George Herbert Mead, an American philosopher, affiliated with the University of Chicago founded the theory of symbolic interactionism. A major aspect of this is that people interact by symbols both verbal and non-verbal signals and every interaction makes a contribution to the mental make-up of the mind thus every interaction with someone, changes you and you go away a different person signifying that humans and change go together.
George Henry Mead, of Chicago University, lectured much and wrote very little. His ideas were so powerful that his students felt the need to take detailed notes and produced his material so that we, after his death, can reflect upon it. He gave rise to a sociological and psychological theory, academically known as 'symbolic interactionism'. Symbolic interactionism also referred to as the Chicago sociological tradition.
According to Mead, the mind is not just reducible to the neurophysiology of the organic individual but is emergent in "the dynamic, ongoing social process that constitutes human experience. In every waking moment, we humans are taking new impressions of the world around us and rearranging the old impressions in the light of the new. Mead states that "the self is a social process," meaning that there are series of actions that go on in the mind to help formulate one's complete self, and hence there is no such thing as stability. Several significant schools of philosophic thought have stressed this.
We are all the time taking into our minds new impressions through the senses. We see things, we hear things, we touch things, we taste things, and beyond that, we have feelings about the messages our five senses bring to us.
These impressions make us sad, happy, impatient, excited, worried, angry, uplifted, determined, uncertain, jealous, envious; they make us love, hate, sympathize, empathize, co-operate, oppose, fight; and these emotions, being stirred, provide us with energy and impel us to action. All these impressions and the emotions they stir are recorded in our memories.
All these related emotions are written down in our human audio-video brain machines and this data keeps on evolving all the time. As more ingredients come into the mind, so the earlier ones seem just a little different- they are expanded and perceived in a new light. Human memory is also selective and the entire recordings that we have done over time do not make its presence felt consciously all the time. Most of it is buried in the depths of the unconscious and sometimes get triggered by new events. We have an exciting picture of the human mind as a flow of impressions, and emotions, and ideas that connect them. The thinking we do about impressions is part of the change process.
As we are constantly developing new connections hence we are constantly changing them as well. Hence change is the microsecond by microsecond essence of living. It is important to understand that this way, change actually fits with the very structure of our minds and of our thinking. Hence the principles of change management discussed in this section and the need for a change mindset should not be difficult to absorb.
A major aspect of it is that people interact by symbols - words and non-verbal signals in particular. Every interaction makes a contribution to the mental make-up of the mind. When you have had an interaction with someone, you go away with a different person. You have each added something to the other.
Mead made a distinction between the 'I' and the 'Me'. The 'Me' is the accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. how one thinks one's group perceives oneself etc. The 'I' is the individual's impulses. The 'I' is self as a subject; the 'Me' is self as an object. Mead described each individual as having of being a central 'I' around which a whole lot of 'me s'-- less stable and derived from the interactions with others were revolving. The 'I' then constantly reacted to all these constantly changing 'me s' and absorbed them into itself.
Take the example of the social act of economic exchange. In any exchange, both buyer and seller must take each other's perspectives towards the object being exchanged. The seller must recognize the value for the buyer, while the buyer must recognize the desirability of money for the seller. People who have influenced us have changed us. Once you have read this article, as a result of this interaction, are will be a slightly different person from the one you were a few moments ago.
So being human and change go together and this should make the quest of this unit easier.
The task of the business or any commercial enterprise is to make better things, using less of the effort and resources. Management is designed to maintain the highest rate of change that the organization and the people within it can stand. Yet even when we acknowledge all this, we are prone to resist change. We fear it; we avoid it and we sign for the status quo.
These perceptions of what is to be human can help us to take a positive approach to change and make it work to our advantage and to that of our enterprise. You are only really alive when you are changing. Change is the essence of personal growth, it is the basis of relationships with other people, and without it, there is no learning and no progress.
Understanding Corporate Strategy
Management outlook and procedures have been revolutionized by more and more innovations over the recent years. It is no longer possible to follow traditional approaches to develop your organization's direction, its management as well its effectiveness. Senior managers need to be good decision-makers. In this section, we introduce concepts for strategy, strategic planning, strategic leadership, their exact meaning and associated terms, and how to use them.
Charles Darwin had once commented that “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Agility means the capability of rapidly and efficiently adapting to changes and recently, agility has been applied in the context of software development, agile enterprise, and agile leadership. Agile leaders play an important, even essential, role in scaling agility in an organization. Understand how being an agile leader helps in effectively catalyzing organizational change.
We define Lean as the systematic elimination of waste through a continual effort to decrease inefficiency; the lean leader strives to create a more efficient organization. Lean leadership is a philosophy. It is a consistent way of thinking and being in your role as a leader. The focus of this approach is on raising new leaders and help their team embrace a culture of continuous improvement. Learn what we mean by lean leadership style and its principles.
Communication has as its central objective the transmission of meaning. The process of communication is successful only when the receiver understands an idea as the sender intended it. How does a message or an idea travel from one person to another? To transmit our message, we engage in a sensitive and complex process of communication, with different elements like sender, message, channels, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Recognizing Stress & its Sources
As an individual, you almost certainly know what stress feels like. Stressors are events or situations to which people must adjust. Stressors may be physical or psychological in nature. The level of severity of stress is determined not merely by exposure but the intensity, duration, and frequency of stressors. The sources of stress are many. They arise from multiple areas both with the individual and from the environment.
As we know change is inevitable as market expectations are not static, new technology is constantly being developed, and organizational responses are inevitable to these sequences. It is a simple matter of business evolution. If every manager and every employee could have some understanding of the triggers of change and their relationships with each other, then the acceptance to change would be easier.
Benefits of Teams in Workplace
The use of formal work teams is commonplace in modern organizations. But why we have teams? What are the benefits or advantages that teams provide for organizations and employees? Do we really need to adopt formal team structures and use team-building approaches in organizations? Read this article to explore and learn the benefits of having formal teams in organizations.
This style is characterized by leaders making decisions for others and expecting followers to follow instructions. The directive leader is adept at giving instructions, setting expectations, and establishing timelines and performance standards. However, it is possible for the same leaders to display both directive and supportive behavior as per the demands of the situation.
Tips for Effective Time Management
After studying and analyzing how time is spent, why time is wasted, and where time is wasted you need to decide about the changes required for effective utilization of time. For this purpose, a large number of remedial measures can be taken by you. The first and foremost determinant of a planned and purposeful utilization of time is to develop consciousness of the value of time at all levels of the organization. Planning, goal setting, and defining priorities are concerns to addressed immediately.
Many different types of teams have been identified by social scientists. Managers may encounter the diverse types of challenges while managing different kinds of teams. Challenges associated with Cross-Functional Teams might be different from that of a Geographically Dispersed Team or a Virtual Team. This article explores some common categories and subtypes of teams.
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