MAXIMIZING RESULTS THROUGH SELF-AWARENESS

“They can tie a man’s hands, preventing gestures, they can tie his feet preventing him from walking, they can cover his eyes preventing sight, they can cut his tongue preventing speech, the right to think and the power to think, however, above all intolerance and all oppression, nothing can prevent this exercise. If the gods so wished and if human nature itself so desired, it seems clear that there is no more abominable abuse that can attempt to impose limitations on the thought of any person.” (José Alves de Freitas Neto)

If the idea of promoting constant reflection on their environment within the company helps them steer away from the abyss, past experiences clearly demonstrate that there is no example that will ever represent that power alone is sufficient to prevent the spread of incapacity and low performance among its employees within organizations. On the contrary, when there is a crisis, incompetence appears as a warning that something must be done so that their employees do not become absolutely incapable, corporate slaves of conditions built by their own inability to perceive.

Thinking this way, it is possible to understand that regardless of the sufficiency that employees may have, it is not guaranteed that they will be able to achieve their best within the organizations they are part of. Therefore, it is more than common to have within companies people who have much more capacity to produce but cannot develop all their competence in the work environment in which they are inserted. Similarly, most of the time, many of your employees stop worrying about giving their best after a certain period of time. Although there are several reasons for this, very few actions are thought to minimize such conditions. This is the purpose of this article, to help reflect on the following question: How to find mechanisms that encourage your employees to do their best most of the time?

Of course, the proposal here is not to delude oneself with the ideal. It is impossible for a person to dedicate themselves to giving their best or to be 100% motivated all the time, and if you think that way, you are probably deluding yourself with your own professional reality. Aware of this, I can say that it was by researching the subject that I found in social psychology studies that demonstrate that, in many cases, the great demotivator of an employee is directly related to the contributions promoted by him that are not seen or recognized. In my studies and organizational experience, I discovered that one of the main reasons why this happens is that people, in general, are simply not good at assessing competencies — a crucial characteristic for success at work — and perceptions of competence are as important for success as actual competence. However, there are paths that facilitate alignment between employees and the company, acting as an inherent filter to distance incompetence and unwillingness to do better. One of the most prominent ones I found is precisely sponsoring self-awareness within the organization.

Sponsoring self-awareness is not just about knowledge and technical or behavioral issues, but rather, encouraging the evaluation of one’s own performance as a professional. One of the most efficient tools to broaden realistic vision. Research has shown that companies that do not have a correct incentive for the productive results of their employees are not able to make them aware of a reality regarding performance, and therefore, distort the result itself. In other words, it is common in high-performance teams for professionals to think they have exceptional performance, but in reality, they do not, and often fall short. They cannot differentiate between quantity and quality, or rather, number of hours X effectively productive hours, contradicting the main personal motivator. This is because there is a certain difficulty among people in isolating what effectively motivates performance, unable to perceive their own motivations, they tend to evaluate their performance based on other factors, which reflects an introspective condition of feeling in which they need to do more than produce results to convince themselves of their good qualification.

Enabling your employees to be able to critically and rigorously evaluate their own performance constitutes a feeling of responsibility at the same time, of freedom. It is the construction of a feeling of confidence. Identity, so to speak. In addition to improving their performance, this feeling helps to build a more suitable, collaborative, and favorable environment for more energetic actions when necessary. When a leader gives the employee the responsibility to self-assess, they are generating a feeling of trust in their employees, creating a sense of being more competent, and this generates a biased condition for the subordinates to start believing in what is said and to confirm it in themselves. Beliefs that will generate the need to select information that supports this propensity. The name for this is: Confirmation bias. If a leader projects confidence, teams tend to believe that the leader knows what they are talking about, and they automatically become self-aware of their own actions, to conform to the initial impression of their leaders. Therefore, self-awareness is a consequentialist proposal.

The process of encouraging and generating self-awareness among people within organizations allows us to approach the reality of the possible consequences or results of each action in a systemic way, giving greater purpose to work. Although challenging and depending a lot on how the organizational culture is prepared to absorb innovative ideas that promote the establishment of self-aware conditions friendly to transparency, feedback, and change, the fact of building a self-aware environment is also responsible for making it collaborative, promoting a proposal of conscious behavior of services and processes among all. It is true that, although it may be imprudent to project false confidence, especially when there is no certainty that there will be good performance, displaying modesty also damages one’s own self-esteem and the condition of remaining in productive environments.

There is a natural tendency for people to punish those who show too much humility. In a team, there is always a tendency for those who are more confident to stand out and those who are less confident to be almost always harmed because the majority decides against them. The fact is that modesty for social psychology can be considered as protection against possible failures, an attempt to inhibit critics, and a condition of self-sabotage to one’s own confidence. If the employee does not trust in their ability, how can anyone else trust them? Hence, one of the fundamental points of self-awareness. It encourages your employee to carefully analyze their own work. If necessary, they are encouraged to convince others of their abilities.

The goal is not to deceive, but to create the habit of believing in oneself, understanding that each action is worthy of evaluation because it is part of something greater. Not seeing their potential as arrogant when communicating when deserved, emphasizing that they are good at what they do, but never depreciating themselves in relation to their true and main competencies. This feeling that comes in their affirmations generates a sense of responsibility in their competencies. And this is easy to understand, no one likes to be marked as a liar or impostor.

However, this is not always easy to achieve. To generate in your employees conditions for their self-awareness, it is necessary to build sets so that your employees feel authentic when demonstrating confidence in themselves, and for this, first, they need to convince themselves of it. Questions like: What am I good at? What has been my greatest success so far? Why should others be guided by me? What do I know that they do not know? They should constantly be asked by each one, and if your employee has difficulty answering these questions, you may have a problem. The essence of self-awareness lies in the employee realizing that they should convince others of their competence because they are convinced of it themselves. A feeling of authenticity. For this, I will list the main frequent points that can help in the development of a self-aware culture:

• Encouraging Thinking: Thinking generates knowledge, but not knowledge for its own sake, this matters little. Thinking generates reflection, exchange, the perception that it is possible to go beyond when there is more than one person thinking. What does it matter to have the best system, the leading technologies, to hire the best professional if there is no welcoming environment for something more to make sense? The strategies of preservation and recognition that contemporary professionals seek revolve around rights and the task of thinking because without thinking, there are no rights, and much less the condition to find the best. The possibility of becoming a better work environment is represented in the free condition of diversity of thought and action, precisely so that behavioral gaps are no longer justified in antagonisms. The fact is, to think and not to act is not to think! Remember, when you ask an employee about the experience of being part of an excellent team, what stands out is the meaning of this experience. People speak with pride of being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being effectively productive and recognized. And this is the reason that only the propagation of thinking can bring!

• Leading by Competencies: An efficient way to bring awareness to the quality of one’s performance is contained in the proposal of the work environment, in such a way that leaders demonstrate confidence in the abilities of their collaborators. In recent decades, researchers have studied the effects of projecting confidence versus pressure, reaching quite important conclusions. It was found that projecting confidence necessarily leads to positive effects, the question is that for this to happen it is necessary to realize that this only works in non-comparative scenarios. In other words, there is no problem in praising one’s own competence, the question is that self-aware leadership does not act comparatively by classifying its collaborators between those competent and those who are not.

The simple fact of demonstrating confidence in the activities of one’s collaborators suggests that the professional, by himself, feels the need for proof, and with this, seeks ways to meet the expectations that are expected of his performance. Leaders who provide positive and confident environments naturally build conditions of self-awareness in their subordinates. A negative prediction can make the collaborator be perceived as clearly less competent, no matter if their actual performance is good, and this condition generates frustration. Faced with this situation, production becomes qualitatively lower, feeling more pressured. The stress generated prevents clarity in actions, and then, this, in turn, seeks to compensate for its insecurity in introspection and in hours worked, which does not mean that more hours represent greater production and better quality of work performed, indeed, recent neuroscience studies present exactly the opposite of this.

• Controlling Anxiety: One of the most important factors to focus on in self-aware environments is the anxiety of its collaborators. The anxiety of these people becomes a challenge, because they are professionals worried about the future and if the company does not provide security and confidence to innovate or act proactively, it will reflect negatively on the productive results of their work. Self-aware professionals are restless. It is necessary to encourage and make people available to acquire new skills to remain productive and motivated within the company, generating more value working together than separately. For this reason, organizations need to act transparently regarding the adoption of a self-aware proposal, creating policies that allow their employees, at all levels, to develop knowledge and appropriate measurement mechanisms, as well as guidelines where everyone can adapt to these changes.

• Belonging: It is not enough to tell the team that diversity is important, this will not change anything. There must be a commitment guiding people with different skills to add up. To explore the best with all excellence requires more than goodwill, it is a combination of doing what one likes, in the right place with the right diversity of people. Doing the best has to do with alignment and balance with the activities carried out within an inclusive environment, which explains why many people have better performance in certain environments than in others. And this factor is decisive when leading. A self-aware person cannot only be qualified in technical terms and quantified in terms of alignment between actions, values, and goodwill, but they must also feel comfortable with the clarity of the job description, the responsibility exercised and the integration in a way that feels part of the group. Self-awareness is about inclusion.

The issue is that even if organizations assess the collaborator correctly, they do not assess the function and, especially, they cannot map their own satisfaction, real productivity, as well as the culture of the organization. This is why many companies see themselves as more inclusive, diverse, innovative, and social than they really are – it is more an illusion than an accurate self-assessment. This directly impacts the motivation of the collaborator to perform their activities by offering their best. High performance only exists when there is a collaborative culture whose function becomes part, and relevant to a much larger whole than just one part or another. The fact is that it is more certain that a collaborator will adapt and perform well when a collaborative environment is built since, in this way, high-performance similarities become effectively contagious and differences are necessary for a greater perception.

• Commitment: A common side effect of not being able to adapt is the lack of commitment from leadership to their employees. It is necessary to understand that this is one of the main reasons that can explain the predominant lack of enthusiasm and motivation in work environments. The way of leading represents the mirror of its followers, and this explains not only why so many people do not perform well at work, but also why the most talented and important collaborators disengage from the company for not fitting into certain imperative management models. It’s a matter of rapport. The solution to this problem lies in leadership that inspires and guides, setting goals and providing constructive feedback on their performance frequently, instilling motivation to do their best. Self-awareness must start from the transparency of those who lead the team. In these environments, there is no room for autocracy. Respect and recognition must be shared. There is no better or worse, there is dedication, deference, and a huge willingness to think. Sharing knowledge. Self-awareness is generating awareness that no one is better than anyone else. It is the differences that make something greater. A collaborative environment, with open doors, much more horizontal where communication is sponsored as the essence of being able to do the best!

• Respecting Personal Moments: Do not forget that each collaborator is, above all, a human being, they are people who also have a personal and private life. Regardless of effort and talent, they face obstacles and setbacks that impact their daily work and production. It is for this reason that discussions about balance and well-being should be present. Good leaders recognize that not every day is a day to feel the best. And when this does not happen, it is the responsibility not only of the leader but of the entire team to provide support, understanding the position; make sure that self-awareness is also stimulating understanding and not judgment. If there is someone interested in helping a collaborator, it is the team because responsibilities such as results are shared, and solving problems is everyone’s mission. The goal is always for the collaborator to perform in line with their competencies, but above all, to do so, feeling satisfied with each action in a friendly, confident, and respectful environment.

Where to begin then?

Establishing clear rules for the employee is another valuable strategy as it allows for realistic expectations. Surprisingly, 60% of companies say they do not set goals or provide standards for quality and productivity analysis for their employees. A good way to start is by assigning self-analysis tools and expecting them to be completed by the employee themselves and presented as a perspective for analysis and evaluation of what can be improved. Recognizing both strengths and areas needing attention to become a highly effective professional. Start with goals that you are sure your employee can achieve.

From there, if all goes well, gradually increase the level of responsibility and corrections. This helps build trust and shows a concern for the employee’s growth and development. During this process, openly discuss the gaps found in skills and work together to address them. In meetings, encourage openness and transparency, encouraging employees to talk about their own development perspectives and daily issues. As they feel secure to contribute, they automatically begin to understand how their contribution fits into a self-aware company, gaining self-confidence and loyalty more quickly. Hiring a good coach is a good way to help with the process.

Finally, it is important to say that one of the great advantages of a self-aware environment lies precisely in the potential to awaken, discover, and retain talents. Finding talents is only the first challenge for organizations. Retaining them in companies and creating an environment that favors productivity is another fundamental mission of an effective leader. It is part of thinking about the entire system in which people work. Assuming mechanisms of constructive reinforcement that value the best in each person. Remuneration and reward are not everything compared to the value sought by a self-aware collaborator. For these individuals, a purpose is essential, and culturally speaking, inspiration comes from knowing that everyone’s responsibility represents everyone’s well-being.

Like clients and consumers, self-aware individuals want to identify with the values of the company where they work. Integrating, including, and consolidating a culture that values self-awareness is one of the keys to success for organizations. A scientific approach to talent development, focused on identifying high potentials, understanding their growth capacity and competencies, offering them the experience and support they need to succeed, becomes an extraordinary source of competitive advantage in the coming decades.

Supporting and consolidating much more enriching cooperative actions so that managers can transform the present team into the future great leaders they were or were not destined to be. With all this in mind, do not forget that identifying and validating competencies must be a continuous and always necessary process, but not sufficient for them to be effectively employed by your collaborator and for them to stand out and impress others at work.

That’s why self-awareness plays a fundamental role in organizations. Self-awareness in a work environment, when implemented correctly, creates conditions for the collaborator to pursue their interests without forgetting others.

Resignifying beliefs to carry out broader activities, in addition to focusing on their own ability to present their best selves, generating the invisible social forces that guide the dynamics of an organization, allowing the collaborator to achieve their maximum performance according to their real competencies based on the true purpose of finding their best selves.

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager in a large company in the IT and Telecommunications market. Since then, I have participated in important projects of structuring, implementation, and optimization of telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind.

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