Psychology Chapter 12: Human Behavior and Persuasion

Chapter 12: Human Behavior and the Art of Persuasion

• Learning Objectives: Understand why people do what they do, tap the power of human motivation, achieve employee engagement, assess emotional intelligence, understand the power of heartfelt words, and manage conflict effectively.
• Importance of Understanding People: Effective leaders focus on "People, Products, and Profit". Business situations fundamentally involve people. Those with a keen understanding of human behavior and application are successful.
• Psychological Forces: Physical and emotional needs influence behavior. Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Survival, Security, Belonging, Respect, and Fulfillment.
• Maslow's Principles: Experience life fully in the present, make calculated risks, be honest with yourself and others, strive for goals aligned with values, and commit to causes outside oneself.

Motivation in the Workplace

• Motivating Employees: Understanding and arranging conditions to meet employee needs leads to renewed energy and commitment.
• Recognition: Lack of recognition is a key reason employees leave their jobs.
• Potential Effort: Most people believe they could work significantly harder if recognized.

Motivation Levels

• Level I: Survival Needs: People are focused on physical and economic survival and comfort. Firms meet this by providing sufficient pay, safe working conditions, safe equipment, and supportive environments.
• Level II: Survival Needs (Security): Individuals want job security, predictability, and assurance against job loss or change; they value protective benefits and signs of stability from management. Firms provide tools, equipment, job aids, economic protection, and show confidence in management.
• Motivation Level III: Belonging Needs: Employees seek warm and satisfying relationships. Firms create opportunities for communication between employees and management, celebrate holidays and events, and show consideration.

Motivation Level IV: Respect Needs

• Motivation comes from the work itself and focus on self-image/reputation. Work that allows an individual to demonstrate skills that are respected leads to increased motivation.
• Meeting this need involves individual incentives for high performance, public acknowledgment, tangible rewards, and praise for job well-done.

Motivation Level V: Fulfillment Needs

• One's concern is fulfilling personal values and experiencing growth. Individuals are driven to demonstrate personal values in their work, and channel creative energy.
• Organizations can foster this need by discussing organizational values and tailoring job duties to align with individual values, and provide opportunities for personal growth.

Points to Remember About Human Motivation

• Unsatisfied needs drive motivation.
• Employee motivation and company success are linked.
• Psychological needs and social values are separate but not interchangeable.
• Psychological needs explain motivation, while social values relate to ethics.

Employee Engagement

• Definition: Involves both job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
• Engaged Employees: High energy, persistence, and striving for good work.
• Leader Challenge: Tap the performance potential of every employee.
• Disengaged Employees: Negative attitudes and disruptive behavior can damage an organization.
• Benefits of Engagement: Significantly improve organizational performance.

Employee Engagement, 2

• Motivation Roots: Engagement is rooted in human motivation.
• Time-Tested Keys for Leadership: Maintaining connection through stories, collaborative envisioning, trust-building through competence and integrity, and empowerment.
• Employee Concerns: Companies and leadership treatment is central to engagement.

Emotional Intelligence

• Definition: Essential and indispensable for effective leadership, combining interpersonal intelligence (ability to read others) and intrapersonal intelligence (understanding oneself).
• Elements: Emphasizes self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, confidence, self-motivation, social awareness, empathy, social deftness, and relationship management.
• Key Trait: Persuasiveness- an overall trait.
• Examples of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders: Balance people-oriented style, decisive, willing to make tough decisions, purposeful, decisive, respectful, positive, warm, appreciative, trustful, gentle, and understanding with people, they accurately understand others and effectively deal with them.

Developing Emotional Intelligence in the Work Setting

• Improved Interpersonal Relations: High emotional intelligence leads to better interpersonal relations and teamwork.
• Key C's for Leaders: Mastering skills of coaching, communicating, and collaborating.

The Art of Persuasion

• Understanding People: Sensitivity to their needs and viewing situations from others' viewpoints is crucial, especially for effective leadership.
• Words: Effective use and mastery of language are critical for persuasion, particularly important in difficult situations.
• Managing Conflict: Successful leaders must master conflict management techniques.

The Effective Use of Words

• Key Principles (Churchill): Start strong, stick to a single point, use simple words, create images in the listener's mind, and end with emotion.
• Credibility and Trust: Speak the truth, align with the audience's concerns, and speak from the heart.

Rhetoric in a Nutshell

• Influence Technique: Rhetoric is the art of using language effectively to persuade others.
• Aristotle's Pillars: Ethos (character), Logos (logic), Pathos (emotion).
• Senses Application: Effective leaders connect rhetoric with the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) of the audience.
• Sequence: Ethos first (gain trust), logos second (gain understanding), pathos third (gain emotional connection).

Strategies for Dealing with Conflict

• Conflict as Natural: Acknowledge conflict as a normal aspect of interactions.
• Opportunity: View conflict as a chance to improve relations and learn more about people and situations.
• Reasonableness: Settle conflict fairly while acknowledging needs of every party.
• Agreeable Disagreement: Be open to disagreement and explore alternative paths; use third-party resolution if necessary.
• Reframing: Reframe the issue if direct resolution isn't possible.

Approaches to Managing Conflict

• Avoidance: Used when an issue is minor, or other urgent matters exist, or when disruption outweighs resolution, or gathering information is more important than immediate decisions, or others are more qualified to resolve.
• Accommodation: Used when one is mistaken, when the other person's concerns are more important, for building social credit for later, or where harmony is especially important.
• Domination: Used when quick decisive action is essential, for unpopular actions, when one is certain of correctness, or when against advantage-taking.
• Compromise: Achieves temporary settlements, solves complex problems, solves issues with time pressure.
• Collaboration: Maximizes benefit for all parties, integrates diverse perspectives, fosters teamwork, and gains commitment to resolution.

Explore the intricacies of human behavior and the art of persuasion in this quiz based on Chapter 12. Learn to harness psychological principles like Maslow's hierarchy of needs to motivate effectively and manage workplace dynamics. Understand the essential qualities of emotional intelligence and its role in leadership success.