Showing posts with label human behaviour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human behaviour. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 August 2020

Misconception about empathy and performance

 Misconception about empathy and performance

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)



One of the responses for last week's discussion on "empathy or looking at the things from other's views" is that if we start looking at things from other's views, that leads into lenience and, in turn, mediocrity in the performance, particularly in a professional environment.

We need to understand the slight difference between empathy and being lenient.

Empathy means we listen to other's views and recognize the cause in it. That does not mean that we are accepting the consequences as such.

For example, let us imagine a typical scenario in the workplace,

One of your junior colleagues on a particular day left the office early due to personal issues. He/she may be the authorized person for a financial transaction, and he/ she had not delegated the task to anyone on that day. Due to his/ her absence, the important financial transaction did not happen, which affected your organizational performance.

In this scenario, as a manager/leader, what choices you had the next day when the junior colleague reported the duty?

Choice 1:

You might have displayed your dissatisfaction with the performance without listening to his/ her situation. In this process, both of you experienced negative emotions or hurt personally.No learning from low performance.
 
Choice 2 :

You might have listened to personal issues, and both of you felt sorry about the performance. In this process, you are lenient and accept mediocre performance.
 
Choice 3:

You might have listened to personal issues, acknowledged it and you might have assertively conveyed your dissatisfaction and his/ her lack of delegation to the work. You made him/ her responsible for not completing the task.He/she might have learned from the mistakes.
 
Choice 3 is the appropriate method of understanding others and ensuring the right management process in place.

Most of the time, we are witnessing either choice 1 or 2 in which mediocre performance is encouraged.

 i recall an incident that happened to me some years back. I drove my car first time in a new city and violated the signal as I was not familiar with the signal points and free left etc. A traffic policeman stopped me and got my license. I briefed him about my first-time driving and lack of awareness about the signal points. He listened to me and advised me to be careful in city driving. But he was firm to charge me fine as punishment and I also paid. In my view, the policemen were very empathic about my ignorance but, at the same time, firm on his duty. That is what required for the people who are at the commanding level as a manager or leader. Just imagine if the policeman displayed choice 1 or choice 2  behavior, then we both were not doing justice to ourselves as humanity consideration or duty consciousness.!
 

The point is being empathetic does not lead to lenience; you need to be firm on your role as a leader in a professional environment for ensuring performance!

Looking from other's view

 Looking from other's view

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)


As we have been discussing the method of channelizing or regulating the emotions in the workplace, one more effective approach is "
looking at the things from other's view."

In most human interactions, everything is right or wrong from the person's standpoint, exposure or experience, context, and timing only.

When i am considering my decision is right, that is based on my experience, my today's context and that decision may be proven wrong by some one's point of view from their expertise, background, and timeline perspective. When we realize this truth, we can develop the ability to look at things from other's views.

This ability will help us to channelize or regulate emotions like anger, frustration, jealousy from competitiveness into positive emotions.

For example, you may get momentarily anger with your junior colleague's quality of work, say preparation of the presentation. When you understand his/ her background, experience, you may realize their weakness, which will help you to cool your emotions and divert into compassion to develop him/ her.

I am not advocating other's mistakes to be accepted as such, but for every error of others, if you suffer from negative emotions, it is not going to help you. Instead, if you develop the ability to recognize the causes for the mistake or low performance from other's perspective, at that moment, that will make you be in positive emotions.

Some people are good at look at things from other's perspectives, and it is a skill to be developed!

Wednesday 5 February 2020

How does the environment affect you?

How does the environment affect you?


A few days back, i met a friend after a long time. During the interaction, he was frequently mentioning his colleagues' and subordinate’s toxic behaviors and his frustration to work with them. As I knew him as a highly energetic and positive person, but now he becomes more skeptical about any new initiatives and cynical about everything in his workplace and quality of life. He was much disturbed due to his colleagues/subordinates as they are the people with whom he spends much time.

It is said that you are the AVERAGE of the five people you spend most of the time.  This statement may be true because your environment influences your thought processes, behaviors, and activities. The environment can be family, professional, or friend ‘s circle.

 When you surround yourself with positive and energetic people, you will also start to observe them, reflect their thought process and behavior in you without much conscious effort. Alternatively, if you are surrounded by mostly with toxic people who are always blaming/complaining about everything, you will also start believing in their thought process, and you will also demonstrate the same behavior. That is the power of the environment and its influence in our life.

       As you cannot change the environment completely, be aware of the quality of people you are surrounded by, the news channel you are watching, your Facebook / WhatsApp feeds, and so on. Make a slight shift in the environmental mix by meeting new people, joining educational forums, visiting new places, getting exposed to new challenges, and associating with people beyond your natural circle. This shift will help you to enhance your perspectives.

       Since the environment influences your action, be aware of the quality of your situation, and choose the balanced mix.

P.S: (I suggested my friend look up other functional colleagues, benchmark his boss, and start spending more time with different circles to alter his environment mix. I hope things will become better soon!)

Friday 30 August 2019

How to display respect to others?

Improving Communication in the workplace
 
Displaying Respect 

As discussed last week, preparing others for listening is the first step towards effective communication, and one of the processes is    " displaying respect to others".

How you can display respect to others?:

There are many ways you can show respect to another person; one of the powerful methods is “ Make another person feel good in your presence” through your gestures.

How you are treating another person will make him feel good about himself, and his listening ability improves when you interact with him.

My experience on the other person’s gesture and my self-esteem as happened some years back.

My colleague and I went to our HR manager to discuss some people-related issues. Before the meeting, we checked his availability. When we enter his room, he was busy on his laptop, and he did not ask us to sit. Despite that we sat for more than 10 minutes, he did not have the courtesy to ask us to wait by stating his urgent work. In between his typing, he instructed something to us regarding the people issues, and we were not in a position to listen, and after a while, we left. In this entire process, he never looked at us, and we felt bad about it.

As we understood his urgency, we expected that he could have requested us to wait for a few minutes, and once he finished the task in the laptop, he could have closed his laptop and had given undivided attention. Those small gestures might have made us feel good.

It is natural to neglect others due to urgent work, but it does not matter for the other person. It is essential how another person is feeling in your presence. It looks like common sense and soft aspect, but that makes much difference in other people’s mind. If you do not make another person “feeling good,” you are not preparing him/her ready for your subsequent communication.

If you are rude, always reacting and unappreciative, then people may not feel self-esteemed in your presence. When people are not feeling good enough in your presence, their listening ability also reduces.

Hence, first, make other person feeling good with you by giving respect through your gestures.

Just be aware of your gestures as we need to evolve as a good human being.

Other aspects of effective communication let us discuss next week!

Thursday 5 July 2018

How environment triggers your behavior and action?


when I asked the following question  in my management seminar, the response would be as follows"Imagine you are in an airport. You eat the chocolate and search a dustbin to put the wrapper. However, you do not find a dustbin in a nearby area and also you hear the announcement for boarding into flight. What will you do with the chocolate wrapper when you are in airport 1 & 2 ?"

In almost the session, to my surprise, people responded  instantly as follows

In case of  
AIRPORT1, I will through  the wrapper in the corner and move on, even though it is embarrassed me,

Whereas in case of 
AIRPORT 2, I will keep the wrapper in my pant pocket to find a dustbin later and dispose of it.What does this behavior or response indicate? 

As a human being, we create a perception about the place based on its environment ( how it is organized & cleaned, lighting, visuals, and visibility). When the environment is more appealing, it triggers positive behavior on the people and action also positive.

Alternatively, when the environment is not conducive, it triggers negative behavior and action.

It holds good for the home & organizational environment as well. When the internal organization is organized neatly, it triggers positive behavior in the people, and it would get demonstrated with timely communication, care for the people, product, and equipment,. When the workplace is not organized correctly, people working in that environment also behave negatively as not caring anything and adding further chaos in the system.

As you are the leader of your system, 
create a positive environment as much as possible for conducive communication, relationship, and growth. That is a responsibility of everyone who leads.

Change Environment ----Change perception ----Trigger Positive behavior

Saturday 9 June 2018

Motivate your team with “Why.”


One of the challenges most of the managers/leaders have today is to keep the team motivated towards their work. Many factors are contributing to people motivational level, and there is no single universal solution which caters to all people’s motivation problem. One of the solutions, as a leader/manager, you can inspire the team is through your communication about their work, effort , contribution to result.

For example, the person has to be communicated why his work is important to the organization in terms his contribution to the organization’s wellness. (Instead of merely explaining his job description of what and how part)

Similarly, when you are asking for some information, you can communicate why this information helps you will motivate them to add value in their working rather than just asking for a report.
Likewise, when you are initiating any new changes, tell them why this initiative is important for them and their role on the result.

Personally, it is working well for me when I work mostly on project based environment where just dictating won’t work.
People are relatively inspired if they knew the purpose of their work and inclined to put extra effort when they know their work can add value to the others. 

Be aware your communication process by explaining 
WHY part and test it yourself with your team. It may initially require patience and ego aversion . Once you practice, whenever you communicate, you tend to explain with WHY part, and it likely improves the motivation level.

Saturday 30 December 2017

Focus on one change at a time


One of the lingering question most of us have in mind is “how to manage my time or how to improve my personal productivity?

To find the solution, we may get into googling for finding tips on time management techniques and even in getting into Apps downloading. Even though those help in initial stages, but managing those itself become time-consuming! The real change starts from WITHIN.

From your lifestyle, just figure out which one thing is the biggest time killer or obstacles to your productivity or find out what is one thing would save your time if it were removed from your daily practices. It could be Facebook, WhatsApp, desk management, repeated browsing of mail check etc.

Find it and work only on this improvement idea consistently rather than taking too much at a time and not completing anything at the end.

Start with one change and work on it. Your productivity will improve! Time management is not about managing time, it is managing our mind and priorities!


Sunday 8 October 2017

Words mould your personality



There is no doubt that quality of thinking determines our quality of life. Equally the WORDS we use daily or frequently in personal & professional life determines our personality and quality of life. The type of words we use frequently either makes or hurts.

If we observe highly effective people, we may notice that they are very careful in choosing the words while speaking/writing  and they use mostly energizing words as much as possible. By that way, they are influencing others positively.

Some of the words frequently used by them

Thanks / Please / Help / challenge /well/ gifted/ blessing / appreciate/ excellence/ excellent/healthy/ wealthy / effort / goodwill / good / nice/ faith full / extraordinary/ grace/ possibilities / Responsibility / vision / inspiring / winning spirit  / happy/ opportunities, challenges /growth/ Success /grateful / learning

Those words are not cliché. They represent the person’s attitude towards life.
Just be aware of your words as they silently making an impact in your inner world which manifest as your personality externally.

Some people, they are gifted with right usage of words due to their upbringing and environment. But others, the good news is that it can be learned and inculcated with effort.

Pl SHARE to me some of the ENERGISING WORDS you come across as you use or from others!!!

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Why are we reluctant to appreciate others?

One of the common complaints or phrases, I use to hear in an unorganized or small organization from employees is “I am not getting appreciation from my colleagues or manager”. In fact, it is not heard in a family environment, but it would be the hidden cause of all the domestic arguments and fights.It is particularly from spouse!

Why we are reluctant to appreciate others when they do even small good work?

The psychological reasons for this reluctance to appreciate others could be
Fear of losing control 
More of self-centered and thinking as if no time for anything else
Taking granted others as they are part of us 
Poor self-esteem or low confidence
Not being in awareness or always busy in something 

This needs self-introspection within us.

One of the studies said that the person needs to be in a positive frame of mind. If one is not in a positive state, he/she cannot able to appreciate others. Hence, appreciation is not for only motivating others, it is a measure of our wellness of mental strength. 

Relook your habit of appreciation of others and frequency, especially the people in your family and the people are working for you. It reflects your mental health. 

Monday 18 September 2017

Is it ok?

As you may be aware of Oprah Winfrey, a famous American lady and known for a talk show. She conducted “The Oprah Winfrey Show"  for 25 years, by interviewing the celebrities and successful people in all fields. It is one of the long runs, the highest rated television program in the history. In one of the interviews, she said that in almost all the episodes, after the shooting, all the celebrities used to ask one question to her. That commonly asked question is “Is it ok?”

In my opinion, this question from celebrities and highly successful people convey the fundamental human traits. Irrespective of  background, level of achievement, status, every human being is craving for two things 

1.Continuous desire for improvement 
2.Looking for confirmation from others either feedback or pat on the back 

I feel this is something we need to realize to improve our relationships and help others to grow.

How can we apply this in our personal and professional life?

In all the dealings with others, we shall give appreciation to others to endorse their positive actions, or we can give feedback to help others to improve.This is what expected in all relationships implicitly!