This posting is a continuation of a theme I began two
postings ago. What I am explaining are
the factors that affect decision-making by an individual when that individual
is confronted with a political challenge; more specifically, when he/she is
expected to do something that is different from what he/she would have done
otherwise. This is political in the
sense that power is being or is attempted to be exerted on that person. More generally, my concern is over
organizational change when change is dependent on such changes in
behavior.
To date, I have described and explained an initial factor, a
person’s mental context, which is made up of two concerns: the socio-cultural inheritance and the
genetic inheritance. I invite you to
check out my last posting for my take on these concerns. I will remind you here that these concerns
are those elements that the individual brings to the confrontation. They are part of the context – hence the title
mental context. With this posting, I want
to begin looking at the elements that “pop up” when the confrontation is being
processed from the moment of awareness to a point that some resolution is
achieved and the parties to the confrontation are ready to “move on.”
The next specific factor is the domains of
decision-making. I have written about
the domains before and I draw your attention to the postings in which I review
the three domains I identified: the
domain of the real, of the ideal, and of the physiological.[1] Without rehashing what I reviewed in those
postings, let me summarily describe each:
·
The
domain of the real is what the individual, mostly through his/her senses, sees
as the physical and emotional aspects of a given situation – the current state-of-affairs. This includes any relevant recollections the
individual has. What the person senses
is real will vary from what is actually real since the human capacity of
recording reality accurately is far from perfect.
·
The
domain of the ideal is what the individual holds should be real. That is, the person is apt to project onto
any situation a sense of what the situation ought to have been, what it ought
to be, and/or what it ought to become.
Such evaluations are based on the attitudes, norms, and values the
person has either inherited from his/her culture or the influences of other
current associates such as family members, friends, workmates, etc. At times, the individual has developed
his/her own set of preferences by reflecting on life in general or on relevant
situations from the person’s past. In
any event, the individual who is affected – emotionally snared by a situation –
will respond with a notion or two about what should have been, should be, and/or
should become that is relevant to the situation.
·
And
the last domain, the physiological, relates directly to the contextual concern I
described in my last posting as the genetic inheritance the person carries
along with him/her. A perhaps silly
example would be if the person is confronted with a change expectation by an
attractive, sexually desirable other person.
He/she might be disposed to at least listen to the proposal if for no
other reason than to extend contact with such a messenger. In this type of situation, what is popularly
referred to as “hormonal” influences, kick in and affect subsequent
behavior. Of course, this type of
influence takes on many different guises and often the subject might not be
conscious of the physiological influences being engaged.
But engaged they are and these influences, the domain of the
real, the domain of the ideal, and domain of the physiological, can make
decisive differences on whether the desired changes in a person’s behavior take
place or not.
These domains “click-on” automatically, assuming the confrontation
engenders enough emotional response on the part of the subject (the
planned-for). Whatever the substance of the
reaction might be, what is important in terms of achieving change is the disposition
that reaction leads the person to adopt.
Here, emotions are prominent. As I
indicated in a previous posting, the list of relevant emotions can be
long. But more important is what
disposition the engaged emotions encourage.
Let me repeat what I initially wrote:
In a political situation, it is not
necessary to identify the exact emotions that are triggered in a given
confrontation, but what is important is that whatever emotions are brought to
the fore will lead to one of several dispositions. These include a solo disposition, an allying
disposition, and/or an antagonistic disposition. So, for example, if the emotion felt is anger
over some political confrontation, this emotion might lead to an antagonistic
disposition. The overall disposition a
person feels in reacting to a confrontation, itself, can be based on one, two,
or all three of these more specific dispositional reactions.
The decision about whether a person is disposed to act by
himself/herself or not or whether the person is disposed to be antagonistic
toward a proposed change or not, is on what the change agent or planner should
focus. The planner would do well to make
an inventory, to the degree possible, of whatever emotions are being or
potentially being triggered. The more
the planner knows along these lines, the more he/she is assisted in trying to
get the planned-for to be interested and willing to participate in the
development and implementation of change.
Before leaving these two factors, domains and emotional
disposition, I want to add a word or two about the domain of the real. Most of this has been addressed in this blog,
but I feel that it is worth repeating in the context of change. First, along the idea of whether we know
something or not, I find Plato’s distinction helpful. He provides us with three degrees of
certainty about whether we know something or not. That is, if we don’t know something and hold
no opinion about whether the something exists or not, we can term that
ignorance. If we are totally sure that
something exists or does not exist, then we can call that knowledge. If we hold something to be true or not true,
but we are not totally sure, then we can call that level of acceptance of a
factual claim as belief – we believe so and so to be true or not true. In terms of what I am concerned with in this
posting, there are times when a person, I include myself, feels confidently
about some claim of fact, but finds out later that the claim is false. It happens, I believe, to all of us. The importance of this occurs when it comes
to change in that antagonism or even support can be based on such a false
grounding in the facts of the matter.
And when it does happen, it can be instrumental in developing certain
inconsistencies and incongruities. All
of this can be detrimental to the efforts of change, complicating the work of
both the planner and the planned-for.
As I continue, over the next several postings, and comment on
more specific choices on the part of the individual, I want to point out that
while I am not ascribing a particular order to how mental processes occur, I do
need to say that the process generally advances from more nebulous notions of
all of these elements to more concrete notions and feelings. As the person thinks about what is being
asked, he or she has the time and information to consider what his or her
interests are and will evaluate and reevaluate what he or she should do and
will do. In other words, what I am
considering is a very dynamic and very, as one can already ascertain,
complicated series of mental operations.
I, for one, find it all fascinating.
[1]
I have deleted the postings to which I am
referring. They were posted on March 5,
2012, “Introducing the Domains Involved in Decision-Making,” March 9, 2012, “The
Domain of the Real,” March 12, 2012, “The Domain of the Ideal,” and March 16,
2012, The Domain of the Physiological.”
These postings can be requested via email (using the blog’s email
address – see above, one requested posting at a time).
