CH-10 Creativity and Human Relations – Human Relations: Strategies for Success : Chapter Notes

This document contains Chapters 10 to 13 CHAPTER 10 Creativity and Human Relations Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you will be able to: Explain the importance of creativity. Define creativity. Discuss the relationship between perception and creativity. List the steps in the creative process. Describe creativity in the workplace. Compare and contrast creative methods for groups. Give examples of ways to solve problems creatively. Key Terms Aslan phenomenon: A circumstance that exists when people make rules, then follow them even after the situations to which they originally applied no longer exist. Brainstorming: A type of spontaneous group discussion to help find multiple solutions for problems. Collective habits of thought: Ways of thinking that occur when groups have their own beliefs about what should be done and how it should be done. Creative process: The way in which creativity helps you develop ideas and solve problems. Creativity: The ability to produce ideas or solutions to problems that are unique, appropriate, and valuable. Either/or fallacy: When you see only one of two extremes as a possible solution, while ignoring the endless number of creative choices that might exist between the extremes. Extrinsic motivator: Those motivators that come from outside sources, such as money and fame. Intrinsic motivators: Factors that motivate a person from within, such as the joy and excitement of the discovery process. Intuition: Direct perception or insight. Nine-dot puzzle: A puzzle that is used to show people’s respect for rules that don’t exist. Participants are asked to connect nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting the pen off the paper. Most fail because they feel the need to stay “inside the box” formed by the nine dots. Perception: The way in which a person views the world. Nominal group method: An exercise that encourages creativity within a group framework by allowing everyone to offer ideas individually. Open mode: A state of mind where you are relaxed, expansive, less purposeful, and more fun than in the everyday closed mode. SCAMPER: A strategy, created by Bob Eberle, to release your creative mind. Self-perception: What and how you believe yourself to be. Second right answer: Refers to a method of decision making in which people get rid of the stumbling block that prevents them from looking for more than one solution. Ten “mental locks”: Rules or beliefs that keep people from being as creative as they otherwise could be. Lecture Outline I. The Creativity Connection Creativity—the ability to produce ideas, or solutions to problems, that are unique, appropriate, and valuable—has much to do with one’s self-esteem and, in turn, one’s relationships with other people. Creativity is the ability to come up with original and effective solutions. Business factors such as the number and quality of products created are affected strongly by the creativity of the people in an organization. The importance of creativity cannot be overstated. International competition is forcing American businesses to take a new look at how American creativity compares with that of other nations. U.S. companies are emphasizing creativity to an extent that hasn’t been seen since the late 1950s. Now, Americans are trying to increase creativity for a different reason: international business competition. Many companies and some countries have started taking the creativity issue seriously. II. What Is Creativity? Research has shown that creativity has little to do with personality type, with the materials used in creating, with the products produced, or with a particular environment. A. “Flow” and Creativity in Our Everyday Lives Psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi describes creative people as having flexibility and fluency in ideas, with the ability to know a good idea from a bad one. Creative ideas can be used to solve everyday problems (sometimes called “little c” creativity), or can be used to imagine ideas and create products that change our lives (sometimes called big “C” creativity), such as digital technology and the Internet. When people reach their goal, they feel a sense of mastery, but their real pleasure comes from the creative process itself, rather than achieving the goal. He called these moments optimal experience. He refers to the process itself as flow, to describe the motion in which each step of the task seemed to flow effortlessly into the next. Optimal experiences are intensely enjoyable and definitely stimulate one’s creativity, but they are also very demanding. After examining many thousands of people’s descriptions of flow, Csikszentmihalyi has found eight components that are usually found in a flow experience: The activity requires a specific skill and is challenging. Attention is completely absorbed by the activity. The activity has clear goals. Feedback is clear about how you are doing. You are concentrating only on the task itself. You achieve a sense of personal control. You lose a sense of self-awareness. You lose your sense of time. Csikszentmihalyi believes that everyone can incorporate optimal experiences into their everyday lives and in doing so, become more creative. He believes that one key to personal happiness and life satisfaction is for people to take responsibility and find out on their own what makes them feel flow in their work. Because people often use the word genius when talking about extremely creative people, many make the mistake of linking creativity with traditional intelligence. Intuition, which is direct perception or insight, has been shown to be much more important to creativity than scholastic ability. Creative people are usually average or above average in intelligence, but being a genius (in the way that traditional intelligence is measured) does not automatically make someone creative. True creativity requires “divergent thinking,” or what is referred to in more common terms as “thinking outside the box.” Divergent thinking is spontaneous and free-flowing, without constraints, and typically results in many new ideas rather than one solution to a problem. III. Perception and Creativity Most of the researchers who have studied creativity agree that creative people are somehow able to get away from the ordinary, everyday way of seeing things. In his book The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler describes all of the major scientific inventions of the past and shows the creative processes that produced them. Koestler says that habit is the stumbling block to creativity. Groups of people (such as companies, committees, and universities) are often unable to move beyond habits of thinking. Groups often have their own beliefs about what should be done and how it should be done; these are called collective habits of thought. Individuals and groups need to get past the old, established ways of seeing things if they are going to increase their creativity. Perception is the way in which a person views the world. Being able to look at the world from different angles makes a great difference in how creatively one deals with the world and solves problems. Research has shown that highly creative people aren’t afraid to ask what might seem to be silly or childish questions. The curiosity everyone has as a child is an essential part of the creative process. Whatever one can do to retain or regain some of that childlike curiosity will help produce more creative ideas. Maslow remarked that that by remaining in and being unduly influenced by conventional society, any thinking is likely to become conventional and noncreative. The lesson for businesspeople is to learn to look beyond the conventional business world for ideas. Sometimes people’s perceptions are blocked or distorted by rules that they think they need to follow. Often, they are rules that actually don’t exist. The nine-dot puzzle is often used as an example of people’s respect for such rules. Participants are told to connect nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting the pen or pencil from the paper. Characteristics of creative people include: Expert knowledge—the process of becoming an expert in any field is a good beginning point for creativity because it takes practice and hard work to become an expert at anything. Openness to new experiences—creative people are more flexible than others; rather than being closed-minded or inhibited, they are curious and questioning. Independent spirit—creative people are usually independent thinkers who prefer to do things their own way. Internal motivation—creative people are usually motivated by intrinsic (or internal) motivators that motivate a person from within, such as the joy and excitement of the discovery process; these move people more than extrinsic (or external) motivators, which are motivators that come from outside sources, such as money and fame. Persistence—creativity requires patience, hard work, and the ability to persevere; persisting with new ideas and solutions allows the creative person to eventually succeed. IV. Inside the Creative Process The idea of the creative process—the way in which creativity helps you develop ideas and solve problems—has been around since the 1920s. At that time, Graham Wallas described four basic steps or stages in this process. A. Step One: Perception and Preparation Perception is the beginning point for creativity. The first part of dealing with a creativity issue is making sure one perceives the problem accurately. Perception is simply one’s way of seeing the world. As a person begins the creative process, he or she should make sure that his or her way of seeing the one particular aspect he or she is dealing with is useful and real. Another point to remember is that one’s perception of reality might well be aimed at something that already exists. One’s idea might be to adapt, change, or update a concept that is already created. B. Step Two: Incubation The process of incubation might take minutes, hours, months, or even years. In some creative processes, this step will involve research and experimentation. Depending on the nature of the creation, it could also involve simply turning the ideas over and over in one’s mind until the breakthrough finally takes place. One should let the problem sit while processing the relevant information, turning it over in one’s mind. Some of this incubating will take place outside one’s conscious awareness; this explains why many people think that creative problem solving occurs in a flash of insight. C. Step Three: Inspiration This third step can also be called “illumination.” It is the moment when the incubation and all of the struggling finally come together, transforming the developing creativity into a solid, real concept. This magic moment doesn’t always happen on anyone’s schedule. In fact, it can readily happen at less than convenient times—such as in the middle of the night. However, when it does happen, the person it happens to usually feels rewarded and positive about the next step. Wallas called this step the happy idea(s). D. Step Four: Verification This is the step where the newly created concept, product, or service is proven to be worthwhile. Now one can transform the new solution to the problem into useful action, and verify the solution. V. Creativity in the Workplace A. Managing Creativity Most workplaces ignore or even discourage creativity. Managers are often notorious creativity killers. Many managers have a vocabulary of killer phrases that are designed to stop creative thoughts before they start. Managers need to realize that employees’ ideas are often better than those coming out of boardrooms, and that discouraging creative ideas damages workplace morale. An effective manager encourages creativity among employees by creating a climate of deferred judgment. The manager may use a formal method for receiving suggestions, with all employees knowing the procedure. For a creative spirit to emerge from a company or a department, the environment must encourage enthusiasm and commitment from the employee. Work must be made rewarding, challenging, and fulfilling for a creative atmosphere to exist. Figure 10.2 illustrates work conditions that encourage creativity. B. Fostering creativity For most people, creativity has a social aspect. Simply being around other creative people, or engaging in fun things can bring about new ideas and boost creative output. Many of today’s most successful companies, especially those in the technology and other design-related industries, have gravitated toward more employee-friendly workplaces in order to foster creativity and increase productivity. Creative energy can be harnessed, and used to boost workers’ productive output and motivation. VI. Creative Methods for Groups In today’s workplace, creative problem solving is increasingly done in group settings. Whatever an individual can produce creatively, a group may be able to produce more effectively. Groups can produce more ideas in shorter time periods if the creative process is structured carefully. A. Brainstorming In 1934 a sales manager named Alex Osborne devised a method of sparking creativity in a group situation. He called his idea brainstorming, which is a type of spontaneous group discussion to help find multiple solutions for problems. Brainstorming is conducted in two sessions. First Session Rules for the first session of brainstorming are as following: Participants speak in phrases. Hitchhiking on others’ ideas is encouraged. Criticism is forbidden. Silliness is encouraged. Climate is relaxed. All ideas are recorded. A large quantity of ideas is encouraged. Second session Rules for the second session of brainstorming are as following Return to rational mode. All ideas are analyzed and prioritized. Idea duplications are eliminated. Ideas are ranked in order of importance. Everyone gives evaluative input, just as all gave creative input in Session One. After the second session before putting new ideas into place, the leader may ask some employees to take on the task of researching the new ideas. Finally, after the new ideas are put into place, the group may need to make adjustments or “tweak” the new process depending on follow-up examinations of the results of these new ideas or new processes. B. The Nominal Group Method The nominal group method of group creativity is designed to provide a structure that encourages individual creativity within a group framework. The reason this method is called nominal is because the members are actually a group in name only. The group is basically a tool for voting. Usually, nominal grouping involves six steps: Each employee puts his or her ideas down in writing. The leader lists all of the ideas up on a board or chart where everyone can see them. The leader leads a discussion to clarify the ideas and add new ones. Each group member rates the ideas and votes; the voting eliminates other ideas at this point. After the vote, there is a brief discussion of the voting results. The purpose is to clarify points, not to persuade anyone. The group casts a final vote to select the proposal or proposals that will be used. The nominal group method can be especially effective when used with people who are shy, unsure of themselves, or simply not used to being assertive in public. The ideas are anonymous; nobody in the group should know who wrote what, unless the writers give themselves away in the discussion. VII. Creative Problem Solving Creativity is found to flourish with intrinsic motivation. Dr. Teresa Amabile finds that intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation in encouraging creativity. When companies do reward creativity, they often focus more on extrinsic than on intrinsic rewards. W. Edwards Deming explains that this does not work because intrinsic rewards, which can result from allowing creativity, drive employee self-esteem. As time goes on, group creativity will likely become increasingly important. Creative problem solving—especially in teams and other groups, face-to-face or online—is a useful skill all employees will need to develop. New problem-solving strategies will all have one thing in common: All of them will be attempts to extract the greatest number of quality ideas from a group of people in a short time. CHAPTER 11 Conflict Management Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you will be able to: Identify the types of conflict. List sources of conflict. Define conflict analysis. Give examples of potential solutions to a conflict. Compare and contrast styles of conflict management. Explain how to deal with special conflict cases. Key Terms Accommodator: Someone who wants to avoid conflict by engaging in positive thinking. Avoider: Someone who would rather not be around conflict at all and values neutrality highly. Collaborator: Someone who brings both sides together for discussion toward a win-win solution. Competitor: Someone who is most likely to try a win-lose approach to conflict resolution, especially if he or she is personally involved in the conflict. Compromiser: Someone who uses his or her skills to blend differences and form a workable alternative. Concession bargaining: The process of getting each side in a conflict to willingly make concessions in exchange for concessions made by the opposing side. Conflict: A process that begins when one person sees that another person has damaged—or is about to damage—something that the other person cares about. Content conflict: Conflict that tends to focus on disagreements over what a statement or concept means. Dysfunctional conflict: Destructive conflict. Functional conflict: Constructive conflict. Inner conflict: Conflict within an individual; it might involve values, loyalties, or priorities. Institutionalized conflict: Conflict that occurs when a conflict factor is built into the structure of the organization. Intergroup Conflict: Conflict that takes place when already-formed groups have conflicts with each other. Intragroup conflict: Conflict arising when members of an existing group split off and choose sides. Lose-lose strategy: A strategy in which everyone gives up something and the focus is on compromise. Low conformers: Individuals who think independently, solve problems creatively, and often cause some conflict in the process. Negotiation-of-selves conflict: Conflict that is involved in the process of defining yourself to others and responding to their implied definitions of themselves. Person-versus-group conflict: Conflict that occurs most often when a member of a group breaks its rules, or norms. Person-versus-person conflict: Conflict that involves two people who are at odds over personality differences, values conflicts, loyalties, or any number of issues. Values conflict: Conflict that occurs when one set of values clashes with another, and a decision has to be made. Win-lose strategy: A strategy that allows one side of a conflict to win at the expense of the other. Win-win strategy: A strategy that leads to a solution in which both sides feel that they have come out on top. Lecture Outline I. Types of Conflict The results of conflict can range from minor inconveniences to major losses, even company failures. Several common aspects are involved in all types of conflict: Conflict must be perceived by all people involved in it, because whether or not there is a conflict is often a matter of perception. Nearly all definitions of conflict involve opposition or incompatibility. Some type of interaction is going on, or all parties would be avoiding conflict. Conflict is defined as a process that begins when one person sees that another person has damaged—or is about to damage—something that the other person cares about. Conflict is usually seen as a negative factor in the workplace. However, it can be both beneficial and constructive when approached correctly. Conflicts can be classified as: functional—constructive conflict—or dysfunctional—destructive conflict. Another way to classify conflict is by the participants in the conflict. They are as follows: Inner conflict—conflict within an individual; it might involve values, loyalties, or priorities. Person-versus-person conflict—involves two people who are at odds over personality differences, values conflicts, loyalties, or any number of issues. Intergroup conflict—takes place when already-formed groups have conflicts with each other. Intragroup conflict—occurs when a conflict arises among group members, and they choose sides and split off into factions within the existing group. Person-versus-group conflict—occurs most often when a member of a group breaks its rules, or norms; it also can involve someone who never was a member of the group, but who opposes it. II. Sources of Conflict The preceding four types of conflict describe in general terms who is involved in each type, but not how conflict starts. No two disagreements are alike; each one starts at a different point over different issues. If one knows what type of conflict one is involved in, that knowledge can help him or her discover how best to resolve it. A. Content Conflict When disagreements stem from a content conflict, they tend to focus on disagreements over what a statement or concept means. The only real issue is whether or not an idea is right. The rightness of an idea usually focuses on one of two factors: existence or meaning. If the conflict is over existence, verifying whether or not something is real will help. More commonly, content conflicts are over meaning and interpretation. If the argument is about whether or not the task a person was just assigned is included in the vague wording of his or her job description, then he or she has probably moved into a disagreement over meaning. B. Values Conflict A values conflict usually goes very deep, which occurs when one set of values clashes with another, and a decision has to be made. Values conflicts can be solved, rather than avoided. The solution is that many people need to develop a greater tolerance of values differences. By listening carefully and communicating one’s values cautiously, one can often create a sense of trust and mutual respect for differences. C. Negotiation-of-Selves Conflicts This type of conflict erupts over differences in self-definition. Individuals generally define who they are based on their own self-concepts. Many interpersonal conflicts are based on a negotiation-of-selves conflict—a conflict that is involved in the process of defining oneself to others and responding to their implied definitions of themselves. D. Institutionalized Conflict Institutionalized conflict occurs when a conflict factor is built into the structure or the policies of the organization. Some organizations encourage conflict just by the way they are structured. III. Conflict Analysis Anyone wishing to manage a conflict should begin by looking closely at what is really happening. When strong emotions are involved, people are often tempted to jump to conclusions before examining the interests of both sides and their own interests as well. He or she should try focusing on following questions: Who is involved? What is at stake? How important is time? What are the tie-ins with other issues? After these questions are answered, a solution can be negotiated. IV. Potential Solutions Generally speaking, there are three possible solutions to a conflict: win-lose, lose-lose, and win-win. The first two tend to produce a negative, side-taking mentality and are not likely to solve the problem permanently. Yet sometimes, because of time constraints and the other side’s unwillingness to work toward a win-win solution, one may be forced to use win-lose or lose-lose tactics. A. Win-Lose Win-lose strategy allows one side of a conflict to win at the expense of the other. It works as a quick-fix conflict solution that sometimes must be chosen when a win-win approach isn’t feasible. One win-lose approach is the democratic vote. If democratic vote is used in organizations, it will leave a minority of unhappy people without any real recourse. Another win-lose approach is the arbitrary approach (arbitration) in which the conflict manager decides which side is right and which is wrong, then considers the issue to be resolved. This approach also makes losers have hard feelings against both, the winning side and the conflict manager. A skillful conflict manager or arbitrator can soften the effect of the arbitrary approach by using persuasive explanations. Usually, however, the gains from win-lose are short-term ones only, and problems will continue. B. Lose-Lose In lose-lose strategy, everyone gives up something. The main approach in lose-lose is compromise—compromise in the sense that nobody gets what they want, but everyone can live with the decision. Like win-lose, this method usually fails to solve the underlying causes of the conflict. Unlike win-lose, the lose-lose strategy produces unhappy people on both sides of the issue. In the lose-lose strategy, the arbitrator gives little attention to tracing the development of the conflict; thus, the solutions are mostly short term. C. Win-Win A win-win strategy is one in which both sides feel they have come out on top. The key to the success of the win-win strategy is to satisfy as many of each side’s needs as possible. V. Styles of Conflict Management The style people use to resolve conflict will have a tremendous impact on the outcome of a conflict and will determine whether it has negative or positive consequences. Figure 11.2 illustrates the Thomas-Kilaman conflict model. This model shows the five styles of conflict management: Competitor—someone who is most likely to try a win-lose approach to conflict resolution, especially if he or she is personally involved in the conflict; the ideals of teamwork are alien to competitors, and they rarely move to a win-win solution; if the conflict manager is a competitor, he or she might use the lose-lose style to resolve the issue and in this role, competitors are afraid of the disruption that could result from other people’s conflict, so they work rapidly and energetically to eliminate the potential disruption. Avoider—someone who would rather not be around conflict at all; when the avoider is a manager, he or she will often mistakenly assume that if a conflict involves only other people, it should be left only to them; some avoiders will say positive things about the conflict if someone else should bring it up; others will pretend that nothing significant has happened; in either situation, though, the avoider often feels great internal stress. Compromiser—someone who uses his or her skills to blend differences of both sides together and form a workable alternative; although allowing the issue some real urgency, compromisers tend to see agreement as more important than the issue itself. Accommodator—someone who wants to avoid conflict by engaging in positive thinking; an accommodator might tell both parties involved in the conflict, “Don’t worry; be happy!” and they tell people to “count their blessings” or “look on the bright side;” keeping the manager happy is also a top priority; the downside to this is that people involved in the conflict may feel that they are not being taken seriously. Collaborator—someone who brings both sides together for discussion toward a win-win solution; the collaborative approach is not only the most likely to bring about a win-win solution, but is actually necessary for it; the collaborator opens communication channels and learns about what issues each party feels are most important; collaboration requires more skill than the other styles of conflict management. Figure 11.3 illustrates qualities of an effective conflict resolution method. VI. Dealing with Special Conflict Cases Other conflict issues are caused by the specific behaviors of those identified as problem people. Such people are those who for one reason or another are not living up to the expectations of an organization. A. Low Conformers Low conformers are individuals who think independently, solve problems creatively, and often cause some conflict in the process. Working with and managing low conformers require a special capacity for patience and good will. Here are some suggestions that will make working with low conformers less problematic: Learn to tolerate their honesty. Accept the low conformer’s firm method of self-expression without labeling it as stubbornness or disloyalty. Support low conformers when others are overly critical. Accept their independence, and don’t be offended if they don’t ask for advice. Resist the urge to force them to conform. Give relevant positive reinforcement even when they don’t seem to need it. B. Envious People Envious co-workers cause conflict that can be damaging to morale and productivity and can spread through a department or division like a virus. The following are several suggestions for dealing with an envious person at work, some of which will be more appropriate for a manager or an employee: Avoid destructive conflict with the envious person. Confront the envious co-worker. Avoid excessive contact with the envious person. Discuss the problem with your manager. Build up the envious person’s self-esteem. C. Whiners and Complainers The following are several suggestions for dealing with whiners and complainers at work: Listen, but not too much. Do frequent reality checks. Challenge the word unfair. Be a team leader or player. D. Passive, Unresponsive People Unresponsive people are sometimes the most difficult people to work with because on the surface they often seem agreeable and even easygoing. These personality types react to any confrontation or potential conflict by shutting down. Passive people have a variety of different reasons for their behavior. Some people use their absence of response as a way of intimidating—a method of calculated aggression. Others remain quiet because they are afraid of sounding foolish. Still others keep quiet to escape responsibility. Following are some positive steps to get meaningful feedback from this type of difficult person: Ask open-ended questions. Develop and use a friendly, silent gaze. Don’t fill the space. Make statements to help break the tension. Set time limits. Dealing with difficult people requires patience, good listening skills, and time. Whenever a conflict with a difficult person begins, one must become aware as soon as possible that a difficult person is involved; then plan a strategy accordingly. Once the problem is identified, one should work toward a solution, attempting to get a commitment from the difficult person. Because of the nature of difficult people, most of them will never completely stop being difficult. One should deal with their difficulties on an event-by-event basis, realizing the limitations of any conflict management procedure. CHAPTER 12 Stress and Stress Management Learning Objective After studying this chapter, students will be able to: Identify the main causes of stress. Give examples of external and internal sources of stress. Compare and contrast type A and type B personality behaviors. Describe the physical effects of stress. Explain the cost of stress in the workplace. Key Terms Catastrophize: To expand an irrational belief into an imagined disaster. Chronic stressors: Inescapable, day-to-day situations or conditions that cause stress. Cognitive appraisal: The thinking evaluation of an event or situation that varies from person to person and, for an individual person, from day to day. Daily hassles: The daily annoyances, such as getting stuck in traffic or misplacing your keys, which can cause stress in your life. Distress: Negative stress, the kind felt during an illness or when going through a divorce. Eustress: Positive stress, the kind felt when playing tennis or attending a party. External stressors: Stressors that include anything from outside sources that causes you pain or discomfort. Frustration: The feeling people get when goals they are trying to attain are blocked. Hardy personality: A resilient personality type, characterized by the ability to meet challenges, a sense of commitment, and a feeling of being in control of life. Inner conflict: The pressure you feel when you are forced to make a choice. Internal stressors: Your perceptions of stressors, which may vary depending on personality. Irrational belief system: A way of thinking that causes internal stress by substituting a realistic belief with one that is destructive, illogical, and largely false. Job burnout: Physical and emotional exhaustion resulting from long-term stress or frustration in one’s workplace. Major life changes: Changes in your life, such as divorce, that increase daily hassles, leaving you stressed and worn out. Stress: Any reaction or response made by the body to a new situation. Stressor: A situation or an event that causes the body to react (causes stress). Type A and type B personalities: Two standard personality-related behaviors. Type A personalities are characterized by impatience, hostility, perfectionism, and a sense of time urgency. Type B personalities are characterized by flexibility, the ability to relax and delegate work, and a minimal sense of time urgency. Lecture Outline I. Causes of Stress According to psychologists, stress can be defined as the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made on it. In other words, any reaction or response one’s body makes to a new situation is stress. Ongoing situations that seem to be too much for one to handle will also cause stress. The reaction is both emotional and physical. Hans Selye, a Canadian physiologist who researched stress and its effects for 50 years, believed that human bodies are nearly always in some kind of stress. He maintained that some stress is necessary for life, and he distinguished between two kinds of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress, or good stress is positive stress, the kind of pleasant, desirable stress one might feel when playing tennis or attending a party. Distress, or bad stress is negative stress, the kind of stress one might feel during an illness or when going through a divorce. A stressor is the situation or event itself that caused one’s body to react. Stress can be caused by major life changes and everyday hassles, as well as many other sources. Stressors can be caused by internal factors, such as a negative or suspicious thinking style, or the kind of worry about ongoing life problems. Stressors can also come from external sources, such as “red tape” or bureaucracy at work or school that is outside one’s control. A. Life Changes and Daily Hassles Any change can be stressful, especially major life changes—changes in your life, such as divorce, that increase daily hassles, leaving you stressed and worn out. According to some stress researchers, the daily hassles—the daily annoyances, such as getting stuck in traffic or misplacing your keys, that can cause stress in your life—that everyone experiences can be very stressful as well, possibly even more so because they happen more frequently. Major life changes and daily hassles can go hand in hand—especially when major life changes cause daily hassles. Even if stress is due to a pleasant change, daily hassles can occur. B. Chronic Stressors Chronic stressors are inescapable, day-to-day situations or conditions that cause stress. They are more stressful than daily hassles, but not as stressful as a major life change. Poverty, ongoing abuse, long-term health problems, and discrimination because of issues such as race or ethnicity, gender, age, or religion are examples of chronic stressors. II. Sources of Stress In addition to studying major life changes, daily hassles, and chronic stress, psychologists studying causes of stress have identified specific internal and external sources of it in people’s lives. A. External Stressors According to psychologists, external stressors can include anything and everything from outside sources that causes one pain or discomfort, frustration, or conflict. Pain or discomfort—chronic or even temporary pain can make one feel stressed and lower his or her job performance. Frustration—the feeling one gets when a goal one is trying to attain is blocked. Inner conflict—the pressure one feels when forced to make a choice. There are several kinds of inner conflict. These include: Approach-approach—occurs when one has to choose between two desirable goals. Approach-avoid—occurs when one is drawn toward and away from something at the same time. Avoid-avoid conflict—occurs when one has to choose between two undesirable options. B. Internal Stressors According to psychologists, internal stressors can include your own perceptions or interpretations of a stressor, as well as personality factors. Every person has a different perception of the same situation or stressor. Two basic internal factors that make people perceive the same events differently are their cognitive appraisal of each situation, and their individual personality factors. Cognitive appraisal is the thinking evaluation of an event or situation that varies from person to person and, for an individual person, from day to day. In the process of making a cognitive appraisal, people unconsciously ask themselves two questions: Is this stressor harmful in any way? Are the resources (time, energy, and so on) available to handle this stressor? The more stressors one encounters, the more annoyed one feels at new stressors and the more difficulty one has adapting to them. Another part of the answer to why cognitive appraisal varies so much lies in the individual internal factors that make each person unique. The unnecessary stress of irrational beliefs is another factor of the internal stressors. Albert Ellis, a well-known psychologist, believes that one of the internal causes of stress (i.e., stress that one puts on oneself) is an irrational belief system. Irrational beliefs include things such as a person believing that everyone must like him or her or that he or she must never make mistakes. Some people catastrophize, or turn an irrational belief into an imagined catastrophe. According to Ellis, it can be understandable to believe things should turn out better than they actually do. However, it is irrational to expect that they will, and irrational to believe that one cannot survive unless they do. Ellis feels that not just stressors themselves, but also people’s beliefs about stressors, are sources of stress. Figure 12.1 depicts Ellis’s ABC approach to stress, which can be elaborated in the following way: A stands for an activating event. B stands for belief about the activating event. C stands for the consequences of the eventual outcome caused by the activating event and beliefs about it. Irrational beliefs can lead to catastrophizing an event or blowing it out of proportion. The biggest culprit in one’s emotional stress and anxiety, according to Ellis, is the B part of the ABC because it is not the event itself that is responsible for one’s emotional response; it is one’s belief about it. One can try to reduce the stress of irrational beliefs using the “rational emotive therapy” to replace irrational beliefs with more rational ones. III. Type A and Type B Personality Behavior The third type of internal stressor is personality factors—also known as type A and type B personalities. These are two standard personality-related behaviors. Type A personalities are characterized by impatience, hostility, perfectionism, and a sense of time urgency. Type B personalities are characterized by flexibility, the ability to relax and delegate work, and a minimal sense of time urgency. Although the type A and type B personality idea has been very popular in recent years, psychologists now say it may not be as useful as originally thought. People are not so simply categorized. They may act like a type A one day and a type B, the next. It is important for people to examine their behaviors. Behaviors are just habits; they don’t have to be permanent. There may be someone with a different kind of personality than type A or type B, someone who just seems be a survivor. This type of personality, in spite of stressors and problems that seem impossible to overcome, manage just fine. These personalities are known as survivors. Some people who are in stressful situations are able to come out smiling, while others fail. This is due to them having a hardy personality, or resilient personality—a resilient personality type, characterized by the ability to meet challenges, a sense of commitment, and a feeling of being in control of life. IV. The Physical Effects of Stress A. How Our Bodies Adapt to Stress In his book The Stress of Life, Hans Selye developed and tested a theory called general adaptation syndrome, or GAS. According to this theory, when one is first confronted with a stressor, the body responds with an activation of the sympathetic nervous system. This is the fight-or-flight response. When the fight-or-flight response is activated, one has entered the first stage of GAS, the alarm stage. Once the alarm is sounded, the person enters the second stage, the stage of adaptation. If the person is not able to adapt to a stressor and end up using up (or exhausting) all of his or her physical resources he or she enters the third stage, the stage of exhaustion. During this stage, the parasympathetic nervous system is still activated, so the person appears relaxed, but the stressor is still present. In some cases, individuals who are subjected to extreme stress in their lives are unable to adjust to normalcy, even when the stress is no longer present or they have ample leisure time and are prone to illnesses. Selye termed this disease of adaptation. According to Selye, extreme responses to stress may have been essential in early times when people were facing attacks by wild animals. Today, however, these reactions are harmful if they persist. It is important to keep stressors in check, and find ways to manage the possible damage of long-term, chronic stress. B. Stress and the Immune System The immune system serves three basic functions: Recognizing foreign cells and attacking them. Developing antibodies to recognize foreign invaders in the future. Sending white blood cells and other helper cells to the location of an injury or infection to speed healing. Chronic stress weakens the immune system. Because the immune system is weakened by stress, anything from the common cold to an uncommon cancer is more likely to invade when one is under stress for long periods of time. Other stress-related illnesses can include asthma, ulcers, colitis, skin disorders such as eczema or hives, allergies, strokes, and heart attacks. V. The Cost of Stress in the Workplace According to the American Institute of Stress, stress-related problems cost the American economy more than $300 billion every year. These costs are an estimate based on lower productivity due to stress, lost days of work, worker’s compensation claims, health insurance and health-care costs, stress management programs, and lawsuits that are a result of stress-related illness or injuries. Employees increasingly report stress-related headaches, back pain, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, insomnia, and digestive upsets from their jobs. Close to 90 percent of visits to the doctor are for stress-related symptoms. Up to 80 percent of industrial accidents are blamed on stress. In a survey of employees’ stress-related symptoms, most employees reported feeling at least three symptoms. Psychologically stressed employees reported feeling depressed, anxious, frustrated, fatigued, and bored, with lowered self-esteem. Stressed employees were more likely than nonstressed employees to have accidents on the job, eat or smoke too much, have outbursts of anger, and abuse alcohol or other drugs. Increasing numbers of employees are seeking help for stress through employee programs. Employee stress can also lead to job burnout—physical and emotional exhaustion resulting from long-term stress or frustration in one’s workplace. Stress also affects self-esteem. It impacts all areas of people’s lives: physical health, mental health, social life, and job performance. CHAPTER 13 Your External and Internal Customers Learning Objective After studying this chapter, students will be able to: Explain how to determine what customers really want. Define customer service. Describe the internal customer. List the two simplest principles of customer service. Give examples of issues in customer service. Compare and contrast ways to handle a difficult customer. Explain the significance of going the extra mile. List ways to use strong ethics in customer service. Explain the moral of the Poor George story and how it relates to customer service. Key Terms Bad news skills: The skills necessary to deliver bad news to customers but still retain their business and goodwill. Going the extra mile: When a company gives customers small extra products or services as a way of showing appreciation for their business. Good feelings and solutions: The only two things that customers really buy. Internal customer: The person who depends on the other people in the company to provide the services and products for the external customer. “Nice” customer: The customer who never complains, but responds to bad service by taking his or her business elsewhere. Relationship selling: Forming meaningful relationships with your customer, which makes them much more likely to return and buy from you again. Self-esteem trap: The circumstance that comes from taking a customer’s attack personally and letting it affect your own self-esteem. Two simplest principles: Finding out what the customer needs, and doing whatever is necessary to satisfy that need. Lecture Outline I. What Do Customers Really Want? An increasing number of people running businesses today are realizing that satisfied and happy customers are the scarcest and most crucial resource. Without a good base of customers, any business will fail. In How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life, Michael LeBoeuf points out that customers buy only two things—good feelings and solutions to problems. High-quality customer service has never been more important than it is today. The most obvious reason for this increased importance is greater competition. A second reason for this emphasis is the growth of services in the United States over the past few decades. The final reason for high-quality customer service is keeping customers happy and loyal simply makes good economic sense. Maintaining an ever-growing group of satisfied customers is essential to staying in business and making a profit. II. Customer Service: A Definition Customer service guru John Tschohl says, “You have good service only when customers think you do.” He also says that customer service is part of successful selling because satisfied customers come back to be customers again. Good service, which always includes good human relations, is the main reason for repeat business. The cost of finding a new customer is considerably greater than the cost of keeping one business already has. Unhappy customers have a high cost, too—the average disgruntled customer tells at least 8 to 10 people about the unpleasant experience. Treating customers as the most important part of the organization will pay off in the long run, in terms of both growth and added profits. Working on improving customer relations is excellent for one’s own self-development. Learning what works in the process of satisfying customers can aid people in cultivating their own skills in problem solving for other areas of life. Customer relations skills can be transferred to almost any other occupation or profession. If someone is an employee who has a vested interest in the success of the company he or she is working for, the development of customer service skills is worthwhile for him or her. III. The Internal Customer For the past several years, the term “internal customer” has been used more and more often to describe an important relationship among managers, employees, and external customers. One definition of the internal customer is the person who depends on the other people in the company to provide the services and products for the external customer. Internal customers usually don’t walk away when the service is bad. Unlike their external counterparts, they are tied to the company more directly than that. However, this is exactly why treating them right is really important to the overall success of the business. Managers should ensure that the needs of every person in their area are being met, just as should be the case with the external customer. Workers should do their best to be the kind of loyal fan they would be of businesses where they are contended repeat customers. Every employee is accountable to someone, whether to outside customers or internal customers. IV. The Two Simplest Principles of Customer Service When dealing with any type of customer, the two simplest principles help greatly: Find out what the customer needs. Do whatever is necessary to satisfy those needs. By listening carefully to the customer’s stated needs, one might discover unspoken needs. In some cases, the customer doesn’t have a thorough understanding of what his or her own needs are. A person’s task in that case becomes one of probing and asking a series of questions to find out what is behind the surface statements. Although these two principles are very simple, one must remember that besides the immediate needs of the purchase, each customer has basic human needs that all people share (Figure 13.1). Remembering their basic needs could be the only difference between one’s business and a competitor’s. The wise choice is to treat the person with the same cordiality one would treat a paying customer. After all, that person’s opinion of one’s establishment might bring him or her back again. V. Issues in Customer Service A. Your Customers and Your Attitude Checking one’s attitude around customers needs to be an ongoing practice. In Inc. Magazine, entrepreneur Norm Brodsky points out that many businesspeople seem to have the attitude that customers exist only for their (businesspeople’s) benefit. Many people who have contact with customers feel that once they have “landed” a customer, they can start taking the customer for granted. Whenever people deal with customers, they should remember to treat customers the same way later on as they treated customers when they were trying to win them over the first time. B. Delivering Bad News One of the touchiest human relations issues is the tough task of giving customers unwelcome news—especially when they expect nothing but good news. Developing sound bad news skills is essential, and it will make the job less unpleasant. Figure 13.2 shows the four rules that can help when giving customers messages that they would rather not hear. Most customers would rather not hear the word policy. If someone works for a manager who tells him or her that he or she must use that line, at least find out the reasoning behind the policy so that he or she can explain it clearly to the customer. C. Encouraging Complaints In some way, every customer has a problem. If nothing else, the problem is that the customer is in need of the goods or services a company provides. Perhaps the problem is dissatisfaction with some part of the operation—or the competitor’s. Companies should learn to focus on the problem. Companies shouldn’t rely on being told what the problem is. Learning how to deal with an angry customer who yells or scream is certainly necessary. However, yellers and screamers are in the minority. Most customers are like the “nice” customer. These customers would actually be more helpful if they were a bit less nice, because then they would provide better feedback. Many companies today realize that customer complaints are necessary and should be encouraged in every way possible. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, says that adopting a learning attitude toward the customers rather than a defensive position can make customer complaints the most important part of the road to improving the quality of whatever a company is doing. The management should try to influence everyone in the company to think of complaining customers in a positive way. Without them, the company would have only a vague idea of what changes need to be made. A complaint is an opportunity to improve. Customer complaints inspire improvements to service that would otherwise have gone unnoticed to people in many businesses. An emphasis on careful listening to complaints sends the signal to customers that a business is a customer-focused business. When customers perceive that the business is willing to listen, and that it is encouraging their response, they will be much more likely to respond honestly and openly. Businesses should make complaining easy for the customer. They should use various methods of rewarding customers who complain. Most important of all, businesses should make sure that they do all they can to correct the problems customers are complaining about. Without that step, most of the rest is meaningless. Figure 13.4 shows one company’s way of expressing attitudes of value toward customers. VI. Handling the Difficult Customer Although the customer may be very wrong, employees will still be called upon to treat that customer as though everything seen through his or her eyes is correct. Carrying out such an attitude requires more than a little self-discipline. It also requires some courage. People should remember two things when dealing with an unreasonable, angry, or overly demanding customer: People should stay focused. The success of the company depends on satisfying the customers, no matter how unreasonable they might seem. If the employee can remain focused on those long-term needs, rather than on a short-term need to express his or her own anger or frustration, he or she will be the winner. People should avoid the self-esteem trap. The customer is probably upset about something that has little to do with the employee directly. Even if the problem is the result of one of the employee’s own mistakes, he or she shouldn’t take the attack personally, and especially he or she shouldn’t let it affect his or her own self-esteem. Sometimes, the only way to get a customer to communicate is to cool him or her off. Instead of using one’s energy to show that one is right and that the customer is wrong, one should put his or her energy into getting the customer calmed down. Some obvious exceptions to this rule would be customers who are sexually harassing or physically assaulting employees, as well as customers who are involved in other illegal activities. VII. Going the Extra Mile When a company gives customers small “extras” as a way of showing appreciation, it is called going the extra mile—and it nearly always pays for itself. VIII. Customer Service Ethics Acting ethically is essential in all dealings with customers and would-be customers. Customer service is a critical aspect of successful business development, and of maintaining lucrative business relationships. The customer service ethics of a company or organization define the quality of the services the customer will receive. Unethical customer service can result in victimized customers, creates a frustrating gap between the service that the customer expects and actually receives, and can negatively affect a business’ reputation through negative online reviews and plain-old word-of-mouth. A company ensures the highest standards of professionalism and ethics in its delivery of customer service by promoting its desired values (ethics), and making sure frontline workers follow the rules (compliance). By making sure that customers know that their satisfaction is guaranteed, and by following the philosophy that the customer’s needs are of the greatest importance, much of the ethics issue will take care of itself. IX. Who Is Running The Business? One must set limits as to the extent to which one will allow a customer to run one’s business. Regardless of how important the customer is, he or she must never be allowed to undermine company decisions. Les Schwab, Inc. is a successful tire store chain in the western United States. When the founder, Mr. Schwab, was still alive, he used the “Poor George Story” at training sessions for tire store managers. X. Poor George Story The moral of the “Poor George Story” is—respect the customers and give them only the highest-quality service, but never let the customers run the business. Instructor Manual for Human Relations: Strategies for Success Lowell Lamberton, Leslie Minor-Evans 9780073524689