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  • Stress: Cognitive

    In the last byte, we looked at Homeostatic approach towards understanding how stress evolves. In today’s byte, we look a cognitive appraisal approach towards understanding stress.

    In our daily lives we observe that some situations which are stressful for some isnt stressful for others! For example, an employee would be more stressed facing an upset supervisor, compared to when the supervisor is not upset; of for that matter another supervisor itself. It is really the perception that makes this impact.

    This aspect was studies by Richard Lazarus who focused more on the psychology of stress. It is similar to Cannon’s approach in that it talks about the discussion between the person and environment, but the emphasis is on the cognitive appraisal of the situation at hand. Individuals differ in their appraisal of events and people!

    In addition to these, there could be 2 other forms of such stress:

    • Problem Focused
    • Emotion Focused
    While the problem focused coping emphasizes on managing the stressor; the emotion focused approach focuses on the response management.

  • Stress: Homeostatic & Medical Approach

    In the last byte, we looked at the various approaches towards understanding stress. In today’s byte, we look at the homeostatic/medical approach towards understanding stress.

    Walter B Cannon discovered stress but had called it “the emergency response” or “the militaristic response”; this indicates the reason why the definition of stress uses – “the fighting emotion” as a root.

    As humans, we love to be in a steady state – where everything is predictable, expected, sure; however this is far from reality. This “state of steadiness” that we are most comfortable with, is disturbed by external or environmental demands. The steady state balance or equilibrium is called “homeostasis”. [Defn: A steady state of bodily functioning and equilibrium.] Cannon believed that, the body was designed with natural defense mechanisms to keep it in equilibrium/homeostasis.

    Cannon’s research going further explored the role of sympathetic nervous systems and how this would affect an individual’s stressful condition.

  • Stress 2

    In the last byte, we looked at some definitions associated with the concept of stress. In today’s byte, we look at the nature of stress and initiate the discussion on the various theories that attempt to explain stress.

    Stress is an important concept in the study of organizational behavior – this is partly due to the increased competitive pressure that exists in the current business world and this intern takes a toll on the workers and managers alike. Poor Leadership, Work-Family conflicts are some of the leading causes of stress in the present working scenario.

    Stress is definitely one of the most creatively ambiguous words in the vocabulary – it has many interpretations and has a variety of meanings. It carries a negative connotation for few, and is generally thought of as something that is best avoided. Having defined the terms related to stress, it is now time to initiate the discussion on the different approaches that have been taken up to explain stress and related behavior. These are:

    1. The Homeostatic/Medical Approach
    2. The cognitive Appraisal Approach
    3. The person-environment fit Approach
    4. The psychoanalytic Approach
    We shall discuss about these in detail in the next byte.

  • Stress

    In the last byte, we completed the discussion on performance management with a summary of the discussion. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of stress and begin discussion on the same with a few basic definitions.

    Stress: Is the unconscious preparation to fight or flee that a person experiences when faced with any demand.

    Stressor: Is the person or event that triggers the stress response

    Distress: The adverse psychological, physical, behavioral, and organizational consequences that may arise as a result of stressful events

    Strain: Is another name for Distress.

    With this basic understanding, we begin the journey to understand stress better.

  • Performance Management: Summary

    In the last byte, we looked at the modern forms of mentoring. In today’s byte, we attempt to summarize the discussion on performance management.

    People in organization are constantly learning, the managers should exercise the application of consequences appropriately to create desired results. The strategic use of training and educational opportunities, stock options, and recognition awards is instrumental to successful organizational reward systems. Managers could serve as positive role models for employees and act as mentors too in their career development.

    Goal setting activities may be valuable to managers in bringing out the best performance of their reporting employees. Effectively designed goals could lead to excellent performance, but if these are misused, it could lead to dysfunctional behavior in an organization and lower the performance.

    The role of good performance management tools is providing employees with clear feedback on their actions – methods to improve and make them precise have to be evolved to get the right picture of an employee’s performance.

    With this discussion, we conclude the section on performance management and move ahead to next topic

  • Mentoring 2

    In the last byte, we looked at mentoring and identified the various stages that were involved in the creation of a mentoring relationship. In this byte, we move ahead towards the more modern forms of mentoring.

    Mentoring is extremely beneficial to the “mentee” or “Protégés” who undergo the mentoring. This could significantly enhance the early development of a new comer in an organization and also mid career development of an experienced employee. Research has identified that good performance of newcomers with a mentoring relationship had been given a greater delegation.

    Peer relationships for mentoring could be used as an alternative to traditional mentoring relationships to aid career development. Another trend as an attempt to outsource the business mentoring function is the executive coaching aspect.

    In fact, we could classify the various roles who aid in the process as – informational, collegial and special peers and they aid the career development through sharing information, career strategizing, job related feedback,  emotional support and friendship.

    To summarize the role, it is important to state that both mentors and peers play constructive roles in correcting an employee’s poor performance and enhance overall career development.

  • Mentoring

    In the last byte, we began the discussion on the mentoring function of a supervisor. In today’s byte, we look at Mentoring to a greater depth.

    To begin with let us define mentoring – mentoring is a work relationship that encourages development and career enhancement for people moving through the career cycle. [In the context of organizational behavior we shall limit it to only this definition]

    We could look at mentoring to process two distinct dimensions – a career related dimension and the other a psychological dimension. The career related dimension is called coaching and the psychological dimension is called counseling.

    If one is to observe the process of mentoring closely, we could see it move through 4 distinct phases:

    1. Initiation
    2. Cultivation
    3. Separation
    4. Redefinition
    We shall continue the discussion on mentoring in the next byte too…

  • Coaching & Counseling

    In the last byte, we looked at the model of attribution and understood it well. In today’s byte, we look at aspects of importance of coaching, counseling.

    Managers generally deal with two aspects when they are donning a first level managerial position (and definitely continue as one grows in an organization). The 2 aspects are – managing the workforce to continue the work designated for completion unabated and the second is the dimension individual professional and personal growth of employee reporting to the manager. Given the long contact hours at work, it is found that supervisors and coworkers are more effective in mentoring than assigned formal mentors from higher up in the organization!

    What is really unsaid is that the success of mentoring hinges on the presence of openness and trust amongst the parties involved – a stronger trust leads to greater openness and thus to better mentoring. Through these sessions, it is not necessary that only professional problems are addressed, personal dimensions that reduce the employee’s performance – viz depression etc could also be addressed. The supervisor in these roles plays a very helpful role in employee’s problem solving without being completely involved in the responsibility of employee’s problems.

  • Performance: Attribution 2

    In the last byte, we looked at a graphical representation of attribution and the change in behavior that could be associated with it. In today’s byte, we attempt to understand the graphical model further.

    A simple explanation to the diagram displayed in the last byte could be as follows:

    A manager could observe a poor performance and immediately take cues (which would be as described earlier – consensus, consistency or distinctiveness) depending on the interpretation of these, the manager could attribute the poor performance to either internal or external causes. The internal sources attributed to could include – low effort, lack of commitment or lack of ability. External attribution could be towards the equipment failure or unrealistic goals etc. Based on the understanding, the manager could detect the source of the problem and tries to correct it.

    The response of the manager could vary ranging from expressing personal concern to sending the employee back home!

    It could be sensed that a manager who attributes the poor performance to a person would react more harshly than a manager who would attribute it to situational causes. In all this, the manager should be aware of 2 attribution errors we have already discussed:

    1. Fundamental Attribution Error
    2. Self-serving Bias

  • Performance: Attribution

    In the last byte, we looked at how information cues work towards creating an attribution. In today’s byte, we show a model that could summarize the way attribution happens.

    Following diagram summarizes how we could look at the way attribution and the corresponding behavior could work. 


    We shall explain the same and continue the discussion in the next byte.