Rapidly evolving workplaces, with increasing risk and complexity, make behavioural awareness a necessity and not a luxury. Gone are the days when it can be regarded as mere ‘soft skills.
As organisations find themselves in more complex environments, managing human behaviour—both internally among teams and externally with clients and stakeholders—has become crucial. Understanding human behaviour is step one.
With over three decades in this field, we have some thoughts.
Understanding Behavioural Awareness
Behavioural awareness in a workplace context refers to recognising and interpreting the actions, motivations, and responses of individuals and groups in the workplace. This is done to enhance team performance, resilience and making key decisions amongst many other practical benefits.
Leaders must understand how people interact with one another, make decisions, and how they respond to workplace pressures. In the past, many businesses viewed this as a lesser concern, ‘fluffy soft skills’, while they focused more upon their financial metrics and operational matters. In the current era, this way of thinking is shifting as more complexity demands better human collaboration for survival.
We have used the Belbin model and its reports for behavioural awareness for over 30 years. It works easily and cost-effectively to measure people’s behavioural styles, strengths and weaknesses and to observable impacts upon team dynamics and workplace performance.
The Belbin Model offers a genuine framework for enhancing behavioural awareness within teams. By understanding and applying the insights from actual Belbin reports, teams can better manage their own dynamics, communication, and interactions. It’s all about optimising team performance.
The Increasing Complexity of the Business Environment
There are now more complex and diverse cultural norms and regulatory environments. Technological advancements also herald rapid change and disruptions, amongst these is of course AI. The rise of remote and hybrid work has altered traditional team dynamics within many large organisations.
Understanding behavioural patterns in this increasingly complex world is vital. For instance, the shift to remote work has highlighted the need for businesses to adapt their management and communication strategies.
Leaders must be adept at reading behaviour and cues to manage often dispersed teams effectively. This requires a deeper understanding of behavioural dynamics of the team and those of the people in it.
Individual and Team Belbin reports offer immediate insights and tools to understand and work with workplace behaviour.
Risk Mitigation Through Behavioural Awareness
Companies that fail to recognize the behavioural factors influencing decision-making can face significant pitfalls and succumb to risks more easily.
For example, cognitive biases (of which there are least 24) —such as overconfidence or groupthink—can lead to flawed ideas, plans and poor decisions.
Being forewarned of these biases, and understanding them better, allows organisations to implement team level checks and balances to counteract their effects. Belbin offers people a practical understanding of their individual and collective behavioural biases and how to manage them better.
Enhancing Organizational Culture and Employee Engagement
Behavioural awareness within teams can also positively impact organisational culture.
Organisations that prioritise understanding of behaviours and addressing the behavioural needs of their people will often see engagement and job satisfaction benefit.
For instance, simply allocating the right work to the right people, tailoring inter-personal communication and feedback to individuals, recognizing and rewarding individual and team achievements can foster a more motivated and cohesive workforce.
By understanding the underlying motivations and concerns of different people, businesses can navigate team and interpersonal dynamics more effectively.
The Competitive Advantage
Leveraging behavioural insights offers a significant edge.
Companies that focus on understanding employee behaviour and preferences are able to better tailor their ability to respond to employees' behavioural needs. This makes them more likely to experience higher retention rates and productivity.
Belbin’s model, language and reports are a practical, cost-effective and meaningful way to obtain genuine behavioural awareness in a workplace context.
To learn more contact us:
T – 1300 731 381
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