Consciousness operates at three levels:
by jean Paul Sartre
My inner world
How I view the outer world
and How the outer world views me.
Assessments have taken a bad rap in recent years. From perfidious 'garbage from all directions' 360's and artery throttling engagement surveys to the inevitable 365-days-too-late customer satisfaction surveys, many organisations have built deserved reputations for generating meaningless data with no meaningful action.
The net result has been that many organisations have simply thrown the baby out with the bath water, relying instead on a range of homespun alternatives.
If we examine any high-performance and professional sporting, musical or artistic activity, continuous assessment in the form of critical feedback and coaching are seen as an essential part of the game. Somehow this basic truth seems to have escaped many organisations.
PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE - THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
It is worth remembering that for the majority of our past 200,000 year history physical intelligence was the only intelligence that mattered. IQ's, EQ's, SQ's and the rest are relatively modern phenomena. Physical intelligence is well entrenched in our DNA. How we assess and judge others is largely based on our perceptions in the physical world. We ignore these judgements at our peril.
My goal here is to show that properly understood and correctly used, a range of assessments offer a powerful advantage for high-energy and innovative organisations that best connect our imaginary world with the real and physical world.
ROLLING BACK TO SOCRATES
The modern field of behavioural economics is firmly based on Socratic thinking. Socrates believed that each person has an inner spirit or soul and that the purpose of life was always to act in the best and purest interest of this inner spirit. He said there were three levels at which this inner spirit operates.
The rational that drives logical behaviour, desire which focusses on your emotional needs and perhaps most important thymos, the third but powerful inner driver that is based on character, courage and dignity. Thymos often overrides the rational and the desire, and gives the lie to the modern and oversimplified economic model of behaviour that says we are guided simply by the invisible hand of greed and personal self-interest.
This matters in organisations. Clearly every employee is also guided by their thymos voice. But when last did your HR department talk to you about the importance of thymos? Was it mentioned in the last engagement survey? Of course not. Remember that when someone completes a survey form, the thymos is a major player, which explains exactly why people don't understand each other sometimes.
The current US presidential debate offers a perfect example. On the surface the discussion may appear to be about issues and rational logic but underneath in the dark pools of ancient genetic drivers, the battle is about the thymos, personal dignity and security in the warm womb of identity.
ROLL FORWARD TO JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Sartre, the French existential philosopher showed us that our consciousness operates at three levels. My inner world, How I view the outer world, and How the outer world views me.
All three levels matter in organisations and each needs to be assessed, diagnosed and integrated if assessments are to be meaningful.
MEASURING 'MY INNER WORLD' WITH THE GC INDEX
Every conscious moment that you have is primed by your own unique inner world. We use a dedicated and relatively new business tool, the GC Index, that specifically measures the potential energy and impact of both individuals and teams. (Note. The GC Index is a powerful business tool that links directly to strategy and business performance. It is not a personality test and cannot be compared to assessments like the Enneagram, MBTI, DISC and Insights.)
Individuals complete their own self assessment which highlights five areas or proclivities where individuals prefer to expend their energy. These five proclivities include Strategy, Game Changing, Polishing, Implementation and Playmaker. The research behind the instrument identified obsession and imagination as the core drivers of all leaders that know how to 'make things happen.' In effect the GC Index provides a wonderful and powerful insight into where the individual prefers to have an impact together with the energy that is available in that area.
Here is the model of the 'My Inner World' GC Index. Effectively this reflects the DNA of your inner world and predicts how you are likely to interact with the outer world.
MEASURING 'HOW I SEE MY OUTER WORLD'
The second level of Sartre's consciousness is 'How I see the outer world.'
In organisations we use our own customised Organisational Energy Instrument to measure how employees perceive their system energy and system DNA. This is their unique view of their system. Their perception, always influenced by their inner world, remains their truth.
MEASURING 'HOW THE WORLD SEES ME'
Sartre's third level of consciousness completes the circle by receiving feedback as 'How the world sees me'. In organisations we again use our own customised Game Changing 360 Individual Energy Assessment where the individual completes a self-assessment together with assessments by colleagues. This provides a clear picture of how others see the individual in the physical and real world.
INTEGRATING THE THREE INTELLIGENT ASSESSMENTS
It is clear from the Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix that technology is driving the importance of continuous innovation and overall system evolution as a fundamental survival strategy. Their focus is on two key areas of performance. Finding new and better ways of doing things every day supported by ruthless and continuous feedback. In our language the Tech Giants are dominating the new world through applying the highest levels of obsession and imagination to generate a winning high-energy game changing culture.
If organisations wish to survive both the current pandemic and the rapid shift of the 4IR they will need to follow the new evolutionary pathway forged by the Big Tech companies. Using the three levels of intelligent assessments outlined above may be a good starting point.
The example below shows how we connect the inner world of the GC Index with the view of the organisation measured by our Organisational Energy Instrument. Analysis of the two assessments shows clear linkages between the two assessments, showing how the inner world of consciousness drives the outer world of performance.
SUMMARY
Leaders and teams need high-energy game changing DNA to survive, grow and compete on the new landscape. And to achieve this, assessments based on Sartre's three levels of consciousness and Socrates' three drivers of behaviour, will play a new and vital role in sculpting the requisite DNA for winning organisations in the months ahead.