Employees Who Forgot About Themselves.

As part of Hofstra’s Masters Program in Industrial Organizational psychology we are required to either write a masters thesis or work at an internship site. As I felt work experience is essential to achieve my future goals I opted for the internship. The internship site is paid and in fact I’ve received a promotion from intern to part time employee. My point is to illustrate that although it is an “internship site,” I am hardly treated as an intern. I’ve been given responsibilities that reflect the importance of my position within the team. It’s great to work within a team that is responsible, intelligent and reliable. However, my feelings towards the humanistic aspect of the corporation changed after a ‘kickoff’ meeting at the end of the fiscal year. In the end I realized perhaps the positive aspects I found pleasing were in fact not motivated by internal mechanisms but because they had forgotten one thing… Themselves.

At the end of every fiscal year the CEO, CFO, CIO, presidents and VP’s come together to talk about the progress made and the progress they wish to see in the future. They implemented a Management By Objectives (MBO) approach in which goals are formulated for the entire organization and every department aligns their goals with the global organizational goals. It’s a system in organizational development that has been shown to work. It is mainly driven by its grounding in goal setting theory. I realized something interesting about their MBO’s; they were mostly profit/revenue related. I found this interesting and quickly jotted down the number of MBO’s. For fiscal year 2008, I counted 7 and for the New Year I counted 8. Both of these had 1 objective that focused on employees. In other words in 2008 85% of goals were not employee related. For 2009 87.5% of the goals were not employee related. As an employee, this sent shivers down my spine. How can a company that operates 100% on people only have 12.5% of their goals related to them!

I searched for more evidence to support the claim that perhaps the company forgot about the employees. During the Q&A section employees were allowed to select from 25 topics and ask the CEO, CIO, and CFO questions pertaining to that topic. 75% of the topics were unrelated to employees’ well being and/or development. Even more startling was that 70% of the topics employee’s asked were unrelated to their own development and/or well being. I was beginning to realize that perhaps the people, as well as the company, were stuck in an auto-catalytic cycle of focusing solely on development of the business but forgetting they (the people) run the business and forgetting that developing themselves in turn will achieve company goals.

The last and final observation I witnessed was the time specifically dedicated to employees for Q&A and recognition of achievements. 77% of the meeting time of 4 hours was dedicated to profit/revenue related talks and speeches.

I called it the magic number greater than 70% but less than 87.5% (It’s not as catchy as plus or minus 7 but hey, I’m new here). This is the percentage range in which the company places the majority of its goals and actions toward profit/revenue related topics. As I said before companies are 100% run by people and ignoring their development, in my opinion, is to ignore the development of your company. In the short term you will reap the benefits of increased growth and profit margins, but in the long run you will have an undereducated, burnt out staff, lacking the morale needed to emotionally attach themselves to the objectives of the organization. It’s not surprising that when several of my co-workers confided in me, they all mentioned “burning out on this job” as either a warning or an occurrence. I believe that if a company does not care about its workers they do not care about their company and that is not a company one should work for.

Thinking about the pathologies of relationships, the phrase, “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself” rings a bell. This is exactly the case. You can’t develop your company unless you develop your employees. It is not beyond us to understand that pathological relationships can develop between people, animals, or entities. We’ve all encountered the woman who stays with a husband who is abusive or seen a friend be used by a pseudo-friend, yet continue their relationship with them. But we are less often told that the relationship with our company is similar in nature. We justify it, as we do with human relationships, “I have to go to work,” contrast that with “I have to see him/her.” These are “guilt” obligations. Ever hear about a friend who was dragged to some activity that they hated by their significant other? What do you think people do every day at work? Similarly to the woman who gets abused and is afraid to leave, I often hear fear in employee voices’ about leaving jobs they dislike. These relationships are in some way satisfying, pathologically of course, and are the hardest to break out of. These pathological relationships are proposed to develop because on some level the employee knows the company does not care, for the company does not care about itself because they do not care about their employees. In short, it is not beyond us to form pathological relationships with people nor is it beyond us to form them with the organizations we work with. Some organizations foster this pathological relationship more and others less.

Research should focus on the pathological relationships humans develop with one another and contrast them with the ones we develop with the organizations we work for. The results should be the same: lose of efficacy, self esteem, and ego depletion. In short, the lose of self. This leads us to hypothesis 1.

Hypothesis 1: Will the percentage of company’s MBOs related to employee development predict psychological variables related to efficacy, self esteem and ego depletion?

The empirical test is this: The percentage of company’s MBOs related to employee development should predict psychological variables related to efficacy, self esteem and ego depletion positively. (eg: The less MBOs related to employee development the lower the employee self esteem)

It may also be that if the employee is unable to adapt fully to the pathological relationships a “break up” would eventuality occur. This could be represented as a firing or the employee quitting. This leads us to hypothesis two.

Hypothesis 2: If one is unable to adapt to the pathological relationship with the company will the employee revert back to their primitive relationship understanding? For example if they were taught to be passive aggressive they will now act passive aggressive towards their superiors.

The empirical test is this: Conflict in the work place mediated by length of employment will predict percentage of MBOs unrelated to employee development. Individuals employed for shorter periods of time will believe more MBOs are related to employee development while senior employees know “the truth.” The senior employee predicted MBO scores will be closer to the actual percentage of MBOs unrelated to employee development.

There are many other implications this theory takes on including what happens if an employee submits to the pathological relationship? What happens if they resist it? Does this affect the organization? How do these relationships mediate goal attainment, for the organization or the employee? Do these outcomes reflect societal values? It all depends on how far we want to go down the rabbit hole. More importantly, it all depends on whether or not we choose to create light within that rabbit hole to find ourselves and where we stand in it. Whether we choose to remain in a pathological relationship or remove ourselves from it. In the end, at my internship site, I felt the employees have forgotten about themselves. This led me to the hypothesis I’ve drawn and through organizational development we can rectify these issues, to not only build a strong company but build strong people.

Away Messages, Freud & B. F. Skinner Have What in common? Conclusion

So what is it that Away Messages, Freud and B.F. Skinner have in common? They are all interactive systems that are contributing to the disconnectivity of the most connect generation, through the individuals need for social interaction/dependency, which is fueled by sporadic reinforcement and implicit knowledge that someone is reading "my" away message . This conception was mentioned in Generation Me by Jean Twenge, however not entirely in this regard.

It is a common fact that almost all AIM users have people on their buddy list they barely or don't speak with at all. I know of some individual's who have created other screen names to avoid all the people on their other screen name's buddy list. But the former and the latter persons continually post away messages (in my experience, sometimes the same ones!). The big question is why. Several ideas will be discussed in relation to the title.

There is a good chance that the people posting the majority of away messages are those who feel socially disconnected. We can infinitely create reasons why the disconnectivity may be occurring, however the most prominent reason, in my belief, is what Jean Twenge speaks of in her book: Generation Me. We are increasingly becoming more and more self centered, less involved in political matters and more individualized. We are somewhat "forced" to dependent more and more on ourselves, as if relying on others is a bad thing. I've heard from countless people I've spoken with about this issue and simply in general "You only have yourself." A true but sad statement! It's natural to want to depend on others and feel a sense of connectivity, but also to be independent. It is as if we took the latter part to literally and are now expressing ourselves to everyone and anyone who will listen. Everyone followed the advice be your own person... but to the extreme. Everyone followed the advice take care of yourself... but to the extreme of, only yourself.

I integrated Freud & B.F. Skinner into the model for a particular reason. Freud because of two reasons: Reaction formation - turning unacceptable impulses into their opposite and expression that; and Dependency. I incorporated Skinner because of his large contribution to learning theory. The way these conceptions interact is this. The unacceptable impulse is to be taken care of for two reasons 1. the emphasis and rise of capitalism discourages dependency on others, 2. to Freud becoming independent is a process that we move away from as we grow old. We move through primary to secondary processes etc. This is our reaction formation, we want to be dependent or at the very least socially connected (this is more realistic), but cannot. So we've gone completely in the opposite direction (narcissism/self centered), one that is supplemented by the morals of capitalism. So in turn we are reaching out to discover any means by which to feel connected again, in this instance, away messages.

Skinner simply gives us the means by which this behavior is encouraged and kept in tact. There is always that chance someone will read your away message. More importantly though, when it is directed at someone, there is a chance they will read it as well. If the individual somehow receives feedback, either in person or through an instant message the behavior is reinforced. In particular, reinforcement need not be so obvious, so direct! It can be self-reinforcing, through the faulty, perhaps erroneous assumption that "someone may be reading this, and I just don't know." You can in fact read away messages without the poster's knowledge of your reading it.

Several hypothesis can be drawn from this new understanding.

a) Individuals who post more away messages will have higher needs for dependency.
b) Individuals who post away messages for longer lengths of time will have higher needs for dependency.
c) Individuals who post expecting their away messages to be read will reside higher in the NPI (narcissistic personality inventory) than those who have no such expectations.
d) Individuals who read away messages will have higher needs for dependency but also expressed an increased need for connectivity.
e) Upon reinforcing an away messages that resides in either side (left or right) of the 3 factor model, subsequent away messages will increase in the direction.
f) Those who are higher in dependency and posting away messages will be more satisfied than those who are high in dependency and not posting away messages.

In short, away messages are contributing to the increased disconnectivity of the most connected generation ever. One need not look very far for away messages, blog postings, journal entries etc, that are speaking to people they never met. They're sharing the same information with best friends and total strangers. Blog postings on myspace.com accounts that are public, talk about falling, needing help, being lonely and so many horrid emotions we should all hope never to feel. But they decide to post it publicly among friends and strangers alike. I just ask the question. Are we that desperate to be heard?

Away Messages, Freud & B. F. Skinner Have What in common? Part 2

Economics: So the obvious first, you have your computer on all day, your internet connection on all day, your instant messenger program on all day. Directly and indirectly you're using a lot of electricity (think about it)! The other economical factor is opportunity cost. But how could one loose or gain with a task that is idle and optional? Which away message do I choose? Is this what I want to say now? You can see the user is faced with a most difficult task. Choosing what to display. Often individuals will have many saved away messages, that they've created and at their disposal. So as the supply of away messages is increasing, the demand for each one becomes significantly reduced. The interaction of supply and demand has the potential to create anxiety in the user because one does not know which away message best represents what they wish to express. Of course it would be foolish to not mention the dichotomy, which is those who know what they wish to express and little anxiety is created. I would suspect that the former users have a significant more amount of away messages then the latter.

Socially: What are the social implications of away messages? What is the underlying need that surrounds letting someone know where we are, if we're sleeping, taking a walk, angry at our significant others or taking a shit? Socially, I believe the underlying factor is dependency and is operated through the need to feel connected to a larger population (everyone who has you on their buddy list).
For example on my buddy list one individual's current away message is "Ahhhhh BIG date tonight :)." This individual who is recently divorced (3 months at most) has opted to tell us this information for a long duration of time. The other part of her away message is "I am at work." So to briefly hypothesize, this individual may have placed this away message up at around 8 AM and perhaps will take it down (if we're luckie) around 5 PM, for a total of 8 hours. Knowing first hand both parties have each other screen names on their buddy lists. So why display this away message? Why possibly tell your X that you have a new relationship opportunity? Why not just tell your friend close that you have this opportunity? By the time word of mouth ends I'm sure more than the number of people on her buddy list will know this information. My statement has one strong implication. That people are reading this away message! The answer to all three of these questions is you write and read away message to provide and learn cathartic information that attempted to compensate for the dis-connectivity of the most connected generation.

This brings us to the three factor away message model I've created. Informative, Antagonistic and Analytic. It is my belief that every away message can be categorized in this triangular model (figure 1). Firstly every away message is Informative. It will always provide information either explicit ("At the store") or implicit ("to the bowels of society's nutritional factory"). The question that must be answered is how informative the away message is. This is what contributes to the Y-axis increase or decrease (figure 2). Is the away message telling you nothing or something meaningful. The interpretation is sensitive to subjectivity. To reduce this factor emphasis on the explicit or implicate intensity should be used to create a more general criteria. You'll notice that "1" and "2" are present in figure 2. These are to indicate my two examples. "1" would correspond to "At the store." "2" would correspond to "to the bowels of society's nutritional factory."

Next once informative criteria has been established you may then deviate on the X-axis to the left or right for Antagonistic or Analytic (figure 3, "1"). First I will discuss Antagonistic. An antagonistic away message in light of our previous example "Ahhhhh BIG date tonight :)," may be intended for the X-spouse. It also may be used to provoke positive feelings of friends such as "I'm glad she is finally getting out" or "I'm glad she is moving on." Another example can illustrate a truly antagonistic away message. After recently hearing from a girl that she just wanted to be friends, this individuals away message reads "Whoa-oh! Oh Angel! Come greet the dawn, it's a brand new day!Whoa-oh! Oh Angel! Let burn the passion that fires your soul!! Each lonely night I get through without you becomes my victory. Each empty night I fight against the light that is my destiny." Needless to say this is directed at loosing the girl. When I asked the girl if she had read his away message she responded "yes." If rated on the triangular scale, this away message would fall somewhere to the bottom far left. In general, antagonistic away messages are meant to provoke negative emotional responses or on the flip side positive sympathetic feelings germane to the poster's life. They can be implicit or explicit, but both will incite strong emotional reactions in the reader.

The last dimension in the 3 factor scale is Analytic. Analytic works on the same X-axis as Antagonistic (figure 3, "2"). To this end we have dichotomy. Either an away message is Antagonistic or Analytic and can be somewhere in between. An example of an analytic away message are quotes and jokes that are not emotionally relevant to the poster. It would be a good hypothesis to posit if individuals can detect when a poster is being antagonistic or analytic and expecting others to read this away message.

However one may ask how can an individual know if what is being said is intended to be antagonistic or analytic and how informative the away message is. The truth is we may sometimes know because of our relationship with the individual and sometimes we don't. These gray area away message, so to speak, would reside in the white area of the triangle. An example of this would be the away message "Wo0t! Pies are being made." Below are several examples I've composed to help illustrate the 3 factor triangular model.

Figure 4: "Ahhhhh BIG date tonight :)"



Figure 5: "Whoa-oh! Oh Angel! Come greet the dawn, it's a brand new day!Whoa-oh! Oh Angel! Let burn the passion that fires your soul!! Each lonely night I get through without you becomes my victory. Each empty night I fight against the light that is my destiny."




Figure 6: "Look, I told you when we met that I wasn't a real leprechaun, that I was from Rhode Island, and that I was half Korean, and you said it didn't matter."



Figure 7: "Wo0t! Pies are being made

This wraps up part 2 of Away Messages, Freud & B. F. Skinner Have What in common? Part 3 will conclude how and what type of individuals are posting and reading away messages and how this contributes to the dis-connectivity of the most connected generation.

Away Messages, Freud & B. F. Skinner Have What in common? Part 1

The good people at AOL may never have thought that away messages would become the antagonistic, cathartic, informative tool of the 21st century. AOL dominated in the time of the 14k modem, when I was but a wee lad in elementary school. At this time AOL charged by the minute so any thought of leaving the Internet on seemed pernicious to ones financial health. So you simply shut off your net connection and computer when you were done. The dichotomy today is that one is consistently and continuously connected to the net 24 hours a day 7 days a week through the computer or hand held devices. My inclination is to affirm that as increases in connectivity occur, through the net & its assets, dis-connectivity in individuals increases as well. This concept has been illustrated by Jean M. Twenge, author or Generation me. However, a more thorough thought experiment will be done examining it's relation to Away Messages, Freudian & Skinnerian concepts and why away messages have become the informative plethora of noxious material.

The consistent connectivity to the Internet enables users of not only AOL/AIM but also yahoo, msn, gtalk and other various instant messaging programs to always have there computers on and there away messages up. Away messages have become so popular that a search in google for "away message" returned 112,000,000 results. A search for "really cool away messages" returned 3,830,000 results. Some websites such as www.iconator.com has begun to rank the quality of away messages. Other sites such as www.awaymessages.com and www.aimawaymessages.com are dedicated to producing unique and creative away messages for you to use. But whats the point? Why not shut off your computer and save the planet from global warming! Are we just to lazy to wait for windows to boot up after shutting down? Are we to lazy to shut down the the instant messaging client? Or is it that we get satisfaction from leaving up this often prattle. If we are leaving them up is someone then reading them? What is the risk/reward of the away message economically, socially & emotionally? This will be answered in Part 2 of Away Messages, Freud & B. F. Skinner Have What in common?