Schlagwort-Archive: Recognizing

The creative added value

People tell a story about Pablo Picasso from his time in Paris. When he was dining in a restaurant, a woman asked him for a sketch. In return, he could set any price, and she would pay. Picasso sketched something on a napkin, signed it, and said, “That’ll be $10,000.” Surprised, the woman raised her eyebrows, “But it only took thirty seconds.”. “No,” replied Picasso, “it took me forty years.” This is the creative added value that only evolves over time and is usually ignored when a result gets evaluated.

Doesn’t that happen to you every day at work. On the one hand, employers want to use their human resources with all their skills. On the other hand, employees wish to be rewarded adequately. Since a job usually consists of tasks, authorities, and responsibilities, which are independent of the person, the required skills are taken for granted, if they are noted at all. How can we factor in actual knowledge, existing skills, and experiences?

  • Recognizing
    With a mechanistic worldview, involved people assume that knowledge and skills are documented as credentials. Yet, these snapshots do not tell anything about the retrievable capabilities. Acquired knowledge is losing its value faster and faster due to accelerated progress – starting with the latest version of MS Office and moving on to internal DIY booking systems and entirely new applications that replace long-standing practices. Specific enablers, such as collaboration, leadership, and change competencies, as well as several years of professional practice, can only be measured indirectly and require a particular intuition to recognize these additional contributions. The agile enterprise will replace existing job descriptions with profiles of projects and people in the near future. In any case, employees should regularly become aware of their current opportunities and use them in their activities. Leaders have the duty of promoting the existing means and making them usable for the company. Skill profiles provide the basis for matching people and tasks.
  • Applying
    Individuals use their full set of abilities unconsciously. Thereby, they forget to utilize the above Picasso effect for themselves. For this purpose, the creative added value provided should run as an additional contribution to the personal assessment, or even the descriptions of a job should be upgraded. It does not fit performance orientation to pay the High-Performer just as little as the Low-Performer. In addition to recognizing the added value, the application in a company requires the fostering and skillful allocation of the additional skills. As more and more tasks are project-based, generic capability profiles are needed. They are used to profile the task roles as well as to describe the people. By matching them, e.g., with HCM software, the most suitable personalities can be assigned to a task. The extendable employee profiles can be used for a long time, and the needs-oriented project profiles will replace the time-consuming job descriptions in the medium term.
  • Honoring
    When various people perform a task, they differ due to the execution period (start/end and time spent), commitment, quality, and results. Simple activities, such as writing a report, may take one person a few days and another some weeks. In the first case, a finalized printable and in the other case, an unfinished version to be revised are delivered. In the end, the first person produces many more results than the other – for the same pay. As soon as the hardworking notice this, they will adjust their work pace to match the worst. Unless: they are rewarded for their better performance.
  • Integrating
    The requirements should not only be derived from a technical matter but also the additional capabilities – e.g., cross-functional knowledge concerning the business, mutual understanding as well as coordinating and leading diverse personalities. The mastery of the new VUCA world with the help of holistic and critical thinking as well as practical changeability complete the creative added value. As requirements are in permanent transition, profiles must be able to incorporate the latest skills on time. In HR, it is no longer enough to maintain a template for the job description. Changing skill profiles must be elaborated on a company-by-company basis and made available to all participants.

Bottom line: As companies are phasing out lifetime employment in favor of outsourcing and temporary employment, applicants will also have to adapt to the new hire-and-fire mode and become more adept at selling their added value. In the spirit of Picasso, it will no longer be enough to be paid for the timely length of a deliverable, but also to include in the calculation the additional soft components that go far beyond the technical exams performed. This applies equally to technical, methodological, social, and systems competencies. Just as companies adjust their pay according to supply and demand, so must the “providers”. In the best case, companies will realize that with this bidding war, they will lose money since cheap labor provides related services, which destroys their reputation. All parties involved must recognize, use, honor, and integrate them into day-to-day business for skills to be considered. Above all, the creative added value results from ongoing routine, practical experience, and the employees’ passion that makes the difference, and that must be factored in the assessment. Those who do not master this view of creative added value will fail in the short to medium term.

What I do not know I care to

Peter Drucker has pointed out that you can only control what you measure. Today we are overwhelmed by numbers, data, and facts. More than 3.7 million patents are registered every year – many in the field of digitalization and medicine. At the same time, not all information reaches us, either because they are not collected, published, or even withheld. The innumerable observations provide different facts, which means that it is up to us to decide what we believe. Since there is always justified doubt about the data, the apparent freedom of expression is of no use. Not only are our own opinions expressed in an aggravating manner, but other points of view are actively falsified and defamed. Too many use the media for the targeted manipulation of the masses. We must learn to deal with the unsettling flood of stimuli, to leave our own filter bubble and to take an interest in other stances. It is not skillful to close one’s eyes: What I do not know I should care to.

Our human data processing is genetically adapted to hunting and gathering. We are programmed to instinctively detect hazards, such as poisonous plants, dangerous animals, and places. We are not prepared for today’s dangers, the simple mechanisms of manipulation: e.g. said is considered done; repetition seem to confirm statements; emotions, especially fears, anchor for a longer time; incomplete alternatives limit reality to themselves. Since dealing with today’s virtual world is not something we were born with, we have to learn to deal with it for the foreseeable future. This article deals with the first hurdle on the way out of the victim role: the conditions of visual perception.

  • You can only see when you look
    The eyes are on the front part of our head. This means that the gaze falls in the direction, in which we move or turn our head. Most of the 214° of our field of vision, we see blurred. The area, where we see sharply, covers only 1.5°. Everything outside the field of view, we do not see. To make sure that we miss nothing, our eyes move unnoticed across the scenery, i.e. the reality or pictures. For the invisible part, we have an additional channel that attracts our attention, the ears, so that we can direct our gaze in the appropriate direction.
    Without looking, we see nothing.
  • You only see when you find
    Since the mass of data that reaches our eyes is blurred, it is imperative that something attracts so much attention that we focus on it. Interest is aroused by contrasts, deviations, but also uniformity (e.g. when we expect deviations). Contrasts are created when complementary colors, color saturation and different brightness levels appear side by side. This also applies to lines and shapes that break certain pattern. These deviations can appear statically or dynamically in the field of vision. In addition to these spontaneous triggers, we find something, because we consciously search for it, e.g. a certain house in the skyline. However, we do not only find it consciously, but also unconsciously. When we, for example, skim over a text, certain key words are not processed immediately, but only after we turned the page, we feel that we have seen something interesting and scroll back to consciously search for it. These unconsciously detected impressions remain available for a long time but are difficult to activate.
    Without finding, we see nothing.
  • You only see what you recognize
    A good example of recognition are abstract paintings, such as Malevich’s famous painting Viereck (Square) from 1915, in which a black square is shown against a white background. Some will know the explanation and others will simply see a black square. All that remains in our memory is what we recognize in the picture, derive from it, and take away as a memory. This applies to modern art, to business and private life. We only remember, consciously or unconsciously, those things that we recognize or that we can assign to a certain category. The carnival parade and the procession of the thousand warriors in Japan can only be distinguished, if we can classify them accordingly – all the others see nothing more than a large group of people walking in conspicuous masquerade.
    Without recognition, we see nothing.
  • You only seem when you change perspective
    The visual impression is always in competition with the next. If we drive with a sightseeing bus through Paris, then we turn our heads all the time, as there are landmarks everywhere. And by looking at the Eiffel Tower for a longer time, we quickly miss the Seine panorama or the Trocadero. Not until we detach our gaze from a view, we have the chance to see something else. During a trip, one misses so fast many specialties. According to this, remaining in always the same echo chamber generates only the confirmation of what we already know. Only if you leave the filter bubble, you have the chance to learn something new – even, if you run the risk of destroying your own world view.
    Without changing the perspective, we see nothing.

Bottom line: The problems of opinion formation already begin with the visual perception that filters our world view before we get into the realm of fake news. On the one hand, vision is not adjusted to the sensory overload, we are exposed to today. On the other hand, what we see does not provide a comprehensive impression of what is happening, since we only perceive a part of the world at a time. If we were able to absorb everything that is presented to our eyes, we would go nuts and become unlivable. For this reason, we should develop a conscious relationship to our perception: We only see, when we look and find and recognize, until we change our perspective. The more people observe a situation, the more descriptions we get – with matching, additional and contradictory insights. In spite of the difficulties of the different statements, all impressions should always be collected and considered, as this gives a more comprehensive overall picture. The same should be applied by modifying the old saying: What I do not know, I care to.