It contains about interpersonal behaviour, Study notes of Communication and Presentation Skills

Download It contains about interpersonal behaviour and more Study notes Communication and Presentation Skills in PDF only on Docsity! Interpersonal Behaviour Interpersonal behavior is the behavior and actions that are present in human relationships. The way in which people communicate, and all that this entails, is considered interpersonal behavior. Interpersonal behavior may include both verbal communication and nonverbal cues, such as body language or facial expressions. Verbal interpersonal behavior consists of joking, relating to one another via the art of storytelling, and taking or following orders. Interpersonal skills are highly desirable in many situations, specifically careers that rely on personal relationships such as the health care industry or sales. Interpersonal Behaviour is basically how “two persons” interact in any setting. It is extremely important in organizations or even schools and other education institutions to strengthen interpersonal relationships. When at a basic level, that is, between two people the relationship is strong and pleasant, it will lead to proper behaviour. This behaviour will result in productive work which is ultimately what organizations are looking for. At the employee level if trust and passion for work exists, the unity between them can achieve great results. These results would be in terms of reduction in the time lag, better quality work, and excellence in working procedures. Even in an educational institution such behaviours have a chain reaction. If two people do not get together and are forced together in a group assignment, it might just be completed half-heartedly by the two and not achieve desired results. This will have two consequences. First, it will affect the other group members and their grades. Second, it will foster hatred and mistrust within which will have long term effects on those two and those surrounding them. Interpersonal behaviour is a topic that is widely studied by many academics. Basically, the term ‘interpersonal’ focuses on the bond between two people, and the behaviour between these two individuals will depend on the context of their relationship. For example, the way that a boyfriend and a girlfriend behave with one another will be different to the communication between a mother and a daughter. Of course, interpersonal behaviour isn’t just explored in the environment of friends and family, as it is widely believed that a strong partnership between an employer and their staff can result in higher levels of efficiency in the workplace. This is why character building courses have become a key part of business, as it allows interpersonal behaviour to become stronger as co-workers trust one another further. There are different theories that surround interpersonal behaviour, and it’s widely believed that the more people collaborate with each other, the better they will be at appreciating each other’s skills. It doesn’t just benefit the results that companies can publish, but it improves levels of happiness in the workplace. Because people are working with their friends and enjoying one another’s company, they are going to be chirpier and less likely to get involved with conflict that can damage overall productivity. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Interpersonal skills are the qualities and behaviors a person uses to interact with others properly. In the business domain, the term refers to an employee’s ability to work well with others while performing their job. Interpersonal skills range from communication and listening to attitude and deportment. Strong interpersonal skills are a prerequisite for many positions in an organization. Interpersonal skills cannot be learned solely from a textbook. They come naturally to some people, while other people have to work at cultivating them. In many organizations, employees with strong interpersonal skills are valued for their pleasant demeanor and positive, solutionoriented attitude. These employees are team players, who work well with others to achieve a goal. Interpersonal skills relate to the knowledge of social expectations and customs. Individuals with these skills consider others’ reactions to adjust when we do some good work but also tell us our mistakes. A pat on the back goes a long way in extracting the best out of individuals. One needs to have people at the workplace who are more like mentors than mere colleagues. Interpersonal Relationship. 5) It always pays to have individuals around who really care for us. We need colleagues to fall back on at the times of crisis. If you do not talk to anyone at the workplace, no one would come to your help when you actually need them 6) An individual needs to get along with fellow workers to complete assignments within the stipulated time frame. An Individual working all alone is overburdened and never finishes tasks within deadlines. Support of fellow workers is important. You just can’t do everything on your own. Roles and responsibilities must be delegated as per specialization, educational qualification and interests of employees. An individual needs help of his fellow workers to complete assignments on time and for better results. Transactional analysis & Its application in organisation “Transactional analysis (TA) is a technique used to help people better understands their own and other’s behaviour, especially in interpersonal relationships.”“TA refers to a method of analyzing and understanding interpersonal behaviour. TA offers a model of personality and the dynamics of self and its relationship to others that makes possible a clear and meaningful discussion of behaviour.” After Eric Berne, this concept was made popular by Thomas A. Harris, Munel James and Dorothy Jongeward and Abe Wagner. In later years Jongeward and Wagner have shown how the concepts of TA can be applied to organisations for analyzing interpersonal communication and related to the work of other theories such as Douglas McGregor and Rensis Likert. TA is primarily concerned with the following: (i) Analysis of Self Awareness (ii) Analysis of Ego states (iii) Analysis of Transactions iv) Script analysis (v) Games analysis (vi) Analysis of life positions (vii) Stroking Analysis of Self Awareness: The interpersonal relationships are composed of inter-self. Self is the core of personality pattern which provides integration. This relationship can be studied properly if a person can perceive his own behavioural style and at the same time how it is perceived by others. Self awareness is a cognitive concept; it describes the self in terms of image, both conscious and unconscious. Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham have developed a diagram to look at one’s personality including behaviours and attitudes that can be known and unknown to self and known and unknown to others. They named this diagram the Johari window. This Johari window comprising of four quadrants is shown in the following diagram. 1. The Open Self: The open quadrant refers to the behaviours, feelings and motivations of an individual which are known to self and also known to others in any specific organisational setting. Some individuals are straight forward, open and sharing. He himself is very clear about what he is doing, what he is feeling and what his motivations are. Similarly others are also very clear about his actions, feelings and motivations. In such type of interpersonal relationship, chances of conflict, if any, will be very little. 2. The Blind Self: The blind self quadrant is unknown to self but known to others. Other people know what is happening to a person, but he himself is unaware of it. Very often such blind behaviour is copied by individuals from certain significant people unconsciously right since the childhood.Since such a behaviour is copied unconsciously, people may not be aware of it. Another reason for this unawareness is that other people are not willing to be open and do not give relevant feed back to the person concerned. Even if there is a verbal or non-verbal response in the system, the related only with psychological age. A person of any age can have these ego states in varying degrees. BERNE states that “although we cannot directly observe these ego states, we can observe behaviour and from this infer which of the three ego states are operating at that moment.” A healthy person is able to move from one ego state to another. Further, these three ego states are not like Freud’s Id, ego and super ego. They are based on real world behaviour. These three ego states are shown in the following figure: 1. Parent Ego: The parent ego state means that the values, attitudes and behaviours of parents become an integral part of the personality of an individual. By parents, we do not mean the natural parents but all those emotionally significant people like elder brothers, and sisters, school teachers, elder relatives or friends, who served as parent figure when an individual was a child. The attitudes, behaviours, values and habits of these people are recorded in the mind of the individual and these become the basis of this personality. Parent ego is expressed by giving advice, admonitions, do’s and don’ts, showing displeasure, reliance on the ways which were successful in the past etc. These people tend to talk down to people and treat others like children. There are two types of parent ego states: (i) Nurturing Parent Ego: Nurturing parent ego state reflects sympathetic, protective and nurturing behaviour not only towards children but also to other people in interaction. (ii) Critical Parent Ego: Critical parent ego state shows critical and evaluative behaviour in interaction with others. This ego state attacks people’s personalities as well as their behaviour. They are always ready to respond with a should or ought to almost anything people tell them. Each individual has his unequal parent ego state which is likely to be a mixture of helpfulness (Nurturing state ego) and hurtfulness (Critical ego state). People with parent ego “state have more choice over their actions. 2. Adult Ego: The adult ego state is authentic, direct, reality based, rational, fact seeking and problem solving. People interacting with adult ego; do not act impulsively or in a domineering style. They assume human beings as equal, worthy and responsible. The process of adult ego state formation goes through one’s own experiences and continuously updating parental prejudices or attitudes left over from childhood. Though certain values which are formed in the childhood are rarely erased, an individual at the later stage of the life may block his child and parent ego states and use his adult ego only based on his experiences. He updates the parent data to determine what is valid and what is not. Similarly, he updates the child data to determine which feelings should be expressed. Thus, people, with adult ego state, gather relevant information, carefully analyze it, generate alternatives and make logical choices. This ego state can be identified by verbal and physical signs which include thoughtful concentration and factual discussion. 3. Child Ego: The child ego state is the inner world of feelings, experiences and adaptations. In each case, the child ego is characterised by very immature behaviour. The characteristics of child ego state are: (i) Creativity (ii) Conformity (iii) Anxiety (iv) Depression (v) Dependence influencing our behaviour and the behaviour of the other people with whom we interact. Depending on the ego states of the persons involved in transactions, there may be three types of transactions: (i) Complementary transactions (ii) Crossed transaction (iii) Ulterior transactions. (I) Complementary Transactions: Complementary transactions are those where the ego states of the sender and the receiver in the opening transaction are simply reversed in the response. In these transactions stimulus and response patterns from one ego state to another are parallel. The message by one person gets the predicted response from the other person. There can be nine complementary transactions: 1. Adult-Adult Transactions: In these transactions, the manager and his subordinate interact with each other from adult-adult ego. This is an ideal transaction. Complementary transactions in these ego states are psychologically mature and effective because both the boss and the subordinate are acting in a rational manner. Both are attempting to concentrate on problems, developing alternatives and trying to choose the best possible alternative to solve the problem. Adult-Adult transaction is presented in the following figure: However, there are some inherent problems in this transaction. At times, these transactions may prevent reaching any decisions because of rational data processing procedure and a deadline may emerge. Moreover, the absence of child ego state may make the transactions dull due to the lack of stimulation a child can provide. In such situations, the boss may move to the parent ego state to take a decision to solve the problems. In-spite of these problems, this type of transaction is generally considered best from the organisational point of view. 2. Adult-Parent Transaction: In adult parent transaction, the manager has the adult ego and he attempts to use the information he himself has processed. On the other hand, the subordinate has the parent ego and he prefers to use the clicks and rules of the past. The employee’s parent ego tries to control and dominate the boss. This type of transaction can be effective only on a temporary basis and it can help a new manager in understanding the rules and guidelines under which his subordinate operates. The following figure presents the Adult-parent transaction: There can be a lot of problems in this type of transactions. In the long run the employee with the parent ego may have hostile feelings towards the managers with adult ego. Such problems can be further aggravated if the other employees working in the organisation have child ego and they are under the influence of the employee with the parent ego. As he may be having better interaction with the employees with child ego, the employee with the parent ego can come into direct conflict with the manager with adult ego. 3. Adult-Child Transaction: An adult child transaction occurs when the manager has an adult ego but the subordinate has a child ego as shown in the following figure: The parent-child transaction is considered the ideal situation. The manager will be satisfied because he can dictate his own terms. The employee will be satisfied because he will escape from responsibility and pressure. The child ego in the subordinate presents much conflict and there will be chances of smooth working in the organisation. In the long run, this transaction will not be advantageous. The manager will start having the feeling that the employee is not capable of doing anything on his own. The employee will start becoming frustrated because he may feel that his personality is not developed and this interaction has made him surrender his adult ego. 7. Child-Parent Transaction: This is not a very effective style of transaction. The manager with the child ego may be creative, but the role of the manager goes beyond creativity. In the child-parent transaction, there is a reversal of roles and the employee controls the manager. As the parent ego is strong and overbearing, the manager will yield to the employee. The manager will always perceive the employee as a threat because in his mind there will always be a fear of ridicule, loss of popularity and even of demotion. 8. Child-Adult Transaction: When the manager has a child ego and the employee has an adult ego, the adult employee will control the child manager. The child ego in the manager will discourage the employees, particularly, when decisions are made by the manager on the basis of his whims, fancies and emotions. This will pose problems for the adult employees who want to interact on the basis of their rationality. The organisation may lose many good employees particularly those who want to act on the basis of their rationality but their managers have got a child ego. 9. Child-Child Transaction: When the manager has got a child ego and the employees have also got a child ego, the transaction will not be long lasting. The manager in such a transaction will not be able to lead the employees successfully and will prove to be a liability to the organisation. Because of their child egos, both the employees and the manager will act on their whims and fancies. It will jeopardies the performance of the organisation. Whenever there is a review of the situation by the management, steps will be taken to change this situation. From the above discussion it is clear that all the complementary transactions are not ideal for the organisation or for the people concerned. Adult-Adult transactions are good from the organisational and people’s point of view. In some circumstances, parent-child complementary transactions may also prove to be good. (II) Crossed Transactions: A crossed or non-complementary transaction is one in which the sender sends a message or exhibits a behaviour on the basis of his ego state, but Thus, every person has a script. A person’s script may resemble a soap opera, a wild adventure, a tragedy, a sage, a farce, a romance, a joyful comedy or a dull play that bores the players and would put an audience to sleep. According to Jongeward, “Life script resembles the script of drama-characters, dialogues, actions and scenes, themes and plays, culmination towards a climax and ends in final curtain. She also uses the concept of a person’s two stages for action-the public stage and the private stage.” McClelland produces a scientific study of life script of people who have studied the relationship between stories heard and read by children and their motives in living. His researches have shown that achievers’ scripts are based on the success stories whereas the scripts of power oriented persons are based on stories of risk. Every person in his life time plays three basic roles which are called as the prosecutor, the rescuer and the victim. These roles can further be classified as legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate Roles: These roles are realistically appropriate to the situation. Some legitimate roles are: A Prosecutor: Someone who sets necessary limits on behaviour or is charged with enforcing a rule. A Victim: Someone who qualifies for a job but is denied the job because of race, sex or religion. A Rescuer: Someone who helps a person who is functioning inadequately to become rehabilitated and self reliant. Illegitimate Roles: The roles are said to be illegitimate if they are used like masks and People use them for the purposes of manipulation. These are: A prosecutor: Someone who sets unnecessary strict limits on behaviour or is charged with enforcing the rules but does so with sadistic brutality. A victim: Someone who does not qualify for a job but falsely claims that it is denied to him because of race, sex or religion. A Rescuer: Someone who in the guise of being helpful, keep others dependent upon him or her. Every person from time to time plays the part of prosecutor, rescuer and victim. A person when confronted with a particular situation acts according to his script which is based on what he expects from his life or how he views his life position. Generally, man’s behaviour becomes quasi-programmed by the script which emerges out of his life experience. This life position of a person affects his interpersonal relationships. Thus scripts play a very important role in transactional analysis. Analysis of Life Positions: In the process of growing up, people make basic assumptions about their own self worth as well as about the worth of significant people in their environment. These assumptions tend to remain with the person for life, unless major experiences occur to change them. Harris called the combination of assumptions about self and the other person, a LIFE POSITION. Transactional analysis constructs the following classifications of the four possible life positions or psychological positions: (i) I am OK, you are OK (ii) I am OK, you are not OK (iii) I am not OK, you are OK (iv) I am not OK, you are not OK. These life positions can be shown with the help of the following figure also. turn their bad feelings against themselves. These people are often, unpredictable and erratic. 4. I am not OK-You are not OK: People in this position tend to feel bad about themselves and see the whole world as miserable. These people tend to give up. They do not trust others and have no confidence in themselves. This is a desperate life position. In extreme cases these people commit suicide or homicide. This is the case of individuals who were seriously neglected by their parents in their childhood and were brought up by servants. At times, persons with this life position begin to use intoxicated drugs. Managers who operate from this position are not competent, energetic, efficient and effective. They are indecisive, confused and make stupid mistakes. They provoke others to give them negative strokes in order to relieve themselves for stresses and strains. One of the above four life positions dominates each person’s life. The desirable position and the one that involves the greatest likelihood of adult to adult transaction is “I am OK-you are OK”. It shows healthy acceptance of self and others. The other three life positions are less mature and less effective. However, regardless of one’s present life position, the “I am OK-you are OK” position can be learnt. If all the people in the society operate from this life position, there will be hope for improved interpersonal transactions. Stroking: Stroking is an important aspect of transactional analysis. The term stroke refers to “giving some kind of recognition to the other.” Strokes are exchanged whenever two persons interact with each other. The word stroking originated from the studies of the needs that babies have for physical affection for complete psychological development. As we grow from infancy into childhood and adulthood, we do not entirely lose our need for stroking. A part of original need for physical stroking seems to be satisfied with symbolic stroking like verbal recognition and eye contact between persons. Jongeward and Seyer observe that “People need strokes for their sense of survival and well being on the job.” Lack of stroking can have negative consequences both on physiological and psychological well being of a person. In-fact, strokes are a basic unit of motivation because: (i) The quantity and quality of strokes serves as either positive or negative motivation for employees. (ii) A good share of satisfaction we get from work depends on the strokes available from other people. (iii) We can get strokes from the activities of the work itself, especially if what we are doing really fits and we can take responsibility for it. There are three types of strokes: 1. Positive Strokes: The stroke that makes one feel good is a positive stroke. Recognition, approval, pats on the back are some of the examples of positive strokes. For positive results on the jobs, it is crucial to give positive strokes to people. 2. Negative Strokes: A stroke that makes one feel bad or not good is a negative stroke. Negative strokes hurt physically or psychologically. Hating, criticing and scolding are some of the examples of negative strokes. 3. Mixed Strokes: A stroke may be of a mixed type also. An example of combination of positive and negative strokes may be the boss’s comment to a worker “you did an excellent job in-spite your limited experience.” Excellent job is a positive stroke and lack of experience is a negative stroke. People do not always seek positive strokes. The negative stroke completes a social transaction as they think it should be and provides social equilibrium from their point of view. People feel relieved of their guilt if they get the expected negative stroke. For example, if the Some people are afraid of openness, accountability and responsibility in relationships. Such people generally play games to avoid or control intimacy, because games generally put distance between people. Types of Games: People play games with different degrees of intensity from the socially accepted, relaxed level to the criminal homicide/suicide level. According to Eric Berne, following are some of the games: (i) A first degree game is one which is socially acceptable in the agent’s circle. (ii) A second degree game is one from which no permanent irremediable damage arises, but which the player would rather conceal from the public. (iii) A third degree game is one which is played for keeps and which ends in the surgery, the courtroom or the morgue. Games are programmed individually. If parent’s games are initiated, they are played from parent ego state. If the games are deliberately planned, they are played from the adult ego state. They are played from the child ego state, if they are based on early life experiences, decisions and the positions that a child takes about self and others. Game players generally assume one of the three basic roles; prosecutor, rescuer or victim. Prosecutors are generally those people who make unrealistic rules, enforce rules in cruel ways and pick on little guys rather than people of their own size. Victims are the people who provoke others to put them down, use them, hurt them, send them helpless message, forget conveniently and act confused. Rescuers are the people, who offer help to keep others dependent on them, do not really help others and may actually dislike helping and work to maintain the victim role so that they can continue to play rescuer. These three roles are not independent; rather the players of psychological games often switch back and forth in their roles. On many occasions, the characteristics of these people may not be imaginary. For example, people may actually be victimised personally or discriminated against on the job. In such situations, they are the real victims. Nevertheless, actors in the psychological games assume the role of game players and differ from reality. Methods of Preventing Games: Since games prevent open, warm, intimate and honest relationships between players, it is essential to develop methods to discourage games in organisation. Jongeward has suggested the following steps to overcome psychological games: 1. Avoidance of the complementary hand 2. Avoidance of acting roles involved in games particularly, victim roles. 3. Avoidance of putting other people down. 4. Avoidance of putting oneself down. 5. Giving and taking positive strokes as against negative strokes. 6. Investing more of life’s time in activities and intimacy and 7. Levelling the thinking with others. Benefits and Utility of TA: Transactional analysis is an approach towards understanding human behaviour. It is particularly useful in studying interpersonal relationships. The understanding of TA can help us in the following ways: 1. Improved Interpersonal Communication: With the help of TA people can understand their own personalities. It can help them understand why people sometimes respond as they do. With the help of TA, a manager can understand when a cross communication occurs and he can immediately take steps to convert into complementary communication. As a result there will be improvement in interpersonal communication. 2. Source of Psychic Energy: