value of emotional

When you discuss individual differences among your friends, you might start by talking about your presonalities, or skills and abilities. We’ll do the same. In the chapter that follows we will discuss these and other differences. We will also discuss emotions, which we consider a key individual level process in response to personal and environmental inputs. By the end of the chapter you will have a much greater understanding of how individual differences and emotions affect a host of outcomes at the individual and group levels of OB. You also will learn some practical tips on how to use this knowledge to improve your success at school, at work, and in your larger life. Page 73 winning at work TO START FAST AND START RIGHT, BE PROACTIVE IN YOUR FIRST 30 DAYS Shannon Deegan, director of People Operations at Google, said: “We tell employees, ‘You own your career.’ . . . If an employee loves part of a job yet wanted to do it on a different team, ‘it’s cool,’ he says.”1 This is a loud endorsement for proactivity at work. And while you may never work for Google, you can still benefit from his advice. Being proactive is a benefit in many arenas of life and can be especially beneficial when starting a new job. Don’t count on your employer to do all the work in the early stages, or onboarding process, of a new job. We’ve listed seven recommendations to help you start fast and start right. SOURCE: From Jennifer King, “6 Things New Hires Should Do in the First 30 Days,” SoftwareAdvice.com, http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/new-hire-check-list-1071312/. Reprinted with permission. 1.Come Up with Your Elevator Pitch. You only get one chance to make a first impression. So, before you start introducing yourself to everyone, figure out what you’re going to say when you meet them. 2.Understand Your Role and How You’ll Be Evaluated. The responsibilities of the job you were hired for could change by the time you start work. Reach out to your manager about what may have changed and make sure you have a clear understanding of your current role, responsibilities, and authority before you take on any projects. 3.Learn the Business. Before you can begin to contribute to an organization, you need to figure out how the company works. How does your company do business? What are its objectives? 4.Interview Your Boss. The key to being a successful new employee is helping your boss be successful. Find out what keeps your boss up at night and come up with creative ways to alleviate those worries. 5.Be Ambitious, but Have Restraint. You might be eager to start contributing right away and fixing everything you see wrong with the organization. That intention is good, but tread lightly. As a new hire you won’t have the historical context about why a policy or process may or may not need fixing. 6.Be Proactive about Your Onboarding. One day of orientation and a meet and greet with your team may be the extent of your company’s onboarding program. If so, be proactive with your managers about their training plan and what you need to accomplish in your first three months on the job.2 7.Problem Solve. When problems arise, or seem likely, proactive people take action—they don’t wait to be asked. Such characteristics are even more important given that 38 percent of companies reported doing three days or less of onboarding or orienting new employees, 54 percent did little or no follow-up, and 67 percent collected little to no feedback from new employees.3 The lesson: you are often on your own! But proactivity continues to yield benefits. A study showed that the three most common traits of successful CEOs are persistence, efficiency, and proactivity.4 Proactive people also tend to have more career success (as measured by promotions and raises), innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.5 FOR YOUWHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER You’ll explore individual differences (IDs), which are the many attributes that distinguish all of us from one another. Understanding IDs is critical to the effective application of OB knowledge and tools. This is why we introduce IDs early in the book as an input in the Integrative Framework of OB. A more thorough understanding of IDs will help you manage these differences for your job and career success. For managers, recognition of such differences is fundamental to attracting, motivating, retaining, and improving the performance of others. Your exploration of IDs begins with an explanation of the relative stability of these differences. Next, you’ll delve into a subset of individual differences found to be particularly important in the work context and supported by research: (1) intelligence, (2) cognitive abilities, (3) personality, (4) core self-evaluations, (5) attitudes (covered in Chapter 2), and (6) emotions (including emotional intelligence). Knowledge of IDs enables you to more effectively solve problems and manage individual, group, and organizational outcomes at school, work, and home. Page 74 3.1THE DIFFERENCES MATTER MAJOR QUESTION How does understanding the relative stability of individual differences benefit me? THE BIGGER PICTURE You undoubtedly notice changes in your friends’ behaviors when they are in different situations (in class vs. a tailgating party) or circumstances (cramming for an exam or coping with a new job). However, what you probably don’t pay much attention to are the characteristics and behaviors that don’t change. To help you understand and use this knowledge, you’ll see that we arrange many individual attributes on a continuum of their relative stability. At one extreme are relatively fixed traits (like intelligence), and at the other extreme are more flexible states (like emotions), with various trait-like and state-like characteristics in between. A sharper understanding of individual differences in this spot will help you manage these differences for your job and career success. For managers, recognition of such differences is fundamental to attracting, motivating, retaining, and improving the performance of others. Individual differences (IDs) is a broad category used to collectively describe the vast number of attributes (for example, traits and behaviors) that describe you as a person. So what is it that makes us different? Is it our genetics or our environment? The answer is both. And while how you are raised, along with your experiences and opportunities, indeed helps shape who you are, a large volume of research on twins suggests that genetics matter more. But what is more important at work is recognizing the many attributes that make us who were are, regardless of whether these characteristics are due to genetics or how we are raised. Like the importance of dealing with diversity discussed in Chapter 2, effective employees and managers must understand and utilize the many individual differences possessed by those with whom we work. IDs therefore are fundamental to OB and your personal success at work, school, and the other arenas of your life. To help you understand and apply knowledge about IDs, we organize and discuss them according to Figure 3.1. On the left-hand side of Figure 3.1 you’ll notice that we arrange individual differences on a continuum from top to bottom. At the top are intelligence and mental abilities, which are relatively fixed. This means they are stable over time and across situations and difficult to change. At the bottom are attitudes (which we discussed in Chapter 2) and emotions, which are relatively flexible. Emotions change over time, from situation to situation, and can be altered more easily. The right-hand side of the figure previews some of the workplace outcomes we will encounter in the chapter. The distinction between relatively fixed and flexible individual differences has great practical value for managers. Wise managers know they have little or no impact on fixed IDs. You can’t change an employee’s level of intelligence or remake an employee’s personality.6 But you can help employees manage their attitudes and emotions. For instance, many effective managers (and their employers) select employees based on positive, job-relevant, but relatively stable IDs. This enables managers to capitalize on the personal strengths that someone brings to a job because these stable strengths affect behavior and performance in most every work situation.7 Intelligence and analytical abilities, for example, are beneficial in front of customers, in teams with coworkers, and working alone on a project. Page 75 FIGURE 3.1RELATIVE STABILITY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES In contrast, managers have more influence on relatively flexible IDs that influence individual-level work outcomes. This implies that managers are more likely to influence individual-level work outcomes, like performance and job satisfaction, by implementing different policies and practices that positively impact employees’ core self-evaluations, attitudes, and emotions. For example, as a manager you’d likely be better off assigning employees who are open to experience (a dimensions of the Big Five personality framework you’ll learn about later in this chapter) to jobs involving new products and new markets than employees with low levels of this attribute. Similarly, you could help build new employees’ self-efficacy (another ID you’ll learn about) for selling to tough customers if you role model how to do this effectively, give them experience presenting to “easy customers” first, and give them verbal encouragement before and constructive feedback after. You will explore a number of related OB theories, concepts, and tools in Chapters 6 (performance management), 10 (conflict and negotiation), and 12 (power and influence) that you can use for this purpose. Page 76 3.2INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY THAN IQ MAJOR QUESTION How do multiple intelligences affect my performance? THE BIGGER PICTURE You may be smarter than you think you are. You may already know your IQ, and your grades may also reflect intellectual intelligence. But you can be intelligent in other ways too. We explain various forms of intelligence because all are inputs to the Integrative Framework and affect your performance. Although experts do not agree on a specific definition, many say intelligence represents an individual’s capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Most people think of intelligence in terms of intelligence quotient or IQ, the famous score from tests taken as a child. Thus many people typically view intelligence and IQ as one, big attribute of brainpower. However, intelligence, intelligence testing (IQ), and related research are more complex. The concept of intelligence has expanded over the years and more often is thought of and discussed in terms of general mental abilities. Of course, people are different in terms of such abilities, but this isn’t what is important at work. What is important is to understand intelligence or mental abilities so you can manage people more effectively. Put another way, the reason we highlight intelligence and mental abilities is because they are related to performance.8 This section provides a brief overview of intelligence and mental abilities and then highlights practical implications. Intelligence Matters . . . And We Have More Than We Think Do you agree with the definition of intelligence above? Historically, intelligence was believed to be purely genetic—something passed from one generation to another—you’re either born “smart” or you’re not. Do you agree with this belief? What are the implications of believing that intelligence is a gift of birth? Regardless of your personal views, research has shown that intelligence, like personality, can be altered or modified in a number of ways.9 Think about it. No matter who you are or your starting point (e.g., education or experience), if you engage in more constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving, you will get better at these. You’ll be more intelligent. If you buy this argument, then after reading this book and studying OB you’ll be more intelligent due to practicing critical thinking and problem solving. (As the authors, we’d certainly like to think so.) Unfortunately, however, research in children also shows that this is a two-way street. Your intellectual development can also be damaged or diminished by organic factors, such as drugs, alcohol, and poor nutrition.10 Do I Think I’m More Intelligent Than My Parents?If you answer, yes, to this question, then research might just support such a claim. A steady and significant rise in average intelligence among those in developed countries has been observed over the last 70 years. Why? Experts at an American Psychological Association conference concluded, “Some combination of better schooling, improved socioeconomic status, healthier nutrition, and a more technologically complex society might account for the gains in IQ scores.”11 So, if you think you’re smarter than your parents and your teachers, despite them saying you don’t know important facts that they do, then you’re probably right! Page 77 Dr. Evangelo Katsioulis reportedly has an IQ of 198—the highest in the world. He is a Greek psychiatrist and has degrees in philosophy, psychopharmacology, and research technology. Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson’s is 160, the same as physicist Stephen Hawking and movie director Quentin Tarantino. People who score less than 70 are identified as intellectually disabled; over 130, gifted; and over 165, genius. Two-thirds of people score in the normal range of 85–115. Multiple Intelligences (MI)While many people think of intelligence in general terms, such as IQ, it is more common and practical to think in terms of multiple intelligences or intelligence for something specific. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, investigated this issue for years and summarized his findings in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.12 The eight different intelligences he identified include not only mental abilities but social and physical abilities and skills as well. See Table 3.1. Practical IntelligenceWe can draw practical benefits from Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences. For instance, Yale’s Robert J. Sternberg applied Gardner’s “naturalist intelligence” to the domain of leadership under the heading practical intelligence. He explains: “Practical intelligence is the ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing knowledge gained from experience in order to purposefully adapt to, shape, and select environments. It thus involves changing oneself to suit the environment (adaptation), changing the environment to suit oneself (shaping), or finding a new environment within which to work (selection). One uses these skills to (a) manage oneself, (b) manage others, and (c) manage tasks.”13 Page 78 TABLE 3.1GARDNER’S EIGHT INTELLIGENCES TYPE OF INTELLIGENCE EXAMPLE Linguistic intelligence: potential to learn and use spoken and written languages. If you are European, or at least traveled to Europe, then you could argue that the multilingual people born and raised there have developed much higher levels of linguistic intelligence than most people born and raised in the United States. The same holds true for parts of Africa and Asia and other pockets of the world. Logical-mathematical intelligence: potential for deductive reasoning, problem analysis, and mathematical calculation. Did this intelligence help or hurt you on your college entrance exam? Musical intelligence: potential to appreciate, compose, and perform music. Do you play the guitar? Have you heard Tony MacAlpine? He is widely considered to be a guitar virtuoso. If you were to measure this form of intelligence, then his musical intelligence score is likely high. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: potential to use mind and body to coordinate physical movement. LeBron James, besides being in the top 1% in terms of height, clearly has masterful control of his body compared to most any athlete, any size, any sport, and any level. Spatial intelligence: potential to recognize and use patterns. Fighter pilots are excellent examples. Interpersonal intelligence: potential to understand, connect with, and effectively work with others. Compare Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) to Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle). Critics see the first as approachable and friendly, the second as arrogant. Intrapersonal intelligence: potential to understand and regulate oneself. Any president of the United States. It requires incredible self-awareness and control to endure the constant criticism. Naturalist intelligence: potential to live in harmony with one’s environment. The Dali Lama comes to mind. But for people more mainstream, John Mackey of Whole Foods and the late Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc. epitomize this form of intelligence. Others believe the concept of multiple intelligences has important implications for employee selection, training, and performance. The implication is that one-size-fits-all training programs fall short when diversity of intelligences is taken into consideration. Near the end of this chapter, you will encounter the concept of emotional intelligence, which can be used for selection and other purposes. We look forward to breakthroughs in this area as the field of multiple intelligences attracts more OB researchers and practicing managers. TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP Using the list of Intelligences In Table 3.1 and discussed above, 1.Which do you think are your strongest? Weakest? 2.Which do you think are most important for this course? Your current, last, and most desired jobs? 3.Which do you think are least important? 4.Describe how you could use this knowledge to improve your performance in this class (and your job if you’re working). Page 79 Practical Implications Many people (e.g., educators and parents) have embraced multiple intelligences because it helps explain how a child could score poorly on a standard IQ test yet be obviously gifted in one or more ways (e.g., music, sports, or relationship building). It then follows that the concept of multiple intelligences underscores the need to help each child develop in his or her own unique way and at his or her own pace. Many people make the same arguments about college students and employees. Of course, everybody has strengths and weaknesses. But practically what is important is to identify intelligences relevant to the job, and then select, place, and develop individuals accordingly. What is your view? Do you see any value in intelligence tests at work? Why or why not? Not Just Kid StuffThe interest in improving intelligence now goes far beyond children and child development. Recently, companies such as Lumosity, Cogmed, and even Nintendo have touted and profited from the idea that adult intelligence can be increased. Either through games or training, subjects and customers have been shown to improve scores on IQ and other related tests. One piece of evidence to support their case is a study that showed a six-point boost on an IQ test. Researchers, however, recommend caution. They note that intelligence is still largely a fixed trait, and that improvements are modest and typically the result of intensive, long-term interventions. Psychology professor David Hambrick of Michigan State University put it this way: “Demonstrating that subjects are better on one reasoning test after cognitive training doesn’t establish that they are smarter. It merely establishes that they’re better on one reasoning test.”14 This seems to suggest that “pure intellectual heft is like someone who can bench-press a thousand pounds. But so what, if you don’t know what to do with it?”15 Some Proof?Regardless of your personal view on the practical value of intelligence at school or work, the following Example box offers a couple compelling endorsements for the importance of mental abilities and IQ. EXAMPLESmarts and Money Intelligence in its various forms is important because of its link to performance. For example, a study of stock traders in Finland revealed that those with high IQs are more likely to: (1) sell losing stocks, (2) engage in tax-loss selling, and (3) hold stocks at 30-day highs—all desirable. Performance also was better than that for their low IQ counterparts, by as much as 2.2 percent per year.16 NFL—INTELLIGENCE TESTING?Yes, not only does the National Football League have an employment test for players, but they’ve been using one since the 1970s! This began with the Dallas Cowboys using the popular Wonderlic test (50 questions with a 12-minute time limit). Now, many teams have developed and used their own. The belief is that test scores will help identify players who will get along with teammates, those who will make it to meetings on time, and how best to teach them the playbook (e.g., in written form, visual aids, or on-the-field demonstration).17 BE SMART AND PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENTSBoth financial advisors and professional football teams make multimillion-dollar investments—the former in stocks and the latter in football players. It seems that powerful people in both industries believe that intelligence matters. YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.When interviewing financial advisors, would you compare IQs? If you were the coach, GM, or owner of a professional sports team, would you use intelligence testing? In each case, why or why not? 2.If you were a hiring manager for your company, how much weight would you give intellectual intelligence? 3.Would you require an IQ test? Explain your answers. Page 80 3.3PERSONALITY, OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS MAJOR QUESTION How does my personality affect my performance? THE BIGGER PICTURE You probably feel you know yourself better than anyone else, but you’re about to learn some tools to help you see how others see you. One such tool is the Big Five personality profile, which summarizes hundreds of personality traits into five categories. Another useful approach centers on proactivity. These tools will help you understand how you may be seen by others and understand the managerial implications of these characteristics. We explore these topics because personality is a fundamental driver of your behavior and performance at work, and it is an important input in the Integrative Framework of OB. Personality is defined as the combination of stable physical, behavioral, and mental characteristics that give individuals their unique identities. These characteristics or traits—including how one looks, thinks, acts, and feels—are the product of interacting genetic and environmental influences and are stable over time and across situations and cultures.18 Personality is a person input in the Integrative Framework. There Is More to Personality Than Liking and Fit You, like most people, may often think of personality in general “like/dislike” terms. For instance, if you’re asked to describe your professor for this class you might say: “She is great. I love her personality.” Or, if asked to describe your boss you might say: “He is a horrible individual, he is unethical, many of his colleagues won’t associate with him, and he is widely disrespected and should be fired.” Or if you are recruiting somebody for a job (or your fraternity/sorority) you might say: “I really like his/her personality . . . I think he/she will fit in great with the rest of us.” What Can I Do with “Like”?While “liking” and “fit” matter, these general and evaluative types of descriptions aren’t very useful from a management standpoint. To be more specific, assume you are a manager at a company or an officer in a fraternity or sorority and are planning to recruit new employees or pledges. If you only think of personality in terms of (dis)like and fit, what type of guidance would you give to your recruiters? “Go find people you like and be sure they fit.” Again, liking and fit of coworkers (or pledges) matter, but these are too general and too varied from one recruiter to the next. Moreover, because you like somebody doesn’t mean you should hire that person, that he or she will perform well, or that he or she will be a good person to add to your house. Page 81 Jeff Bezos (top) and Steve Jobs (bottom) were ranked #1 and #2 top performing CEOs by Harvard Business Review. Jobs was not known to be especially likeable, whereas Bezos is seen as relatively friendly, down to earth, and approachable. The lesson—don’t make too much of “likeable” personalities. If you started a company, you’d likely be delighted to have either Bezos or Jobs work for you! Be Precise to Be EffectiveThe challenge of being precise is part of what has motivated a tremendous amount of research in psychology and OB regarding personality. In other words, to be effective at managing people you need to be more precise and specific (and scientific) about personality. As with other IDs discussed in this chapter and throughout the book, what is needed are more precise definitions of what personality is and is not, how to measure it, and what effect it has on important processes and outcomes across levels of the Integrative Framework. The Big Five Personality Dimensions To meet this need, psychologists and researchers have distilled long and confusing lists of personality dimensions into what they call the Big Five Personality Dimensions. These are five basic dimensions that simplify more complex models of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.19 See Table 3.2. For example, someone scoring high on extraversion would be an extrovert, that is, outgoing, talkative, sociable, and assertive. Someone scoring low on emotional stability would tend to be nervous, tense, angry, and worried. A person’s scores on the Big Five reveal a personality profile as unique as his or her fingerprints. Complete Self-Assessment 3.1 to discover your own Big Five profile. In the process you’ll learn that there is more to personality than just being likeable or fitting in. This Self-Assessment will increase your self-awareness and illustrate some of the concepts we just described. Moreover, many companies use personality profiles for hiring and promotions. Your profile should provide some practical insights. TABLE 3.2CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONS SCORING HIGH ON THE FIVE DIMENSIONS The Big Five Personality Dimensions Personality Dimension 1. Extraversion Outgoing, talkative, sociable, assertive 2. Agreeableness Trusting, good-natured, cooperative, softhearted 3. Conscientiousness Dependable, responsible, achievement oriented, persistent 4. Emotional stability Relaxed, secure, unworried 5. Openness to experience Intellectual, imaginative, curious, broad-minded SOURCE: Adapted from M. R. Barrick and M. K. Mount, “Autonomy as a Moderator of the Relationships between the Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, February 1993, 111–118. Page 82 SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.1What Is My Big Five Personality Profile? Go to connect.mheducation.com and take Self-Assessment 3.1 to learn your Big Five personality profile. Then answer the questions below. 1.What are your reactions? Do you agree with the scores on your Big Five profile? 2.Which dimension(s) is (are) your highest? In which situations would this be most beneficial? 3.Which one or two dimensions do you think are likely the best predictor of managerial success? Which is the least? Explain. 4.Given your profile, describe the implications for working in teams at school and/or work. But one important question lingers: Are personality models unique to the culture in which they were developed? At least as far as the Big Five model goes, cross-cultural research evidence points in the direction of “no.” Specifically, the Big Five personality structure held up very well in a study of women and men from Russia, Canada, Hong Kong, Poland, Germany, and Finland.20 A comprehensive analysis of Big Five studies revealed: “To date, there is no compelling evidence that culture affects personality structure.”21 Proactive Personality A proactive personality is “someone who is relatively unconstrained by situational forces and who affects environmental change. Proactive people identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.”22 In short, people with proactive personalities are “hardwired” to change the status quo. It therefore is no surprise that this particular individual difference has received growing attention from both researchers and managers. Think about it. Companies, and their managers, routinely say they want employees who take initiative and are adaptable. Many argue that today’s hypercompetitive and fast-changing workplace requires such characteristics. In support of these desired traits, research shows that those with proactive personalities positively influence many of the work outcomes shown in Figure 3.1 (and later in Figure 3.4). For example, proactivity is related to increased performance, satisfaction, affective organizational commitment (genuine desire to remain a member of an organization), and social networking.23 Proactive ManagersWhat about your manager? Interesting recent work showed that the ideal scenario is for both you and your manager to be proactive. This results in a better fit and relationship between the two of you, and it also increases your level of job performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment.24 It also is important to know that the same study showed that the worst scenario in terms of performance was low proactivity for both you and your manager, followed by a highly proactive manager and a low proactivity follower. Thus proactivity is a highly valued characteristic in the eyes of employers. And being proactive has direct and indirect (via your manager) benefits for your performance. Given these facts, how proactive do you see yourself? How might you increase your proactivity? To help answer these questions, learn about your own proactivity, and explore some of potential benefits for you, complete Self-Assessment 3.2. Page 83 SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.2How Proactive Am I? Go to connect.mheducation.com and complete Self-Assessment 3.2. Compare your perceptions with your score, then answer the questions below. This knowledge can help you better understand and “sell” yourself in job interviews and at work. 1.Do you see a pattern between the questions on which you scored the highest? Lowest? 2.On those you scored the highest, what are the implications for your success in school? In other words, how can these aspects of your proactivity help you? 3.How can knowledge of your proactive personality score help you when you look for a job? Be specific. Proactivity and EntrepreneursSuccessful entrepreneurs often exemplify the proactive personality. Consider Rachel Coleman, who founded Two Little Hands Productions after discovering that her baby daughter was severely hearing impaired. Her company produces DVDs that teach American Sign Language to children. When Coleman learned of her daughter’s disability, she abandoned her career as a singer/songwriter, taught herself to sign, and began teaching children at local preschools. She and her sister made their first video just to teach others, but when the Today Show inquired, Coleman saw an opportunity and started building a business.25 Sal Khan’s Khan Academy, now world famous, provides Internet-based learning for nearly every scholastic subject under the sun. Here’s how it started. Khan, who has three graduate degrees, offered to help his cousin with one of her classes via the Internet. She learned, the word spread, and a company was born. Khan Academy now provides more than 4,000 different subject tutorials for free and has presented more than 240 million lessons.26 Some other fascinating statistics, shown in Table 3.3, highlight other notable individual differences of entrepreneurs. How do you match up? TABLE 3.3TAKING THE MEASURE OF ENTREPRENEURS 40 Average and median age 95.1% Have bachelor’s degrees 47% Have advanced degrees 71.5% Come from middle-class backgrounds <1% Come from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds 70% Used own savings as major source of funding 42.5% Were firstborn 3.1 Average number of siblings 51.9% First in family to start a business 69.9% Married when they launched first business 59.7% Had at least one child 73% Think luck is an important factor in the success of their venture SOURCE: “By the Numbers: Taking the Measure of Entrepreneurs,” The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2012. Page 84 In Table 3.3, it is worth noting that these are only averages, and if you do not possess these qualities you still can succeed as an entrepreneur. To help make this point, let’s explore the link between personality and performance. Personality and Performance Instead of simply assuming personality affects performance, let’s see what research has to say and how this can make you more effective. Let’s begin with the Big Five, as knowledge of these stable personality dimensions could assist in selecting the right people and assigning them responsibilities that will set them up to win. To this end, a study involving more than 20,000 employees from many professions showed that conscientiousness had the strongest (most positive) effects on job performance and training performance. According to the researchers, “those individuals who exhibit traits associated with a strong sense of purpose, obligation, and persistence generally perform better than those who do not.” They also tend to have higher job satisfaction.27 Another expected finding: Extraversion (an outgoing personality) was associated with success for managers and salespeople. Extraversion also was a stronger predictor of job performance than agreeableness, across all professions. The researchers concluded, “It appears that being courteous, trusting, straightforward, and softhearted has a smaller impact on job performance than being talkative, active, and assertive.”28 Besides increases in job performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment (as discussed in Chapter 2), proactive personality also is linked to intentions to be entrepreneurial. This really should not be surprising, but it is helpful to know that scientific OB research substantiates this belief. Building on this, employees with proactive personalities are more likely to be more engaged (again, see Chapter 2) and creative at work.29 Mr. Ambani is India’s richest man with much of his fortune coming from oil and gas. He is social, he and his wife throw extravagant parties, but at the same time he’s reclusive. He did his first interview in more than a decade in early 2013 with Fareed Zakaria. Page 85 Personality Testing at Work Personality testing as a tool for making decisions about hiring, training, and promotion is commonplace. A recent study by the Aberdeen Group, a human capital market research firm, found 53 percent of companies use some form of pre- and post-hiring assessments. Many of these are personality-type tests. According to the same study, 86 percent of “best in class” companies used assessments in the pre-hire stage.30 However, despite their widespread use, a panel of industrial-organizational psychologists concluded that the typical personality test is not a valid predictor of job performance.31 One reason might be that many test-takers don’t describe themselves accurately but instead try to guess what answers the employer is looking for. Another reason for the dismal results is that such tests are typically bought off the shelf and often given indiscriminately by people who aren’t trained or qualified. And while rigorous research shows that personality actually is related to performance, the effects are small. Moreover, and more importantly perhaps, the fact is that personality tests are designed to measure personality, not what individual differences are needed to perform at a high level in a particular job. This means that managers need different and better ways to measure personality if they want to select employees based on performance-conducive personality traits. Managers are therefore wise to learn about personality and tools used to measure it before investing in and/or utilizing the data from such tests. Table 3.4 provides some insights. TABLE 3.4ADVICE AND WORDS OF CAUTION ABOUT PERSONALITY TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE Researchers, test developers, and organizations that administer personality assessments offer the following suggestions for getting started with testing or for evaluating whether tests already in use are appropriate for forecasting job performance: •Determine what you hope to accomplish. If you are looking to find the best fit between a job and applicant, analyze the aspects of the position that are most critical for it. •Look for outside help to determine if a test exists or can be developed to screen applicants for the traits that best fit the position. Industrial psychologists, professional organizations, and a number of Internet sites provide resources. •Insist that any test recommended by a consultant or vendor be validated scientifically for the specific purpose that you have defined. Vendors should be able to cite some independent, credible research supporting a test’s correlation with job performance. •Ask the test provider to document the legal basis for any assessment: Is it fair? Is it job-related? Is it biased against any racial or ethnic group? Does it violate an applicant’s right to privacy under state or federal laws? Get legal advice to assure that a test does not adversely affect any protected class. •Make sure that every staff member who will be administering tests or analyzing results is educated about how to do so properly and keeps results confidential. Use the scores on personality tests with other factors you believe are important to the job—such as skills and experience—to create a comprehensive evaluation of the merits of each candidate, and apply those criteria identically to each applicant. SOURCE: From S. Bates, “Personality Counts,” HR Magazine, February 2002, 34. Reprinted with permission of the Society for Human Resource Management (www.shrm.org), Alexandria, VA, publisher of HR Magazine.© SHRM. There Is No “Ideal Employee” Personality Given the complexity of today’s work environments, the diversity of today’s workforce, and recent research evidence, the quest for an ideal employee personality profile is sheer folly. Just as one shoe does not fit all people, one personality profile does not fit all job situations. Good management involves taking the time to get to know each employee’s unique combination of personality traits, abilities, and potential and then creating a productive and satisfying person-job fit. In other words, a contingency approach to managing people is best (recall the discussion of contingency in Chapter 1). Page 86 3.4CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW MY SELF-EFFICACY, SELF-ESTEEM, LOCUS OF CONTROL, AND EMOTIONAL STABILITY AFFECT MY PERFORMANCE MAJOR QUESTION How do self-evaluations affect my performance at work? THE BIGGER PICTURE You can significantly improve your self-awareness by understanding your core self-evaluations (CSEs). Such self-evaluations provide broad and useful ways to describe personality that comprise specific individual differences of self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional stability. CSEs and their component dimensions are more flexible than IQ but more stable than emotions. Your knowledge of CSEs can improve your performance at work, throughout your career, and in your larger life space. So far we’ve discussed both general and more narrow or specific individual differences (e.g., multiple intelligences). Knowledge and use of both general and specific approaches have benefits. A narrow concepts perspective enables you to more precisely describe individuals. Think about it: describing somebody in terms of musical intelligence or extraversion is more specific than using one’s general personality. To illustrate, a narrow concepts approach would conclude that it is more insightful to say that Steve Vai, a phenomenal progressive rock guitarist and favorite of one of your authors, has incredible musical intelligence than to say that he is intelligent. In contrast, using a broader perspective can enable you to more effectively predict behavior—“the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The rationale is that broader concepts provide a more comprehensive and practical account of an individual’s behavior.32 However, part of Vai’s guitar-playing prowess likely is due to other factors beyond his musical intelligence. While there is no clear answer regarding the accuracy of these two approaches, researchers have identified a broad or general personality concept that has significant relationships with a host of individual-level work outcomes included in Figure 3.1 and the Integrative Framework. It is called core self-evaluations (CSEs). Steve Vai studied with Joe Satriani and attended the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. Early in his career he transcribed music and played for the legendary musician Frank Zappa. He is widely considered a virtuoso and would be expected to score very highly on musical intelligence. What other intelligences might influence his guitar playing, composing, and song writing? People with high core self-evaluations see themselves as capable and effective. Core self-evaluations (CSEs) represent a broad personality trait comprised of four narrower and positive individual traits: (1) generalized self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, and (4) emotional stability. (See Figure 3.2.) This section discusses these component traits and highlights research and managerial implication for each separately. This is done because it is necessary to understand the component traits to comprehend CSEs and to fully appreciate the practical value. We conclude by comparing what we know about these individual traits with what research reveals about combining them into the broad concept of CSE. Page 87 FIGURE 3.2THE CORE SELF-EVALUATION AND ITS COMPONENTS Why should you care about CSEs? CSEs have desirable effects on outcomes such as increased job performance, job and life satisfaction, motivation, organizational citizenship behaviors, and better adjustment to international assignments.33 They are related to reduced conflict (Chapter 10) and lower stress (Chapter 16). CSEs also have been studied in the executive suite. A study of 129 CEOs and top management teams showed that CEOs with high core self-evaluations had a positive influence on their organization’s drive to take risks, innovate, and seek new opportunities. This effect was especially strong in dynamic business environments.34 Now let’s explore the component dimensions. Self-Efficacy—”I Can Do That” Have you noticed how those who are confident about their ability tend to succeed, while those who are preoccupied with failing tend to fail? At the heart of such performance differences is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or her chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task. Self-efficacy can be developed. Helpful nudges in the right direction from parents, role models, and mentors are central to the development of high self-efficacy. For example, a study of medical residents showed that guidance and social support from their mentors improved the resident’s clinical self-efficacy.35 Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, epitomizes self-efficacy. Not only is she the youngest self-made female billionaire, but her path to the top contained more failures than successes. She failed to get into law school, worked at Disney World, did stand-up comedy, and sold fax machines all before designing, making, and selling her modern and fashionable girdles out of her apartment and car. Think of some of your own “failures” and how you responded. How did this build your efficacy? Mechanisms of Self-EfficacyA detailed model of self-efficacy is shown in Figure 3.3. To apply this model, imagine you have been told to prepare and deliver a 10-minute talk to an OB class of 50 students on how to build self-efficacy. Part of your self-efficacy calculation would involve evaluating interaction between your personal capabilities and environmental characteristics, just as described in the Integrative Framework. Page 88 FIGURE 3.3SELF-EFFICACY PAVES THE WAY FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE SOURCES: Adapted from discussion in A. Bandura, “Regulation of Cognitive Processes through Perceived Self-Efficacy,” Developmental Psychology, September 1989, 729–735, and R. Wood and A. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory of Organizational Management,” Academy of Management Review, July 1989, 361–84. On the left-hand side of Figure 3.3, among the sources of self-efficacy beliefs, prior experience takes first position as the most potent of the four sources. This is why it connects to self-efficacy beliefs with a solid line. Past success in public speaking would boost your self-efficacy and bad experiences would diminish it. Other sources (behavior models, persuasion from others, and physical and emotional factors) might also affect your self-confidence. As weaker sources, they connect to beliefs with dashed lines in the figure. Your evaluation of the situation then would yield a self-efficacy belief—ranging from high to low expectations for success. Importantly, self-efficacy beliefs are not mere bravado; they are deep convictions supported by experience. Moving to the behavioral patterns right-hand portion of Figure 3.3, we see how self-efficacy beliefs are acted out. In short, if you have high self-efficacy about giving your 10-minute speech, you will work harder, more creatively, and longer when preparing for your talk than would a low-self-efficacy classmate. Better performance would follow. People program themselves for success or failure by enacting their self-efficacy expectations. Positive or negative results subsequently become feedback for one’s base of personal experience and future self-efficacy. Page 89 solving application How Can I See My Own Blind Spots to Build Efficacy and Effectiveness? A recent report on first-time leaders showed that 89 percent have blind spots, or areas in which they think they are capable but are not. There are many reasons for such disconnects, such as promoting technical experts who do not have management skill-sets, lack of training and preparation for managerial roles, and insufficient feedback to help reveal blind spots. All of the blind spots noted in this study are OB topics covered in this book. A first step toward seeing your own blind spots would be to reflect on those that are most common. Here are the three most common for technical experts who were recently promoted: 1.Guiding Interactions. Eighty-eight percent were “blind” in this area, which includes influencing meetings, conversations, and other communications in a productive manner to achieve objectives. 2.Coaching for Improvement. Sixty-nine percent were deficient in confronting and solving performance problems and developing others. These are skills that many organizations rarely practice, train, or develop. 3.Delegation. Sixty-eight percent are reluctant to let go of these responsibilities. Other common blind spots are problem solving (34%) and influencing others (27%). The first was covered in Chapter 1 and the latter will be in Chapter 12. Whatever the case, blind spots set new leaders up to fail. To avoid this, you are urged to identify and “unveil” your blind spots. Beyond considering those that are generally common, you can complete the Self-Assessments throughout this book.36 Another way is to seek feedback, a process that we discuss in detail in Chapter 6. YOUR CALL Stop 1:Review your Self-Assessments to date, and if you currently work, then consider soliciting feedback from coworkers to help identify any of your blind spots. Be sure to consider the common blind spots noted above. Then decide, what are two of your biggest blind spots? Stop 2:Which OB concepts help you explain these blind spots? Stop 3:How could you increase your efficacy in each? Be specific and use Figure 3.3 to help. Managerial ImplicationsSelf-efficacy has been extensively studied in the workplace. The data support a number of recommendations. As a general rule, managers are encouraged to nurture self-efficacy in themselves and in others because it is related to improved job performance and job satisfaction (both are important individual-level outcomes). See Table 3.5 for more examples. Self-Esteem—“Look in the Mirror” Self-esteem is your general belief about your own self-worth. Personal achievements and praise tend to bolster one’s self-esteem, while prolonged unemployment and destructive feedback tend to erode it. Self-esteem is measured by having people indicate their agreement or disagreement with both positive and negative statements about themselves. An example of a positive statement is, “I feel I am a person of worth, the equal of other people.” An example of a negative statement is, “I feel I do not have much to be proud of.” Those who agree with the positive statements and disagree with the negative statements have high self-esteem. They see themselves as worthwhile, capable, and accepted. People with low self-esteem view themselves in negative terms. They do not feel good about themselves and are hampered by self-doubts.37 Nationality, Life Span, and GenderSome have argued that self-esteem is largely a Western or even American concept. To address this allegation, researchers surveyed more than 13,000 students from 31 countries. They found that self-esteem and life satisfaction were moderately related on a global basis. However, the relationship was stronger in individualistic cultures (e.g., United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands) than in collectivist cultures (e.g., Korea, Kenya, and Japan). The reasoning is that individualistic cultures socialize people to focus more on themselves, while people in collectivist cultures “are socialized to fit into the community and to do their duty.”41 Page 90 TABLE 3.5WAYS TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE OF SELF-EFFICACY AT WORK APPLICATION EXPLANATION 1. Job Design Complex, challenging, and autonomous jobs tend to enhance perceived self-efficacy. Boring, tedious jobs generally do the opposite. 2. Training and Development Employees’ self-efficacy expectations for key tasks can be improved through guided experiences, mentoring, and role modeling. 3. Self-Management Systematic self-management training involves enhancement of self-efficacy expectations. 4. Goal Setting and Quality Improvement Goal difficulty needs to match the individual’s perceived self-efficacy.38 As self-efficacy and performance improve, goals and quality standards can be made more challenging. 5. Creativity Supportive managerial actions can enhance the strong linkage between self-efficacy beliefs and workplace creativity.39 6. Coaching Those with low self-efficacy and employees victimized by learned helplessness need lots of constructive pointers and positive feedback.40 7. Leadership Leadership talent surfaces when top management gives high self-efficacy managers a chance to prove themselves under pressure. Some notable practical recommendations: •Nationality—Global managers need to remember to deemphasize self-esteem when doing business in collectivist (“we”) cultures, as opposed to emphasizing it in individualistic (“me”) cultures. •Life-Span—You can expect your self-esteem to remain fairly stable over the course of your life, especially after age 30. •Gender—Differences between men and women are small at best. While this suggests that self-esteem is relatively consistent within cultures, over time, and for men and women, it begs the question: Can it be improved? Can Self-Esteem Be Improved?The short answer is “yes.” So if your self-esteem is lower than you’d like now, then don’t despair. For example, it has been shown that supportive clinical mentors improved medical residents’ self-esteem.42 But not everyone is convinced. Page 91 Many individual differences influence performance. Of those discussed so far in this chapter, which do you think are most important for surgeons? Would you rather have a surgeon with high self-efficacy or high self-esteem? Improving Self-Esteem to Improve Performance Case for: Researchers have found one method especially effective. “Low self-esteem can be raised more by having the person think of desirable characteristics possessed rather than of undesirable characteristics from which he or she is free.”43 Case against: Some researchers believe performing at a high level boosts your self-esteem, and not the other way round. Therefore, they reason it’s a mistake to focus on the self-esteem portion. We all know people who “talk big” but “deliver small,” and thus seem to suffer from delusions of competency. Our recommendation: Apply yourself to things that are important to you. If getting an A in your OB course affects your sense of self-worth, then you will be motivated to work harder and presumably perform better. Locus of Control: Who’s Responsible—Me or External Factors? Locus of control is a relatively stable personality characteristic that describes how much personal responsibility you take for your behavior and its consequences. People tend to attribute the causes of their behavior primarily to either themselves or environmental factors.44 (Recall our discussion of the person–environment distinction in Chapter 1.) Locus of control has two fundamental forms—internal and external. Internal Locus of ControlPeople who believe they control the events and consequences that affect their lives are said to possess an internal locus of control. For example, such a person tends to attribute positive outcomes to her or his own abilities. Similarly, an “internal” tends to blame negative events on personal shortcomings. Many entrepreneurs eventually succeed because their internal locus of control helps them overcome setbacks and disappointments.45 They see themselves as masters of their own fate and not as simply lucky. Accordingly, those who willingly take high-stakes jobs in the face of adversity (e.g., scandal or bankruptcy) likely have a high internal locus. Page 92 External Locus of ControlIn contrast, those who believe their performance is the product of circumstances beyond their immediate control possess an external locus of control and tend to attribute outcomes to environmental causes, such as luck or fate. Unlike someone with an internal locus of control, an “external” would attribute a passing grade on an exam to something external (e.g., an easy test) and attribute a failing grade to an unfair test or distractions at work. Locus in the WorkplaceInternals and externals differ greatly at work. Internals •Display greater work motivation •Have stronger expectations that effort leads to performance •Exhibit higher performance on tasks involving learning or problem solving, when performance leads to valued rewards •Derive more job satisfaction from performance Externals •Demonstrate less motivation for performance when offered valued rewards •Earn lower salaries and smaller salary increases •Tend to be more anxious46 Emotional Stability As described in our discussion of the Big Five and in Table 3.2, individuals with high levels of emotional stability tend to be relaxed, secure, unworried, and less likely to experience negative emotions under pressure. In contrast, if you have low levels of emotional stability you are prone to anxiety and tend to view the world negatively. How is this knowledge useful at work? Employees with high levels of emotional stability have been found to have higher job performance, perform more organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs—going above and beyond one’s job responsibilities), and exhibit fewer counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs—undermining your own or others’ work). Both OCBs and CWBs are discussed in Chapter 2, but all are individual-level outcomes illustrated in Figure 3.1 and the Integrative Framework. For an excellent illustration of emotional stability and how it impacts an individual’s professional and personal lives, see the Example box on the following page about Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Three Practical Considerations Regarding CSEs Before we leave CSEs, we’ll briefly touch on three areas of interest: •Is more of a CSE component always better? •Is the whole of the CSE components greater than its parts? •How can CSEs be used by managers? Is More Always Better?As with self-esteem, locus of control, and most other personality attributes, more emotional stability is not always better. Researchers found curvilinear, or inverted-U, relationships between emotional stability and outcomes. This suggests that as your emotional stability increases, so too will your job performance and OCBs, but only to a point. Effect on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). As emotional stability continues to increase, OCBs decline. The reasoning is that as emotional stability increases you focus your attention on the task at hand and your coworkers. Typically, a good thing. However, at a certain level emotional stability becomes problematic, too much of a good thing, and you are likely to begin obsessing over details and lose sight of the larger objectives and those with whom you work. The effect is similar for counterproductive work behaviors. Page 93 EXAMPLEA Female Wall Street Financial Chief Avoids the Pitfall That Stymied Others47 Ruth Porat is the current chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley and one of the most powerful women on Wall Street. She is not an accountant and has never worked in a finance department. However, she has effectively leveraged her Stanford economics degree and Wharton MBA. More impressive than this is that she has overcome many adversities during her rise to the corporate suite. NOT A CRASHShe started in finance in 1987 at Morgan Stanley, just before the market crashed. She survived and a few years later moved on to Smith Barney, a move she immediately regretted and feared ruined her career. Obviously it didn’t. In 1996 she made her way back to Morgan Stanley and eventually became a technology banker during the tech boom, and bust, of the late 1990s. NOT A BUBBLEPorat then transformed herself into a financial services banker and rode out the financial crisis of 2008–2010 and was named CFO of Morgan Stanley. Many of her colleagues on the Street cautioned her about her new role. They noted that the last two female CFOs for Wall Street firms—Erin Callan of Lehman and Sally Krawcheck of Citigroup—were casualties of the crisis. Worse still, Zoe Cruz, formerly a co-president at Morgan, also was kicked off the island. NOT EVEN CANCER AND CHILDBIRTHBut once again Porat was undaunted. Despite also weathering two bouts of breast cancer in the 2000s, she stayed the career course. Her colleagues recognize her as one of the smartest, hardest working, and most unshakeable people with whom they have worked. She even made client calls in the delivery room during the birth of her first child. She also insisted on finishing a business presentation while lying on a conference room table, after throwing her back out! Ruth Porat epitomizes emotional stability—relaxed, secure, and unworried! YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.What are the advantages and disadvantages of such high levels of emotional stability at school and work? 2.Do you think such a personality characteristic is necessary to be a successful executive on Wall Street? How do your answers change (if they do) for a female executive? 3.How would you evaluate Porat on the other three CSE traits of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and locus of control? The San Antonio Spurs once again beat the Miami Heat in the NBA Championship. This happened despite many people saying that Miami’s top three players—James, Wade, and Bosh—are the best threesome in the league. Can you think of non-sports examples, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? Effect on counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). Emotional stability buffered or protected participants against stressors at work (e.g., trouble with their supervisors, unfair policies, and too much work), such that they were less bothered and thus less likely to act out (commit CWBs). But there was a tipping point when the stress became too much and emotional stability could not prevent employees from committing CWBs. What is the lesson for you to take away? Emotional stability is an asset for many types of jobs, but it will only take you so far. Is the Whole of CSE Greater Than Its Parts?As shown in Figure 3.2, core self-evaluations are composed of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability. To clarify the value of a CSE as a whole versus its component traits, think of basketball as a metaphor. Page 94 Clearly a team outperforms any individual playing alone. Even the greatest player ever would have no chance against an entire team. The five greatest players ever, playing individually, still have no chance against an entire team. Individually they would never score! Thus the sum of their solo efforts would be zero. However, if you assembled a team of the five greatest players (you can debate this with a classmate—the authors have their own picks), they would likely perform very well. We don’t want to overemphasize the team concept that is addressed in detail in Chapter 8, but the combination of (talented) players in a team enables individual players to do things they couldn’t otherwise do on their own. Moreover, history tells us that teams with the best individual players (“all-star teams”) don’t win every game. The fact that such teams lose shows that indeed the whole is greater than the sum of the parts—for their competitors! The sum of the all-stars is less than the sum of their lesser competitors, at least sometimes. CSE and its component traits are much the same. Core self-evaluation is the team and the traits are the individual players—the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. How Can I Use CSEs?Especially in a managerial role, you can use knowledge of CSEs in many practical ways, such as: •Employee selection. It is more efficient to select using CSE as one, broad personality characteristic rather than its four component traits. Doing so also enables managers and employers to take advantage of the many beneficial outcomes described above. •Training. The training potential of CSEs is limited because most of its components are traitlike or relatively fixed (self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional stability). That said, self-efficacy is relatively more flexible than the other three components and thus can be enhanced as explained above. (Figure 3.3 is an excellent “how to” guide.) Before moving on, we encourage you to assess your own core self-evaluations in Self-Assessment 3.3. Knowledge of your CSEs helps you understand other components of your personality beyond the Big Five discussed and assessed earlier. Awareness of your self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus, and emotional stability can help guide many aspects of your work life, such as what types of jobs to look for and what types of development opportunities may be most useful for you. SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.3How Positively Do I See Myself? Measure Your Core Self-Evaluations and Find Out Go to connect.mheducation.com and take Self-Assessment 3.3 to learn your core self-evaluations. Once you know your score, then answer the questions below: 1.What is your CSE score? A score greater than 48 is high, between 36 and 48 moderate, and less than 36 low. 2.What are the implications for your performance in school? Work? 3.Now consider a scenario: You’re on a three-member team for a project in this class. This project requires research, a paper, and a presentation. Your CSE score is high, one team member’s is moderate, and the other’s is low. Describe the potential implications for how the three of you will work together and your ultimate performance on the paper and presentation. Let’s continue our discussion of IDs and learn about emotional intelligence (EI) next. EI is an increasingly popular OB concept, one that is relatively more flexible than CSEs and the others discussed thus far. Page 95 3.5THE VALUE OF BEING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT MAJOR QUESTION What is emotional intelligence and how does it help me? THE BIGGER PICTURE You may have already seen how the smartest people are not always the best people for the job. Smart or not, everybody performs better if they have emotional intelligence. When you understand the concept of emotional intelligence from an OB perspective, you’ll understand why it is an important person factor input in the Integrative Framework. As we know, people deal with their emotions in many different ways, which is one reason why we are discussing them in the chapter on individual differences. For a long time many people simply considered how well you manage your emotions as a matter of maturity. However, since the mid-1990s researchers, consultants, and managers have increasingly described emotional maturity using the phrase emotional intelligence (EI). What Is Emotional Intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor your own emotions and those of others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions. Referred to by some as EI (used in this book) and others as EQ, emotional intelligence is a mixture of personality and emotions and has four key components (see also Table 3.6): 1.Self-awareness 2.Self-management 3.Social awareness 4.Relationship management48 The first two constitute personal competence and the second two feed into social competence. Recall the discussion earlier in the chapter of inter- and intrapersonal intelligences described by Gardner. EI builds on this work, although scholars and consultants don’t always acknowledge this history or similarity. That said, you might wonder: “Why another type of intelligence, and how is EI different from IQ?” Those who developed the concept argue that traditional models of IQ are too narrow, failing to consider interpersonal competence. They also argue from a practical perspective that EI is more flexible than IQ and can be developed throughout your working life. If you recall, this is consistent with how we described things in Figure 3.1 and the practical benefits of relatively flexible IDs. Benefits of EI EI has been linked to better social relationships, well-being, and satisfaction across ages and contexts, including work. For instance, employees with high EI were perceived more positively by co-workers and more effective as sellers (but not buyers) in negotiations. And while research results are mixed, EI also has implications for job performance and leadership: Page 96 Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund since 2011, illustrates the importance of EI for leaders. For instance, EI was essential in negotiating a solution to the Greek financial crisis, as many of the players had conflicting interests and intense emotions. Success required her not only to be aware of and able to manage her own emotions, but she also needed to accurately assess and respond to the emotions of many other European Union leaders.49 Job Performance •EI has been linked to higher sales and greater customer retention for both real estate and insurance sales representatives.50 •A study of executives found that how those with high EI produced results was rated positively by subordinates, but the actual results themselves were not related to EI.51 Leadership •EI was positively related to leadership emergence, behavior, and effectiveness (all discussed in detail in Chapter 13). •EI was not clearly related to job performance, satisfaction, and other outcomes.52 Take-aways.Considered together, the results of EI research are mixed. We therefore encourage you to proceed with caution, as every day there are more consulting companies selling EI programs and claiming EI is the silver bullet of performance. To date, the research just isn’t clear. However, we also encourage you to identify and develop your own EI to realize the clear interpersonal benefits. Table 3.6 can serve as a guide. TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP 1.Using Table 3.6, evaluate and develop a plan to enhance your EI. What are your personal strengths and weaknesses in terms of both personal and social competence? Be honest. 2.Think of an example where your EI has helped you and an example where you would have benefited from greater EI. 3.Identify one aspect of personal competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you can improve it. Be specific. 4.Identify one aspect of social competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you can improve it. Be specific. Page 97 TABLE 3.6DEVELOPING MY EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PERSONAL COMPETENCE HOW WE MANAGE OURSELVES CAPABILITY DESCRIPTION Self-Awareness Emotional self-awareness Accurate self-assessment Self-confidence Reading one’s own emotions and recognizing their impact; using “gut sense” to guide decisions Knowing one’s strengths and limits A sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities Self-Management Emotional self-control Transparency Adaptability Achievement Initiative Optimism Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness Flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming obstacles The drive to improve performance to meet inner standards of excellence Readiness to act and seize opportunities Seeing the upside in events SOCIAL COMPETENCE HOW WE MANAGE RELATIONSHIPS CAPABILITY DESCRIPTION Social Awareness Empathy Organizational awareness Service Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking active interest in their concerns Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at the organizational level Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs Relationship Management Inspirational leadership Influence Developing others Change catalyst Conflict management Building bonds Teamwork and collaboration Guiding and motivating with a compelling vision Wielding a range of tactics for persuasion Bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and guidance Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction Resolving disagreements Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships Cooperation and team building SOURCE: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. From Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by D. Goleman, R. Bovatzis, and A. McKee, Boston, MA, 2002, p. 39. Copyright 2002 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved. Now that you’ve learned about emotional intelligence, let’s explore emotions themselves. Page 98 3.6UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE MAJOR QUESTION How can understanding emotions make me more effective at work? THE BIGGER PICTURE Because you’re human you have emotions. You won’t be surprised then to learn that emotions are important both at work and as an individual-level process in the Integrative Framework of OB. You’re about to learn the difference between felt versus displayed emotions and how emotions serve as an important means of communication with both ourselves and others. Most of your experiences elicit a mix of positive and negative emotions, and these emotions also are tightly related to your goals. Historically, and still true today, many people believe that employees should check their emotions at the door when they come to work. The reality is that this is impossible. Like personality and the other IDs discussed thus far, emotions are an integral part of who we are as people, a fundamental part of the human experience, and therefore they are an essential part of our identity at work and influence how we perform. Given this reality, it is important to understand emotions and how they affect people so you can manage emotions as a process to benefit you, your team, and your employer. This will help make emotions a practical tool for you to use, rather than something to avoid, ignore, or suppress. Emotions—We All Have Them, but What Are They? Emotions are complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target, such as a person, information, experience, event, or nonevent. They also change psychological and/or physiological states.53 Importantly, researchers draw a distinction between felt and displayed emotions.54 For example, if your boss screams at you when she’s angry, you might feel threatened or fearful (felt emotion). You might keep your feelings to yourself or begin to cry (either response is the displayed emotion). The boss might feel alarmed (felt emotion) by your tears but could react constructively (displayed emotion) by asking if you’d like to talk about the situation when you feel calmer. Emotions also motivate your behavior and are an important means for communicating with others. Think about it—a smile on your face signals that you’re happy or pleased, while a scowl and a loud, forceful tone of voice may reflect anger. We also know that our emotions can and often do change moment to moment and thus are more flexible than the other IDs discussed thus far. As such, emotions have important implications for you at school, work, and every other social arena of your life. Emotions as Positive or Negative Reactions to Goal Achievement You’ll notice from the definition that emotions can be thought of in terms of your goals.55 Accordingly, positive and negative emotions can be distinguished in terms of goals. Page 99 •Positive. If your goal is to do well at school and you graduate on time and with honors, you are likely to experience common positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, pride, satisfaction, contentment, and relief. The emotions are positive because they are congruent (or consistent) with your goal. •Negative. Negative emotions are triggered by frustration and failure when pursuing one’s goals. They are said to be goal incongruent. Common negative emotions are anger, fright, anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness, envy, jealousy, and disgust. Which of these are you likely to experience if you fail the final exam in a required course? Failing the exam would be incongruent with your goal of graduating on time with a good GPA. Typically, the more important the goal, the more intense the emotion. •Mixed. Meeting or failing to meet our goals can also generate mixed emotions. Say you receive a well-earned promotion, which includes positives like more responsibility and pay—but only if you relocate to another state, which you don’t want to do. Besides Positive and Negative, Think Past vs. Future To be sure, the negative-positive distinction matters—you’re happy, you’re sad. However, another characteristic of emotions can be especially useful for managers. Say you’re a manager in a company that just downsized 15 percent of its employees. This is horrible for all those who lost their jobs, but let’s focus on two fictitious employees who survived the cuts—Shelby and Jennifer. Both of them feel negatively about the job cuts, but in different ways. Shelby. Her dominant emotion is anger. People are typically angry about things that happened (or didn’t happen) in the past. This means that anger is a “backward-looking” or retrospective emotion. Jennifer. Her dominant emotion is fear. People are typically fearful of things that might happen in the future. As such, fear is a “forward-looking” or prospective emotion. Practical implications for managers. Knowing these emotions tells you that Shelby is likely most concerned with something that happened in the past, such as how the decisions were made as to who to terminate. She may think that the process was unfair and caused a number of her favorite colleagues to be let go. As for Jennifer, knowing that she is dominated by fear tells you that it is uncertainty about the future—perhaps her job might be cut next—that concerns her most. As their manager, having this more specific knowledge of Shelby’s and Jennifer’s emotions can guide your own actions. The following Take-Away Application (TAAP) builds on this scenario. TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP Assume you are their manager and you know Shelby’s dominant emotion related to the downsizing is anger and Jennifer’s is fear: 1.What are two specific things you could do to alleviate Shelby’s anger? 2.What are two specific things you could do to reduce Jennifer’s fear? 3.What other things could you do to increase their positive emotions related to the changes? How Can I Manage My Negative Emotions at Work? Page 100 Theoretically, you could simply translate your felt emotions into displayed emotions—unfiltered. Besides being unrealistic, this would be disastrous. Organizations have emotion display norms, or rules that dictate which types of emotions are expected and appropriate for their members to show.56 But what can you do when inevitably sometimes you feel negative emotions at work? See the following Example box that describes the costs and benefits of displaying anger at work. EXAMPLEThe Good and Bad of Anger at Work Andrew Cornell, CEO of Cornell Iron Works, understands the days of the screaming boss are numbered. He deals with anger towards his employees by holding frequent and brief meetings, “rather than ‘waiting until the end, throwing a nuclear bomb and leaving blood all over the wall.’”57 Screaming takes other forms too. At work you might receive a hostile e-mail berating you, copied to coworkers, in ALL CAPS. Science supports the many people who believe that “yelling” via e-mail or face-to-face is inappropriate and counterproductive. You may have been in a group meeting when someone was so angry he or she began to scream and bully another person. Bullying and yelling are unprofessional, are uncalled for, and damage the reputation of the perpetrator. COSTS OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONSGrowing research evidence supports the undesirable outcomes from negative emotions that we all suspect. Negative emotions due to organizational change, for example, are linked to more sick time used and employee turnover.58 UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS MAY SUFFER TWICECustomers’ negative emotional displays (e.g., verbal aggression) have been shown to negatively affect employee job performance. Specifically, receivers of the aggression made more mistakes recalling and processing the customers’ complaints!59 You may want to think twice before venting on a customer service representative. WHAT ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF ANGER?Expressing your anger sometimes can actually solve the problem. Your message is communicated, albeit forcefully, which can lead to better understanding. Displays of anger also are more likely to be beneficial if they are directed at organizational issues and problems instead of individuals. Being angry at the problem rather than the person is likely to be perceived more constructively and less defensively.60 YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.What advice would you give to managers on how to handle their own anger and other negative emotions at work? 2.What advice would you give to managers on how to handle the anger and negative emotions felt (and expressed) by their direct reports? 3.What has been the most productive way for you to deal with your negative emotions? When executives get angry, they can get rude. In 2001, unhappy with an investor in a conference call who noted Enron seemed unable to produce its balance sheet, CEO Jeff Skilling said, “Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that, A--hole.” Enron later declared bankruptcy in one of the biggest financial scandals at the start of the century. Skilling was convicted on 19 counts of securities and wire fraud in 2006. Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! from 2009 to 2011, told staff that if anyone leaked company secrets, she would “drop-kick” them “to f---ing Mars.” Like Skilling’s comment, Bartz’s statement was widely reported. Bartz was most likely fired by Yahoo! for business reasons and not for tough talk. Page 101 Of course anger isn’t the only negative emotion. Table 3.7 provides guidance on a variety of negative emotions and how to deal with them. As you study the table, think of your own experiences and reactions and how the recommendations in Table 3.7 could have helped. TABLE 3.7COMMON NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM IF YOU’RE FEELING … THEN YOU MIGHT WANT TO … Fearful Step back and try to see the situation objectively. Ask yourself: “Is my business or career truly at risk?” If not, then you may just be feeling nervous and excited rather than fearful. Rejected Do you actually respect the opinion of the person rejecting you? If the comment came from an idiot, someone you don’t respect, the comment may actually be a backhanded compliment. If you do respect the person, then you may want to clarify by asking: “The other day you said and I felt hurt. Can you clarify what happened?” Angry Get some distance from the situation to avoid blowing your top in the heat of the moment. Once you calm down, then precisely pinpoint the reason you are angry. In most every instance it’s because somebody violated a rule or standard that is deeply important to you. Then find a way to communicate the importance of the rule or standard to the person so it doesn’t happen again. Frustrated This happens at work when results don’t meet your expectations, given the amount of time and energy you’ve applied. The goal often is achievable, but progress is slow. First, reassess your plan and behavior. Do they need modification? If no, then perhaps you simply need to be patient. Inadequate Even those with the highest self-esteem feel they don’t measure up at times. Our discussion of self-efficacy and how to build it in Table 3.5 can guide your solution to this emotion. Stressed Time constraints are a major source of stress. Too many commitments, too little time. You therefore need to prioritize! Do what is important rather than what is urgent. For example, most e-mail is urgent but not important. SOURCE: Adapted from G. James, “Feeling Negative? How to Overcome It,” Inc. Magazine, November 26, 2012. Page 102 3.7PRACTICE, LUCK, AND SUCCESS MAJOR QUESTION How can I be “deliberate” about success? THE BIGGER PICTURE You already know that luck can and does play a role in people’s success. What isn’t always as apparent is how some people work at being lucky. We define and explain how deliberate practice and preparing yourself for luck contribute to success. In this chapter we’ve moved from fixed individual differences, such as intelligence and CSEs, to relatively flexible emotional intelligence and emotions. If given the choice, of course you’d rather have high intelligence than low. And if you’re a manager or own your own business you’d rather hire intelligent people who also have high levels of conscientiousness and emotional intelligence. However, all of these individual differences are relatively fixed when compared to your behaviors. This means that you have far more control over the things you do than over who you are. We therefore conclude this chapter by describing deliberate practice and luck and their roles in your success. Success = 10,000 Hours While we cannot define success for you—it depends on your own history, expectations, goals and dreams, opportunities, and some of the IDs discussed in this chapter—we can provide some guidance on how to achieve success as you define it. To make the point, think of something you want to become really, really good at—world-class good. Perhaps you want to be truly excellent in a sport, playing an instrument, software design, or writing. Then take the advice from an old New York City joke: Tourist: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” New Yorker: “Practice, practice, practice.”61 Okay, so how much practice? Try the 10,000-hour rule. After studying relevant research evidence, Malcolm Gladwell came to this conclusion in his best-selling book Outliers: The Story of Success: [T]he closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play. . . . [T]he people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder. . . . Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.62 Generally, that works out to about 10 years of deliberate practice, which is a demanding, repetitive, and assisted program to improve one’s performance.63 Table 3.8 describes the hallmarks of deliberate practice. Page 103 TABLE 3.8THE FIVE PROPERTIES OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE CHARACTERISTIC COMMENT 1. Designed to improve performance. You start the process of skill development by identifying specific aspects of performance that need improvement. For example, if you want to become a better writer, you could study other writers and their books, and show your writing to other professional writers for feedback. 2. Can be repeated a lot. It’s all about repetition. The activity you are trying to improve must be something that can be repeated many, many times. 3. Provides feedback on a regular basis. To evaluate how well you are doing something, you need objective valuation. And when you don’t have feedback, it removes motivation to improve. Some tasks provide more of a challenge for feedback, as with music, public speaking, and auditioning for an acting role. That’s why coaches or mentors matter. 4. Is highly demanding mentally. Focusing on one or two targeted aspects of performance takes effort and concentration. This puts strains on our mental abilities. The best violinists, for instance, practice about three and a half hours a day, but not in one session. They find it helps to take a break in order to maintain their concentration. Chess champions also indicate that they spend a maximum of four or five hours practicing per day. 5. Isn’t much fun. Deliberate practice requires us to focus on things we are not good at doing. It would be more fun to repeat behaviors or activities at which we excel. Colvin, in his book “Talent Is Overrated,” concluded that “if the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the best from the rest. The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won’t do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.”64 SOURCE: G. Colvin, Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (New York: Penguin, 2008). Tiger Woods. top rated golfer. Tiger Woods has the second most professional tours wins and is second in major tournament wins. Talented? Of course. But don’t forget how much practice! Talent Is Overrated—Practice Is the Key Fortune magazine’s Geoff Colvin, in his interesting book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, says this about deliberate practice: It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.65 Tiger Woods, for example, relentlessly polished every aspect of his golf game since he was a toddler—first under his father’s tutelage and later with the best coaches—to become the world’s top golfer. Besides the troubles in his personal life, he also suffered injuries that further eroded his performance and cost him his top ranking. To his credit, however, he devoted himself to retooling his swing, engaged in immense deliberate practice over the period of years, and once again claimed the number one world ranking in early 2013. Beyond sports, scientific research has given great attention to the benefits of deliberate practice in the training and performance of physicians. Simulation-based mastery is becoming a core principle in training doctors. Herein the elements of expert performance in a given practice area (e.g., gall bladder surgery) are identified, and then training, often including simulations, is built around practicing these elements.66 Page 104 TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP 1.Select two goals or endeavors at which you’d like to excel. 2.Create a deliberate practice plan for each that includes what you will do, how you will do it, when, and why (for what purpose). 3.Using Table 3.8, check or evaluate your plan in terms of (a) if it can be repeated a lot, (b) what you can do to combat the mental demands or fatigue, and (c) what you can do to help “add fun” into your practice plan. Most Practice Is NOT Deliberate Now you’ve learned that there is more to success than practice and talent. And while you and others may indeed spend considerable time practicing, it is important to point out that what most of us think of as practice is not deliberate practice. We want to call your attention to two particular qualities of deliberate practice that most people overlook—feedback and difficulty. As a general rule, feedback is a necessary element of any type of development program. You need to know if you’re making progress. During deliberate practice, feedback often comes from another person (e.g., a coach), not just yourself or the task (you’ll learn much more about feedback in Chapter 6). Beyond this, deliberate practice is difficult. Instead of simply repeating a task over and over, like you’ve always done it, you need to get out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself. This means that many people with years of experience may not actually perform at a high level. We’re not saying experience doesn’t matter—of course it does. However, you can use deliberate practice to help you compete more effectively against somebody who has simply gone through the motions, operated in his or her comfort zone, for years and years. Would I Rather Be Lucky or Good? Actually, you don’t have to decide. There’s a third choice—both! Nevertheless, if you want to know about luck, then talk to lucky and unlucky people to see how they differ. It turns out that luck involves much more than simple random chance or coincidence. Lucky people, through how they think and behave, make their own good fortune. To help you improve your luck, we provide the following recommendations: 1.Be active and involved. Be open to new experiences and network with others to encounter more lucky chance opportunities. 2.Listen to your hunches about luck. Learn when to listen to your intuition or gut feelings. Meditation and mind-clearing activities can help. 3.Expect to be lucky no matter how bad the situation. Remain optimistic and work to make your expectations a self-fulfilling prophecy. 4.Turn your bad luck into good fortune. Take control of bad situations by remaining calm, positive, and focused on a better future.67 Many successful people made their own luck by making the best of life’s hard knocks. We suggest you do the same. Turn lemons into lemonade. We expand on this positive perspective in Chapter 7. Page 105 what did i learn? You learned that who you are affects performance because Individual differences (IDs) play an important and often fundamental role in how you perform at school, at work, and in other contexts. Many practical applications of this learning will allow you to improve your own performance and work more effectively in any organizational setting, including one where you manage others. Reinforce your learning with the Key Points below. Consolidate your learning using the Integrative Framework. Then Challenge your mastery of the material by answering the Major Questions in your own words. Key Points for Understanding Chapter 3 You learned the following key points. 3.1THE DIFFERENCES MATTER •Individual differences (IDs) is a broad category used to collectively describe the vast number of attributes (e.g., traits and behaviors) that describe you as a person. •It is helpful to think of IDs in terms of their relative stability. Intelligence is relatively fixed whereas attitudes and emotions are more flexible and under your control. 3.2INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY THAN IQ •Intelligence represents an individual’s capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. It is more than IQ. •Howard Gardner, in his theory of multiple intelligences, describes eight different intelligences—linguistic, logical, musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. •Practical intelligence is the ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing knowledge gained from experience in order to purposefully adapt to, shape, and select environments. •Knowledge of various forms of intelligence is useful for identifying intelligences relevant to particular jobs, which can then be used to select, place, and develop individuals accordingly. 3.3PERSONALITY, OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS •Personality is defined as the combination of stable physical, behavioral, and mental characteristics that give individuals their unique identities. •A useful way to describe personality is using the Big Five personality dimensions. These are five basic dimensions that simplify more complex models of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. •People with proactive personalities are relatively unconstrained by situational forces and often affect environmental change. Proactive people identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs. •Personality tests are commonly used by employers to select and place employees. However, it is important to know there is no ideal personality and personality testing often has flaws. 3.4CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW MY SELF-EFFICACY, SELF-ESTEEM, LOCUS OF CONTROL, AND EMOTIONAL STABILITY AFFECT MY PERFORMANCE •Core self-evaluations (CSEs) represent a broad personality trait comprising four narrower and positive individual traits: (1) self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, and (4) emotional stability. •Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or her chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task. •Self-efficacy beliefs can be improved via experience, behavior models, persuasion from others, and one’s emotional state. •The practical value of CSEs can be realized in selecting employees and training them to enhance elements of their CSEs. 3.5THE VALUE OF BEING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT •Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. •EI is associated with higher sales and improved retention, as well as leadership emergence, behavior, and effectiveness. •You can develop your EI by building your personal competence (self-awareness and self-management) and social competence (social awareness and relationship management). 3.6UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE •Emotions are complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target, such as a person, information, experience, event, or nonevent. •Most experiences at work and otherwise are a mixture of positive and negative emotions, rather than purely one or the other. •Besides positive and negative emotions, it can be practically useful to understand and distinguish emotions in terms of their future orientation (e.g., anxiety) or past orientation (e.g., anger). •Organizations have emotion display norms or rules that dictate which types of emotions are expected and appropriate for their members to show. It therefore is important to learn how to manage your emotions. 3.7PRACTICE, LUCK, AND SUCCESS •Deliberate practice can significantly affect your success in many areas of life; you can make your own luck. •Some experts argue that practice is more important than raw talent. •Deliberate practice is a well-proven path to success in many endeavors. It requires a program that is designed to improve actual performance, can be repeated, provides regular feedback, is highly demanding mentally, and isn’t much fun. •You can improve your chances of being lucky. The Integrative Framework for Chapter 3 As shown in Figure 3.4, you learned how individual differences can present themselves, through the process of emotions (both felt and expressed) at the individual level, affecting many workplace outcomes at both the individual and group/team levels. Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 3 At the start of the chapter, we told you that after reading the chapter you should be able to answer the following questions. Unless you can, have you really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 3.4, the chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer the following major questions: 1.How does understanding the relative stability of individual differences benefit me? 2.How do multiple intelligences affect my performance? 3.How does my personality affect my performance? 4.How do self-evaluations affect my performance at work? 5.What is emotional intelligence and how does it help me? 6.How can understanding emotions make me more effective at work? 7.How can I be “deliberate” about success? FIGURE 3.4INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB © 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors. Page 106 PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE (PSAC) Why Are Employees Leaving Google? Facebook? Who’s Next? Use the knowledge of OB presented in this chapter to apply the Integrative Framework of OB and the problem-solving approach to the following case. Applying all of this knowledge should enable you to recommend realistic and effective solutions. Many organizations recite a common mantra: “Our employees are our most valuable asset.” How many companies then back this up and walk the talk is another matter. However, employees are indeed the most valuable asset of many knowledge-based companies, whose value resides in the experience, skills, and abilities of their employees. Google, one of the hottest companies to work for and repeatedly one of the most admired employers on the planet (no. 1 again in 2013),68 is acutely aware of this fact. Google’s talent (i.e., employees) is largely responsible for the company’s tremendous success to date and will largely determine the company’s future success. It is no wonder then that many other companies continually and intensely compete for Google’s talent to drive their own growth and success. Notable examples are Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!), Lars Rasmussen (Facebook), and Richard Alfonsi (Twitter). (Some reports as far back as 2010 allege that over 140 Facebook employees are from Google.) Even Craig Silverstein, Google’s third employee—after Sergey and Larry—left to work at Khan Academy.69 Despite Google’s perennial status as one of the best places to work, it “competes for potential workers with Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and scores of start-ups, so every employee’s departure triggers a costly, time-consuming recruiting process.”70 The pay and the perks don’t seem to be enough either. In 2010, then CEO Eric Schmidt gave every employee a 10 percent pay raise. Google also was reported to offer enormous counteroffers—15 percent raise, 4x the stock benefits, and $500,000 cash bonus. Yet even this hasn’t been enough to persuade some!71 As Robert Greene, a recruiter of engineers for tech start-ups, put it, “Google isn’t the hot place to work” and has “become the safe place to work.”72 Possible Reasons Articles, blogs, and many other sources speculate and report a variety of potential reasons. For instance, one obvious one is because the company is no longer a start-up. It now qualifies as a behemoth with 30,000 employees. And because of the size it has many employees filling each and every role. However, rumor has it that if you are not an engineer, you are a second-class citizen. Similarly, if you don’t office in Mountain View (the headquarters), then you have no connection or impact. Other employees simply report that it is now a large bureaucracy that is slow and inefficient.73 These complaints occur despite the fact that employees get the famous “20% time” to work on projects of their choosing. To some employees this makes matters worse, as one devotes so much time to developing ideas, yet now there is little chance they get implemented.74 Is Facebook Next? What about the Next Hot Company? If Google is victim to tech employees’ lust for the latest, most exciting, and not yet public start-up, then is Facebook next? Is your company next? Should every successful start-up that matures into a full-fledged viable business expect the same fate for its essential, life-giving talent? For instance, Facebook’s IPO in 2012 was enormous. And even though the stock fell sharply afterwards, many millionaires were created. And its average compensation seems to be similar to that offered at Google. Some reports, however, suggest that the luster is wearing off. Employee ratings of company satisfaction, compensation, and work–life balance have been declining since 2009. (The same survey reports Google’s employee ratings of the same characteristics to be stable over this period.)75 More recent data reveal that employee satisfaction at Google has once again surpassed that of Facebook employees.76 Apply the 3-Stop Problem-Solving Approach to OB Stop 1:What is the problem? •Use the Integrative Framework in Figure 3.4 to help identify the outcomes that are important in this case. •Which of these outcomes are not being achieved in the case? •Based on considering the above two questions, what is the most important problem in this case? Stop 2:Use the Integrative Framework in Figure 3.4 to help identify the OB concepts or theories that help you to understand the problem in this case. •What person factors are most relevant? •What environmental characteristics are most important to consider? •Do you need to consider any processes? Which ones? •What concepts or theories discussed in this chapter are most relevant for solving the key problem in this case? Stop 3:What are your recommendations for solving the problem? •Review the material in the chapter that most pertains to your proposed solution and look for practical recommendations. •Use any past OB knowledge or experience to generate recommendations. •Outline your plan for solving the problem in this case. Page 107 LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE Companies Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban77 An increasing number of companies are using smoking as a reason to turn away job applicants. Employers argue that such policies increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs, and encourage healthier lifestyles. These policies up the ante on previous, less-effective efforts, such as no-smoking work environments, cessation programs, and higher health care premiums for smokers. “Tobacco-free hiring” often requires applicants to submit to a urine test for nicotine, and, if hired, violations are cause for termination. The shift from “smoke-free” to “smoker-free” workplaces has prompted sharp debate about employers intruding into employees’ private lives and regulating legal behaviors. Some state courts have upheld the legality of refusing to employ smokers. For example, hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, among others, stopped hiring smokers in the past year. Some justified the new policies as ways to reduce health care costs and to advance their institutional missions of promoting personal well-being. Supporters of these policies note that smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death. About 20 percent of Americans still smoke, and smokers cost approximately $3,391 per year in lost productivity and additional health care expenses. Opponents argue that such policies are a slippery slope. Successful nonsmoker policies may lead to limits on other legal employee behaviors, like drinking alcohol, eating fast food, and participating in dangerous sports. Many companies add their own wrinkle to the smoking ban and even forbid nicotine patches. And while most companies apply the rules only to new employees, a few have eventually mandated that existing employees must quit smoking or lose their jobs. Questions: Managing Emotions While Managing a Smoking Problem 1.“Today’s discrimination against smokers is equivalent to now illegal racial and gender discrimination years ago.” Do you agree or disagree? Explain. 2.Assume you are the employee representative on the executive board at your company. You know the VP of HR plans to propose a smoker ban to begin June 1 for all new hires and the following January for all existing employees. However, you’ve been asked to keep the plans quiet. What would you do and why? 3.Now, assume you have permission to share the information. You know employees’ responses are likely to be emotional (some positive and some negative). How would you present the information to them? 4.More generally, under what circumstances do companies have the right to consider and ban legal employee behaviors during the hiring process? Explain. 5.What is your position regarding policy changes (e.g., smoker ban) and applying them to existing employees who were hired under different guidelines? Explain your position. GROUP EXERCISE Anger Control Role Play Objectives 1.To demonstrate that emotions can be managed. 2.To develop your interpersonal skills for managing both your own and someone else’s anger. Introduction Personal experience and research tell us that anger begets anger. People do not make their best decisions when angry. Angry outbursts often inflict unintentional interpersonal damage by triggering other emotions (e.g., disgust in observers and subsequent guilt and shame in the angry person). Effective managers know how to break the cycle of negative emotions by defusing anger in themselves and others. This is a role-playing exercise for groups of four. You will have a chance to play two different roles. All the roles are generic, so they can be played as either a woman or a man. Instructions Your instructor will divide the class into groups of four. Everyone should read all five roles described. Members of each foursome will decide among themselves who will play which roles. All told, you will participate in two rounds of role playing (each round lasting no longer than eight minutes). In round one, one person will play Role 1 and another will play Role 3; the remaining two group members will play Role 5. In round two, those who played Role 5 in the first round will play Roles 2 and 4. The other two will switch to Role 5. Role 1: The Angry (Out-of-Control) Shift Supervisor Page 108 You work for a leading electronics company that makes computer chips and other computer-related equipment. Your factory is responsible for assembling and testing the company’s most profitable line of computer microprocessors. Business has been good, so your factory is working three shifts. The day shift, which you are now on, is the most desirable one. The night shift, from 11 pm to 7:30 am is the least desirable and least productive. In fact, the night shift is such a mess that your boss, the factory manager, wants you to move to the night shift next week. Your boss just broke this bad news as the two of you are having lunch in the company cafeteria. You are shocked and angered because you are one of the most senior and highly rated shift supervisors in the factory. Thanks to your leadership, your shift has broken all production records during the past year. As the divorced single parent of a 10-year-old child, the radical schedule change would be a major lifestyle burden. Questions swirl through your head. “Why me?” “What kind of reliable child care will be available when I sleep during the day and work at night?” “Why should I be ‘punished’ for being a top supervisor?” “Why don’t they hire someone for the position?” Your boss asks what you think. Page 109 When playing this role, be as realistic as possible without getting so loud that you disrupt the other groups. Also, if anyone in your group would be offended by foul language, please refrain from cursing during your angry outburst. Role 2: The Angry (Under-Control) Shift Supervisor Same situation as in Role 1. But this role will require you to read and act according to the tips below (Guides for Action and Pitfalls to Avoid). You have plenty of reason to be frustrated and angry, but you realize the importance of maintaining a good working relationship with the factory manager. Guides for Action •Appreciate the potentially valuable lessons from anger. •Use mistakes and slights to learn. •Recognize that you and others can do well enough without being perfect. •Trust that most people want to be caring, helpful family members and colleagues. •Forgive others and yourself. •Confront unrealistic, blame-oriented assumptions. •Adopt constructive, learning-oriented assumptions. Pitfalls to Avoid •Assume every slight is a painful wound. •Equate not getting what you want with catastrophe. •See every mistake and slip as a transgression that must be corrected immediately. •Attack someone for your getting angry. •Attack yourself for getting angry. •Try to be and have things perfect. •Suspect people’s motives unless you have incontestable evidence that people can be trusted. •Assume any attempt to change yourself is an admission of failure. •Never forgive. Role 3: The (Hard-Driving) Factory Manager You have a reputation for having a “short fuse.” When someone gets angry with you, you attack. When playing this role, be as realistic as possible. Remember, you are responsible for the entire factory with its 1,200 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of electronics products. A hiring freeze is in place, so you have to move one of your current supervisors. You have chosen your best supervisor because the night shift is your biggest threat to profitable operations. The night-shift supervisor gets a 10 percent pay premium. Ideally, the move will only be for six months. Role 4: The (Mellow) Factory Manager Same general situation as in Role 3. However, this role will require you to read and act according to the tips that follow (Guides for Action and Pitfalls to Avoid). You have a reputation for being results-oriented but reasonable. You are good at taking a broad, strategic view of problems and are a good negotiator. Guides for Action •Expect angry people to exaggerate. •Recognize the other’s frustrations and pressures. •Use the provocation to develop your abilities. •Allow the other to let off steam. •Begin to problem-solve when the anger is at moderate levels. •Congratulate yourself on turning an outburst into an opportunity to find solutions. •Share successes with partners. Pitfalls to Avoid •Take every word literally. •Denounce the most extreme statements and ignore more moderate ones. •Doubt yourself because the other does. •Attack because you have been attacked. •Forget the experience without learning from it. Role 5: Silent Observer Follow the exchange between the shift supervisor and the factory manager without talking or getting actively involved. Jot down some notes (for later class discussion) as you observe whether the factory manager did a good job of managing the supervisor’s anger. Questions for Discussion 1.Why is uncontrolled anger a sure road to failure? 2.Is it possible to express anger without insulting others? Explain. 3.Which is more difficult, controlling anger in yourself or defusing someone else’s anger? Why? 4.What useful lessons did you learn from this role-playing exercise? Source: From D. Tjosvold, Learning to Manage Conflict: Getting People to Work Together Productively, 127–29. Copyright © 1993 Dean Tjosvold. Reprinted with permission of Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.