If the manager’s goal is to achieve the company’s objectives by managing the available resources as efficiently as possible, the leader’s goal is to take care of people, provide vision and run a business.
Understanding how people judge and make decisions is fundamental to being able to do this, but also to developing risk intelligence and effectively addressing risk-related challenges.
If you are interested in better understanding risk and how you can help people better tackle risk, then this article is for you.
How we make decisions
Mark Johnson, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of consciousness and decision-making, shows that decision-making is not located in the brain but is embodied and operates unitarily at the level of the entire body. This is called enactive decision making.
In other words, the body is not just a carrier of the brain, but it is more than that, having an important role in decision-making. Understanding this has significant implications for how we assess, address and manage risk.
Although most scientific research is directed at the physical aspect of the brain, there is evidence that confirms the existence of thinking outside the brain, namely that thinking is also carried out in other parts of the body, such as the heart and gut.
Some neuroscientists refer to the heart and gut as the “second” and “third” brains, and that they together form what we call the human mind.
Antonio Damasio, a well-known researcher in the field of body, emotion, and consciousness, identifies three bodily decision-making systems: the endocrine system, the immune system and the nervous system. Damasio demonstrates that each of these systems works and “thinks” without being directed by the brain, and the communication between them is automatic.
This probably explains the fact that when we fall in love, we feel butterflies in the stomach and not in the brain and that it is impossible to control the endocrine system and change our emotional state through the power of the brain. There are many decisions that we make in life with our hearts, as the well-known refrain says: “Listen to your heart!’.
Our mind encompasses and reflects the activity of the body’s three decision-making systems: the endocrine system, the immune system, and the nervous system.
Guy Claxton, professor and researcher in cognitive science, says that people’s brains act more like a conductor, not a decision-making center. In his book – Intelligence in the Flesh, Claxton says an interesting thing: “the brain does not issue commands but hosts conversations” between the three systems.
Science supports the idea that our mind has a conscious part but also an unconscious part, and these are not rational or irrational but rather “a-rational”.
The results of this research are the basis of the One Brain and Three Minds (1B3M) concept, developed by Dr. Rob Long, founder of Social Risk Psychology – SPoR.
The concept explains that to survive and adapt, people use not only their brains but their entire Minds. The word ‘Mind’ really means ‘whole person’. If using the word ‘mind’ to refer to the brain, it is not capitalized.
The human Mind has three components that function both consciously and unconsciously. Knowing the role and differences in thinking between these three minds helps us understand how people make decisions.
- Mind 1 is slow and is responsible for rational decisions, such as mathematical analysis or filling out a checklist or a paper form. In Mind 1 carries out the process of methodical, systematic and rational thinking.
- Mind 2 carries out heuristic thinking, that is, thinking that is based on learned commands and practiced habits. This type of decision-making is much faster and is essential for people to be fast and efficient. Much of this type of decision-making does not involve rational choice or analytical thinking.
- In Mind 3 thinking occurs automatically and at a very high speed. In this state, man is not aware of the decision-making process, thinking, or rational processing. This type of thinking is often referred to as “gut thinking” or intuitive thinking, and it works on “autopilot.”
Research by Bargh, Wegner, Kahneman & Ariely, Gigerenzer, and other neuroscience researchers proves that our rational brains aren’t involved in most of the decisions.
Statistically, only about 5% of what we do is the result of conscious and rational thinking and most of it, i.e. around 95%, happens unconsciously and a/rational. This is how heuristics work. Heuristics are learned and embodied ways of decision making, like habits. Sometimes we know this as ‘muscle memory’.
I often meet people who say, ” What is written to you is going to happen, no matter what you do”. In other words, your fate is already written and decided by a power or force outside of your control.
Luckily, we have the words of Nicolae Titulescu, which stimulate our curiosity and desire to learn: “Destiny is the excuse of the weak and the work of the strong“.
Carl Jung said: “Until the unconscious becomes conscious, the subconscious will direct your life and you will call it destiny.” Through his work, Jung provides SPoR with a useful framework for understanding the human unconscious and how we make decisions.
If you want to help people become aware of the way they judge and make decisions about risk, you need to bring out to the surface the unconscious, that is, what happens in Mind 2 and Mind 3.
To do this, you need to know how to ask the right questions and then “listen” to the language and cues that talk about risk. Language best reflects what is going on in our Minds both consciously and unconsciously.
‘Listening to iCue”.
Although we generally consider listening to be a natural skill that all people are gifted with, in reality the ability to listen differs from person to person.
Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is a physical process that happens automatically and refers to sounds perceived through the ear and then transformed into electrical signals.
Listening is more than hearing; It requires intention, concentration, observation, a unique orientation to the other and mental effort to understand.
One of the tools we use in Corporate Dynamics courses to help participants develop their ability to observe and listen to risk cues and indicators is called “iCue Listening”
Developed by Dr. Rob Long as part of SPoR, this method helps us explore the beliefs, heuristics, automatisms, and conscious and unconscious motives that drive risky behaviors.
A person’s ability to listen to and make sense of these cues determines their level of risk intelligence. A high-risk intelligence quotient helps you better understand the factors that can lead to accidents and harm.
Correctly applied, the iCue method helps people to “listen to the risk” but also how to increase the level of involvement and awareness of the interlocutors.
To listen to risk, we need to direct the conversation to the “cues” that tell us about risk. For this, we need to know how to effectively ask effective questions.
Proper use of questions and listening helps you not only facilitate a conversation effectively, but also builds rapport, builds trust, and encourages sense-able risk-taking.
iCue listening is critical, active-reflective listening, which makes the interlocutor feel that you are present and accompany him in the conversation. You listen without judging, with curiosity and to understand, not to reply.
In addition to the language used, we also notice unconscious indicators such as: tone of voice, the metaphors used, the key topics brought up and the behavior of the interlocutor.
The questions that stimulate conversation are usually open-ended questions. When we have a well-defined purpose and listen with intention, using open-ended questions helps us open up the conversation and bring to the surface what is often unconscious. Such questions come from real listening and a positive orientation to the “other”. They are often reflected such as: ‘please tell me more’.
In this way we can understand the beliefs, ideas, perceptions and heuristics that influence people’s decisions.
When it comes to risk, this way of listening is fundamental to learning.
In SPoR and iCue Listening, we use a visual/verbal method to help analyze and understand what is really happening. We use a semiotic tool that allows us to visually record the language used (with permission), “mapping” relationships between the elements that describe the unfolding of events, the dialectic and the confessions of the interlocutor.
The name of the method is the iCue Listening Matrix. It is based on three dimensions of risk:
WS – Workspace,
HS – Headspace,
GS – Groupsapce.
These dimensions formed in a quadrant bring together the factors that influence the way people make decisions about risk. Workspace refers to physical, visible and measurable factors, Headspace brings together psychological factors and Groupspace includes socio-cultural factors.
The iCue Listening reflections are recorded in the iCue Listening Matrix whose structure is defined by WS, HS, HS with the 1B3M model in the center. This is an open structure in which we place the language heard and considered important, which allows the mapping of the conversation. This can be done in small groups or individually and enables an open and transparent exchange, thereby enabling trust and mutual engagement.
Semiotic listening
Intangible and difficult to define, organizational culture shapes the way employees think, act and make decisions related to business and safety at work.
The psycho-social dimension of culture includes common language and knowledge, common values, attitudes and beliefs, explicit and implicit symbols, shared stories and experiences, terms of reference accepted by the group, customs and norms that make social life intelligible to its members.
Culture has many parts: a visible and palpable one and a less visible one, which is related to the unconscious and the psychosocial. Culture cannot really be defined, but if you want to know it better, the best thing you can do is to experience it.
To understand how organizational culture and its energy influences risk, more complex and mature skills in listening are needed. In SPoR, this is called Semiotic Listening.
Semiotics is the discipline that deals with the general study of signs, symbols and experiential communication through them, language and social communication practices.
Semiotic listening pays high attention to understanding the meaning of signs, symbols, graphics and images, gestures and rituals but also emotions, what the interlocutor feels.
Through skills in such “attending” and listening, we manage to make the unconscious conscious. This requires critical thinking and a process of spatial and visual literacy that is developed through extensive practice. Being visually and spatially literate is just as important as literacy in terms of numbers and reading.
We listen to the unconscious influences of sounds, colors and movement, gestures and rituals. The focus is not on behaviors, but rather on the meaning of what is represented through them.
A good training exercise, learned from a Safety Manager (thank you Desideriu), is to aim to intentionally listen exclusively to the sounds of the workplace in the first week, then in the following week to observe exclusively the colors, followed by wearing protective equipment and so on. Then try a week in which you don’t think about any of this specifically.
Familiarizing yourself with these helps you not only to quickly detect unusual cues and prevent accidents, but also to keep a cool head in the event of an accident.
When people speak, they don’t always say exactly what they mean. Sometimes the meaning of speech is simple; other times we must “read between the lines” and understand the meanings of what we observe. To understand what is happening, we need to listen to what is not said. Semiotic listening teaches us to listen to unconsciously expressed metaphors and everything connected with people’s emotions and motivation.
In addition to mastering the technique itself, the success of iCue Listening and Semiotic Listening – needs a mindset and the right positioning.
The useful mindset for effective listening is when you suspend the agenda with which you enter the conversation and give up the desire for control, labelling the other person and correcting what they say.
An effective positioning towards the interlocutor implies ceasing to be the one who says, controls or preaches what is right and what is not good. Unfortunately, most managers and safety specialists find it difficult to free themselves from this approach.
Giving up control means allowing the other person to take the risk while also developing risk intelligence. Without giving up control of the conversation, there is no discovery and no real learning.
Understanding and correctly using the concepts described above: 1B3M, WS, HS, GS, ICue Listening, iCue Listening Matrix, Semiotic Listening requires time and effort and unlearning the “traditional” approach to risk.
Invitation
If you are involved in decisions that affect the safety of people in your organization and want to increase your risk intelligence quotient, I invite you to sign up free of charge for the on-line workshop on September 16, 2024, 14:00 – 16:00 (EEST).
This course is supported by Dr Long and validated to share his IP.
The workshop will be held in Romanian language by Decebal Leonard Marin – SPoR CLLR associated consultant and Managing Partner of Corporate Dynamics. To participate or to learn in detail about any of these tools, please send an email to decebalm@corporatedynamics.ro .
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Rob long says
A great piece Dec. it will be a great course.