Foundation of Human Skills

Prof. Neha Nikam

What is FHS??
Unit I: Understanding of
Human Nature
Concept of a MAN!!

◼A social animal. Lives in a society. He cannot

work, survive or live in a society in isolation.
Society plays a vital role in his development.
Individual Differences
Two types of individual differences

◼Inter-individual differences
▪ Differences that exist between one person and
another
▪ With regards to their physical characteristics,
intelligence, abilities, interests etc.
◼Intra-individual differences
▪ They are differences among the various
characteristics possessed by the same person
▪ A person may be very good in singing but average
in acting
Areas of individual differences

◼Differences in physique
◼Differences in intelligence
◼Differences in ability
◼Differences in aptitudes
◼Differences in interests
◼Differences in achievement
◼Differences in personality
 Human life span
Changes in sensory organs,
appearance etc

Changes in perception, reasoning,

memory, language etc

Changes in personality,
emotions, relationships
Human life span

◼Prenatal stage--- period from conception to birth

◼Infancy and toddlerhood--- from birth to age of 3
◼Early childhood--- between 3 to 6 years
◼Middle childhood--- age of 6 to age of 11
◼Adolescence--- age of 12 to age of 20
◼Young adulthood--- age of 20 to age of 40
◼Middle age--- between 40 to 65 years
◼Late adulthood--- 65 years onwards
FACTORS AFFECTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE

Personality,
Attitude Facilities

Values Reward
system

Leadership
Learning stages
Influence of environment
Phases The role of environment

1) Prenatal

2) Postnatal
Prenatal environment
◼ Prenatal nourishment: A well balanced daily diet includes-
meat and meat alternatives (for proteins), dairy products,
bread and cereals, fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C,
green vegetables and fats and oils.
▪ Intake 300 to 500 more calories than usual
▪ Should gain between 26 to 35 pounds
◼ Maternal drug intake medicines, alcohol, smoking etc.)
◼ Maternal illness
◼ Radiations: should be avoided especially during first 3
months
◼ Maternal age
◼ Paternal factors
Postnatal environment

◼Parent-child relationship
◼Ordinal position (birth order)
◼Family life patterns
◼School: first exposure to the external world!!
◼Peers group
◼Culture
Personality

“ The unique and relatively stable patterns of

behaviour, thoughts, and emotions shown by
individuals.”
-Baron and Greenberg
Determinants of personality

HEREDITY

“ The transmission (transfer) of biological

characters from parents to their off springs
(children).”
-G. J. Mendel
The Big Five Model

◼ Robert McCrae and Paul Costa developed

the Five-Factor Model, or FFM, which
describes personality in terms of five broad
factors.
◼The basis of this model is that there are five
basic dimensions that form the basis of all
other personality dimensions.
The five basic dimensions are:
Openness ( Creative Traditional)

People who are high on the openness continuum are

typically:
◼ Very creative
◼ Open to trying new things
◼ Focused on tackling new challenges
◼ Happy to think about abstract concepts

Those who are low on this trait:

◼ Dislike change
◼ Do not enjoy new things
◼ Resist new ideas
◼ Not very imaginative
◼ Dislikes abstract or theoretical concepts
Conscientiousness ( Organized Unreliable)

Those who are high on the conscientiousness

continuum also tend to:
◼ Spend time preparing
◼ Finish important tasks right away
◼ Pay attention to details
◼ Enjoy having a set schedule

People who are low in this trait tend to:

◼ Dislike structure and schedules
◼ Make messes and not take care of things
◼ Fail to return things or put them back where they belong
◼ Procrastinate important tasks
◼ Fail to complete the things they are supposed to do
Extraversion ( Social Introvert)
People who rate high on extraversion tend to:
◼ Enjoy being the center of attention
◼ Like to start conversations
◼ Enjoy meeting new people
◼ Have a wide social circle of friends and acquaintances
◼ Find it easy to make new friends
◼ Feel energized when they are around other people
◼ Say things before they think about them
People who rate low on extraversion tend to:
◼ Prefer solitude
◼ Feel exhausted when they have to socialize a lot
◼ Find it difficult to start conversations
◼ Dislike making small talk
◼ Carefully think things through before they speak
◼ Dislike being the center of attention
Agreeableness ( Cooperative Selfish/manipulative)

People who are high in the trait of agreeableness tend to:

◼ Altruistic
◼ Have a great deal of interest in other people
◼ Care about others
◼ Feel empathy and concern for other people
◼ Enjoy helping and contributing to the happiness of other
people
Those who are low in this trait tend to:
◼ Take little interest in others
◼ Don't care about how other people feel
◼ Have little interest in other people's problems
◼ Insult and belittle others
Neuroticism ( Moody/ depressed Calm)

Individuals who are high in neuroticism tend to:

◼ Experience a lot of stress
◼ Worry about many different things
◼ Get upset easily
◼ Experience dramatic shifts in mood
◼ Feel anxious

Those who are low in this trait are typically:

◼ Emotionally stable
◼ Deal well with stress
◼ Rarely feel sad or depressed
◼ Don't worry much
◼ Very relaxed
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior

◼Authoritarianism: demanding strict

obedience of authority and rules
▪ Conventionalism/ Authoritarian submission/
Authoritarian anger/ Superstition/ Dominating
▪ Two types of people, strong and weak
▪ ‘The world would be a better place if strong
people were the leaders and weak were followers’
▪ Prefer stable and structured work environment
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior

◼Locus of control: if an individual control

events or events control him
▪ Two types of people, internals and externals
▪ Internals believe that they can control events
▪ Individuals with external locus of control have
high absenteeism rates, are less involved in their
jobs
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior

◼Machiavellianism: Pragmatic, Rational

▪ Deceive and manipulate others for personal gain
▪ Maintain emotional distance, persuade others
more
▪ Lie to achieve their goals
▪ Have high self esteem
▪ Better in bargaining
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior

◼Introversion and Extroversion

◼Achievement orientation: working towards
excellence
▪ Never fully satisfied
▪ Set higher standards
▪ Take calculated risks to overcome challenges
▪ People who LACK achievement orientation like to
work in their comfort zone
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior
◼Self esteem: sense of self worth
▪ People with HIGH self esteem take more risks and
choose unconventional jobs and have favorable
evaluation of themselves
◼Self monitors: to adjust his behavior to
external situational factors
▪ HIGH self monitors show considerable
adaptability and hence pay more attention to the
behavior of others
▪ Concerned about how they are perceived
Personality traits important for
organizational behavior

◼Risk taking: high risk takers are quick decision

makers with the help of less information
◼Type A and B personalities:
▪ Type A people are impatient, eats rapidly,
obsessed with numbers
▪ Strive to think or do two or more things at a time
▪ Cannot cope with leisure
Concept of understanding self through
Johari Windows
A Johari window is a psychological tool created by Joseph
Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955. It’s a simple and useful
tool for understanding and training:
◼ self-awareness
◼ personal development
◼ improving communications
◼ interpersonal relationships
◼ group dynamics
◼ team development; and
◼ inter group relationships
It is one of the few tools out there that has an emphasis on
“soft skills” such as behaviour, empathy, co-operation,
inter group development and interpersonal development. 
Johari Window
Attitudes

A predisposition or a tendency to
respond positively or negatively towards
a certain idea, object, person, or
situation.

“Attitudes are evaluative statements or

judgments concerning objects, people
or events.”
Features of attitude

Attitude!? Everyone has it..about everything

◼Feelings and beliefs of one or more individual
◼Beliefs that are directed towards some
stimuli
◼Attitudes result in behavior or action
◼Types: positive, negative or ambivalent
◼Difficult to change
◼Strong influencer
Components of attitude

◼Affective or emotional component

◼Behavioral component
◼Cognitive or informational component
Functions of attitudes

◼Knowledge function
◼Value expressive function
◼Self esteem function
◼Ego defensive function
◼Impression motivation function
Ways of changing attitude

Co-opting approach
Friends
Reading emotions

◼ASK
◼Observe non verbal SIGNS
◼PARALANGUAGE
Thinking and learning

Thinking

“Thinking is a deliberate exploration of

experience for a purpose that purpose may be
understanding, decision solving, judgement,
action and so on.”
-Edward de Bono
Thinking skills

Thinking skills are a set of basic and advanced

skills and sub skills that govern a person’s
mental processes they are as follows:
◼ Focusing skills: ignore information that is
irrelevant.
Types:- Identifying problems
-Setting goals
Thinking skills

◼Information gathering skills: Collect relative

information needed for thinking.
▪ Types: -Observing
-Forming questions
◼Remembering skills: Store and bring back
information when needed.
▪ Types: -Encoding
▪ -Recalling
Thinking skills

◼Organizing skills: Arrangement of

information
▪ Types:- Comparing
- Classifying
- Ordering
- Representing
Thinking skills

◼Analyzing skills: Examine information into

parts and relationships.
▪ Types:- Identifying features and components
- identifying relationships and patterns
- identifying main ideas
- Identifying arguments
Thinking skills

◼Generating skills: produce new information or

ideas.
▪ Types:- Inferring –Predicting –Elaborating
◼Integrating skills: Connect and combine
information.
▪ Types:- Summarizing –restructuring
◼Evaluating skills: judge the reasonableness of
ideas.
▪ Types: -Establishing standard
- Verifying
SIX THINKING HATS

◼ Six Thinking Hats was created by Edward de Bono,

and published in his 1985 book of the same name.

"Six Thinking Hats" can help you to look at problems from

different perspectives, but one at a time, to avoid confusion from
too many angles crowding your thinking.

◼ It's also a powerful decision-checking technique in

group situations, as everyone explores the situation
from each perspective at the same time.
SIX THINKING HATS
SIX THINKING HATS
Thinking Styles
◼ Synthesists:
▪ Creative thinkers, who view the world in terms of opposites.
▪ Take risks and like changes
▪ They are not easily convinced
▪ They like to have a control
▪ Do things in a big way
▪ Encourage intellectual arguments
▪ They don’t like facts based discussions
▪ They question a lot
▪ Guesswork is the tool!

They can open up new ideas

They can opt out any time
Thinking Styles
◼Realists:
▪ They are fast moving doers, corrective and result
oriented.
▪ They work on the basis of facts and believe that facts
should not be influenced by personal factors
▪ They rely on experts some times
▪ They are optimistic, frank and positive
▪ They like to have a number of projects at once
▪ They don’t like dull and humourless talks
▪ Their work is based on observation rather than theory
They can achieve concrete results
They have low tolerance for ambiguity
Thinking Styles

◼Pragmatists:
▪ They are energetic and smart, appear restless and
are unpredictable
▪ They like to plan things, strategies
▪ They are frank and friendly
▪ They are experimental and good diplomats

They are tolerant to ambiguous situations

They agree quickly with others
Thinking Styles

◼Analyst thinkers
▪ They like to gather information and measure it
scientifically to have better results or solutions
▪ They like stability
▪ They like logical evaluations and discussion
▪ They do not multi-task
▪ They may be too time consuming

They help us to look a problem from various perspective

They search for more data
Thinking Styles

◼Idealists:
▪ They are future oriented and goal oriented
▪ They are helpful and believe in importance of truth,
faith and trust
▪ They try hard to convince people
▪ They like discussions about values, judgements and
emotions.
▪ They discourage conflicts

They encourage group participation

They avoid setting goals and standards
Managerial skills

◼Planning
◼Conceptual skills
◼Decision making skills
◼Technical skills
◼Leadership skills
◼Supervisory skills
Theories of learning

Classical conditioning
◼The Classical Conditioning Theory was
proposed by a Russian Physiologist Ivan
Pavlov. According to this theory, behavior is
learnt by a repetitive association between the
response and the stimulus.
◼Conditioned Response (CR): a particular
behavior that an organism learns to produce,
when the CS is presented.
Theories of learning

Operant conditioning
◼Developed by B. F. Skinner, Operant
conditioning is a method of learning that
occurs through rewards and punishments
for behavior.
◼Through operant conditioning, an individual
makes an association between a particular
behavior and a consequence
Theories of learning

Social learning/ observation learning

◼Proposed by Bandura, Social learning theory is a
form of learning in which individuals acquire new
behaviours or thoughts by observing others.
◼Four processes of social learning
▪ Attention process
▪ Retention
▪ Reproduction
▪ Reinforcement (reward)
Intelligence

“Intelligence is the capacity of an organism

to adjust to an increasingly difficult
environment.”
- Spencer
Types

◼ Intelligence quotient:
▪ The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is just the measure of
intelligence and it is independent on self-assessed levels of
happiness.
▪ Intelligence can simply be defined as; doing the right
thing, at the right time, at the right place. This requires us
to be able to manage both our internal environment (us)
and external Environment (what surrounds us). It is more
than just knowing things.
Types

◼Emotional quotient:
▪ Managing emotions is more important than
managing your intellect.
▪ Research done by tracking over 160 high
performing individuals from different industries
and job levels shows, emotional intelligence was
two times more important in contributing to
excellence than intellect and expertise alone.
Types
◼Spiritual quotient:
▪ The intelligence needed for you to ask the most
critical questions is what you need. Why should I react
this way? Is it necessary to get in a fight? What am I
going to get out of it? The intelligence required to ask
most fundamental and basic questions in life and seek
answers is called Spiritual Intelligence or Spiritual
Quotient (SQ).
▪ The personality of the human being is guided by the 3
needs; the need of body, the need of mind and the
need of intellect. The power to control the three is
called intelligence, Spiritual Quotient (SQ)
Perception

“A process by which individuals organize and

interpret their sensory impressions in order to
give meaning to their environment”
Features of perception

◼ Perception is our sensory experience of the world

around us
◼ Perception is composed of six processes
▪ Receiving stimuli
▪ Selecting
▪ Organizing
▪ Interpreting
▪ Checking
▪ Reaction
◼ Perception is influenced by three factors:
▪ Characteristics of the perceiver, target, situation
Effects of perceptual error in managerial
decision making at workplace

◼ Selective perception
◼ Halo Effect: An individual draws a general opinion
either favourable or unfavourable on the basis of a
single characteristic of the target.
◼ Stereotyping: Judging on the basis of features of
the group of the individual.
◼ Prejudice: a preconceived opinion that is not based
on reason or actual experience
◼ Attribution: Attribution refers to judging the causes
of other peoples behavior
Groups and teams!!

Why do people join groups??

Security
Status
Self esteem
Affiliation
Power
Goal achievement
Group structure (elements)

◼Formal leadership
◼Roles
▪ Role conflicts
▪ Role expectations
▪ Role ambiguity
◼Norms
◼Status
◼Size
◼Composition
◼Group cohesiveness
Stages of group development

◼Forming: Getting acquainted. This stage is

over when members start thinking being the
part of the group.
◼Storming: High degree of conflict
◼Norming: Close relationship. Agrees to find
solutions mutually
◼Performing
◼Adjourning
Types of teams

◼Problem solving
◼Work teams (routine work)
◼Management teams (permanent)
◼Cross functional teams
◼Virtual teams
Setting team goals

◼Aligned
◼Understood
◼SMART
◼Identifying risks
◼Commitment by members
Power

“Power is the ability to make things happen in

the way individual wants, either by self or
subordinates. The essence of power is control the
behaviour of others”
Bases of power

◼Formal power
▪ Legitimate power: positional power
▪ Coercive power: used by threats and punishments
▪ Reward power
▪ Information power
◼Informal or personal power
▪ Expert power
▪ Referent power: An individual develops reference
power when other individual’s like and respect
him
Motivation at workplace

“Motivation is the set of processes that arouse,

direct and maintain human behaviour towards
attaining some goal.”
-McFarland
Features of motivation

◼An internal feeling

◼A person can’t be satisfied in parts
◼Complex process
◼Related to satisfaction
◼Goal directed behaviour
Role of motivation

◼High performance level

◼Low employee turnover
◼Acceptance of organisational changes
Theories of motivation
Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factor
Theory
◼ Also called as Motivation-Hygiene Theory or the dual-
factor theory, was penned by Frederick Herzberg in 1959.
◼ This American psychologis was very interested in people’s
motivation and job satisfaction
◼ He conducted his research by asking a group of people
about their good and bad experiences at work.
◼ He was surprised that the group answered questions about
their good experiences very differently from the ones
about their bad experiences.
◼ Based on this, he developed the theory that people’s job
satisfaction depends on two kinds of factors. Factors for
satisfaction (motivators/satisfiers) and factors for
dissatisfaction (hygiene factors/ dissatisfiers).
Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factor
Theory
Theory X and Theory Y
Understanding People's Motivations

What do you think motivates your people to

come to work each morning?
◼Theory X and Theory Y were first explained by
McGregor in his book, 'The Human Side of
Enterprise,' and they refer to two styles of
management – authoritarian (Theory X) and
participative (Theory Y).
Theory X

◼Theory X managers tend to take a pessimistic

view of their people, and assume that they
are naturally unmotivated and dislike work.
◼As a result, they think that team members
need to be prompted, rewarded or punished
constantly to make sure that they complete
their tasks.
Theory X

This style of management assumes that workers:

◼Dislike their work.
◼Avoid responsibility and need constant direction.
◼Have to be controlled, forced and threatened to
deliver work.
◼Need to be supervised at every step.
◼Have no incentive to work or ambition, and
therefore need to be enticed by rewards to
achieve goals.
Theory Y
◼Theory Y managers have an optimistic, positive
opinion of their people, and they use a
decentralized, participative management style.
This encourages a more collaborative, trust
based relationship between managers and their
team members.
◼People have greater responsibility, and managers
encourage them to develop their skills and
suggest improvements. Appraisals are regular.
Theory Y

◼This style of management assumes that

workers are:
◼Happy to work on their own initiative.
◼More involved in decision making.
◼Self-motivated to complete their tasks.
◼Seek and accept responsibility, and need
little direction.
◼View work as fulfilling and challenging.
◼Solve problems creatively and imaginatively.
Organisational change

Kurt Lewin’s Model: Guiding change through a

three step process
1. Unfreezing
2. Moving
3. Refreezing
Organisational development (OD) and
Work stress

◼OD concentrates on people dimensions like

norms, values, attitudes, relationships,
organisational climate etc.
OD methods

◼Sensitivity training
◼Survey feedback
◼Action research
◼Process consultation
◼Team building
◼Quality of work Life (QWL) projects