Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TRAINER’S MANUAL
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Life Skills: Syllabus and Study Material
Edited by:
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CONTENTS
Sl.
Topic Page No.
No.
1 Preface 9
2 Acknowledgment 13
3 Introduction 15
4 UNIT I – Self Awareness & Empathy 19
5 UNIT II – Critical Thinking & Creative Thinking 53
6 UNIT III – Decision Making & Problem Solving 81
7 UNIT IV – Effective Communication 101
8 UNIT V – Interpersonal Relations 133
9 UNIT VI – Coping with Stress & Coping with Emotions 151
10 Reference & Abbreviations 161
11 Evaluation Methodology 163
12 Appendix I - Time Management 165
13 Appendix II - Learning 172
14 Appendix III - Note on Terms 186
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PREFACE
T
he swift inclusion of a course on Life Skills in the Polytechnic curriculum during the
2010 syllabus revision necessitates an explanation- what are life skills? What is the
relevance of this course at the Polytechnic level? Why these skills were unheard of
or ignored so far and why now?
The last two decades have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the number of technical
institutions. The post Y2K-era has also brought about increased variety of skilled jobs in
the technical sector. However potential employers frequently announce in vehement
tones that students, particularly from Kerala, despite possessing degrees and diplomas are
unemployable. The main impediments often cited are lack of communication skills,
inability to mix comfortably with peers in a group and a general lack of positive attitude.
While education within a polytechnic college over a 3 year period is expected to bring
about a transformation of a raw student to an all round technician with necessary
communication and interpersonal skills, the expected metamorphosis just does not
happen. An earlier attempt to this end did not bear the intended fruits-in the 2006
revision a 3 hour slot/week was provided during the second year for soft skills
development under the title “Information Search Analysis and Presentation Skills
Development”(ISAP). This course was intended to supplement the theory classes with the
objectives of providing opportunity to acquire skills in learning to learn new developments
– by gathering, preparation and effective presentation of information. However this
attempt did not meet the expected objectives.
The futility of the ISAP exercise forced a serious inquiry into the situation to identify the
possible causes. There are several socio-political factors contributing to the existing
scenario which staunchly opposes changes – changes which are mandated in an ever
changing world. Some of these are – absence of a vibrant campus ambience due to certain
undesirable external interventions, inappropriate Teaching-Learning environment,
inadequate usage of English as the instruction medium, insufficient contact classes
consequent to ill-timed semesterization…. In short academics has been slowly losing its
sheen. The gradual decline in academic standards in our technical institutions is a fact.
From the viewpoint of the students too, things have changed. In the fast paced world of
today crammed with high speed info pumped through all popular media and handheld
gadgets, an average student (the majority) is left bewildered. Proper assimilation of
knowledge does not happen since mobile phone culture deprives him of the serenity and
depth required for concept comprehension; nor does cognizance and imbibing of human
values such as empathy and sharing, since media does not glorify genuine personalities
possessing these values. The icons in the glitter and sports world exemplify wealth and not
ethics and values. Application of mind gets stereotyped thereby leaving no room for
critical and creative thinking. Resultantly, there is a clear absence of values and principles
which should have been the centre stage characteristics in an educational campus.
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Campuses are miniature versions of the social set up, which is characterized by several
social maladies. The rapid pace of life has resulted in trust deficits in the community
leading to improper decision making and short-cut implementations. Communications,
both verbal and non-verbal have gone skewed due to absence of role models as well as
lack of proper guidance and leadership. Hurried lifestyle leaves no time for building
proper interpersonal relationship, at home or at office. The current generation is adept in
establishing remote interpersonal relationships through facebook and the like, while being
unable to have warm and compassionate outlook towards family members and
classmates. The clock (symbolizing speed) has become the guiding force leaving behind
the compass (symbolizing proper direction) as an unnecessary and forgotten aid.
The polytechnic curriculum so far emphasized technical skills alone. It is felt that the
purely technical syllabus followed hitherto was weaving a restrictive cocoon that
prevented the student from gaining an access to the calls and challenges of life outside. It
is perceived that in the present age of profiteering and competition, youngsters on the
threshold of life and career must be made alert to the impact they could make on the
society. If the impact is to be positive, productive, creative and value-based, they will have
to understand themselves better and learn to approach the world differently. This
incorporation seeks to impart that much-needed human touch to the learning process
which would equip the students with real skills to lead life, in addition to technical skills,
and enable them accomplish the perceived goal of holistic development.
All these have paved the way for introduction of a new course. The course titled “Life
Skills” is not meant to provide an icing of “soft skills” to polish the student to face
interviews, but rather create core level changes which will bring about a comprehensive
holistic transformation, of which the so called soft skills would be a certain by product. By
Life Skills, we mean the generic life skills comprising of ten core skills. Based on their
objectives, these can be sub grouped into Mother Skills (self awareness, empathy),
Thinking Skills (Critical thinking, Creative thinking) negotiating skills (Decision Making,
Problem Solving) Survival Skills (Inter personal relations, Effective Communication) and
Coping Skills (Coping with Stress and Emotions). Each of these are elaborate in terms of
concepts, models, experiential activities, questionnaires and simulation games. The
intention is to instill human values and positive attitude in the campus, to enhance
academic ambience, promote healthy interpersonal relationships among students and
staff, to imbibe effective communication skills for increasing the employability levels of
our students so as to create sustained new generation of students having technical
competence, ethical & empathetic outlook and excellent communication skills. The course
would also rejuvenate the teaching faculty since the process of understanding and
imparting life skills in a semester long course cannot be carried out without themselves
perfecting these skills at much more refined levels.
I was privileged to chair the committee of members who strived to chart out a clear and
meticulous plan to arrive at a course which would meet all our objectives. It was a
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pleasure to work with Sri G. Shadagopan, Executive in HR Dept., BHEL Chennai & Faculty in
HR&OD, Bharatidasan Institute of Management, Trichy, Sri Haridas Mani, Principal, Govt.
Polytechnic College, Perinthalmanna, Sri Rajeevan, Principal, Womens Polytechnic,
Kozhikode, Sri Jayaprakash A., Assistant Professor of English, Womens Polytechnic College,
Trichur, Smt Lakshmi S., Assistant Professor of English, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Sri
Madhu V., Assistant Professor of English, St. Peter’s College, Kolenchery. Special thanks to
Sri Shadagopan for providing an elegant and systematic framework, to which others could
contribute with ease. The Committee expresses its heartfelt gratitude to Sri Sivaraman,
Joint Director, Sri Francis, Project Officer and all the rest at CDC for extending full support
and providing the right ambience. Special credit goes to Smt. Chandrakantha, Deputy
Director, Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) for her individual contributions as well as
in leading the editorial team. The six “train-the-trainers” programmes organized
effectively by the CDC for the Polytechnic teachers were rated highly by the participants. I
sincerely hope that the material provided in this book - primarily for the instructors -
would inspire them in assimilating more models, exercises and demonstrations in each of
the life skills introduced to enthusiastically sow the concepts of these skills into the young
minds in our polytechnic campuses. The methodology for internal and external evaluation
of the students Is detailed at the end.
If this course serves to bring about a radical change in the academic environments
capable of producing employable technicians, responsible citizens and cheerful individuals,
we would gratefully consider our attempts bearing fruits.
This Trainers module is not exhaustive in any respects, and is intended to serve only as a
broad guideline to the vast and ever-evolving arena of Life Skills Training. The references
at the end of each chapter will throw more light into the respective topics. Resource
personnel are hence directed to delve in detail into these areas and put in active efforts to
make the subject as comprehensive and effective as possible for the emerging technology
students.
Creative criticism and feedback are welcome, and is an integral part of the philosophy
behind work culture of the CDC. We request you to go through the book and share your
valuable experiences and suggestions with us.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
Joint Director,
RDTE, Kothamangalam, Kerala.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I
would like to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to Dr. S.Radhakrishnan,
Joint Director, Regional Directorate of Technical Education for not just heading the
syllabus committee for Life Skills but also taking keen interest both in the preparation of
Trainers module and the actual training of the faculty. His inspiring and deeply motivating
presentations which reflected his deep concern for the future of Technician education and
and the quality of passouts were the high point of the training.
A special word of appreciation to the syllabus committee for providing the frame work
around which the syllabus was built. We are deeply indebted to our special invitee, Sri G.
Shadagopan, an expert in the area in his own right, whose overwhelming response,
qualified advice and valuable inputs have decisively informed and influenced this book.
Dr. Anil Kumar, Professor, Medical College, Trivandrum, Dr. Arun B Nair, Assistant
Professor, Medical College, Alapuzha, Mr. Ashick K P, Faculty, IMG, Dr. Jayasree
Krishnankutty, Associate Professor, KAU, Dr. Mary Matilda, Principal, KKTM, Kodungallur,
have contributed immensely to this venture both by way of facilitating the training
sessions as well as and in the preparation of the Trainer’s Module.
Sincere thanks are also due to all those writers especially from whose authentic work was
drawn the actual material of this Trainers manual the purpose of which is purely academic.
V Sivaraman
Joint Director
C D Centre
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INTRODUCTION
A select committee under the able guidance of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, Joint Director,
Technical Education, was entrusted with the task of developing a Syllabus on Life Skills for
the students undergoing the Diploma Programme of the various Polytechnic Colleges in
Kerala.
The Committee felt that the purely technical syllabus grossly inadequate in equipping with
the students to face the realities of an ever changing world. It was this inadequacy in our
students that was highlighted by the potential employees with an unemployable stamp.
For our students to undergo a transformation from a raw student to an employable and
positive individual, they will have to understand themselves better and learn to approach
the world differently. Incorporating this view in the curriculum would impart that much
needed human touch to the learning process and would equip the students with life skills,
in addition to mechanical skills, enabling them to accomplish the perceived goal of all
round transformation.
What are Life Skills? Where is the relevance of mastering them? How do we acquire them?
‘Life Skills’, indeed, has no single definition. It may simply be understood as the skills
needed to manage life. The UNICEF maintains that there is no definitive list of life skills,
but enumerates many psychosocial and interpersonal skills generally considered
important. Life Skills are human skills acquired through direct experiences or teaching that
enable an individual to handle questions and problems commonly encountered in daily
human life. As we know, life is compounded of myriad elements, career being one of
them. Life Skills may be explained as the skills one needs to successfully manage these
fragmented elements and integrate them into the larger fabric of personal and social life–
to manage the parts and the whole alike. They are the tools which help a person to gain
better control over his life and therefore make him happier and more productive.
Needless to say, every responsible and responsive student must imbibe these skills,
irrespective of the discipline he chooses to pursue in academics. Man being a social being,
it is imperative that he must strive to understand his individual self and define it in relation
to other individuals. This is what this module purports to achieve.
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Subsequent to the perusal of the Life Skills Programmes developed by various agencies,
the suggestions and recommendations of the WHO were found to be ideal, based on
which the following combinations were arrived at:
Total 54 hours
As the learning and activities required here involve a transition from the world of
academics and theory to a world of application and skills, the modules have been framed
with focus on interaction. The subject matter includes the three aspects constituting the
intellectual, emotional and social growth and their corresponding interfaces.
Stated differently, the learning is aimed at personal and inter-personal effectiveness and a
frame work that transcends the ‘I’ or ‘You’ to the ‘Us and We’. In this context, the focus is
on competence or ability, seen to be a composite of knowledge and skills, theory and
practice.
The transition from self awareness to empathy involves effective communication leading
to higher levels of effectiveness at the personal and interpersonal levels. Thinking and
problem-solving skills are the means of learning. Stress and emotions are references to
variables that are currently beyond the ambit of individual capacities and are to be
brought within the framework of human competence. Taken together, these involve
growth in terms of the intellectual, emotional and the social.
The modules begin with focus on self and self awareness, more appropriately, on
understanding the self. This understanding refers as much to the intellectual as to the
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emotional. On the one hand it is the starting point for emotional growth at the level of the
individual .On the other, it is the basis for healthy and satisfactory relationships between
two or many (group) people. The technology (theory and practice) available to us to
sustain and build awareness / understanding at the personal and interpersonal levels are
(1) the Johari window and (2) Transactional Analysis, and both will be in use.
There is another self, You, or the other, beyond the self that constitutes the I.
Understanding the self refers to both I and You. The other constitutes a mirror wherein we
are able to view our self. This process is mutual. Such an understanding of another self is
what we mean by the term ‘Empathy’. If self awareness refers to understanding the self,
empathy refers to understanding the other. These constitute two of the five elements of
emotional intelligence as described by DANIEL GOLEMAN. Effective communication is the
key to building such an understanding.
Thinking is an ego function and a basic human capability. It is the faculty that enables us to
relate better to the world around us including specifically the people and life therein. This
capacity to think has been differentiated broadly into two categories variously described
as Logical and Emotional, Convergent and Divergent, Judgemental and Creative, and so on.
More colloquially it has been labelled Left Brain and Right Brain thinking. Both aspects of
thinking are relevant and need to be developed. Developing thinking involves the capacity
to solve problems. The capacity to live and to solve problems involves an additional
capacity that we refer to as learning. Learning and problem-solving are intrinsically inter-
connected. Thinking is the underlying basis for both learning and problem-solving. The
faculty of thinking is thus a major human capacity that needs to be consciously developed.
In such a context the need to cope with stress and emotions arises, often as the
consequence of an inadequacy or imbalance in the capacity to handle situational variables.
Circumventing these inadequacies or effecting a better balance between ‘what is’ and
‘what should be’ is another route to growth facilitated by the skills in understanding,
thinking, problem-solving and so on. These situational variables provide us the
opportunity to learn and grow.
Time management is an essential skill for everybody. Absence of which is known to cause
stress. Therefore Time management and related exercises are included in Appendix I
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Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or
preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information and therefore learning
cycle and a Learning Inventory to help identify your Learning style has been included in Appendix II
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UNIT I
SELF AWARENESS AND EMPATHY
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1.1 INTRODUCTION TO SELF AWARENESS
Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your
attitude and your responses to them in the moment. As you develop self awareness you
are able to make changes in the thoughts and interpretations you make in your mind.
Changing the interpretations in your mind allows you to change your emotions.
EMOTIONAL GROWTH
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Emotional Growth-A Paradigm
Understanding
Tolerance 1
(a neutral word)
Acceptance 2
(a positive term)
Respect
Love
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J Krishnamurti - “To understand something requires much insight, a great sense, not of tolerance-
-tolerance is merely an invention of the mind to justify its activities or other people’s activities –
but of understanding, a great width and depth of mind…we have to understand everything, not
condemn, not justify.”- Talks with Students, Joy, P. 116-117
The Dalai Lama, - on true tolerance: “True tolerance is a stand or a response an individual adopts in
relation to a particular incident, or towards another person or event, when the individual has the
ability to act in a contrary manner. As a result of one’s considerations, taking into account many
factors and so on, the individual decides against taking negative action, and this is true tolerance.
This is quite different from a situation in which an individual has no capacity whatsoever to take
such a strong counter-measure.... The difference between the two is in fact quite clearly pointed
out in one of the Buddhist texts known as Compendium of Deeds by the Indian master
Shantideva.”-The Power of Compassion, p. 142.
2 “The curious paradox is that when I accept my Self just as I am, then I can change”- Carl Rogers
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely”- Carl Gustav Jung
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‘Without consciousness there would, practically speaking,
People’s attempts to understand themselves are their Self Concepts. The concept of the
‘Self’ remains one of the most fruitful formulations in the field of Personality. The Self is
seen as that portion of the individual’s experienced world with which he identifies himself
and which he perceives to be within his control.
‘Self or Self Concept’, Carl Rogers observed, is an “organised, consistent conceptual gestalt
composed of perceptions of the characteristics of the ‘I’ or ‘Me’ and the perceptions of the
relationships of the ‘I’ or ‘Me’ to others and to various aspects of life together with the
values attached to these perceptions.”4
The average individual is not particularly well acquainted with himself. But by
remaining quite faithful to his not-so-accurate image of himself, he acquires some
consistency. As the individual matures, his reactions become organised into a more
3
“Identity, in its vaguest sense suggests much of what has been called the SELF by a variety of workers – be
it in the form of a Self Concept, a Self System or that of fluctuating Self experiences.” Erik Erikson, Identity,
Youth & Crisis, P. 208/9
Also about Eric Erikson on Identity: The idea of Identity is simply an extension of the notion of ego, or Self.
Freud wrote extensively about the ego, and philosophers had used the concept of Self for centuries
beforehand. What Erikson did was to focus on a particular aspect of the Self, or ego: the internal sense of
sameness and continuity that we all have, and that we all take for granted most of the time. I feel that the
experiences shown on the screen of my mind belong to me. James R. Scrogg, Key Ideas in Personality, P. 96.
4
C.R Rogers 1959, A theory of therapy, personality & interpersonal relationships as developed in the client
centered framework, P. 200 (as indicated in Fred Luthans, page 123)
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stable pattern which we call ‘Self Concept’. A concept of Self, that is, the ‘Self
Concept’, gives an individual a sense of ‘meaningfulness’ and ‘consistency’. This Self
Concept has a direct effect on our behaviours.
My idea of My-self is my Self Concept; this consists of ‘I’ and a ‘Me’. The ‘I’ and ‘Me’ are
components or parts of the Self Concept and are not independent of it. The vital
distinction between ‘I’ and ‘Me’ is significant and is to be carefully noted.
The ‘Me’ is the way the person appears to others and the way the person thinks he / she
appears to others.
When I know what other people expect, I can try to integrate myself with the (social)
situation by being a ‘normal’ person in that situation as this is defined by the others. This
part of me is the part I want to and find myself willing to set forth in my behaviour or
what, because it is my habitual way, I want to be. The role that I play is therefore a
reflection of my Inner Self. It is also a mirror image of what I believe others expect from
me.5
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Based on and Adapted from material in Fred Luthans, Organizational Behavior, Fourth Edition, P. 123/124
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1.2 THE JOHARI WINDOW
A four paned "window," as illustrated above, divides personal awareness into four different types,
as represented by its four quadrants: open, hidden, blind, and unknown. The lines dividing the four
panes are like window shades, which can move as an interaction progresses. The box that
represents the self contains in it all that we are.
Self
Known Unknown
Open
→
Other(s)
Hidden Dark
Unknown
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Luft and Ingham, 1955
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THE OPEN AREA (Quadrant I): This area of free activity, sometimes also called the ‘Arena’, or, at
other times, the ‘Public Area’, is the area that is shared. The ‘open area’ extends over that part of
the Self-- our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and other aspects that we are able, and willing, to
share freely with others. At the beginning of a new relationship, this area tends to be small. What
we tend to share with a new acquaintance or in a new relationship is largely governed by social
customs7 and convention and limited to things that are public knowledge anyway. As we get to
know, understand and trust one another, we are able to share more of ourselves. As a result, the
‘open area’ tends to grow larger and increase in size.
THE HIDDEN AREA (Quadrant 2): The 'hidden' or avoided area consists of aspects of our self that
we have not yet revealed to others. Self-disclosure, which means sharing aspects pertaining to our
selves, reduces the size of the hidden area and correspondingly the open area becomes larger. We
find it less necessary to hide, ignore or deny things we know and feel. In an atmosphere of
growing mutual understanding there is less of a need or desire to hide or withhold pertinent
thoughts or feelings about ourselves.
THE BLIND AREA (Quadrant 3): This area includes behaviour and aspects of our Self that we are not
aware of, but others are. We can increase our awareness about our self in the blind area and its
contents through feedback obtained from others. It takes longer for this area to reduce in size
usually because there are sufficient psychological reasons to enable us remain blind to things that
we feel or do. These reasons generate defences, or ego defence mechanisms as they are called, to
create blocks to openness.
THE DARK AREA (Quadrant 4): Also referred to as the ‘Unknown Area’, this area consists of parts of
the Self of which we once knew but have now forgotten. There are also areas which we have not
yet uncovered. This yet-to-be-uncovered area includes most of our potentials and weaknesses and
the undeveloped functions.8 Yet we can assume their existence because some of these become
7
“The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly
enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the
other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. That the later function is superfluous could be maintained
only by one who is so identified with his persona that he no longer knows himself: and that the former is
unnecessary could only occur to one who is quite unconscious of true nature of his fellows. Society expects,
and indeed must expect, every individual to play the part assigned to him as perfectly as possible.” P. 94,
Carl Jung, The Essential Jung – Selected Writings by Anthony Storr.
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Carl Jung refers to this part of each one of us as the ‘Shadow’. “By shadow I mean the ‘negative’ side of the
personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently
developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious. [CW 7, Par. 103n] The shadow is one
example of an ‘unconscious personality’ which possesses a certain measure of autonomy.” – Ibid., P. – 87.
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known eventually and it is then realised that these unknown factors or motives and undercurrents
had been affecting and influencing us and our relationships all along. At any rate this area is
undoubtedly far larger and more influential in relationships than we would like to admit.
“Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.”
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”- Carl
Gustav Jung
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1.4 COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION
* Win As Much As You Can-- ( A Simulation of Life!)
Scoring Table
Cl C2 C3 C4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Total (1-10)
Before each round time will be given to decide on your choice-- 'x' or 'y'.
All discussions will be only within the cluster unless specifically provided otherwise.
The point structures given apply in general. Some rounds, announced beforehand, will
be special rounds with bonus points
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How to play?
1. Divide the participants into 4 clusters (C1, C2,..........) with number of participants in each
cluster as per availability. (5 per cluster is optimal). The rest can be observers.
e) After the round, evaluate according to table. ( Ask only “ Did you understand? )
h) After say 3 rounds permit discussion between clusters, with one representative
from each cluster. (Let the representatives go outside the room to discuss come
back and continue with the next round.)
i) One or two rounds ( of the total 10 rounds ) may be declared as bonus rounds. In
the bonus round each point won is doubled, and the other is tripled.
For winning not just ‘power’ but also ‘understanding has to be there.
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CO-OPERATION & /OR COMPETITION
Organizations are created on a fundamental economic principal that when two people
come together they produce more together that what they produce individually. It follows
then that no useful purpose is served in creating organizations if production/productivity
of the organization is the sum total of individual productivity. The problem however
remains that organizations are structured in certain ways that also create limiting factors.
While the goals are divided (division of labour) on a pre formulated basis and necessary
action taken to ensure accomplishment of these goals (manage), the organizing aspect
leaves much to be desired.
Given common goals and power (the organizing principle). In other words
interdependence, there are tow ways of winning. Both are possible, given the twin criteria
of common goal and high-power. The strategies involved are “co-operation and
completion” It is therefore interesting to examine why there is a normal though not
necessarily natural tendency to move towards competition and conflict rather than
towards co-operation and collaboration
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Common goals + Power (high)
Interdependence
Power
Shared Goals
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DYNAMICS OF COOPERATION
Pereceived power
Only 1 Only other Indifference Neither Both
Trust Low Coercion/exploitatio Submission/Compli- Mutual sympathy Competition
n ance
High Nurturance Dependence Co-operation
BASES OF COLLABORATION
“Emotional Intelligence refers to the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those
of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in
our relationships”. – Goleman D, Working with Emotional Intelligence.
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Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand the needs and feelings of others and
oneself, managing one's own feelings and responding to others appropriately. It is the
ability to monitor one's own feelings and that of others, to discriminate among them and
use this information to guide one's thinking and action. Intelligence contributes to success
only in 20% situations. Rest 80% of success in life is contributed by emotional intelligence.
EMOTIONAL COMPETENCY
Tackling emotional upsets, building self esteem, controlling egoism and inferiority
complexes
EMOTIONAL MATURITY
EMOTIONAL SENSITIVITY
1. Mindfulness
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1.6 THE EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE FRAME WORK & ITS COMPONENTS
A Personal Competence
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Regulation
3. Motivation
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Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.
B Social Competence
4. Empathy
It is about:
5. Social Skills
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1.7 EMPATHY
It is the state of imagining oneself in the place of another person, experiencing his
emotions as such, and reacting accordingly. A deep appreciation for another's situation
and point of view. Empathy can be likened to standing in someone else’s shoes,
understanding the feelings and values of another person’s perspective at any given
moment. It begins with an internal choice to see from a different point of view, to
understand another side of a story. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of
another. The ability to empathize is directly dependent on your ability to feel your own
feelings and identify them. If you have never felt a certain feeling, it will be hard for you to
understand how another person is feeling. This holds equally true for pleasure and pain. If,
for example, you have never put your hand in a flame, you will not know the pain of fire.
“If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are
not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have
effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very
far.”
- Daniel Goleman
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1.8 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – SELF EVALUATION
Rating. In the space provided next to each of the following statements, please write the number
which best describes your agreement with the item using the scale immediately below.
1. I use both negative and positive emotions as a source of wisdom about how to navigate my
life.
5. When challenged, I am good at getting calm and focused to flow with life’s demands.
6. When challenged, I am able to summon a wide range of positive emotions such as fun,
13. I am able to motivate myself to try and try again in the face of setbacks.
16. I can easily enter into a ‘zone’ state, or a state characterised by calmness, alertness
and focus.
17. When the time is right, I face my negative feelings and work through what the
issue is.
20. I am good at understanding the emotions of other people, even when the
emotions are not directly expressed.
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22. I can easily set negative feelings aside when called upon to perform.
23. I am aware of subtle social signals that indicate what others need.
25. People who are aware of their true feelings are better pilots of their lives.
29. I help others use their motivations to achieve their personal goals.
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SCORING
ITEM TOTAL
1+2+4+17+19+25
3+7+8+10+18+30
5+6+13+14+16+22
9+11+20+21+23+28
12+15+24+26+27+29
INTERPRETATION
OTHER’S EMOTIONS
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ACTIVITIES
I. Emotional Literacy Concept
Questionnaire
Please answer these questions as honestly as possible. The point is not to look good, but to find
out for yourself where you stand in terms of emotional awareness. If you can’t decide whether
your answer is Yes or No, then answer Not Sure.
A. I have noticed that sometimes, when I find myself with a person who is very emotional, I
am surprisingly calm and without feeling.
B. At times, when I am about to interact with people I don’t know well, I feel sensations like
heart palpitations, stomach cramps, a lump or dryness in the throat or a shortness of
breath, but I don’t know why this is happening.
C. Sometimes I feel flooded by emotions that disorganise and confuse me. From time to time
I am aware of having feelings of anger, from slight irritation to rage.
D. If another person is emotional, I am usually able to tell what emotion they feel, such as
fear, happiness, sadness, hope or anger.
E. I enjoy situations in which people are experiencing strong positive emotions of love, hope
and joy, like at weddings or church services.
A. Sometimes, after a difficult time with another person, I feel as if parts of my body are
numb.
B. I take one or more over-the-counter drugs to deal with headaches, stomach and digestive
symptoms, or body pains that my doctor can’t explain.
C. I know I have very strong feelings, but I am frequently unable to talk about them with
other people.
F. I am appreciated by other people because I know how to cool down emotional situations.
A. I can easily kill a small animal like a snake or chicken without feeling anything in particular.
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B. I am often jumpy and irritable, and I can’t help it.
C. I find myself lying about my feelings because I am embarrassed to speak about them.
E. I often do things for people because I sympathise with them and can’t say ‘no’ to people.
F. I am good at helping people sort out their emotions because I usually understand why they
feel them.
G. I can be around people who are suffering physical pain without getting upset about it.
B. I know I have strong feelings, but most of the time I don’t know what those feelings are.
D. Sometimes other people’s feelings are very clear to me and that can be a problem.
E. I can usually handle people who have strong feelings and unload them on me.
B. I have been in love and suddenly, inexplicably lost that feeling completely.
D. When I have to make an important decision, I usually know how I feel about it, whether it
is scared, excited, angry, or some other combination of emotions.
E. In a competitive situation in which I am winning or clearly superior, I feel bad for the other
person.
F. When I am in a room full of people, I can tell how the group is feeling-- excited, angry,
bored or sad.
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A. I very, very rarely cry.
B. Sometimes, when I watch a TV commercial, tears come to my eyes, and I don’t really
understand why.
E. I have had the opportunity to shoot an animal like a bird or deer and was not able to do it
because I felt bad for the animal.
F. I often change the way I act toward another person because I figure it will make things
easier between us.
Now that you have answered all the questions, you can score the questionnaire. Count up the
number of ‘yes’ responses in all questions marked A. write that number (from 1-6) in the space
marked ‘A’ below. Repeat that process with B, C, D, E and F questions.
A _____
B _____
C _____
D _____
E _____
F _____
There should be a number from 1 to 6 next to each letter above. You can use these numbers to
create a bar chart and determine your emotional awareness profile.
Create a blank bar chart similar to the one below on a separate piece of paper and fill in the boxes
based on your scores. For example, if you answered ‘Yes’ to 6 D questions, fill in your D column all
the way up through the number 6 row. If you answered ‘Yes’ to 2 B questions, fill in the B column
through the number 2 row. Shade your remaining scores and when you have finished, you will
have a bar chart similar to the example below.
DIAGRAM
43
6
A B C D E F
This profile is based on a scale that ranges from low to high emotional awareness. The scale was
developed to illustrate the level of emotional awareness that people experience.
100% Interactivity
Empathy
AWARENESS
Causality
Differentiation
VERBAL BARRIER
0% Primal experience
Physical Sensation
Numbness
Numbness. People in this state are not aware of anything they call feelings or emotions. This is
true even if they are under the influence of strong emotions. Strangely, other people are usually
more aware of the numb person’s feelings than he/she is. While a person in this state may not
feel his/her own emotions, those around him/her can perceive them from cues such as facial
44
expression, blushing, and tone of voice; however, he/she is likely to report only coldness or
numbness when asked how he/she feels.
Physical Sensations. At this level of emotional awareness, the physical sensations that accompany
emotions are experienced but not the emotions themselves. In psychiatric terms, this is called
somatization.
A person might feel his/her quickened heartbeat but is not aware that he/she is afraid. v notice a
pressure in his/her chest but does not identify it as depression. He/she might experience a hot
flash, a chill, a knot in his stomach, or ringing in his/her ears, tingling sensations, even shooting
pains. He/she may feel all of these sensations of the emotion, but not be aware of the emotion
itself.
Primal Experience. In the primal stage, a person is conscious of emotions, but they are
experienced as a heightened level of disturbing energy that is not understood and cannot be put
into words. Consequently, a person in this emotional state is very vulnerable and responsive to
emotions but unable to comprehend or control them. A person in the primal experience stage is
more likely to have uncontrolled emotional outbursts and fits of impulsiveness or depression than
the person whose emotions are frozen out of awareness. The person in the primal stage will
usually be the one to fall apart first when stress bears down on a whole group.
The Verbal Barrier. Crossing this linguistic barrier requires an environment that is friendly to
emotional information. Once it has been crossed, however, a person is able to talk about his
emotions in such a way that he/she develop an increasing awareness of his feelings.
Lately, learning to speak about our emotions is becoming even more difficult because many people
spend their working days in intimate contact with machines like computers instead of people.
And people’s contact with machines does not end at work. At home people attach themselves to
their television, video games, stereo, or computer, all of which are isolating.
Casuality. As we begin to understand the exact nature of our feelings, we also begin to
understand the causes of those feelings, the event that triggered our emotional response, and why
we feel strong pride or hate, whence our fear.
To illustrate, Peter began feeling jealous the night he noticed his girlfriend Jennifer laughing at
their friend Michael’s jokes. At first he was unwilling to admit feeling jealous, even to himself,
because he prided himself on feeling confident and secure. But he/she caught himself being
irritable with Jennifer and had to admit that he/she was probably jealous.
45
Empathy. As we learn the different emotions that we feel, the various intensities with which we
feel them, and the reasons for them, and as out awareness of our own emotions becomes
textured and subtle, we begin to perceive and intuit similar texture and subtlety in the emotions of
those around us.
Empathy is a form of intuition about emotions. The workings of empathy are quite amazing to the
novice, because they seem to depend on an ability that, at times, feels dangerously like
clairvoyance.
When being empathic we don’t figure out or think about, see, or hear other people’s emotions. It
has been suggested that empathy is actually a sixth sense with which we perceive emotional
energies in the same manner in which the eye perceives light. If that is the case, then empathy
takes place on an intuitive channel – separate from the other five senses – that goes directly to our
awareness. Emotional illiteracy occurs when we fail, in our formative years, to develop that sixth
sense. Usually we learn to suppress it because of the constant lying about and discounting of
feelings that are commonplace to childhood experiences. Some people are born “empaths” with
high sensitivity to emotions, and others are emotionally tone deaf. Most of us are somewhere in
the middle, and all of us can learn or relearn empathic awareness.
Empathy, like all intuition, is imprecise and of little value until we develop ways of objectively
confirming the accuracy of our perceptions.
Interactivity. Being “merely” an empathic person – en “empathy” if you will – has its
disadvantages. The empathy is keenly aware of a complex universe of emotional information not
largely perceived by others, some of it painful, perhaps even unbearably so.
Knowing how others feel does not necessarily mean we know that do about it. People’s emotional
behavior seems to call for a response but a response may not be wanted, welcome, or possible.
Being highly empathic in a largely emotionally illiterate world can literally drive a person mad. An
empathic person needs to know what to do with his awareness. Emotional interactivity requires
knowing how people will respond to each other’s emotions and when that interaction might
escalate for better or for worse.
Emotional interactivity is based on the most sophisticated level of awareness, the ability to realize
what you are feeling and what others are feeling and to anticipate how emotions will interact.
This further enables you to anticipate how two different people, given their usual emotional
proclivities will react in a given situation.
Emotions merge, fade, grow, and shrink in each other’s presence and over time.
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Interactive awareness has to do with understanding the way emotions, like chemicals, combine to
create new substances that one could not have guessed at from examining the component parts.
These combinations can be creative, inert, or explosive as in the chemist’s laboratory. The ability
to predict these reactions can come only from a great deal of accumulated experience or wisdom.
Interactivity empowers empaths to use their awareness to navigate powerful emotional situations
in a skillful way. Thus interactivity is the link between emotional awareness, which is the subject
of this chapter, and Emotional Literacy, the subject of this book.
47
YOUR EMOTIONAL AWARENESS PROFILE
The bar chart generated with the questionnaire on pages 30-35 is not a measurement of
Emotional Literacy but an examination of awareness, which is an important aspect of Emotional
Literacy. The A questions test for emotional numbness (EN); B questions test for physical
symptoms (PS); C questions refer to chaotic primal experience (CE); D questions test for
differentiation (DF); E questions for empathy (EM); and F for interactivity (IA). The profile you
generated will help you see what kind of work you need to do to improve your Emotional Literacy.
The three most common profiles are:
6
5
4
3
2
1
EN PS CE DF EM IA
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F)
If your profile looks like this you are a person who hasn’t paid much attention to your feelings and
tends to be puzzled by the feelings of others. Most of the time you are unaware of feeling any
emotions at all; they’re not part of your normal life as for as you can tell. On the occasions that
you have a very strong emotional response, you feel anger or fear and you do everything you can
to overcome that unwelcome state. You need to work on your Emotional Literacy.
6
5
4
3
2
1
EN PS CE DF EM IA
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F)
If your profile looks like this, your emotions are part of your everyday life awareness. You know
how you feel, why, and how strongly most of the time. You feel comfortable talking about
48
emotional subjects and understand other people’s emotions, but you may find that your
awareness is a problem. If you talk about your emotions you may feel like a stranger in a strange
land where no one sees what you see. You are in a very good position to develop a high level of
Emotional Literacy.
6
5
4
3
2
1
EN PS CE DF EM IA
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F)
If your profile looks like this, you are aware of your feelings but don’t always know what to do
about them. You understand some of your emotions but are puzzled by others. You are able to
emphasise at times but at times you are left cold by other people’s feelings. Most of the time
when in an emotional state your feelings are a bothersome, chaotic jumble which you try to get
away from by ignoring them. When you try to talk about them to other people the results are
mixed. Sometimes feelings are resolved, sometimes they are made worse. You are the person
most likely to profit from this book.
BEYOND AWARENESS
Awareness is an essential aspect of personal power, but, as we have seen, it is not sufficient by
itself to produce the changes that Emotional Literacy requires. As a person’s emotional awareness
expands he is able to learn the additional skills necessary to act in an increasingly emotionally
literate way. Learning awareness and literacy are the essential lessons of chapters 3 to 8.
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THE EMOTIOAL AWARENESS SCALE
Awareness is an essential part of Emotional Literacy. You can question yourself on an emotional
awareness scale and see where you stand.
Physical sensations: Your emotions register physically (for instance, as headaches or dizziness) but
you still aren’t aware of the emotions themselves.
Primal experience: You’re conscious of emotions but you don’t know what they are. You can’t
discuss them or understand them.
Differentiation: By crossing the verbal barrier and talking about your feelings you learn to
differentiate among anger, love, shame, joy and hatred.
Causality: You can not only tell emotions apart, you can also see what causes them.
Interactivity: You are sensitive to the ebb and flow of emotions around you and how they interact.
Knowing your emotions, being aware of them in yourself and others, is the first step in becoming
emotionally literate.
BEYOND AWARENESS
Awareness is an essential aspect of personal power. But, as we have seen, it is not sufficient by
itself to produce the changes that emotional literacy requires. As a person’s emotional awareness
expands, he is able to learn the additional skills necessary to act in an increasingly emotionally
literate way. Learning awareness and literacy are essential subsequent lessons.
50
Emotional literacy: A skill that involves understanding our own and other people’s emotions as
well as knowing how our emotions are best expressed for the maximum enhancement of ethical
personal power.
Emotional numbing: The complete suppression of the awareness of emotions due, usually, to
severe trauma.
Empathy: A person who is keenly aware of his or her emotions as well as the emotions of others.
An empath, when not emotionally literate can suffer greatly from his / her heightened awareness.
Intuition: A human faculty with which we can sense reality without having to study it.
Love: The master emotion that causes people to play together, be together and work together.
The pleasurable feeling of cooperation.
Sympathy: The mental aspect of empathy. The kindly disposed understanding of other people’s
emotions without an accompanying emotion of one’s own.
Window of Opportunity: An optimal period, in early life, during which to learn a certain skill.
Pp 30-36 and Chapter 1, what is emotional literacy in achieving emotional literacy- Claude M
Steiner with Paul Perry.
51
III. SUGGESTED ROLE PLAYS
3. HIV
5. Attitude
6. Transcendence
8. Handling frustrations
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UNIT II
2.7 Activities
53
Thinking is the deliberate exploration of experience for a purpose.
Thinking is an ego function and a basic human capability. It is a complex mental activity,
generally termed as “cognition “ by psychologists. It is the faculty that enables us to relate
better to the world around us including specifically the people and life therein. This
capacity to think has been differentiated broadly into two categories variously described
as Logical and Emotional, Convergent and Divergent, Judgemental and Creative, and so on.
More colloquially it has been labelled Left Brain and Right Brain thinking. Both aspects of
thinking are relevant and need to be developed. Developing thinking involves the capacity
to solve problems. The capacity to live and to solve problems involves an additional
capacity that we refer to as learning. Learning and problem-solving are intrinsically inter-
connected. Thinking is the underlying basis for both learning and problem-solving. The
faculty of thinking is thus a major human capacity that needs to be consciously developed.
Components of Thinking
1) Media of Thought
The media for cognition is the language. It is only through language that people can share
their cognition with others and receive stimulus or inputs from others. Language consists
of words, signs, etc. In this, words are the most used form of language. They have two
types of meaning namely denotative and Connotative (Direct meaning & grading
meaning). Words or ideas are also classified as concrete and abstract. Concrete forms are
one that has a specific and clear connotation ie the same meaning and form to all the
people. Eg. Pen, pencil, cat etc. Abstract forms are love, god, integrity, etc. Piaget’s stages
of intellectual development indicate that the child first learns concrete objects and learns
concepts that are more abstract in later years.
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2) Elements of Thought
There are mainly three elements of thought. They are Concepts, Prepositions, and images.
Concepts : Concepts are the units of objects, events or ideas in the mind that are similar to
one another in one or more respects. They help us to represent a great deal of information
about diverse objects, events or ideas. Also they help us to classify environment and
objects into categories which helps us to accelerate the process of reasoning. The process
of concept formation starts from early child hood and gets refined through ages. Concepts
can be grouped into logical and Natural.
Images: Images are the mental pictures of the world around us. Thinking manipulates and
uses these images. Once formed, we perceive it and think about it as though it is real time.
While imaging about a scene, mental image gradually expands, filling their imaginary field
like a real object.
3) Thought Process
Thought process has mainly 3 stages. They are Reasoning, Decision making and Problem
solving. Reasoning transforms the available information in relation to stored concepts, to
reach a conclusion. In the decision making process we choose between available options,
arrived from reasoning. Problem solving involves the processing further, appropriately to
achieve the goal.
4) Perception
Perception is the final product of the process of thinking which adds to the mind, which
has a conglomeration of concepts.
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Types of Thinking
Based on the thought process thinking can be classified into two types. They are
1)Personal Thinking and 2) Directed Thinking. Personal Thinking is thinking without any
specific purpose which is stimulated for personal satisfaction or time pass. Personal artistic
works, dreams are the examples.
Directed thinking is often used for a specific and concrete purpose of problem solving.
Directed thinking is of Two types, critical Thinking and Creative Thinking:
The very basic nature of Critical thinking is, it is “evaluative “. In exploring the evolution of
Critical thinking, there are quite a variety of opinions defining it. Brookfield (1987) defines
five aspects and four components of critical thinking :
Aspects of critical thinking:
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Huitt also explores the perceptions of the various disciplines’ impact on critical thinking by
looking at the influences of cognitive and behavioral psychologists, philosophers, and
content specialists. Each processes the concept through a very specific lens.
1. “The ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make
comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems.”
(Chance,1986, p.6)”
2. “A way of reasoning that demands adequate support for one's beliefs and an
unwillingness to be persuaded unless support is forthcoming.”(Tama, 1989, p. 64)
3. “Involving analytical thinking for the purpose of evaluating what is read.” (Hickey,
1990, p. 175)
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EXPERT CONSENSUS STATEMENT REGARDING CRITICAL
THINKING AND THE IDEAL CRITICAL THINKER
58
Peter Faccione (1998) introduces a five-step process of critical thinking: Interpretation,
Analysis, Evaluation, Inference skills, Presenting arguments, and Reflection that may be
used in the critical analysis process.
2. Analysis “to identify the intended and actual inferential relationships among
statements, questions, concepts, descriptions or other forms of representation
intended to express belief, judgment, experiences, reasons, information or
opinions.”
5. Explanation “to state the results of one’s reasoning; to justify that reasoning in
terms of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual
considerations upon which one’s results were based; and to present one’s
reasoning in the form of cogent arguments.”
Critical thinking therefore requires the understanding of a broad knowledge base, the
ability to identify inferential relationships, examining the credibility of the statements, the
search for elements to draw conclusions, and the ability to explain the reasoning to get to
this point.
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This analysis process is quite different from the other literature that had more parallels to
creative thinking processes.
The research on creative thinking largely deals with the individual and how the creative
process works. There are some articles about corporate creativity in particular, a
fascinating one by Keith Sawyer (Sawyer 1999) that explores group creativity involved in
improvisational theater. Many of the articles deal with application of creativity in the
workplace, and the removal of the barriers that constrain individuals from being creativity.
There are many models presented, involving convergent/divergent thinking, the four P’s:
a process, a product, a person and a press
(Rhodes and Brown, quoted by Feldhusen and Goh, 1995), deBono’s Lateral thinking, etc.
One of the common themes is letting go of the restrictions that define what is “right” and
postulating numerous hypotheses. “Everyone knows that instant judgment is the enemy
of creativity,” (de Bono, 1995). It isn’t necessarily that all judgment is wrong; it’s allowing
the ideas to emerge without screening them out. It is repeatedly mentioned that there is a
need for a quantity of ideas for a good one to emerge.
Like critical thinking, creativity is viewed as a process rather than a product, and within the
variety of theories, one defined “creativity” as needing to have an expert determine if
something is creative, and another just holding the process as the creative portion. It is
generally measured by creative output, relying on the assumption that “those with higher
creative potential have higher creative output…[or] mastery of the discipline…[relying] on
the observation that creativity tends to be domain-specific—that is, most highly creative
people are creative only within a single discipline.” (Smith, Paradice et al., 2000)
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Innovation & Creativity:
Innovation is an active process that has a clearly defined end or goal and that produces
something that others can use and indeed want! The goal, if not drive, of creativity is to
explore beyond current reality, to realize something new. On the other hand, the goal of
innovation is to bring those novel ideas into a tangible form that in some way conforms to
what others need in the here and now. Creativity is essentially a divergent activity,
expanding beyond current experience, while innovation is essentially a convergent
activity, bringing those same ideas back into people’s experience. Creativity is an aspect of
innovation. The goal of creativity is exploration and invention. The goal of innovation is
transformation and implementation.” (Richards, 2003)
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5) “Creativity usually has been defined as the production of novel ideas that are
useful and appropriate to the situation (Amabile, 1983; Mumford & Gustafson,
1988, as quoted inUnsworth, 2001).
6) Leonard and Swap believe “the creative process consists of1) preparation, 2)
innovation opportunity, 3) divergence or the generation of options, 4) incubation,
and 5) convergence or the selection of options.” (Kelly 2000) Here we combine
divergence, convergence and innovation all under the creative umbrella.
62
d. The culmination in Stage 5 is success, failure, or partial success. Influencing
the whole creative process are task motivation, domain-relevant skills, and
creativity-relevant or processing skills.”
10) Feldhusen (2002) himself makes a very interesting observation that creativity has
much to do with the person’s existing knowledge base, especially within children.
Torrence’s model of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration requires a
significant knowledge store in order to retrieve and elaborate on new ideas. In this
early work (1947) creative people were accelerated in school, had a large
knowledge base, and were “characterized by ability to stick with a task for a long
time.” Feldhusen speaks of the large knowledge base assisting in the divergent
thinking processes of idea generation.
11) According to Smith, et al (2000) there are three categories of knowledge essential
to “prepare the mind for creative endeavors: 1) Knowledge of the domain in which
one intends to create, 2) knowledge of techniques that enhance creativity and
factors that inhibit creative efforts, and 3) knowledge of other
domains…[K]nowledge of other domains provides the material needed for
construction useful analogies and one domain may have a solution that can be
adapted and reused in another.”
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12) Mnemonics like Alex Osborne’s SCAMPER (Michalko 2000) representing
Substitute?
Combine?
Adapt?
Eliminate?
Rearrange or reverse?
are common in the literature, providing a process for the individual to utilize to
become creative. Tactics like reversals break existing patterns, “destabilize
conventional thinking patterns and free new ideas.” There are suggestions to not
think about something and let the subconscious process the information, and to
use the ridiculous to spur on new ideas.
13) (Michalko 2000) Writers explore the thinking of geniuses, in hopes that the reader
might emulate some of their patterns. Howard Gardner began his explorations in to
multiple intelligences by examining the thinking of geniuses. Michalko (1998) lists the
thinking patterns of geniuses as follows:
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g. Geniuses think metaphorically
Not surprisingly, these patterns parallel many of the creative ideas and methods in the
literature.
Books like Chic Thompson’s What a Great Idea! (Thompson 1992) include formulas
and exercises to encourage freedom from old ideas, expression of new ideas,
learning to create by changing perspectives, thinking in opposites, metaphors,
future tense, then taking action to use the ideas.
According to Smith, Paradice et al. (2000) there are four behaviors that prepare the mind
for creativity: 1) learn something new every day, 2) seek out constructive criticism, 3)
incubate, or leave a problem alone for a while to allow the brain to work on it, and 4) put
knowledge to work.
Roger von Oech, in A Whack on the Side of the Head, lists mental blocks that stifle
creativity: Finding the right answer, requiring something to be logical, following the
rules, always being practical, and assuming play is frivolous. These are all about
letting go of pre-existing ideas to allow for the creative ones.
Thomas (1999) is one of the many who lists barriers to creativity. His list is based on the
65
5. Failure to think in new ways
Most authors in this vein believe removing the obstacles to creativity fosters it.
Edward deBono teaches what he calls Lateral Thinking Skills (de Bono 1995). Lateral
thinking is closely related to creativity. But, whereas creativity is too often only the
description of a result, lateral thinking is the description of a process. One can only admire
a result but one can learn to use a process. Creativity is coming to be valued as the
essential ingredient in change and in progress. It is being valued above knowledge and
above technique since both these are becoming so accessible. In order to be able to use
creativity one must rid it of this aura of mystique and regard it as a way of using the mind--
a way of handling information.
One of his methods, the Six Thinking Hats, involves putting on a different “hat” to look at
ideas. He color codes his hats:
and gaps
Black—logical negative, includes judgment and caution Critical Thinking & Creativity
changes
66
Blue—overview or process control
Using deBono’s system, ideas are explored from a variety of angles. DeBono’s other
concepts of lateral thinking are designed to circumvent the brain’s natural patterns and
Just as the word NO is the functional basis of logical thinking so the word PO is the
functional basis of lateral thinking. PO crystallises the whole concept of lateral thinking
into a tool for language and thought. If one understands PO one understands lateral
thinking. Even if PO is not used in actual speech, it remains a symbol of the lateral thinking
attitude towards the use of information and the creation of ideas. Once there is a practical
tool such as PO, it becomes possible to use it and to develop a skill that can be transferred
from one situation to another. It also becomes possible to introduce training in lateral
thinking at an early stage in education
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Creativity is therefore:
The need for lateral thinking arises from the nature of mind as a self-organising
information system. The characteristic of this broad class of systems is that they create
patterns and use them. Restructuring of patterns is not strongly developed in the mind
and that is why humour and insight are so elusive. Lateral thinking is a way of using
information in order to bring about restructuring of patterns.
The twin aspects of lateral thinking are escape from old ideas and generation of new ones.
There does come a time when sheer pressure of events forces the restructuring of an old
idea. But long before this, enough information is available to allow the idea to be changed.
By insight restructuring, one can change an idea before being forced to.
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The above figure shows the development of an idea as the reflection of ‘reality’. (‘Reality’
is defined as that perception of events which gives maximum effectiveness. The idea
diverges more and more from reality until pressure of events causes changes and the
process starts again. If one can change ideas ahead of absolute necessity, then the process
is as shown in the lowest part of the figure. Thus, one remains close to reality all along.
Restructuring is brought about by escape from old ideas and generation of new ones.
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3. Lateral thinking is distinct from vertical thinking.
The principles of lateral thinking are quite distinct from those of traditional, sequential,
vertical thinking. Somtimes the principles are even flatly contradictory. It is impossible to
use lateral thinking unless one is quite clear about this distinction. For instance, in lateral
thinking there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said. This
provocative use of information is a basic principle of lateral thinking. Also, in lateral
thinking one may make use of an ‘intermediate impossible’, that is, a step which is quite
unjustified on a logical, sequential basis but very useful as a stepping-stone to a new idea.
The use of evaluation, judgement and the NO function is quite different in lateral thinking.
Lateral thinking seeks to find alternative ways of putting things together (lateral move)
instead of looking for the best one and building on it (vertical move).
Lateral and vertical thinking are both required. Lateral thinking is concerned with the first
stage of thinking, the stage of patterning, perceptual choice, and approach to the
problem. Vertical thinking is concerned with the second – stage processing and working
out. Lateral thinking is concerned with choosing concepts, vertical thinking with using
them. Lateral thinking requires vertical thinking to select and develop the ideas that are
generated. Vertical thinking requires lateral thinking to establish an effective starting
point. Skill in lateral thinking magnifies the effectiveness of skill in vertical thinking, and
vice versa. Although the two types of thinking are distinct, they are not substitutes; they
are complementary.
Lateral thinking is a practical way of using information and it can be learned, practised and
used. The first stage is an understanding of the basis of, and necessity for, lateral thinking.
The second stage is developing an attitude of mind through familiarity with the principles.
The third stage is the use of specific techniques, both to bring about creative results and to
develop the lateral thinking habit. In the fourth stage, lateral thinking has become a
natural skill that can be used as and when required without recourse to the special
techniques.
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6. Different aspects of creativity
Creativity is not concerned only with invention and new products. These are but a minor
aspect of creativity. Creativity is concerned with the way information is looked at and the
way it is used. Creativity comes into problem solving and into decision making. Creativity is
as much the business of executive management as of R&D Departments. Creativity is not
just a matter of risking money on new products but also of saving money by avoiding the
costly continuity of outdated ideas.
There was a time when creativity was thought to be a luxury used mainly by artists. This
has changed. Nowadays, creativity is seen to be an essential part of thinking. Creativity,
being the change of ideas, is inseparable from the use of ideas. Since everyone uses ideas,
creativity is everyone’s business. Creativity is the process of change. This does not have to
be a matter of huge, ‘bulk’ change-over, for it can be a matter of small changes at sensitive
points with a gradual liberation from the restrictions of an old idea. Creativity does not
only initiate change but it allows one to keep up with it. In a period of rapid change
brought about by technology, education, communication and developing attitudes, one
needs creativity more than ever. In a time of changing questions, shifting goals, and
increasing complexity, one needs, more than ever, the ability to develop new ideas. As
computers come to provide wonderful tools for information processing, the emphasis is
shifting back to the importance of ideas-- the ideas that set the computer working, the
ideas that make sense of the computer output.
In most of the education-oriented material, the definitions are highly watered down.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is often referenced, using the higher level thinking skills to connect to
critical and creative thinking.
“Critical thinking involves logical thinking and Reasoning where as creative thinking
involves creating something new or original. While critical thinking can be thought
of as more left-brain and creative thinking more right brain, they both involve
“thinking.” When we talk about HOTS “higher-order thinking skills” we are
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concentrating on the top three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis and
evaluation.” (Lamb 2003)
Huitt equates evaluation with critical thinking and synthesis with creative thinking:
“Synthesis and evaluation are two types of thinking that have much in common
(the first four levels of Bloom's taxonomy), but are quite different in purpose.
Evaluation (which might be considered equivalent to critical thinking as used in this
document) focuses on making an assessment or judgment based on an analysis of
a statement or proposition. Synthesis (which might be considered more equivalent
to creative thinking) requires an individual to look at parts and relationships
(analysis) and then to put these together in a new and original way. There is some
evidence to suggest that this equivalent-but-different relationship between
critical/evaluative and creative/synthesis thinking is appropriate.
There are several models that exist that work to develop critical and creative thinking in
students. Calvin Taylor, in the Talents Unlimited program (Bellis) describes the talent areas
as productive thinking, communication, planning, decision making and forecasting.
Productive Thinking is the process of thinking of many, varied, unusual ideas, then
adding to them.
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Communication works with “many varied single words” describing things and
feelings, then making a network of ideas and thoughts, and sharing these with
others.
Planning has the students think through the materials they would need, the steps
to take, and the anticipation of problems.
The next phase, Decision Making teaches the student to think about a variety of
things that could be done (the creative aspect of generating many solutions), then
thinking carefully about alternatives and choosing one, then defending the choice.
Forecasting has the students making varied predictions about situations and
exploring the cause and effect relationships. These steps are used when a child
invents something.
Helgeson (1993) suggests that there are three ingredients to teaching critical and creative
thinking to children through the content areas:
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2.6 CONCLUSION
There are certainly some overlaps in the research regarding the process of creative
thinking and critical thinking. In both, we must challenge assumptions and prior
knowledge. In critical thinking we do this to determine accuracy and validity of the
statements, and in creativity to go beyond them, as in Donoghue’s concept of thinking
further. (Donoghue 2003) His concepts of thinking further suggest we must take new
perceptions of things, and not take them at face value. In creative thinking, the first
solution is not always the best solution, though it may be right. In critical thinking, the
presented solution may be accepted or rejected. Thinking further also requires us to
create new frames of reference, as athletes need to do when the world record of running
a distance could be broken again and again. Old thinking prohibits creativity and is
accepting of what is presented without a critical examination of it. Both consider the
thinking as processes rather than products or outcomes. Both involve the re-examination
of existing information. It appears that creativity takes the next step after challenging
assumptions and begins creating new ideas. Critical thinking challenges, but draws
conclusions, rather than taking the concepts to new dimensions. Creative thinking is
designed to create, and critical thinking is designed to analyze. It seems that creative
thinking has aspects of critical thinking, and critical thinking has aspects of creativity. Like
deBono’s thinking hats the process of looking at the alternative perspectives brings out
the end result in both. Each has value, and when used in conjunction, creates a powerful
process of higher order thinking.
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Suggested Exercises/ Activities:
Critical Thinking:
2.7 ACTIVITIES
STEPS
Draw the nine dots on the board as shown in the picture below. Tell the
participants to join the nine dots using four straight lines without taking the pen
away from the paper nor can the lines overlap over one another. They cannot
change the position of the dots. After practicing on the paper, they can try it on the
chalkboard.
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KEY: We can draw the dots by extending the lines beyond the dots.
. . .
. . .
. . .
2. Can you make this line smaller without altering it in any form.
3. Plant the given four flower plants equidistant from each other.
O O O O
4. In how many ways can you divide the following square into four equal parts?
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6. WORD DISSOCIATION
Energizer.
Oral Communication
MATERIALS None
PROCEDURE
2. Explain (or ask someone to explain) the principle of word association – the
way in which one word tends to lead someone to think of another word.
3. Explain that the principle of this game is for each person in turn round the
circle to think of a word which has no connection at all with the previous
word. Challenges may be made on the basis of the meanings of words only (
for example,’Wellington’ followed by ‘woollen’ can be challenged because
they are both about clothes but not because they both start with the same
letter.)
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7. NAME OF THE ACTIVITY Nothing is impossible
things.
TIME 20 minutes
STEPS:
1. Show the participants the visual drawing of a circle with a dot in the middle
(see the picture below). Direct them to draw the dot and circle without lifting
the pen from paper.
2. Key: Take a square paper. Fold one corner of the paper inward towards the
middle so that the edge of the folded part will be in the center of the paper.
Put the dot at the center of the paper touching the edge. Then start drawing
the round, through the folded paper. When the pen comes out of the folded
paper, unfold the folded part and complete the circle without lifting the pen.
DISCUSSION POINTS:
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8. PICKPOCKETS
OBJECTIVES Creativity
Team – building
Problem solving
Trainer training
MATERIALS Pens
Paper
TIMING 45 minutes
PROCEDURE
Put all the items in a heap. Ask the group to divide into pairs and give them one
object. Invite them to devise a solution using that object to inspire them in any
way they wish.
Bring the pairs together and discuss what solutions they devised, making the
groups progressively larger.
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COMMENTARY Sometimes a pair will have a real block, in which case you
may allow them to exchange their object. A better way might be to suggest that
they think of similies: for example, by listing the qualities of the object and then
asking themselves in what way is the problem like or unlike the object. It is
important to allow plenty of time for the discussion stage.
VARIATIONS
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UNIT III
DECISION MAKING & PROBLEM SOLVING
Definition, Basic
guidelines, Goals and
Difficulties in
Consensus Building
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3.1 ORGANISATION
Subsystems in an organization:
Structural- Human or
administrative Social
Information- Decision
Making
Technological
We face many problems in our daily life. This may range from minor issues to major risky
problems. A problem arises when there is a controversy between two needs. When a
problem arises normally, we use our memory related with such issues and our perception
related with the problem situation and prosess the solution based on the rule in force or
the social norms. Problem-solving is a larger process that starts with the identification of a
problem and ends with an evaluation of the effectiveness of the chosen solution. Problem
solving is a set of activities designed to analyze a situation systematically and generate,
implement, and evaluate solutions.
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A problem is the difference between the actual condition and the desired condition.
Problem-solving is a continuous, conscious process which seeks to reduce or correct the
difference between the actual and desired conditions. It is about bridging the gap
between where you are and what you want to be.
Decision making is about how you want to bridge that gap. It is one of the steps in the
larger process of problem-solving. Decision-making is a subset of the problem-solving
process and refers only to the process of identifying alternative solutions and choosing
from among them. Decision making is a mechanism for making choices at each step of the
problem-solving process. Decision making is part of problem solving, and decision making
occurs at every step of the problem-solving process.
Managerial problem solving and decision making can be divided into 4 major steps:
Step 1 A systematic approach to the problem analysis step has 5 distinct activities
associated with it: (1) Making an initial statement of what is wrong-- the situation that
needs improvement-- the area where the results might be better; once this initial
statement has been presented, (2) the decision maker must gather the facts, (3)
investigate the possible causes and identify the real problem, (4) set forth the requirement
of a satisfactory solution and (5) specify any restrictions or limits on a solution.
Step 2 In developing alternatives the manager has two primary directions in which he
can turn. He can rely on his own experience or utilise the experiences of others. A third
alternative is to work out an entirely different way to solve the problem. Although past
experience is valuable and also the most logical direction to turn to for alternative
solutions to problems, it should be noted that in today’s complex world it is usually not
adequate by itself. Ideally the decision maker will use a combination of approaches to
develop alternatives.
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Step 3 Analysing alternatives involves setting forth both the advantages and
disadvantages of each alternative as it relates to accomplishing of the objectives of the
decision. Setting forth the potential disadvantages is particularly important since they may
point out the problems that could occur in the implementation step. Many times provision
can be made for overcoming these problems if and when they do appear.
Step 4 This final step involves developing a plan of action, communicating the decision
and participation. The decision must be communicated to everyone who is directly or
indirectly affected by it. The communication, along with giving people the opportunity to
participate, is what determines the degree to which the people who must implement the
decision will be committed to having it carried out successfully. Implementation of the
decision needs to be carefully monitored.
Gather facts
Redefine problem
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STEP3 ANALYSE ALTERNATIVES (DECIDE)
- Difficulty in implementation
Monitor implementation
Decision by consensus
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3.2 CONSENSUS BUILDING
A DEFINITION: “If there is a clear alternative which most members subscribe to, and if
those opposed feel they have had a chance to influence the decision, then a consensus
exists. Operationally it would be defined by the fact that those members who would not
take the majority alternative, nevertheless understand it clearly and are prepared to
support it.” (Schein 1969)
Assertiveness
Competition Collaboration
Consensus
Avoid
Accommodative Co-operation
ADD (process) Schein then adds the following criterion-- in order to achieve such a
condition (consensual support) time must be allowed by the group for all members to
state their opposition and to state it fully enough to get the feeling that others do really
understand them.
To this may be added the concern that the group demands more of itself than ‘allowing
time’. It must also allow dissident views as an antidote to group-thinking. The objective is
86
vigilant decision making, to meet which the criterion becomes ‘members must conduct a
proactive search for all the information and opinions available in the group’.
1. Avoid arguing blindly for your opinions. Present your position as clearly and
logically as possible, but listen to other members’ reactions and consider them
carefully before you press your point.
2. Avoid changing your mind only to reach agreement and avoid conflict. Support only
solutions with which you are at least somewhat able to agree. Yield only to
positions that have objectives and logically sound foundations.
4. Seek out differences of opinion-- They are natural and expected. Try to involve
everyone in the decision process. Disagreements can improve the group’s decision
because they represent a wide range of information and opinions thereby creating
a better chance for the group to hit more adequate solutions.
5. Do not assume that someone must win and someone must lose when discussions
reach a stalemate. Instead, look for the next most acceptable alternative for all
members.
Consensus is the best method for producing an innovative, creative and high quality
decision that (1) all members will be committed to implementing and (2) utilises all
available resources.
Commitment Consensus is vital for any decision that must be supported by all members
of the group, even dissenting members.
Win-Win The goal is to eliminate the win-lose effect of majority rule. Voting is quick
but opposing members are labelled ‘losers’ or pushed into an adversarial position inviting
sabotage of the decision. No group concerned with co-operative problem solving can
afford this damage.
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DIFFICULTIES IN CONSENSUS SEEKING GROUPS
First, the term ‘consensus’ has become a jargon and one of the worst effects of
jargon is the mistaken assumption that everyone understands it. Many groups fail
to define consensus and try to achieve a standard of agreement on which they
have no agreement.
The second problem is that many groups think that they must seek consensus and
then proceed to force a consensus that is fictitious by any definition. A common
excuse is the pressure of time but false consensus is an invitation to think group.
Consensus is the most effective method of group decision-making but it also takes the
most time. Perfect consensus means that everyone agrees what the decision should be
Unanimity, however, is often impossible to achieve. There are degrees of consensus, all of
which bring about a higher quality decision than majority vote or other forms of decision
making.
Consensus produces an innovative, creative and high quality decision that (1) all members
will be committed to implement, (2) uses the resources of all the group members and (3)
increases the future decision-making effectiveness of the group.
Consensus is not easy to achieve but is worth the time and trouble as it is characterised by
more conflict among members, more shifts of opinion, a longer time to reach a conclusion
and more confidence in the members in the correctness of the decision. Consensus
requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of controversy, distributed
participation and leadership, communication and all other group and interpersonal skills.
All group members must participate actively and power must be distributed evenly among
them.
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A group reaches a decision as members achieve consensus on a proposal. As members
discuss alternative proposals, they attempt to influence one- another directly or indirectly
to accept or reject a given proposal. The process of reciprocal influence during group
interactions is therefore in focus. Obviously, a consensus decision is one in which
members typically agree. However, agreement is often necessary but not a sufficient
condition for consensus. That is, members may agree with a decision, even unanimously,
but not achieve consensus. Consensus therefore implies not just agreement but
commitment to the decision reached. In fact members may be committed to a decision to
the extent they work to put it into effect without ever fully agreeing with it.
“We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.”- M. Scott Peck
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NASA Exercise – Individual / Group Work Sheet
General Task: You are a member of a space crew originally scheduled to rendezvous with the
mother-ship on the lighted surface of the moon. Owing to mechanical difficulties, however, your
ship was forced to land at a spot some 200 miles from the rendezvous point. During landing, most
of the equipment aboard was damaged and since survival depends on reaching the mother-ship,
only the most critical items must be chosen for the 200-mile trip.
Fifteen items were left intact and undamaged after landing. Your task is to rank order them in
terms of their importance to your crew in helping them reach the rendezvous point. Each one of
you, first individually and then in your group, using consensus, should rank the 15 items in order of
their importance. Rank 1 as the most important followed by 2, 3 and o till 15. Avoid the same
rankings to 2 or more items.
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1. Team Error Score _____ Team Working Indices
(Transfer your scores, individual and group-- items 1to7-- to the board for comparison and
discussion.)
How to play
NASA PRIORITY
You are a part of an expert delegation returning from New Delhi to Hyderabad. At
approximately 10 O’ clock, the pilot of the special chartered plane requests you to fasten
your seat belts. The pilot announces that the plane has to be re-routed via Jaipur and
Ahmedabad due to pockets of bad weather over Madhya Pradesh. The flight gets very
rough and suddenly, it begins to fall. The plane crashes.
You find yourself along with a small group of people stranded in the Thar Desert of
Rajasthan. The pilot, the co-pilot and the steward were killed in the crash and the
aeroplane has been completely burned out.
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The pilot has not been able to notify anyone of your position before the crash. However,
he had indicated that before impact you were approximately 110 kms off the course of the
flight plan.
The surrounding desert is quite flat and faceless. The last weather report indicated that
the temperature at the ground level will be about 48-50C.
All of you are unhurt and are dressed in light clothes – cotton shirts, trousers, dresses (for
women), socks, and soft shoes. Every one has a handkerchief. All put together you have
Rs.6534/- in notes and Rs.26.45 in change, two packs of cigarettes and two ballpoint pens.
Before the plane caught fire, your group was able to save 15 items. You have to decide on
the importance of the items to your survival in the desert till the rescuers arrive. Start the
priority list with ‘1’, for the most important to ‘15’ for the least important. The list is
provided below.
Please assume that: 1) You are the actual people who have survived the crash. 2) The
number of survivors is the same as the number on your team. 3) The team has agreed to
stay together. 4) All the items are in good condition.
Step I :
Step II :
After everyone has finished the individual ranking, the team has to rank them.
Once the discussion begins, do not change your individual ranking.
Your team will have 20 minutes to complete this step.
93
SURVIVING THE THAR DESERT
RANKING SHEET
2 Folding knife
5 Magnetic compass
6 First-aid kit
15 A cosmetic mirror
94
SURVIVING THE THAR DESERT
KEY
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3.3 SIX THINKING HATS
The concept of ‘Six Thinking Hats’ is, putting on any one of these hats defines a certain way of
thinking. The essence of parallel thinking is that at any moment everyone is looking in the same
direction – but the direction can be changed. What are the different directions in which thinkers
can be limited to look? This is the way the hats come. There are six coloured hats corresponding
to the six directions of thinking. With the six-hats method, the intelligence, experience and
knowledge of all members of the group are fully used since everyone is looking and working in the
same direction.
Confusion is the biggest enemy of group thinking. We try to do many things at the same time.
Juggling with six balls at the same time is rather difficult. Tossing up one ball is much easier. With
the six-hats method we do only thing at a time. The colour of each hat is also related to its
function.
Each of the six thinking hats has a colour: White, Red, Black, Yellow, Green, and Blue. The colour
provides the name for the hat. Thinkers will visualise the hats as actual hats.
White Hat: White is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and
figures.
Red Hat: Red suggests anger (seeing red), rage and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional
view.
Black Hat: Black is sombre and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the
weakness in an idea.
Yellow Hat: Yellow is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive
thinking.
Green Hat: Green is grass, vegetation and abundant, fertile growth. The green hat indicates
creativity and new ideas.
Blue Hat: Blue is cool. It is also the colour of the sky. The blue hat is concerned with control, the
organisation of the thinking process and the use of the other hats.
The colour association of each hat enables us remember its function. These hats may be
considered in three pairs: White and Red, Black and Yellow, Green and Blue. The most striking
benefits of the six-hats method are seen in group discussions. The method provides a framework
that is far more effective-- that of free discussions and thinking of one’s own. The sequential frame
work reduces confusion and ensures that all aspects are covered.
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3.4 ACTIVITIES
The Story*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FACTS: A businessman had just turned off the lights in the store when a man appeared and
demanded money. The owner opened a cash register. The contents of the cash register were
scooped up and the man sped away. A member of the police force was intimated promptly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statements:
1. A man appeared after the owner had turned off his store lights.
4. The man who opened the cash register was the owner.
5. The store owner scooped up the contents of the cash register and ran away.
7. After the man who demanded the money scooped up the contents of the cash register he
ran away.
8. While the cash register contained money, the story does not state how much.
10. The story concerns a series of events in which only three persons are referred to-- the
owner of the store, a man who demanded money and a member of the police force.
11. The following events in the story are true: someone demanded money, a cash register was
opened, its contents were scooped up, and a man dashed out of the store.
* th
Fred Luthons, Organisational Behaviour, 4 Edn. P.518/519
97
Tally Sheet
1
2
3
4
How to play:
2. Ask each participant to note down “TRUE” or “FALSE” or “DON’T KNOW” for each
statement on a paper.
4. Put the participants into groups of 4 or 5 each and ask the group to note down “TRUE” or
“FALSE” or “DON’T KNOW” for each statement on a paper.
II - CASE STUDY
At 8.30 when Raju travelled in a bus on the way to Govt. Polytechnic College, he noticed two of his
students murmur and speaking urgently to each other. When he keenly listened all he heard was
“something will happen today”. He could not understand. When he reached college, he met
Ashok, one of his colleagues and walked through the corridors to the staff room. In the corridor
they heard some students discuss about something in a tensed manner. Raju told Ashok that he
smelt something wrong. Ashok laughed at him. At 9 o’ clock when teachers started the classes as
usual, all of them were surprised by the alarming shouting and screaming. When Raju came out he
could see students running out from Ashok’s class. He saw some gundas also in the class. He
rushed to the principal’s chamber with the other teachers and spoke about the previous scenes he
had noticed. Principal immediately called the police. The Police arrived and lathicharged the
students. The next day college witnessed strike from students coating “ police atrocities”.
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3.5 TRAINERS GUIDE TO HANDLE THE TRAINING ON LIFE SKILLS- DECISION
MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING
Step-1
Step-2
Ask participants to state their role in their routine life ( as group work)
Identify their roles- as student, as human being, as social being, as guardian of family etc.
How to solve?
Step-3
Step-4
To identify the various steps in decision making a role play has to be arranged among the
participants.
One group will be the observers to identify the points missed in the observers observation on role
play
One group will describe about what happened in the three groups
Step-4
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Note:
Arrange a role play like advocate and client, teacher and counselor, doctor and patient only tell the
participant to prepare role play and act no other details given before role play once they complete
the role play and observations , in the consolidation time trainer tells these are the steps in
decision making – steps in decision making has been given in paper.
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UNIT IV
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION 1
4.3 COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION
4.9 ACTIVITIES
101
4.1 A COMMUNICATION CONTINUUM
Systems (MIS)
Satellite communication
Upward
102
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we
perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with
others.” Anthony Robbins
Communication is an extremely vast topic and ranges9 across a wide spectrum beginning, at one
end, with information theory, management information systems, satellite communication and
railway signalling systems, all of which tend to be typically one-way and highly mathematical (this
field is also known as ‘cybernetics’) and, next in complexity, as we move towards the other end,
‘organisational communication’, which flows primarily downward but also can, as occasion
demands, move upward and sideways.
Further away and beyond organisational communication we may classify and place ‘interpersonal
communication’, the area of our direct concern. This interpersonal communication is however
being considered in its larger context, that of an organisation or a group. This means that
organisational communication is being viewed as ‘continuous and complementary sets-series of
interpersonal communication or interactions’-- interacts, for short. Finally we come across an area
that we ordinarily know as body language and which is more formally described as non-verbal
communication, or the field known as ‘kinetics’. Although this is not our area of focus, it is too
important an element of the inter-action process, to be excluded from consideration.
Multi-functions of communication-- In an organisation (we are not limiting ourselves to the formal
and those involving predetermined structures), communication tends to do many things. To
illustrate, let us take a group consisting of roughly twenty people. We can observe that
communication does many things in, and with, such groups. Communicative exchanges among
people provide the sole method by which influence or effects can be achieved. Communication
facilitates and, beyond facilitation, makes it possible for us to manage. If there were no
communication, managing would not be possible. This is obviously and equally true of leadership.
If it were not possible to communicate with others, it would not be possible to influence them or
to perform needed leadership functions. This is still truer in the case of group work. If
9 th
Fred Luthans, Organizational Behavior, 4 Edition, 1985, P. 422/423, and adds that “most definitions of
communication used in Organizational Behavior literature stress the use of symbols to transfer meaning of
information.”
103
communication among group members and between members and leaders is lacking, group work
would be impossible. Communication should, in many ways, be considered the organising element
of the group(s) and of organisation.
“Communication flows more freely among people who are not afraid of making mistake.
Communication is then process by which information and understanding transfer from
One person to another. Communication comes effective only when we give some
message and the other party received and understands it. Communication is a dynamic
and ongoing process, which interacts and leads to changes in behavior and attitudes of
individuals. That is why it remains as the most important part of Life skill Education”.
To familiarise ourselves with what communication does, get together a group of twenty. (Any
number from 12 to 24 would be okay enough.)
Instructions:
This exercise is completed in two parts. The first part of the exercise is completed with the eyes
closed. The second part, with a slight modification in the activity, is completed with eyes open. It
will then be possible for us to compare the dynamics in the two situations, when the eyes are open
and closed. The exercise is begun with, say, twenty participants. They begin as a circle with their
hands preferably interlinked. Of course, there is no compulsion that the hands are interlinked but
it would facilitate matters when their eyes are closed. The only condition to meet is that their eyes
remain closed all through the exercise until the required task is completed. Participants are
advised not to ask the instructor during, or at the end of, the exercise whether the task is
completed. In any case their query will not elicit a response. When the task is over, or when they
believe it is completed, they are to open their eyes.
The exercise is now begun with people assembled in a circle. They are now required to close their
eyes. After the eyes are closed the task to be completed is allotted. From the current formation as
a circle they move into and form an isosceles triangle. It is clarified that an isosceles triangle has
two of its sides equal.
The exercise is repeated, this time eyes open. Starting from a circle, participants are required to
form a rhombus this time. While clarifying what a rhombus is, which may not be immediate, it is
stated that a square is not what is intended.
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4.4 COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION
The major components of communication constitute the source, message, channel and
the receiver. The source is the location from where the message emerges for transferring
the same to another person. Hence, the sender of the message functions as the source of
the message. The sender should always cautious and considerate about the expected
outcome. For this, the receptiveness of the receiver and the channel through which the
message is being sent stands important.
The message normally forms with an idea, which transmits to the receiver through the
most comfortable symbol to the sender and receiver. The purpose is that the receiver
should understand the symbol and he/she should be able to transmit with the same
symbol to make the communication fully effective useful. The clarity and effectiveness in
stating to the message will help to avoid misunderstanding of the message conveyed. So,
select the symbol after fully understanding the target person. This understanding is
termed as the profile of the target audience. When we think about channels in the case of
mass communication, newspaper, radio, TV etc. serves as channel. In the case of
interpersonal communication, our look, sound, touch, expression, mood etc, serves as the
channel.As the sender expects reciprocal action from the receiver, the role of the receiver
is most important. Based on the receptive level of the receiver, there are two types of
receivers. One is the active group are good listeners who have good habits of
concentration, evaluation and mental participation. On the other hand, passive listeners
absorb only part of the message directed at them. So extra care is needed while sending
message to passive receivers.
There is no way to ensure that the receiver of the message has understood it fully in
content and spirit. Human perceptual process” complicate the depth of useful. The
following suggestions related to the message will be useful to make the communication
more comprehensive.
105
Other factors that affect the effectiveness of communication
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Non-verbal communications are the actions that are used to communicate, supplement or
substantiate the communication. This includes mainly our gestures, tone of voice and
facial expressions.
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
Anybody who knows the language can write to anybody. The question is how many of the
receivers will get the full content in its original intended meaning and sprit. If the receiver
fails to get the full benefit of the written communication, it is the failure of the sender,
stressing on the points, writing in the style that is well understandable to the receiver,
differentiating fact and opinion, specific paragraphs, readable and neat format etc, are of
the cruces that will improve the written communication.
VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Verbal communication is taking by using words. The most important point to remember in
verbal communication is that the meaning of the words may differ in different social
situations and cultures. Some times in association with some non-verbal forms, it creates
106
a different meaning. Therefore, clarity of the words is mot important . Tone of voice,
speed of delivery, pauses and emphasis on certain words all add to effective delivery of
the message.
AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS
Audio-visual communication means the synchronization of sound and visuals to make the
communication effective. LCD projectors, video films, documentary films, TV are some
examples.
a) Focused Interactions: This primarily results from an actual encounter between two
persons. This implies that the two persons involved are completely aware of the
communication happening between them.
b) Unfocused interactions: This occurs when one simply observes or listens to persons
with whom one is not conversing. This usually occurs at stations and bus stops, as
well as on the street, at restaurants, etc.
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MASS COMMUNICATION: Mass communication is by using mass media such as radio, TV,
newspaper etc to transfer the information to large number of people. This is generally
identified with tools of modern mass media which includes: books, the press, cinema,
television, radio, etc. It is a means of conveying messages to an entire populace.
Non verbal communication skills : This includes aspects such as body language, gestures,
facial expressions, eye contact, etc., which also become a part of the communicating
process; as well as the written and typed modes of communications.
“Argument is the worst sort of communication”.
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4.7 IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING IN COMMUNICATION
Listening is the primary function of communication that leads to understanding, learning,
remembering and acting. It is the receiver’s positive effort to receive and understand a
message transmitted. Proper listening helps the received to understand the feelings and
needs of the communicator and thereby to get a very clear the understanding of the
message both in content and spirit. This will help the listener to take a better decision on
issues.Good listening also convinces the communicator that the receiver is interested in
the subject and it will automatically motive him to deliver the result in good form and
shape. This will also improve the attitude of the communicator towards the receiver and
the receiver will be more receptive to what you have to say. Bennett and wood say that
there are three listening styles such as” results” “ reasons” and “ processes”. Results style”
listeners want to hear the bottom line only “ process style” Listeners like to k now the
subject with some background on how it all came about, before getting to the bottom line.
“ Reasons style “ Listeners need to be convinced about the content, its reasonableness,
logic and suitability to the situation.
. Listen without evaluating the communicator at the time of listening. This may distract
attention and the quality of the listening. Do the evaluation, it necessary, after the
listening is over.
. Do not intercept in between the discussion. Do not anticipate that the style should be, as
you like.
. Do not try get everything from the discussion. It may not be possible at many times.
. Do not have e a fake attention to the communication. This is easily know by experienced
communicators.
. Reveal your stand and situation that supports or suppose the idea, it that is necessary ass
the part of the communication.
Research shows that poor communication is probably the most frequently cited sources of
interpersonal conflict. Because individuals spend nearly 70% of their working hours in
communicating (writing, reading, speaking, listening etc.] it seems reasonable that one of
the most inhibiting forces to successful performance is lack of effective communication.
When a thought or an idea communicates, the mental picture perceived by the received
should be the same as was envisaged by the sender.
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4.8 BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
physical barriers
attitudnal barriers
physiological barriers
system design
psychological barriers
cultural barriers
linguistic barriers
According to Stewart (1992) this could be guided by asking the following questions.
. What is your role in the particular conversational situation (Who are you?)
. What is the roll of the other person in such a conversational situation. (to who you Talk)
. Silence is communicating. You need time and space to think. This will give the
opportunity to reflect creatively and positively.
Talking establishers rapport: Managers interact with personnel to get to k now them not
only as employees but also as persons. The aim of this is to see what they value and how
they think and feel about the aspects of everyday life. This is part of creating cultural
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communication. Its is also allows for effective upward communication in organizations
where staff feels that their views are considered
. Body language and tone of voice also communicate:This is usually a gateway when you
want to hide the way you really feel or think.
It is hard to disguise yourself, and body language reveals your true feeling and intent.
. Language and words. : Sometimes the words we use do not convey the message that we
want to send. Language can trap us because of jargon and abbreviation and some times
we use too many words. The problems is worse when communicating across language
barriers.
. Feedback is part of communication: it involves giving the other person the opportunity to
response and showing you have understood what he/she has said. The role of feedback is
especially important when you communicate across language and cultural barriers.
. Feedback is part of communication: It involves giving the other person the opportunity to
respond, and showing you have understood what he/she has said. The role of feedback is
especially important when you communicate across language and cultural barriers.
4.9 ACTIVITIES
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STEPS:
Keep ready a pre prepared one page interesting but slightly confusing
story/incident/situation. Call seven participants from the group and two
supervisors. Put them away from the class so that they will not overhear what the
others discuss.
One supervisor should stand with the seven – member group to supervise them
and the other should stand slightly away. Call one participant from the group to
the place where the supervisor 2 is standing, and relate the story
story/incident/situation to him. One way communication only. Do not permit the
participant to ask questions. Call the next volunteer away from the volunteer
group and ask the 1st volunteer to repeat the story/incident/situation that was told
to him to 2nd volunteer. Again one way communication only, no questions. Ask this
participant to repeat this story in front of the class.
Call the next volunteer away from the volunteer group and ask the 2nd volunteer
to repeat the story/incident/situation -------. Repeat the process until the seven
volunteers have completed.
Bring all the volunteers to the class and repeat the original
story/incident/situation. Explain about the modifications that have crept into the
message. Discuss the causes for the modifications and explain concept of effective
communication and barriers of communication.
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113
III Listening exercise - Touching the chin
1. The facilitator announces the class that an activity “ Touching the chin “ is to start.
He also writes on the board “ touch your chin”.
2. The facilitator stands distinctly where each participant can see him and his actions
clearly’
3. The facilitator asks the participant to start the activity as he himself does.
4. The facilitator stretches his hand out in front of him with his fore finger pointing
out.
5. He slowly and gradually brings his fore finger towards his face.
6. As the fore finger nears the face the facilitator moves his finger closer to his upper
cheek. The same can be seen to be copied by the participants
( FOR READING)
Don’t be fooled by me, don’t be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a thousand masks, masks that
I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,
but don’t be fooled: for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.
I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as
without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water’s calm and I’m in
command, that I need no one. But don’t believe me, please!
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask. Beneath dwells the real me in
confusion, in fear and aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the
thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated façade to help
me pretend, to shield from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My
only salvation. And I know it. That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love. It is the
only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself of – that I am worth something.
But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare. I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and
love. I’m afraid you will think less of me, that you’ll laugh at me, and your laugh would kill me. I’m
afraid that deep down I’m nothing, that I’m no good, and that you’ll see this and reject me.
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So I play my game, my desperate game, with a façade of assurance without and a trembling child
within. And so begins the parade of masks. And my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in a suave of surface talk. I tell you everything that is really nothing, and
nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me: so when I’m going through my routine,
do not be fooled by what I’ m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying,
what I’d like to be able to say, what, for survival, I need to say but what I can’t say.
I dislike hiding. Honestly! I dislike the superficial game I’m playing, the phoney game. I’d really like
to be genuine and spontaneous, and me, but you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to hold out your
hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the
blank stare of breathing death. Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you
really care, my heart begins to grow wings-- very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. With
your sensitivity and concern, and your power of understanding, you can breathe life into me. I
want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be the creating of the person that
is me if you choose to. You alone can release me from my shadow-world, of panic and uncertainty,
from my lonely person. Do not pass me by. Please do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you
approach me, the more blindly I strike back. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told
that love is stronger than walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with
firm hands, but gentle hands; for a child is very sensitive.
For I am YOU!
Anonymous10
V Arrange the participants in two circles, one inner circle and an outer circle in such a
way that a pair is formed and can communicate face to face. That is each
participant is now having a partner. Ask questions like the person, teacher
influenced them the most, an incident that made them happy and sad in their life
etc., and direct them to communicate with his/her partner. After each question
move the participants to the right/left from the inner circle and outer circle
alternately. After this exercise arranges the participants in one circle and let them
share their experiences while communicating with different partners.
10
The material included here is reproduced intact as obtained from an anonymous source. According to data
available on www.jwjonline.net/poems/mask/ , the original, a poem is attributed to Charles Finn as the
source.
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VI Arrange the participants in five groups. Now each group is directed to prepare a
skit showing the different types of communication like intrapersonal, focussed,
unfocussed, non verbal and mass communication.
VII Each participant is directed to share an experience that made them angry or
frustrated or disappointed when he/she had interacted with his/her friend or
relative. Now each participant is given a chance to try the XYZ feedback technique
to solve such situations without creating any anger or frustration but enhancing
the interpersonal relations.
VIII Active listening is a technique that helps to understand, evaluate and interpret
what a person hears. Barriers to active listening usually make content loss which is
called Downward drift when one reproduce a matter that he/she had listened.
Here prepare a story and share the story to each and every participant. Now the
last participant is directed to present the story that he/she had heard, then the
first participant is directed to present the story and finally the teacher presents the
original story that he/she had delivered. Here we can analyze the content loss,
manipulations etc
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4.10 BODY LANGUAGE
What is Body Language?
Body language is the unspoken or non-verbal mode of communication that we use in every
single aspect of our interaction with another person. It is like a mirror that tells us what the
other person thinks and feels in response to our words or actions. Body language involves
gestures, mannerisms, and other bodily signs.
In real life situations, 55% of the messages that we convey to other people are transmitted
through body language and the actual verbal communication accounts for the other 45% -
38% in tone of voice and only 7% in the words we use.
Our ability to use body language in a positive way and to read other people's minds through
their body language separates the men from the boys (or women from girls), and can be a
powerful tool to our overall personality development.
Body language is described by psychologists as a language of signals. They say we express our
feelings and thoughts in a variety of nonverbal cues like gestures, movements and micro
momentary expressions, unaware that we are doing so.
This language is what we say without speaking, which is a great deal. Only part of what we tell
those around us is conveyed by the spoken word. Movements, usually controlled by the
subconscious, say more. Every day we unconsciously send many signals through the body. Kinesics,
the study of body movement, will tell us that 50 percent of information on the character, impact
and credibility of a person is conveyed by body language.
You may use words to disguise your thoughts. You may leave things unsaid, even lie – but it is
impossible to do this with body language. Sometimes it is easier to change your mind or your
convictions than to control your posture, expressions and gestures. You may use a lot of words and
fail to get your point across, but to anyone who can read the signs, the body speaks simply and
clearly.
Non verbal cues can be better understood by dividing them into the following types.
Kinesics: It is about body movements, including the movement of our limbs, head and all other
body parts.
Proxemics and territoriality: This area deals with the variations in the use of space by different
individuals. We all operate under certain zones in our day-to –day interactions with people. At
times we are in the ‘intimate’ zone, at times in the ‘personal’ or ‘public’ zone.
Haptics: This tells you about how touch is used to communicate different emotions in
interpersonal interactions. A cultural set-up generally regulates certain types of touch. Touch
defines relationships, communicates social status, and satisfies special needs.
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Occulesics: This area is about the use of eyes including eye movements and eye contact in
different communication situations.
Paralanguage: They are the expressions that accompany speech- other than formed words like ah,
oh, hummings etc., voice pitch, and voice segregates, such as pauses, fillers and other hesitation
sounds.
Chronemics: It deals with the value we attach to and the way in which we use time. It can provide
useful information about people. Or instance, we can observe how different people behave
depending on the psychological orientations towards the present and the future. We can see how
people are controlled by their biological clocks, or how people in different cultures handle time.
Artifactual codes: Our personal accessories - like clothing, jewellery, and home or office
furnishings – represent who we are.
1. To gain an insight and awareness of the various non-verbal signals used in our
communication with others, so that we can modify our behavior in order that it has a
positive impact.
2. To master the skills of non verbal communication so s to easily read the body language
of others and respond to it appropriately and adequately.
4. To comprehend the impact of non verbal message, which far exceeds that of any given
vocal transaction, dialogue or conversation between persons, so as to make
communication more effective.
5. To become aware of and monitor our own von verbal behaviour so that we send out
the right signals and decode the signals we receive from others more accurately. Non
verbal communication tools can be used to transmit our own ideas, feelings, an desires
in such a manner that people will understand us and respond in the way we want
them to. Besides, we can prevent misunderstandings by accurate decoding, by being
more objectively perceptive, and by being able to distinguish a signal from a
mannerism.
6. To establish rapport with others by perceiving their body language to know what
pleases or offends them. We can anticipate the reactions of others to specific
situations, break through their defenses, and influence their decisions in a positive
manner. By being aware of our own body language we can check the impact of our
intervention – as to whether we are inadvertently precipitating the reactions of
others.
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7. To bring out into the open, to the conscious level, our subconscious motivations and to
understand them more concretely. This will also help us become more deeply
empathetic towards others.
Zones: You know from everyday life that you do not let everybody come close to you
immediately. All of us need space, as an animal needs territory in which to operate, any
incursion on this space is regarded as threatening and disturbing. Keeping our distance plays
an important role in our everyday relations and dealings with others.
The American scientist E.T. Hall has identified four different distance zones;
Gaze behaviour:
Glancing: When two people meet and make eye contact they will usually find themselves in a
state of conflict. They want to look at each other at the same time they want to look away.
This will result in very brief, fleeting looks at each other intermitted by looking away. The
progress, duration and focus of these glances can serve as indicators of what kind of
relationship exists or not exists between them.
Losing face: In and emotional encounter wherein one participant starts to dominate or
intimidate the other the latter starts to glance away more and more often. Literally, his face is
lost to the sight of the dominating person and this serves as an indicator for him to stare at
him more intently accentuating the threatening.
Super gazes: Super gazes are over long glances. A person them when he actively likes another
or is trying to be domineering. The facial expression will be that of a smile but still the targeted
person will soon sense the hostility behind the super gaze and start looking away as if to
search for an escape.
Pease(1993) proposes that while discussing business, we direct our gaze at the area
consisting of the triangle between the other person’s eyes and forehead. When we look at this
area we have a look of seriousness and the other person realizes that we mean business. This
is the business gaze.
Social gaze: To create a social atmosphere, the gaze must drop below the other person’s eye
level; the triangle is located between the eyes and the mouth.
Intimate gaze: The gaze area ascribed to intimacy extends across the eyes and below the
chin at other parts of the person’s body.
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Gestures:
Positive gestures: Wide and open gestures. Open palms, feet pointing straight, open gaze
etc. are examples for this.
Negative gestures: Hiding your arms behind your back, holding on to your lapel, looking at the
floor or ceiling while giving a speech etc.
Contradictory signals:
When we are having two conflicting emotions we tend to produce contradictory signals. You
may be wearing an extremely vicious expression at a rude sentry but at the same time you
may be retreating simultaneously. The sentry, on the other hand, as he dictates rules to you in
a seemingly fearless way, will be watching your face closely out of his anxiety about you. At
such times the person who correctly assesses the dominating emotion of the opponent will
have an edge on him.
Shortfall signals:
A shortfall signal is one that fails to reach its usual level of intensity. The on-off smile is an
obvious example. This is the smile that flashes quickly on to an otherwise immobile face and
then, just as quickly vanishes again. Such smiles usually last for less than a second and can
easily be read as deliberate insults by ending them quickly while still in the other person’s line
of vision.
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The reason why shortfall signals occur is that the performer’s true mood is interfering with his
social ‘display’. He attempts to simulate the outward signs of inner feelings he is not
experiencing and he fails to perfect his ‘act’.
- Body movements are highly fleeting, micro momentary- in order to make right
judgments one must be alert and make careful observations.
- Gestures come in clusters – one must recognize their relationships and draw meaning
from a cluster.
- One must check the gesture cluster or any discrepancies which show that a person is
faking.
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4.11 WRITING SKILLS
RESUME
Resumes can be formatted in different ways, but it must accurately reflect your
qualifications and job experiences.
1. Make a resume to fit the position you applied for not "one size fits all" model.
2. Your resume should highlight why you are qualified for the position.
Resume Style
2. Skills
3. Functional
4. Combination
5. Video
is listed first in the order. Education and Technical Skills sections follow the details of
this professional's job experience.
2.Skills Resume
This format works best when a traditional resume just doesn't work to make you look like
a good candidate even though you have relevant skills
3.Functional Resume
A functional resume categorizes skills by function, emphasizing your abilities. This is useful
if you are changing careers and want to show how you can transfer your skills.
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4.Combination Resume
In a combination resume format, you have the option of emphasizing your skills and
abilities, who you worked for, or your educational background.
This is a good style to use if you like to have the flexibility to put your information in a
format that suits your background, your tastes and your style.
If you are a recent college graduate, you can downplay your lack of previous employment
by targeting other features, such as honors, awards, and volunteer work, as well as listing
the related experience you DOES have first
Summary
Accomplishments
Experience
Education
Skills
Professional Objectives
Professional Memberships
Honors
Certifications
5.Video Resume
Remember that your video resume, like other things you post online, will be public.
Choose carefully what personal, professional, and contact information you wish to give.
6.Scannable resume
This enabled employers to receive hard-copy resumes, get that resume information into a
database (to handle the volume of resumes received!), and retrieve the resume later
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CHOOSE A STYLE FOR YOUR RESUME THAT IS MOST SUITED FOR YOUR QUALIFICATION
AND THE JOB APPLICATION
SAMPLE:-chronological order
NAME
Cells:+-------------------- email------------------------
PROFILE
A determined and focused professional with a wide variety of practical experience in--------
----------------------------------------------------------------
Experience -----------------------------------
Computer Proficient computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications
e.g. Microsoft office ( word / excel / access / power point );email and internet research.
KEY SKILLS
Excellent Reports writing skills, able to write clearly and concisely, with
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ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
Education
19---
20—
20—
20---
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
RECENT CONSULTANCIES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
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CORE COMPETENCIES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
GENERAL INFORMATION
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
PERSONNEL DATA
Date of Birth :
Nationality :
Civil status :
Gender :
CONTACTS
REFERENCES
No1.
No2.
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COVER LETTER
It should grab the employers attention and point out why you, above all other
applicants, should be contacted for a personal interview.
• Use A4 paper
• Use 1" margins on all four sides
• Use Times Roman (12 point) or Georgia (11 point).
• Should be single-spaced
• Typed on a computer
• Print the letter on only one side of the paper.
• Fold the letter horizontally into thirds
Mail the letter in a envelope that fits an A4 paper folded 1/3rd
• USE:- Block format and its specifications
Points to Remember
Introduction
Body—not more than 3 paragraphs
Appropriate salutations
Proposal Preparation
Issue
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Purpose
Question worrying:-
What to include
How to organize it
Objective
Proposal Contents
2. Executive Summary
5. Procedures/Methodology
6. Personnel Resources
9. Project Evaluation
Submit On Time
Report Writing
Types of Report
Sales Reports
Inspection Reports
Audit Reports
Annual Reports
Feasibility Reports
Progress Reports
White Papers
Classification of Reports
Information Reports
Analytical Reports
Recommendation Reports
A report is a formal piece of written work based on facts, process or test. It is usually
written in a concise style, giving precise details. It is useful to draw the attention of your
learners to three important points:
Topic and focus - What is the main subject area and which particular aspect/issues will
the report cover?
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How to Write Reports
2.Organizing Reports
Comparison/contrast
Problem-solution
Elimination of alternatives
General to particular
Geographic or spatial
Functional
Chronological
3.Anatomy of a Report
Cover Page
Title Page
Letter of Transmittal
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Executive Summary
Report Body
What happens is that for most people when report writing, they tend to write way too
much and then get stuck when it comes to the editing and rewrites.
They seem to lose sight of their natural style and the writing strengths they already have.
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So that's your first step: get clear about your own natural style (a good place to begin is
your speaking style - see if you can avoid straight-jacketing it as soon as you take pen to
paper or fingers to computer keyboard to do some report writing).
There are two more steps that lay the foundation of good report writing even before you
begin to write:
1) Get clear about the purpose of your report: what's it for, what's it supposed to achieve,
what do you need it to say?
2) Have a point of view: it will help you writing your report (and your readers) if it's clear
'where you're coming from'.
Everything you have to say can then get filtered through that view
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UNIT V
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
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5.1 INTRODUCTION
One of the most distinctive aspects of human beings is that we are social. We are each
affected by the presence of other people, we form relationships with other people, we
join groups with other people, and we behave in certain ways towards members of our
own and other groups. Interpersonal relations include how we are affected by simply
being in the presence of other people, ways in which people interact with one another and
form close relationships with each other. Interpersonal skills include not only how we
communicate with others, but also our confidence, and our ability to listen and
understand. Problem solving, decision making and personal stress management are also
considered interpersonal skills.
Transactional Analysis (TA) is both a theory of human personality and a system for the
improvement of human relations. Its application to organisations provides a systematic
approach to understanding the links between human needs and behaviours. TA provides a
comprehensive model to understand behavioural patterns, communication, interpersonal
relationship, motivation, time management, attitudes, conflict management, and life span
development for better living.
Teaching is unique in that students, the ‘raw materials’ who come to you for getting
transformed into ‘finished products’ are human beings, capable of thinking, feeling and
modifying behaviour accordingly. In order to become a good teacher, it is essential that
the teacher acquires good communication and interpersonal skills.
Transactional Analysis [TA] is one theory on personality and psychotherapy, which can be
applied for personal growth and change. It can be used for counseling and as an excellent
communication strategy for individuals, organizations and nations.
Transactions
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‘Communication gaps’ among individuals, communities and nations, cause mistrust, anger
and enemity among them. Understanding and interpretation of Transactions can help in
preventing such ‘communication gaps’. TA regards all human beings as fundamentally
good [OK], capable of thinking and responsible for their actions. The ultimate aim of TA is
to facilitate understanding, sharing and intimacy among all.
Origins
Ego States
The feelings, thoughts, emotions and actions of an individual are modulated, according to
Eric Berne, by a coherent system of thinking, feeling and beliefs, called Ego States. Ego
states are a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a
corresponding consistent pattern of behavior. Three Ego States have been distinctly made
out. These are the Child, Parent and Adult. All individuals are thus ‘three-in-one’, but only
one ego state takes the executive position at a given moment. Their anatomical existence
in the brain has been supported by the famous Wilder Penfield Neurosurgical
Experiments, which proved that all past events are recorded in the brain, along with the
associated feelings, like a video recording.
Recognizing, analyzing and appropriately modifying Ego States in oneself and others can
enhance the quality and effectiveness of Transactions. This forms the foundation of TA
theory and practice.
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the reason for the spanking. He cries and interprets the whole incident only as ‘father hit
me!’
The ‘Child’ is, by nature, happy, emotional, creative, inquisitive and fantasizing. It likes to
‘receive’ and is ‘selfish’- it doesn’t like to part with anything. There are three sub divisions
of ‘Child’ can Free, adapted and little professor.
Free Child: Unrestricted expression, pleasantness, creativity, throwing away things and
exploration are the characteristics of a free Child.
Adapted Child: Behaves according to the desires of Parents, even though he does not
endorse them. Example is a child saying ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Thank You’ to one and all.
Little Professor: As the Child grows up, he reaches a compromise between his innate
needs and parental requirements. Eg, the Child who develops abdominal pain and
headache on Monday mornings.
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state oriented towards objective, autonomous data processing and probability
estimation.Adult Ego State should be allowed to bloom in an uninhibited manner.
Contamination
In many individuals, the relative proportion of these ego states will vary, resulting
in preponderance of one ego state over the other. This is called Contamination.
Contamination is the main hindrance to solving conflicts
Exclusion
A particular ego state may be absent or minimal in an individual. Absence of Child
Ego State will result in the individual incapable of enjoying life. He is unduly strict about
time and protocol. Absence of Parent Ego State turns the person into an antisocial, with
no sense of values. When there is absence of Adult Ego State, the person becomes
‘insane’.
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5.3 TYPES OF TRANSACTIONS
Transactions may be complementary, crossed or ulterior.
(Transaction stimulus given from left to right, with arrow pointing right ward
Transactional response from right to left, (see arrow pointing left ward )
Complementary Transactions
The ego states of the transacting individuals will be complementary. [Eg. Parent to child,
adult to adult.] Free flow of conversation occurs. For a friendship to bloom, the
transactions have to be complementary. This way, even people with opposing values can
continue to remain friends. Nine possible Complementary Transactions are PP, PA, PC, AP,
AA, AC, CP, CA, CC.
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Crossed Transactions
When the Transactional Vectors intersect, conversation cannot go on for long. Here the
response is unexpected and apparently inappropriate. In terms of possibilities, (and) also
in terms of sheer numbers, the crossed transactions overwhelm the complementary
transactions -- 9 complementary to 72 crossed; a total of 81. The ratio of 1:8 could have
implications in terms of practice-- translated as probability. Fortunately, as Berne
advocates, only 4 of these are important enough to warrant attention, except in clinical
practice.
Crossed transaction type 3 CP-AA Exasperating response , where someone who wants
sympathy gets facts instead
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Ulterior Transactions
Even though a transaction is occurring at a level that is obvious, another is taking place at
an invisible, subtle level.
(CP-AA) (PC-AA)
Games
Games are a series of repetitive, non-productive transactions with well-defined beginnings
and ends, having specific ulterior aims. People engage in games to get Strokes. Very often,
Games are frustrated attempts at intimacy. Games help to avoid or keep in abeyance
unacceptable feelings and situations. These are fundamentally dishonest.
Eric Berne has named several kinds of Games people play: ‘Wooden Leg’, ‘Yes…But’, ‘All
for Your Good’, ‘I am Helpless’ etc are a few examples.
Scripts
Script consists of the self-limiting decisions formulated in childhood in the interest of
survival and culminates as the unconscious blueprint of life. Scripts maybe individual [eg. ‘I
am by nature lazy!’ or ‘Whatever I do is bound to fail’], social [eg.‘Indians are poor
140
administrators than the British’] or organizational [‘It is not our company policy to design
things’]. By the judicious application of TA, we can rewrite the scripts.
Drivers
These are compulsive script messages that ‘drive’ the person. Eg. ‘Be perfect’,’ ‘Be strong’,
‘Try hard’, ‘Please me / others’. Permissions are counter-drivers, used during counseling.
Eg, ‘Be yourself’, ‘Take your own time’, ‘you can make mistakes’ are counter-script
messages.
Injunctions
They are powerful inhibitions from the ‘Parent’. TA based counseling help in getting over
these injunctions. The therapist ‘permits’ the affected Child Ego State to be free from
injunctions. Solid reasoning is given to the ‘Adult’ to support the same.
Strokes
‘Strokes’, in TA refers to the recognition that everyone needs to survive and thrive. It may
be called hunger for a stimulus. Strokes may be physical, verbal or nonverbal. One can
give, receive, demand or reject strokes.
Understanding how people give and receive positive and negative strokes, and changing
unhealthy patterns of stroking constitutes important aspects of applied TA.
141
Life Positions
These are strategies formulated from early Childhood to cope with life. A person tries to
reinforce [justify] decisions taken during Childhood using his basic Life Positions. These are
four types.
This is the most positive and creative life position, best suited to face life and get along
with people. Jesus Christ, Buddha, Gandhiji and a newborn child possess this life position.
T.A enables one to attain this state.
Many teachers, priests, parents [and Hitler!] allegedly have this life position. This is
common in people who were unjustly punished in their childhood. They ignore other’s
feelings and watch and wait for others to make mistakes.
This life position is seen in people who got frequent rebukes and discouraging remarks
during childhood. They have low self-esteem. Normally seen in one year old children, but
they out-grow it.
Such people probably received little or no love during Childhood. They may have suicidal
tendencies. It is the terrorist’s life position.
applied, T.A can effectively improve teacher-student relationship, achieve personal overall
institutional development.
142
.
or game.
143
5.5 AUTONOMY
Attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities:
awareness, spontaneity and intimacy.
Awareness requires living in the here and now. Physiologically awareness is eidetic
perception, allied to eidetic imagery.
The aware person is alive because he knows how he feels, where he is and when it is.
Spontaneity means option, the freedom to choose and express one’s feelings from the
assortment available (Parent feelings, Adult feelings and Child feelings). It means
liberation, liberation from the compulsion to play games and have only the feelings one
was taught to have.
Types of Relationships
S. Defining characteristics
Relationship Additional distinguishing characteristics
No. (ego states)
2 Co-workers Adult-to-Adult -
Committee Parent-to-Parent or
3 -
workers Child-to-Child
144
(pp.106)
145
Candid relationship with no games and no
mutual exploitation. The capacity for
intimacy depends on the ability of the Adult
and the Child to keep the parent at bay if
11 Intimacy Child-to-Child
necessary, but is even better if the parent
benevolently gives permission or, best of all,
encouragement for the relationship to
proceed.(pp 126)
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5.6 ACTIVITY
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150
UNIT VI
TYPE B PERSONALITIES
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STRESS
6.1 NATURE OF STRESS
What is Stress?
Stress is the ‘wear and tear’ our minds and bodies experience, as we attempt to cope with the
continually changing environment. People often think of stress as pressure at work, a sick child or
an examination. These events are not actually stress but may lead to stress. Stress is actually the
body’s internal reaction to such incidents. It is the automatic ‘flight or fight’ response in the body,
activated by adrenaline and other stress hormones, which simulate a series of physiological
changes such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, faster breathing, muscle tension, dilated
pupils, dry mouth and increased blood sugar.
Whenever we feel anxious, tense, tired, frightened, elated or depressed, we are undergoing stress.
As these feelings are common, stress has become an acceptable and unavoidable part of our day
to day life. It is not a modern phenomenon, but has always been intrinsic to human life.
TYPES OF STRESS
The causes of stress (‘stressors’) are many and varied but can be divided in two categories--
External and Internal:
External Stressors
Internal Stressors
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These factors lead to various symptoms of emotional and mental stress, such as
Anger Anxiety Worry Fear Depression
NEGATIVE STRESS (DISTRESS) Excessive, prolonged and unrelieved stress can have a harmful
effect on mental, physical and spiritual health. Feelings of anger, frustration, fear and depression
generated by stress can trigger a variety of illness. It is estimated that stress is the most common
cause of ill health in modern society. Stress is a contributory factor in minor illness like headache,
indigestion, insomnia and ulcers, but may also lead to serious life threatening conditions like
cancer, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, accidental injuries, cirrhosis and suicide.
POSITIVE STRESS (EUSTRESS) Stress can also have a positive effect. It is essential in spurring
motivation and awareness, providing the stimulation needed to cope with challenging situations.
Tension and arousal are necessary for the enjoyment of many aspects of life, and without them
existence will be pretty dull. Stress also provides the sense of urgency and alertness to face and
survive in threatening situations such as crossing a busy road or driving in poor weather. An overly
relaxed approach in similar situations could be dangerous.
STRESS AND INDIVIDUAL The way an individual responds to stressors and the level of stress
is different for different people. Every one is different, with unique perceptions of, and reactions
to, events: what is stressing to one may be a joy to another. It is important to note that most of
the stresses we experience are Self Generated (‘we create our own upsets’). Recognising this fact is
an important first step towards coping with them.
THE STRESS RESPONSE According to experts, the first reaction to severe stress is what is
known as the ‘fight- or-flight’ response, which activates the body’s protective mechanism either to
fight (confront the stressor) or flee (the act to avoid the stressor threat of it). Initially this response
alerts us to dander and is beneficial in providing the strength, speed and stamina for survival.
The stress response is controlled by the endocrine system in our body, which regulates various
bodily functions. Any act of stress stimulates the endocrine glands to secrete hormones
(adrenaline).The acts of these hormones produce various physical responses. Over a long term this
can result in the gradual onset of various health problems.
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6.3 SYMPTOMS OF STRESS
Exposure to excessive stress results in hormonal imbalances, which can produce a variety of
symptoms:
URBAN DECAY AND DEPRIVATION – are a major source of distress for large sections of the
population. Inadequate housing, noise, pollution, crowding, violence and poverty are some of the
causes. These factors affect how we live, work and play.
LIGHT - Natural light is an essential factor in the quality of our lives. It is vital for healthy being. It
regulates levels of the hormone melatonin which regulates sleep. A lack of daylight can affect the
hormone level creating lethargy and depression. Seasonal Adaptive Depression—SAD-- affects a
large number of people.
COLOUR - Colour also plays a major role in our lives as it affects our moods and perceptions. It has
physical and psychological effects.
LIFE EVENTS AND THE PACE OF CHANGE - According to studies, life events and their speed of
change have direct effect on stress--shifting house, getting married, redundancy etc. A scoring
pattern was evolved as: major life crisis, moderate crisis and mild crisis for all these life events.
2. Personal relationships
The quality of personal relationships is traditionally regarded as one of the main sources of stress.
The relationship between partners is the key factor followed by parent-child.
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HOME AND FAMILY - Many sources of stress such as bereavement, financial worries and
relationship breakdowns originate within family. Increases in stress in recent times can be
explained by changing social factors.
PARENTHOOD - Parenthood imposes heavy physical, emotional and financial burdens, which can
affect the less resilient. Arguments, disagreements, misunderstandings, resentments and
depression are likely to happen.
3. Stress at work
Work is the source of income and meets a variety of needs, but is also a major source of stress
arising from the nature of relations between various levels of employees. The work place issues
generally are:
1.Magnitude of stress producing event:Bigger the stress producing event ,bigger the stress.
Two American cardiologists, Friedman and Roseman observed that many of their patients with
heart problems shared similar personality characteristics. Further, they concluded that a significant
relationship exists between certain habitual behavioural patterns and stress related illness. They
reported that males with Type A behaviour were six times as risky to heart disease as men with
Type B.
Type A patterns
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Lack of proper planning
Classifying individuals into either type helps explain why some are more prone to stress related
disease than others. But please note that the distinction is not absolute; most people will fall
between the two extreme types described.
3. Aided imagery
4. Alkaline bath
5. Transcendental meditation
6. Yoga
2. Take time to reflect.Spend some time in the evening to evaluate the activities carried out
during the day.Note down any changes in lifestyle to be made
3. Spend quality time with family.Don't ignore your family and go around with friends always
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4. Be polite to everyone you meet.
5. Assertiveness:It's the ability to implement your ideas without hurting the feelings of others
8. Dont submit yourself emotionally to anybody. Always see the advantages and disadvantages of
6.7 ACTIVITIES
Instructions
In the list of attributes circle the number that almost closely represents your own
behaviour.
At one end of the scale is Type A behaviour and at the other Type B. High Type A scores
are obtained on the right side of the scale for questions 2,5,7,11,14; High Type A scores are
obtained on the left side of the scale for questions 1,3,4,6,8,9,10,12. Give yourself 10 points if you
score at the end of the scale towards Type A, working down to 0 points at the other points at the
other end of the scale which represents Type B.
II Roleplays
1. You are travelling in a train; an alcoholic person starts abusing you. How will you handle the
situation?
2. A friend of yours says that it's fashionable to smoke and persuades you to smoke
3. You hear from a classmate that another classmate is spreading bad rumors about you-
4. You are angry with your father for not allowing you to go for a 3-day picnic
1.Anger
3.Happiness
The most problematic thing is to understand one’s own emotional state-what one is going
through-and use appropriate emotions, in the right time in right amount.
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FRIENDSHIP-A state in which you like a person, he/she likes you too, you give and take help, but
there are others too with whom you share a similar relationship, and your life is not significantly
affected even if you don’t see your friend for a day.
CRUSH/INFATUATION -A transient attraction you feel towards a person by virtue of his external
attributes like looks.
LUST-Purely sexual attraction towards a person. It could even be towards teachers or blood
relatives
Romance-Out of the various friendships, one becomes a special friendship. You tend to spend
more time with that person, and want to make him/her a part of your life. You become disturbed if
you don’t see him/her for a day. You can’t tolerate him/her spending time with someone else.
There is an element of jealousy, possessiveness and anxiety that you may lose this relationship
LOVE-Accepting a person with all his deficiencies. Perfect mutual understanding with no envy or
insecurities.
EMOTIONAL SUBMISSION-A state where your entire life starts revolving around one person. You
are not bothered about anyone else. You are willing to do anything that person asks you to do.
This is a dangerous state any may lead to suicides, eloping from home, and even ending up with
sex rackets.
3. Relationship with older people is also a matter of concern. The frequency of adolescent girls
developing romantic relationships with much older males is becoming common. A discussion can
be held.
4. Role-play: On a hartal day you are waiting in the road for a vehicle. A male classmate in a bike
offers you a lift. At the same time a well dressed middle aged man who is your neighbour comes in
a car and offers you a lift. Which one will you choose?
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Role-play: Expressing emotions through voice-navarasas through voice modulation
Anger is an emotion which should be very carefully used. Subtle expression of anger just by facial
expression and firm eye to eye contact can be practiced. There are three steps to control anger
2. Skill acquisition-Realize the initial bodily signs of impending anger outbursts; like palpitation,
sweating, trembling of body, muscle tension, aching sensation in head etc.-then try to relax-sit
down immediately take a deep inhalation, very slowly exhale-then close your eyes and count
slowly from 20 to 1.
5. An anger diary can be maintained and everyday events which have provoked anger can be
documented. Go through the anger diary and analyse each situation- see how many of these
outbursts where 'purposeful', and how many where 'purposeless'. Think about alternate problem
solving methods in situations where purposeless anger manifested.
Adolescents usually get frustrated for small reasons, especially after comparing
themselves with more successful peers. Feeling that 'I’m incompetent" occurs easily. But
knowledge that each one is unique should help them to overcome frustrations. Thinking about less
fortunate people also will help them to overcome frustrations.
Competition-You contest with somebody, and if you achieve more than what he has achieved,
than you win,
Superstition -You are not contesting with anybody; even if you are the biggest achiever in your
class you can still aim for bigger improvements.
7.Role-play: Your friend wins kalaprathibha title in a youth festival-everyone is congratulating him-
what will you feel?
**************************
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REFERENCES & ABBREIAVATIONS:
SE- SIMULATION
S- SHARING
D- DISCUSSION
Q- QUESTIONNAIRE
161
B8 - Staying OK – Thomas & Amy Harris
162
EVALUATION METHODOLOGY
I) INTERNAL EVALUATION
MARK-BREAK UP
1. ATTENDANCE 10
3. RECORD 10
4. I)Originality of Ideas
III)Presentation
TOTAL 50
1. Record 5
4. Viva 10
5. Write up on a skill/perception/experience 15
TOTAL 50
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III LEARNING AND ACTIVITY RECORD (LaAR) SHEET
Date:
No. of hours:
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APPENDIX I
TIME MANAGEMENT
The essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be captured in a single
phrase: Organize and execute around priorities. That phrase represents the evolution of three
generations of time management theory.
The first wave or generation could be characterized by notes and check lists, an effort to give
some semblance of recognition and inclusiveness to the many demands placed on our time and
our energy.
The next generation could be characterized by calendars and appointment books. This wave
reflects an attempt to look ahead and to schedule events and activities in the future.
The third generation reflects the current time management field. It adds to those preceding
generations. The important idea of prioritization, of clarifying values and of comparing the relative
worth of activities is based on their relationship to those values. In addition, it focuses on setting
goals – specific long- , intermediate- and short-term targets toward which time and energy would
be directed in harmony with values. It also includes the concept of daily planning, of making a
specific plan to accomplish those goals and activities determined to be of greatest worth.
While the third generation has made a significant contribution, people have begun to realise that
efficient scheduling and control of time are often counter productive. The efficiency focus creates
exception that clash with the opportunities to develop rich relationship, to meet human needs,
and to enjoy spontaneous movements on a daily basis.
As a result, many people have become turned off by time management programmes and planners
that make them feel too scheduled, too restricted, and they ‘throw the baby out with the bath
water’, reverting to first or second generation techniques to preserve relationship, spontaneity
and quality of life.
But there is an emerging fourth generation that is different in kind. It recognises that ‘time
management’ is really a misnomer – the challenge is not to manage time, but manage ourselves.
Satisfaction is a function of expectation as well as realisation.
Rather than focusing on things and time, fourth generation expectations focus on preserving and
enhancing relationship and accomplishing results. The essential focus of the fourth generation can
be captured in the time management matrix. Basically, we spend our time in of four ways.
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The two factors that define an activity are urgent and important. Urgent means it requires
immediate attention. It is ‘now’. Urgent things act on us. Importance on the other hand, has to do
with research. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values and your high
priority goals.
We react to urgent matters. Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more
proactivity. We must act to seize opportunity, to make things happen.
If we don’t have a clear idea of what is important and of the results we desire, we are easily
diverted into responding to the urgent.
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TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX
I II
Important
ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
Planning, recreation
II IV
Not important
ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
Ref.: Habit 3 – Put the first thing first –, The seven habits of highly effective people – Steven Covey.
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EXERCISE
Where Does Time Go?
It may seem like there aren’t enough hours in the week to get everything done. That may be true
or it may be that you are not using your time as efficiently as possible. To assess where your time
goes, complete the inventory below. Be as honest with yourself as you can. Some of the items are
done every day so those will need to be multiplied by 7 to arrive at a weekly total. One item may
be done any number of times a week so you’ll need to multiply that one by the number of times
each week you do it. After you have responded to all the questions, you’ll have an opportunity to
see how many hours remain during the week for studying, and you’ll be better able to evaluate
how you might revise the way you spend your time.
each 24 hour
period, including
naps
grooming activities
on meals, including
preparation and
clean up
168
you spend
commuting to and
from campus?
doing errands
Other activity------
(organizations,
religious activities,
working out, etc)
TV, etc
169
Other activity------
Hours available
per week
Hours available to
study
Use waiting time (study note cards while on the bus or standing in line)
170
Get ready the night before.
Notice how you misuse your time and change your habits.
Ask: Would I pay myself for what I’m doing right now? If yes, keep going!
STEP 2:- Which part of me hurts? This is a rhetorical question. By definition it is the
child who hurts.
Commonly discovered feelings are stupid, ugly, my fault, scared, mad, bad,
harried, ashamed, lonely, worried, unwanted, embarrassed, accused and
guilty. It may take a while to come up with the most specific word.
STEP 4:- What happened, in the recent past, to trigger the feeling?
The here-and-now triggers of old feelings are frequently transactions with
another person.
STEP 5:- What is your Parent saying to you and how is your Child responding?
(At this point in the track down visualise your Adult standing to one side,
fine tuning an old rerun P-C exchange.)
These are the seven steps of track down. We recommend that every hurt be tracked
down. In the beginning, this is not possible in the middle of a transaction. Your track down
may have to wait until the end of the day, when there is time to concentrate. With
practice, track down can be done in a matter of seconds.
171
APPENDIX II
LEARNING
172
The Learning Cycle
Experiential learning theory (ELT) is one of the most famous approaches especially in the
higher education. Experiential learning theory and learning styles find their application in
wide range of disciplines. It is used in education to improve students’ learning abilities,
and in management to improve teams’ performances. Theory of learning styles is also
useful in computer and information science particularly to study end-user software use
and end-user training. They can be applied in medicine and nursing to improve
patient/physician or patient/nurse relationship.
Learning styles are discussed here to make teachers realize that students – and teachers -
have different approaches to learning and that adapting the way of presenting and dealing
with content may facilitate the acquisition of knowledge on the cognitive and practical
level.
Kolb (1984) provides one of the most useful (but contestable) descriptive models available
of the adult learning process, inspired by the work of Kurt Lewin and based on Experiential
Learning theory. It is a learner centered approach and is participatory by design.
Participatory methods keep learners active in the learning process. They are involving and
interactive, and they encourage communication and group work. They are action oriented
and experience based.
173
Concrete
Experience
Active Reflective
Experimentation Observation
Abstract
Conceptualisation
The cycle comprises four different stages of learning from experience and can be entered
at any point but all stages must be followed in sequence for successful learning to take
place. The Learning Cycle suggests that it is not sufficient to have an experience in order to
learn. It is necessary to reflect on the experience to make generalisations and formulate
concepts which can then be applied to new situations. This learning must then be tested
out in new situations. The learner must make the link between the theory and action by
planning, acting out, reflecting and relating it back to the theory. The four quadrants of the
cycle are associated with four different forms of knowledge, in Kolb's view namely
Accomadator, Divergent, Assimilator and Convergent. Each of these forms is paired with
its diagonal opposite.
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THE LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY
This inventory is designed to assess your method of learning . Its aim is to describe how
you learn, not evaluate your learning ability. Understanding one's preferred learning style
has two benefits. It helps us understand our areas of weakness, giving us the opportunity
to work on becoming more proficient in the other modes or it helps us realize our
strengths, which might be useful in certain social situations, such as deciding on a career.
There are twelve sentences listed below each with four endings. Rank order the endings
for each sentence assigning, a “4” to the ending which best characterizes your learning
style, a “3” to engine which next best characterises your learning style a “2” to the next
most characteristic one and a “1” to the ending which is least characteristic of you as a
learner. Be sure to assign a different number 4, 3, 2 or 1 each of the four endings in each
sentence. Do not make ties.
----------I like to deal with ------I like to watch --------I like to think
1 When I Learn --------I like to be
my feelings and listen about idea
doing things
2 I learn best when ------I work hard
………..I listen and ----------I rely on
----------I trust my hunches to got things
watch carefully logical thinking
and feelings done
3 When I am learning ---I am
---------I have strong --I am quiet and --------I tend to reason
responsible
feelings and reactions reserved thins out
about things
4 I learn by ----------feeling -------Watching --------Thinking -------doing
5 When I learn
------I am open to new -----I look at all sides ---I like to analyze -- --I like to try
experiences of issues things, break them things out
down into their parts
6 When I am learning --------I am an intuitive -----I am an -----I am a logical ----I am an
person observing person person active person
7 I learn best from ---a chance to
----Personal relationships ----observation -----rational theories
try out and
175
practice
8 When I learn ---I like to see
---I feel personally involved --------I take my time ---I like ideas and
results from my
in things before acting theories
work
9 I learn best when ---- I can try
---I rely on my things out for
---I rely on my feelings ---I rely on my ideas
observations myself
10 When I am learning I am a
----I am a reserved I am a rational
---I am an accepting person responsible
person person
person
11 When I learn ---- I like to
--- I get involved --- I like to observe --- I evaluate things
active
12 I learn best when --- I am receptive and open --- I am
---- I an careful ---- I analyze ideas
minded practical
176
Take your scores for the tour leaming modes. AC.EC.AE,amd sibstract as follows to get you
two combination
scores
An positive scores on the AC-EC scale indicates that your score is m ore abstract. A
negative score on AC-EC seal indicates that your score is more concrete. Likewise, a
positive or negative score on the AE-RO scale indicates that you scores are either more
active or more reflective.
By making your two combination scores, AC-CE and AE-RO on the two lines of the
following grid and ploting their point of interception, opr data point you can find which of
the four learning styles you fall into. These four quadrants labeled accommodator,
diverger, coverger, and assimilator, represents the four dominant tearing styles.
The quadrant of the learning style type grid into which your data point falls shows your
preferred learning style, For example: If your AC-EC score was-B and your AE-RO score of +
10 would fall into the converger quadrant.. The closer the date point is to the centre of the
177
grid, the more balanced is your learning style. If the data point falls near any of the bar
comment of the grid, you tend to roly heavily on one particular learning style
The Learning Style Inventory is a simple self-description test, based on the Experiential
Learning Theory, which is designed to give a comparative measure of your strengths and
weaknesses as a learner in the four stages of the learning style process.
Effective learners rely on all four of the learning modes: Concrete Experience (CE),
Reflective Observation (RO), Abstract Conceptualisation (AC), and Active Experimentation
(AE).
The LSI measures your relative emphasis on the four learning modes by asking you to rank
order a series of four words that describe these different abilities. No individual mode is
better or worse than any other. The key to effective learning is being competent in each
mode when it is appropriate.
178
thinking about the meaning of situations and ideas and are good at seeing heir
implications. They are good at looking at things from different perspectives and at
appreciating different points of view. They like to rely on their thoughts and feelings to
form opinions. People with this orientation value patience, impartiality and considered
thoughtful judgment.
1. The Convergent learning style relies primarily on the dominant learning abilities of
abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. The greatest strength of
this approach lies in problem solving, decision making and the practical application
of ideas. We have called this learning style the ‘converger’ because a person with
this style seems to do best in such situations as conventional intelligence tests
179
where there is a single correct answer or solution to a question or problem. In this
learning style, knowledge is organised in such a way that through hypothetical—
deductive-- reasoning, it can be focused on specific problems. Liam Hudson’s
research on individuals with this style of learning shows that convergent persons
are controlled in their expressions of emotion, they prefer dealing with technical
tasks and problems rather than with social and interpersonal issues. Convergers
are often specialised in the physical sciences. This learning style is characteristic of
many engineers and technical specialists.
2. The Divergent learning style has the opposite strengths of the convergent style,
emphasising concrete experience and reflective observation. The greatest strength
of this orientation lies in imaginative ability and awareness of meaning and values.
The primary adaptive ability in this style is to view concrete situations from many
perspectives and to organise many relationships into a meaningful ‘gestalt’. The
emphasis in this orientation is on adaptation by observation rather than by action.
This style is called ‘diverger’ because a person of this type performs better in
situations that call for generation of alternative ideas and implications such as ‘a
brainstorming’ idea session. Persons oriented towards divergence are interested in
people and tend to be imaginative and feeling oriented. Divergers have broad
cultural interests and tend to specialise in the arts. This style is characteristic of
individuals from the humanities and liberal arts background. Counsellors,
organisation development specialists and personal managers tend to be
characterised by this learning style.
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Accommodator Diverger
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Decision making Creating models
Organising information
Creating new ways of Building conceptual models
thinking Testing theories and ideas
and doing
Designing experiments
Experimenting with new
Analysing quantitative data
ideas
Choosing the best solution
Setting goals
Making decisions
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THE PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS
A model of the problem solving process (by Kolb) defines the stages and tasks in such a way that
managers can better manage their own and the organisation’s problem solving activities. This
model of problem solving is based on three premises-
2. Problem solving involves the manipulation and control of the external world through one’s
mental processes
1. Concrete Experience
2. Reflective Observation
4. Active Experimentation.
Common sense notions of problem solving tends to focus on the phases of ‘concrete
experience’ and ‘ active experimentation’ on the specific difficulties experienced in
immediate situations and the actions taken to overcome them. Traditional educational
ideas about learning tend to focus on the phases of ‘reflective observation’ and ‘abstract
conceptualisation’, emphasising the gathering of information and development of general
concepts.
Just as the process of traditional education is improved when the concrete and active
emphasis of problem solving is added, correspondingly, the effectiveness of problem
solving is enhanced by the academic learning perspectives of reflection and
conceptualisation.
The model consists of the four analytic stages of the problem solving process that
corresponds to the four stages of the experiential learning process.
Observation
The figure overlaps a model of the problem finding and problem solving process on the
experiential learning cycle and identifies problem solving activities that characterise
different stages of the cycle. In this figure we see that the stages in the problem sequence
correspond with the learning style strengths of the four major learning styles.
The accommodator’s problem solving strength lies in executing solution and in initiating
problem finding based on some goal or model. The diverger’s strength lies in identifying
the multitude of possible problems and the opportunities that exist in reality-- comparing
the model with the reality that is necessary to choose a primary problem and create
alternative solutions. The converger’s strength lies in the evaluation of solution
consequences and solution selection.
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APPENDIX III
NOTE ON TERMS
‘Management education’ is most frequently used in two principal ways. In the first and
narrower sense, it usually relates to a special area or field of professional (technical)
education given in certain universities and schools. It emphasises the understanding of
facts, laws and principles governing economics and business and the learning of general
management methods and techniques applicable in a variety of concrete situations.
‘Management education’ is education in the basic principles and practices of management
carried out in a school or university as a part of formal education. It is designed to provide
the student with a general knowledge of management as a basis with which to start or, in
some cases, continue his carrier in industry or commerce.
The second use of the term ‘management education’ is much broader. It covers not only
education, which generally precedes practical work and is given in universities and
schools, but also the further education, training and development of managers and their
staff during their entire practical career. It is in this sense that the term ‘management
education’ is more and more frequently used today 1. It actually means continuous, life-
long education for management. When it is appropriate to show that this process has two
major phases, management education used in this broad sense is broken down into
‘initial’ and ‘further’ management education.
‘Management training’ is sometimes seen in a very narrow sense only involving the
development of practical skills in the use of management techniques and methods.
However, it is now more recognised as the systematic and continuous development of
that knowledge and those skills and attitudes which will prove beneficial both to the
organisation and to the individual in achieving the objectives of the organisation. In such a
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concept, training is concerned with knowledge and attitudes in addition to skills in the use
of techniques and methods. Both on-and-off-the-job training are included.
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