VALUES & NEUROPSYCHOLOGY - color your company or team for success
Sandra Kolb
CEO & Values AmbassadorUnlocking the Connection: Culture, Neuropsychology and Technology
Welcome! I'm excited to share with you my insights into the fascinating intersection of culture, neuropsychology, and technology. We'll dive into how these key components can influence and shape each other, thereby steering the success path of an organization.
A bit about me
Based out of the scenic city of Zurich, I fill various professional roles such as organizational developer, trainer, and coach. With two decades of international project management experience under my belt, I've been fortunate enough to work in diverse sectors, of which the medtech and luxury jewelry industries are worth mentioning. With a keen interest in driving transformations focused on culture and technology, I pursued a master's in organizational development and coaching.
"A key to successful change is professional, empathetic facilitation."
Harnessing Positive Transformation: Technology and Culture
Technology changes the game for organizations. But, to maximize its impact, we need to understand how it interacts with our culture and values. These elements significantly influence the success levels of workplaces, with stats revealing surprising insights; about 45% of employees are reportedly not loyal to their firms, 85% deem company culture significant for success, while only 31% reckon they have the 'right' culture.
Neuropsychology: A Significant Player
Wanting to boost the 'right culture' numbers, I delved into neuropsychology. Ultimately, resistance to change is an age-old human response, especially when it involves new or unfamiliar technology. Navigating this resistance is crucial for successful change management. Here's where our brain functions play a significant part. The Neocortex, the Reptilian Complex, and the Limbic System each have different roles which influence our responses to change.
Understanding the Shift: The Graves Value Model
One model that explains how culture develops over time is the Graves Value Model, illustrating how each individual, team, and company progressively experience various stages of development. A crucial aspect to remember here is that there are no 'good' or 'bad' levels; each stage is essential for growth.
Analogizing Development: The Baby-to-Adult Journey
Each stage mirrors the growth journey from a baby to an adult. More specifically, organizational development can be aligned to various stages in life - the start-up phase is like infancy, expansion is adolescence, the generation of rules and processes is adulthood, and finally, the decision to ford into sustainability and global networking is akin to maturity.
Color Coding: Understanding Your Organization's Culture
Assigning colors to the different stages in the model provides an engaging way to understand and picture the development of your team or organization. The question then is - what colors define your company?
Making Changes Stick: Neuropsychology, Technology & Values
As I discovered over my career, tech change is always a people change and a culture change. Visualization and structured process design are great tools for change management. What you can also do is turn the change experience-based, making it more relatable and easy to comprehend. This way, you engage better with your teams, making changes more acceptable and easier to implement.
Combining Tech & Cultural Change: Practical Steps
The virtual adaptation of physical methods is viable in today's technology-dominated world. But remember, make sure your tech is easy to use - if it's complicated, it will lose its effectiveness. So, to ensure a smooth tech-implementation journey, remember to address cultural aspects and ensure a seamless integration of the two.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, successfully implementing technological change revolves around a thoughtful interplay of values, culture, and neuropsychology. And remember, growth is a process - we cannot simply leap to the end result. Embodying the different stages of development combined with a realistic understanding of our people and tech can make lasting and positive changes.
I would love to have a chat with you and share more about how we can facilitate these changes. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and join me in exploring further the spheres of values, technology, and neuropsychology.
Thank you for reading, and remember - change is constant, but so is growth. Let's navigate them together.
Video Transcription
Great to meet the and welcome to the session about culture, neurop, psychology and tech. As you just hear, heard, I'm, I'm Swiss. I'm 44 years old.I live in beautiful Zurich
just
in, just nearby the lake and as every good, good Swiss person I ski. Uh but I also love dancing. So uh Cuban salsa and I do bow shooting. Um my family background, we are a Patrick family, so quite um special and a really special thing. My parents just married at age 70 last month. So that's a bit like the the area where I come from. Mhm. Uh Let me now we get there we go from a professional point of view. I'm an organizational developer. I train, I coach. Um I've been 20 years in, in international change and project management. I've done strategies I digitalized. Um And as it goes, it usually goes with cultural change. I did that in the med tech and the luxury jewelry industry. Uh My last stop was at Sorosky. You might know that one. Um And then six years ago I realized, well, there is something more than just a method than just a technique or technology. Um And I started studying Europe psychology. So I did my master in organizational development and coaching. Um And nowadays, well, actually, since 20 years, I work quite new work. I, I've always worked virtually, I always worked in a network. And uh one really important thing for me is that I like supporting change professionally at eye level and very important with empathy. And you can do that also with technology a bit, a little bit of logistics here are again the key takeaways. They're in the, in the um the wrap up. But I just let you read through for like 30 seconds. So today we talk about technology.
Yes, that's what we all hear from for um we all, we also talk about values, culture. So when we implement something, technology does something to us as a human being and as a first stop, um I have to say this is from my master thesis which I've written in um in culture and leadership. So what, what is the impact of values and culture on the company or a team success? So I went and researched and I found a couple of numbers, 45% of all um of all employees are not at all or only partly loyal to the company. 87% wish for an agreeable work environment, good relationship with her colleagues. That was 2019. Hm. Now we have a study from um in 2019 as well. 85% of the people think the company culture is crucial for the company's success. And now there is a really shocking number where I was like, whoops. The Gardner study says 41% only 31% have the right culture, whatever the right culture is at that point. So that brought me to, well, there must be a way to kind of like raise those 31% and I turned to neuropsychology. So what this neurop psychology tells us there are uh that is the tri brain it's called um and you see three different areas of the brain.
There is the Neocortex that is kind of like, let's say in, in computer terms, the software, OK. So that area does the solution finding and it's there for if there is new situations which you've never come across. So there is where you find solutions. And then we do have the blue area here, the reptilian brain that is actually the the oldest part of the brain crocodiles still have it. It's the system where the fight flight or that mode happens. So imagine when a car comes by and its creatures, you jump away. It's, it's your survival system I say, and now we have in here that pink, pinkish area that is the limbic system and that is where emotions, that is where the memories live, that is where your behavioral patterns live. It's kind of like um the internal data storage if you want, want to say it in that terms. So now change does usually create fear concerns, you know, stress even resistance. And as a change manager, you have to deal with it because there is nothing goes without people. So I came to the area where I was like, OK, how do I get those people to work with me when I start implementing like for example, 20 years ago, salesforce dot com. So I turned to neuropsychology and I found a um a model, it's called the grave value model. He did research in the eighties and he researched people and companies and how their values, um how their values develop.
Uh The same is done by Lulu, some of you know, him or the spiral dynamics. The those are the three students of Grove basically. So they based on Grove. So what you need to know about that model? Um You see it's very colorful and I'm gonna ask you in the end to to send me your colors. Um but you need to know every individual, every company and every team goes through all levels. So there is no way to just jump over um one level and leave it out. Second thing you need to know every person, team and company can be on several levels depending on the context, depending on the situation. And one thing that is very dear to me, there is no good or bad level. OK? Very important. For me at least. So let's make an example. You see here there is a baby. And if I'm on an individual level, you cannot just jump from being a baby to being a very, very far developed older person. You know, that's not possible. You cannot do it overnight. So you need to go through all the levels if you do that. Now, on an example of a company, let's say you start up with a company, so you're in a baby state. Yeah, and then you hire your first employees, you're purple.
So there is a certain sense of family you hold together, but still there is a dad and he tells what to do and how to do. Now you move out and you expand your new markets. So you need other um other values, other competencies, you need strength, you need need heroes um that really go and, and expand new markets. Then you grow and grow and grow mostly wild from my experience. And you realize that you need order. So you start to create functions, rules. There is a top down leadership, you go one level higher, you develop through time and you realize, well, now we need the, we need efficiency, we have all the roles, the functions and everything. Now we need clear responsibilities, we need clear processes and so on. Now process is overwhelming and everything is done by process and you don't get um forward. Now you realize, well, now we need cooperation, we need multifunctional teams, we need more innovation. We, we need to get refresh ourselves, you know, so we get into this development stage where everything is more flexible. There are common goals that was usually that that was the area where um automation happened um where there are new ways of working together come along. And now we get to the very last station and that is a station where uh we are just on the brink today. Sustainability is a big word, but it also includes global social networks. So new works, new ways of working together.
And everybody of you, including myself, my mom, my dad, everybody went through this process. So there is not one person that can say, well, I didn't develop and and I didn't go through all these, all these levels. And if you realize that you start appreciating that maybe a family culture is not the first thing and you still have certain family values in certain situations nowadays, when you work together with other people. So technology you see here in the lower area here developed vivid from, from first computers. I think I've seen the first computer to blackberries, to smaller
phone, to
to smaller phones, back to now, bigger phones again. So uh we're back to bigger phones, but we also have artificial intelligence. Nowadays, we have chat GTP. Um So that developed with those levels through time. Of course. Now how do we now link it. How do we unleash the that potential, how do we bring those things together? So how do we bring values, neurop psychology and tech together? So what I realized, so that's my learning from, from the last 20 years, a tech change is always, always, always a people change. It's a cultural change. And then you start visualizing change. For example, with the new compass that you say, well, we want to go from here to there and you start measuring it, then you can really go and um take people with you. So one good thing is visualization you see here, I work also with pictures and then really important as well, give structure accompany the process. So you are as a change manager, you are responsible for the process. How do you structure the process? How do you design it? And then one big finding from my most thesis board was that it's not enough to send out powerpoint presentations with the values on it. No, you need to make it experience based. So it can be smell, it can be, I work a lot. I work with my body. Um and that make them feel about you. So they really know what they talk about and then they can exchange with each other.
So that's how we can combine physical and virtual world and honestly all of those methods, they're just physical, but you can do them virtually in, in such a meeting like we are now today. So that is no problem. You can take a physical method and make it virtual and it still works. And then the very last thing um make tech easy to use. If it's too complicated, it will not succeed. So as soon you have to start
um coding, like
for a normal person, I know there are people out there, they can do it. I'm not one of them. Um But um I can use technology as long. It is easy enough for somebody who has not studied it. OK. So make tech easy to use and that makes the barrier to really use it much, much slower. So now I wonder you've seen the different colors. Where are you in, in that um in that color scheme, why would you say which parts do you have most? And I realize we do not have a lot of time. So therefore, I um also have here the code so you can also send me that or linkedin the whole uh conference is also to connect. So I'm happy to connect with you. And here what, how you see how, how your company does technology implementation? Do they really take a certain amount of time for that value and culture area? How do you implement that and make sure that people are coming along with you? And of course, uh you just let me know your questions if you have any. Of course. Well, I'll just ask, let's say Bianco. How do you, what are you, are you red? Are you yellow? Yes. Yes. It is possible to be in different colors depending on the subject. Of course, let's say you are, um, you need to sell something. Hm. So you're going into new areas, you're going into, um, into new markets. So you most probably do have a lot of bread in it.
But also you do have, um, let's say some, some purple in it because you, you wanna make sure that you're empathetic with the person. Ah, here we go, Helena. I think you're yellow. What else? Helen Helena. By the way, if you're yellow, that means you're using all other levels below as well or all other levels before. So you're probably not just yellow anybody else. Yeah, between green and red. Yeah. Yeah. A that is totally possible that you kind of like in the development area.
Yeah. Helena most probably you are all other color colors as well. It really depends on the situation. So if you are in a, in a very social context. Um and then those very social values they, they fully pull, pull through Maria. What are you? I actually uh allowed, I just allowed talking if you wanna try that one.
Hello? Hello. Uh Can we see the slide again? Actually uh the one with the, that one? I don't know. I think it also depends on the subject because Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, we show different behaviors. Based on where we are and what people we are surrounded with, I guess.
Yeah, absolutely. And also uh what happens is that if you are in, in exchange with another person,
you,
you, you also might just behave differently, you know, it depends really on, on, on the context. Where are you in with? What, what kind of person are you together? If you have somebody in front of you who is very, very strong, very, very competitive, um you might um behave totally different than with a person who is very empath, empathetic, you know. So if there are no questions, I I thank you very much for attending. It was a pleasure to meet you. And yeah, connect with me on linkedin. I'm on linkedin and, and I post um that is my area values technology and neuropsychology. So I post most about those topics if you're interested and you follow me. Thank you so much, bye-bye and have a really nice day.