An appreciation of the ‘givens’ of human nature provides a framework for understanding human beings, and this knowledge in turn creates an awareness of an individuals’ ability to function effectively in a workplace setting. Recognising and acknowledging these ‘human givens’ can help determine how to approach individual employees and handle different types of conflict situations.
Human Givens is a series of workplace-focused personal development workshops and presentations along with one to one and team coaching sessions. These engagements are designed to facilitate greater understanding of human behaviour and provide practical information and guidance on how to help people improve their performance in the workplace and bring about positive changes in an organisation.
The Human Givens framework can be adapted to the needs of the organisation.
Human Givens Training and Workshops
Common presentations and workshops:
Science of Self – ‘Know thyself’
The Science of Self module draws on recent knowledge and research to give a better understanding of human behaviour – both our own behaviour and that of others. It provides an understanding of the innate needs of all human beings and it explains how our brains have developed and evolved to help us get these needs met.
Motivation and Performance
This module describes the innate needs underlying all human motivation and performance, and provides practical tools for how to optimise your interpersonal skills when dealing with colleagues or managing people in a workplace environment.
Interpersonal Communication
This module focuses on the often unconscious process of human connection and how this assists in developing effective interpersonal communication. It is an important feature of all satisfying and sustainable interpersonal relationships, including work-related relationships. It uses the RIGAAR framework for developing relationships. This framework has been shown to be effective in areas as diverse as sales, customer service, team building, leadership and management functions.
Team Building
Team Building considers how we can optimise interpersonal skills when engaging with others, and work as a team to achieve particular goals, thereby experiencing the rewards of being part of a positive group intelligence process and enhanced performance.
Leadership
Leadership is aimed at those who are charged with responsibility for managing groups and individuals and wish to develop specific leadership skills so as to enhance their workplace performance.
Organisation Culture
Organisation Culture examines how culture evolves and is then maintained. It focuses on understanding the process of learning (and unlearning) and how it can be used to sustain the organisation’s ability to meet the needs of employees, as well as customers, service users or suppliers, who experience different levels of interaction with the organisation.
Change Management
Change Management:
Improving Results — Implementing Change
As a manager, your main function is to deliver results. Usually, where improvements in results are required, a series of changes must first be put in place. Ultimately, how effectively the change management programme is implemented will determine the quality of individual employees’ performance. One of the laws of human nature is that most people will change their behaviour not because they are asked to do so, but because the change serves to meet some aspect of their own needs.
The Human Givens approach focuses on fostering and environment or culture that acknowledges the individuals needs thus supporting the change programme. The function of most organisations is to ensure that employees deliver a product or service to customers. The approach used in these workshops provides managers with the necessary tools to deliver measurable outcomes. These tools are based on the most recent advances in neuroscience. They provide clear explanations why people function differently in different environments.
The tools consist of ‘organising ideas’ i.e. ideas that can be scaled to suit any particular environment or any particular set of challenges facing employees. While these tools can be used to effect change in individual situations, they are likely to produce the best results when they are implemented systematically across an entire workforce and are also incorporated into all aspects of the organisation’s systems and processes. The objective is to use the tools to create a shared vision and purpose, and to design work practices that are compatible with the organization, in line with the business strategy and serve to meet the needs of employees and customers alike.
