Concept File 2: Section II: Reading 10-14T551: Primer Reading: Revision

T552: Appendix A2.3 (Multiple Cause Diagram)+ Practice+ Revision on

diagramms

Reading 10 How the ‘self-concept’ develops

10.1 Socialization

One of the basic ways of understanding what actual motives or values a person will have is to examine the kinds of socialization experiences that person has undergone at various stages of life.

The process of self-formation continues throughout life.

Dealing with disapproval

The formation of the personality is a complex conflict-resolution process, that much of the conflict is unobservable, and that surface motives or values are not always consistent with underlying needs and drives.

The ego-ideal

The ego-ideal or self-ideal, that set of goals and values toward which we aspire and that set of criteria we use to measure how we are doing in life.

The ego-ideal is a learned part of the self that reflects the values in the broader culture, the norms of the subculture or socio-economic group, the community, and, most importantly, the values within the family itself.

The importance of self-esteem

The ultimate motivator for human adults, can be the need to maintain and develop one’s self-concept and one’s self-esteem.

We do things which are consistent with how we see ourselves; we avoid things which are inconsistent with how we see ourselves;

10.2 Self-development

New feelings and impulses that arise from within and may or may not fit our self-concept. These new perceptions must then be integrated, denied, or in some other way dealt with.

Such times can be constructive and growth producing or constrictive and limiting, depending upon the person’s ability to cope and upon the environment’s ability to provide growth opportunities.

Implications for organizational life

The lesson for the leader or manager is that each subordinate is a complex human being capable of a broad range of responses who is constantly trying to structure situations to make subjective sense.

Reading 11: Contracts and roles11.1. Contracts Different types of contracts determine and shape the

relationship between employers and their employees.

1. The formal contract usually specifies basic elements such as work obligations, working hours, pay, and arrangements

in case of illness. The formal contract is inadequate to describe the total

employer-employee relationship.

1. The informal contract this semi-public contract assumed to exist between employees and the organization.

2. Contains some clauses which are common for all types of employment and which derive from social norms and other

clauses which are specific for a particular job (attire requirements, flexibility in working hours).

Many aspects of the informal contract are explicitly known by the parties involved and allow some flexibility in their relationship.

3. The psychological contract is largely hidden where its components are not explicitly known by both sides and which, might include the attitudes and expectations, sometimes unconscious, that each side has of the other.

Those are usually derived from deeply held attitudes about “willingness to work”, and “being treated properly”.

Employee psychological contract may involve such things as expectations about monetary rewards and recompense, promotion prospects, security of employment, and being treated as a dignified adult.

Organization it includes its expectations from its employees to be loyal, to enhance its image, and from time to time to make personal sacrifices in order to promote its goals.

Breaching the psychological contract Because its terms are not clearly and openly agreed upon

by the two parties, the psychological contract may be deliberately or mistakenly breached.

When and if this happens there are serious implications:

a. If the organization’s attitude to employees doesn’t match with how the employees see themselves, then

they won’t contribute their psychological energy to the enterprise

b. The feelings aroused by breaches of this contract are usually very intense on both sides.

c. When the breach is about an issue that is largely unconscious, then it is unlikely that it will be

included in the negotiations to resolve it, which might increase the sense of resentment and frustration

on each part towards the other.

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Employees emotional and social needs being

unrecognized

Employees expectations being frustrated

A breach in the psychological contract occurs that is neither fully

recognized nor voiced

Negotiations to focus on aspects of the formal contract

Managers belief that employees only want money to be reinforced

Managers to adopt a more rational-economic management

style

If employees are to be motivated to meet the organization’s goals, the management needs to recognize the psychological contracts that are operating from within in order to develop shared expectations (between management and employees).

11.2. RolesA role is a set of expectations held by the person

concerned and those he or she interacts with about the behaviors appropriate in a given situation and the contribution to be made to that situation.

People play many roles in their working relationships with others and in their lives as a whole.

The roles people are expected to perform can be defined by three different characteristics:

1. The actual tasks that they and the organization have to undertake have their own momentum and logic, which will shape the roles and relationships required

and available.

2. The wider expectations of how roles are to be performed will be strongly influenced by the

demands made by others in the organization, demands which often result in role conflict and role

ambiguity.

3. The pull created by the role-player’s own needs, dispositions and aspirations, what they are

capable of, what they wish to do, what they are enjoying

Reading 12: Self-sealing/self-full-filing behaviorNormally people are satisfied with using one approach

and attempting to solve any problem situation from one perspective (that is their own perspective).

A mental trap occurs when an individual’s way of thinking prevents him from seeing a solution that is obvious once a different way of thinking is adopted

One very important aspect of most systems work involves being open to new and different perspectives on

other participants and situations.

This involves reflecting on our own beliefs and feelings and is crucial because our feelings and beliefs

shape our perceptions and understanding of the situations and influence our behavior towards it and

towards other people involved in it.

12.2 Personal constructs and relationships

People tend to have a conceptual framework that shapes the way they receive and interpret information

relating to any situation.

Those frameworks are largely influenced and shaped by our culture and upbringing.

While people in any society have some common values they also have some profound differences.

Conceptual frameworks are always evolving and changing.

Recognize that other people’s perceptions of a situation may be different and may have something

useful to contribute to an overall understanding.

In our personal relationships with others, our own beliefs and idea’s of those people shape how we relate to them.

The emerging relationship is the interplay of the beliefs, ideas, and perceptions that two people have of each other.

This relationship dynamic tends to reinforce people’s views of each other.

The most common disabling features of many relationship dynamics are: Criticalness, Blame, and Guilt.

These aspects are widespread in our culture and shape how we view ourselves and how we view others, and often lead to

self-sealing and self-fulfilling patterns in our relationships.

12.3 Criticalness, Blame and Guilt Criticalness is always based upon not accepting

something about oneself.

Criticalness has a (negative) emotional overtone which leaves the critical person annoyed and judgmental, and the criticized person feeling diminished or demeaned in some way.

Criticalness is different from Correction which has a more positive/supportive overtone.

A person is only critical of that in others which they have not yet accepted about themselves because it is still unconscious.

Criticalness indicates a specific item of non-acceptance about oneself.

The key steps in approaching criticalness in oneself are:

1.Notice as precisely as you can what exactly it is that you are critical of.

2.Reflect on when you have done, or wanted to do, something similar

3.Recognize the aspect of yourself that you are not accepting that lies at the root of your criticalness

4.Work on accepting this aspect of yourself or modifying your own behavior

BlameBlame is the attribution of responsibility for

something (wrong or negative) to another personBlame is destructive of all sorts of relationships

Blame has two consequences:

1. It makes one powerless in the situation, which creates a defensive relationship.

2. It inhibits learning from mistakes since there is no recognition of guilt or wrong doing

GuiltThe most common form of guilt arises from blaming

oneself.

It has the effect of reinforcing a negative self-image and also inhibits learning.

When trying to make progress in developing skills and ways of avoiding these particular traps it is important to start by accepting oneself as one is and to aim to make only small changes at a time.

Section III CommunicationReading 13

A useful strategy for improving relationships is to:

1.Have a robust framework for thinking about relationships

2.Apply it to yourself to discover how you can trigger the responses you get and to understand why these feel unsatisfactory

3.Use this self understanding to set about relating to others in a different way

13.1. Adult, Parent and ChildEric Berne’s theory of “transactional and structural

analysis” (TA)

The central feature of TA is the observation that there seem to be 3 major sub-personalities that can be involved when

you interact with someone else, the adult, the parent and the child.

In TA the adult is considered to be the computer-like part of your behavior that is concerned with external reality,

collecting information about your environment, solving problems, making estimates and plausible

guesses.

Everyone has an adult, even small children, but obviously the adult skills vary with age.

The adult is the part of us that “grows up” as we get older, whereas in an important sense the parent and the child do

not they develop early on, and then stay with you largely unchanged.

• The TA parent consists mainly of patterns laid down in the first three or four years of life, as a result of the young child copying

the people in its environment that are most important to it (its parents).

• This stage is very important because children are receptive, vulnerable and uncritical, so the basic foundation that directs

the growth of our value system is established

•The TA Child is the biological core of who we are, it is the only system operating at birth and it provides the basic drives,

emotions, feelings and energy.

•The other two personalities are its agents or tools, the parent keeping it on the rails culturally, and the adult trying to solve

its problems and satisfy its needs.

A useful way to distinguish between these three subsystems, assumed to exist within each individual, is to remember that the

key phrase of the adult is to “I think I could do X’,

the key phrase of the Parent is “I ought to do X”,

and

the key phrase of the child is “I want X”.

13.3. Simple transactions

Transactions should be viewed holistically.

Words or gestures are only a part of what is really a complete behavioral unit involving context, posture,

feelings and so on.

13.4. Crossed and complementary transactionsIf a transaction is to work there must be agreement about which

sub-personality is talking to which.

If someone is feeling pathetic and inadequate, they may want you to be strong and supportive, that is, their child is talking

to your parent, and wants your parent to talk back to their child.

If this works, you have a smoothly running complementary or parallel transaction in which each side plays its role

correctly.

If crossed transactions do not result in a smooth transition, the result is at very least a sense of embarrassment or irritation,

which can grow to frustration and inability to see eye to eye on issues.

This is what makes crossed transactions a major source of apparently irrational behavior

13.4. Double messagesIn addition to getting messages crossed, we can also

create confusion by giving double (or sometimes treble) messages.

Typically there is one explicit and clear spoken message forming one level of transaction, and a

second implied or implicit level communicated by non-verbal means, called the ulterior transaction.

Reading 14: Active ListeningThe meaning of Active Listening: One basic

responsibility of the supervisor is the development, adjustment, and integration of individual employees.

To do this the manager must have, the ability to listen actively to those with whom he or she works this involves:

Trying actively to grasp the facts and the feelings in what is said, and trying by paying attention to help the speaker

work out his or her own problems.

To repeat or feedback to the speaker, in the listener’s own words, the content that has been understood by the listener.

To be an active listener the person must be genuinely interested in the issues and problems which may be the

content of the communication.

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14.1. What we Achieve by Listening?

Listening brings about changes in people’s attitudes toward themselves & others, and also brings about changes in their basic values & personal philosophy.

People who have been listened to become more emotionally mature, more open to their experiences, less defensive, more democratic, and less authoritarian.

By listening to a speaker you convey the message that you respect them, even if you don’t agree with them you are at least trying to understand them.

14.2. What to avoid?Avoid trying to make the other person see the situation

the way we see it and feel about it. (this actually responds to our own need to see the world in certain ways).

Instead we need to listen with understanding in order to be able to implement the most potent agent of change

Avoid responding to the speakers demands for judgment, decisions or evaluations (passing judgment whether critical or favorable makes free discussion difficult)

14.3. What to do?To listen actively we must:

Listen for total meaningRespond to feelingsNote all cuesFeedback in your own words

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Listening for total meaningAny message a person tries to communicate

usually has two components:

the content of the message and the feeling or attitude underlying this content.

Both are important, both give the message meaning.

It is this total meaning of the message that we must try to understand.

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Responding to feelingsIn some instances the content is far less

important than the feeling which underlies it.

To catch the full flavor or meaning of the message one must respond particularly to the feeling component.

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Noting all cues

Not all communication is verbal.

The speaker’s words alone don’t tell us everything that is being communicated.

Truly sensitive listening requires that we become aware of several kinds of communication besides verbal (voice tone, facial expressions, body posture, hand movements) can all help to convey the total message.

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Feeding-back in your own words

Once you have fully received a communication then reflect on its total content, and then using your own words, repeat back to the speaker what you have understood them to say.

When you do this correctly they will respond with gratitude, for they will know that they have been truly heard and understood.

Also you should seek confirmation from the speaker that they have been correctly understood.

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T552: DiagrammingA2.3. Multiple cause diagrams

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Purpose: Used to explore why a given event happened or why

a certain class of events tends to occur.

Is not intended to predict behavior.

Useful for finding out why something went wrong or keeps recurring.

Can be derived from an influence diagram or developed anew!

Elements: System boundary (optional); Phrases; Arrows [which may be occasionally labeled]; Title.

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3. Conventions:

1. Inclusion of a system boundary is optional but recommended.

2. The phrases (aaa, bbb, etc.) relate to a state or an event e.g. ‘flat battery’ or ‘battery goes flat’ however, as the diagram is developed, it’s preferable to describe these factors in terms of a variable e.g. ‘amount of charge in battery’.

3. Arrows indicate the causal connections between the phrases, & are read as: phrase at tail of arrow causes phrase at head of arrow

4. In a more developed diagram, with variables rather than state, the arrow is better read as ‘affects’

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Length of time lightsare left on

Amount of chargein battery

affects

Lights are left on

Battery to fail

causes

5. In general, arrows are not labeled. However, it is acceptable to do so if you whish to add info about the type of causal connection,

6. The chain of causal connections may be entirely sequential, or it may include loops.

7. A title defining the system of interest is essential.

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1. In constructing such a diagram you normally begin at the factor/event to be explained and work backwards.

2. It is not necessary to put blobs around phrases, although you can if it improves clarity.

3. It helps in checking a draft

4. Take care not to combine 2 factors into one e.g. “battery is flat and car won’t start”. This can prevent you identifying differences in their causes & consequences.

To ensure that each individual relationshipmakes sense.

4. Guidelines:

5. This type of diagram does not distinguish between necessary and/or sufficient causes (e.g. Event aaa and Event bbb may both be necessary if Event ccc is to occur).

6. It’s not essential to indicate a system boundary especially if it had been developed from an influence diagram

7. It is important to remember that this type of diagram (while superficially resembling an influence diagram) is different in that:

(in multiple cause diagrams): the words at either end of an arrow represent events that may happen or values that may change.

A2.4. Sign graphs

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1. Purpose:

Are used to represent & investigate the relationships between variables in a given situation.

In particular, to identify feedback loops.

Are good for thinking about the likely effects of changes and, in particular, of interventions in systems.

Can be developed directly from a multiple cause diagram.

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2. Elements:

Phrases; Arrows labeled with either a plus or a minus

sign; Title.

3. Conventions:

The phrases shown refer to variables,

In the phrases do not use “more/less” or “increase/decrease”.

Use a minus sign by an arrow where a change in the variable at the tail of arrow produces an opposite change in the variable at the head.

Use a plus sign by an arrow where a change in the variable at the tail produces a similar change in the variable at the head.

A system boundary can be used (but is usually not included).

A title is essential to define the system of interest

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Appendix: 1. A.1.1 (Spray diagram) 2. A.1.3 (Rich Picture)3. A.2.1 (System Maps)4. A.2.2 (Influence Diagram)5. A.2.3 (Multiple Cause Diagram)6. A.2.4 (Sign Graph)

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