The Employee - Are you different?

Harvey Mackay, CEO, Mackay Envelope Company says:

If you want 10 days of happiness, grow grain;
If you want 10 years of happiness, grow a tree;
If you want 100 years of happiness, grow people.

Management theories start from probably 4 Ps. Product, Price, Place and People. Any construction requires them. Company is one of such constructions. Level them anywhere but ultimately all are people. Machineries or equipment & technologies are produced to help people by people only. Probably that’s why no organization does any compromise in creating constructive and excellent human resource department first of all.

Robert Zend identified the very common characteristic of people. "People have one thing in common: they are all different."

Mischel in 1968 identified that people can be classified by their difference in characteristics.

What do make people differ from one to other?

1. Competency
2. Constructs
3. Expectations
4. Values
5. Self-regulatory plans

Competency denotes the skills and abilities of person. Skills include managerial and technical skills. Applying skills is an ability to perform the given task. Ability is the quality that makes an action possible utilizing an experience to perform an action and applying knowledge.

Ability describes person’s skills or ability in spatial, perceptual, numerical, verbal, communication, intellectual, cognitive skills, creativity, judgement, social and mechanical skill sets.

Theodore Roosevelt interprets ability as: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Construct is the conceptual framework, which governs how people perceive their environment. In other words, construct is anything that leads person to construct something that carries value in his or her perception.

Expectation as word itself says " what people have learned to expect about their own and other’s behavior."

Orientation theory closely relates employee’s steps towards work with their expectations. According to Blackbur and Mann ‘Pay’ is key preference area that direct people’s choices to work in an organization. Other factors include security, workmates, intrinsic job satisfaction and autonomy to work.

Vroom assesses expectation’s importance as motivation role player in ‘Concept of Expectancy’.

Where an individual chooses between alternatives which involve uncertain outcome, it seems clear that his behavior is affected not only by his preferences among these outcomes but also by the degree to which he believes these outcomes to be possible.

Expectancy is defined as a momentary belief concerning the likelihood that a particular act will be followed by a particular outcome.

Expectancies many be described in terms of their strength. Maximal strength is indicated by subjective certainty that the act will be followed by outcome, while minimal – zero strength is indicated by subjective certainty that the act will not be followed by the outcome.

It will not be erroneous to say that every one of us follows the concept of expectancy. In Most of the times in HR practices, the reason that is found for disappointment of employees is failure of expectations.

Values describe people’s beliefs to be important. Importance is a key word. The stronger the values, the more they will influence behavior. Values can be expressed, implicitly or explicitly in performance, competence, competitiveness, innovation, quality, service, teamwork and care attributes. The standard practice that an employee follows is to perform valuable task for an organization. ‘Adding value’ is an attitude of an employee that differentiates himself to other employees.

Self-regulatory plans are the goals people set themselves and the plans they make to achieve them. Norms are nothing but values. To achieve goal or add value, plans are necessary. In organization some people follow the plans set by management. They fix themselves in all the norms and conditions and abide by them. In critical situation they avoid following self-regulatory plans or self-decisions. Here lies difference between leader and follower. I am not against following deadlines and instructions given by management. But try to be your own leader although you are a follower. Create your own plan to complete given task. In critical situations, make own decisions that add values to company.

Summarizing theory and practice, identify whether do you the one who believes in following aspect to differentiate self in an organization?

1. Do you think that you have an edge over other in managerial and technical skills? Are you competent to other in performing projects and tasks?

2. Have you created your working environment that is constructive? In other words do you inspire yourself doing tasks? Do you believe that you are really inspired to do the job?

3. Have you identified the expectation attributes that hold you in doing job? Are you optimistic or pessimistic by nature? Do you practice on self-motivation? Have you requested ever your management to comply or try to match with your expectations rather doing bad job silently?

4. Do you really add value in self and organization? Are you valuable an employee for an organization who has made an effort or in process to create valuable organization?

5. Have you ever taken independent decisions for an organization whether accepted or rejected? Try to involve in decision-making process if possible. Take a task and deadline but avoid asking questions for everything to management. Have you practiced on defining self-regulatory tasks?

People differ because of their background, environment and culture. Levinson suggested that three types of events shape ‘individual life structure’.

Socio-cultural environment;
Roles they plan and relationships they have;
Opportunities and constrains that enable them to express and develop their personalities.

Anyway it is nice to read everything and following something. But don’t forget what Einstein said, while doing your job.

"It is better for people to be like the beasts...they should be more intuitive; they should not be too conscious of what they are doing while they are doing it."