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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Change is difficult,
time consuming,
and energy drainingMotivational speakers are expected to fire up their listeners and to make them more enthusiastic about meeting their personal and organizational goals. The same motivational speakers can speak to groups about the importance of increasing the number of sales calls, accepting new technologies, improving customer service and opening new niche markets.
Speakers are often very exciting people who have the presentation skills of professional entertainers. Listeners often leave presentations with seemingly endless energy and the conviction that they can change themselves. Just as often, their success resembles the changes brought on after their most recent set of New Year's resolutions.
Change in long established personal behaviors is very difficult and time consuming. One reason, too infrequently discussed, is that people reap benefits from current behaviors they claim they want to change. Bosses who admit that they are crabby with subordinates get a pleasurable emotional surge when they exercise their ability to belittle and to raise their voices. Smokers who say they want to quit are comfortable having something to do with their hands during social encounters where they would otherwise be ill at ease. Shy people who want to become friendlier with others have an excuse for not going to social events where they might improve their business networks.
Change demands the unfreezing of old behaviors, movement toward new desired goals, and enough practice and everyday experience to form new habits. This series of steps takes effort. In the three examples, nicotine from the smoking habit is addictive, but so are the other old behaviors. Bosses get pleasure from shouting at others since it allows them to exercise their need for power. Shy people become addicted to their habit of turning down social invitations since it keeps them from the perceived unpleasantness of interacting with strangers. People have to put a great deal of conscious effort into imagining themselves after the change, and then regulating and monitoring their everyday behaviors so that they become consistent with their new goals.
The self-regulation needed to think about and modify one's behaviors is energy draining. Many people cannot regulate more than one behavior at a time. If people are making attempts to cut down on their drinking, they have to monitor their intake, think about what social invitations to accept and stay away from places such as liquor departments in grocery stores. Given all the other demands on their lives, most people find that there are limits to their self-regulation time and energy. If they try to change a second behavior, such as to show more enthusiasm about technical innovations in the workplace, they may experience the frustration of finding that their self-regulation limitations have been exceeded.
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The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
