CLP 1006 - Psychology of Personal Effectiveness

Concepts to Study for Online Final Exam

Chapters 9 through 14

Chapter 9 - Emotional Intelligence

Understand concept of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence "is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions".

Understand concept of interdependence, what it is, what is it characterized by, and synergy

Interdependence

Interdependence is the relationship that ensues when two or more independent individuals decide to come together to achieve a common goal.

Effective people realize that to be genuinely effective they need to join forces with others in life to achieve common goals. You can achieve much more with someone else than you ever could by working alone. This concept is known as synergy (Covey, 1989). Covey based his concept of synergy on the field of Gestalt psychology which maintains that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Some examples of interdependent relationships are:

A healthy marriage
A family
A business partnership
A study group
A friendship

Interdependent relationships are characterized by mutual respect and a workable division of labor.

· Understand concept of win-win outcomes and giving up being right

Win-Win Outcomes

A Win-Win solution is one that satisfies the needs of everyone involved. Win-win requires that the parties:

Avoid trying to win at the other’s expense, and
Believe that it is possible they can find a solution that is more than just a compromise,that truly allows everyone to reach their goals.

Give Up Being Right

One of the strongest barriers to cooperation and win-win outcomes is our strong tendency to need to be right.

Interpersonally effective individuals realize that always needing to be right does not lead to happy and satisfying relationships. They would rather be happy than right. Next time you feel the need to be right ask yourself whether you would rather be happy than right.

Giving up being right does not mean you are admitting to being wrong – it just means that you would rather switch your focus and can admit there are probably valid aspects of each viewpoint.

There are many ways to look at the world, however, the one most likely to bring you trouble in life is the one that insists that your way of seeing the world is the right way or the only way.

Understand concept of emotional bank account

Win, and Keep, Their Trust (the "Emotional Bank Account")

First, you must earn, and keep, people's trust. Covey believes relationships are like bank accounts. He calls this concept the Emotional Bank Account. He believes you generate a lot of positive feelings when you are first starting out a relationship. He suggests you learn to think of these as “deposits” into your relationship’s Emotional Bank Account. The problem is many people think once made, the “deposits” are always there and often forget they make mistakes and do things that should be considered “withdrawals.” As time passes, the withdrawals outweigh the deposits, and the relationship is in trouble.

A relationship is like a bank account. You must invest in it. Covey believes you need to replenish relationships as you replenish your bank account. In other words, you must make periodic "deposits" to outweigh the occasional (or so we hope) withdrawal. Covey’s six types of deposits are:

Understand the individual – in order to make deposits, you need to understand what the other considers a deposit. You must learn to really listen to the other person’s needs or interests.
Attend to the little things – sometimes it is the little things that count the most. Small insensitivities hurt the other’s feelings. Small niceties are often good proof that you care. Remember, in relationships, the little things are the big things!
Keep your commitments – Keeping your promises is a major deposit and is an essential part of earning, and keeping, someone’s trust.
Show personal integrity – integrity is more than honesty or keeping your word. It is also being loyal and fair, always, even when the other is not around.
Clarify your expectations – Never assume others know what you want. Make your expectations known and understood, and ask them to make their expectations known so you can understand. Make things clear right from the beginning.
Apologize sincerely when you make a withdrawal – individuals with integrity admit when they are wrong and apologize from the heart. This takes courage and high self-esteem, and can be considered a major deposit into any relationship.

Know what mirror neurons are

Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that fire in the exact pattern when you watch someone doing something as they would if you were actually doing it yourself. Some believe mirror neurons are involved in empathy and in understanding intentions. Although somewhat controversial since they have been studied more extensively in monkeys, there is sufficient new evidence to support its role in humans as well.

Know what empathy is, how you learn it, barriers to empathy, and how to increase it.

Empathy is our capacity to feel compassion for others.

Benefits of Empathy

Here are some, but by no means all, of the benefits of empathy:

A focus on others decreases our tendency to be self-absorbed and increases responsiveness, helpfulness, and a sense of meaning and purpose.
Empathy leads to altruistic motivation to be helpful and responsible to people in your life which benefits them. Individuals who score high on empathy also score high on prosocial actions like volunteering.
Leads to higher levels of happiness. Individuals with low scores on empathy measures score lower on measures of happiness. Committing to making others happy seems to increase happiness. This is known as the do good, feel good effect, defined as psychological and physical well-being enhanced as a result of empathy-induced altruism.
Some research shows that compassion, empathy, and helping others may actually increase your longevity. Some believe this may work due to a helpers high, which may boost the immune system and lower damaging stress hormones (Cialdini, cited in Elias, 2002). Altruism is also discussed in Chapter 11.

Blocks to Empathy

One major block to the development of empathy is our tendency to make snap judgments. Snap judgments are judgments made on the basis of very little information. To cultivate empathy, it is often necessary to resist the tendency to make snap judgments.

Another hypothesis that bears discussion as a block to empathy is our tendency to believe that we live in a just world. This is known as the just-world hypothesis (Lerner, 1980) in psychology and sociology and as the law of karma in some belief systems. A belief in a just world has both positive and negative effects on empathy. On a positive note, a belief in justice may lead one to do the right thing for others. From a negative point of view, this may lead us to rationalize injustice in a way because we believe that those who do good receive good, and those who do harm do not. The rationalization is that if one does not receive good, then it is likely that it happened because they did not earn it. This is a simplistic and inaccurate way of looking at the world. There are millions of good people in the world to whom bad things happen, none of them deserved. We must look to social factors such as poverty, inequality, discrimination, to answer some of those questions.

These factors may be counteracted and empathy can be fostered by improving our awareness of the similarities between people, our common bonds, and our connections as human beings.

Cultivating Empathy

Here are some steps you can take to cultivate empathy:

Practice reflective or active listening (this is discussed more fully in the next module).
Use reframing to counteract making snap judgments about people.
Practice random acts of kindness.
Pay attention to people's similarities.
Engage in community service.
Open your heart.
Try to feel what other people might be feeling. See the world through their eyes.
Make conscious efforts to raise your children to be empathic and helpful:

Model empathy for your children.
Express your own feelings in appropriate ways and make sure they see you show compassion for others (children do what you do, not necessarily what you say).
Tune into your child's emotions. Ask them to express, describe and label what they are feeling. Be their emotional guide and guide their feelings towards kindness.
Explain the reason for things to your children. When you describe what is happening and why, they learn emotional and intellectual skills.
Encourage your children to do volunteer work or community service.
Teach your children to value empathy and compassion.

On a final note, be careful what you allow your children to watch on TV, in movies, or in video games. Cynical, sarcastic shows (Southpark, The Simpsons, Family Guy) have the potential to breed cynical, sarcastic children who show little regard for others. Shows that promote selfish behavior may breed egocentric, selfish children. Finally, noted psychologist Albert Bandura has been warning parents about allowing children to see violent shows for years. It is no coincidence that violence has risen across the board since Bandura first warned about it in the early 1960's.

Understand section on anger and especially risk factors, how to control it.

Definition of Anger

Anger is an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage (Spielberger, 1999).

The Nature of Anger

It is important to note that anger has physical and emotional components. Like any other emotion, anger can and is accompanied by physiological and biological changes such as an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and a change in the level of the energy hormones adrenalin and noradrenalin.

It is also important to note that anger has many different causes. Anger can be caused by internal and external events. You can be angry at a specific person or at an event.

Why are Some People More Angry than Others?

According to Deffenbacher (1999), some people become angry more easily and more intensely than others. Some of them are quite loud, aggressive and noticeably angry. However, he cautions that people who are easily angered do not always curse and throw things; at times they withdraw socially, sulk or become physically ill. There are also those who do not show their anger visibly but are chronically irritable and in a bad temper.

Deffenbacher and other psychologists have concluded that people who are easily angered have what is called a "low tolerance for frustration." Individuals with a low tolerance for frustration feel easily frustrated, inconvenienced or annoyed. They cannot handle frustration, especially when they think the situation is "unjust." Why do some people have a low tolerance for frustration while others are infinitely patient? There are a number of studies on this issue:

Some studies propose a genetic or physiological explanation inasmuch as some children show a tendency to irritability and are easily-angered from a very early age.
Other studies propose a sociocultural rationale: in some cultures, anger is seen as a negative emotion and its members are not taught how to cope with anger or how to channel it constructively.
Other research has found that family styles play a role: people who are easily angered often come from chaotic, disruptive families who do not have the skills to handle emotional communications. If yours is a family that always manages to end up fighting, especially during holiday dinners, you may be affected by a problem family style.

Coping with Anger

How do you cope with anger? There are a number of things you must understand and remember before you can apply effective anger and conflict management techniques:

First, you must remember that anger contains both a physiological and a psychological component. The physiological component can be controlled initially through breathing and relaxation. You should not attempt to control it through physical aggression. In "Controlling Anger -- Before it Controls You," the American Psychological Association (1997) maintains that venting anger through physical aggression not only does not decrease one's anger, it actually increases a person's hostility.
Second, it is critical to understand that it is your interpretation of an event, not the event itself, which leads to anger. The way you see the problem is the problem.
Third, physiological arousal does not produce your emotions, your interpretation of it does. When you are angry you are physiologically aroused, but it is how you label that arousal that determines how you feel. Emotions are created by your evaluation of your internal and external environment. That is why we sometimes attribute our anger to external agents. Unfortunately, that agent often ends up being the person closest to us.
Fourth, the tendency to attribute the source of your arousal to others aggravates things because "putting it out there" lowers your control. If you are not in control, then you are being reactive.

Understand Type A and Type B personalities

The Type A Personality

Type A's are hard driving, achievement oriented, compulsive individuals who are impatient, always rushing and pushing, and are easy to anger. Individuals with this type of personality share a cluster of traits that make them more likely to have heart disease.
Anger is a risk factor for heart attacks because it sets off a physiological reaction that increases your blood pressure, causes your heart to beat faster, makes your coronary arteries constrict, and causes your blood to get stickier.
It has been found that it is the anger and hostility component of the Type A personality that is more highly correlated with heart attack and stroke. Individuals who are Type A's have a higher risk of heart disease than individuals with the Type B personality described below.
The hostility component of the Type A personality is an independent risk factor for heart disease; it is the only risk factor that is considered to be directly related to heart disease. Hostility and anger are a separate risk factor from other risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and family history.
Researchers have concluded that of all human emotions, hostility is the deadliest. Anger is especially harmful to your health and is particularly harmful when it is repressed or when it is turned inward. However, inappropriate expressions of anger are always very dangerous to your well-being as well as damaging to your relationships. The worst kind of hostility is the type that is characterized by brooding resentment, suspicion and frequent angry outbursts.
Type A's also are three times more likely to have a second heart attack than Type B's. Heart specialists are now routinely prescribing counseling for their patients in order to help them reduce their anger, aggression and hostility. Those that manage to reduce these harmful emotions and behaviors have half the rate of recurring heart attacks as those who do not. This is important since second heart attacks have a higher mortality rate than first heart attacks.

The Type B Personality

In contrast to Type A's, Type B's are laid back, easygoing, and less concerned with time. They are not easily angered. When they get angry, they express it, and then calm down. In short, they quickly reverse the damaging physiological mechanisms in their bodies that directly contribute to heart disease.

Know about mistakes and also about forgiveness

Understanding Criticism

Criticism is one thing that often triggers anger. It helps if you learn to view criticism as feedback:

Recognize that it is your behavior that is being addressed. It is not a statement about your worth as a human being.
Criticism reflects the critic. Examine the validity of feedback non-defensively and take it to heart if there is truth to it. But do not just buy into criticism completely without good cause.
You may be criticized for making a mistake. Remember that mistakes are not necessarily always bad. You are human and entitled to err. What is important is to learn from it. Mistakes are our teachers.

Forgiveness

Letting Go

Since anger and resentment have such damaging effects on your health and your relationships, you may want to consider forgiveness as an alternative. The ability to forgive and let go of past hurts and disappointments is an effective strategy for dealing with anger.

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but rather letting go of anger.
Holding a grudge (en Española: "guardar rencor") takes a toll on you. Forgiveness is more for you than for the other.
Forgiving is a process of letting go of the energy you invest in being angry and hurt so you can free up that energy for more proactive activities. It is totally up to you whether to forgive, whatever the behavior of the other (whether the person is apologetic or not).
The most important person to forgive is yourself.

Stages of Forgiveness

Sidney and Susan Simon (1990) proposed that people go through six stages in the process of forgiving:

Denial - In the first stage, you may attempt to minimize the impact of what has happened to you or to suppress your feelings about it.
Self-Blame - In the second stage, you may begin to blame yourself for what happened to you. You might blame yourself for trusting and resolve never to trust anyone again.
Victim - The third stage occurs after you realize that you were treated unfairly or were victimized in some way. This recognition often leads to feelings of self-pity, emotional upset, misdirected anger and other destructive emotions.
Indignation - The fourth stage occurs in response to the emotional difficulties faced in the victimization stage, which is often followed by indignation, anger towards those that hurt you, and sometimes even anger at the world. You may think of attempting revenge.
Survivor - When the anger that is prevalent in the fourth stage passes, you may begin to recognize that although you were hurt and didn't deserve it, that you survived the experience. You may still feel like you've been robbed, but you know now that you will survive and you might even feel that you are stronger for the experience.
Integration - The final stage is when forgiveness really begins to take hold. You may feel that the person that hurt you was also a victim of their past. You are more than just a victim and they are more than just a victimizer. You slowly begin to let go of the emotional energy that anger, bitterness and hate have used up. Freeing up that energy allows you to move on with your life and embrace happiness again. You don't have to forget your past, but rather put it into perspective and learn from it.

Effects of Forgiveness

Forgiveness has positive benefits. According to recent studies, it has been found that forgiveness may lower stress levels and result in increased optimism and better health (Thoresen, et al., 2001). Interestingly, Thoresen and his colleagues found that the greater the forgiveness, the greater the positive benefits. So forgiving someone for a great wrong can have a physical and emotional practical value.

McCullough (2001) found that individuals with more empathy have a greater capacity to forgive than others. Moreover, in studies with college students who were shown real life offenders and asked to imagine forgiving them and not doing so, the imagery they used to forgive actually emphasized their sense of empathy for the humanity of the offender (Witvliet, et al. 2001).

Know what emotional hijacks are, where they take place in the brain, what they do, and how to overcome them.

Our brains are set up so that we are constantly scanning the environment to see if there is anything going on that we should feel something about. When the amygdala senses something going on that matches a feeling of distress or anger from the past, it triggers what Goleman terms an "emotional hijack" of the brain. An emotional hijack is easy to recognize: all of a sudden you feel a sudden and intense reaction to something that makes you overreact in ways you later regret. It happens to all of us. So the amygdala hijacks the brain but its counteracting structure, the frontal lobe -- the seat of reasoning which is also known as the "executive manager" of the brain -- processes the emotion and returns an action plan to counteract it. In other words, you stop and think about what you're feeling and calm yourself down. In essence, that is what emotionally intelligent people do. It's not that their brains don't get hijacked, they do. It's that their frontal lobes quickly restore control before the amygdala gets us to do something we will later regret. What distinguishes an emotionally intelligent person from one who is less so, is the ability to control your emotions.

Chapter 10 - Effective Communications

Understand entire section on listening including pseudo listening.

Listening vs. Hearing

What is the difference between listening and hearing?

1. Hearing is automatic and passive

2. Listening is conscious and active

Listening requires:

1. Effort, attention, and concentration.

2. A proactive decision to listen followed by internal and external behaviors that maximize you’re receiving an accurate message.

A great deal of our time is spent listening:

1. 53% of college students' time is spent in listening activities.

2. 60% of employees' time in major corporations is spent in listening to others (Adler & Towne, 1993).

Communication requires two - a sender and a receiver - yet studies show that most people fail to listen well:

1. An average person retains one-half of what they hear after a 10 minute presentation.

2. Two days later half the information is forgotten, meaning the average person retains one-fourth of what they heard (Atwater, 1986).

In a study of college age students:

1. 20% listened and 12% retained what the professor said

2. 20% (both male & female) were thinking erotic thoughts

3. 20% were reminiscing

4. The other 20% were: daydreaming, thinking about lunch, worrying, or thinking about religion.

Effective Listening

Covey (1989) believes interpersonally effective people have good listening skills:

1. Effective listeners make it a point to truly comprehend and appreciate the other's paradigm or frame.

2. Effective listening skills increase the likelihood someone will develop trust in you.

3. Effective listening is a deposit to the Emotional Bank Account.

Effective listening is so important that Covey made it one of his "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Habit 5 states: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

True Listening

According to McKay, Davis and Fanning (1983), true listening requires that you have at least one of the following four intentions in mind:

1. To understand someone

2. To enjoy someone

3. To learn something

4. To give help or solace

Pseudo listening

When your intention for listening is something other than one of the four listed above, you are pseudo listening. Some of the reasons we fail to listen are:

1. Laziness - you do not feel like putting in the effort to listen

2. Avoidance - you do not want to hear what they have to say

3. Poor Skills - you do not know how to listen

When you are pseudo listening you are pretending to listen. Your intention is not to listen but to meet some other need. You are not meeting the speaker's needs, but rather your own. Some examples of pseudo listening are:

1. Pretending to listen so they will like you.

2. Listening for signs of potential rejection.

3. Listening for specific information and ignoring the rest.

4. Focusing on your rebuttal or on what you are going to say rather than what the speaker is saying.

5. Pretending to listen so they will listen to you.

6. Listening for weaknesses or vulnerabilities so you gain an advantage.

7. Listening only for weak points or to get ammunition against the speaker.

8. Checking for reactions or to make sure you are producing the effect you desire.

9. Half listening because you think it is the polite thing to do.

10. Faking listening because you are afraid of hurting someone's feelings or offending them… or because you are bored… or because you do not know how to get out of the conversation.

· Know about empathic/active listening.

Active Listening

If you want to improve your listening skills, you need to engage in active listening. Listening in this fashion facilitates effective communications.

1. Active listening is the process of giving the speaker non-judgmental responses as a way of checking the accuracy of what you have heard and whether you fully understood the message the speaker was attempting to communicate.

2. Active Listening is also known as "reflective listening" or "giving back."

Active Listening Techniques

The four main active listening techniques are:

1. Paraphrasing - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by repeating what the speaker said in your own words.
Example: "What I hear you saying is…"

2. Clarifying - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by asking the speaker to clarify the points on which you are not clear.
Example: "Would you clarify that?"

3. Feedback - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by summarizing what the speaker has said when the speaker finishes speaking. Example: "Summing up what you've said…"

4. Reflecting Feelings (Empathic Listening) - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by commenting or reflecting on the speaker's feelings.
Example: "It appears you feel…"

Active listening also involves:

Listening with Openness - being nonjudgmental and accepting.

Listening with Awareness - becoming aware of nonverbal messages. Pay attention to the congruence of the message. Is there a match between the speaker's body language and the words?

Understand concept of body armoring and double-messages.

Body armoring – is a mental muscle reflex mechanism in the body, first described by psychologist Wilhelm Reich. It involves tensing of muscle tissue whenever stress or emotion is experienced. To protect itself, the body takes a defensive, tight, and stiff stance. On a tissue level it enters into a muscular holding pattern that resists change and release. Unexpressed emotions such as anger, fear, and grief are common causes of this phenomenon.

Double-messages – Example: Someone tells you that his mother just died, but meanwhile he is grinning and leaning back comfortably with his feet propped up on his desk. In this case you are receiving mixed signals, also referred to as double-messages. There is no congruence between his words and his actions thus the message is very confusing.

Know the barriers/blocks to listening.

Barriers to Effective Listening

· Judging. The biggest barrier to communication is our natural tendency to judge, to define things as good or bad, or approve or disapprove of what is said. If you prejudge someone in a positive or negative way, it will influence your ability to listen. Ordering, warning, advising, and moralizing are all types of judgmental responses.

· Mind Reading. When you make assumptions about what the person is thinking or saying, rather than actually paying attention to what they are really saying, you are engaging in mind reading. This habit often leads to miscommunications and misunderstandings.

· Stereotyping. Our communications with others are also distorted by stereotypes, which are widespread generalizations that have little or no basis in fact. Such generalizations may be based on group membership or some physical characteristic and they impede getting to know the person for who he or she really is.

· Interrupting. Allowing the speaker the time and space to talk is more than being polite; it is the essence of true listening. Frequent or habitual interruptions impede the flow of conversation and disrupt communications. Speakers who are interrupted often can become distracted. Listeners who interrupt often are attending more to what they want to say than what the speaker is saying. Interrupting is habitually done by people in positions of power, like executives, supervisors, teachers, and parents. Men tend to interrupt more than women, especially in man-woman communication.

· Comparing. When you listen for the purpose of seeing how you measure up to the other person or their problems, you are comparing. You are only giving minimal attention to the speaker. We are often so busy comparing what we hear with our own experiences that we fail to listen effectively.

· Advising. When you put yourself in the role of problem solver or engage your attention in finding just the right thing to say, you are advising, not listening. You do not hear what is most important or how the person feels and, as a result, you do not acknowledge these emotions. If someone asks for advice, give it. If they do not, beware of the tendency to take on that role. The person may just want to vent and only needs a sympathetic ear.

· Rehearsing. When you concentrate on what you are going to say, you are rehearsing. This detracts from your ability to listen to the speaker.

· Stage Hogging. When you listen with the intent of changing the focus of the conversation onto yourself, you are engaging in stage hogging (Española: acaparando) or conversational narcissism. Stage hogs take every opportunity they can get to shift the topic back to what happened to them, their feelings, etc.

· Filtering. When you listen only to what you want to hear and ignore or forget the rest, you are filtering.

· Dueling. When you argue and debate, either to show off your verbal or intellectual prowess or just to prove you are right, you are dueling. In either case, you are failing to listen.

· Derailing. When you keep changing the subject or make jokes to detour the conversation, you are engaging in derailing. This prevents closure of the discussion and more often than not ends up annoying the speaker.

· Daydreaming. When something the speaker says triggers a chain of private associations and you start attending to your thoughts and feelings, you are engaging in daydreaming. This sometime occurs when you are bored or anxious. When you daydream, there is the possibility the speaker will think you do not care what he or she is saying.

· Placating. When you are so focused on being "nice" or "polite" that you end up agreeing with everything the speaker says or ignore your true feelings, you are engaging in placating, not listening.

· Hidden Agendas. When you enter a conversation with special interests or needs not evident on the surface, the communication is distorted by "hidden agendas". People with hidden agendas end up looking for opportunities to further their agenda and fail to really listen.

· Overreacting. People who are emotionally aroused or highly prejudiced often distort communication by using emotionally loaded words. They may call others a bigot or a liar. Using emotionally charged words may cause the listener to overreact without hearing what the main message is. When you get caught up in emotion over a word that you find insulting or offensive, your emotional reaction prevents you from really hearing the message.

Understand section on building blocks of effective listening and know the three components of reflective listening.

Ø Paraphrasing - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by repeating what the speaker said in your own words. Example: "What I hear you saying is…"

Ø Clarifying - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by asking the speaker to clarify the points on which you are not clear. Example: "Would you clarify that?"

Ø Giving Feedback - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by summarizing what the speaker has said when the speaker finishes speaking. Example: "Summing up what you've said…"

§ Immediate

§ Honest

§ Supportive

Ø Being Empathic - technique of letting the speaker know you are listening by commenting or reflecting on the speaker's feelings. Example: "It appears you feel…"

Ø Listening with Openness - being nonjudgmental and accepting.

Ø Listening with Awareness - becoming aware of nonverbal messages. Pay attention to the congruence of the message. Is there a match between the speaker's body language and the words?

Understand entire section on listening with awareness

Listening with Awareness - becoming aware of nonverbal messages. Pay attention to the congruence of the message. Is there a match between the speaker's body language and the words?

This involves listening with your eyes as well as your ears by paying as attention to nonvebal behavior and voie tone as the words themselves. A good listener listens to and watches for more than the speaker’s words. Attending to this demension will give you valuable insights beyond the words and greatly enhance your ability to listen empathically.

Know the components of nonverbal behavior.

Components of Non-Verbal Behavior

Some of the components of non-verbal behavior are:

Eye movements and eye contact
Facial expressions
Posture
Body movements
Interpersonal Spacing/Positioning
Paralanguage -- speech patterns

Understand entire section on understanding nonverbal behavior; pay particular attention to gestures and what they indicate.

Non-Verbal Behavior - A non-verbal behavior is an action that expresses meaning either intentionally or unintentionally without the use of conventional language (Martin, 1998).

Facial Expressions - Research supports the view that there are six facial expressions which correspond to distinct universal emotions:

· Disgust

· Sadness

· Happiness

· Fear

· Anger

· Surprise

Gestures - In contrast to facial expressions, gestures are culture-specific. What might mean one thing in western cultures might mean a completely different thing in non-western cultures. The most differential gestures seem to be hand expressions. Be very careful of those abroad. Here are some common gestures that you should be careful of when traveling outside the United States:

A raised thumb in the U.S. means "okay," but in the Middle East, it's an obscence gesture. An open palm facing towards another person in the U.S. means "stop" or "slow down," but in other parts of the world, showing palms to another is considered a sign of submission. The third gesture in the form of a V is easily recognizable in the U.S. as a "victory" or "peace" sign. It has many other connotations elsewhere.

Understanding Non-Verbal Messages

An effective individual understands the importance of non-verbal messages and is able to effectively "read" non-verbal communication:

v Up to 93% of our face-to-face communication is non-verbal. Why? Because words alone fail to convey the full meaning of strong emotions. Our emotions leak through our facial expressions and bodily gestures.

v Non-verbal communication is especially valuable because it reveals a person's deeper feelings. Non-verbal behavior is unintentional and unconscious -- and therefore deeply revealing.

Facial Expressions. The expression on a person's face tells us much about what someone is feeling, in particular the mouth and lips.
Eye contact. Eye contact is needed initially to establish interest in Western cultures. Avoidance of eye contact may indicate disinterest, guilt, or sometimes shyness (or cultural factors). Good eye contact conveys interest, openness, and comfort. Yet too much eye contact or staring makes people feel uncomfortable.
Tone of Voice. A good listener listens for more than the speaker's words. A good listener also notices the tone of voice, how loud or soft the voice is, and the rate of speech. In the U. S., people talk faster when they are excited or anxious. They talk more slowly when they are despondent, disgusted, grief-stricken, or tired. Tone of voice is also a culturally-relevant characteristic -- there are many cultures where a soft voice indicates deference and respect, and other cultures where it indicates shyness and lack of assertiveness.
Posture. People also reveal their attitudes by the way they stand or sit or move various parts of their bodies. People who lean forward in their seat to speak or listen indicate more interest in communicating with us than those who remain slouched in a chair. Nodding the head helps the flow of conversation as it reinforces the speaker. Again, posture may also indicate cultural factors.
Physical Space. Physical closeness is important for communication as reflected by the figures of speech "getting close" to people you like or "keeping a distance" from those we dislike. We are most comfortable when there is a particular distance between others and ourselves. This distance is known as "personal space." This varies with age, culture and the type of communication we are engaging in. Americans like to keep about 18 inches of personal space between themselves and others, except for intimate communication. Social communications take place at 1 ½ to 4 feet. Latinos or Hispanics like closer communications. This category of studies is known as proxemics research (Ickinger, 2001).

Understand concepts of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The ancients Greeks had an enlightening philosophy which was reflected in three sequentially arranged words Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

Ethos – refers to your personal creditability; your trustworthiness; the faith people have in your integrity.

Pathos – refers to you empathic side. It means that you are capable of perceiving and attuning yourself with the emotional content of another person’s communication.

Logos – is the logical reasoning aspect of your character and your communication.

The sequence of these is important:

1. Your character

2. Your relationships

3. Your logic

Know about "I" statements

Assertive communications convey the following basic messages:

This is what I think
This is what I feel
This is how I view the situation

These statements refer to what you have observed, witnessed, or felt, so that you are taking responsibilty for your feelings, experience and observations.

Understand section on differentiating assertiveness from passivity, aggression, and passive-aggression

Are You Assertive?

The final component of effective communications is assertiveness skills. Effective communicators are good listeners; however they are also good at expressing their own needs and desires. This type of communication is best accomplished using assertiveness skills.

Assertiveness Skills - a term which involves standing up for your personal rights and expressing ideas, needs, feelings and beliefs in direct, honest and appropriate ways without violating the rights of other people (Lange & Jakubowski, 1976).

Passivity – a term involving violating your own rights by failing to express honest feelings, needs, thoughts and beliefs and consequently permitting others to potentially take advantage of you.

Aggression – a term involving directly standing up for your personal rights and expressing thoughts, feelings, needs and beliefs in ways that violate the rights of other people.

Passive-Aggression – a term representing a form of behavior in which we literally get back at someone not by what we directly do or say, but by what we fail to do or say. Individuals with a passive-aggressive personality tend to resist demands on the part of others for competent performance. Underlying their resistance is aggression. Other symptoms of passive-aggressive behavior are procrastination, forgetfulness, inefficiency, complaining, and fault-finding (Chaplin, 1968, 1985).

Understand concept of empathic assertion

Empathic Assertion - Recognition of other person's situation or feelings followed by another statement standing up for speaker's rights. Example: "I know you are feeling angry and frustrated while you wait for a response. But, the best I can do is give you a ballpark estimate of how long It will take."

The Assertiveness Framework

How can you express yourself more effectively? There are specific steps you can follow in order to construct a potentially effective assertive response. They are:

Step 1: Identify the specific, observable problem behavior.
Step 2: Identify what effects the problem behavior has on you.
Step 3: Identify the consequences of the problem behavior if it persists (optional).
Step 4: Identify alternatives to the problem behavior (if you are addressing a superior, provide more than one alternative).

In using the assertiveness framework, beware of:

Sidetracking: a variety of tactics others can use to derail someone attempting to construct an assertive response. Example: interruptions are a way of sidetracking your assertive response.

Understand concept of perception check

If the situation does not require an assertive response, you can use the following:

Perception Check: a strategy that can be used when the situation does not require an assertive response. It involves "checking" your perceptions: Example: "I'm not sure I got that right: can you clarify that [insert your perception] is what you meant?

Using Assertiveness with Aggressive People

Difficulties can arise when attempting an assertive response with an aggressive person. Here are some steps to follow:

Use empathic assertion ("You sound like you're feeling angry.")
Keep your focus ("We've gotten off the subject.")
Postpone the discussion ("Let's talk about this later, when things have cooled down.")
Use the "broken record technique" (repeat your request over and over).

Assertiveness and Persuasion - To be influential in groups, at work, and in your personal lives, it is important to be assertive. The idea is to maximize your impact without being perceived as aggressive or overbearing. Effective communicators know how to be persuasive when necessary. There are two principles you can use that will help you maximize your ability to persuade others when you are giving your opinion in any setting:

Timing - this principle requires you to decide where your priorities lie. The problem is you can run the risk of being assertive just for the sake of being assertive, and talking too much or too long. You need to save your efforts for those points that are really important to you.
Tact - this principle requires you to be very careful with how you express your opinions, especially if you are going against the group.

Chapter 11 - Positive Relationships

Know about being a good conversationalist and about small talk

Fontana (1990) offers these tips for expressing yourself effectively in conversations.

1) Keep your message interesting.

2) Show your sense of humor.

3) Show an interest in the other person.

4) Avoid monopolizing the conversation.

5) Stay focused on the topic at hand.

6) Offer sincere compliments when appropriate .

7) Refrain from engaging in annoying mannerisms.

8) Engage in open, confident non-verbal behaviors.

9) Talk fairly rapidly, but not too rapidly.

10) Avoid controversy.

Know how we make friends and develop rapport

Friendship

What Constitutes Friendship?
"voluntary ,personal relationship , typically providing intimacy and assistance ,in which two parties like one another and seek out each others company"

Universal Rules Of Friendship
.
-Strive to make him/her happy while in each others company.
-Don't be jealous or critical of a friend's other relationships.
-Be tolerant of each other's friends.
-Share new's of success with the other.
-Don't nag.
-Seek to repay debts and favors and compliments.
-Volunteer help in a time of need.
-Respect the friend's privacy.
-Keep confidences.
-Trust and confide in each other.
-Stand up for the person in their absence.
-Don't criticize each other in public.
-Show emotional support.

Rapport - An emotional bond or friendly relationship between people based on mutual liking ,trust, and a sense that they understand and share each other’s concerns.

Two people are said to have good rapport when they are comfortable with one another and can get on the same wavelength, either emotionally, intellectually or both.

Helpful Rapport Building Behavior’s

o If you are sitting then lean forward, towards the person you are talking to, with hands open and arms and legs uncrossed. This is open body language and will help you and the person you are talking to feel more relaxed.

o Look at the other person for approximately 60% of the time. Give plenty of eye-contact but be careful not to make them feel uncomfortable.

o When listening, nod and make encouraging sounds and gestures.

o Smile!

o Use the other person’s name early in the conversation. This is not only seen as polite but will also reinforce the name in your mind so you are less likely to forget it!

o Ask the other person open questions. Open questions require more than a yes or no answer.

o Use feedback to summarize, reflect and clarify back to the other person what you think they have said. This gives opportunity for any misunderstandings to be rectified quickly.

o Talk about things that refer back to what the other person has said. Find links between common experiences.

o Try to show empathy. Demonstrate that you can understand how the other person feels and can see things from their point of view.

o When in agreement with the other person, openly say so and say why.

o Build on the other person’s ideas.

o Be non-judgmental towards the other person. Let go of stereotypes and any preconceived ideas you may have about the person.

o If you have to disagree with the other person, give the reason first then say you disagree.

o Admit when you don’t know the answer or have made a mistake. Being honest is always the best tactic, acknowledging mistakes will help to build trust.

o Be genuine, with visual and verbal behavior’s working together to maximize the impact of your communication.

o Offer a compliment, avoid criticism and be polite.

Understand concept of propinquity and about first impressions

Propinquity - Having frequent contact with a person because you live close by or work nearby at the same workplace .It is a big factor in who we develop as friends.

First impression - is the event when one person first encounters another person and forms a mental image of that person. It can sometimes form an accurate representation of the person, depending on the observer and the person being observed.

Know about shyness

Three primary aspects of shyness:
1) Excessive Self-Conscious - being overly aware of yourself in social situations, which leads to social anxiety.
2) Excessive Negative Self - Evaluation- having low self-esteem, viewing yourself in a negative light.
3) Excessive Negative Self Preoccupation - paying way too much attention to all the things you imagine you are doing wrong around other people.

Know about attachment

Attachment

One of the most important forms of social development is how well we form attachments, something that forms in infancy and plays a role in adult relationships. Attachment is the positive emotional bond that develops between a child and a caregiver. Attachment theory was developed from early studies by John Bowlby (1951) and later carefully researched by Mary Ainsworth who showed how the bond forms.

Bowlby (1979) believed human beings were genetically wired to form bonds with adult caregivers. This gave humans an evolutionary advantage. His early work on children raised in orphanages and later work by Hazan and Shaver (1994) discussed the importance of those early bonds. Hazan and Shaver said that the question of whether a child could count on a caregiver being there for them could be answered in three ways: yes, no, or maybe. Each of these described one of three types of caregivers:

Warm/Responsive: These caregivers were warm, loving, knew when to be supportive and when to leave the child alone. They could be counted on to always be there for the child and were reliable and trustworthy.
Cold/Rejecting: These caregivers were the opposite of the first type. They were cold, distant and rejecting. They were not reliable and often gave the impression that the child was a burden.
Ambivalent/Inconsistent: These caregivers were inconsistent; they were warm at times and cold at others. They did not always put the child's needs first and did not always demonstrate their love for the child.

Attachment Styles

Mary Ainsworth, following Bowlby's early work, made the following observations in a series of famous experiments that demonstrated that several types of attachment bonds form in infancy. In the experiment, children and their caregivers were placed in a large room with plenty of toys. The children were observed while their caregivers were there. The caregiver then left the room leaving the child with one of the experimenters, allowing the experimenters to see the children's reaction when the caregiver left and when the caregiver returned. She found:

Two-thirds (2/3) of all children she studied were what she labeled SECURELY ATTACHED CHILDREN. Those children felt safe to explore the world when they were able to use their caregivers as a safe base. They were at ease as long as the caregiver was present, explored when they could see the caregiver, became upset when the caregiver left, and calmed down and went to the caregiver when the caregiver returned.
Twenty percent (20%) were labeled by Ainsworth as AVOIDANT CHILDREN. Those children did not seek proximity to the caregiver; after the caregiver left, they seemed to avoid the caregiver when the caregiver returned as if they were angered by the caregiver's behavior.
About twelve percent (12%) were labeled as AMBIVALENT CHILDREN who displayed a combination of positive and negative reactions to their caregivers; they showed great distress when the caregiver left, but upon the caregiver's return they might simultaneously seek close contact but also hit and kick them.
A more recent expansion of Ainsworth's work suggests a fourth category: DISORGANIZED-DISORIENTED CHILDREN who show inconsistent, often contradictory behavior, such as approaching the caregiver when she returns but not looking at her; they may be the least securely attached children of all.

Infant attachment may have significant consequences for relationships at later stages in life. Increasing evidence suggests that infant attachment styles are reflected in adult romantic relationships. According to Phillip Shaver, the influence of infants' attachment styles continues into adulthood and affects the nature of their romantic relationships:

Adults with secure attachment readily enter into relationships and feel happy and confident about the future of the relationship (half of all adults).
Adults who have avoidant attachment tend to be less invested in relationships, have higher break-up rates, and often feel lonely (one quarter of all adults).
Adults who have anxious-avoidant attachment tend to become overly invested in relationships, have repeated break-ups with the same partner, and have relatively low self-esteem (20 percent of adults)

Know Sternberg's Theory of Love, its components, and the combinations

The Triangular Theory of Love

Robert Sternberg developed a theory about the components of love that he called the TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE. He suggested that love is made up of three components: intimacy, passion and commitment.

The INTIMACY COMPONENT has to do with feelings of closeness, affection, and connectedness. According to developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, the search for intimacy is the critical issue of the young adult period. In Sternberg's view, intimacy has the following components:

the desire to promote the other's welfare
being happy when you are with the one you love
thinking highly of the one you love
being able to count on the one you love in your time of need
sharing mutual understanding with that person
sharing yourself and your possessions
receiving emotional support from the one you love
giving emotional support to the one you love
communicating intimately with the one you love
valuing the one you love

In Erik Erikson's view, intimacy has to do with:

a degree of selflessness
sacrificing one's own needs to those of another
deriving pleasure from focusing not just on one's own gratification but also on that of one's partner
deep devotion, marked by efforts to fuse one's identity with the identity of the partner

The PASSION COMPONENT relates to the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance.
The COMMITMENT COMPONENT represents both the initial cognition that one loves another person and the longer-term determination to maintain that love.

As can be seen from Table 11.1 in your book, in Sternberg’s theory, eight unique combinations of love can be formed:

NONLOVE (not shown on graph) occurs in the absence of all three components (intimacy, passion, and commitment are missing)
LIKING develops when only intimacy is present (there is no passion or commitment)
INFATUATION exists for those who only feel passion (there is no intimacy or commitment)
EMPTY LOVE is when only commitment is present (there is no intimacy or passion)
ROMANTIC LOVE occurs when both intimacy and passion are present (but there is no commitment)
COMPANIONATE LOVE is when intimacy and commitment are present (but there is no passion)
FATUOUS LOVE exists when passion and commitment are present (but there is no intimacy)
In CONSUMATE LOVE, all three components are present (intimacy, passion and commitment)

Sternberg's theory can be very useful in determining why certain relationships seem "lacking" in one way or another. However, many people mistakenly think that consummate love represents “ideal love” in Sternberg’s theory, since all 3 components of love are present. It is important to note that many long lasting and happy relationships are based on types of love other than consumate. Indeed, the type of love that dominates in relationships varies over time: commitment and intimacy can continue to grow over time (important in strong, loving relationships), however, passion tends to peak early, decline, and level off (see graph).

Know about marriage

Marriage is the process by which two people who love each other make their relationship public, official, and permanent. It is the joining of two people in a bond that putatively lasts until death, but in practice is increasingly cut short by divorce.

v More adults marry than never marry.

v Majority of young people say they plan to marry

Research on what makes a marriage work shows that people in a good marriage have completed these psychological "tasks":

· Separate emotionally from the family you grew up in; not to the point of estrangement, but enough so that your identity is separate from that of your parents and siblings.

· Build togetherness based on a shared intimacy and identity, while at the same time set boundaries to protect each partner's autonomy.

· Establish a rich and pleasurable sexual relationship and protect it from the intrusions of the workplace and family obligations.

· For couples with children, embrace the daunting roles of parenthood and absorb the impact of a baby's entrance into the marriage. Learn to continue the work of protecting the privacy of you and your spouse as a couple.

· Confront and master the inevitable crises of life.

· Maintain the strength of the marital bond in the face of adversity. The marriage should be a safe haven in which partners are able to express their differences, anger and conflict.

· Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective and to avoid boredom and isolation.

· Nurture and comfort each other, satisfying each partner's needs for dependency and offering continuing encouragement and support.

· Keep alive the early romantic, idealized images of falling in love, while facing the sober realities of the changes wrought by time.

Know about genderlects

Communication Styles and Gender

Are there gender differences in communication styles? According to the research, there are differences in how men and women communicate. Tannen (1990, 1994) proposes that men and women speak the same language but it is like they know different dialects (she calls this genderlects). First of all, men tend to perceive relationships in terms of hierarchies and their tendency is to look at relationships like struggles to either move up or move down in the hierarchy. In contrast, women perceive relationships with others in terms of a series of interactions and interconnections. According to Tannen, men and women react differently when they encounter conflicts. Boys insist and threaten, while girls avoid confrontations and attempt compromise.

Some believe that men and women communicate differently because of their different roles in society. Several issues have been identified in the literature as being important in understanding the different social structures and rules that men and women grow up in. The following are how men and women see several issues according to several researchers (Maccoby, 1998; Maltz & Borker, 1982):

Status vs. Support - men reflect on status and getting the upper hand, while women focus on support.
Independence vs. Intimacy - men value being seen as independent (a mark of status), while women reflect on achieving and maintaining intimacy.
Advice vs. Understanding - men offers advice, while women offer understanding.
Information vs. Feelings - for men, a conversation is a way to impart information; for women its an avenue for communication of feelings.
Orders vs. Proposals - men's statements often sound more like orders, while women's statements sound more like proposals.
Conflict vs. Compromise - men focus on working out conflicts, while women focus on compromise.

If you are interested in this topic, two interesting and popular books are Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, and He Said, She Said by Deborah Tannen.

Know about agape love and altruism

Altruism - involves the unselfish concern for other people. It involves doing things simply out of a desire to help, not because you feel obligated to out of duty, loyalty, or religious reasons.

The early Greeks described three types of love: Eros, Philo, and Agape.

*Eros, from which the word "erotic" comes, is the "love at first sight experience that sparks quickly with intense feelings but is not long lasting, often vanishing as quickly as it began.

*Philo is the reciprocal type of mutual brotherly love. Based on friendship between two people and has an "I'll love you as long as you love me” connection.

*Agape love is that which is given without any expectations of return. It is Selfless love like the love a mother has for her child. This type of love that leads to the self-sacrificing caring for others is called altruism.

Chapter 12

Understand the factors involved in diversity

How Diversity Affects You

The changing workforce means that individuals are and will be interacting with people who are different from them in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, physical ability, sexual orientation, and age - all of whom have different lifestyles, family needs, and work styles.

Diversity in the workplace requires that each of you recognize the differences that diverse groups bring to the workplace.

It also requires that you be flexible enough in your views to be accepting of others - others who are different in what they want and need from work.

Understand the changes in organizational structure, including downsizing and when it is used.

Changes in Organizational Structure

There have been a number of organizational changes in the last two decades that have significantly affected American organizations and the American workforce:

Downsizing

One of the organizational trends that have had a significant impact on American organizations, workplaces and workforce is the management strategy of downsizing:

· Downsizing is an organizational strategy that was purported to increase an organization's effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness (Ket de Vries & Balazs, 1997).

· This cost-cutting strategy began in the 1980s when the U.S. economy was not healthy, continued into the 1990s as the economy recovered, and has continued unabated as we entered the new Millennium.

· Downsizing in some form continues today albeit for different reasons: until recently, workers were being laid-off because the economy was too healthy and corporations were faced with unreasonable earnings expectations. Despite a booming economy, in 1998 U.S. corporations laid off 103,000 workers, mostly due to pressure to meet earnings estimates (McGinn & McCormick, 1999). In 2006, U. S. businesses laid-off 894,739 workers (U. S. Department of Labor, 2007).

· Even more recently (since October, 2000), the falling stock market has seen a return to lay-offs due to anticipated future poor returns. In the early days of downsizing, it was used as a band-aid approach -- when revenues were poor lay-offs were used as a cost-cutting measure. In recent days, downsizing is used more as a preventative measure.

· Either way, downsizing measures were and still are on the average implemented with few considerations for the affected employees. This lack of consideration has had a significant impact on the way Americans view work and on how the work is performed.

Understand the different types of workers (core workers and contingent workers)

Changes in Workforce Composition

Another legacy of the downsizing era is the change in the number of full-time, full-benefit workers. Today's workforce consists of three types of workers:

· Full-time or Core Workers. There are few full-time, full-benefit employees in today's typical organization. In an attempt to save on benefits, many organizations hire part-time workers or independent contractors. The downside of this policy is there are few workers in the work place who are fully trained in the job and who have a sense of the history and mission of the company. Core workers are working under extraordinary levels of stress as they seek to do their own work and the work of others, plus act as founts of information and knowledge. They are often called on to train others in addition to continuing to perform their own job duties. It is no wonder that many core workers complain of stress or suffer stress-related injuries and diseases.

· Part-time or Contingent Workers. The last two decades of the 20th Century saw a large increase in the number of part-time jobs with no benefits. This type of work is ideal for most students because there is more flexibility in work schedules. However, many of the workers who lost their full-time, full-benefit jobs to downsizing initiatives ended up working in part-time positions. Unfortunately, many had to take on 2 or 3 such positions to keep their previous standard of living: 8 million people held down more than one job in 1997 compared with 3.8 million in 1965 (McGinn & McCormick, 1999). The most recent data available from the U. S. Department of Labor shows the number of contingent workers in the U.S. in 2005 was 5.7 million.

· Independent Contractors. Many professional or highly-skilled individuals who were previously employed as core workers began selling their services or skills to organizations when they lost their jobs due to downsizings or restructurings. There has been an increase in the number of self-employed individuals in the U.S. in the last two decades: 10.5 million workers reported being self-employed in 1997 compared with 7 million in 1970 (McGinn & McCormick, 1999).

Know the different generations encountered in the workplace and the characteristics associated with each.

In addition to the diversity brought about by such things as gender, nationality, and race, we must be aware of the age differences we will encounter at the work site. Today, there are four distinct groupings encountered in the workplace:

Mature Workers - those born prior to 1946 (WWII generation)

Considered security oriented and to have a strong work ethic
Viewed by other generations to have obsolete skills and as being inflexible
Paradigms - Great Depression, World War II

Baby Boomers - those born between 1947 and 1964

Considered career-oriented
Viewed by mature workers as unrealistic and workaholics
Paradigms - TV, counter-culture, cold war, Vietnam

Generation X - born between 1965 and 1975

Considered less committed, less rule bound, more into own gratification, and to be intolerant of baby boomers and their attitudes
Viewed by other generations as selfish and not willing to play by the rules
Paradigms - MTV, AIDS, Gulf War

Millennial Generation (a/k/a Generation Y) - born between 1976 and 2000

At 70 million, the largest since the Baby Boomers.
According to generational scholars Howe and Strauss (2000), this generation is a "good news revolution" (p. 7):

The most wanted and watched generation: Gen X children were the result of planned parenting, contraceptives; Millennia’s are a product of fertility clinics. They are the most wanted generation in history according to Howe and Strauss. They are the most watched generation ever: They are constantly supervised by parents, relatives, teachers, coaches, baby sitters, and surveillance cameras. They have less free time than their parents. According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan and reported by Howe and Strauss, there has been a 37% decrease in "free" or "unsupervised" time from 1981 to 1997.
They are optimists: Nine out of ten describe themselves as "happy, confident and positive" (p. 7).
They are team players: When asked what is the major cause of problems in our society, the majority of them blamed "selfishness." The majority (10 to 1) believe they will do more than any other generation to help the environment.
They accept authority and follow the rules: Nine in ten say they "trust" and "feel close to" their parents and identify with their values. Half trust the government to "do the right thing all or most of the time" (p. 8). Rates of homicide, violent crimes, and teen pregnancies plummeted faster than at any other time in history during the years 1995-2000. Even when we factor in the Columbine massacre, the rates of violent death in the schools decreased by half compared to the early 1990s.
They're smart: The Millennial Generation is much smarter than most people think according to Howe and Strauss. Eight in ten believe it's "cool to be smart" and they "look forward to school" (p. 9).
They believe in the future and their role in it: They are fascinated by and masters of technology. Today's teens rank "scientists" and "young people" as the groups that will most likely cause "most changes for the better in the future" (p. 10).
Paradigms - Computers, video games, cellular phones, MySpace.

Understand outsourcing, insourcing and other factors brought about by global interdependence

New terms have been developed to explain some of the complexities of doing business in today's globally interdependent world:

Outsourcing has become commonplace. Outsourcing refers to the source of the production being outside. When we say outside today, we may mean out of the company, out of the city, the state, the nation, and the continent. Off-shoring occurs when you outsource to another country.
Insourcing occurs when local workers in one country provide labor for foreign companies. A good example of that occurring today is British Petroleum (BP), the oil company responsible for the devastating disaster in the Gulf that has dominated the news this year. BP is a British company that operates in the U.S. American workers who are employed by BP are insourced.

Outsourcing is a global issue, not just an American one. For years, the U.S. has been outsourcing its services to India. Now, interestingly, India has begun to outsource some of its contracts to other countries.

Understand concepts of autocratic, democratic and laissez faire leadership styles

Autocratic

With autocratic leaders, power is concentrated in the leader.
Information flows from leader to the group in one direction

Democratic

With democratic leaders, power is concentrated in the group and its leader.
The leader encourages employee involvement in decision-making.

Laissez Faire

With laissez faire leaders, power is concentrated in the group operating independently from the leader.

The power for decision-making is left to the group (empowerment)…the leader acts as liaison.

Understand factors involved in leadership

Leadership is an important issue in workplace effectiveness. Effective individuals know what leadership is and they can tell the difference between a leader and a supervisor. They also understand the qualities of a leader, and they are able to recognize those qualities in themselves or in others. Finally, effective individuals are cognizant of the power of charismatic leaders.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is the ability to influence others in a positive way. Leaders can inspire followers through direction, encouragement, sensitivity, consideration, and support to accept challenges and achieve goals that may be viewed as difficult to achieve.

Leaders see and can get the best out of others, helping them develop a sense of personal and professional accomplishment. They are adept at matching the individual strengths of the people they supervise to the tasks and jobs to which they are well suited.

Unfortunately, we often look at leaders as individuals who are "in charge" of us and tell us what to do. Those who do this hold a position of power over us as our supervisors, but they may not be true "leaders."

Leaders or Supervisors?

There are differences between leaders and supervisors:

Leaders

Leaders may either be appointed or emerge from within a group.
Leaders can influence others to perform beyond the actions dictated by formal authority.

Supervisors

Supervisors are appointed by organizations.
Supervisors have legitimate power to reward and punish their employees.
The ability of a supervisor to influence employees is based on the formal authority inherent in their positions.

Can Supervisors be Leaders and vice-versa?

Not all supervisors can be leaders. To be a leader, supervisors have to have the ability to influence others and get them to commit to organizational goals. They also have to be able to see the potential in people and get them to see it as well.
However, leadership ability is definitely a plus for supervisors.
Conversely, not all leaders have the capability to perform other supervisory functions and thus not all should have formal authority.

Are Leaders Necessary?

Can there ever be no leader? We can survive if there is no leadership. In fact, leadership may not always be important. In many situations, a leader's behavior may be irrelevant to goal attainment.
Also, there are places and times when leaders can create problems. For example, at times a "natural leader" emerges in a well-functioning workplace and causes unrest by trying to change the status quo.
Furthermore, certain individual, job, and organizational factors can act as "substitutes for leadership." As a result, in some workplaces, the "person in charge" has little influence on others.
While all of the above may be true in some organizations, leadership in many organizations is critical to survival and growth.

Understand concepts of leadership styles, leadership characteristics, and transformational leadership

Leadership Traits

When the average person thinks about what makes a leader, they usually list "traits" such as intelligence, charm, decisiveness, enthusiasm, strength, bravery, integrity, and self-confidence.
The search for "leadership traits" dominated the early research on leadership.
The "leadership traits" theories were difficult to prove because when they examined the leadership traits of different famous people - like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King, or Mother Theresa - they found individuals with very different characteristics.
Attempts to identify traits associated with those who are successful in influencing others have been more successful. Six traits have been identified on which leaders are seen to differ from non-leaders (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991). They are:

Drive. A leader exerts a high level of effort to a task and has a strong need to achieve.
Desire to Influence Others. A leader is willing to accept responsibility.
Honesty and Moral Character. A leader builds trusting relationships.
Self-confidence. A leader needs to exhibit self-confidence in order to convince others.
Intelligence. A leader must gather, synthesize, and interpret information, and create a vision.
Relevant Knowledge. A leader must have relevant information about the organization and its people, as well as about its products or services.

Leadership Styles

Leadership style theories focus on the style leaders use. McGregor (1960) focused on the way in which leaders see reality and the behavior of the employees under their supervision. He proposed two styles:

Theory X

· Theory X leaders view workers as people who…

o dislike work, and

o have to be closely supervised or pushed because they are either lazy, irresponsible or self-centered

Theory Y

· In contrast, Theory Y leaders view workers as people who…

o consider work a pleasurable, natural part of life, and

o are internally motivated to be productive, accomplish goals, and are willing to learn and accept responsibility

Charisma

An examination of leadership styles would not be complete without looking at the role of charisma. Charisma is a magnetism that inspires followers to exert additional effort to reach goals that are perceived as difficult or unpopular.

Being charismatic evolves from one's possession of several characteristics (Conger, 1988):

Idealized Goal. Charismatic leaders have a vision that proposes a better future.
Ability to Help Others Understand the Goal. They are able to communicate their vision or goal clearly, and in ways that are understandable to others.
Strong Conviction about Their Goals. They are perceived as being strongly committed and willing to take risks, incur high costs, and engage in self-sacrifice.
Behavior That Is Unconventional. Their behavior is novel, out of the ordinary, and counter to norms.
Assertiveness and Self-confidence. They have complete confidence in their judgment and ability.
Appearance as a Change Agent. They are perceived as agents of change, rather than as proponents of the status quo.

Charisma is a powerful force. It can be used for great good or for great evil. For example, many cult leaders have been charismatic individuals but their charisma was put to destructive use. History is filled with stories of people whose charisma exerted a fatal influence on their followers. Note: for more information on this topic use the search terms "charisma cults."

Transformational Leadership

A new discussion in leadership concerns the role of transformational leaders. The authors of your textbook see a connection between this topic and positive psychology. Transformational leaders have the ability to engage with those who follow them in such a way that both are elevated to higher levels of motivation and performance. Clearly, motivation is an important issue in the workplace. Any leader who can motivate or otherwise transform an underperformer to a good or exceptional performer will be a valued asset to any organization. Transformational leaders do this by sharing a purpose with those they lead and that purpose works to transform an employee who focuses on short-term goals to one that is infused with long-term, intrinsic motivation. The followers identify with the leader. Four components of transformational leadership have been identified:

Idealized influence – similar to charisma…leaders are committed to integrity and demonstrate commitment to followers…they choose to do the right thing.
Inspirational motivation – leaders convey a vision that is appealing to employees…leads to optimism towards future and meaning of work.
Intellectual stimulation – leaders encourage employees to come up with answers, respect employees’ ability to think for themselves…leads to employee confidence.
Individualized consideration – leaders show caring for employee’s development and wellbeing…leads to positive relationships with employees.

How You Can Become a Leader

Whether or not you hold a formal position of authority over others, you can be in a position where you are able to influence others. According to Abascal and Stephenson (1998), becoming a leader requires the following skills:

Technical Skills

· You can influence others when you have the tools, procedures, and techniques that are unique to your profession or area of specialization.

· You need to "master" your job so you can be viewed as an "expert."

· If you want "followers" to have confidence in your advice and direction, they've got to perceive you as technically competent.

Conceptual Skills

· To create a "vision," a leader must have the ability to think in the abstract, analyze lots of information, and make connections between the data. To do this, you require conceptual skills.

· Thinking conceptually is not easy. It requires the ability to see the "big picture." Focusing on details is important, but sometimes we get too caught up in details and fail to see the whole. Leaders can see the whole and set log-term directions.

Networking Skills

· Leaders understand that you can't do everything by yourself. They know where to go to get things their followers need. They fight for more resources or establish relationships outside that will provide some benefit.

· Networking means having good political skills. It also means running interference.

Human Relations Skills

· Leaders have the ability to work with, understand, and motivate those around them. They are effective communicators. They know how to listen effectively.

· They have good "people skills": they are good at coaching, facilitating, and supporting others.

· They have confidence in themselves and communicate confidence in others and let them get credit for their work.

· They project self-confidence, are positive, act honestly, build a relevant knowledge base, are consistent, are understanding with their followers, protect their followers, are good role models, and reward the contributions of others.

Consider the views of Steven Covey on management and leadership quoted in Chapter 11 of your textbook.

Understand what performance reviews are and why they are important

Following are some suggestions for effectively preparing for your performance evaluation:

Focus on what is expected of you. A good performance evaluation system sets performance goals for the ensuing period. Whether or not you have mutually set goals, there are clues about what you are supposed to be doing. Is there a job description? If you are not clear what you are supposed to be doing, ask your supervisor for direction.
Recognize the importance of the appraisal process. Performance evaluations can be difficult for the employee and supervisor. They are designed, however, to give you feedback on how well you have performed in the past, identify areas you can improve on, and provide legal records for your files.
Keep a record of your accomplishments. Do not expect your supervisor to remember everything you have done over the appraisal period. Keep a file in your desk and drop notes into it about what you feel you have accomplished.
Prepare for the formal appraisal by evaluating yourself. This is not only a good idea, but in some jobs, it is a requirement. It is a good idea to be able to list your strengths and weaknesses.
Listen to your supervisor's appraisal of your performance. Be prepared to use all of your listening skills. Be attentive, use active listening, and summarize at the end. Take notes instead of interrupting to clarify.
Address your concerns. If you have done your own evaluation, you may have objective information to add after your supervisor is finished.
Set a plan of action. If weaknesses are identified, set a plan for remediation: ask for your supervisor's help in obtaining training or mentoring. If your evaluation is highly positive, always identify areas you can improve on even more to show growth and forward action.
Summarize what has happened. At the end of the meeting, summarize your understanding, thank your supervisor, and begin implementing your action plan while things are fresh in both your minds.

Chapter 13

Understand Roe's theory.

Anne Roe identified the following components that interact in career choices:

State of the Economy - inflation, recessions, employment rates and other factors impact our choice of careers.
Family Background - family origin, culture, socioeconomic status, values, and educational levels interact to impact our choice of careers.
Chance - career choices are sometimes impacted by chance. Opportunities occur that we may not expect and those bring unexpected choices into our lives.
Marital Situation - Our being married or not impacts our willingness to relocate and seek opportunities elsewhere. It also impacts the types of jobs we are willing to take.
Physical Capacity - Appearance, strength, sensory and perceptual capabilities also impact our career choices.
Intellectual - Our general cognitive abilities and our special abilities impact our choices. Multiple intelligence theory plays a role as well.
Temperament and Personality - Our way of taking in information, of behaving, and our style of life also plays a role in career choice.
Interests and Values - The activities we enjoy, the things we value, and the events that capture our attention are also important in career choice.
Learning and Education - What we already know from education (and what we are willing to learn) and our life experience play an important role in career choice.
Acquired Skills - The final component in career choice is the skills we have acquired in our lives.

Understand Seligman's ideas about talents and strengths

Seligman's Signature Strengths

As we discussed in earlier chapters, Martin Seligman, the psychologist who popularized the positive psychology movement, talks extensively about strengths and talents:

Talents - Seligman defines a talent as "an innate, non-moral, and relatively fixed phenomenon that you either have or do not."
Strengths - In contrast, he defines a strength as "acquired, moral, and open to further development."

To help you discover your strengths, Seligman has a Web site where you can take the Values in Action Strengths Survey. If you are interested in discovering your strengths, you should complete the survey.

Know the process of making career decisions.

Choosing a Career

How do you choose a career? One way is by considering your basic personality type. There are a number of free inventories available online, however, note that some of the most valid and reliable career inventories require payment of a fee.

Many career inventories are based on the theories of John Holland, who believed that people are happier and more successful in jobs that match their interests, values, and skills. One such test is the MAPP (Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential), given by the International Assessment Network.

The basic MAPP test and results are free. Once you are done, a narrative MAPP report will appear on your screen and a copy will be sent to you via e-mail. The narrative report provides you with an interpretation of your motivations, your learning styles, and your work preferences. The report also lists the 10 vocational areas best suited to your type.

Most career tests are based on John Holland's theory, which is widely used in career development. Holland proposed the following six basic personality types:

Realistic people like working with THINGS. Sample occupations include pilots, electricians, engineers, or construction workers.
Investigative people like working with DATA. They are found in investigative occupations such as medical technicians, computer programmers, engineering, and science.
Artistic people like working with IDEAS. Sample occupations include commercial artist, musician, and interior designer.
Social people like working with PEOPLE. They are suited to occupations such as teacher, counselor, and elder care giver.
Enterprising people like working with PEOPLE and DATA. They excel at occupations such as business leader, marketing executive, entrepreneur, and politician.
Conventional people also like working with DATA. However, they are more suited to occupations like accountants, administrative assistants, and paralegals.

One way to consider which type you are is to rank them in terms of preference. Review the types and place them in order from most preferred to least preferred. Another is to take online tests to determine your preferred type.

Other Influences on Career Choices

In addition to personality and opportunities, family has a great deal of influence on your choice of careers.

Jobs people tend to like are similar to those of their parents.
Parents and children tend to attain similar levels of education, which is the best predictor of occupational status.
Parenting styles shape work-related values.
Parents’ gender-role expectations also influence children’s aspirations.

Know the components of career plans.
Know about introspection and feedback
Understand portfolios.

Career Planning

Career planning is a process involving the identification of major work-related and personal goals that one wants to achieve. Career planning is a process that requires you to look inward and outward:

Career planning involves self-assessment and decision-making:

· Identifying work-related goals. The process of career planning requires you to make an effort to identify your major work-related goals.

· Deciding what you are willing to invest. It also requires you to make decisions. One of the decisions you will need to make is to decide what investment you are willing to make for your career. How many years of school will you invest in?

· Deciding on what career you want. Have you made a decision about your major in college? Your courses should prepare you for the career you've chosen to start with.

Career planning also involves knowing what you want to achieve in the future:

· You should think about what you want. Do you want to run your own company, or achieve a high-level, decision-making position in an organization? You need to identify what, where, when, and how you will reach that goal.

· You should also think about what you may have to give up. If you want to run a company, you may be looking at working 6 to 7 days a week, putting in 80 hours a week. You must be prepared to make such a commitment and to have less time to pursue other interests you may have.

Career planning involves thinking about your personal life:

· What personal goals have you set for yourself? Are they compatible with your work-related goals? Do you think an 80 hour/6 day work week will interfere with your personal life?

· What is more important to you - family or career? If having and raising a family is most important to you, then you need to look for a career that will meet your requirements. Working at home, part-time work, or other work alternatives may better serve your needs. A happy medium is possible, but you must make that choice.

· Do you want a family and a career? Finally, if you want it all, be prepared to make sacrifices. You will need to carefully balance your responsibilities to achieve this goal.

Career planning is a lifelong process:

· No matter what decisions you make now, remember that your career choice and life goals will change.

· What you decide today may have to be altered 5 years from now to reflect new goals or as a result of changes in the workplace.

· Also, your needs and aspirations will change. What was once fulfilling to you early in your life may no longer be right for you later on. Priorities change.

· Research tells us we will have 12 or more jobs in our lifetime, in as many as 4 distinct careers.

Introspection is the process of discovering the patterns of our behavior, feelings and attitudes. Introspection is one technique we can use in the process of self-assessment. Sometimes, we fail to consider what we want or think is important in life. Introspection involves asking yourself a series of questions that will help you determine your feelings and attitudes. Try some of these questions:

o What is important to me?

o What is not important to me?

o What am I interested in?

o What am I not interested in?

o What am I like as a person? Am I shy or bold? Do I like to be with people or not?

o What do I like to do?

o What do I dislike doing?

o What kinds of situations am I happiest in?

o What kinds of situations am I unhappiest in?

Writing

· Another technique you can use in the process of self-assessment is to write your thoughts, ideas, and experiences down. A career-related journal can help you consider how you relate to your work.

Feedback

· A third way is to get feedback from other people. Ask people you trust and respect for feedback on your personality, strengths, weaknesses, and habits. Ask them what they see you doing in the future, and what they think you would be good at.

Portfolio Development

· A fourth way of self-assessment is keeping a job or career portfolio. This involves collecting evidence of your accomplishments. Portfolios can help you write your annual performance self-assessment (see Chapter 12 of your textbook) and can help document requests for promotion or raises.

Assessment Instruments

· A fifth way is to take inventories (tests) designed to discover your interest patterns or skills. There are essentially two types of career inventories: personality-based inventories and skill- or performance-based inventories (see the next section titled "Choosing a Career" for a recommended personality-based inventory).

Know about interviews

Interview Planning

You should gather information about the organization and the job before the interview. What you should know and try to find out:

What is the nature and purpose of the organization?
Who are the leaders in the company?
How small or large is the company?
Any branch locations? Where?
What is the organizational pattern?
Who are the major competitors for their products or services?
What is the organization’s reputation?
What information, if any, about this company has been in the news?
What are the requirements of the position you are seeking?
What are the job responsibilities?
Why is this position currently available?

Interview Strategies

Introduce yourself
Wait to be invited to be seated
Listen, respond and ask your questions during the interview exchange
Note any follow-up requests (i.e. supply references or transcripts)
Sense when the interview is coming to a close
Clarify with the interviewer the next steps in the process
Summarize and express your enthusiasm and interest for the job, your qualifications for such, and your enjoyment of the interview
Thank the interviewer (in more formal workplaces, follow-up with a Thank You letter)

Chapter 14

Understand about goals and personality and their role in the workplace

Goals

Effective individuals attempt to gain a sense of how the goals of group members at work influence their behavior.
Try to figure out what the common goals of the group are.
What goals have individual members set out for themselves as members of the group?
What are the individual group members trying to achieve in the group?
Sample goals of individuals in groups are: to learn something new, to get a promotion, to do something different, to make more money.

Personality

While it is possible for you to gain a better understanding of your personality by taking personality tests, it is difficult to test all of the individuals with whom you work.
There are, however, patterns of behavior you can take note of. For example:

Is this person extroverted or introverted?
Rigid or flexible?
Organized or free flowing?
Happy or sad?
Stable or moody?
Secure or insecure?
Decisive or indecisive?
Confident or uncertain?
Energetic or laid-back?
Positive or Negative?

Understanding the personality patterns of those you work with will help you better understand their behavior. It will allow you to choose an appropriate way to communicate and deal effectively with that person.

Know McClelland's 3 Needs and be prepared to apply his theory to actual behavioral scenarios.

McClelland says that, regardless of our gender, culture, or age, we all have three motivating drivers, and one of these will be our dominant motivating driver. This dominant motivator is largely dependent on our culture and life experiences.

These characteristics are as follows:

Dominant Motivator	Characteristics of This Person
Achievement	Has a strong need to set and accomplish challenging goals. Takes calculated risks to accomplish their goals. Likes to receive regular feedback on their progress and achievements. Often likes to work alone.
Affiliation	Wants to belong to the group. Wants to be liked, and will often go along with whatever the rest of the group wants to do. Favors collaboration over competition. Doesn't like high risk or uncertainty.
Power	Wants to control and influence others. Likes to win arguments. Enjoys competition and winning. Enjoys status and recognition.

Know Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, in order, and be prepared to apply his theory to actual behavioral scenarios.

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Social Needs - belongingness, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Know about Multiple Intelligences and how those intelligences may be applied to behavior in the workplace.

The Multiple Intelligences

The multiple intelligences theory (MI theory) claims that all humans have eight intelligences, to a lesser or greater extent, and that we each have a different intelligence profile. This profile is based on our genetics and our experiences, and it makes us unique from others. The intelligences are as follows:

Linguistic intelligence – This is the ability to use spoken and written language effectively to express yourself. Lawyers, writers, and speakers tend to have high linguistic intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence – This is the ability to analyze problems logically, work effectively with mathematical operations, and investigate issues using the scientific method. Finding patterns and deductive reasoning are other capabilities associated with this intelligence. People working in the scientific and mathematical communities tend to be high in this type of intelligence.
Musical intelligence – This is the ability to perform, compose, and appreciate musical patterns, including changes in pitch, tone, and rhythm. Successful musicians, composers, and people involved in music production have high levels of musical intelligence.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence – This is the ability to use the body for expression. People high in this intelligence use their physical coordination to master problems. Professional dancers and athletes are good examples of this.
Spatial intelligence – This is the ability to recognize, use, and interpret images and patterns and to reproduce objects in three dimensions. Successful architects, sculptors and designers are likely to have high spatial intelligence.
Interpersonal intelligence – This is the ability to understand people's intentions, motivations, and desires. This intelligence allows individuals to work well with others. Professions like therapy, teaching, and sales attract individuals with high interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal intelligence – This is the ability to understand yourself, and to interpret and appreciate your own feelings and motivations. Therapists, actors, caregivers, and writers are all people who can bring high levels of personal awareness to their work.
Naturalist intelligence – This is the ability to recognize and appreciate our relationship with the natural world. Astronomers, biologists, and zoologists are examples of professions with a high level of naturalist intelligence. (This is the eighth intelligence that Gardner added, after first publication of his model.)

Know about triggers and their role in the workplace.

Know the role of strengths in the workplace.

Develop Your Strengths

As we have described in previous chapters and lessons, one of the aspects of Positive Psychology is to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. Many successful individuals worldwide are leading with their employee's talents in mind. As a result, one very positive behavior you can engage in that can lead to positive outcomes in the workplace is to develop your strengths. According to Clifton and Harter (2004), strengths are our ability to provide consistent, near perfect performance in a specific activity. In order to build on your strengths, you must first identify them. You can do that by following these three steps:

Identify your dominant "themes of talents" (34 have been identified in the Clifton Strengths Finder (2007), such as arranger, activator, command, communication, connectedness, consistency, discipline, empathy, learner, responsibility, etc.).
Discover your specific talents.
Refine those talents with knowledge and skills.

Be able to apply both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic v. Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation comes from within the individual (intrinsic) or from external factors (extrinsic). This table will help you distinguish between intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic Motivation

Comes from within the individual
Incites passion
Makes you feel good
Rewards you while you work

Examples

Doing a job well for the sheer pleasure of it
Doing what you love

Comes from outside the individual
Helps set goals
Heightens expectations
Rewards you outside work

Examples

Monetary and other rewards
Public recognition
Grades

· Know about the negative behaviors of substance abuse, and sexual harassment

Ineffective Behaviors

Ineffective behavior in the workplace can be found both in employees and employers.

Ineffective Individual Behavior

Many of us have difficult times in our lives and we get through them, but for about 25% of the workforce, substance abuse becomes a problem.

Alcoholism

The consensus of opinion is that alcoholism is an illness and should be treated as one. It causes great pain to those suffering from it, as well as to their families and friends.
Organizations lose billions of dollars every year due to alcoholism. This occurs as a result of reduced productivity, increased absenteeism, more on-the-job accidents, and higher health-care costs.
As a result, companies are testing employees more. When a supervisor begins to become suspicious of an employee's behavior - when the employee's behavior becomes erratic, when they call in sick too often, when they become forgetful and argumentative and their productivity suffers - supervisors can and do request the employee be tested for substance use.

Substance Abuse

Alcoholism and substance abuse often create the same kinds of problems for the employee and employer.
The biggest difference between alcohol abuse and substance abuse is legality. Alcohol is a legal substance and most abused substances are not. As a result, while most substance abusers behave similarly to alcoholics, they are more likely to deny they have a problem.
Society is more tolerant of alcohol abuse than it is of substance abuse, although alcohol is a substance and it is abused. In fact, alcohol is the most abused substance in the United States.
Companies have implemented policies in the last decade to curtail any type of substance abuse in the workplace.
Many companies now routinely test all new employees and job offers are conditioned upon passing a substance test. Also, companies now routinely perform random drug tests on their employees.
There are federal laws that protect a substance abuser from being fired provided the individual is no longer abusing - that is, if you are an alcoholic or drug user in recovery, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits the employer from firing you. However, if you are still using, you can be fired.

Ineffective Employer Behaviors

Employers also engage in ineffective behaviors. Here are some of the most ineffective behaviors in terms of motivation and morale:

· Constant change in the workplace without involving employees

· Failure of leadership

· Failure to address morale issues.

Know about burnout

Burnout

· Constant pressures, both at work and/or at home, can result in burnout, a collection of physical, emotional and mental reactions that reflect exhaustion. Burnout can be caused by a variety of factors: poor management of your time or being unable to meet deadlines, feeling indequate in your ability to do your job, too much work, not feeling capable of handling change, or a lack of appropriate supervision. Problems in your personal life can add greatly to burnout. It can happen to anyone with too many pressures and too little support. Burnout is common among the helping professions such as health care, social work, law enforcement, and education.

· Individuals suffering from burnout often disconnect from their work and the people they work with If you find yourself confused, stressed out, unable to focus, and dread going to work, consider whether you may be suffering from burnout. Use the strategies identified in Chapter 6 to counteract burnout.

Know the factors that provide enjoyment about work.

Effective Employer Behaviors

In as much as some of our stress is brought on by work factors, organizations need to take a more active role in providing their employees with help. Indeed, effective employers are aware of the many factors affecting today's workforce and, to the extent possible, address them with effective programs.

Effective Employers

Understand the legacy of structural changes in the workforce. They consider the fear and uncertainty felt by many workers today and address the issue whenever possible. They keep their employees informed and involved in making tough decisions.
Understand the changes in workforce composition and address this issue through diversity programs. They encourage diversity, model it, and ensure their diversity programs are implemented throughout the organization.
Understand the role they play in motivation and put into place programs that have the employees' best interests at heart. For a long time, it had been thought that worker morale and its resulting productivity were governed by three factors: interesting work, good wages, and good benefits. However, these maxims are no longer as effective.

Damage has been done to the Psychological Contract. Companies can, however, begin to build back the trust of its workforce by undertaking employee enrichment programs. Examples of effective workplace programs are:

Flexible Work Options
Employee Assistance Programs
Employee Empowering Programs
Diversity Training Programs
Sexual Harassment Programs
Wellness Programs

Understand and consider that some of the changes that have occurred in business give rise to ethical questions.

Lay-offs. Can sacrificing the financial and spiritual well being of loyal workers and their families to the greater good of shareholder investments be considered an "ethical" decision?
Social Responsibility. All organizations have an obligation to society. However, socially responsible organizations go beyond what is required of them by law and profit-making.
Social Obligation. Other organizations do only what is required of them by law. Social obligation is the foundation of a business's social involvement. A business has fulfilled its social obligation when it meets its economic and legal responsibilities and no more. It does the minimum that the law requires.

Know how to resolve conflicts in the workplace.

Resolving Conflicts in the Workplace

We discussed conflict resolution strategies suitable for conflicts with individuals with whom you have a personal relationship above. We propose formal conflict resolution strategies suitable for working out conflicts in the workplace.

Formal Conflict Resolution

When conflicts exist between individuals with whom you do not have an emotional relationship, you should use formal conflict resolution strategies. Here are the steps to follow in formal conflict resolution:

Step 1 - Acknowledge the Conflict

Acknowledging you have a problem is step one. Remember that many people habitually avoid it, deny it, or attempt to resolve it prematurely by dominating or giving in. Admitting it clears the air and sets the stage for constructive conflict resolution.

Step 2 - Agree on a Procedure

Agreeing on the process you will use gives you an opportunity to begin with some sort of agreement. Example: "let us meet Monday to explore possible solutions, okay?"

Step 3 - Define the Conflict

Try to define the conflict in terms of a mutual problem to be solved. The "we" approach taps the motivation of both parties to cooperate in reaching a mutually satisfactory solution. Flush out hidden agendas and personal grievances that may aggravate the conflict. Focus on specific actions, needs, and issues rather than personalities. Both parties should say:

How they see the conflict
How they feel about it
How each contributes to it

Step 4 - Explore Possible Solutions

One of the best ways to accomplish this is brainstorming - uninhibited offering of ideas and suggested solutions by all members of a group. Everyone should participate and all suggestions should be listed without being judged or associated with any person's name. Avoid criticizing or praising these suggestions.

Step 5 - Reach an Agreement

Evaluate all of the suggestions and select a solution. To be mutually satisfying, agreement should be reached through some sort of consensus. When there are only two people involved, a sense of agreement may be sufficient. When there are more than three participants, it is best to take a vote. When the issue is serious, write down the agreement.

Step 6 - Put the Plan into Action

All parties should be clear about what is to be done, when, where, and by whom.

Step 7 - Evaluate the Solution

Most people will evaluate the solution privately, so why not do it publicly? Instead of private "mutterings" or small, informal meetings after the vote, why not provide an opportunity to make a more objective evaluation?

Pages

CLP 1006 - Psychology of Personal Effectiveness

Final Exam Study Guide

Labels

Popular Posts

Blog Archive