PROF. V.B.

SHAH INSITUTE OF MANAGEMENT,

AMROLI,SURAT

COURSE: B.B.A
YEAR: F.Y.BBA(SEM –II)
SUBJECT: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Unit 2: LIFE SKILL 25%
BY: DR. SWATI MEHTA

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 Ch: 2 Life Skill

1) Life Skill….

"Life skills" are defined as psychosocial abilities for adaptive

and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal
effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.”

They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills:

Cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,

Personal skills for developing personal things and managing
oneself,
Inter-personal skillsfor communicating and interacting
effectively with others.

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 ‘Adaptive’ means that a person is flexible in approach and is able to adjust in different
circumstances. ‘Positive behaviour’ implies that a person is forward looking and even in
difficult situations, can find a ray of hope and opportunities to find solutions.

The Ten core Life Skills as laid down by WHO are: ( need / Importance of life skill)
1. Self-awareness
2. Empathy
3. Critical thinking
4. Creative thinking
5. Decision making
6. Problem Solving
7. Effective communication
8. Interpersonal relationship
9. Coping with stress
10. Coping with emotion

1. Â Self-awareness includes recognition of ‘self’, our character, our strengths and

weaknesses, desires and dislikes. Developing self-awareness can help us to recognize when
we are stressed or feel under pressure.
2. Â Empathy - To have a successful relationship with our loved ones and society at large, we
need to understand and care about other peoples’ needs, desires and feelings. Without
empathy, our communication with others will amount to one-way traffic. We grow up in
relationships with many people – parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts,
classmates, friends and neighbours. When we understand ourselves as well as others, we

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 are better prepared to communicate our needs and desires. Empathy can help us to accept
others, who may be very different from ourselves.
3. Â Critical thinking is an ability to analyze information and experiences in an objective
manner. Critical thinking can contribute to health by helping us to recognize and assess the
factors that influence attitudes and behaviour, such as values, peer pressure and the media.

4. Â Creative thinking is a novel way of seeing or doing things that is characteristic of four
components – fluency (generating new ideas), flexibility (shifting perspective easily),
originality (conceiving of something new), and elaboration (building on other ideas).

5. Â Decision making helps us to deal constructively with decisions about our lives. This can
have consequences for health. It can teach people how to actively make decisions about
their actions in relation to healthy assessment of different options and, what effects these
different decisions are likely to have.

6. Â Problem solving helps us to deal constructively with problems in our lives. Significant
problems that are left unresolved can cause mental stress and give rise to accompanying
physical strain.

7. Â Interpersonal relationship skills help us to relate in positive ways with the people we
interact with. This may mean being able to make and keep friendly relationships, which can
be of great importance to our mental and social well-being. It may mean keeping, good
relations with family members, which are an important source of social support. It may also
mean being able to end relationships constructively. 6

8. Â Effective communication means that we are able to express ourselves, both verbally
and non-verbally, in ways that are appropriate to our cultures and situations. This means
being able to express opinions and desires, and also needs and fears. And it may mean being
able to ask for advice and help in a time of need.
9. Â Coping with stress means recognizing the sources of stress in our lives, recognizing how
this affects us, and acting in ways that help us control our levels of stress, by changing our
environment or lifestyle and learning how to relax.
10. Â Coping with emotions means involving recognizing emotions within us and others,
being aware of how emotions influence behaviour and being able to respond to emotions

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 appropriately. Intense emotions like anger or sadness can have negative effects on our
health if we do not respond appropriately.
Decision making

Definitions of Decision-making

1. The Oxford Dictionary defines the term decision-making as "the action of carrying
out or carrying into effect".
2. According to Trewatha & Newport, "Decision-making involves the selection of
action from among two or more possible alternatives in order to arrive at a solution
for a given problem"

Steps of Decision Making :

Decision-making involves a number of steps which need to be taken in a logical manner. It was Peter
Drucker who first strongly advocated the scientific method of decision-making in his world famous
book 'The Practice of Management' published in 1955. Drucker recommended the scientific method of
decision-making which, according to him, involves the following six steps:

1. Defining / Identifying the managerial problem,

2. Analyzing the problem,
3. Developing alternative solutions,
4. Selecting the best solution out of the available alternatives,
5. Converting the decision into action, and
6. Ensuring feedback for follow-up.

The figure given below suggests the steps in the decision-making process:-

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 1) Identifying the Problem:
➢ It is rightly said that a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.
➢ Information relevant to the problem should be gathered so that critical analysis of the
problem is possible. This is how the problem can be diagnosed.
➢ Clear distinction should be made between the problem and the symptoms which may
hide the real problem
➢ Identification problem is real begging of decision making process.
➢ It is rightly said that a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved. Information
relevant to the problem should be gathered so that critical analysis of the problem is
possible. This is how the problem can be diagnosed. Clear distinction should be made
between the problem and the symptoms which may cloud the real issue

➢ Problem can be identified much clearly if managers go through symptoms & analysis of
real problem.
a) Symptoms :
Symptom is a condition or set of conditions that indicates real problem.

For, example....If sales are heavily declined ( Symptom), it indicates that something is wrong.

b) Analysis of real problem

It is next step after diagnosis. It is required to find out real cause.

For example,

→ Declining of sale is because of so many factors like defective publicity, high price or
inferior quality due to use of old type of machine.
→ But analysis shows that declining of sale is mainly because of poor quality due to use
of old type of machine.
→ This is called real problem identification through symptoms & analysis.

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 →

2) Analyzing the Problem:

After defining the real problem, the next step in the decision-making process is to analyze the
problem in depth. This is necessary to classify the problem in order to know who must take the
decision and who must be informed about the decision taken. Here, the following four factors
should be kept in mind:
• Futurity of the decision,
• The scope of its impact,
• Number of qualitative considerations involved, and
• Uniqueness of the decision.

3) Collecting Relevant Data:

➢ After defining the problem and analyzing its nature, the next step is to obtain the relevant
information/ data about it.
➢ There is information flood in the business world due to new developments in the field of
information technology.
➢ All available information should be utilised fully for analysis of the problem. This brings
clarity to all aspects of the problem.

4) Developing Alternative Solutions:

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 ➢ After the problem has been defined, the manager has to determine available alternative
courses of action that could be used to solve the problem at hand.
➢ Only realistic alternatives should be considered.
➢ It is equally important to take into account time and cost constraints and psychological
barriers that will restrict that number of alternatives.
➢ If necessary, group participation techniques may be used while developing alternative
solutions as depending on one solution is undesirable.

5) Selecting the Best Solution:

➢ After preparing alternative solutions, the next step in the decision-making process is to
select an alternative that seems to be most rational for solving the problem.
➢ The alternative thus selected must be communicated to those who are likely to be affected
by it.
➢ Acceptance of the decision by group members is always desirable and useful for its effective
implementation.
6) Implementation of decision
➢ It should be put into practice otherwise it remains paper decision only.
➢ Communication of decision to those who are to implement it.
➢ Making available of all resources & facilities.
➢ Motivating people to implement the decision with enthusiasm
➢ Doing general supervision over implementation of decision.
7) follow-up
➢ After decision has been put into practice, management must see good or bad which
arise from implementation of decision.
➢ So, necessary modification may be done in decision.

Problem solving Process :

1. Define the problem

This is often where people struggle. They react to what they think the problem is. Instead,
seek to understand more about why you think there's a problem.

Define the problem: (with input from yourself and others). Ask yourself and others, the
following questions:

1. What can you see that causes you to think there's a problem?
2. Where is it happening?
3. How is it happening?
4. When is it happening?
5. With whom is it happening? (HINT: Don't jump to "Who is causing the problem?"
When we're stressed, blaming is often one of our first reactions. To be an effective
manager, you need to address issues more than people.)
6. Why is it happening?
7. Write down a five-sentence description of the problem in terms of "The following
should be happening, but isn't ..." or "The following is happening and should be: ..."

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 As much as possible, be specific in your description, including what is happening,
where, how, with whom and why. (It may be helpful at this point to use a variety of
research methods.

Defining complex problems:

If the problem still complicated, break it down until you have descriptions of several related
problems.

Prioritize the problems:

If you discover that you are looking at several related problems, then prioritize which ones
you should address first.

Note the difference between "important" and "urgent" problems. Often, what we consider
to be important problems to consider are really just urgent problems. Important problems
deserve more attention. For example, if you're continually answering "urgent" phone calls,
then you've probably got a more "important" problem and that's to design a system that
screens and prioritizes your phone calls.

Understand your role in the problem:

Your role in the problem can greatly influence how you perceive the role of others. For
example, if you're very stressed out, it'll probably look like others are also and you may
resort too quickly to blaming others. Or, you are feel very guilty about your role in the
problem.

2. Look at potential causes for the problem

• it's critical to get input from other people who notice the problem and who are
effected by it.
• It's often useful to collect input from other individuals one at a time (at least at first).
Otherwise, people just pass their impressions of the real causes of problems.
• Write down what your opinions and what you've heard from others.
• Regarding what you think might be performance problems associated with an
employee, it's often useful to seek advice from a peer or your supervisor in order to
verify your impression of the problem.
• Write down a description of the cause of the problem and in terms of what is
happening, where, when, how, with whom and why.

3. developing alternatives to solve the problem

At this point, it's useful to keep others involved (unless you're facing a personal and/or
employee performance problem). Brainstorm for solutions to the problem. Very simply put,
brainstorming is collecting as many ideas as possible.

4. Select an alternative to resolve the problem

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI
 • When selecting the best alternatives, consider:
o solve the problem for the long term
o most realistic to accomplish for now.
o Availability of the resources
o Affordable
o enough time to implement the alternatives
o risk associated with each alternative

5)Implementation of solution
➢ It should be put into practice otherwise it remains paper decision only.
➢ Communication of solution to those who are to implement it.
➢ Making available of all resources & facilities.
➢ Motivating people to implement the decision with enthusiasm
➢ Doing general supervision over implementation of solution.
6)follow-up
➢ After solution has been put into practice, management must see good or bad which
arise from implementation.
➢ One of the best ways to verify if a problem has been solved or not is to come back with normal
operations in the organization.
➢ Also check “ can we apply this solution to avoid this type of problem in future?”
➢ Lastly, consider "What did you learn from this problem solving?" Consider new knowledge,
understanding and/or skills.

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BY Dr. Swati Mehta, Assistant Professor, VBIM, AMROLI