Opti/MINDS+ programme explained! An example of one of our Oil and Gas clients. They are utilizing our programme right now to help build an enhanced performance and safety culture based on transparency and collaboration through the ability to optimize how we #Think #Feel and then #ACT.
Helping you to optimize the NOW and the FUTURE.
Empowering People and Enhancing Performance
We help to empower happier people to get more right, first time!
- Happier people
- Increased performance
- Decreased accidents, stress and anxiety
- Enhanced well being
Most ‘errors’ occur, or start to occur, at the individual level. How we see the world, the stories we create based on the data we decide to look at and even how we decide to look at it. It is HERE that Human Performance begins.
A high percentage of ‘things we wish we could change BEFORE they went wrong’ come from the fact that we have not helped our people get better at the true ‘basics’ – how we interact with the world at a human level.
Enhance your basic Human Performance skills and you get MORE RIGHT, FIRST TIME!
Our Research
When we undertook research to find out why ‘things went well’ in organisations, there was a trend that identified four behaviours that were constantly present that enabled the team’s performance to be optimised.
We have now taken these four behaviours and embedded them within our Opti/MINDS+™ programme. These behaviours may seem simple, but to do them well, and repeatedly, takes an organised and proven approach.
The output of being better able to deliver these four behaviours? Your employees get more right, first time while feeling so much more positive about the company in which they are working.
The Four Behaviours
#Deliverthanks
Too often now over performance has become the expected norm. What was classed as an excellent job is now expected of you, and you may or may not get some minimal recognition. However, if a slight under performance has been detected hours, days and even weeks maybe spent on ‘fixing’ you… this time spent on positive to negative reinforcement can be totally disproportionate. By giving genuine recognition (for the heart and soul) not always just reward (for the wallet) you create a workforce who want to go again, and feel happy and inspired to give more.
Success is achieved when LEADERS are IN the programme, being accountable for success, driving the change, NOT standing by and hoping that someone else builds the bridges for others to cross…
What we have found
…is when a ‘leader’ creates the correct environment and sets out clear requests with supporting language and behaviour that is repeated so people learn to trust that this is ‘the right way” then that becomes their normal too. They join in, they want to feel part of the team, and they further enhance the desired performance environment by their actions.
If the ‘leaders’ within the organisation create the environment for better thinking and collaboration to occur, you get happy people getting more right, first time. EVERYWHERE.
- The leader organically connects with their team, creating the desired state.
- The leader does this by providing the needed psychological safety to the team so they trust the leaders ambitions, and carry out what is needed, it is an all empowering model.
- The leadership engagement delivery model is robust and is agreed at the very start of the programme.
- There are mandatory touch points throughout the year so that the investment made returns on its potential.
The Opti/MINDS+™ leadership delivery model includes the following 5 engagement phases
Supported leaders producing the structure and energy to enable the performance increase to occur.
This 2-day ramp-up phase enables us to discuss the four areas of the Opti/MINDS+™ philosophy and looks at how leaders can overcome issues and successfully implement the four behaviours for them and their teams to achieve transformational success. To allow you to get more right, first time! We also look at the other parts of the programme and how they can be embedded to ensure that the energy and commitment are present, across the first 12 months.
This includes psychological understanding and tools to improve performance around areas like
- What stops us from saying what we feel
- The horsemen of the listening apocalypse
- Do you really know how you feel RIGHT NOW?
- What I say vs what they hear
- How to think through opinions rather than attack to destroy
- Why we create stories based on perceived ‘danger’
- The connection between ‘thinking’ and ‘actions’
- How to play a different story in our heads to the one playing right now.
- Introduction to coaching and how to optimise its benefits (ongoing training within Quarterly Action Learning Set)
These just give a flavour of our aim from the 2 days, which is to raise awareness of our feelings, in order to perform better based on more logic and less emotional responses. This also impacts positively on how happy and motivated people are.
After the two days, the leaders are supported on an ongoing basis by a structured approach (which is all agreed upfront before we deliver any training) that is proven to enable success by making sure this topic stays important. If we keep talking about it and doing it, we keep getting better at it.
This is to help the leaders embed the core principles of the Opti/MINDS+™ programme within their own work environment. This is where the value adds from the engagement is delivered within the full workforce.
This is all about support and accountability. It enables them to learn, and then to deliver, as that is the purpose of the engagement.
Each leader may have different variables, demands, characters to deal with, so the 1-2-1 time takes this into consideration. Allowing the leaders this space to see how it fits in with their specific project ensures that we get the best out of each and every employee.
We look at what delivery systems and engagement tools would work best for that leader on his or her particular project, and then we support them to do it!
These are the mandatory times (once per month is the minimum) where the leader discusses the Opti/MINDS+™ programme, and how it fits in with their team delivering the project. As well as being time to check in and reflect on how to shape a better future, we also deliver one example of the behaviours from the core principles. These are short, humorous videos that give one example from the Opti/MINDS+™ core principles. Feedback has been that from creating the space and then allowing discussions to occur, supported by this type of video, this enables a team ethos to be created. Happy people, being motived by inspired leadership, to deliver on the business objectives.
Here you can see examples of short energiser videos. These are all developed with your employees supporting the objectives that you want to focus on.
Energiser Example 1 – #Hearothers – this short energiser creates a discussion point around how we can all react when we have not got all of the correct information. We have the ability to start to tell negative stories in our own heads, which is not ideal for wellbeing or business performance. Explore more of the facts to make sure we are reacting to data, not emotion.
Energiser Example 2 – #Deliverthanks – to create a talking point around how sometimes, we can simply forget to say thank you. Often we focus on rare ‘superhero’ like work ethic but forget to say thank you for the smaller things that our people put effort into. You can always make time to say thanks, in order to make feel people feel valued, and motivated to go out and perform again.
Energiser Example 3 – #Offerwithoutfear – This energiser highlights the fact that we are all human and, by default, can all forget things. Rather than ‘catching people out’ we should be reminded to treat each other as you would want to treat yourself. It’s the ‘HOW’ we offer what we think that builds truly transformational trust within our organisations. We offer the truth, but in a way that builds the team spirit.
Energiser Example 4 – #ReflectHonestly – Have you created the space to think about how you ‘showed up’ today? How do you think others viewed you? Were you as present as you could have been? This short energiser looks at some common behaviours in order to try to reduce the number of times these behaviours are present. We reflect on when we may have been like this, to be more present in the future.
Where small groups of peers get together to share their learning and support each other and ultimately perform better from this process. They also receive further coaching training to increase their own skills, so they can further enhance their teams and their own performance.
This is delivered on a quarterly basis, where small groups of peers who are driving this programme, get together to share their learning and support each other and ultimately perform better from this process.
This is where we understand what has been implemented, and what further support is needed.
It’s a space where people who you are requesting to help the performance of your company, can get together to meet, share, learn and re-motivate themselves to keep enhancing the Opti/MINDS+™ programme’s potential.
They also receive further coaching training to increase their own skills, so they can enhance their team’s performance.
Each meeting will also see further tools delivered, their coaching skills enhanced, so there is a purpose and organic growth of the leader’s skill set.
Employees seeing leaders engaging, allowing employees to ask questions, receiving answers, getting praise…if you do this on a public platform where people can witness it actually happening, the evidence is that you get more of all the good stuff.
Although some people may take a short while to get used to this, some of the best results have come from the core principles of the programme being delivered and being observed in real time, as well as on platforms such as Social Network or Yammer. Seeing other people delivering and promoting the core principles of the programme like this, and getting praised for it, is a huge success factor. It encourages people to join in, it enables them to be more connected to the company’s ambitions, and you get more right first time from a motivated and enhanced workforce.
This is where the leaders create the magic that results in happier employees who are optimising their own performance.