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RESULTS
Personal & Business Benefits of
The Inner Quality Management® Programme
Oil Company - Case Study 10
by Alan Watkins, M.D. and Chris Sawicki
of Hunter Kane Management
I would like to thank Dr. Alan Watkins and Chris Sawicki of Hunter Kane Resource Management for allowing me to share one of the case studies of their IQM program. They work mainly with executives in the European Economic Community.
Background
Dynamic world-class companies focused on leading their market sector recognise that, in order to maximise profits, they have to invest in their people. This goes beyond public relations statements about the importance of employees into an actual commitment to helping individuals' development and growth. In short, organisations that invest heavily in their people will attract the brightest, develop the best and continue to thrive even in difficult economic circumstances.
In order to maximise individual excellence, it is necessary to understand the scientific basis of human performance. How do individuals achieve peak performance and what prevents them from doing so? In the last few years, research from leading centres in the USA and the UK have provided many answers to the questions of how to achieve and sustain peak performance.
The first step to attaining peak performance is to teach individuals how to manage themselves more efficiently in a rapidly changing and complex world. Specifically, how to manage themselves in the face of perpetual re-organisations, downsizing, outsourcing, globalisation, more sophisticated markets, more demanding customers, more competition, technological changes and information overload.
Science
Recent research by cardiologists and neuroscientists has shown that powerful techniques are available that can generate rapid and significant improvements in...
- mental clarity, creativity, and decision making
- cardiovascular flexibility
- hormone balance
- immune function
Specifically, this research has demonstrated that there is a profound link between productivity, brain function, cardiovascular health and work pressure. Individuals can learn to generate a state of "internal coherence" which improves cortical function and therefore enhances clarity, creativity and insight, which are the key factors determining individual and team performance.
The Inner Quality Management® Programme
The Inner Quality Management® (IQM) programme is based on this scientific research and has been shown to impact a wide variety of health and business performance indicators. The IQM programme is formatted as a one-day workshop accommodating up to 20 attendees.
Study Design
Because of this compelling scientific evidence, a number of the world's largest organisations have been piloting IQM programmes over the last two years to evaluate its efficacy. The data presented here represents the results of the first 7 IQM programmes conducted at a major Oil Company at Regional Board Level, Business Unit manager level and below. This data summarises the changes experienced by 96 attendees
Psychometric Results
Prior to attending the course, all participants completed an extensive psychometric questionnaire, the Personal and Organisational Quality Assessment (POQA). The POQA addresses individual and business performance issues. It has 58 items scaled to represent 12 constructs. There are five potential responses to each question, ranging from almost never, rarely, occasionally, often or most of the time; or alternatively from strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree or strongly agree.
All attendees completed the POQA again after six weeks and six months to determine the impact of the IQM programme. In addition to this subjective data, some groups underwent objective assessment of their blood pressure before and after the IQM programme.
The personal benefits seen are almost identical to the data gathered at a second Oil Company involving over 500 attendees (see case study 9). The results clearly demonstrate very significant improvements in personal data. In addition the very high levels of business performance were maintained, and sometimes even improved, despite all these groups undergoing a significant period of change and transformation which might have been expected to produce a deterioration in the data.
The main findings of the POQA are presented below and on the next page. Scores shown are for responses of Often/Most of the Time (OMT) or Agree/Strongly Agree (ASA).
Personal Data
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Business Data
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Blood Pressure Results
The 15 attendees on the first pilot study had their blood pressure monitored over a three-week period prior to the IQM programme. The group average prior to the programme was 132/84 mmHg. Six weeks after the programme, with no other life style changes, the average blood pressure had fallen to 123/79 mmHg. That is a 9 mmHg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 5 mmHg drop in diastolic blood pressure. This level of blood pressure reduction, if repeated in a large clinical trial, would reduce the incidence of stroke by approximately 60%. The reduction in blood pressure in this pilot study was in keeping with the reduction in blood pressure seen in other groups who have run the IQM Programme (Figure 1). Specifically, in another Oil Company the group average blood pressure dropped from 126/80 to 118/78 mmHg, an 8 mmHg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 2 mmHg drop in diastolic blood pressure.
Figure 1
Heart Rate Variability Results
Heart rate variability (HRV), as measured by the beat-to-beat variation pulse rate derived from a 24-hour electrocardiogram (ECG), is a very sophisticated physiological measure. It has been repeatedly shown to be a very powerful predictor of all cause mortality and is known to be an important measure of overall health.
The scientific literature suggests that HRV should remain stable over time with a gradual deterioration increasing with age. Significantly reduced HRV suggests an increased risk of disease, premature aging, and poor overall health.
A number of attendees on some of the programmes had their HRV measured either before or after the IQM programme. One very senior executive has had his HRV measured before and 6 weeks after the IQM programme. This individual's physiology improved by approximately 90% over a six-week period simply by practising the techniques he learned every day. Such a significant improvement in HRV confirms the results obtained in other organizations.
The Benefits of Inner Quality Management
- By the end of the one-day programme attendees will learn and be able to use four scientifically based techniques that are highly effective in preventing the negative impact of stress, both psychologically and physiologically.
- In addition to preventing stress the moment it occurs, these tools will help attendees to access their emotional intelligence (EQ) to improve their creativity, productivity, and decision making.
- 25% of the adult population has high blood pressure (BP). IQM programmes conducted at Motorola in the US, plus the data cited here show that after 6 months all individuals with high BP dropped their BP back to normal with no medical, dietary or exercise interventions.
- After one day's training >85% of attendees will be able to use these tools successfully and see for themselves, using computer aided cardiovascular equipment, how their own physiology improves while using the techniques.
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