“Speed Reading” on my Lumina Travels

By SJ Han - Product Developer at Lumina Learning

I have just come back from my travels across Canada, which started in Montreal and ended in Vancouver with three weeks in between.  My agenda included chasing my favourite band, Pearl Jam, on their 20^th anniversary tour from gig to gig and more conventionally, getting some much needed fresh air to the brain, mind and soul.

Needless to say as I was hiking in the grandeur of the Rockies, this space I am now back to inhabit called “the office” felt very far away - well, as a matter of fact it was very far away, an Atlantic ocean away.  However, even as I ventured across this bewilderingly vast country - “to get away” - there remained a guy sitting in a chamber in my brain, busier than ever, speed-painting one Spark portrait after another.

With each human encounter, I picked up on the ebbs and flows of the individuals’ behaviour and energy. This was not only indicative of the fact that it was about time I got out of the office for a while but the way I was able to apply it every day on my distant travels speaks volumes for the resonating power of Lumina’s Spark model.

Travelling exposes you to such a rich variety of people, the ability to speed-read others is a very useful technique.  I found the inherently humanistic approach of the Lumina Spark framework really shone because:

1) It helped me embrace each person’s complexities and contradictions and develop a profound appreciation of people’s lives even in the most fleeting of encounters

2) It reminded me to value diversity - breaking me out of cycles of cynicism and stereotyping and keeping my mind open to all experiences

3) I could speed-read others quickly - people I met who possessed a lot of yellow seemed to glow with infectious energy, those with green washed over me like a warm tide with quiet intensity, those with red spurred me on with their combative purposefulness and drive, and blue… well they made sure I was always safe sharing their maps, laptops and timetables!

Lumina Spark is a powerful tool for organisational development, but I’d like to applaud it once more for the ways it can profoundly enrich your personal relationship with the world.

Lumina Spark - Thinking Outside of the Box

By Stewart Desson, Lumina Learning CEO

The AA Box

I had this image on my screen when my youngest son Joshua asked, “Is that Dr. Who’s box?”  

The Tardis, quite different to the AA Box

I explained to him that when daddy was a child (in the 1960s!) motorists aspired to have a key to the various “Automobile Association (AA) Boxes” up and down the UK – just in case they broke down and needed to ring for help.

“Why go in a box?  Why not use their iPhone?”   He innocently inquired. 

I explained that these AA boxes were useful in a bygone age, before technology gave us the iPhone.  How else could you make a call when stuck by the roadside, when there were no mobile phones?

That got me thinking – it’s a bit like the fad for personality typing that was also popular in the 1960s – putting people in metaphorical boxes and labelling them.  This seemed like the only way most organisations wanted to look at personality back then.  The trouble was, people felt stereotyped and pigeon holed.

People in Boxes

Just as our smart phones enable us to highly personalise our communications, we can now have the technology to look at our personalities in a highly personalised way – without the need to put people in boxes.  Methods that do not say you are “this” or “that”, but actually describe you as you really are.  In the last 200,000 years just shy of 7 billion human beings have walked on the planet – but there will never be another you.

The reality is that today we don’t need to be subjected to the humiliation of being typed; there is no need to utilise an out-dated methodology that insists you and your people must fit into a box.

I sincerely believe that personality models have always helped to shed light on who you are to bring true understanding to yourself and others.  Now it is possible, however, to use a model that really measures who you are and not who others want you to be.  As I get deep in to this topic I am shocked by how many of the popular models, publicised by some of the world's most respected businesses lack statistical “validity” or psychological integrity.  Sure, when the only thing that was around was a pay phone, then you can’t be criticised for wanting to get into a box, or encourage people to use them, but when there are now smart phones around that know where you are, why would you need to walk for miles, to use a box that someone may well have relieved themselves in?

Lumina Spark is much more smart phone than pay phone.  I created it because it's simple, effective and has deep integrity.  Many just like it because it makes sense and makes a difference to individuals and teams.

To find out more about thinking outside of the box, click here... 

- Stewart

How to increase the bottom line in Call Centres

By Nicole Martin - Our South African Partner


Imagine a Call Centre with ….

·         energised and motivated agents

·         satisfied and loyal customers

Resulting in…

·         reduced call handling time

·         reduced customer churn

·         increased sales and revenues

Call Centres have invested millions in their systems and processes with the hope of optimising performance of Call Centre agents. While this is critical, it is to no avail if they do not focus on the actual users of these systems, the agents. Research suggests that the competitive edge lies in the untapped emotional capability of agents.

Before the emotional capability can be developed, leading to quality customer service, there is an underlying factor that needs to be nurtured, and this is Attitude or Motivation. “Do I or don’t I want to turn it on today and in this very call?” Studies have found that a key predictor of agent success is Team Cohesion and Recognition.

Do the agents feel that they belong to a team?

Do the agents feel important to their organisation?

Are they recognised fairly for their performance and efforts?

If the answer to these questions is YES, then you can turn your attention to the emotional capability of agents.

So what does Emotional Capability mean in this context?  It means the ability to understand themselves, understand their customers, and then be able to build rapport effectively, changing their behaviour to meet their customers personality and need in that moment, on that call.

An organisation such as Lumina Learning develops this emotional capability in a dynamic way by using colour-based models, tools and assessments. Lumina has a simple 3 step process:

1   Understanding self –   The Lumina Spark Portrait identifies the agent’s personal communication style, strengths and weaknesses.

2.      Understanding the customer – Teaches the agent how to speed read and identify customer’s personality and unique communication needs in that moment.

3.      Building rapport – Teaches the agent how to communicate in the most effective way for that customer so that they can get the desired result and create customer satisfaction.

So what’s the ROI? Many! An agent, who successfully applies this skill, leads to decreased call time, increased customer satisfaction and increased revenues. In an inbound Call Centre they make the customer happier by resolving their query in a way that works best for the customer. The customer is loyal and continues to do business with the organisation. In an outbound Call Centre, sales and upselling increase as they respond to the customers’ sensitivity, mood and personality.

There is the additional benefit of increased agent satisfaction. Their job is now more fun, the calls are less ‘charged’ and they are benefiting emotionally and financially from better results! This of course leads to a decrease in Agent churn, which is an important and another cost saving spinoff.

So can Call Centre’s really afford not to motivate and develop their precious Agents?

WHAT can WE DO?

By Cees W.M. Nieboer - Strategic Lumina Learning Partner

In times like these where bigger organisations are laying people off and everybody is cautious about spending money the best solution seems to be making better use of our existing resources.

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. What I have learned from this is that sometimes changes are required in order to improve the current situation.

Limited availability of money and lower capacity of production lines are examples of factors hindering our ability to make a leap forwards. This combined with the bad news about the economy presented to us on a daily basis by the media doesn’t create a particularly motivating environment.

However, the advantage of being human and having the ability to apply certain filters and our own views on the world and the way we see other people (including our employees and co-workers), creates a huge opportunity! By making a shift that leads to putting objectivity and a scientifically solid approach as the basis for evaluating our untapped potential within the organisation we unleash forces that can transform our position.

Maybe this could be the breakthrough you and your shareholders have been desperately waiting for.

The question “How well do we know people around us?” is easily answered: We don’t know what they are really capable of because we only see a limited selection of their skills and traits when we are dealing with them.

If we could provide you with 24 – listed qualities and asked you to rate people around you …… how accurate would you be? If we added some more complexity to it and asked you also to indicate how the behaviour related to those qualities would change given changes in circumstances…. The outcome of that assessment would become even less accurate.

As a result organisations are often utilising the “known” qualities of people and neglecting the “hidden potential” of the cumulative Human Resource potential available to them.

Solutions are not always as complex as we think. The Lumina Spark Portrait discloses those qualities and even more traits and attributes we can deploy to restructure business processes and harness “under-utilised qualities” for our benefit and improvement of our bottom line results.

One of the nice side effects is that when individuals are allowed to use their strengths more freely, the motivation levels and the working atmosphere in organisation improves, with little additional effort.

Try it and take control of your own destiny in a way that isn’t dependant on changes in the world outside of you.

Good luck!