Self awareness, emotional intelligence, and personal development factors

Management - Self-Awareness

DECEPTION in INVESTIGATION, INTERROGATION, and TESTIMONY

This project focuses on the self-awareness, stress management, creativity, and problem solving skill areas. In the vocational environment, all four skills are extremely important: self-awareness allows one to understand how others perceive him; stress management techniques help minimize the negative effects of unavoidable stress; and creativity is an asset to problem solving, which is also an essential skill for resolving conflicts in both the operational and personal difficulties (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2005).

This project consists of a description of a specific work-related problem, a history of my contribution to the problem and to its solution, an analysis of my responses, and recommendations for the future.

The Context: In our office, reports are generated by work teams who collaborate to collect information, analyze it in the context of the respective areas of each team member, and then assemble a jointly-produced final report that represents all of the work of multiple individuals. Generally, each of us performs an independent series of analyses before submitting our section to our group supervisor; in practice, senior team members usually review the work of junior members before their work is presented to the group's manager. Sometimes, this can cause problems because the senior group member might make changes to the draft report sections submitted by junior members before presentation to the manager, leaving the junior member exposed to criticism that may reflect those changes rather than the actual material provided by the junior member. In those situations, the junior member may be called upon to explain elements of the draft report section that he has never even seen, let alone authored, and left with the uncomfortable choice of either accepting blame for any inadequacies identified by the manager or being perceived by the manager as "passing the buck" and refusing to acknowledge responsibility for mistakes. Sometimes, the changes at issue are substantive, but other times, they are strictly matters of personal preference in the structure of written presentations. The former may be more appropriate areas of contribution by senior group members; the latter are much harder to justify (Blair, 2003; Locker, 2003).

My Behavior: On several occasions, our team's manager (also my supervisor) criticized my work based strictly on changes made by senior group members that, in my opinion, were completely unnecessary because they were not related to substantive data collection or analysis, but to writing style and aspects of report organization in the realm of individual differences. My explanation to my supervisor resulted in responses suggesting that I was not taking responsibility for me mistakes and, in my view, undermined my professional development and reputation. On a subsequent occasion, I did not respond to my supervisor's criticism but merely took notes because I realized the futility of compounding the perception, in his view, that I was just making up an excuse for my mistakes. This situation only added to the amount of work-related pressure in my job and my frustration eventually culminated in a heated exchange with two senior members of my work team.

Analysis: In retrospect, it was a mistake for me not to consult the senior members of my team immediately, after the first instance. Frustrations of this nature only grow worse with time (Myers & Spencer, 2004) and resentments magnify by virtue of internalizing them instead of finding a way of expressing them appropriately (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2003). In many respects, the anger that eventually erupts is more reflective of the additional psychological energy required to repress genuine feelings about coworkers and working situations than it is appropriate to the actual situation itself (Blair, 2003; Myers & Spencer, 2004).

In most cases, the optimal solution requires finding a way to address the problem at the earliest point, before any resentment has had a chance to contribute to negative social relationships at work that can threaten the working environment within work groups and impact the work product negatively (Blair, 2003; Locker, 2003). More often than not, reaching the best possible solution requires an honest expression of concern over the issue without anger, the ability to view the matter from alternate perspectives, input from both parties, and a practical outline for solution that incorporates the concerns of everyone involved (Blair, 2003; Locker, 2003).

After a series of heated exchanges that necessitated my reassignment to another working group, I was determined not to repeat the same mistakes and to develop a method of satisfying my responsibilities while, at the same time, negotiating a method of preventing any recurrence of the same problem in my new group. In that regard, one of the senior group members in the new group explained that I had contributed to the problem by regularly submitting my work on the last possible day for review by senior group members. It had never occurred to me that while this was allowed, it also made it virtually impossible for the senior group member to consult me prior to submitting the draft section to the manager on time. That senior group member suggested that we negotiate a solution that incorporated our respective needs to ensure a more positive working relationship without compromising our responsibilities to submit a timely draft report.