Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016 - (Page 40)

RICH SHERIDAN, CEO OF MENLO INNOVATIONS, USES COGNITIVE COLLABORATION™ TO MAKE HIS COMPANY "A WORKPLACE PEOPLE LOVE," SOLVE CHALLENGING SOFTWARE PROBLEMS, AND DELIVER MENLO INNOVATIONS' MISSION ("TO END HUMAN SUFFERING IN THE WORLD AS IT RELATES TO TECHNOLOGY"). Cognitive Collaboration is the deliberate practice of applying thinking and behavioral preferences to create an atmosphere that promotes more frequent, higher quality collaboration. With this strengths-based model, everyone on the team can contribute in greater ways, because each is aware of his or her personal strengths and unique contributions. Menlo Innovations is one example of how companies can pair cognitive diversity with effective strategy. This specific methodology leverages each employee's unique preferences and the organization's shared knowledge to achieve group success. The company distinguishes itself in a world where the stereotype is to be over budget, late on delivery and full of errors. 40 Cognitive diversity has brought success to other organizations in addition to Menlo Innovations. Recent research in organizational development and human behavior has identified four distinct areas of the brain: analytical, structural, social and conceptual. Every person falls along a spectrum of behavior in three areas: expressiveness, assertiveness and flexibility. Teams with a full spectrum of these seven attributes exhibit cognitive diversity. A COGNITIVE SPECTRUM Let's walk through the behaviors and then paint a picture of the thinking attributes. * Expressiveness is a behavior that ranges on a scale from quiet to gregarious. A quiet person might work better independently and need time to reflect on new information. Someone on the gregarious side of the spectrum is animated and might talk with his hands or wear his emotions on his sleeve. * Assertiveness looks at the pace and style at which a person approaches a situation. The scale ranges from peacekeeping to driving. Someone on the peacekeeping end of the spectrum might use statements as questions, while someone on the driving end of the spectrum will put her energy into convincing others of her perspective. * Flexibility takes into account what happens when a plan changes mid-course. Are you focused on the task at hand, with difficulty transitioning, or do you welcome change and switch directions easily? For each of these behaviors, someone on the middle of the spectrum can behave in different ways, depending on the situation. http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/it-takes-all-kinds-of-brains-to-make-a-perfect-team.html http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/it-takes-all-kinds-of-brains-to-make-a-perfect-team.html http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/it-takes-all-kinds-of-brains-to-make-a-perfect-team.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016

Perspectives
Table of Contents
Three Strategies to Ensure Your Training Has Tensile Strength
Experience, Exposure and Education
Beyond the Classroom Paradigm
Applying the Buddy System
Purpose-Driven Professional & Organization Success
Making It Personal: The Four Pillars of High-Impact Mentoring
Blowing Your Millennial Mindset
Hidden Forces: Unconscious Bias in Learning
Memory: The Critical Bottleneck to Learning
Gender Barriers & Solutions to Leadership
Cognititive Collaboration: Utilizing Diverse Thinking & Behavioral Preferences
Get Into the Act: Accelerating Collaborative Teamwork
Dispelling the Five Myths of Microlearning
Quicken Loans: Culture Driven
Developing Global Leaders: On-the-Job Leadership Development
From Where I Sit
Why Do We Wait to Train Our Managers?
Is Knowledge Overrated?
Is Your Business Acument Showing?
Avnet Expands Services with ExitCertified Acquisition
Company News
What's Online
Training Talk

Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016