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Investing in Psychological Capital- Maximizing Yourself and Your Talent Pool

– Written by W. Coby Milne – Director of Roman 3 Operations

I have an incredible investment opportunity for you. I’m asking you to consider investing in Psychological Capital, also known as PSYCAP. PSYCAP is a form of capital that involves the personal resources people bring to their jobs.

Now, before you dismiss this as a type of investment scam, stop reading and close this article, hear me out.

An investment in your own Psychological Capital, and in the Psychological Capital of those who work under you, can create amazing personal, professional and financial return.

Hopefully, I kept your interest. Let’s see where this journey takes us.

A little about me

In my work history I used to teach Workforce Navigation and Psychological Capital development to unemployed and under-employed people in Nova Scotia’s rural Annapolis Valley. I now provide corporate training to industry, governments, and nonprofits. My students former were going through different levels of career transition and are all trying to be more competitive job candidates and stronger employees. My former students are probably the most diverse that you can imagine in terms of education, skill set, cultural background, disabilities, age, and career goals. So when I say this is a universal investment opportunity, I mean what I’m saying.

The focus on Psychological Capital in my work came from a shift in the culture from where I used to work. Our focus used to be to make people really good at finding jobs, but as we started to support more services for business, we realized that we were only making good job seekers, not good employees. This led to my team re-evaluating our approach and methods. We ended up throwing out everything we took as standard practice and completely starting over. This led to copious amounts of academic research and a wide range of business needs assessments. All of this investigation led us to a unanimous conclusion. We found that in order to increase the capacity and employability of employees, we needed to increase their value add (capital) in the job market.

This is the basis for the concept of Human Capital: the economic value of an employee’s skill set. So the new question was the simplest, yet most difficult: How? How can we increase people’s capacity and employability, in a meaningful and efficient way?

Investing in people

This is what led us to the concepts of Psychological Capital. Psychological Capital is simply understood as the positive union between the cognitive skills of Hope, Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism (easily remembered as HERO). The idea is if you can build and strengthen these skills in yourself or your business, you can significantly increase your competitive advantage in your marketplace (business or job), embody the concept of “Work Smarter, Not Harder” and considerably increase achievement capacity.

This new found information and direction was a real game changer for both our students’ efforts and our own careers. Our employment rate for students jumped from around 65% to a little over 80%, but most significantly, our employment retention (the ability to keep a job for at least the length of the probation period) jumped from 68% to 93%! This success was consistently reinforced with multiple iterations of our training program, delivered to almost 150 students over a two year period.

With a focus on Psychological Capital, the graduates of our program were more quickly promoted than in past programs, they reported much higher job satisfaction, and were able to recover from jobs that didn’t work out and find another job much faster.

How do you build these skills?

This is a much more complex question. In building our program, curriculum and research models, we were fortunate to have a diverse team. We had people with extensive HR backgrounds, expertise in business services and needs assessments and, my value add, cognitive skill development. The specific details are too much to include in this article, but feel free to contact me with any questions you have.

What I can share at this time are our guiding principles. These were the foundations for every step along the way.

Hope Theory – (Hope)

Create a culture that supports two basic, yet essential ideas.

Pathways – There is more than one way to achieve a goal and success looks different to different people.
Agency – You have the capacity to effect change. Your actions and efforts matter; in fact they are often all that does

Experiential Learning (combined with Flooding) – (Efficacy)

While I’ve covered this elsewhere (Three Essential Elements for Effective Training), it’s worth revisiting the three key approaches to adult learning:

Rote learning– focuses on learning specific content, understanding steps and processes, for example, how to format a resume.
Reflective Learning–working with information and ideas to get students really thinking about themselves, their pasts and their biases. This approach provides perspective and hopefully will encourage growth. A sample of reflective learning would be considering how negative thinking and biases hurt mental resilience.
Experiential Learning–where students are immersed in the learning and experiencing the value of the tips, knowledge and understanding they’ve gained. One example of experiential learning would be mastering the steps for high level problem solving by making a survival plan after a theoretical plane crash.

Our program utilized the best learning approaches to meet the students’ needs in achieving our training outcomes. We wouldn’t use experiential learning just because it was fun, we would only use it if it had real value in helping learners learn. We combined experiential learning with a process used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, called flooding. Flooding involves getting people to move out of their comfort zones by placing them in situations where they need to push themselves beyond their usual limits. An example might be building conflict resolution skills using specific scenarios and increasing the complexity of the scenes to go beyond the normal, typical situations they would commonly encounter. If they can handle the most challenging scenarios, then the everyday ones will seem easy by comparison. The principle is similar to practicing lifting weights that are heavier than you need to lift, so when you are lifting your targeted weight, it seems much easier.

Let Yourself Fail – (Resilience)

We did a lot of research around Growth Mindset and rewarding the making of an authentic effort over the achievement of results. Growth Mindset is a concept best described by researcher Carol Dweck, who said, “people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” The theory goes that failure is a mindset, not an inevitable outcome. In a Growth Mindset, failing is not seen as the mistakes or the wrong choices we make. A failure is framed as letting the mistake or the wrong choice define us.

Realistic Expectations – (Optimism)

We may have been told things in life like, “if you can dream it, you can do it” or “shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you will end up among the stars.” These motivational quotes sound nice, but can do more harm than good. We need to accept the reality of our situations and be realistic with our optimism. Our role as trainers and educators is to help our students recognize their strengths, assets and professional value, but also realistically see their baggage, limitations and weaknesses. Our students need to know and accept all of these aspects of themselves as the cards they’ve been dealt. With this knowledge, they can start to play their best hand.

Improve your efforts moving forward

Throwing out our previous work and questioning the foundation and guiding principles of our industry was a huge risk and, to be honest, pretty scary. But even we couldn’t predict the positive impact it had on our students. Also, we’ve consulted with other organizations and businesses on their professional development efforts, and encouraged them to consider incorporating a PSYCAP focus. They’ve reported great successes and momentum building, plus a renewed structure for intentional training.

Teaching to build PSYCAP is all about maximizing the potential of the learners. You don’t have to hire for talent if you can build it in house. Instead of being a hunter and gathering new talent, farm the talent you currently have and grow it to feed the success of your business and your efforts.

Roman 3 is an advising and solutions firm that specializes in inspiring progressive action, creating a culture of innovation, and assisting organizations in implementing transformative change. We help you build capacity, collaborate, be progressive, and grow to your full potential. For more information on our services and support check us out at www.roman3.ca

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Identifying the Fertile Soil for Strong Leadership

The impact of leadership

I think we’ve all seen and can easily identify poor leadership. I’m sure at one point all of us have experienced poor leadership, whether it was in our youth on a team or in a club, in our supervisors at work or in our government or communities. There are many examples of great teams, businesses and communities that falter or never meet their full potential because of poor leadership. This speaks to how crucial strong leadership is to success and development.

Most of us think of leadership as a top down hierarchy and something that is fixed by those in the higher positions. In most cases it’s true that leadership rests with those at the top. The impact and success of everyone involved is often dictated by the skill and competency of those chosen to lead. So a strong understanding of what constitutes leadership is important for both those chosen to lead and for those expected to follow leaders.

Let’s look at some famous quotes and see what we can pull from them to get perspective on good leadership.

“As we look ahead into the next century, Leaders will be those who empower others.”

– Bill Gates

Empowerment is this century’s leadership (that’s a common aphorism of mine, heavily borrowed from Mr. Gates). This idea is meaningful in pretty much every situation, from employers empowering their employees to be the best at their positions, government empowering its citizens to thrive and improve their lives, or sports team captains empowering their teammates to go the extra mile. The need to consider empowerment as an essential component of leadership is increasingly becoming of critical importance.

“Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.”

– Simon Sinek

This is a personal favorite of mine, especially when you’re talking about organizational leadership. In a company or organization, supporting and developing the skills of those you are required to lead is, in my opinion, the essence of good leadership. This idea aligns well with a leadership focus on empowerment. When you lead, you are committing to bringing everyone up together–not standing on the heads of those who follow you.

“Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says “Go!” a leader says “Let’s go!”

– E.M. Kelly

Collaboration and the ability to build strong relationships and partnerships are key elements in effective leadership. Whether those relationships are built internally or externally, leadership is about being a part of something greater than yourself and being able to inspire others to follow you. This brings me to another personal motto: Influence is greater than power. When you wield power, others are compelled to follow you; with influence, people choose to follow you.

A good leader takes a little more than their share of the blame, a little less than their share of the credit.”

– Arnold H. Glasow

Humility and integrity are other important foundations of leadership. This includes owning the mistakes and missteps and giving recognition for the efforts and talents of those with whom you’ve collaborated. In many ways, I believe this is generally a key missing piece in political leadership. Too often people are focused on self-preservation and keeping in the good graces of those who put them in their leadership roles and will too will often sacrifice their integrity to maintain their status.

Lead from the side

Another important element to consider is that leadership doesn’t have to only be top down. Leadership is not about a position– it is more about actions. In circumstances of poor, hierarchical leadership, the actions of those lower down in the hierarchy can introduce the qualities of supportive empowerment, collaboration, influence, humility, and integrity that can provide leadership from a peer or mentor level. This can be encouraged by modeling the qualities of good leadership with your co-workers and clients, and cultivating an environment of appreciation, transparency and support. Making room for leading from the side can create meaningful and lasting change and progress. Admittedly, it is an uphill battle to bring organizational change from the side or the middle, but the point is, leadership doesn’t have to only happen from the top down. There are often great leaders who empower and inspire others from the break room table, the next cubicle over or at the water cooler. If we all know what those qualities look like we can empower those who empower us.

Written by W. Coby Milne – Partner at Roman 3 Solutions Inc.

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Most Managers are Not Successful at Leading

Managing To Meet The Needs Of The Future

So, for years I have worked in workforce and talent development. I pride myself on innovative and progressive approaches to supporting the workforce, because I understand the true potential of having the right skills in the right place. Our world is shifting, and like or not it is because of the millennials that having conversations about not only what employers should expect from their employees, but also what employees should expect from their employers. It is incredibly important that employees be dedicated, hardworking, and ethical. This allows them to do the best job they can, whether or not someone is watching them. However, it is really up to the employers to create an environment that fosters that level of professionalism, and it allows for employees to feel valued when they do. Often when I speak to employers who have issues with turnover and who can’t retain top talent, they often state that they are frustrated by people leaving. My two most common questions are: “What are you doing to make them stay?” and “Are you aware that most people don’t leave their job, they leave their boss?”

On that note, let’s look at how we can create an environment that will promote professionalism and give our employees a reason to say.

Maximize The Talent You Have

According to a 2018 Harvard Business Review article, titled Why People Really Quit Their Jobs, people would leave when their job wasn’t enjoyable, their strengths weren’t being used, and they weren’t growing in their careers. Even when they enjoyed their boss, they still didn’t enjoy their job, but it is their boss who ultimately is responsible for what that job is like. The elements of enjoying what you do and growing in your career, are really about utilizing your skills. No matter what we do, we want to be able to spend most of our time doing what we are good at and ideally be appreciated for our skills. This needs to be a focal point when managing a team. Look to capitalize on the skills and talents of those in your charge, to get the most out of the investment that you have made into your hiring.

This can look different for different organizations, when you have a large employee base it needs to be done in broader strokes but is best done by being open to strategies like Job Carving. Job Carving is commonly defined as; the act of analyzing work duties performed in a given job and identifying specific tasks that might be assigned to an employee. This is most commonly used to intergrade people with disabilities but can be used for everyone. It is about adjusting scheduling, recombining duties, and generally taking a more fluid approach to creating job descriptions. In smaller organizations, you can inventory the skills and abilities of your existing staff team and look to adjust tasks and roles to take a more strengths-based approach to team dynamics. Both of these strategies, job carving and strength base teams, require a very strong and progressive HR approach and leaders skilled in change management, but can be a turning point for companies with workforce issues.

Lead Vs Manage

If you are going to create a culture to maximize your workforce, run an organization that people will bring their best to, and retain talent; then you need to understand how to lead, instead of just how to manage

Here are some places to start:

Employees are your ASSET

Old thinking has always been that employees are your biggest cost, your biggest risk, and sometimes, your biggest liability. This creates an adversarial perspective to managing staff. What owners, bosses, and managers need to understand is that the Human Capital of a business is the biggest investment and therefore the greatest priority to optimize.

Open communication flow

Old thinking about communications has been to focus on the top-down chain. You need to be fed information from your superiors who possess all of the access, insight, and required intel. But this shows a lack of respect or the professional judgment of your employees, creates a bottleneck for information, and slows down productivity. By allowing information to be accessible and shared throughout, you are fostering independence in your team and empower those with the initiative to act.

Behaviour over Experience

Old thinking valued experience as the be all end all, you had to be proven to be effective. However, when you hire for experience you’re hiring someone’s past, which might be all they can give you. If you focus on the behaviour, or as we call it in workforce development their employability skills, you can expect more, develop more, and invest more in your staff.

Empower results

Old thinking puts a lot of emphasis on punching the clock. The thinking put a lot of focus on how much time you put in between 9 to 5. But the question you need to ask yourself is what are you paying them for? Is it to be busy within their working hours or to produce results and meet outcomes? You can either give your staff the flexibility they need to deliver or give them a schedule to work, you likely cannot do both.

Work where the best work gets done

In line with the last section, Old thinking emphasizes sitting at your desk from 9-5, anything else isn’t really working. But, the essential point to consider is, what are you paying your staff for? It is to occupy a desk or to produce results and meet outcomes? If the conditions of the job will allow for the flexibility of working remotely or part-time from home offices, and people can produce better results outside the office, then why not? You can either give your staff the flexibility they need to deliver the best results or give them a mandatory location to work, you likely cannot do both.

Genuine honesty

Old thinking puts a lot of value on corporate jargon and buzzwords, often to pacify people’s needs for information without actually giving it to them. We often hide behind these efforts to pacify our employees out of some antiquated thoughts that employees are like mushrooms, they develop better when kept in the dark (often surrounded by bul….oney…..baloney). When in reality the best way to develop your team is to be genuine, transparent, and trust them with what they need to do their jobs the best they can.

Fail often

Old thinking really hates the idea of failing and wants to go to any length to avoid it. But failing is essential to growth. If you never try anything new, you are unlikely to fail…..and succeed, and grow, and innovate. But if you look for calculated ways to take risks then you are open to fail….and succeed, and grow, and innovate.

Be vulnerable

Old thinking embodies the omnificent leader who is to be feared and respected by all, and that might have worked for Julius Caesar, that is not how true leadership is. Real leadership and successful management are about having the confidence to laugh at yourself, make own your mistakes, say “I don’t know”, and ask others for help. A leader who can inspire people by being human and an equal to their staff will create a loyalty and work ethic that will surpass any threat, fear, or power that old thinking can muster up.

The Takeaway

No one wants to be managed, but we all want to be lead. A manager who follows the old thinking of management will always have workforce issues, limited innovation, and get satisfactory results. A leader who looks to inspire, empower, and develop their team will outpace, outshine, and outdo any manager every day of the week. Do you want to give your team a reason to stay? Give them the boss they never want to leave.

– Written by W. Coby Milne

Director of Roman 3 Operations

Effective Management