Increasing
Knowledge-Worker
Productivity Head First
An Interview with Carson Tate,
But in a business environment increasingly dominated by knowledge
work, she was finding that the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to managing time, tasks and projects wasn’t working for her clients.
An introduction to Whole Brain® Thinking during her Masters program
studies sparked an idea: What if thinking preferences inform how we manage time, tasks and projects?
In her Master’s dissertation, “Whole Brain Thinking and Knowledge-Worker Productivity,” Carson showed that cognitive style does, in fact, influence work strategies, revealing discernible distinctions between each cognitive style’s time, project and task management strategies. Aligning her research with what she practices in her corporate life,
Carson has been able to recommend work strategies tailored to the
unique cognitive style of the knowledge-worker and help people find ways to leverage their thinking preferences to improve their own time, project and task management work flow strategies.
We recently talked with Carson, presenter for our January 2013 THINC™ Webinar™, “Getting Smarter About Workforce Productivity:
Whole Brain® Tools and Techniques,” about her work and the
implications of this research on organizational productivity and work strategies.
Herrmann International: What drew your interest to this topic? Carson Tate: My work focuses on an individual’s productivity and how it affects a person’s ability to perform, find meaning and purpose in life. I also wanted to substantiate an issue we’d been seeing in our client base. There has been this pervasive, one-size-fits-all approach to managing time, tasks, and projects, and it hasn’t been working. I thought, “There has to be a better way.”
Carson Tate, Managing Partner of the management
consultancy, Working Simply, is on a mission to bring
productivity with passion back to the workplace.
HI: Your research focuses specifically on knowledge workers.
CT: Correct. Knowledge is the currency of our competitive, fluid, global economy and improving knowledge-worker productivity is the most important management challenge of the 21st century. Knowledge workers comprise over 80% of the workforce today. They work with intangible resources, and they face unique challenges.
HI: Like what?
CT: First, they’re dealing with a complex, dynamic, increasingly global and constantly changing environment. Friday looks very different than Wednesday.
There’s also just the sheer volume — tasks, projects, information — it’s exploded exponentially. And finally, knowledge workers have the responsibility for prioritizing their own work. They have to manage demands from multiple sources — the organization, boss, clients, peers and employees — and then all of these are layered with the demands of information overload, smartphones, and a 24/7 workplace. They’re struggling with, Where’s the time to think? Where’s the time to get the work done? How do you use the tools?
The knowledge workers themselves, not a system, are the producers of the work, so they’re uniquely positioned to define and impact their own productivity, but the traditional tools and methods haven’t helped them take advantage of that opportunity.
HI: Why haven’t the traditional tools been effective?
CT: It goes back to that one-size-fits-all approach. These tools operate on the assumption that every knowledge worker can effectively manage their time, tasks and projects using an ordered, linear approach, an approach that is predominately left-mode in its orientation.
The other problem is that the traditional method to improve knowledge worker productivity has been time management training, which is about increasing output – getting work done. But this misses the need knowledge workers have for time to think, to strategically consider how
CT: As part of my graduate work, I was introduced to a whole battery of assessment instruments, and the Herrmann Brain Dominance
Instrument® (HBDI®) was one of them. I remember I was on a plane
from Charlotte to LA reading about the HBDI®, and I thought, “This is
it!”
I was really intrigued by the Whole Brain® concept because it was so
radically different from the others. With its wide applicability, it can shine a light on so much. I thought, if thinking preferences influence so many things — problem solving, decision making, communications — why not productivity? Can we build the tools to support people in leveraging their preferences so they can be more productive?
In her dissertation “Whole Brain Thinking and Knowledge-Worker Productivity,” she used the HBDI® to assess the cognitive style of
knowledge workers and then examined how a knowledge worker’s cognitive style informs the choice of work flow strategies, tools and systems to manage time, projects and tasks.
HI: What did you find in your research?
CT: Not only did the research show that one size definitely does not fit all, it showed that cognitive style does influence work strategies, including time, task and project management. And the participants’ preferences informed not just how they thought about time, tasks and projects but also how they structured their priorities. There were distinct, discernible differences.
HI: Give us an example.
CT: One of the questions we asked was how they define a deadline. The people with strong preferences for A- and B-quadrant thinking typically said something like one or two days in advance of the actual due date — they gave a hard date. But then the dominant C- and D-quadrant thinkers would tell you the deadline is the absolute last minute it’s due.
The thing is, both of these answers are fine. It’s about what works best for you. But you have to understand and accept how you prefer to think and then be able to leverage it.
Carson’s research found that participants with A- and B-quadrant thinking preferences defined productivity in terms of output, and used planned, sequential work strategies to get things done. Those with strong preferences for C- and D-quadrant thinking, on the other hand,
“The research showed that cognitive style does influence work strategies, and the participants’ preferences informed not just how they thought about time, tasks and projects but also how they structured their priorities.”
defined productivity in terms of maximization. The strategies they described were holistic and integrative, focusing on who needs to be involved and the bigger picture of what needs to be done. The data reinforced the challenges many of her clients were having with the traditional, one-size-fits-all tools.
HI: So there was an opportunity to map the existing tools against the
Whole Brain® Model?
CT: Yes. Working Simply has actually been categorizing the productivity apps by quadrant. What we’re finding is that most are favoring one or two quadrants over the others. So we’re saying, let’s find the tools that work for you instead of force-fitting you into these one-size-fits-all tools. By knowing your cognitive preference, managers, coaches and colleagues can recommend much better tools. HI: Are there any stories you can share about how your clients are
leveraging their thinking preferences to improve their work strategies and productivity?
CT: One of my clients has a 6’ x 6’ white board in her office. She is highly visual so she has positioned her desk so the white board is always in her line of sight. The white board is colorful, lists all of her tasks and projects and, most importantly, it’s always top of mind. She has physically oriented the location of her desk and put the white
board on the wall to leverage the way she thinks, enabling her to more
effectively and efficiently get her work done.
Another client who runs a photography studio has created a To Do list that is a corkboard divided into sections. The actual list is nothing but colored post-its that she can manipulate. It is a highly visual, kinesthetic tool that provides just enough structure to her tasks, and most importantly, it works for her.
HI: What are some of the broader implications of this correlation between the way people prefer to think and their work strategies? CT: First, traditional time management courses need to be redesigned so they take a Whole Brain® approach instead of focusing only on one
or two quadrants. We also need to realize that different work strategies are more impactful, and therefore more effective, for different cognitive
“By knowing your cognitive preference, managers, coaches and colleagues can recommend much better tools.”
The Originators of Whole Brain® Technology and the Creators of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®)
Clients
Herrmann International clients, for whom better thinking has become integral to their business culture, include:
Altera
American Express AT&T
BlackRock
Blue Cross Blue Shield Bunnell Idea Group Caesar’s
Christiana Care Health Systems Cintas
Coca-Cola Global Novations IBM
Johnson & Johnson Kraft
Limited Brands Lockheed Martin Macy’s
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital Microsoft MIT Mitsubishi NASA Nav Canada Novartis Novo Nordisk Pella Corporation Perfetti Van Melle Purdue Pharma Queen’s University Rogers Communications Sobeys Thomson Reuters Ultimate Software Wharton Follow us:
@herrmannintl Whole Brain®
Thinking - HBDI® Whole Brain
® Thinking
and HBDI®
herrmannintl The Whole
