Are You Part Neanderthal? Check Your Hair and Teeth

Are you part Neanderthal? Of course we would never consider ourselves to be part brute but that is what our DNA is telling us. A majority of us have a few percentage points of Neanderthal DNA within our bodies. Ironically those things that make us look attractive like hair and teeth are more closely tied to our ancient ancestors. 

Studies in the journal Nature and Science help us think about human development from the beginning of time until now. It is believed the Neanderthal was a northern creature while humans came from Africa. Somewhere along the path they interbred and the Neanderthal died off. Apparently, the males were not so great at breeding when mixed. 

Human development appears to be on a continuum from the past to some marked point in the future. Each child creates a new genetic destiny based upon a historical past and develops something unique. As the environment changes, humans change with it to ensure they able to survive and pass on their genetic code. 

Neanderthals died off due to lack of communication skills and environmental adjustments. Modern language appears to be one of the most defining and beneficial aspects of social development. Where Neanderthals could run around in packs of a half dozen humans can now travel in the thousands. 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12961.html

Book Review: Winning with People by John Maxwell

Winning with others is about understanding both ourselves and other people we live and work with. Before one can truly grasp the needs and desires of another person we must first understand our own needs and desires. It is through this self-reflection that we gain the ability to see other people for who they truly are. We cannot accurately see others until we understand what biases we hold about ourselves that impact our perceptions

The book Winning with People by John Maxwell sheds light on human relationships and how we come to understand and live with each other. On any particular day we associate, negotiate with, and deal with many other people who have their own interests in mind. Some of them are well developed and others are suffering from their own self-perception. 

Before we can understand our place in these social networks we must first understand that the entire population of the world, with the exception of ourselves, is composed of other people. It means that we are only one small piece of a larger pie. It is beneficial to take the perspective of the “other” before trying to force them to the submission of our will. Our way of thinking may not be the only way of thinking....or even the best way.

Conflicts within the workplace are common. They are bound to happen by the sheer fact that we are negotiating for wealth, influence and other resources. However, by caring for other people we have created stronger trusting relationships that supersede the conflict. It isn’t as though conflict is not necessary but that such conflict is done with conscious awareness of the perspective of the other person, their development, and the greater positive outcome. 

When we celebrate and engage with people we find them willing to celebrate and engage with us. There are those in life and at work that have a hard time connecting with anyone. This is due to their perceptual problem with themselves and not necessarily with the group. At other times, it may be the group and not the individual. Seek to look at and develop others and they will seek your development. We all go up or down together through shared experience. 

Of the wisdom that this book offers is a saying of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be. 

The quote is perfect for managers who desire to create higher levels of performance with workers. If a manager treats employees as though they are lazy, uncooperative, and self-interested they will become so. However, if you were to treat a worker s as though they have specific job knowledge, were contributors to organization, and capable of improved performance the worker will do so.  

The book is written at an undergraduate level and the author has put forward a number of important works on social relationships. Even though the book doesn’t state self-fulfilling prophecy it does elude to such a concept. It contains a strong message for students of business in the sense that we create what we see. What we see is based upon our perception of self. This self-perception creates our understanding of the world in which we live. 

Maxwell, C. (2005). Winning with People. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.  ISBN: 978-0-7852-8874-9

Pages:  270

Cost: $12.00

Blog Ranking: 4.1/5

Improving on Teamwork by Understanding Your Weaknesses

Understanding the weaknesses employees have in their ability to engage effectively in team-work is beneficial in creating higher levels of organizational performance. As companies seek to develop new products and service the use of teams become important in putting to effective use the diversified skills. Certain weaknesses work in association with other weaknesses and can be used as a starting point to improvement.

The use of work groups has become more common in modern times as a concept borrowed from Japanese manufacturers.  The ideal employee is often seen as that person who is capable of working effectively in groups (Guffey, 2000). It is through this group effort that individuals are capable of hedging their skills to create stronger results through mutual synergy. 

The skills needed to be a strong group player can be elusive. Business leaders and employees alike can have difficulty understanding these concepts and defining them precisely enough to be of significant use.  According to Ainsworth (2000) strong group skills include confidence in one’s abilities, interpersonal skills, open-mindedness, listening skills, and an ability to recognize the contribution of others. 

It is beneficial to see an example of the difficulties someone may create if they have not developed these attributes. Let us assume an employee named John is argumentative, seeks personal recognition above other group members, refuses to listen to varying perspectives, is set in his ways, and lacks personal confidence in his abilities. We might find John to be self-seeking and unable to come to agreement with anything that doesn’t recognize the “rightness” of his perceptions. 

Such a group is likely to disintegrate on the single influence of John and his personality. The more John is involved in the group the more likely it will become ineffective wasting time, cost and resources. John’s inability to develop proper teamwork skills will create an atmosphere where either poor decisions are being made to appease John or group resistance begins to form to thwart him. A single poor group member can impact the actions and reactions of the entire group and the effectiveness of the company.

Business leaders and college professors can help improve upon people’s weaknesses by helping them find strategies to recognize areas of improvement and methods of overcoming these challenges. As students move into the business world they will be more prepared through the relevant instructional methods and self-awareness. Business and education can further recognize these poor skills and provide relevant methods of overcoming them.

Due to this confusion of teamwork skills Schullery & Gibson (2012), from Western Michigan University, have conducted research on undergraduate business and organizational communication skills. The purpose of the study can be summed in a single sentence, “How well does, or can, the business communication syllabus address students’ group skill needs?” A total of 356 students participated in the study through four 15-week semesters.  Students were asked to rank their abilities and skills throughout their courses.

The Results:

-Group of skill deficiencies seem to travel together in factors:

.-Factor 1:  Shy, conflict avoidances, public speaking anxiety, and leadership seem to be associated.

-Factor 2: Motivation, Oral Skills, and Brainstorming.

-Factor 3: Impatient, Intolerant and dislike groups. 

The study helps to come to some important understandings that these skill deficiencies seem to travel together. For example, a person who is shy is not necessarily unmotivated. A person who lacks oral skills is not generally intolerant of others.  Importantly, many of the students were aware of their skill weaknesses but have not developed abilities to overcome them. This inability leads to continued poor group performance throughout a person’s life. 

Let us move back to the example of John. His confrontational, self-seeking, and rude behaviors is most likely to fall into Factor 3 which means that these can be a result of poor skills such as impatient, intolerant and dislike of groups. In these poor skills he will have an impact on the nature and function of that group as he fails to compensate for his weaknesses. It is through proper development and training that employees can both recognize their weaknesses and learn how to overcome them. 

Ainsworth, S. (2000). Teamwork 2000: multifunctional teams help companies cut through bureaucracy and release creativity to improve their bottom line. Chemical and Engineering, 77.

Guffey, M. (2000).  Business communication: process and product. (3^rd Edition). New York: South-Western.

Schullery, N. & Gibson, M. (2001). Working in groups: identification and treatment of student’s perceived weaknesses. Business Communication Quarterly, 64 (2).

The Illusion of a PayCheck!

From left to right the order is the same in both pictures. Illusion is often based upon our perception and how we use and make meaning from the environment to understand a particular concept. Illusions can be visual or mental. In many cases we prefer a particular vantage point and expand it to the general while we may more accurately assess our environment by taking the general and narrowing it into the particular.

"Subject's unwillingness to deduce the particular from the general was matched only by their willingness to infer the general from the particular" Nisbett and Borgida-Base Rate Fallacy

Think for a moment how people perceive the world. They look at themselves and then project that onto the world, others intentions, and their environment. This is taking our minute understandings of ourselves, which most of us have trouble with anyway, and then making an illusion of the rest of the world. For example, a person who has a particular vantage point may attempt to make understanding of everyone else through this particular lens. This creates a bias about the accurate perception of others.

To be more accurate in your thinking means viewing the world from its macro perspective and then placing yourself within it in relationship to everything else. This requires the ability to perceive the larger picture first and then putting oneself into that picture and understanding how our own personal perception may be different than the information coming from the environment. The bias associated with selective attention diminishes the more we are aware of the larger world.

In the picture we see a cognitive bias. We take the dollar bill and then apply it to the environment. The environment tells us that the largest paycheck is to the right. However, if we were to compare the paychecks against each other, which was the original question, we can better gauge their size relations. We may become aware that the way we view the environment is actually inaccurate because we are using the same paycheck as a vantage point.

One may find the same example in group relationships. If we were to analyze in depth the needs, wants and desires of the group members on an individual level we can find better comparisons between our needs and theirs that help us make better decisions. However, if we assume that the world revolves around us (i.e. a single vantage point) then we only take from the environment those cues that fit within our personal heuristic. Sometimes our first impression and assumption is not the best!

Social Capital Theory and Four Factors of Organizational Improvement

Interesting research entitled Social Capital in Human Service/Child Welfare Organizations: Implications for Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Innovation, and Quality by Salvador Montana helps shed light on how Social Capital Theory explains organizational performance through the factors of innovation, satisfaction, motivation and quality. Such research is limited in its causality and accurate terms of measurement but does create higher levels of understanding that focuses on how group values can generate higher levels of performance.

Four thousand and six participant surveys were retrieved from human service industry workers in Texas. The age of participants varied and the education level of the workers ranged from high school to graduate degrees. The work environment was considered bureaucratic with clear lines of authority and top-to-bottom type management. The environment didn't appear to offer clear opportunities for employee based environmental improvement.

"The purpose of this study is to explore ways public human service organization can improve the provision of services they provide to the public (Montana, 2006, pg. 7)." The study creates a backdrop explanation of how even in large governmental organizations there is the possibility of improving the services offered through proper socialization efforts. Furthermore, it lends credibility to the factors of innovation, motivation and satisfaction having significant influence on performance improvement as postulated by me-conomics (the socialized self within an economic system).

According to the theoretical model proposed by the researcher there are four dimensions of social capital: 

Social Capital

1.) Structural Dimension: Network Ties, Network Configuration, Appropriable Organization

2.) Rational Dimension: Trust, Norms, Values, Identification

3.) Cognitive Dimension: Shared language, codes and narratives.

4.) Social Knowledge: Exchange and Recombination, Explicit and Implicit Knowledge.

Each of these dimensions is theorized to lead to innovation, satisfaction, motivation, and quality. The eventual result of these four factors would theoretically result in improved organizational performance within the bureaucratic human service industry. The study attempted to see if these four characteristics lent support to the model. The study did not seek to find causality between the characteristics but instead attempted to find significant associations.

The results of the study indicated that there was a strong correlation between normative factors linked to social capital which include information, knowledge, networks, trust, goal setting, group cohesion and coordination toward group goals. These social and normative factors had influence on innovation and satisfaction to a stronger degree and a weaker association with motivation and quality. The weakest association was with quality leaving this as a possible extra variable without strong influence and a minimal connection to the other three.

The researcher concludes that findings of the multiple regression analysis indicated that social capital has the greatest predictive strength on innovation, motivation and satisfaction. In essence when the culture and conditions of the organization are set to the right tone an organization can improve upon these four variables. It is the social group that reinforces these expectations and behaviors and leads to higher levels of performance. It is through this socialized and organizational learning process that companies can improve overall performance even in bureaucratic institutions such as child welfare organizations.

The author contends that even though Social Capital Theory has been around for some time it has limited research because it is strongly conceptual and abstract without strong ability to measure multiple factors for correlation. Minimal research has been associated with larger populations but not strongly focused in the organization. Valid measures have been difficult to find and that such concepts will need to be conducted over a larger spread of time through multiple researchers. The author further indicates that the highly conceptual nature of the variables will need to be better defined before significant measurements can be taken to improve organizational performance through such a lens.

Montana, S. (2006). Social Capital in Human Service/Child Welfare Organizations: Implications forWork Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Innovation, and Quality (Doctoral Dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from ProQuest.