About 400 million years ago, the first fish crawled out of the sea. Living on land provided a whole new set of challenges: these vertebrates had to learn to breathe, move and eat outside the sea where they had always lived. They discovered very quickly that they had to adapt to survive.
In the modern era, adaptability is a measure of how well individuals deal with change on a personal level. As the saying goes, the only constant is change, and it is something we all have to deal with on a daily basis.
We have been providing Psycho-Linguistic training to a Government Organisation since mid-2016. Psycho-Linguistics is a specialist communication methodology that allows to manage the content of messages as well as customers’ emotional reaction to them. As part of the course, the delegates complete psychological questionnaires on topics such as emotional intelligence and stress. This serves the dual purpose of embedding the key learning points and giving them some insight into their own characteristics and natures. One of the factors we measure is how adaptable each person is, given that highly adaptable people cope better with change. The relevant questionnaire was compiled by our Clinical Psychologist, who has been studying this topic over many years.
We selected a sample of 100 staff from a variety of roles, 51 women and 49 men. Some were contact centre staff, some in team leadership positions, and some from support operational areas. The data included information about age, gender, length of service and adaptability score, which ranged between 12 (very high) and 60 (very low). We carried out an analysis of the data to determine the levels of adaptability of the staff.
8% of the sample scored in the top 25%, showing very high adaptability: the split was 5% men and 3% women. Only 2% of the sample scored in the lower 25%, one of each gender. The vast majority (90%) fell in the middle 50%, with no significant difference between men and women.
We discovered that there is a weak negative correlation (-0.126) between length of service and adaptability score, and a weak positive correlation (0.017) between age and adaptability. The average adaptability score for this Organisation is 32.6.
When we worked with a private sector utility supplier in 2015 and 2016, we calculated that the average score for delegates was 30.6, based on a sample size of 702. This shows that the private sector employees are more adaptable, to the tune of 6.5% (Figs 2 and 3).
So it seems that staff at a major private sector company are more adaptable than the cohort working in the Civil Service. If this is part of a wider trend, it could point to government employees being more comfortable with the status quo, while private sector workers are more ready for change.
Finally, we compared adaptability scores with length of service for both the public and private sector organisations (Fig 4) and discovered a pattern: staff at both organisations seemed to display high adaptability scores up to five years’ service (33.2 for the government department, 31.7 for the utility provider). Staff between five and ten years’ service showed lower scores (29.6 and 28.2), and those over ten years scored highly again (32.6 and 30.4).
This is an interesting finding and could mean that staff members:
- initially display adaptable behaviour as they learn new skills and master the job
- become a little set in their ways after five years
- then, with experience, they learn to deal better with change, almost to the degree they could initially.
Unexpectedly, the most experienced staff seem to be keen on, and ready for the constant changes the modern business environment demands as much as the early starters. This means that companies who keep their staff long-term – and who invest in them providing training and development initiatives – could reap the benefits as time goes on.
T2 is the world’s leader provider in the commercial application of Psycho-Linguistics. We work across the globe, with clients coming from both the public and private sectors.
How Do You Come Across?
The idea that companies should have a Corporate Personality and a distinct Corporate Voice has been around for at least two decades, primarily in commercial organisations that operate in a competitive market place. Increasingly, Government Departments are also embracing these concepts. This is why we were keen to get approval from Senior Management in one of the Government Departments we are currently working in for the two diagrams we designed, which we felt illustrated the characteristics of the Organisation.
The core traits of the Organisation’s personality are shown in the red circle, while the peripheral characteristics around the perimeter arise out of the two essential qualities in the centre.
In preparation for the training, four of our team spent three days listening to live calls in the different departments of the call centre. We then selected a cross section to illustrate learning points, and a final batch that we judged most effective for practical exercises during the course.
Over 100 calls were reviewed.
Out of these we specifically selected one that typified the Government Department’s style, tone and language, and included it in a learning module on the Brand.
First we asked 547 delegates – between July 2016 and January 2017 – to evaluate the call based on a generic set of criteria. Then we compared their evaluation of their Organisation’s personality with the characteristics the Organisation wanted to project.
The results were fascinating for us and illuminating for them.
Two elements of the Organisation’s personality are reflected in the list above: Trustworthy and Dynamic.
Delegates evaluated these on a three-point scales below.
It is disappointing the staff felt their own calls were not necessarily seen as trustworthy.
Given the Organisation’s desire to modernise, this result clearly shows the need to deliver a more modern and dynamic communication.
But a personality, whether it be an individual or an organisation, is powerfully reflected in the voice. And our client’s voice is represented by the diagram below, with the core elements in the red circles and the subtle variations in the blue ring at the edge.
So this time, we were interested specifically in perceptions of care, friendliness, empathy and sincerity.
Because agents have had such good training in process, they have not been focused on engagement with callers. Now they are aware of this aspect of calls.
Generally, staff in this part of the UK are known to be friendly. Because of the heavy emphasis, this was not spontaneously coming across in calls.
Given the nature of some of the calls, past training has encouraged a neutral approach to callers, even those calling about the death of a family member.
In sensitive situations, it is difficult for agents to be over-friendly, but quality assurance are now considering this issue.
A factual approach to callers does prevent agents from becoming emotionally involved, but it also gives the Organisation an indifferent image on some occasions.
As American author Dr Debasish Mridha writes, “If your intentions are good, nothing bad can happen.” However, it is clear that our client was not living up to its brand, which ended up being perceived quite differently from how it was envisaged.
Thanks to our Psycho-Linguistic training, in just over six months we have catapulted our client into the 21st century. By introducing a more modern and vibrant way of communicating, we have improved connectivity with customers. We have helped closing the gap between the Organisation’s personality/voice and the way these come across to clients.
We look forward to sharing our results in our next article.
What Are Your Values?
Beliefs, values and attitudes all influence our behaviour.
Beliefs are ideas that are true to us and, together with values, they drive our attitudes toward others.
Values are defined as “principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life” (OED). It doesn’t matter that what is important to each and every one of us might differ; we all have core and peripheral values – whether they’re clear or not.
We’ve analysed the clarity of values of about 200 contact centre representatives, and we’ve unearthed some gender differences. While both men and female scores are comparable, females seem to be achieving more definite numbers, with an average of 7.73 (clear values) and 4.28 (unclear values).
In general, having clear values makes it easier to make decisions; people with less clear values, instead, are more likely to be flexible, malleable and adaptable.
Emotional Intelligence
Since it’s been established that being clever is no longer enough, Emotional Intelligence has become the measurement used by 56% of major companies in the United States.
Global organisations have increased sales by 13% in ten months, have improved customer service, and influenced the performance and behaviour of employees.
In a recent study carried out by T2uk measuring the five characteristics of EI – self-awareness, emotional management, self-motivation, relationship management and emotional coaching – some interesting gender differences arose in a sample of 900 males and females.
Females in contact centres in different parts of the UK seem to be more self-aware of their image, physical presence and energy levels; whilst males are more practical, logical and not so concerned about their feelings.
This has significant implications for the recruitment selection and training of call centre agents.
