Behavioural Techniques - Interpersonal Behaviour

The individual dimensions of organizational behavior, viz. personality, perception, learning, motivation, attitudes and values, stress, shape an individual behavior. These dimensions are changed to a certain degree when the individual comes in contact with others in the organization where he interacts:

                  1.        on one-to-one basis

2.      on one to group basis

3.       on group to one basis

4.      on group-to-group basis

In each basis of interaction, the individual faces different types of situations.  Therefore, how he affects the behavior of other/s and how his behavior is affected by other/s differ.  Various interactive dimensions of organizational behavior are taken for the study in this part of the text.  The present chapter takes interpersonal behavior.

NATURE OF INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOUR

Interpersonal behavior is concerned with interaction of two persons at a time.  In this interaction, the individual behaves in a particular way, which may be either cooperative or conflicting.  In order to improve interpersonal behavior, various techniques have been developed.  However, it may be mentioned that these techniques may be used in other types of interaction too.  Interpersonal behavior, as mentioned above, may be of two types: cooperative and conflicting.

Interpersonal Cooperative Behavior

When the interaction between two persons is mutually gratifying, it is cooperative behavior.  In this case, both persons are engaged in complementary transactions, as discussed later.  Out of this interaction, both persons get satisfied over the objectives of mutual interaction.  Conditions necessary for cooperative interpersonal behavior are mutual trust and respect, concern for each other’s needs, and interaction with complementary ego states.   In organizational setting, such behaviors are functional and lead to the achievement of organizational objectives providing satisfaction to the individuals at the same time.

Interpersonal Conflicting Behavior

Out of interpersonal interaction, it is not necessary that only cooperative behavior will result.  Because of several reasons like personality differences, different value systems, interest conflict, role ambiguity, etc., interpersonal conflict may arise in the organization.  This type of behavior may not be functional for the organization.  Therefore, the managers should take effective steps to overcome such behaviors.

To analyze and improve interpersonal behavior, transactional analysis technique has been developed. Its detailed discussed is presented here.

Transactional Analysis

People spend a large portion for their time in organizations interacting with others.  They provide the connective tissues that help to hold together the subparts of the organization.  While there are exceptions, in general, these are pair relationships, which the people conduct the4mselves, that is, they are two persons contacts.  The dyadic relationship involves the social transactions between them and the transactional analysis is an attempt to understand and improve such transactions.

Transactional Analysis (TA) offers a model of personality and the dynamics of self and its relationship to others that makes possible a clear and meaningful discussion of behavior.  When people interact, there is social transaction in which one person responds to another.  The study of these transactions between people is called Transactional Analysis.  TA was originally developed by Eric Berne for psychotherapy in 1950.  He observed in his patients that often it was as if several different people were inside each person.  He also observed that these various ‘selves’ transmitted with people in different ways.  Later on, its application to ordinary interactions was popularized by Berne, Harris, and Jongeward.  TA involves analysis of awareness, structural analysis (ego states), analysis of transactions, script analysis, and games analysis.

LEVELS OF SELF AWARENESS

The dyadic relationship can be though of as composed on inter-self.   Self is the core of personality pattern, which provides interaction. Such a concept if cognitive: it describes the self in terms of image, both conscious and unconscious.  A central construct in the inter-self is the image of relationships those aspects of the codes and means of the inter-person known and shared by its participants.  Other portions of these codes are hidden to the members and yet may be known to others.  Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham have developed a diagram that gives to look at what one is conscious in one’s social exchanges and what one is not.  Their Johari window diagram (names by combining the first few letters of their names) is given below:

	Information known to Self	Information not known to Self
Information known to others	1 Open	2 Blind
Information not known to others	3 Hidden	4 Unknown

This model is made up of four different quadrants that together represent total person in relation to others on the basis of awareness of behavior, feeling, and motivation.  Each quadrant is defined as follows:

1.  The Open Self.  The open quadrant refers to states about an individual such as behaviors, feelings, and motives that he knows and is willing to share with others.  Sometimes, in a relationship, the individual is straightforward, open and sharing.  It is clear to both what he is doing, how he is feeling, and what his motives are.

2.  The Blind Self.  The blind quadrant refers to states about an individual known to others but not known to him.  Other people know what is happening to him but he is not aware of it.  Often such blind behavior is copied by the individual from significant people unconsciously right since the childhood.  Because such behavior is copied unconsciously, people may not aware about it.  Jongeward and Seyer observe that subtle bars to our personal effectiveness are often our blind quadrant.  We may speak in certain way- with a tone of voice, a look on our face, a gesture – that we are blind to, but other people are acutely aware of it.  In fact, our manner can affect how they perceive us and, they believe they can interact with us.

3. The Hidden Self.  The hidden quadrant refers to states about the individual known to him but not known to others.  This is private and only the person concerned knows what is happening.  The hidden self is within the vision of the individual but he does not want to share with others.  People learn to hide many feelings and ideas right from their childhood.

4. The Unknown Self. The unknown quadrant refers to states that neither the individual nor other people know about him.  The unknown self is mysterious.  Many times, motives and feelings go very deep and no one, including the person concerned, knows about these.  People often experience these parts of life in dreams or in deep-rooted fears or compulsions.  These acts, feelings, and motives remain vague and unclear to people until they allow them to surface.

Change in Awareness

The awareness about self is not static, rather, it changes continuously.  As awareness changes, quadrant to which the psychological state is assigned also changes.  Jongeward identified eleven principles of such change.

1)  A change in any one quadrant will affect all other quadrants.

2) It takes energy to hide, deny, or be blind to behavior which is involved in interaction.

3)  Threat tends to decrease awareness; mutual trust tends to increase awareness.

4) Forced awareness (exposure) is undesirable and usually ineffective.

5)  Interpersonal learning means a change has taken place so that the quadrant 1 is larger, and one more of another quadrant has grown smaller.

6) Working with others is facilitated by a large enough area of free activity.  It means more of the resources and skills of the persons involved can be applied to the task at hand.

7)  The smaller the first quadrant, the poorer the communication.

8) There is universal curiosity about the unknown area, but this is held in check by custom, social training, and diverse fears.

9) Sensitivity means appreciating the covert aspects of behavior in quadrants 2,3 and 4, and respecting the desire of others to keep them so.

10) Learning about group processes, as they are being experienced, helps to increase awareness (enlarging quadrant 1) for the group as a whole as well as for individual members.

11) The value system of a group and its members may be observed in the way the group deals with unknowns in the life of the group itself.

In addition to image, there is a structure associated with the inter-self.  This consists of those elements of each personality in the inter-person which affect directly its processes on interaction.  The inter-self of the organizational inter-person, then, is derived from the fact that two selves, two personalities, come together in an instrumental relationship.  In addition to its structural dimensions, a second aspect, as discussed earlier, is the image of the relationship in the minds of the participants.  This affects the type of interpersonal behavior.