Plan for Positive Influence

Plan for Positive Influence
Wendee Aardema, Jamie Snead, Annemarie Browning, Keitrick Clark, Adrienne Threatt
University of Phoenix

Introduction In every workplace environment, there will be a diversified collection of people that represent all different walks of life. There will be people from different cultural backgrounds, along with people who hold different political perspectives and different religious views. With all of these differences, employees bring their individualized attitudes, emotions, personalities, and core values. Because these elements all shape employees’ behaviors in the workplace, it is essential that both organizations and employees make themselves fully aware of these differences and the impact that it has in the workplace. When managers gain such an understanding, they are enabled to create a workplace environment that lends itself to motivation, satisfaction, and ultimately improved performance (Robbins & Judge, 2007).
Organizations need managers that can take the diversity that is present, the good and the bad, and make it work to their advantage by providing positive influence to obtain desired results. This essay will give solutions to those leading individuals by offering a plan for positive influence. It will incorporate ways to increase motivation, satisfaction, and performance in the workplace. It will also address the differences in attitudes, emotions, personalities, and values, as well as how these components influence behavior.

Increasing Motivation, Satisfaction, and Performance Employees have different needs and different desires which create different motivational problems for all employees. A manager must resort to different means of motivating employees based on diversity, culture and goals. Motivation is defined as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal (Robbins & Judge, 2007). I am personally motivated by advancement opportunity or goals. I tend to set small goals to achieve the larger, more difficult, unattainable goals. I enjoy constructive criticism and feedback because it lets me know if I am not performing to standards. I need some type of intervention to get me back on track. According to Chapter 7 Motivation: From Concepts to Application, Expectancy theory argues that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual (Robbins & Judge, 2007). The satisfaction of a job is based on many factors, which correlate with motivation and performance. I have never personally come across anyone who was completely satisfied with their employer, company, boss or manager when they lack motivation or job performance skills. According to Chapter 7 Motivation: From Concepts to Application, In summary, the key to expectancy theory is the understanding of an individual’s goals and the linkage between effort and performance, between performance and rewards, and, finally, between the rewards and individual goal satisfaction. As a contingency model, expectancy theory recognizes that there is no universal principle for explaining everyone’s motivations. In addition, just because we understand what needs a person seeks to satisfy does not ensure that the individual perceives high performance as necessarily leading to the satisfaction of these needs. (Robbins & Judge, 2007)
In laymen terms, being satisfied and recognized for performance will motivate and lead to job satisfaction. While serving in the military, I was rewarded for many achievements based on performance and the ability to motivate the airmen around me. I always involved my airmen in decisions and used their feedback to accomplish the missions or task. As a result, a satisfactory working environment was created. Performance is complicated because it involves tools comparable to job rotations, job enlargement and job enrichment. According to Chapter 7 Motivation: From Concepts to Application, “Expectancy theory predicts that employees will exert a high level of effort if they perceive that there is a strong relationship between effort and performance, performance and rewards, and rewards and satisfaction of personal goals” (Robbins & Judge, 2007). The other factor that increases job performances is a system of equality within a working environment. Flextime, job-sharing and telecommuting are some motivators that keep an employee from getting lackadaisical, or just plan sick of the everyday repetitious work routine. I personally enjoy flextime and telecommuting which allows me to be in several locations at the same time or to attend an appointment that would be impossible to attain with a regular 9 to 5 work requirements.

Influences on Workplace Behavior Managers should be aware that individuals have different attitudes personalities and values that impact how employees behave or respond in the workplace. These preconceived attitudes and values are different for each individual. When placing employees in respective positions, managers must understand the importance of how attitudes affect job behavior. They are indicators that can impact job performance and employees’ job satisfaction. Attitudes can be predictors of how well employees like their jobs and how they will respond in the workplace environment.
Researchers indicate the three components that effect attitude: (a) cognitive, (b) affective and (c) behavior. Cognitive refers to thinking that sets the stage for attitude. The affective component refers to the emotional or feeling segment of attitude. The behavior component refers to the intent to behave in a certain way (Robbins & Judge, 2007). An example of this concept is cognitive thoughts lead to feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions influence individual behavior. Attitudes can lead to negative or positive behaviors in the workplace. Employee’s who have attitudes or values that do not fit with the attitudes and values of their organization might experience dissonance in the workplace, which can lead to dissatisfaction and job performance. Dissonance can be explained as attitudes that are in conflict with the employee’s attitudes.
A comprehensive way to measure individual attitudes is by taking assessments that measures the individual’s attitudes, emotional make up, personality types and values. Much can be learned through these assessments. The individual can be made aware of cognitive thoughts, emotional make up, and values the individual deems as important and how these behaviors can predict an organizational fit, job satisfaction and performance. These cognitive, emotional and value indicators impact personal attitudes that are reflected back into the workplace.
Attitudes, Emotions, Personalities & Values Personality assessments are indicators of personality traits. These assessments can indicate for example, if an individual has an introverted or extroverted personality. An individual who exhibits an introverted personality would not be a good job fit to be a public relations representative. An extroverted personality type would not be satisfied working at a job where they worked in isolation. This personality type would be better suited for a leadership role that involves interacting with people. Survey assessments can assist in determining the right job and organizational fit that are a match for personal attitudes and values. There are several methods to determine the differences in personality types but the two that are used the most are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five Model. The Myers Briggs Type separates personalities into 16 different types of personalities. An assessment is given to a participant and the participant is bucketed into several personality factors such as below: ● Extroverted vs. Introverted — Extroverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy. ● Sensing vs. Intuitive —Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details. Intuitives rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.”
● Thinking vs. Feeling —Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems.
Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.
● Judging vs. Perceiving —Judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.
In recent years, an impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. 14 The Big Five factors are:
● Extraversion - This dimension captures one’s comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
● Agreeableness - This dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.
● Conscientiousness - This dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension is easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
● Emotional stability (often labeled by its converse, neuroticism) - This dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
● Openness to experience - The final dimension addresses one’s range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar. (Robbins & Judge, 2007) The differences in values are determined by several factors, but generally are learned early on in life through parents, teachers, friends, or others such as a country’s culture. Values lay a foundation that leads an individual through their lives by a specific mode or an existence.
Each one of us is linked to the emotions and attitudes whether by protecting self-values or deep affectionate involvement to a person’s personality. The "sense" is a gift to us to analyze the values of the personality and behave in accordance. Sense creates sentiment that helps avoid harm to the values possessed deep in the personality. We avoid action or reaction to what is not related to our values. It is important that employers recognize the differences in both personality and values to better the organization. The managers that understand how to differentiate and motivate through diversity will enhance the productivity of the organization. The managers should be able to utilize the assessments to prepare a plan of action and how to develop each of the employees personalities to increase the productivity of the organization. A manager will be able to tailor the employee’s personality to their particular jobs or assignments.
Conclusion
Great managers, who have learned to use assessment tools available, have been able to create productive teams through positive influence. We have learned from this exercise that employees and employers should take an active part in the assessment and evaluation of employee attitudes, emotional makeup, personalities and personal values. Attitudes are indicators that can predict employee behavior, job performance and job satisfaction. These are managers who have learned the fine art of balance between motivation, satisfaction, and performance by working with employee’s individual personalities, attitudes, emotions, and values. Organizations need to employ more of these managers within their organization for greater employee satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn produces a more productive performance by the team.

References Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Attitudes and Job Satisfaction. Ch. 3. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc.

Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Motivation Concepts. Ch. 6. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc.

Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Motivation: From Concepts to Applications. Ch. 7. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc.

References: Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Attitudes and Job Satisfaction. Ch. 3. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc. Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Motivation Concepts. Ch. 6. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc. Robbins, Steven P. & Judges Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior: Motivation: From Concepts to Applications. Ch. 7. A Pearson Education Company, Prentice Hall Inc.