The Birkman Method: Getting under the hood

Feel the Power

2008-04-05T18:07:00.002+01:00

Hardly an original thought but a) I needed to start posting again since the link from the Birkman site has caught me at a time when I was heavily engaged elsewhere and I am really embarrassed how many people have come and found nothing current and b) it is so true. And this is the thought:

People need time - and context - to really get their Birkman

I was struck by this anew when running some in-house training for the UK Charity for whom I am currently working. The organisation has been using Birkman for 8 years, the people who attended have all had multiple one-to-one sessions on their own profiles and attended at least two or three group or team workshops. They weren't meant to be learning anything new about themselves, simply learning how to facilitate workshops. They are all highly intelligent people. And yet...

We put them "on the Grid" (I am assuming we have all done this some time or other - laid out a Grid on the floor and then charted a teams' movements around the floor from Interests t0 Usual to Needs/Stress. If you haven't, try it. Some people are more kinesthetic anyway, so need this approach, but everyone sees and feels stuff on the Grid...).

Maybe it was because they weren't under any pressure to learn something about themselves. I have no idea. But when we did the "what did I learn today" wrap at the end of the session, they ALL said things like "you know, I don't think I have ever really understood all that stuff about the difference between Usual and Needs" or "I think I really got what it means for me for the first time" and so on.

Shouldn't really be surprised - Sarah and I always find that lights still go on with regard to our own profiles when we work with others, let alone when we attend BI training or conferences. But write it on your mirror, where you will see it at the beginning and end of the day:

Never assume that, just because they got something life changing, they have got it all - yet!

Read a little History...

2008-01-03T10:11:00.000Z

If you haven't recently, why not sit down with a hot beverage and The Birkman Method® Developmental Heritage (Resource Center / Resource Materials / Research in BDirect). Working with the Method all the time (especially in the "paperless" BDirect age where a consultant never even sees the questionnaire from one year to the next) it is easy to start taking the tool, its ease of application and its predictive power for granted. Or maybe I just love pioneering work in all its guises. Either way, have a read. These 14 pages will give you a renewed appreciation for the "detective work" and the hard science underpinning the Method - and for the commitment to make a lasting difference shown by Dr Birkman and his colleagues down the years...

Thinking about Thought some more...

2007-12-20T15:39:00.000Z

If "Thought" is actually more about Time Required for Decision-Making, are there any scores that are more about... well, Thought.

What about Activity? Following the naming scheme, we know that this must mean that High-end Need scores indicate a Need for Activity. What about the Low-end Need scores? Low end scores indicate a Need for Reflection, which is a (quite literally) Thought-full activity. I like what the Coaching Guide says; it frames this Component as Mental Activity vs Physical Activity. Funnily enough though, when it distills this into Needs, it comes down on "personal control over scheduling" (low end) versus "a busy schedule" (high end). While I agree that these needs are symptomatic of low and high scores, I can't help feeling there is something going on at an even more fundamental level than this.

I wonder if this score is actually indicative of how we "stay on top", how we "process the stuff that happens", even perhaps the process by which we can assign meaning to what happens to us. High Activity Need people seem to "discover what it all means" in the context of having lots going on. The only metaphor - and it is a poor one - that springs to mind is of a Salmon leaping up waterfalls. Put a salmon in the pond in your back yard, I am not sure you will ever see the salmon leap (but you might see it swimming around in meaningless and ever decreasing circles trying to find some flow). But with the stream or river in full flow, it all makes sense to the salmon, and up she/he leaps. Poor metaphor because it would be too easy to start talking about adversity and swimming against the flow, and that isn't what this is about. I am suggesting that
High Activity Need folks can best think about themselves and what is happening and what it is all about, when they are in an activity-rich environment. Perhaps there is also something about sense or meaning being contextual rather than intrinsic.

Low Activity Need? These are people who can't "process stuff" very easily when even more stuff is whizzing past them. Think (and I agree, this is a really bad day for metaphors) of the Amsterdam gem-cutter. He knows his diamonds, but the last place that knowledge could be employed is scrabbling about in the gravel deposits with all the other diamond-hunters, under pressure to find the gem before someone else does. He might no longer even be able to recognise what is a diamond and what isn't, under that kind of pressure. Allow him to sit back down at his bench, and study a stone in peace and quiet, and in no time he can tell you whether it is flint or the Cullinan Diamond II - and then he will go on to reflect until he has its intrinsic (i.e. not contextual) meaning mapped out in the form of a cutting scheme.

So as the gem-cutter of Time takes a lazy bite out of the salmon of Fate, we can all see that this needs some thinking about.

Or not...

But in the mean time, I definitely think there is more about Thought in Activity than in Thought, if you see what I mean. But is that an end to our question?

Which Component is about Thought?

2007-12-18T12:24:00.000Z

If you were asked this question in an examination or end-of-course test, your "trick-question" antennae ought to be twitching. The fact that one component is called "Thought" makes it too obvious to be a straightforward question. (At least in all the jurisdictions in which I have sat exams). On the other hand, why call it "Thought" if it isn't about ... "Thought"?

Actually, this is one of those multi-layered trick questions, so rather than write a 5000-word essay, maybe I will do this one in pieces. We might start by panning way back (high Global, folks) and noting that as our species is called homo sapiens (wise or knowing man), it could be unproductive to tell anybody that they don't think. Doing the Grid Walk when I was first certified (in the Birkman sense), I only referred to the blue square as "the "Thinking" Quadrant a couple of times before deciding this was more trouble than it was worth...

So let's look at why the eleven Birkman Behavioral Components are named as they are. First thing to note - these are all bi-polar scales, so even if the one called Thought was simply about that, and a Thought Need score of 99 meant that you "thought a lot", a score of 1 would not mean simply that you didn't. It would mean you had just as intense a need as the person with the 99, but that your need was in some way the opposite of what their need was.

Secondly, naming things is a fundamental - and non-trivial - human activity. Naming the 11 bi-polar Birkman Component scales was never going to be easy. The scheme Dr Birkman and his colleagues came up with was to use the high-end Need score to label each component, thus it is "Esteem" because the high-end Need score designates a Need to be given Esteem by others, "Acceptance" because the high-end Need score designates a Need to experience Acceptance from others; and "Thought" because the high-end Need score designates a Need to be given Time to Think about important Decisions. "Time to Think about important Decisions" is a little clunky, so we use "Thought" as shorthand for this. BUT - and here's the first part of the multi-layered trick answer - the key ingredient to the high-end score is actually TIME - not Thought.

So what about the low end Need score on the scale we call "Thought"? Well, that is a Need to get Decisions out of the Way, i.e. a need for Closure and getting on with the Job. So the scale as a whole can be summed up by one word: Decisiveness. Why wasn't the scale called this? Why weren't you called Walter? Who knows. Actually the naming scheme works fine, as long as we understand what it stands for. The component called "Thought" is a measure of Decisiveness.

Hopefully we can all see that this isn't quite the same as it being a measure of Thought, per se. It is about whether your need is for time to think or to get rapidly to closure. Which ever it is, noone is suggesting thought isn't involved in your processing.

So - are there any other components which might be about Thought in a more direct sense?

Get the Feed...

2007-12-11T17:43:00.000Z

If you are a user of feed-readers (ye auld technology) or widget integrators such as iGoogle or Netvibes (really happening, man...), please note that you can save yourself the chore of navigating here to the blog - the feed is http://www.elaura.com/hood/atom.xml

No! Please...Please don't make me Delegate!

2007-12-11T09:51:00.001Z

Just to finish getting high Mechanical off my chest (and I say this as an 85 - my third highest score after Musical 92 and Outdoor 89), there is a downside to being so "hands-on".

How do you delegate when the whole notion of understanding and solving a problem is, for you, so tied up with getting your hands on it? You may assign what looks like work to others, but how much real work (i.e. requiring the application of experience and/or intelligence) will you let go of?

Lest that sound harsh, I have asked this of every chart-topping Mechanical I have ever had in a workshop. The closest I ever got to an exception was a guy called Steve (Mechanical 99) who said, "Yes, I would delegate... if I thought they were competent." Noting the rather conditional mood of his statement, I asked how often that condition was actually satisfied. "Not very often..."

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has more a more industrial / production oriented client base than I do. My suspicion is that Steve's comment is true; were he to find himself in a crowd of "engineers' engineers" (with their concomitant 90+ Mechanical scores) he might find that they all delegated merrily (even dangerously - "she's about to blow - you go check it out...").

But the fate of high Mechanicals in non-engineering settings is a hard one - nonetheless, you will still probably prefer to (continue to) be "dinged" at your performance review for failing to give enough away, rather than for (entirely hypothetically) ever letting someone incompetent near something you could have sorted yourself.

High Challenge

2007-12-10T17:08:00.001Z

Just to make sure we can entertain some thoughts about the other end of the Challenge scale (if in fact it isn't more like a circle) (or even a mobius strip... or a double helix...) (and assuming that you MidWestern BUG people didn't get all Challenged out)...

Some years ago, just after returning from Advanced Training, where a comment in passing had been made about "recommending professional help" if you came across someone with more than 7 reversals, I did a Birkman for someone who had 8, with of course a Challenge score of 99. Given this person was very senior in a major government-linked institution in London, I was just a little concerned. (Hey - I'm a 55 - I may seem high Challenge to my 36 wife, but really I am right there in the middle...)

And of course, what was fascinating was that this lady recognised all of it, and was entirely at home with every reversal AND the 99 Challenge score.

"Do you ever find that you maybe set yourself up to fail? That you keep pushing the bar higher until you can't jump it? Ever jump off bridges and then start calculating the distance to the bottom of the gorge on the way down?"

"Oh yes, that's me, all the time." I even felt she couldn't quite understand why I was being slightly apologetic about it. And why not? It may have seemed alien to me, but she had lived this pattern every day of her adult life. So once more, a lesson not to try to "dull the effect" of what the tool is saying. I might not be comfortable having those scores; but for her, this is home.

(And by the way - I really saw no signs that she needed the kind of professional help that had been suggested to me would have been indicated by the 8 reversals. But here's the interesting thing. Born in Ghana, came to UK mid childhood. Early development and later socialisation in totally different cultures; I wonder how much that played into a set of scores that were almost all reversed? And does being so aware of the reality of multiple and contradictory cultures make you more at home with that level of reversal? As I say, she absolutely acknowledged what the scores suggested in terms of internal contradictions.)

Face the (Low) Challenge

2007-12-07T17:18:00.000Z

Now I know that some Birkman Consultants find the idea of doing feedback by phone rather strange, and that's fine.* We do a lot of our work that way, and Sarah (as in Mrs Mason, sometimes known as Sarah Jury) has a real gift for it. Honestly. Clients who don't know she is my wife rave on to me about how my colleague made them forget it was a phone call, it was like she was in the room etc etc. They never say that about me!

But every now and again we have had either someone stop the session after a couple of minutes / or freak out / or - as today - ask if one of us could give them just five minutes face to face to go through some scores they haven't ever had a session on, even though I know they had the phone session on exactly those scores just a few weeks back.

And in common - it is always people with ultra-low Challenge scores. (<5)

Not terribly surprising when you think about low Challenge. "Face" (in the oriental sense of the giving and receiving of respect / position etc) is extremely important to low Challenge, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that "face to face" communication protects and promotes "Face" more than talking over the phone.

So - even if you would never consider doing feedback by phone in a billion years, this may have other implications for communication with low Challenge clients, or at least underline the importance of choosing a time and place when you can give them absolute personal attention when there is something important to communicate that is about them.

*And if you wouldn't consider doing feedback over the phone - just have a look at your own Challenge Score. I've just realised that two of the people who told me that doing feedbacks by phone was a weird thing to do were sub-five Challenge scores themselves...

Joining In under the Hood

2007-12-06T19:49:00.000Z

Any inhabitant of Birkmanistan ( i.e. consultants, people working directly under the supervision of such consultants, even people who just like reading their own report) is entirely welcome to contribute to this blog. How that will work for now is via the Comments facility.

To join in, you will need a gmail account (free from www.gmail.com). Because Google also owns Blogger, that means you can make comments and authenticate your ID using your gmail account. To make a comment, just click the comments link at the bottom of any post and follow instructions.

All I ask (apart from the usual good netiquette) is that you keep within the bounds of logical connection with the blog you attach your comment to. So, for example, if you have noticed something neat about Areas of Interest, you could add that as a comment to just about any of the posts so far. If you are bursting to say something about Public Contact/Detail, at least frame it as a "hey Jon, you seem to be obsessed with AoI, could we talk about this please", not just a non-sequitur. (You know, "Jon you mentioned Artistic, now here's what I think about people with high Detail..." Que? )

Enjoy!

Artefacts of Mechanistic Creation

2007-12-06T19:33:00.000Z

Y'what? Just kidding, as usual...

BUT - what do you do when (as has happened to me twice in recent months) you get someone in a workshop who everybody guesses will have a high Musical (case 1) or high Artistic (case 2) and who is really, truly not at all happy to find they have scores for these around the 50 mark.

"This Birkman thing is just plain wrong..."

"I spend all my time playing my guitar/flutes/zithers/making cards/crafts/wrapping things beautifully" (delete as applicable)

Some of you know where this is going already. Yes, they both had Mechanical scores in the 90s. One of the most broadly applicable attributes of people with high Mechanical scores? Being "hands-on". Doing stuff personally. Enjoying the "how". (Avoiding delegation, but that is another post waiting to happen).

Half an hour after telling me this was all nonsense, High Mechanical / 50 Musical said "I've just realised; I only ever play music [and he is one of the most natural instrumentalists I have ever known - jon], I never listen to it"

Slightly quicker than that, High Mechanical / 50 Artistic said "Actually, now you mention it, I am not particularly interested in looking at what others have done - I just love doing it myself. At work, I get upset if someone suggests someone else should take on some of the "handcraft" parts of my job."

Like everything in this Blog, this is all so obvious once you have seen it. But the lesson is: when someone looks you in the eye and tells you this "Birkman thing" has failed to score them properly on this or that with regard to Areas of Interest - just look at their top two bars. The real motivator is sitting there, perhaps just a little incognito...

Hanging around in bars...

2007-12-05T16:48:00.000Z

... Area of Interest Bars, that is.

Just another observation from the workshops I have been doing in the past few months (I am still waiting for confirmation that I am the first Birkman Consultant to conduct a workshop in the Atlas Mountains...). For various reasons - once that I failed to spot that a participant had already done a workshop with me the previous month, twice that participants from non-English speaking cultures asked to redo because they hadn't realised they could answer in their mother tongue, and once that the participant was sure he had answered the first 50 questions wrongly - I have had several "retake" profiles to look at.

First thing - 100% of them required a magnifying glass to spot the differences on the Grid. Kind of reassuring.

Secondly, Areas of Interest showed me something interesting. On only one occasion did a "top three" score move (and in that case I could postulate a "more honest" answering pattern the second time round; it was Social Service that dropped out 2nd time round, and the person in question works for a not-for-profit. Low scores never moved. Mid range scores did tend to reorder themselves.

I am sure we could ask Larry Lee or Paul Waddlington about this, but my lazy guess is that this apparently high consistency on "top three / bottom two-three" scores coupled with apparently lower consistency for the mid-range scores tells us two things:

1. Don't get too precious about differences of a few percentile points - they aren't significant. (Someone made this point to me when I launched the original TeamPlayer, which allowed you to fine tune what you felt would be a significant difference between one person's Usual and another person's Need; waste of time, they said. More recently, at the last Conference in Houston, Larry showed some of us a team analysis based on just 5 broad bandings of scores. Now it seems to me that this is probably equally true of AoI also... okay you all knew this already!)

2. Do focus on the strongest preferences (both for and against) - not only do they seem more stable in a retake situation, but also, when I talk with people, they are the ones which leave the biggest evidence trail in their lives. Top three, bottom two (or three if they are all in the <20 band) is my focus these days. Other scores aren't saying anything very powerful, more like "yes fine, but not the be all and end all..."

That's just reminded me - next time I must do the other Mechanical artefacts I have observed. Fascinating...

Grid Dimensions

2007-12-04T14:25:00.000Z

The last couple of times I have done my standard Birkman workshop, it has struck me that what we say about the vertical, "Communication style", dimension, is also true of the horizontal, "Task focus", dimension. (And in saying this, I realise that I may be the last person on the planet to notice this)

In other words, going top to bottom we go from DIRECT to INDIRECT Communication style; and likewise, going from left to right, we go from DIRECT to INDIRECT Focus on Task. (Because focussing on people and process to get a task done is the indirect equivalent of "just getting on with the task").

Any benefits from seeing things this way? Only that this makes Blues "double indirect" and Reds "double direct". Turn any lights on? Yellows and greens are one of each - and that too feels about right. Or is it just me?

Areas of Interest: Low Numerical Maths Teacher

2007-12-01T22:33:00.001Z

Although I have never had any trouble accepting my low Numerical score in general (I wouldn't want my work to be about numbers, and my half-year score - scaled up! - in the NZ equivalent of Maths A-Level was 10.5%*), it didn't quite explain why I happily do complex sums in my head on quite a regular basis, or even choose to set up quite complex spreadsheets on occasion.

Penny dropped when I had a group of primary teachers recently, and found the Maths Specialist had scores like mine - High Mechanical, Low Numerical. Listening to him explain how he stayed (reasonably) motivated towards maths and numeracy in spite of his low Numerical score, I realised I was listening to someone describing things in Mechanical (how things work) terms. Not only did that make sense of my own surprising forays into mental and structural maths, but also illuminated the journey I made from 10.5% mid-year to something in the mid 80s a few months later. Mr Bishop, my maths master who was enlisted to give me extra tuition, asked some searching questions and realised that I couldn't understand why we were torturing the poor numbers with calculus. All it took was for him to give me a couple of illustrations where calculus would help us get something done - calculating the volume of bronze required for a ship's propellor is the one I remember, plus a very mechanical approach to follow for each of integration and differentiation and I was away and laughing. Suddenly I couldn't think of anything that was more fun than making this stuff work. Clever J V Bishop, spotting the real issue almost a quarter century before I ever took the Birkman...

* Yes, I know AoI scores aren't about ability, but ability and application do seem to follow high AoI scores, for understandable reasons; 10.5% was definitely overstating my motivation towards maths...

Areas of Interest: Musical

2007-12-01T22:24:00.000Z

Just an observation - we all build up a repetoire of motivational and behavioural clues which attach to these Areas of Interest. Here's one I have noticed for High Musical.

If you get blankish looks for all the usual stuff about being in control of the soundscape and so on, try out PERFORMANCE. I have certainly found the occasional person who lights up when you ask if the notion of "performance" matters to them. Actually, I am one (although the more usual musical clues apply to me as well). So for example, with my low Persuasive and lowish Social Service AoI scores, running day-long workshops for strangers is potentially not very fulfilling. Why do I get a buzz then? Performance! Someone said to me recently (after admittedly, one of my more manic / dangerously edgy sessions with a wonderfully responsive and very multi-ethnic/national group) "Jon, that was worth coming to just as stand-up..." For me the hard days are the occasional ones where people keep their response guarded. I mean, how can you perform when you can't tell if the audience are with you or not...

Back in the Blog

2007-12-01T22:17:00.000Z

Decided that even though I don't have the (Activity Need 4) time to get my head together, doing a Birkman Blog once more might be a good idea. Anybody is free to read, if you really want to become a contributor, email jon at elaura dot com (just trying to prevent screenscrapers, folks) - but you need to mean it; last time around I spent hours setting up accounts for folks who never actually blogged...