Savage doesn't advocate going to war to bring your hidden abilities to the surface. Instead, Potentia simulates a range of situations and asks a series of questions that tease out potential that people don't always know they have. The process is rigorous and scientific -- which might come as a disappointment to those who hope to get started by sharing a few anecdotes from their childhood. And Savage is quick to warn that Potentia's employees are neither therapists nor career counselors; rather, they are facilitators. Generally, a Potentia rep meets one-on-one with an individual client (eventually, the process will be Web-enabled) and goes through four steps: "values profiling," "individual potential profiling," "role playing," and "development and succession planning." The ultimate goal of all four steps is to find out which skills a person is using, which ones a person has but isn't using, and which ones a person does not have yet but might be able to develop with a bit of effort. It is the latter two types of skills that represent potential. "They are the areas for growth," says Savage.
During values profiling, the Potentia rep asks the client to think of a time when she had to make a decision with critical, long-term consequences for herself and for those close to her. The client selects cards with headings such as "stimulation," "safety," and "personal growth," and places them in order of importance in making that decision. The Potentia rep asks several more questions about imagined or remembered situations and has the client rearrange the cards accordingly.
The point of the exercise? To find out what your values are. "One of the main drivers that will either help people actualize their potential or work against them is their values," Savage says. "Have you ever been in a situation and felt like, 'I'm not really comfortable here. This isn't me'? That's your values talking. They're saying that there's something about this situation that either doesn't allow you to utilize values or skills that you think are important, or that requires you to do things that you don't think are important or enjoyable. Most of us are very unwilling to compromise on core values."
In the second part of values profiling, the client uses a different set of cards with headings such as "risk taking," "justice/fairness," and "autonomy." These cards represent priorities, which, Savage says, are shaped by values. Again, the client organizes the cards in order of importance. This time, questions include, "What is most important in helping you feel good about yourself?" When tension exists in an office, it often can be traced to differing values, says Savage: "If you place a low priority on risk taking and your boss has a high priority on risk taking, then your boss might see your caution and your wish to do things properly as a lack of initiative and an overconcern with detail. And you might look at your boss and think, He never finishes anything. He jumps into things without checking all the facts. Now is any of that true? Most certainly not. But we interpret the world through our own values. And we interpret what other people do through our values, not theirs."
Values also influence both decisions and motivation. "In generating the kind of future that you want, you need motivation," says Savage. "Otherwise, you won't do it. Exploring your motivations can clear things up for you: 'If I do things in this area, they speak to me in this way -- and that's energizing and exciting. But in this area, I don't find things that energizing, and it will be a struggle to continue to get results day after day.' "
During "individual potential profiling," clients get to explore the way that they think. They read a brief write-up about a phenomenon (mine discussed corporate mergers) and then respond to questions like, "What are the key elements that make up this topic?" and "What options are available to deal with possible problems?" Says Savage: "We're not interested in what people know or don't know about the topic. We're interested in their thought process. Some people will speculate for hours. Others are very uncomfortable speculating. Some people jump straight to seeing a topic in a very broad canvas. For others, if there's no detail, they can't respond easily."
Savage has found that those who can speculate comfortably are often highly successful. "Most people spend most of their working hours collecting and analyzing data," he says. "Significantly fewer people cross the boundary to using intuition and inference, and think broadly, rather than in-depth. But operating where there is no data allows for a much wider range of possibilities. Particularly in very large corporations, the lag time between seeing what needs to be done and having it in place can be long. If you wait until you have all the data you need before acting upon it, by the time that action has come to fruition, you'll be well behind other people."
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