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Your performance management system ‘meets expectations

11 October 2011
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To: Management
From: A concerned employee
Subject: Performance Management

Well, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing color, the kids are back in school in their new shoes, and I’m preparing to meet with my boss to have a year’s worth of behavior summed up in a two-or three-word euphemism that will determine my future income and career potential. Yep, it’s performance appraisal season.

If I’ve had a successful year, the boss will give me a rating of “meets expectations.” A rating, I’m told, that should lift my spirits; after all, expectations around here are quite high, and meeting said “high expectations” is no small accomplishment. Then why does it not feel very good? Perhaps we should rename the rating: “Enthusiastically Meets Expectations!” or perhaps “Meets Expectations Unlike They’ve Ever Been Met Before!” Otherwise, call me crazy, but many employees might be tempted to look at “meets expectations” as a mediocre evaluation.

With all due respect, dear management, here’s the deal. This system called “performance management” doesn’t do anything to help performance and is pretty darn unmanageable. I’ve reached a stage in my life where I’d prefer to receive feedback about what I do rather than be graded on a curve. This time of year, we all seem to be focusing more attention on working the system than doing the work the system was designed to measure.

I think it’s high time to evaluate the system that is used to evaluate us. How, I wonder, would the performance appraisal system itself hold up under the scrutiny it imposes on the rest of us?

Let’s start with performance management’s job description. Successful performance management systems will:

  • Ensure equity—We want to make sure that people around here get what they deserve.
  • Improve performance—We want to motivate people to do better.
  • Provide actionable data—We want people to know where they stand so they can take responsibility for their own careers, and we want to identify our future leaders as well as our future ex-employees.
  • Perform other duties as assigned—Like our own job descriptions, it helps to have an extra category to cover responsibilities we haven’t thought of yet.


If we accept the above goals as benchmark attributes of the performance management system, it should be relatively simple to rate how well the system delivers.

Let’s begin with a look at how well our performance management system ensures equity. Raise your hand if you feel that each of us is compensated commensurate with our value and contribution.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Noting no hands in the air, may I point out that no system—even ones that look fair on paper—can meet our fickle and diverse perceptions of equity? I myself vacillate between feeling appreciative and resentful—based on a variety of factors having nothing to do with our splendid organization. Kluging together provisos, conditions, and exceptions will never extend the roof far enough so that no one feels left out. In fact, it’s the exceptions that simultaneously create a feeling of equity for some, while contributing to accusations of injustice from others. On the bright side, there’s something equitable about everyone suffering through the same system, filling out the same forms, and grumbling the same grumbles this time of year. So for the score on “Ensuring Equity,” how about a generous “Meets Expectations?” May as well start the review off on a positive note.

Surely we can count on the system to improve performance. After all, one reason that we suffer through this period of reminiscing and goal-setting is to help us get better at our work.

The theory behind the system works like this.

  1. First, we define ideal behaviors for every job.
  2. Second, we compare everyone against the ideal, in a sort of Olympic-judging panel sort of way.

For example, as a level eight financial analyst, here’s what you should be able to do and here’s how well you should be able to do it. Under scrutiny, I’m afraid, the analogy breaks down. Olympic judges, unlike my boss, don’t have to work with the people they’re scoring after the performance. Also, Olympic judges base their ratings on an agreed upon standard; while there’s one right way to perform a triple Sal chow or a round-off back handspring, there are many ways to manage a project or satisfy a customer. Furthermore, how the athlete treats his or her colleagues doesn’t enter into his score. The choice of process, approach, or dress code won’t impact the athlete’s score either. An Olympic diver who comes late to the meeting about local aquatic venue procedures doesn’t have to worry about the impact on his or her score.

Despite the heroic effort of our Human Resources department and the wisdom of the various consulting firms we’ve hired, we’ll never achieve the clarity of assessment we yearn for. We simply can’t separate how we feel about each other and how we treat each other from how we assess each other’s performance. Personally, I consider this bit of humanity good news. In the end, most of us spend more time disputing the veracity of the feedback than ferreting out the kernel of useful perspective.

Don’t get me wrong, dear management, I want feedback from my boss. I’m eager to hear how my actions add or diminish value. It’s just that the label, the rating, or the score doesn’t give me any useful information; it only focuses my attention on whether or not I agree with the assessment. So, when it comes to “Improving Performance,” I give our performance management system a resounding: “Needs Improvement.”

3. Lastly, we want our performance management systems to provide actionable data about the people in our organization.

Interestingly enough, though I may benefit from this feature, it’s also the most potentially damaging aspect. How well does our performance management system provide you, the folks who control whether or not I continue in your employ, the information you need to decide my fate? It’s a hard question to answer because I don’t have visibility into the conversations going on about what’s next for me. I don’t mean to impugn anyone’s motives, but I can’t help thinking that the last presentation I made to you matters a whole lot more than my grade—oops, I mean “rating on my performance appraisal.”

I’m a little stuck here. What would you do if you had to assess a category of my performance, but you lacked any real data? I suppose it’s best not to draw attention to the fact that I can’t objectively rate how well our performance management system is doing its job with respect to “Providing Actionable Data.” Let’s check the “Meets Expectations” box on this one.

At this juncture, I can guess what you’re thinking: “Don’t bring us problems without solutions.” Fair enough. Here’s one way to think about it. We would never knowingly spend time, money, and organizational attention on a process that doesn’t add value. One simple way to determine whether a process adds value is to eliminate it completely and see who complains. If the only group to miss our performance management system are the lawyers who crave documentation, may I humbly suggest that we’re investing a lot of energy on a system with dubious value? It seems to me that disgruntled employees and their lawyers haven’t exactly been deterred by the riveting and comprehensive histories of performance we keep on file. In fact, I’m of the opinion that the system itself creates more perceptions of inequity than it eliminates.

How then do we ensure equity, improve performance, and get actionable data on how our employees are doing? How about we teach managers and employees to talk to one another with candor and empathy? After all, if employees don’t have to embellish their contributions in order to outrank their colleagues and appraisers don’t have to fret over delivering a disappointing rating, we’ll have plenty of time to talk to each other.

—

Are you a Saybrook University alumna or faculty member who is interested in submitting a blog post for potential publication on UNBOUND? You may do so by submitting your finished piece or pitch on the right-hand side panel of UNBOUND pages. 

Systems archetypes and their application

15 August 2011
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System archetypes are common and usually recurring patterns of behavior in organizations. These patterns almost always result in negative consequences. You can use system archetypes to effectively answer the question, “Why does the same problem occur over and over?”

System archetypes were first studied in the 1960s and 1970s by Jay Forrester, Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, and others in the nascent field of systems thinking.

In his popular 1990 book, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,” author Peter Senge explored system archetypes and, along with Michael Goodman, Charles Kiefer, and Jenny Kemeny, documented the most common set of patterns of behavior in organizations that have a tendency of recurring. These systems-thinking archetype researchers leveraged the annotations of John Sterman, a pioneer in system dynamics. The structures and graphical language of system dynamics allowed Senge and his colleagues to document these common system archetypes and make them accessible to the average reader.


Eight system archetypes and their storylines

The eight most common system archetypes are:

Fixes that fail—A solution is rapidly implemented to address the symptoms of an urgent problem. This quick fix sets into motion unintended consequences that are not evident at first but end up adding to the symptoms.

Shifting the burden—A problem symptom is addressed by a short-term and fundamental solution. The short-term solution produces side effects that affect the fundamental solution. As this occurs, the system’s attention shifts to the short-term solution or to the side effects.

Limits to success—A given effort initially generates positive performance. However, over time the effort reaches a constraint that slows down the overall performance no matter how much energy is applied.

Drifting goals—As a gap between goal and actual performance is realized, the conscious decision is to lower the goal. The effect of this decision is a gradual decline in the system’s performance.

Growth and underinvestment—Growth approaches a limit potentially avoidable with investments in capacity. However, a decision is made to not invest, resulting in performance degradation, which results in a decline in demand validating the decision not to invest.

Success to the successful—Two or more efforts compete for the same finite resources. The more successful effort gets a disproportionately larger allocation of resources to the detriment of the others.

Escalation—Parties take mutually threatening actions, which escalate their retaliation attempting to “one-up” one another.

The tragedy of the commons—Multiple parties enjoying the benefits of a common resource do not pay attention to the effects they are having on the common resource. Eventually, this resource is exhausted, resulting in the shutdown of the activities of all parties in the system.

The set of common system archetypes has its own unique causal storyline. This storyline is universal and can be applied to the understanding of individual manifestations inside organizations. For instance, the fixes that fail archetype has the “squeaky wheel” as its main storyline. In this system archetype example, a quick fix is applied to a pain point (or “squeaky wheel”) to reduce its symptom and the “noise” generated by it. The storyline gets complicated when the unintended effects of the quick fix become consequential. These effects start to add to the problem, making the quick fix less or totally ineffective.

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Archetypes and their applications

Aside from a storyline, system archetypes have a structure. This structure consists of a number of mostly endogenous variables and feedback loops—one or more of which contains a delay that usually contributes to the unintended consequences of the behavioral pattern, a crucial aspect in understanding social sciences. Endogenous variables are those that form part of the feedback loops that both modify and are modified by other variables.

Three of the common eight system archetypes—limits to success, growth and underinvestment, and tragedy of the commons—contain endogenous variables that act as external constraints to these systems. The structure of these system archetypes is depicted through causal loop diagrams, a tool from the field of system dynamics.

Unintended consequences (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Unintended consequences (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

This diagram (left) shows the structure of the fixes that fail archetype. This structure has three variables: the problem symptom, the quick fix, and the unintended consequence. The flow between the fix and the unintended consequence has a delay and is the main reason for the existence of the archetype. Two feedback loops are present in this structure: a balancing loop for the quick fix and a detrimental reinforcing loop for the manifestation of the unintended consequence.


Archetypes and their applications

System archetypes can be used as a diagnostic tool to better understand the dynamics of a specific set of behaviors that have manifested an unwanted condition.

The theory behind system archetypes is that situations with unwanted results or side effects can be mapped to common behavior models. Given the knowledge available about system archetypes, problem-solvers, in general, can apply its principles and arrive at a rich diagnosis of a situation and plan a recovery. The knowledge base on system archetypes provides guidelines for determining what archetype is at play and, once identified, how to approach an intervention.

From a proactive perspective, system archetypes can be an essential part of planning. A variety of strategies can be tested through the lens of archetypes to identify potential pitfalls and address them in the planning stages when they are easier to tackle. Additionally, system archetypes provide a language to communicate among members of an organization regarding how a particular system is expected to perform. Unintended consequences in system archetypes are well known and can be translated into potential or realized consequences. Having a language to document, communicate, and analyze behaviors provides a useful and consequential framework for dealing with changes necessary to prevent or eliminate negative behavioral patterns. Moreover, once the particulars of system archetypes are mastered by members of an organization, their knowledge can be leveraged to build robust systems immune to their side effects.

If you are curious about how system archetypes can work in the fields of social science or integrative medicine and health sciences, Saybrook University offers programs that focus on students, making sure they reach their full potential, with an academic focus in humanistic psychology to make the world a better place. Learn more by exploring our programs below.

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If you are curious about learning how system archetypes can work in the fields of social science or integrative medicine and health sciences, Saybrook University focuses on its students, making sure they reach their full potential, with an academic focus in humanistic psychology in order to make the world a better place, with our programs below.

Case study: Musings on ‘John,’ his glasses, and existential-humanistic psychotherapy

8 August 2011
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“John” came to psychotherapy complaining of anxiety, dark moods, and difficulty connecting with others. A slight man, John wore glasses and made little eye contact with me in our our first meeting. When he did make eye contact though, I could not help but notice that he squinted, as if straining to see me.

He quickly detailed a laundry list of things in his life left undone for a number of vague reasons that, to me, were circular and hard to follow. He had not yet filed his divorce papers from a separation four years ago. He left a graduate program and owed the school money. He had been unemployed for several years and needed to find work. He wanted to smoke less marijuana. He needed to be more assertive with a friend, etc. From our first session, John struck me as an incredibly bright individual whose will had atrophied over the years.

Conventional (i.e., medical-model, treatment-focused) thinking in psychotherapy might say something like, “John is depressed, likely because of a chemical dysfunction in his brain. One of his primary symptoms is amotivation. Because he is depressed, he is unable to attend to the matters required of him (e.g., divorce papers, school loans).

While I do not wholly discount this reasoning, as a psychotherapist trained in existential-humanistic psychotherapy, I have a simultaneous, yet different perspective. Irvin Yalom suggested clients often present to psychotherapy feeling disappointed with the way they are living their lives. They experience existential guilt for making decisions that led to only partial fulfillment or complete denial of their potential. This guilt often manifests as depression, anxiety, or a combination of the two. With this in mind, we might say that John’s depression did not cause his lack of motivation, but his lack of motivation—his repeated decision to not act when an action was required—has led to his current depressed state.

Yalom also suggested that the work of psychotherapy is, in part, to re-engage the will of our clients so that they may live more fully within natural human limitations we all face. Additionally, existential-humanistic psychotherapy holds that the client will bring his or her way of being in the world into the consulting room. These ideas came to life when, several sessions into our work together, John began to make more eye contact (a good sign, I thought) and I commented on his squinting.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “It is a real problem. I got these bifocals two years ago and I’ve never been able to see with them.”

“You have gone two years with glasses that don’t help you see?” I asked, somewhat shocked.

“Yes,” he said. “And I think it really contributes to my mood. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I suppose I could do something about it,” he responded. “They just don’t fit right and never worked from the start.”

“How often have you thought about doing something about it?” I asked.

“I think about it all the time!” he said. “It drives me crazy, not being able to see.”

As this exchange continued, John attempted to move on to other topics several times. However, I found myself slightly obsessed with his glasses. It seemed like such an important symbol for his struggle to self-motivate. Having worn glasses myself, I found it hard to imagine how John could go so long not seeing clearly. Over and over, I brought us back to the glasses in the here-and-now, gently nudging him to deepen into what it was like for him to have this problem that drove him crazy but not to do anything about it. Although I immediately wanted to help him develop a plan to remedy the situation, I fought the impulse, opting instead to stay in John’s dilemma of inaction with him. I realized that to move too quickly would have been to impose my will on John, rather than waiting for John to come to his own willful action.

Now the reader might expect that I am going to finish this post by writing that John eventually bought new glasses and no longer strains to see me in my office. However, no such luck. What I can say is that John and I have discussed his glasses in subsequent sessions and, at his suggestion, have even discussed options (read choices) available to him to find new glasses. At the same time, in subtle ways, connections between his glasses and other domains of his life replete with unfinished business have been made. All of this feels like progress to me. However, conventional psychology, driven by behavioral outcomes, might argue otherwise. Perhaps it might argue that if I am going to use John’s glasses and his lack of motivation to get a new pair as any kind of indicator at all, then our work has not yet served him. After all, he still can’t see well.

As an existential-humanistic therapist, I guess I see it differently.

The art of thinking together

1 June 2011
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According to William Isaacs, professor, author, and co-founder of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT alongside Peter Senge, dialogue is a vehicle for creative problem identification and solving. However, it is different than what is normally conceived as problem solving. The usual modality to tackle problems is discussion. We are used to exposing our points of view, and entering into a dialectic exchange and sometimes debate.

In any of these cases, we are defending our ideas. Resolution or problem solving emerges out of consensus or a decision made by someone high in the hierarchy. In the best case scenario, the compromise is acceptable to all, but in most situations one or more individuals would feel that they lost. Companies with strong decision-making processes would have a way to make the decision “stick” regardless of the opposition. In the 1990s, I worked for a company where accepting and supporting a decision once it was made was a condition for employment.

Dialogue allows for the identification and solution to a problem by “thinking together.” This notion was first introduced by David Bohm, the famed physicist, and extensively documented by Isaacs. Thinking together is the result of the dialogic process. As stated, it starts with the suspension of our underlying assumptions followed by deep inquiry into the assumptions of all the participants. Dialogue allows for the true exploration of the problem. Thinking together arrives as part of what Isaacs calls the generative dialogue. This is the phase of the dialogic process when the participants together reach new insights, co-create, and ultimately solve the problem with a much greater depth than the defensive form of conversation.

As supported by science and personal experience, the speed of change in the world has accelerated greatly. Edgar Schein submits that dialogue can speed up the process of change within an organization. His argument is twofold. First, resistance to change is driven by fragmentation; fragmentation of thought, culture, language and understanding. Second, our customary communication approach of discussion often ends up in suboptimal solutions through compromise or mandate. Dialogue addresses fragmentation by giving all participants access to proprioception (one’s own perception). Thought coherence is its result. Thinking together is the optimal way to solve problems once coherence is achieved.

Isaacs developed a model showing how a conversation evolves from its inception into two major paths, one of dialogue and the other of discussion. He posits that a conversation for a specific purpose reaches a point of deliberation. This is the stage where options are considered. It is also the point where a major decision will be made based on how the conversation flows.

Two paths are available. The first path is the suspension of underlying assumptions, and the second one  deals with defense. The path of suspending moves to a dialogic conversation. The path of defense further bifurcates into either a productive defense or an unproductive one. A productive defense will result in a solution through the presentation of facts, a dialectic exchange, and a synthesis of the exposed ideas. A decision will be arrived through consensus or mandate. In the unproductive flow, a discussion will ensue leading to a debate in which points are made and defended without a satisfactory conclusion.

Isaacs speaks about creating the container for dialogue. A container can be described in relation to its “quality of energy, experience, and aliveness.” It is not about the physical attributes of the room necessarily, although they are important. A container includes the physical and the nonphysical. Ultimately, it is how we feel when we are in this container. Do we feel a sense of trust and openness? Dialogue requires that the “field of conversation” be comfortable for this purpose.

Boundaries and sensitivity are essential to dialogue. Boundaries relate to the constituencies in the dialogue. For some groups, participation map be open and people may come and go as they please. For others, participation may be limited to a fixed population. Another area of boundaries relates to the depth of personal questions and statements. Dialogue is not the place for insults. However, participants may want to and may need to make personalized statements. This has to be in agreement with everyone in the group. Bohm stressed the need for great sensitivity when embarking on dialogue. He believed that correcting our thought processes requires support, safety, and above all trust.

The art of thinking together is one of the great tools for our present time. We need dialogue to solve our planetary challenges.


Are you a Saybrook University alumna or faculty member who is interested in submitting a blog post for potential publication on UNBOUND? You may do so by submitting your finished piece or pitch on the right-hand side panel of UNBOUND pages. 

Grief doesn’t just go away — it’s something you have to work through

16 May 2011
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We’re used to tragedy.  Car accidents, cancer diagnoses, unexplained deaths – they happen every day.  

But are we any good at grieving? 
In an article in Natural News, Dr. Larry Malerba explores the correlation between unresolved grief and chronic illnesses. Entitled, Could Grief Be Causing Your Chronic Illness, Dr. Malerba looks at grief from a psychophysiological perspective exploring the grieving process as a normative human experience that has ravaging maladaptive physical and psychological effects if cut short. While complex, the grieving process over a tragic event or death is found to be most successful with individuals who possess a strong degree of psychological maturity, solid support systems, a sense of spirituality, and congruent emotional and cultural perspectives toward the grieving process. Conversely, Dr. Malerba asserts than unfinished or unprocessed grief has ravaging effects—often leading to a variety of chronic physical illnesses; namely: depression, anxiety, gastrointestinal issues, migraines—to name a few.

Essentially, unresolved anguish results in the “somaticization of emotional grief” and the experts at The Grief Recovery Institute have solutions to its perilous side effects.

Referred to as the action program for moving beyond loss, experts John James and Russell Friedman run an entire institution devoted to the process of grief—for all sorts of loss, pain and tragedy. In their work, grief is seen as a normative process; wherein forgiveness is seen as a central component towards the cessation of resentment for the person or thing responsible for the incident and accurate identification and emotional expression of the tremendous loss suffered by the person in grief. Power and healing are seen as resulting from the emotional grieving process in those suffering; not in the blame of those responsible.

In their work with individuals, groups and professional trainings, James and Friedman hold that the process of grief is different for each person; therefore stage theories do not serve in the facilitation of healing. For the grieving person or family, the “public” display of emotion is always different, with each person having a different “emotional value system.” Friedman and James focus their theory and work on completing the relationship or “unfinished business” with the person that has passed or the event that occurred. Contrary to public opinion, they assert that completing a relationship or a circumstance is possible with someone who is living or dead or a situation that is still occurring or no longer possible.

Both professionals hold that painful memories, avoidance of persons or situations related to the death or event are unsuccessful and result in a cycle of deep unresolved grief. Therefore, the grieving process involves catharsis and anguish where a “re-experiencing” of the loss occurs where unfulfilled dreams, hopes, and aspirations are worked through. This process is viewed through an empowering lens as it gives the grieving individual a way to complete the life or circumstance cut short by death or loss; where life-giving memories can exist alongside grief and deep pain.

In all the services and professionals trainings that James, Friedman and the institute conduct, they focus on “debunking” popular myths about grief. Namely, the old adages that suggest time heals wounds and that a person can “get over” a death or painful experience. James and Friedman object to the maxims saying it is grief work; a re-experiencing, a completion of the unfinished emotional experiences that heals wounds.

“To spare oneself from grief at all costs can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness, the great Erich Fromm once said reminding all of the importance of working through grief; which is all to often a process of deeply entrenched pain.

 Fromm’s words remind us of the necessity of the grieving process when tragedy strikes—our very physical and psychological health depends on it.  
 — Liz Schreiber

Original photo by Raja Patnaik, post-processed and uploaded by Alessio Damato

What does ‘humanistic’ mean?

11 May 2011
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Humanistic thought holds that people are active agents in a process of constantly engaging their humanity, instead of passive mechanisms or parts upon which doctors, workplaces, and systems act.

Humanistic thought holds that people cannot be reduced to components, but instead are whole beings, with intrinsic dignity, whose subjective experiences must be valued. 

To really understand people, you can’t look at an MRI image.  You can’t look at a test score.  You can’t refuse to talk about anything except “behavior.”  Deep down, we all know that.

To really understand people, you have to grapple with emotions;  with love, with desire, with anger, with fear.  You have to deal with aspirations:  with hope, with ambition, with self-actualization. 

To really understand people, you have to look at the systems they participate in, the cultures they come from, and the way their internal worlds connect with the collective structures around them. 

What is the humanistic movement?

Throughout the history of ideas, many movements have refused to do this because the human experience is rich and troublesome, messy and complex.  They have sought to use methods that offer yes-or-no answers, and in so doing tried to reduce people to charts and binary functions.  People are economic actors, or the sum of their political decisions, their faith community, or the neurotransmitters running through their brains – and nothing more. 

The humanistic perspective emerged out of a movement to approach people as they truly are, and to try to understand them on their own terms.  It asks the big questions – what is the human spirit?  What binds us together?  What does it mean to be alive? – because these are the questions that many people are trying to answer.

What does it mean to be a humanistic university?

A humanistic university not only encourages students to ask those questions, in a meaningful way that is relevant to their lives and work, but teaches that way;  treating its students as unique individuals with unique talents, passions, and life’s work, rather than as cookie-cutter “customers” to be loaded up with pre-fab knowledge and sent along. A humanistic university empowers students to make choices that are relevant and meaningful, and teaches them how to take their lives and careers to the next level.  A humanistic university believes that education and service go hand in hand, and that results can best be measured by the way they improve the lives of real people.  It focuses on qualitative research as much as quantitative, on human potential as much as profit, and on spirit as much as mind.

Saybrook is one of the world’s leading centers for scholarship in the humanistic tradition.  The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, one of the movement’s leading publication, has always been edited by a Saybrook faculty member. 

Today, Saybrook University’s mission, vision, and programs remain grounded in a belief in human potential and the conviction that all human beings are capable of personal growth and achieving higher states of consciousness.
 

Are Good Communication Skills the Foundation of Psychological Success?

9 May 2011
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The Importance of Communication in Psychology

In conversation, as in life, little things mean a lot.

The importance of communication in psychology is clear: How you speak can make or break your success. In fact, there is an entire field of science devoted to improving face-to-face communication, and it suggests that flawed communication is a major source of stress in relationships.

In Is Your Communication Style Affecting Your Relationship for Better or for Worse?, Dr. Sherrie Bourg Carter suggests that conversational styles and patterns in relationships are a major source of clandestine stress. Dr. Bourg Carter contends that many relationships and communications involve parties who are essentially speaking “a different language” depending on their level of directness, assertiveness, and compassion.

Dr. Bourg Carter is among many psychologists who suggest the importance of effective face-to-face communication for relationships and interpersonal fulfillment. It’s long been suggested that communication depends on the “skill sets” or “talk habits” in one’s conversational repertoire.

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6 Tips For More Successful Communication

In The Talk Book: The Intimate Science of Communicating in Close Relationships, author Gerald Goodman, Ph.D., explores the skill sets needed for improved communication, transformed relationships, and fulfilled interpersonal relations. Dr. Goodman writes that adopting or changing the following six talking habits can transform many facets of your life.

Disclosures

Disclosure is at the heart of good relationships and can transform communications. Disclosures support  greater intimacy when done properly. Facilitating disclosure in conversations and relationships involves a process of gradually increasing the degree of risk over time, decreasing  restrictive control and increasing  trust and vulnerability. Put simply, don’t say too much too soon.

Reflections

Reflection is a lesser-known communication skill. It’s simple and fairly natural. It involves no pragmatism but simply requires extending an empathic ear and heart. It’s accomplished by reiterating the speaker’s essential feelings and thoughts back to them. It’s irreplaceable and effective.

Interpretations

Interpretation is what many of us do in conversations—too soon, too quick, and too ineffective. When effective, interpretation brings new meaning. When unsuccessful, interpretations can be insulting assumptions. Avoid conversational interpretations that “interpret” the self-image or personhood of another. Instead, stick to proverbs or generalized sayings; they are the most innocent and safe interpretations

Advisements

Easy to overuse and abuse, advice must be carefully woven into conversations—always with respect for the self-determination of the “other” in the conversation. When used correctly, advice can be  a respectful suggestion that honors the autonomy of the other person.

Questions

Questions are the building blocks of all conversations. They allow both people in a relationship to get to know or keep up with one another. When questioning someone you’re in a relationship with, check your motives. Make sure you are trying to gather information; and not covertly giving advice, interpreting, or disclosing things about yourself too soon.

Silences

Silence is by far the easiest—and least used— communication tool.. Also referred to as “conversational allowing,” silence paves the way for good communication, putting pauses between listening and talking for us to regulate our powerful thinking and feeling mechanisms. In short, increasing your awareness and use of silence in your conversations and relationships can make a real difference. You won’t be dissatisfied!

These simple tips will help you achieve deeper, more successful, and more fulfilling communication.

“When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on,” said humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers.

— Liz Schreiber

Our Humanistic and Clinical Psychology department offers multiple programs for those wishing to explore how psychology and communication intersect. Learn more about the various humanistic psychology programs offeredor request more information via the form below. You can also apply now through our application portal.

Empathy is going the way of the land-line: one more thing the young are giving up

20 April 2011
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Are college students today less likely to feel sympathy for people less fortunate than them than college students were 30 years ago? 

We’d better have a talk about empathy, before it’s too late. 

A meta-analyses study published in the August 2010 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review looked at research empathy dating from 1979-2009, including over 13,000 college students. The researchers were looking at the personality quality referred to as dispositional empathy – which is what students display when they say that they care about the homeless man who sleeps in the park near campus. 

Konrath and colleagues found that students were less likely to agree with statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.” That last statement is critical to empathy.

The research indicates that a particular type of empathy has been lost. There has been a steady decline in the ability to imagine another person’s point of view and to sympathize with them. 

This is more than just a moral issue – though it certainly is that.  Having these aspects of empathy in oneself has been shown to encourage positive behavior and deters us from harming others. The less empathy we have, the more casual violence is likely to result. 

This isn’t a supposition:  a study conducted in 2008 found that parents who were lacking in perspective taking and empathic concern were more likely to abuse their children. In the article “Preventing Violence and Trauma in the Next Generation” author Gail Ryan argues that a lack of empathy can lead to increased interpersonal violence.

Further, In a 2011 TED Talk Penn State sociology professor Sam Richards explained that having these empathetic skills helps us to understand what motivates others, and come to win-win solutions to problems.  Is it an accident that our political climate has become more polarized and our rhetoric more violent as our ability to empathize has declined? 

Empathy among individuals is key to a society finding solutions that are not based on anger, ignorance, or apathy. 

Empathy is a real world skill that can be taught, encouraged and nurtured not just in the next generation. A study published by Sharon Nickols and Robert Nielsen in the 2011 issue of the Journal of Poverty demonstrates that putting college students through a poverty simulation they were able to better empathize and understand the lived experience of being poor. The long-term effect of this study is still unknown, but we can only hope that knowing the lived experience of poverty may prompt these students to be less judgmental and more compassionate towards those that are struggling to make ends meet.

They are teaching empathy in our medical schools and law schools. Roots of Empathy, a psychosocial educational program based in Canada, starts teaching empathy at the most critical years of life, childhood.

What they have learned and how they will (and have) applied this empathy is yet to be seen. But considering the cost of the lack of empathy, not teaching it is not an option.

 — Makenna Berry

Being perfectly human means accepting human imperfections

11 April 2011
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“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself,” states Anna Quindlen, best selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

It’s ok to make mistakes. Stop striving for perfection.

Easier said than done, I know.  We have a strange relationship with the need to be perfect.  In society, children are told its ok to make mistakes. But not adults.  As soon as we join the “real world,” mistakes stop being okay.

Well, new literature suggests that mistakes ARE ok – even for adults.  In fact, they can help facilitate growth and it might just well be the foundation of psychological health.

In a landmark publication, Alina Tugend furthers the theory and research about human error. Released last month, Tugend’s book Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong, suggests that embracing screw-ups can not only make us happier, but healthier and smarter.

Tugend heralds the good news that human beings, no matter the degree or frequency of mistakes they’ve made, are not themselves mistakes. With that understanding, she takes the reader into deep waters looking at the medical advances that have resulted from mistakes, the fear that American society has attached to mess-ups, and the all encompassing shame that results from falling from the throne of perfection.

The reader is encouraged to divorce the thought patterns that link mistakes with character flaws, intimidation, dishonor, failure, punitive measures or other biased maladaptive beliefs about one’s intrinsic nature, goodness, and value. In the place of the maladaptive belief systems, Tugend contends that mistakes should be seen as opportunities for growth, discovery, understanding and powerful tools for learning. And when the shame, embarrassment, and fear detach from mistakes the experiences connected with them become livable, growth facilitating, and psychologically beneficial.

Tugend’s work adds to the body of work produced by humanistic psychologists that attribute the same inherently good attributes to humanity;  it’s a tradition that holds that people have intrinsic value, intentionality, the capacity to make meaning, and self-determining and self-actualizing tendencies – regardless of diagnosis, intellect or other man-made constructs.

Capturing the essence of humanity and “mistakes,” humanistic psychology founder Abraham Maslow once said, “I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.

Hopefully such wisdom will eventually erase the taboo of mistakes.  The shame dissipated. The fear washed away.

— Liz Schreiber

Your inner child still lives – Your outer child still acts out.

7 April 2011
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While many think childhood ends at eighteen, new research shows it is still very alive at any age—and is a contributing factor in your everyday life.

Author Leon Seltzer explores the evolution of self and personality in Self-Sabotage and Your “Outer Child” speaking to an “outer-child” in adult personalities that is characterized by impulsivity, carelessness and limitlessness. The Outer Child, Seltzer points out, acts impulsively out of a need for instant gratification from tension, anxiety and other negative feelings. Its motto: at all costs – avoid pain, pursue pleasure.

Sounds good – but there’s an inherent problem in instant gratification.

Turns out, it makes us feel worse about ourselves. Sure, we feel better in the moment, our tension relieved (or at least ameliorated). But eventually we feel worse about ourselves because we’ve sacrificed our values, wishes, or ethics to the moment. It’s self indulgence at its most unhealthy level, and for it we sacrifice our deepest need, self-nurturance.

We have all been guilty of it at one time or another. Our Outer Child is present in those actions that give us an external “fix” – late night junk food, getting surgically attached to a slot machine, spending money at the mall we don’t have – the list is at once generic and deeply personal.

The more we chase our tails around with self-indulgent behaviors, the more we miss the mark of what we really need. Our inner selves are really looking for unconditional love, self-affirmation and other inner self-nurturing attitudes.

In her revolutionary book, Taming Your Outer Child: A Revolutionary Program to Overcome Self-Defeating Patterns, Susan Johnson tackles this increasing important issue in society – self-indulgence at the expense of self-nurturance. 

Johnson’s work suggests that the inner child, outer child and adult self are all still at work, regardless of your age.

Anderson defines the inner child, outer child and adult self as different constructs forming the foundations of personality (much in the way Freud did with the Id, Ego, and Super-Ego); and ultimately choice. From the perspective of emotion and action, Johnson defines the constructs as:

Inner Child: It’s the feeling, needing, and wanting part of you.

Outer Child: Looks for the easy way out, quick fixes and immediate gratification.

Adult Self: It’s your inner nurturer and your outer parent. Better yet, it accomplishes goals.

Johnson’s groundbreaking work suggests a program to work directly with all three personality components to help resolve internal conflicts that affect the decision making processes of the psyche – resulting in self-defeating behaviors in place of self-nurturing.

Tranquilize your inner child. Tame your flippant outer child. And fortify your adult self.

It’s all about healing those deep seated wounds without diving into the muck of the past. Through the use of self-help tools including support groups (if available), visualization, inventories, and daily exercises to address your outer child, and its lack of integration with your adult self and inner child.

Looking specifically at issues of abandonment, loss, emotional stress, relationship distress, depression and defense mechanisms, Johnson encourages her clients, book readers, and support group attendees to fill our surveys to heighten awareness of “outer child” behaviors. Awareness of our impulsive behavior, our unmet nurturing needs, and the slippery slope of instant gratification are the underpinnings of the insights and tools Johnson suggests using every day to heighten awareness and reflection to avoid engaging in self-defeating behaviors.

In addition to surveys, and exercises, Johnson encourages the use of visualizations to engage all three parts of the personality to integration. Here is a glimpse of one:

Imagine a child, one who’s been abandoned and is living on the streets in a distant foreign city. (Imagine this child is of the same gender as you are) This child is cold, hungry, wounded and scared. Her fondest wish is for someone to care for her and protect her from harm…

Picture yourself coming upon this poor abandon child as you are on a trip. You sense something familiar about this child. This child becomes an important and meaningful commitment in your life….

This child is you—your own inner child—and she’s counting on you.

Johnson is a skillful clinician and offers practical steps toward stopping self-defeating behavioral patterns—and awakening to the self you have always dreamed of.

Carl Jung once observed, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” His words ring truer today than ever before:  in a world that values external indulgence with people that cry out for inner self-nurturance.

 — Liz Schreiber