The Mind as the
New Competitive Weapon

by Lisa Wickham Branche General Manager- Operations U.W.I. Institute of Business

In this era of competition, more and more companies are moving towards the collective acquisition of knowledge by their employees as their competitive weapon. They have recognised that it is not sufficient to compete on the traditional levels of price, quality, location or other .

Successful companies and those that will thrive in the imminent century will be those that can harness the collective intelligence of its employees. The possibility of machinery is limited, however, the potential of a creative mind is limitless. The mind is limited to the extent to which it is closed to new ideas and experiences. Hence the importance of a learning environment in which individuals, employees, institutions continuously adapt and respond to changes in their environment.

Fortune Magazine states "Forget your tired old ideas about leadership. The most successful corporation of the 1990's will be something called a learning organisation." Peter Senge adds in his book, The Fifth Discipline, "As the world becomes more interconnected and business becomes more complex and dynamic, work must become more learningful." In the world as well as the Caribbean, we have long passed the stage when it was adequate to have one person learning for the organisation- a Butch, Knox or Lok Jack.

"It's just not possible any longer to 'figure it out' from the top, and have everyone else following the order of the 'grand strategist.' The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that has discovered how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization," Senge continues. This new learning culture has manifested itself in a new approach to the management of Human Resources. Companies are now engaging in Personal Profile Exercises as part of a complete Career Development Programme.

Employees are being encouraged to map out their strengths, weaknesses, their personal growth chart and action points for improvement. This activity is different from the traditional performance appraisal in that it is employee generated more than company generated information. The role of the company is mainly to guide decisions in keeping with the employee's career track within the company. Training is no longer a benefit, time away from the office, a company sponsored vacation; it is an investment into the development of the innovative process of the companies.

Training has now become a critical element in manpower,and planning and development. This shift has resulted in new expectations on the part of the company. In bygone times it was expected that when a company hired, it hired a fully skilled employee, such as an Accountant, Engineer and so on. While the expectation still remains that the employee will be able to fit right in, and perform, an added dimension is that the employee is expected to be a learner; one who is prepared to be open to the constant flow of information, with flexibility and the ability to respond quickly to the demands of the customer.

Of course, the customer is key in all of this. At the heart of this new requirement of organisations, is the "monster" known as the customer. The customers driven organisation is the quintessential learning organisation. Organisations have evolved from production - driven to market- driven to now customer- driven which in essence means that the customer determines the direction of the company and not the production or marketing departments.

The potential for adding value to the company and the customer occurs at every level of interaction between the client and the organisation. This means that employees must be trained at all levels to be able to identify an opportunity in the languaging of it and subsequently to act upon the information received so that it may be converted into value, either through additional research, new product development or modifications to existing products.

From receptionist to manager, the potential exists to generate multi-million dollar contracts for the organisation. In fact, the Receptionist, Executive Secretary or Administrative Assistant is the person, most of the times with whom the customer first interacts. What might be termed light conversation is sometimes coloured with hints and suggestions for improvements in the way business is conducted.

To illustrate using a real life example. Kelly is thirty- four (34) years old and is now the Business Unit Leader in a major service organisation. Kelly joined the organisation two (2) years ago as a Junior Typist. Rather than "work her way up" Kelly expanded her portfolio by learning more about her organisation, working closely with her "coach"/ manager, keeping close to the customers and reading every possible piece of literature that passed through her unit. Kelly was able to identify new business opportunities for the company based on conversations with her customers and more importantly by being allowed to develop the business plan herself. Of course, under the guidance of her coach/manager.

Eventually Kelly operated quite independently of her manager liaising confidently with clients in a knowledgeable manner about her organisation. One day, Kelly mistakenly put through a call to the Director's office of a client. Instead of apologising meekly and hanging up, she confidently began a discussion in which she realised that although the Director had known of her company, he had not been aware of all the services offered.

Kelly then seized the opportunity to inform the Director of those services thereby in that moment, creating value for the company and its customer. The Director was so impressed that he invited Kelly to submit a tender for a US multi-million dollar contract for a current job. An ecstatic Kelly then redirected the request to her manager. This therefore means that every ear must be trained to listen for those hints and suggestions that can significantly enhance the service provided to the customer, while injecting new life into the company.

Of course, the framework within which the individual operates needs to support this kind of behaviour. The environment must reward responsiveness, flexibility and adaptiveness. It must set in place mechanisms that spur on creative and innovative thinking by each and every employee. So the individuals collectively would see the "bigger picture" rather than just isolated bits of activities that bear no relation on each other. Managers must become coaches and developers working closely with their employees to constantly uplift their levels of performance. They must also expose their employees to new experiences and opportunities. It must be okay for an employee to allocate 1 hour, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, reading time dedicated to literature that expands the mind and skill base. Additionally, in this new emerging culture self driven learning is paramount.

Companies are reorganising their systems to reward individuals who pursue their own personal development even though there may be a company programme in place. The role of Human Resource Management is merely to facilitate a learning environment in which individuals themselves identify their preferred needs within the framework of organisational needs.

Some companies have re- organised their Human Resource function in such a way that there are specialists within the Human Resource Unit who serve as consultants to their subsidiary companies or departments. The Training Specialist performs the role of matching self motivated learning objectives to available training programmes. If none are available on the market, they design internal programmes based on demand.

A number of companies have found it useful to design two year Certificate in Business Management or Supervisory Management programmes for a number of the key persons who have been identified as core to the future operations of the company. Other companies are linking with Universities to develop In- Company Post Graduate Programmes such as diplomas, in Human Resource Management and Marketing and MBA's, specially designed to meet the needs of their employees. In the learning organisation the learner is always in a mode of knowledge acquisition.

The learner interacts with new information on a regular basis, either through books, magazines, client and colleague conversations or the electronic media. Having internalized this information, the learning individual is able to process it in order to convert it into value for themselves, their organisations and their customers.

If we take a closer look at it, this has to be an ongoing process, particularly in these rapidly changing times. Change itself connotes a new state and in order for companies to remain relevant to their customers in this new state, they must learn again what their requirements are. In the final analysis, the company who can learn faster and respond more quickly than its competitor will be the one to make significant strides into the future.

A company is only as good as its employees so that the company that will learn faster is the one that has a group of competent, innovative, creative, responsive and adaptive learners.

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