to reap the benefits of such applications ?, why is it difficult for so many companies to effectively use teamwork ?, why companies that They have been successful for several years, suddenly, they fail? Why do some companies recover from great "failures" while others plummet?
That difference, that great secret, that factor that marks the "plus" is in the minds of individuals, and much more if these capacities are enhanced through the synergy that arises from teamwork.
Today the successful companies worldwide, those that are the cover of business magazines for their technological, commercial and financial successes are those that focus their energies in pursuit of:
- Attracting and retaining talent Addressing staff loyalty, Creating communities who learn Obtaining commitment Incorporating workers into the business model Creating a culture of complying with obligations Making people more responsible for results Building a community through functioning teams
Companies that engage in such practices are at the forefront of the thought revolution. In an environment that is universal, complex and competitive, organizations that are aware of the importance, that human resources hold as the key to long-term success, are those that will achieve a strong competitive advantage.
Tony Buzan invites us together with Tony Dottino and Richard Israel to imagine that their company has a computer capable of receiving and transmitting information through various input and output connectors, visual, auditory and tactile.
It has unlimited available memory capacity and has built-in redundancies to ensure essential data is never lost.
How much would this computer be worth if you could use this combination of input devices and storage capacity to continually expand your knowledge database?
How much would that computer be worth if it could use the knowledge gained from experience to reprogram itself, so that errors were less and less likely to recur?
How much would that computer be worth if it had the ability to program other computers so that they too would learn from the experience? How much would that computer be worth to your company? Millions? Thousands of millions?
Well, it is your brain that computer that is worth billions.
Recent research has shown that the capabilities of the brain are largely underutilized, making it possible to achieve dramatic improvements as a result of more fully utilizing the capabilities of the brain.
Imagine that your company had assets worth billions and discovered that only 1% of that capacity was being used, would you worry? If the efficiency of that asset were multiplied by ten, what value would that improvement add to the profitability of your company?
From what is known about the human brain, more than 95% has been discovered in the last ten years.
In 1980, scientists believed that we used 5% of our brain capacity. By the end of the decade, many scientists claimed that the capacity we were using was actually 1%. Currently, many believe that we will not even use that 1%, and everyone agrees that the potential for improvement is enormous.
Machines, processes, products and services are designed by human beings, or better still by their minds, which involves all that deep brain fabric.
Then using these machines in the best way, optimally managing the processes, and producing quality products and services in an effective and efficient way, also implies a full use of the brain capacities.
It is here where the difference between some companies and others is already seen. It is in this where traditional companies are differentiated, where the hands of the workers are hired and not their brains; because these must be left when entering the company, those highly competitive others where the worker fully enters his workplace making use of all its capabilities and potential.
Experience constantly shows us that companies dedicate approximately 25 to 30% of their resources to work on their problems, to correct mistakes repeatedly and, in the worst cases, to throw it all away and return to start from scratch.
What if a company's creative work could be combined to develop ways to eliminate these waste of capacity and to apply that capacity to new market opportunities? What effect would that have on the need to restructure the company?
The relentless competition unleashed by the growing international struggle to gain market share means that companies are under relentless pressure to lower prices while improving product and service quality.
As a consequence, the consumer has greater choice than ever when selecting a product in the universal distribution channels.
The need to remain competitive in the market has generated a wave of restructuring, staff reductions and cost cuts, but we believe that making the most of intellectual capital offers an alternative to reducing staff. In the future, remaining competitive will depend on the investment made to develop brain power.
Reducing business workforce often results in a small reduction in workload and a large reduction in workforce. Employees who keep their jobs have to do more work than ever, and are often too busy with their tasks to improve what they are doing.
Another problem caused by downsizing is that survivors tend to be less likely to take risks. After escaping from the ax, for the moment, the last thing they want is to get attention or risk it. They are afraid of generating new ideas, because they could be ridiculed, or they could be considered impractical or, what is even worse, the ideas could fail.
They believe that a person who does not appear to be very busy may be the recipient of additional work or chosen in the next round of layoffs. Actually, to be creative, you need to have time to think, which is how the brain incubates and generates creative responses.
Current business practices are not based on our knowledge of how the brain processes information.
In most, if not most, cases, people work without using their natural intelligence to the best of their ability.
In fact, organizational structures and policies often run counter to the guiding principles of the brain. For example:
- Management teams do not establish a clear goal or vision. Executives do not want or get isolated "bad news". The work teams that are formed lack a balance between technical qualities and experiences and personal relationships. Information is not communicated to the people who need it most.
Any company that applies the guiding principles of the brain to business matters will secure a competitive advantage.
The staff will be focused on a common mission, will be excited about where they are going, and all workers will constantly learn from each other.
In this way, they will continue to generate the intellectual capital that will serve as the basis for profitable growth.
Guiding principles of the brain
Despite its great complexity, the brain is governed fundamentally on the basis of seven guiding principles, which are described below.
1. The brain achieves synergy of information, so one plus one is more than two. This means that one idea leads to another, which in turn leads to a third, etc.
When the brain is actively thinking and learning, each neuron develops more connections to communicate with the other neurons.
This process creates a more sophisticated, intricate, and complex biocomputer.
What we think, the way we think, and the way we think in reflection materially changes the biological structure of our brain.
Thus, the brain's ability to synthesize new and existing information explains the acceleration of technological innovation.
Within this synergy a negative or positive process can take place.
In the negative case a process occurs: Garbage enters, garbage grows.
In this case, our brain generates a garbage dump that accumulates all the waste it receives. All the new trash that enters is incorporated into the landfill, and the landfill grows exponentially due to synergy.
Negative mindset, pessimism, and skepticism breed more of the same.
Imagine the consequences this would have if you and your employees spent most of your mental energy on negative and skeptical thoughts about your company.
That thought will become more and more common until it permeates the organization, turning your creative energy against yourself and your company.
The opposite is to generate a process: Good comes in, good grows.
Just as the synergy of the brain can be destructive when it feeds negative thoughts, it can be radiant when it is provided with positive inputs.
A person whose brain is applying synergy to positive thoughts to generate more positive and creative thoughts is using what is called "radiant thinking", because like the sun, it radiates light in all directions.
This means that in addition to being self-destructive, the brain can be self-constructing.
It is essential to be aware that we have control of the information that is introduced into the brain, so we can generate positive or negative thoughts, depending on what we let into our brain.
2. The brain is a mechanism driven by success.
When a person clearly sets a goal and has the firm decision to reach it, the brain guides mental processes, consciously and unconsciously, in a direction that will help them achieve it.
The more precisely and consistently your goal is defined, the easier it will be for your brain to develop an effective strategy. For this reason, it is necessary to describe the desired result with clarity and precision, in order to be able to resort to it later in order to measure the progress made in the search for its achievement. For this it is very important to write down the objectives.
It is the act of writing down a goal, and then reading it, clarifying and reinforcing the message. Without this additional emphasis, the criteria for success may be distorted.
This guiding principle of the brain also explains the importance of having clearly defined customer demands.
In the companies in which Total Quality Management (TQM) has been implemented and the requirements of the clients have been clearly defined, Better results are consistently obtained than those that have an ambiguous or confused definition of their clients' demands.
3. The brain has the ability to perfectly imitate actions.
The brain learns best by imitating other people who have great expertise in this technique, and studying and emulating someone else's work will help them improve their existing qualities.
Trying to learn without taking advantage of this guiding principle of the brain is counterproductive.
Our brain copies behaviors both consciously and unconsciously, so we must carefully select what we are copying in order to avoid imitating inappropriate or defective behaviors.
Forming groups or work teams with a culture and positive attitudes helps to generate more positive force, not only due to synergy but also due to the imitation of behavior.
We must never forget that the average individual tends to behave conforming to the attitude of the majority.
Therefore, it is essential to permanently monitor the majority attitude of the individuals in the organization as a whole and of the various areas or sectors.
4. The brain craves fulfillment; you need to fill in the blanks.
When incomplete information is given to the brain, it tries to fill in the blanks in some way.
Therefore, when anxiety is generated about what is going to happen, a large number of hours are lost that employees lose by exchanging gossip and finding information about company rumors.
When employees hear rumors of an organizational change, their brains are eager to know what's going to happen.
No less important is the amount of misunderstanding, the product of incomplete and ineffective information or communication.
5. The brain constantly searches for new knowledge and information.
Like what happens with the rest of our body, the brain requires exercise to stay healthy and fit.
It becomes stronger and more rigorous by strengthening existing knowledge and incorporating new information. Like an athlete in good physical shape, the more you exercise your brain, the easier it is for you to perform difficult mental tasks.
Also, the more knowledge and information the brain processes, the easier it will be to learn new information.
When you feed your brain new relevant information, he stays fit and to the best of his mental abilities. If you let your brain become stagnant, you become weak and lazy.
You will lose some of your mental advantage. By adding new information, dendrites grow to enrich the brain. Researchers have discovered that there are no impediments to learning new things over time. To benefit from learning, the new information does not need to be related to something that is familiar to you.
In fact, learning something about a totally different subject than your knowledge base can be a great way to stimulate creativity. For example, if you specialize in finance, learning things about your company's marketing area will improve your financial capabilities.
It will broaden your perspective and provide more data for your brain to analyze when you study finance related marketing issues. This is what is called “making new connections”, consisting of taking different pieces of information and creating new associations between them.
6. The brain seeks truth. For the brain, truth means survival, and for that reason it strives to learn or discover.
The brain urgently needs to know the truth in order to survive. The more accurate the information in your mental database, the better chance you have of surviving.
7. The brain is tenacious.
One of the most important characteristics of the brain is its ability to be tenacious, to continue striving for success, regardless of the odds. The brain, using its synergy and creative capabilities, will continue to generate ideas and plans to achieve the goal. However, it is essential to focus attention on the defined objective, not on the obstacles.
Conclusions
Your company has numerous supercomputers, which you have not yet recognized as such, which is why you are reaping less results than you can potentially obtain. Improve: communication, motivation, training and continuous training of staff, and generating a vision of excellence, allowing a greater degree of participation, are the bases that will allow and make feasible greater creativity and commitment to the company.
Fully utilizing the brain capacities of all the members of the company is the new slogan, which will allow us to reach better and higher competitive positions in relation to the competitors.
In an increasingly competitive world, only those who become aware of the challenge and put their leadership and commitment to the effects of inspiring and motivating a profound phase of change will succeed, radically modifying all those paradigms that are no longer useful for achieving best results.
Bibliography
The brainsmart leader - Buzan, Dottino and Richard Israel - Edit. Gower Publishing - 1999
The revolution of consciousness. The Limits of Rational Thought - Robert Ornstein –Emecé Editores - 1994
How to use your mind to the fullest - Tony Buzan - Editorial Deusto - 1992
Model your mind. Find out how to improve your brain and mental capacity - Ian Robertson - Plaza Janés - 2000
NLP. The new technology of success - Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner - Editorial Urano - 1998
Dr. Mauricio Lefcovich.
Consultant in Operations Management and Business Strategy. Specialist in Quality, Productivity, Continuous Improvement, Cost Reduction and Consumer Satisfaction.
