Within a person-centered approach, (Rogers, 1990) the individual is able to create their understanding of the world, relate to others, and alter self-concepts, and change attitudes and behavior. These personal individual resources, invaluable to the organization, can only be accessed if a positive psychological climate is provided.
Carl Rogers believes that there are three essential climates for growth: (1) genuineness, realness, congruence, (2) acceptance, caring, or prizing, in addition to (3) emphatic understanding.

Shawn M. Nichols

as my lovely cousin and the wonderful guy I went through high school with, you two will appreciate this.

Last night I dreamt my father parked his van on the lawn of Carl Schurz High School while I was riding with him. I was so embarrassed, as kids with their parents would be, but then he started speaking Russian to the teachers and everything seemed okay.

When I woke up it shocked me to realize high school was not just a few years ago – I dream deeply. It has been 35 years since I/we graduated. A child born the day I graduated, and a child born the day they graduated, would be graduating soon. What happened to all that time? I have so much left to do, the stuff I did was just practice for the adult life I’m still planning.

If I live as long as my grandmother, I have 36 years left. If I love as long as my father, I have ten years left. If I live as long as my mother, I have ONE YEAR LEFT.

I don’t even know how to play a musical instrument yet. I’d better get right on it.

Courtesy Google Images 2012

Take care kids!

xoxoxo

Shawn Nichols
shawnnichols.com

Douglas McGregor (Heil, Bennis & Stephens, 2000) referred to this as the X and Y theory of collaboration. One can think of X represented by workmen’s arms crossed in defiance and representing a lack of action, and Y as in the response, “why not”, a more open-minded and reasonable attitude of cooperation. Mary Parker Follett (2005/1926) illustrated the difference in the X and Y theory by explaining that workmen were more likely to follow leaders integrating orders through a give-and-take and response-and-action dialogue management style. A leader needs to understand that the same individual belongs to many different groups (organizations and systems), which may cause a conflict in the individuals’ actions and stance. This is exacerbated, says McGregor (Heil, Bennis & Stephens, 2000) because the individual has an emotional connection of varying levels and degrees with other individuals in his or her variety of groups.

Shawn M. Nichols

Shawn M. Nichols

Shawn M. Nichols

Individual human aspects include an innate intelligence, the ability of the subject to be immersed in the context, and the desire and commitment for further knowledge.

Groups are a replication of an environment in which The Real Issues are played at, to further a potential sense of confidence or fulfillment. Working groups even limited in their scope, cover many aspects of human relationships with a focus on fulfillment, avoidance of fears, and prior wounding.

Shawn M. Nichols

Industry will always outpace humanity, said Douglas McGregor (Heil, Bennis, & Stephens, 2000). True words in an industrialized age and even more so in a computerized, Internet era. Initial ideas for and assumptions one hundred years ago did not often focus on the individuals’ motivation or their sense of dignity. Workers are a group of people clutching at the last vestiges of humanity in an inhuman world. Business and social spheres that ignore the individual in a particular context create a dehumanizing environment where individuals’ behavior may become erratic or uncertain.

Shawn M. Nichols

Human motivation and public behavior are not synonymous. Individuals’ behavior is a reflection of their biological, cultural, and current contextual environment. Individuals cannot be counted on to perform as expected even when the working environment or lived context is identical. Organizational development and humanistic psychology have learned much from each other from the start of the industrial age.
The Industrial Revolution with the increase of machinery for production, coupled with dehumanization of the individual in a bottom line focused organization, may have helped create the conditions where management and government sought the assistance of psychologists to improve undesirable conditions, employee unhappiness, and unsatisfactory results.

Shawn M. Nichols

The importance of social functioning in working groups, improving or negatively affecting output, has been discussed and researched for the last 100 hundred years. This important and often overlooked point illustrated by the 1928 Hawthorne Experiments Roethlisberger (2005/1941) showed that Individuals create social societies wherever they go. These societies are not as effective as one would assume given the homogenized appearance of those in attendance.

Shawn M. Nichols

Psychologists have a critical role in diagnosing and treating issues after generations of families and communities created suffering and discomfort. Organizational development, or a lack of effective and humanistic systems, in its infancy, informed their work. Psychologists and Organizational Consultants have or are considering improvements in working conditions and progress, or the successful inclusion of fulfilled individuals within successful working groups.

Shawn M. Nichols