Shadowmatch Personal Development Programmes (PDP’s):

Interesting Facts and Case Study

by Pieter de Villiers and Lizette Bester

The PDP’s provided by the Shadowmatch system have been designed to help people develop the habits that are critical for success in a specific environment doing a specific job. Habits develop when a person has a meaningful goal or purpose and they experience the behaviour towards reaching this goal or purpose as successful. When this behaviour is repeated over a period of time, it can develop into a habit. All the PDP’s have been developed with the aim to repeat a specific behaviour in such a way that this behaviour develops into a behavioural pattern, strong enough to become a habit.

During the process of testing the success of the PDP’s, the following important observations were made:

1. The success of the PDP is very reliant on the fact that the development programme must be a continuous process without any disconnectedness in terms of progress. In simple terms, the individual doing the PDP must not stop for a period and then continue later.

2. The role of the mentor is critical. The positive, motivational participation of the mentor with interest and inspiration is a pivotal part of the success. This is why the PDP’s come with a mentorship guide.

3. It is critical for the individual to choose a mentor that he/she is comfortable with. A mentor should not be forced upon an individual – the individual must choose someone that he/she is comfortable with and that he/she experiences as approachable and knowledgeable.

4. The individual doing the PDP must be part of the process to select the right PDP. If this doesn’t happen, the individual tends to not see the meaning in the PDP. This in turn can lead to the individual not developing the specific behavioural pattern because some critical building blocks are absent, these being: Having a meaningful goal and seeing the behaviour towards this goal as meaningful.

5. The business must have a positive approach to the PDP’s. It must be done as a positive growth and development opportunity for all participants.

Where all the above dependencies were present, 60% of a population doing a PDP under these positive circumstances has shown a change in behaviour (as acquired through the specific PDP) of between 22 and 28 points on the Shadowmatch system. 20% of the population has shown a positive change of between 15 and 22 points as measured by the Shadowmatch system and the remaining 20% has changed their behaviour with less than 15 points. The overall performance improvement of this population was 17%.

The best results ever was a 39 points change in behaviour with a 27% overall performance improvement.

It must also be kept in mind that 10% of people do not change their behaviour, immaterial of the efforts and development investments made by themselves and or their mentors.

The PDP’s must be seen in the same context as an official learning process through a university or a college. Some people attend a specific course, succeed in the exam and learn next to nothing in terms of long term competencies. Some people go to the same institution and become professionals. The Shadowmatch PDP’s have been tested and validated in terms of learning content as well as behavioural repetition. The way this process is facilitated is critical to the end result.

Case Study

A manager in the Human Resources department of one of our very active and loyal Shadowmatch customers completed her first Shadowmatch worksheet on 29 May 2008. Her score on the Discipline habit was 31 points, which is on the border of the category: Contextual habits (30 – 50 points). Compared to the benchmark, the system recommended that she develops a stronger habit in this area of behaviour. She chose a mentor and started with the Personal Development Programme on the 13^th of January 2009. She followed all the outcomes as per the PDP and her mentor took responsibility of assisting her in reaching all the desired outcomes.

She successfully completed the PDP on the 10^th of March 2010. As per the recommended Shadowmatch process, she waited a couple of months before completing a second Shadowmatch worksheet. It is important for the newly formed behavioural pattern to settle properly through the day-to-day activities at work as well as in a personal capacity. She completed the second Shadowmatch worksheet on 16 July 2010. The results were fascinating: Her Discipline habit now came out with a score of 43. This is a much stronger contextual habit and indicates a behavioural pattern in Discipline that is now 39% stronger.

Other related habits that showed a stronger pattern after completion of the Discipline PDP are: Routine, Frustration Handling and Resilience.

Her feedback regarding the entire process was very positive and she acknowledged that the PDP was tough however worth doing. She emphasised the importance of having the correct mentor – someone who you trust, who is supporting, reliable and approachable.