SCI: A SURVEY OF CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE

A 360° survey for monitoring and developing individuals' exercise of constructive influence over an organisation's capacity for thriving.

Thriving or surviving?

Conventionally, most organisational effort goes into Primary Purpose - what must be done to survive and remain functional. If successful, that is all it ensures: functionality and survival. To create a flourishing organisation requires that we balance attention to Primary Task with enhancing capacity for Primary Purpose - its facility for thriving.

Primary Purpose: What an organisation must do in order to survive. Capacity for Primary Purpose: Facility for thriving. Survive: Persevere; overcome difficulties; remain functional. Thrive: Flourish; make steady progress; do and develop well; prosper.

The generic, individual practices that directly or indirectly create a flourishing environment and steadily increasing progress are within the potential of most people. SCI identifies these practices of constructive influence, assesses their presence or absence in everyday behaviour, helps individuals develop them as competencies and monitor their personal progress long-term.

Issues of principled behaviour, motivational practices, emotional intelligence, relationships management, interpersonal communication, priority-management, self-management and personal organisation are addressed from both strategic and operational perspectives. An extended version also addresses core leadership practices.

Possible applications -

• To promote leadership development and enhance leadership practices.
• As a basis for individual or team coaching and development plans.
• To establish starting-points for a mentoring or coaching support plan.
• To monitor and develop key aspects of team or organisational culture.
• As a complement to the Performance Appraisal/Performance Management process.

On balance, where do you focus your efforts?
Where does your organisation focus its development effort?

          

Simple, safe and fast

SCI is accessed, processed and reported entirely online. The client first completes a self-assessment.

A minimum of five and a maximum of 25 other people who normally observe or are affected by the client's day-to-day behaviours are selected by the client to complete the survey anonymously and confidentially when prompted by receipt of an emailed URL and password.

Results are made available to the client within three to four days of all contributions being received.

Graphic results, easily understood

The survey invites rating on a six-point flagged scale. Invitations for open-ended responses are included in the client's self-assessment but not in others' assessments. Collated results are provided in graph form. No mathematically-derived interpretations or comparisons are provided as the results tend to speak for themselves. If required we can assist with data interpretation and provide recommendations or mentoring support to plan, implement and monitor development needs indicated by the process.

Why measure practices of Constructive Influence?

The important question is, Why seek feedback in this form on the quality of any services we are paid to provide, from those who are affected by how we approach those responsibilities? The short answer is, we cannot afford not to. When we do not know how the "internal" clients of our services perceive the quality of them, we lack critical information: and we cannot rely on being told in more direct ways. Research findings keep repeating the obvious: people within hierarchical organisations will not give their colleagues, supervisors or leaders honest feedback on how they perform in their roles unless the process is absolutely anonymous and safely confidential. To rely on what we are told or are able to intuit, is to make entirely unsafe assumptions.

We all influence other people with the values we demonstrate in our day-to-day behaviours. Few individuals have sufficient clarity and objective awareness of these (values, behaviours or both) to have any degree of certainty of their direct impact or indirect influence on others. Fewer set out to intentionally monitor their practices, modify them for better effect and methodically measure the results. Opportunities for increased effectiveness are lost.

"It doesn't matter how right you do something. If it's the wrong thing, it is always going to be wrong."   (Peter Drucker)

The same unclarity is true of teams and organisations. In the main, basic reference-points for the desired culture group culture, (what we believe in and value, how we want to behave with each other and how we want to be characterised as a group or team as we work on the collective task) are vaguely-stated and not methodically monitored. Whatever culture eventually transpires (without methodical monitoring, adjustment and evaluation) is left to chance.

Ideals, philosophy or constitution, values and principles (the basis of culture) are often expressed as bumper-sticker exhortations or one-liners such as, "Support, Honesty, Openness, Respect, Professionalism, Teamwork and Trust", "Being the best", or "Being people-focused and valuing our customers", without clear behavioural interpretations people can easily follow and hold others to. Differing interpretations of these unclear requirements surface as hidden agenda and get in the way of effectiveness.

By translating ideals for the generic fundamentals of effectiveness into specific, observable behaviours which we then ask others to monitor and reflect back, we can locate crucial improvement opportunities and systematically reduce gaps between ideals and everyday reality.

"Many journeys fail because the travellers have only hazy ideas of where they're heading and exactly where they are now. Under these circumstances a map is useless. Successful navigation requires absolute clarity about both points. "  (Pablo Roman)

The Survey of Constructive Influence draws on our developmental work over 25 years with supervisors, leaders, managers, teams and organisational cultures. The behaviours it monitors address five distinct groupings of generic fundamentals for effectiveness:

• Modelling of principled behaviour, enthusiasm and focus (20 items)
  
  
• Personal organisation, priority management, self-management and planning (20 items)
  
  
• Collaboration and cooperation with the wider group or team (10 items)
  
  
• Interpersonal communication practices (25 items)
  
  
• Core leadership practices (10 items in a version of SCI for those with significant leadership responsibilities).

Easy to use and low-cost

As with all of our services, SCI is designed to be easily and economically available. It is accessed, processed and reported entirely online.

Choose the most appropriate version

There are two versions of SCI:

1. Basic SCI is for key individuals ("key" in the sense that their practices have a potentially significant impact on others) at any level in the organisation.
   
   
2. Comprehensive SCI is designed for those with significant responsibilities for leadership.

Contact us

To discuss your needs and possible applications, select and talk with a mentor.

Constructive Influence: Actions directly or indirectly causing helpfully productive changes in conditions or conduct. Primary Purpose: What an organisation must do in order to survive. Capacity for Primary Purpose: Facility for thriving. Survive: Persevere; overcome difficulties; remain functional. Thrive: Flourish; make steady progress; do and develop well; prosper.

Click here to subscribe Encouraging Progress our free, online newsletter.

[Send this page to a friend]

[ Back to top ]
 

[ Return ]