5 minute read
PD Spotlight: Thinking is the ultimate human resource
Debbie presents various courses and webinars as part of the HRNZ PD Programme. Here she shares her thoughts and insights into the precious human resource of thinking.
I have been presenting the threeday HR Foundations courses and one-day HR 101 for Non-HR People since 2015. HR Foundations has been designed primarily for recent graduates or those in full-time HR roles and provides participants with a look into all the main functions of everyday HR. The one-day HR 101 for Non-HR People is for those who have HR responsibilities as part of a wider role and focuses on a few main functions, including resourcing, performance management, employment relations and change management.
When we study HR, we learn about concepts, theories and models. I remind participants in HRNZ courses that life does not always follow the flow chart. HR situations tend to be complex because human beings are complex, and this is why a formulaic approach does not work. In my teaching, I focus on principles or core beliefs, such as ‘good faith’, because our actions are always the result of our thoughts. Our ability to think is what makes us human, and when participants say, “Oh, I never thought about it like that”, I feel particularly satisfied because it is evidence I have triggered their thinking.
My fascination with the human ability to think is long-standing. In 2001, I had the good fortune to attend a public lecture with Edward de Bono in the Christchurch Town Hall. At the time, I was working in the corporate world, and de Bono was best known for inventing the phrase ‘lateral thinking’ and his team collaboration tool – The Six Thinking Hats. The three things I particularly remember from that event were his incredibly silky and velvet-like voice (he was born in Malta and tertiary educated in Britain), that he scribbled on a piece of acetate continuously while he spoke, and he charged the audience with designing an upsidedown umbrella! During the mid1990s, it was fashionable to include a pithy quote at the bottom of email footers, and I remember that, for a long time, I used the tagline ‘Thinking is the ultimate resource’ without realising who had coined this phrase.
Now that I look more closely at the de Bono quote, I see he includes the word ‘human’ so the quote reads “Thinking is the ultimate human resource”. This distinction is particularly significant to me now because I use the Self Coaching Model with all my clients, and an important feature of this model is the power of our thoughts to create the results we want. This ability is critical for HR professionals who need to understand how human beings work, to provide the best workplace environment.
It is worth noting here that humans are the only animal species with the ability to think. We are privileged to have a prefrontal cortex that is an add-on to our reptilian brain, yet many of us do not make full use of this wonderful gift. It is the prefrontal cortex that allows us to experience life beyond the present – we can think about our past and we can think about our future.
The reptilian or lizard brain was designed to keep us alive. This primitive brain has three primary motivations, which are to seek pleasure (procreate), avoid pain (being eaten) and conserve energy (for emergencies). Although largely redundant in today’s world, they remain the unthinking defaults for humans and are unfortunately responsible for many of our modern physical and emotional ailments. For instance, processed foods are the artificial versions of berries and sweet treats found in nature with hugely intensified chemical properties to make these foods addictive.
The prefrontal cortex – often referred to as the executive brain – is the big bonus here and has our longterm interests at heart. It has two wonderful capabilities – it can plan, and because it can conceptualise consequences in the future, it can exercise delayed gratification.
Planning is a skill unique to humans. Notice how your cat or dog is not planning anything beyond their immediate need for a meal or a walk. They live entirely in the moment. Our ability to plan lets us override our in-the-moment reptilian impulses and reactions to make better longterm choices, such as keeping fit and eating well. Note how anything worth achieving usually requires us to exercise delayed gratification. They typically require persistent effort, actions and hard work towards a longer-term goal – that includes our journey as HR professionals, particularly in relation to wellbeing.
As de Bono noted, our ability to think is the ‘ultimate human resource’. We can choose to live like reptiles as long as we also take responsibility for the long-term consequences, such as poor physical and mental health. Living in reptilian mode also makes it less likely we will share our unique talents with the world because it would take too much energy, and we might be risking rejection.
As the Self Coaching Model demonstrates, our thoughts always determine our feelings, which fuel our actions, which then produce our results. For example, if I think and believe that other people are to blame for everything, then I will feel helpless and my actions will reflect this. However, if I make a conscious decision to think that I can make a difference to how my life is then I am changing the feeling to something like ‘confident’, ‘assured’ or ‘determined’, which generate a completely different set of actions such as trying new things, risking being wrong or things not working, persisting, seeking and taking advice. I am certain these actions will produce a different set of results for me. Please don’t squander this precious human resource that is thinking.
Debbie Dawson, CFHRINZ, Debbie is a facilitator and website presenter on HRNZ's PD Programme and is an award-winning HR specialist who works with people and organisations to implement practical strategies for sustainable workplace wellbeing. She is a coach, facilitator, presenter and writer based in Christchurch.
w: www.debbiedawson.co.nz
