Your BRM Superpower

Right out of the gate, day two of BRMConnect is looking just as promising as day one! Darrel Popowich, from Online Business Systems, broke down the power behind evaluating relationships in his general session titled “Your BRM Superpower.”

With his ability to engage the crowd and impress us with his graphics, Popowich not only spoke about the four common characteristics in relationships, but he also discussed the two different decision-making systems we have within our brains and the connection those systems have to the four distinct types of personality traits we possess as humans. He says it’s predicting success by evaluating relationships.

Break It Down

This is how he broke it down. But first, he pointed out that in the past, many people would choose to do a stakeholder’s analysis and look at the things that would make them successful. They would look at customers, employees, suppliers, and community, but Popowich chose to look at owners.

Owners?

The owners are the ones who drive the outcome. The owners are the ones pushing if they are going to commit and collectively get something done, and if they are going to accomplish the outcome. This is where he chose to focus because there are so many people who say, “We did a stakeholder’s analysis, and we still have a poor outcome and result.”

People’s Relationships

As Popowich claimed, you are looking at the wrong thing; you should be looking at people. This is your stakeholder’s/partner’s analysis: instead of looking at each part—community, government, customers—let’s take a look at the owners. It’s not the owners themselves, it’s about evaluating the relationships between them, how strong they are from people to finance, from the finance leader to the procurement leader, from the IT leader to the CEO, to the CFO to the COO, all of these relationships. If we measure those, we can get a better indicator on whether your results are going to be successful or not. There are four common characteristics in relationships that stood out in all the data.

4 Common Characteristics in Relationships

How does the human mind make decisions? Well first, he said we have to understand the two different decision-making parts of our brains. According to Daniel Kahneman, there are two systems of decision making that humans have and utilize.

2 Systems of Decision Making

If the two systems don’t mesh well, there will be a lot of work to change the decision and the behavior to get both the autonomic and analytical brains to match up. But everyone is not the same. Not everyone’s makeup of how their first impression, how their logical decision making, the process, the speed of which they go through, is the same. There are many different behavior types and many different ways to measure them. Popowich uses the DISC Personality Assessment Tool.

1. Analytical/executive function/thought process/math

   1. Hippocampus

      1. Memory storage & recollection

      2. Information gathering

      3. Analytical decision

DISC

The DISC Personality Assessment Tool measures how people have their natural behavioral responses to situations and to other people. DISC is divided into four personality types: dominant, influential, steady, and compliant, hence the acronym DISC. 

DISC is presented in a circle. On the top left, you see Dominant, and on the top right is Influential. The bottom right is Steady, and the bottom left is Compliant.

Compliant

Cautious. Analytical. Conscientious.

If we pull back from the four different personality types, we find there is a range that these four personalities function in, from task oriented to people oriented, and from outgoing and active to reserved and reflective.

First Impressions

The reason why these four areas of function are so important is because this is where we find first impressions are formed. A dominant person who is task oriented may have a negative first impression of someone who’s personality is more like the steady type, and visa-versa. We mix and match our personality types by making a good first impression.

It’s important to understand that the human brain decides quickly and then takes a long time to go through the analytics. Human beings are different, and how they go about making logical and analytical decisions is different. When you start to understand that, you can start measuring relationships and measure the strength of them against the four common characteristics of relationships: trust, respect, commitment, and communication.

The Power of 7

We have seven seconds to make a first impression and earn that next seven minutes. Seven seconds to gain seven minutes isn’t much time. You have to lay the foundation, measure the relationship, and have the conversation around how to earn someone’s seven minutes one-on-one so you can tailor the first impression decision, the response, and the reaction.

As a BRM, you have to create your executive presence. In order to create your own executive presence, you need to be okay with having a say and creating a disruption. You need a voice and a say in order to present yourself as a leader.