#11: Self-Awareness

When establishing the overall framework for a successful sole practitioner consultancy, we cited three key success factors for people to consider when setting up as a consultant, namely Self-Awareness, Clarity of Purpose, and Price Integrity. Today we will consider the first of these in greater detail.

There are some very strong links between understanding yourself better, setting personal goals, and creating your personal brand. Only then can you come up with a coherent and consistent social media and networking strategy. In addition, if you can heighten your appreciation of your own self-awareness, you are in a better position to heighten your awareness of others, thereby relating better to them as a consultant.

I have been using PRISM for some years now, and I have found it to be a very simple and pragmatic way of improving business performance.

So what is PRISM and PRISM Brain Mapping?  It is a unique way of identifying people’s behaviour preferences based on brain activity. Unlike traditional psychometric instruments, PRISM approaches human behaviour from the perspective of neuroscience, rather than psychological theory. This exciting online tool takes advantage of some of the most up-to-date neuroscience discoveries to provide users with a series of ‘maps’, which are representations of how their brain prefers to work.

PRISM’s reports

• Show not only people’s natural or instinctive behaviour preference, but also the extent and the way in which they modify or adapt their preference on occasions to respond to what you see as the demands of specific situations e.g. their job.
• The reports also indicate where individuals may be overdoing or not making full use of their preferences. This insight also helps them to understand more about their true potential, as well as what may be hindering them from achieving even higher performance.
• The remarkable complexity of the brain has shown that human beings cannot credibly be divided up into a fixed number of types or groups of people who are unable to act outside of their preferences. PRISM does not, therefore, label people or fit them into ‘boxes’, nor does it have ‘scores’, or right or wrong answers. Instead, it provides users with a powerful, graphic explanation for why they approach situations and individuals in different ways.

The brain is the source of all human behaviour. It stores our memories, enables us to feel emotions, gives us our personalities and produces the behaviours that enable us to survive and achieve success – in short; it makes us who we are.

Although genes set boundaries for human behaviour, within these boundaries there is immense room for individual variation. Now, thanks to great advances in brain imaging technology, scientists can watch the brain at work and in great detail and are uncovering many of its secrets.

For all of us, that discovery is really good news. The adult brain can and does, adapt, develop and change even into old age. This means that education, learning and development take on a whole new level of importance. Neuroscience has also shown us that people tend to be most motivated and successful when they use, and are rewarded for using, their own natural, preferred behaviour.

This highlights the importance of matching people with the right jobs – doing those things they enjoy and do best. In simple terms, the better the fit between the person and the job, the better the performance. The best recruitment results from paying attention to three factors:

• What the person likes to do most
• What the person does best
• What adds greatest value to the organisation

I have used it for a range of activities with my clients:

• Recruitment
• 360 degree reviews
• Leadership development
• Building high performance teams
• Practising adaptive selling techniques

One of the great benefits is helping people improve their self-awareness, which in turn helps them relate better to others, both within their businesses and outside.

If you would like to know more, take a look at the website or drop me a line. I love talking about PRISM!