Effectiveness and job satisfaction

We can all improve our skills to be more effective in our work, Although not always wants to link the bad results with incompetence. While advancing in permanent development, we must address the neutralization of possible endogenous and exogenous barriers to effectiveness. Indeed and sometimes, we feel mentally blocked or fatigued, baffled by environmental anomia, weakened by negative emotions, victims of dispersed care, and even affected by personality disorders ... all this limits our effectiveness, and also our quality of life. In this Psychology Line, we have set out to establish and define a relationship between the Effectiveness and job satisfaction.

1. Introduction
2. Let's reflect
3. Effectiveness and satisfaction
4. The autotelic manager
5. Attention to attention
6. Barriers or endogenous obstacles of effectiveness
7. How to foster enjoyment
8. Conclusions

Introduction

In our development and without a doubt, We can all advance aspects such as emotional knowledge or intelligence, but also in others such as proactivity or control of attention, and even in the area of ​​moral or spiritual strengths. There are certainly to do so, if in addition to the necessary -Excusable- efficacy, We pursue a better quality of life at work. We know that fatigue stops us, that tension blocks us (even memory), that ego cult limits us (because it keeps a part of our attention), that psychic entropy (internal disorder) leads us to give sticks of blind and subtract instead of adding that fear inhibits us, that the presumption of infallibility leads us to error, that our mental models collide with the new realities ...; so that, or we give greater breadth to the concept of competition, or we have to ask what more is needed in us to ensure individual and collective efficacy - success - without prejudice, and even for benefit, of also desirable professional satisfaction.

Indeed, we fall - sometimes it seems that irreversibly - in the vicious circle of negative emotions, the psychic fatigue, nerve tension and behavioral disorders, Meanwhile, not so far from our reach, there is another - this virtuous - in which realization and satisfaction for individual and collective achievement, nourish intrinsic motivation and performance itself. ¿How to end the vicious archetype and enter the virtuous, healthier and more constructive circle? In other words, ¿How to reduce negative emotions and increase positive? We can ingest anxiolytics, call a good coach, change airs ...; But before, or at the same time, we must make an individual effort of self -knowledge and self -understanding. If we were already acceptably effective, we could reflect on our quality of life and the contribution to the environment. All this could lead us to a profitable reengineering of ourselves.

Let's reflect

Reflection does not seem frequent exercise, but we must practice it for the benefit of self -knowledge and to question our assumptions, approaching realities and aligning with a stimulating purpose. A wrong assumption incapacitates us, blocks us, ties us, even if we are not very aware of it. Naturally, we are not always wrong, but we can say that our vision of reality is usually incomplete, partial, and that sometimes we confuse the goals. During meditation or reflection we can become aware of it, if we manage to slow inferences and expand the horizon; It would be said that, through self -criticism, we discuss with ours. Let's reflect on what we propose, and set options.

We certainly have been postulating Learning and Permanent Development, And it is, without a doubt, an unquestionable mantra in the professional field. But, as we suggested, there is not always incompetence after the fact that things go wrong: a company may break its good trajectory for an unfortunate strategic decision -or for many other reasons -, although permanent learning is practiced. Of course, you have to succeed with the knowledge, skills, attitudes or habits that we have to incorporate into our profile, but also, at the same time, We must get rid of our defects (and excesses), review our mental models, become aware of our biases, attend collective synergy, pursue shared goals, deepen the mechanisms of our decisions, leave space for genuine intuition.

Although it sounds digresive, I remember when, at the end of the 80s, they sent me to a seminar on the address by objectives in residential regime, for a week. I convinced me that, but when, the following Monday, I returned to the office, I experienced renewed disagreements with my somewhat neurotic boss, and finally I had to forget a good part of what was heard in the seminar. I became more neurotic, critical and whistleblower. The reader will have other experiences, but he would like to underline that it is not enough to learn continuously; At least, it is not enough to do it individually: it must be done collectively, and without senior management being considered excluded from the need. It is, in effect, to generate collective results.

Prolonging some lines more digression, still today many intermediate managers see their collaborators as such (assistants, extent of themselves ...) and not as much as professionals capable of acting autonomy after formulated objectives. For the benefit of individual and collective effectiveness, and professional satisfaction, perhaps we should review compatibility, in each case, of professionally chase objectives and dedicate, at the same time, to the boss's errands; In effect, each particular case must be resolved.

Effectiveness and satisfaction

Let me repeat it. Our inexcusable efficacy is often coming charging significant doses of quality of life, in form of negative emotions, physical and psychic fatigue, and also visible or underlying nervous tension, which also splashed family life; These elements - negative emotions, fatigue, tension, disorders - are among those that, to a greater extent, hinder the effectiveness or performance of the management personnel.

Put in this vicious circle, we have to apply greater effort, but The disorder of consciousness leads us to worse results: As is known, this archetype is frequent inside and outside the company. It is possible to prevent, and the case of breaking, this species of curse, and generate another circle -the virtuoso -, in which the realization and satisfaction for the logro nourish intrinsic motivation and the performance itself. High performance and a certain autotelic (vocational) Enjoy professional performance can go hand in hand, even if it forces us to model beliefs and attitudes, practice systemic reflection, cultivate new values ​​and strengthen self -control.

If one day we wrote our memoirs, perhaps we would see that life was what had been happening to us while our thoughts or feelings pointed to another place; But the fact is that At every moment we are all happy that our thoughts and feelings allow us. What we have in consciousness - its harmony or entropy - is what marks our well -being or discomfort; But, at the same time, what we have in consciousness depends on where we direct our attention. Thus, it seems that if we govern attention, we have a good part of the battle won. The thing is, in effect, something more complex, but we have to reflect more about attention, as on intention or intuition.

You have to insist on these last ideas. Before the development of our reflexive conscience, the human being, like other beings, enjoyed a certain relative tranquility, of course disturbed by danger, pain, hunger and sexual desire. But it must be said that Our brain development gave way to the forms of psychic entropy that today cause us so much unease: frustration, guilt, loneliness, adversity, distrust, envy, challenge, outrage, options, shame, hatred ... and even love. This evolution of consciousness also gave rise to roles and specializations, to the development of skills and, ultimately, to the complexity of the human being. It could be thought that the same - complexity - makes it difficult to achieve happiness, but has also generated resources to promote it and, in any case, there is no possible regression.

There is then to find the means of mitigating or neutralizing the unhealthy. It seems that the way of putting order - that is, to create harmony in consciousness - goes through establish an end, a great goal, an eagerness, a meaning, an address. Psychologists speak of the "own eagerness", or the "vital theme", to refer to what a person wishes to do above all, and the means that he uses for it. In Management literature there is talk of particular design, of Purpose. People who possess an eagerness for this nature can give meaning to everything that happens to them: it will be positive if they are close to their goal, or negative if they move them away; For people who lack a transcendent eagerness, it is more difficult to interpret the events. In other words: "When a person's psychic energy is put at the service of his vital theme, consciousness achieves harmony". This is what the prestigious American professor of Hungarian origin Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says.

We have seen that The presence of goals tends to reduce the disorder of consciousness because it guides the efforts; That is, in effect, unless the chosen goal (or, to some extent, induced) generates constant frustration. It would be better to talk about negotentropic goals, that is, attainable and healthy goals, which contribute to social welfare. There seems to walk the religious vocation, but it is also possible to talk about the professional, social or political vocation. Robert K tells us. Cooper: "The design is the inner compass of our life and our work". If our purpose in life tune in with the objectives and strategies of our company, we are closer to the effectiveness and satisfaction pursued. For managers, Purpose is fundamental, and, if they do not have it very defined, they should adopt one that enters the vision or mission of the company to which they contribute. Think of the sweeper: as you look, your mission is to sweep or, more enrichingly, keep the city clean. Or in the doctor: to prescribe drugs, or ensure the health and well -being of their patients.

The idea of ​​an autotelian businessman or manager would point to social contribution goals, As tires without punctures, houses without leaks, tastier foods, low consumption appliances, remedies for diseases, singular wines, wrinkles without wrinkles, etc.; But there are also more exotelic entrepreneurs and managers than, whatever the activity of the company, focus on sales and benefits, export, alliances, media resonance, or template reduction. In principle, we would relate more satisfaction to professional self -lothelia -with the enjoyment related to the activity of the company -but the reader can see it otherwise. Specifically, there are for example proud of their broths, which are surely a majority, but there are also wine entrepreneurs who always talk about their export activity, Ebitda, investments, marketing, etc.

The autotelic manager

Admitted the adjective, let's go to the features that define the profile of the autotelic individual; It will surely be easy to agree on the need and opportunity of the following intellectual, emotional and spiritual features. The autotelic manager:

1. Live the here and now, without losing perspective.
2. Reconciles effectiveness and quality of life.
3. Believe in what he does and in the goals he pursues.
4. It is socially responsible.
5. Learn and develop continuously.
6. Savor the achievements without incurring complacency.
7. Properly manages your attention and intention.
8. Cultivate positive emotions.
9. Show good humor and self -confidence.
10. Moves by the win-win principle.
11. Assumes challenges and its motivation is intrinsic.
12. He is empathic and synergistic in his area of ​​influence.
13. Take advantage of intuition and reconcile it with reason.
14. Cultivate order and peace in your conscience.
15. He is a reflective, critical and creative thinker.

It could be thought that, to label the manager of our day, we have already been using the word "leader". Although we make different readings of this concept, leadership constitutes basically a style of exercising the management of people, and each organization ends it according to their culture and realities; It points, above all, interpersonal relationships with collaborators or followers. On the other hand, the idea of ​​self -artelic manager or professional points especially to the intrapersonal, to relations with ourselves, in our intimate way of acting and perceiving things. A leader can fit, or not, in the autotelic profile, and an autotelical individual can fit, or not, in the leader's profile.

Attention to attention

You have to talk more about attention; If we pay more attention to the positive or the negative, to this or to that, to ourselves or others ... we can be sure that if the chosen goals facilitate the desired harmony in consciousness, everything will be better. There are people who concentrate their attention, and there are others who disperse it; Perhaps the latter lack a purpose, a design ... It can also be said that some people have a tendency to fix their attention on positive things and others in negatives; that some people attend to details or nuances that are unappreciable for others; that some people distinguish better than others when it comes to attending to the important and identifying the superfluous. Recall, by the way, that attention, kind of psychic energy, is a limited resource, and that personality is changing and can, to some extent, accelerate mental maturity and domain of ourselves.

As attention determines what appears in our conscience -and thus, optimists are happier than pessimists -it should be remembered that work satisfaction also depends on the person himself and, specifically, on how he manages their attention and orders their awareness. And we had already suggested: concentrate on the task and, if necessary, mentally isolated from disappeared environments can be highly recommended; All this well understood, and without losing synergy after collective objectives, fundamental in organizations.

The quality of life at work - from the side perhaps more used such as schedule, interpersonal relationships or the physical environment - is to pay more attention to the daily task, and enjoy it as if we had chosen it by vocation ( I wish it was like that), and not so much for making a career, or simply earn money. In the case of managers, the focus on the task and collaborators will sound disturbing, because what companies postulate is certainly the results orientation and the achievement of objectives; But, without losing perspective, we must live the present: if not, the future will hardly come. The aforementioned American psychologist of Hungarian origin tells us, speaking of the quality of life: “The problem appears when people become obsessed so much in what they want to achieve, that they no longer obtain pleasure with the present. When this happens, they lose their opportunity to be happy ".

But, if in our professional practice we make the effort to live sufficiently the here and now, the same author makes us warn that we can enjoy the activity and even enter states of high concentration and satisfaction, and equally high performance. This happens and it seems more frequent, when the task, testing our capacity, stimulates us sufficiently; Then, concentrated, we lose the notion of the environment and the passage of time, and we want not to be interrupted: it is the state of flow or fluidity.

The complex functioning of organizations often demands routine or bureaucratic tasks that we do not like, and business life also includes ungrateful decisions and moments; But let's also encourage moments of concentration, of negothropy, because they melt high performance with enjoyment. In short, we could be very comfortable by writing a report, visiting a client, solving a problem, assigning tasks, preparing a catalog or an offer, pronouncing a conference, installing electronic equipment, looking for information on the Internet, designing a program or acquiring new knowledge. But we would have to be concentrated in the task. These fluency states, studied by CSIKSZentmihalyi, are characterized by the following:

1. They occur when we face challenges that we can assume.
2. We are absolutely concentrated in the activity.
3. There are clear goals to get, and we get them.
4. The activity seeks us immediate feedback.
5. It seems to us that we are overcoming the challenge with surprising ease.
6. We careless of the risks or dangers that the activity entails.
7. We lose the notion of ourselves.
8. The meaning of the duration of time is altered.
9. The activity becomes an end in itself: it becomes autotelian.
10. We feel some intimate euphoria of triumph.

¿They identify themselves with these states of professional concentration and enjoyment, or, on the contrary, they are frequent victims of interruptions, anxiety, confusion, obstructionism, politicians, routine, fear .. ?

Barriers or endogenous obstacles of effectiveness

Not only do we have to provide ourselves with catalysts of success, but we must also neutralize our endogenous barriers (apart from possible exogenous), in the face of obtaining good, successful, results. In the case of managers and executives, as well as we identify the competences, it could effectively identify the barriers. At first glance, obstacles are seen as fatal as sadly frequent, although now we highlight only a few, as an anticompetencies. There is more, but let's see:

1. Excessive ego cult.
2. The presumption of infallibility.
3. The greed of money or power.
4. The empire of authority about rationality.
5. Clinging to strategic or tactical errors.
6. The adulteration of the goals.
7. Disconnection with inner and exterior reality.

Perhaps improvisation has led me to suggest the same with different words, but there are certainly more things that cloud the view of the manager or the Executive; I say myself, for example, that the worst thing that can happen to a young manager is to have a great success too soon. But, although we do not incur these and other capital sins (many more than seven), we must admit that the usual load of nervous tension, psychic fatigue, environmental entropy, frustration and negative emotions, reduces our abilities, disperses our attention, and bitter Our life ... in a few companies. Interesting the book The failed intelligence, by José Antonio Marina, who comes to underline numerous hosts between intelligence and the success pursued.

In other words, even being apparently competent, we can see our aspiration or expectation of success, because we have blinded greed or vanity, the intuition failed, defeated fatigue or laziness, arrested the complacency, deviated a false inference, blocked The lack of trust, distracted bad attention, dejected adversity or confused the indefinition of goals and media, among other disrupted factors.

How to foster enjoyment

We have already suggested that, solve some unquestionable needs, the most intimate professional satisfaction goes through having chosen in accordance with the vocation, to develop a job that makes us enjoy, to savor every moment of achievement without incurring complacency. It also goes through getting close and attainable goals, far from future delusions. It goes to meet ourselves and meet others. Go through the tune between our abilities and our goals. It goes through realistic optimism, inner peace and flow experience. Martin Seligman, father of the positive Psychology Movement, gives us his recipe to increase professional satisfaction:

1. Identify their strengths of character (eager to learn, open mentality, originality, perspective, integrity, team spirit, self -control, etc.) More characteristics.
2. Choose a job that, according to your preparation, allows you to regularly put your personal strengths into practice.
3. If necessary and possible, you reorient your current work to give greater use to your strengths.
4. Select collaborators whose characteristic strengths are in line with the work to be performed.

In short, just as Covey tells us about good habits, Goleman of emotional or sege.) With the idea that our professional activity is aligned with those that have more presence in our profile.

Conclusions

The phenomenology of care seems almost as complex as background biochemistry, but I want. If you believe it necessary, go to a good coach, but, above all, become aware, if you had not done it, that we have the moral imperative of being happy and making the people around our environment happy. Professional efficacy is inexcusable, but happiness cannot be preterm. In addition, they already know that they form a solid package, if we bet on the virtuous circle. To the extent of your responsibility, make your company an adequate catalyst. Do not hesitate, if you need it, to ask for help for it: it is worth it.

We already know that the effectiveness and quality of life in each organization depend, to a large extent, on senior management and its decisions; But let's accept that there is its own space, perhaps an area of ​​influence, in which a special microclimate, better (or worse) than the general climate could emerge. Each manager and worker must cultivate self -knowledge, perhaps helping feedback, reflexive thinking or intuitive contribution, to avoid deficiencies, biases and disorders that hinder the achievement of the results pursued.

In addition, we cannot forget in these paragraphs the changes that, in companies, comes to introduce the new knowledge economy and innovation. New profiles of managers and workers are consolidated, which seem to come to underline the importance, not only of knowledge and professional competence, but also of self -losses in performance and self -determined. If it did not sound very catechetistic, I would say, to end, that we must all be proactive and effective professionals, to live the fullness that corresponds to us as human beings, and contribute to the well -being of our next environment and of the society that surrounds us.

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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