How to make employees more productive

Remember when the Philippines was No. 1 in Asia and our Asian neighbors could only look on in envy and learn from us? That golden age can be ours again if we just learn to value excellence, according to a licensed clinical psychologist.

Dr. Mario Martinez, founder of the Biocognition Theory and The Empowerment Code Institute, was in Manila recently to introduce his Empowerment Code, a training program for business executives and employees that boosts wellness and productivity in the workplace.

Six months ago Martinez initiated SAS Institute (Philippines) into the code, and the company is already reaping the health and personal benefits of the organizational model, which combines scientific principles of psycho-neuro-immunology, neuroscience and cultural anthropology.

Fortune 500 has twice anointed SAS, one of the largest privately held software companies in the US, one of the best companies to work for two years running, and SAS Philippines is the first company in Asia to adopt and apply the principles of the Empowerment Code.

“Look at what you’ve learned as a culture,” Martinez said. “You have 333 years of Spanish domination, then some 40 years of American domination, then four years of Japanese domination, then 60-some years of freedom. What that created was a hybrid culture that had to be fighters. Manny Pacquiao and others are archetypes of the culture. But what the fighter does is he looks for the fight and survives, he doesn’t excel.”

Martinez says that if we move our consciousness from the fighter archetype (which breeds crab mentality) into the excellence archetype, we can be No. 1 in Asia again.

“Why can you be No. 1? You have the youngest population in Asia, the No. 1 parity of male-female in Asia, you speak English, have a nation that in competitive outsourcing is doing better than India and China because of the accent and because of the language. It’s not that the ability’s not there, it’s that the archetype of fighters keeps you fighting rather than excelling.”

One of our anthropologists found that Filipino culture is patriarchal but matriarch-centered, which means the father is the head of the family but the children are closer to the mother, “so it’s a great combination,” Martinez says.

What makes companies sick

From the current economic climate it’s apparent that conventional business models are not working. Studies have found that the effects of motivational speakers and activities last three weeks, then are gone. In the psychology of reward, you can get a raise or a promotion but if your boss doesn’t value what you do, the value of your reward goes down.

• Want to make someone sick? Give them responsibility without authority. Another way is to give them a job without the meaning of the outcome. “People go into helplessness, and the immune system just shuts down.”

• Genetics has very little to do with getting sick (five percent). We develop illness based on what our culture teaches us. “Teenagers really are indexes of a culture,” Martinez says. “When a culture is not going well, teen suicide goes up.”

• A company’s greatest asset is not just the employee but the health of the employee. So getting and keeping your employees as healthy as possible is a smart thing to do because it reduces the costs of healthcare.

• Myth: As you grow older, you get weaker. “That’s not true. As you grow older you get more complex, but the culture (which forces retirement and purposeless lives in nursing homes) will make you weaker.” Martinez, who’s done a lot of work with centenarians, has discovered that genetics accounts for 25 percent of lifespan and the rest is cultural.

Warren Buffett, who’s 79, was asked if there was a compulsory retirement age in his company Berkshire Hathaway. His reply? “Yes, if you’re 102 you have to retire.”

• Most executives (65 to 70 percent) have some kind of gastrointestinal problem. Doing two competing tasks simultaneously, like eating while watching TV or working a BlackBerry, confuses your nervous system and over time creates problems like colitis and reflux. “The most powerful ritual you have is food,” stresses Martinez. When you break bread, focus on that and being together with family or coworkers. Don’t do anything else.

• Multitasking needs recovery time, otherwise you get older and sicker. To recover from stress, go for a walk, look at green things like nature. Green brings blood pressure down. Your bedroom should be green or blue, not yellow because it requires a lot of energy from your retina. Paint a creative place like your kitchen yellow instead.

The path to wellness means sustainable profits

• Look at employees as someone to honor, customers as consultants and competition as your teacher. Become a student of your competition and you grow. “People go to work in a battle mindset, where they should be the hunter,” Martinez says. “So you work your hunter, go home, and shift your archetype to mother, father, or lover. Your immune system responds to your archetype in the right context.”

• Once leadership begins to live empowerment and excellence, there will be a cascading effect to managers and employees. Observational learning is best way to learn, for example, if you want to teach a child honesty, be honest with him. Virtue by example, in other words. “Teach policies conducive to excellence rather than entitlement, then the consciousness of the country begins to change.”

• We can do meaningful work for eight to 10 hours but always take breaks every hour and a half. Especially if you’re in front of the computer, which kills your retinas. Look at a plant for five minutes. Have recovery time like sleep and 20-minute power naps whenever needed.

• Work on developing trust. When trust goes up, cost goes down and effectiveness goes up. At SAS Philippines, operations director Maxie Garin was used to micromanaging her employees. If something wasn’t meeting her expectations she would do it herself. “But after the Empowerment Code I became aware that it doesn’t have to be that way,” she said. “I began to trust people that they would deliver and be empowered to work on their responsibilities.”

SAS regional director Pacific Emmanuel “Sonny” Halili’s health improved and he even lost weight after he learned about switching archetypes from work to home. Now he makes it a point to switch off his phone, BlackBerry, and e-mail around 7:30 p.m. every evening to spend time with his wife and kids. His blood test results have improved significantly and friends tell him he’s a different man.

Martinez is spreading his gospel into 50 countries outside the US — he’s already working with the governments of Ireland and Peru — and writing a book about the Empowerment Code, which he only intends to be used as a reference to accompany his training program. Believe me, the extremely knowledgeable, wise and persuasive doctor has to be heard to be believed.

“Gyms, daycare centers, gourmet cafeterias, promotions, raises, elegant offices, and other benefits do not prevent chronic illness when the cultural language of an organization lacks honor and respect,” he says. –Therese Jamora-Garceau (The Philippine Star)