It has been said that human capital is an intangible asset, like copyright or trade secrets, and therefore cannot be listed on a company’s balance sheet like cash, inventory, and property. Clever companies often use goodwill as a mechanism to capture the value of their intangible assets to include, of course, human capital. Yet, we can all agree that an organization’s level of innovation and productivity will be significantly impacted by the knowledge, skills, practices, and abilities of its personnel.
Moreover, the capacity to demonstrate empathy towards peers and colleagues in the workplace has been shown to have a positive impact on knowledge sharing, group-based innovation, and interdependence. That’s because, people with strong and well-calibrated SEC can more easily identify and neutralize issues like negative stereotypes, discriminatory practices, and prejudiced tendencies.
As presented by Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the ability to empathize and deeply connect with others involves being cognizant of their needs, concerns, and feelings. Such a skill is often acquired through participating in social and emotional learning (SEL) and workforce preparation activities that accentuate “soft skills” or human-centered competencies. Consequently, by initiating and integrating SEL in regular training activities, today’s organizations can create a workplace environment that promotes equity and respect for people from different backgrounds.
Social and Emotional Competence IS and Asset
Artificial and invisible social barriers limit mutual trust in human-centered contexts such as workplaces, schools, and community organizations. Clearly then, organizations of any kind that have staff and senior personnel who possess well-developed SEC would have secured the necessary capacity and ability –in-house– to facilitate greater collaboration and team-work within and across all of their departments.
Further, activities and endeavors that fully leverage SEC within organizations will most certainly lead to timely advancements, innovations, and other bankable or assetization breakthroughs. This is because the secret to unleashing human potential begins with creating an organizational culture that facilitates connections, interactions, and exchanges that are based on interdependence and mutual trust between and among people who come from diverse backgrounds and skillsets. Thus, fostering knowledge and use SEC in the workplace will lead to positive economic as well as social impacts.
The question then is: how can organizations cultivate SEC in the workplace so they maintain a culture that promotes innovation, job satisfaction, and goal achievement?
The E2M2 Approach to Strengthen SEC
Brightspokes Learning has developed a proprietary 4-step collaborative and experiential learning approach called Exploration, Elaboration, Modelling and Mastery (E2M2) that can be used to facilitate the development and promotion of SEC in the workplace. As mastery of any subject often involves deliberate practice, E2M2 places special emphasis on gradual skills building, cognitive development, and hands-on exploration to ensure learners’ persistence, resilience, and success. For instance, the Exploration and Elaboration steps of E2M2 focus on navigating highly engaging learning scenarios and interactions to help cultivating the mental processes and internal representations that strengthen SEC. In the Modelling and Mastery steps of E2M2, emphasis is placed on cross-cultural negotiation and collaborative exchanges. Such a focus is to help foster improved appreciation and empathy for diverse perspectives as well as the lived experiences of colleagues.
E2M2 also leverages eXtended Reality (XR) technology to include virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate interactions and exchanges with simulated real life scenarios. Through effective implementation and use of the E2M2 approach, workers will gain insight into the real consequences of decisions and actions that can lead to disharmony. For example, using E2M2, an employee can grasp how others might misinterpret a group email message before hitting send. They can also wrestle with items such as a joke, prank, or vague comment that may seem innocuous but could be perceived as insensitive or insulting to a colleague.
E2M2 thus offers the opportunity to help employees acquire SEC individually or as a group. Thus, E2M2 help workers cultivates SEC to foster group-based collaborations and innovations that will in turn bring financial value and social benefits to their organizations. These will lead to greater assetization of knowledge, skills, practices, and abilities that are imbed in a company’s human resources and social-oriented practices.
Contact us to find out how the E2M2 can be used to achieve Inclusive Excellence & Sustained Positive Results now and in the future!
We, at Brightspokes Learning, know that the introduction of new technology tools and applications is not the answer to improve human development or facilitate workplace innovations and improvements. Consequently, we always take a holistic view of ALL of our learning or training activities. Our first task is to ensure that our interventions will have a positive ROI. We also strive to help our partners gain the most out of their investments in all relevant areas. We do this through a laser focus attention on delivering results that will improve the bottom line and support our partners’ mission, culture, and plans for the future.
Contact us to find out how we can help you “Soar Higher” now and in the future!
Author: T. Christa Guilbaud, Ed.D :: Email Me
Follow the links below to learn more on the subject:
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- CASEL: https://casel.org/
- True Colors: https://www.truecolorsintl.com/about
- Assetizing Organization Talents: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00132
- Extended Reality in the Workplace: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-77599-5_41
- Deliberate Practice: https://www.verywellmind.com/expertise-how-hard-is-it-to-become-an-expert-at-something-4173614
