Is Your Best Performer Pathological or "Driven"?

High performers are welcome in any business and people who consistently meet their performance objectives are likely to be promoted over those who don’t. Some employees are so "driven" they spend every waking moment accomplishing their career goals and soon become budding stars. Is your best performer "driven" or is there something else going on?

Driven people are highly motivated and focused on their goals. They make compromises in their life to reach those goals. There are times when they make mistakes and make a wrong choice, but ultimately they continue on the right path. They believe that through persistence and hard work they can obtain what is important to them.

Pathological workers may also show high drive toward their goals and similarly make mistakes. However, they also carry with them other traits such as hostility, risk-taking, deceitfulness, callousness, grandiosity, irresponsibility, impulsivity and manipulativeness (De Caluwei, Decuyper & De Clercq, 2013). The value of the goal succeeds other considerations in much the same was as a gambling addict can't stop gambling.

Employees who are goal driven are an asset to any organization and create high expectations for others to achieve. They raise company performance and are a positive contributor to workplace culture. They do not neglect their needs, and they concern themselves with how they achieve those goals. High ethical standards and performance can work hand-in-hand.

Workers who show pathological behavior are outside the normal and seem to put an inappropriate weight on the achievement of a particular goal. Its obtainment appears to be more of an extension of the self, and its importance is artificially raised until few things else seem to matter. People become a nuisance in the process and their input can be discarded.

“Win at all costs” pathological behavior should be discouraged in the workplace. I have seen organizations where individuals achieve their goals at the expense of the entire company. Pathological employees get promoted because they create results but also damage their teams and departments in the process. They are the chaos creators that lower departmental performance, develop toxic work environments, and increase turnover rates

Well rounded employees can put their goals in perspective of the rest of their lives and the needs of others. They understand that while their objectives are essential they must also raise the status of the group and fulfill the needs of the company. Pathological employees are incapable of such reasoning and are only loyal to themselves. Higher human performance comes with focus and drive. To those with a conscious the ends is not the only justification of the means.

De Caluwe, E. Decuyper, M. & De Clercq, B. (2013). The child behavior checklist dysregulation profile predicts adolescent DSM-% pathological personality traits in 4 years. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 22 (7).

What We Can Learn About Management From Sigmund Freud

As a pioneer of psychotherapy and introspection Sigmund Freud developed a theory of human development that was popular during the 70's and sparked a way of thinking about human development and general management of employee needs. Freud was part of the humanistic movement that tried to understand the nature of human behavior. Even though some of what Freud discussed has been discredited he did bring up a few ideas that help us think about proper management techniques.

As a theory Freud discussed the Id, Ego and Superego that interact throughout the 5 psychosexual stages of development that include oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages. Each of these stages are that which a child might experience and develop their personality with. If a person becomes stuck in any one of the stages it will skew their personality. Stuck individuals may develop personality quirks that impact their management styles.

Learning management from Freud isn't necessarily about agreeing or not agreeing with his theories. It is more about finding a mental framework for understanding employee needs, their rational side, and their balanced side as expressed in Freud's Id, Ego and Super Ego. Putting a framework together for understanding employees is beneficial for understanding behavior in the workplace.

Each employee has some needs that draws them to their place of employment and as long as we understand what motivates these employees we can also understand how to retain them and encourage higher levels of performance. One employee may be more motivated by social recognition while another through a need for accomplishment.

Strong managers understand their employees and take enough time to determine what makes them "tick". Once they understand their employees needs they can work toward adjusting the work environment to help fulfill those needs as well as produce higher levels of output. Such activities are likely to result in higher retention and performance rates.

Let us assume you were watching and paying attention to what themes run through an employee's conversations and you were able to determine the employees motivational buttons such as social recognition and income obtainment. According to Freud such personality was formed through the psychosexual stages and how the Id, Ego and Super Ego were formed.

Knowing that your employee wants to have social recognition and income obtainment will help you design a path of development for that employee. Offering raises for exceptional work and conclusion of projects is one aspect of the job that may work for a time. Adding a social recognition side when higher performance is exhibited is another one.

Where you believe in Freud's theories or not is not really the issue. Becoming aware of the need to understand your employees, what motivates them, and the components of their personality is important. Like Freud, look for their motivations, themes, and interests to determine what interests the employee and what doesn't. It is not an invasive process only a process of awareness into the necessity of communicating with employees, actually listening to what they need, and trying to find win-win situations for both the employee and the company.

oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages

Source: Boundless. “Freud's Psychosexual Theory of Development.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 27 Jun. 2014. Retrieved 01 Jan. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/freud-s-psychosexual-theory-of-development-267-12802/

oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages

Source: Boundless. “Freud's Psychosexual Theory of Development.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 27 Jun. 2014. Retrieved 01 Jan. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/freud-s-psychosexual-theory-of-development-267-12802/

oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages

Source: Boundless. “Freud's Psychosexual Theory of Development.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 27 Jun. 2014. Retrieved 01 Jan. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/freud-s-psychosexual-theory-of-development-267-12802/

Equity Theory and Employee Perception

Equity Theory is a concept developed by the Behavioral Scientist John Stacy Adams in 1963.His theory indicates that people will judge and analyze both the rewards and the outputs of effort to determine whether not they are being treated fairly within the workplace (Adams, 1965). These inputs and expenditures are subjective by nature as they are based upon the perceived rewards and efforts of others. When information is accurate employees are better able to accurately gauge the equity relationships with employers and produce more meaningful results.

An example can help in solidifying this concept. Let us say for a moment that John and Sally work for the same company. John works very hard each and every day but doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere at work. When he looks at Sally he believes that she works less but has received two raises within the past few years. He also notices that Sally is very friendly with her bosses and he interprets such actions rightly or wrongly as flirtation.

In this case example John may come to some conclusions about Sally and the reasons why she is receiving raises and he is not. John is understandably upset and confronts his boss about the inappropriate behavior. He finds out that Sally has been spending every weekend inventorying and adjusting products and saved the company significant amounts of money. John’s perception changes and he has a clearer picture what type of effort gets him a reward.

The subjectivity in this situation is based upon the available information to John, the transparency of the reward system, the perceived truthfulness of his boss, and the ability of John to understand the situation. This same concept applies across many layers of society when different racial, religious, and social groups compare themselves to each other. Based upon one’s limited perspective if they interpret the available information as an indication of inequality their motivation will decrease.

A workplace related example may be more appropriate. Locals in Chinese firms perceived the higher compensation of expatriates as fair but not the higher compensation of other locals (Chen, Choi, & Chi, 2002). The reason this situation exists is that ideologically the local Chinese within the study understood that expatriates obtained additional international skills while other local Chinese did not. It was this perception that gives proper justification to their understandings of expatriates and their more valuable skills but does not explain adequately those with the same skill level.

People have a quantitative value in their mind as to the amount of work that is needed versus to obtain expected outcomes. Often this formula is calculated using concrete concepts such as pay-per-hour or project compensation. However, it can take other difficult to define definitions such as satisfaction, meaning, purpose, relationships and much more. It is the totality of these perceptions of equality that takes precedence in determining the value of ones efforts when compared to the received rewards. It is beneficial to see it in terms of the following formula:

Fostering equity within the workplace can improve performance, as people are encouraged to put forward more effort. A review of literature indicates that pay is extremely important as an input value (Al-Zawahreh & Al-Madi, 2012). Researchers often rely heavily on pay to determine the appropriate factors that create equity only because it is simple to define and concrete. However, with surveys and other methods of evaluation it is possible to determine where the trade of effort matches less defined rewards such as status and satisfaction.

Employers are keen on using Equity Theory to define these values in terms of compensation. For example, start-ups like Google offered stock options because in their beginning money was short but stock was plentiful; some employees became millionaires overnight. Some non-profit organizations use a high position with low pay to develop equity. Progressive businesses often balance many approaches such as culture, compensation, status and benefits to create equity.

Even with these methods, it is important to let employees know what the value of their total rewards is to raise this perception. Transparency often offers this ability but should be enhanced with strong communication in newsletters, conversation, and statements. Through open communication with employees and fair allocation of rewards based on effort, employers can improve performance and reduce employee resentment. A positive employer-employee relationship can translate into higher firm value and profits.

Adams, J.S. 1965. Inequity in social exchange. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 62:335-343.

Al-Zawahreh, A. & Al-Madi, F. (2012). The utility of Equity Theory in enhancing organizational effectiveness. European Journal of Economics Finance & Administrative Sciences, 46.

Chao, C., Choi, J. & Chi, S. (2002). Making justice sense of local-expatriate compensation disparity: mitigation by local referents, ideological explanations and interpersonal sensitivity in China-Foreign ventures. Academy of Management Journal, 45 (4).