Our Approach
“Why do employees fail?”
When asked this question, leaders typically reply:
“Because they make too many excuses and never truly accept personal responsibility / ownership for their success, because they lack confidence, because they lack the mental toughness necessary to persist in the face of adversity and challenges, because they lack focus and motivation, because they were never able to move past their fears, self-doubts and comfort zones, or because they just couldn’t seem to adapt to the necessary changes.”
Interestingly enough, very rarely will leaders tell you that people fail in a given role because they lack fundamental skills or knowledge. Rather, more often than not, the deficiency that kills or severely inhibits an employee’s success is directly tied to their mindset or attitude.
For nearly two decades, 2logical has designed, created and implemented training systems that impact participants on two critical levels: mindset/beliefs and fundamental skills. This unique, proprietary approach to workforce development has delivered unprecedented results consistently across all industries.
At the heart of 2logical’s approach is a simple model that describes the true process of achieving organizational results. This training approach illustrates why managers/leaders need to master the ability to develop their employees at both a belief and an action/skill level.
As leaders, we recognize that the performance results of any team are always driven by the collective actions of its employees. If each member of the team is doing the right things consistently, the right way, by the laws of cause and effect, the organization will achieve the results it desires. However, as leaders, we must ask ourselves, "Why do some people consistently execute upon the right actions while others get lost in less productive actions?" To answer this critical question, managers/leaders must understand that it is always a person’s fundamental beliefs that drive them to take any action. Thus, if you want to get people to take more productive actions, you must first focus on changing the fundamental flawed beliefs that are holding them back.
The challenge is that the vast majority of training programs focus only on the actions level. Simply put, most training systems tell people what they should be doing and how they should be doing it, rather than addressing the core beliefs that will actually compel the person to take the action needed to succeed.
How do you change a person’s beliefs and mindset?
In the early part of the 1950s, noted psychologist Abraham Maslow published what has become an enduring description of the basic personal needs that an individual must have fulfilled in order to reach his or her full potential. In his Hierarchy of Needs, Maslow stated that human beings must fulfill basic needs before they can strive to achieve the higher level needs that are essential to building a positive and productive life.
In many ways, a model similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be used to describe the proprietary design and approach 2logical utilizes to help the members of a team reach their full potential. As with Maslow’s hierarchy, lower level needs must be addressed before any employee ever can master fully the higher-level requirements essential to becoming a peak performer. This approach can be utilized to build a development curriculum for virtually any role.
To help explain the process of developing peak performing employees, 2logical created the Employee Hierarchy of Development. At the most fundamental level of the Hierarchy of Development is the need to accept personal responsibility and take true ownership of the strategies and high payoff activities necessary to drive results. If this essential requirement is not addressed, when challenged by management to perform the appropriate activity to reach their goals, the employees will look to defer responsibility and make excuses for not performing at a peak level. Any successful manager can relate to the barrage of excuses they hear on a daily basis from underperforming employees: "I can’t work with this person," "It’s somebody else’s fault" (implementation, administration, finance, customer service), "That’s not how we used to do it," "That’s not my job," etc., etc. These excuses serve no other function than, at best, to allow the employee to justify mediocrity — and at worst, to infect coworkers around them with their constant complaints, blame and excuses. This negatively impacts the team culture.
The second level of 2logical’s Hierarchy of Development revolves around helping the employee develop the proper level of confidence and self-esteem. Currently there are more than 275 studies that have shown conclusively that the integrity of an individual’s esteem is directly correlated with his or her achievement level in every aspect of life. Yet studies have also shown that only about 2% of the population has properly formed self-esteem.
Proper self-esteem in an employee is essential, as it has a direct bearing on how effectively he or she will work in a team environment, learn new skills and abilities and, most important, deal with adversity. Employees who lack proper self-esteem will never truly master the essential skill sets required for their role in the organization.
The third tier of 2logical’s Hierarchy of Development revolves around assisting the employee in developing a tough mental attitude. The business world is fraught with challenges and obstacles; to succeed, employees must learn to perform despite these issues. When employees lack the ability to maintain a tough mental attitude, these negative pressures build to the point where employees begin to shift their behaviors and activities to avoid the challenge, rather than drive forward and make the necessary refinements to their behavior to achieve results!
With close to two decades of experience in developing managers and teams, 2logical has found that 60%+ of an employee’s performance can be attributed directly to issues relating to the first three tiers of the Hierarchy of Development (responsibility, self-esteem and attitude). Therefore, any effective employee development program must do more than just provide a passing mention of these topics. These issues must be woven throughout the development process.
Level four of the Hierarchy of Development involves focus and goal direction. Many organizations are challenged in getting employees truly to buy into the goals of the company. There’s a clear reason for this: People are not motivated by what others want; they are motivated by their own dreams and desires. According to a recent study, less than 3% of the population has taken the time to truly crystallize their vision of the life they wish to lead and develop a meaningful plan to achieve it.
Too often, managers try to “motivate” employees into action by using fear and intimidation, or by micro-managing their activities. These techniques invariably fail, simply because motivation is not something that can be externally applied. Motivation is generated internally when two forces come into alignment: First, individuals must see clearly how taking an action will benefit them directly, and thus enhance their life in some meaningful way; and second, individuals must believe that they can accomplish the tasks at hand successfully. Clarity of thought and belief are always the precursors to self-motivation.
In the third step of the Hierarchy of Development, 2logical focuses on building the proper belief systems, and in the fourth step we help the employee develop clarity of thought through a comprehensive professional and personal goal plan.
The fifth step in the Hierarchy of Development relates to comfort zone management. To succeed in virtually any career path, a person must be able to conquer his or her personal fears and self-doubts effectively.
If these comfort zone issues are not addressed properly, employees will always limit the risks they are willing to take — and therefore limit the contributions they are capable of making.
The sixth step in the Hierarchy of Development assists employees in understanding and mastering the fundamental skills and best practices of their given roles. While it is hard to argue that these fundamental skill sets are not essential for an individual to succeed in a given role, countless studies have shown that individuals will not embrace, practice, and ultimately master any fundamental skill until they first accept responsibility, believe that they are capable of mastering the skill, and exhibit the persistence and diligence necessary to work their way through the learning curve.
The seventh and final tier of the 2logical Hierarchy of Development revolves around individuals gaining a fundamental understanding of essential product, industry, and job specific knowledge. The insights gained at this level allow employees to take meaningful actions consistently and successfully navigate their roles.
History has shown across all industries that… the vast majority of training programs focus exclusively on product/job-specific knowledge and skill development. The challenge with this approach is that if an employee is conditioned to make excuses, lacking in confidence and esteem, consumed by negativity, overcome with fears, and lacking in goal direction, ultimate mastery of any skills—and thereby mastery of product/industry/job knowledge — will be extremely hampered.
By building a curriculum around 2logical’s Hierarchy of Development, your organization will leverage a proven process for changing fundamentally the core beliefs/behaviors that contribute directly to 85% of an employee’s success. In addition to changing the beliefs and behaviors, 2logical’s approach addresses the skill set gaps and product knowledge needs that represent 15% of what ultimately defines an employee’s likelihood of success. If your organization already possesses a comprehensive approach to addressing skill gaps and product knowledge, 2logical’s curriculum seamlessly integrates with existing training processes. This allows your company to leverage the training and development investments that you have already made.