Year: 2020

Management Notes

Functions of Retailing

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A retailer is a person who has set up a commercial establishment to sell goods and services in smaller quantities to the end consumers for their personal use. He sells these goods at a markup or profit margin considerably higher than that of the wholesaler.

Functions of Retailing

Retail trade performs many valuable functions for the trade and commerce as a whole. Some of them are as follows:

  1. Delivery of the goods to the end consumer

This makes shopping for all requirements quite hassle-free for the consumers. This also facilitates consumption and maximizes consumer satisfaction. Because the company cannot take responsibility of delivery to every single customer, it appoints retailers. One of the functions of retailing is immediate delivery.

  1. Is an essential part of the distribution chain

Because the retailer takes over the cumbersome task of distribution of goods manufactured to the target market, the manufacturer is relieved of this responsibility and can divert his resources to manufacturing activities.

  1. Finances the wholesaler

While booking his order of goods with the wholesaler, the retailer pays some percentage or the whole of the order price in advance. This helps the wholesaler to carry on with his operations seamlessly. In some industries, it is the retailer who pays cash to maintain stock and in others the wholesaler has to carry the stock as paid capital. Nonetheless, financing is one of the major functions of retailing. A retailer who does not contribute to financing will bring down the effectiveness of the supply chain.

  1. Stores the goods according to market requirement

The retailer invests his working capital in building a gamut of inventory reflecting market requirements. He also sells the requisite quantity, however small or big, to the final consumers satisfying their needs. The retailers know the complete demand and supply potential due to their years of experience. Hence it is one of the functions of retailing to balance the demand and supply as per external market conditions.

  1. Lends a hand in manufacturer’s marketing initiative

Retailer plans and executes many advertising and promotion activities at the point of purchase i.e. right in his store. This leads to gain in popularity of and favorable market conditions for the product of the manufacturer.

  1. Assumes storage and credit risks

When the retailer orders and stores a large quantity of goods from the manufacturer, he makes sufficient provisions to store it safely for some days. This involves costs. Also, there is also a risk of loss of these goods on account of destruction, theft, spoilage etc. The retailer assumes these risks while storing goods.

  1. Extends credit facilities to the consumers and assumes credit risk

The retailer does so to encourage shopping. This adds to the vigor of commercial activities in the economy. But there is also a risk that the customers won’t pay for the goods bought or may return damaged goods to the retailer. This inherent risk in trade is assumed by the retailer.

  1. Offers wide variety of customers and enticing price range in a product line

In order to attract more customers, a retailer offers a wide range of merchandise at attractive prices. This results in higher consumer satisfaction and higher standards of living in any economy.

  1. Provides convenience in shopping

Retailers try to set up their shops nearby housing areas or near parks, schools the areas where the customer finds it very convenient to shop. This enhances the consumer welfare.

  1. Offers after sale services, differentiated packaging, giving more information about the use of the product

All these activities add value to the retail transaction and cater to various requirements of the consumers suitably.

  1. Hears the voice of the market

The retailer measures the pulse of the market by listening to the consumer feedback, expectations, complaints, and by observing a shift in the tastes and preferences of the consumers. This arms him with very critical market intelligence enabling the entire commercial fraternity to gear up for the changing economic scenario.

  1. Generating employment for masses

Retail trade, especially the brick-and-mortar models, are human resource-centric establishments. They require many employees for numerous functions such as stock taking, over the counter selling, packaging, after sales services, floor management etc. Thus, retail sector thrives with lots of lucrative employment opportunities for all the talented job aspirants.

Management Notes

General principles of Stress Management

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  1. Self-knowledge

    Self-knowledge appears as the first principle, because most of the others build on it. It involves knowing your capabilities and your limits, your personal temperament and typical coping style, and your values and goals.
    Aspects of self-knowledge
    Are you what Hans Selye calls a racehorse, or are you a turtle?. Racehorses thrive on stress and are only happy with a vigorous, fast-paced lifestyle. Turtles require peace, quiet, and a generally tranquil environment. These are of course extremes – people are usually somewhere in between.

    What are your values, what matters to you? Though many aspects will be shared with others in your social group, every person has a unique system of values and goals.
    Everyone has certain abilities – and limits. Do you recognise your abilities and make the most of them? Do you also acknowledge your limits and know when to stop?

    Why knowing yourself is important to stress management
    You may feel comfortable with some of your characteristics, less happy with others. In either case, to effectively manage stress you need to be aware of your own optimum stress level and coping style, as well as the goals and values that guide your reactions.
    Everyone has their own temperament, style of managing stress, and value system. You need to develop strategies relevant to your personal style and compatible with your personal values, otherwise you are not likely to use them.
    Developing self-knowledge
    How can you become more aware of your coping style and optimum stress level? Here are some suggestions.
    Identify your typical stress triggers. What situations do you typically react to? Keep a log for a few weeks.

    You are the best intuitive judge of your optimum stress level. Observe what your body is doing – note your typical stress signs.

    Observe how you typically cope with problems. What works for you? What do you tend to do that is unhelpful?

    There are some strategies to help you identify your values and goals in Chapter Nine of GoodStress. Use these to check out your preferences, values and standards. Are they realistic and appropriate? Have you thought them through for yourself?
    Completing rational self-analyses will help you identify the underlying values that guide your reactions to specific events and circumstances.

    2. Self-acceptance and confidence

    Self-acceptance and confidence are closely related concepts. One builds on the other. Being able to accept yourself as you are, free of any demand that you be different, provides the basis for confidence in your abilities. Confidence, in turn, will enable you to take risks, try new things, and direct your own life.
    Accepting yourself
    To accept yourself is to acknowledge three things: (1) you exist, (2) there is no reason why you should be any different from how you are, and (3) you are neither worthy nor unworthy.

    Acknowledgment that you exist is probably straightforward. It is the other two parts that most people find hard to grasp.
    Self-acceptance involves rejection of any demand that you be different. You may sensibly prefer to be different. You may decide it is in your interests to change some things. But keep the desire to change as a preference. Instead of believing that you have to change, see change as a choice.
    Do not attempt to measure your selfor set some kind of valueon yourself. Self-acceptance is radically different to self-esteem. Self-esteem is based on the idea that you are a goodor worthwhileperson. Worthwhileness requires some criteria, like how well you perform, or the idea that you are worthwhile simply because you exist. Self-acceptance, on the other hand, is based on the idea that you dont have to be goodor worthwhile. In fact, there is no need to evaluate yourself at all! Instead of evaluating your self, you use your energy and time to evaluate (1) your behaviour, and (2) the quality of your existence.
    Evaluating your behaviour is a good idea. You can check whether it helps you enjoy your life and achieve your goals. It is also a good idea to evaluate the quality of your existence. Your enjoyment of life is surely important – more important than worrying about whether you are a worthwhileperson.
    Having confidence in your abilities
    Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are preconditions for confidence. To have confidence in your abilities involves three things. First, you know what you can and cant do. Second, you are prepared to try things to the limit of your ability. And third, you regularly work at extending your capabilities.
    Having confidence in your abilities is different to having confidence in your self. Self-confidence implies perfection – that you, as a total person, are able to do everything well. This is unrealistic and grandiose.

    Having confidence in your abilities is more realistic. Instead of talking about self-confidence, follow the advice of Paul Hauck and talk about social confidence, work confidence, driving confidence, house-care confidence, examination confidence, relationship confidence, and so on. In other words, develop confidence in specific abilities rather than in your total self.
    In practice, ability-confidence would involve behaviours like the following:
    Doing things without demanding you succeed, and viewing mistakes as opportunities for learning. Confidence grows out of the attempt, the doing, rather than from the result.
    Evaluating your actions and performances in terms of how they help you reach your goals – not what they prove about you as a person.
    Taking calculated risks with important activities such as choosing a career, changing jobs, or starting a new relationship.
    Persevering – not giving up when you do less well than you want; rejecting any belief that everything should come easy; and accepting that many good things involve overcoming obstacles, setbacks, and persisting over a period of time.
    Learning from your experiences – trying something, analysing your experience, seeing where you went wrong and working out what you can do to improve your abilities.
    Why these are important to stress management

    If you are prone to rating your total self, you may want to avoid looking closely at your actions because to do so may lead to self-downing. Paradoxically, self-acceptance is more likely than self-evaluation to lead to constructive change. Confidence in your abilities will free you to take risks, try new experiences and learn new lessons.
    If you can accept yourself with your unique characteristics and preferences, you will be less likely to live your life to suit other people.
    As Martin Seligman has pointed out, there are limits to how much we can change ourselves. Human beings are not perfectible. If you can accept imperfection in yourself, you are less likely to engage in dangerous behaviour striving for the unattainable.
    Developing self-acceptance and confidence
    Self-acceptance as an alternative to self-evaluation is not an easy concept to grasp. The tendency to self-evaluation seems to be built in to human beings, and the self-esteem concept is pervasive in our thinking and culture.
    Think through the philosophy of self-acceptance. Read about it. Write down your thoughts on it. Talk about it with others (many people will argue against the concept, which will give you the opportunity to hone your thinking!).

    Finally, and most important, behave like a self-accepting and confident person. As far as possible, practice living in accordance with your preferences, values and standards. Say what you believe, be open and honest as to who you are (but do this appropriately with people significant to you, and take into account their preferences and feelings). Treat yourself to things you used to think you did not deserve. Try things you used to be afraid to do – without any demand that you succeed.

    3. Enlightened self-interest

    The ability to act in your own interests follows on from self-acceptance and confidence. As we shall see, it is also important to take into account the interests of others. The principle of enlightened self-interest takes into account both parts:
    You place your own interests first.
    You keep in mind that your own interests will be best served if you take into account the interests of others.
    Human beings are fundamentally self-interested
    Notwithstanding any precepts that say we shouldbe otherwise, human beings appear to be intrinsically concerned first with their own welfare.

    Hans Selye has argued that the desire to maintain oneself and stay happy is the most ancient – and one of the most important – impulses that motivates living beings. All living beings protect their own interests first of all. Selye points out that this begins with our basic biological make-up, in that the various cells in our bodies only cooperate with each other to ensure their own survival.

    Human beings are also motivated by social interest
    Selye has pointed out, though, that we are also strongly motivated by altruistic feelings. As well as self-interest, we also possess social interest – the wish to ensure that the social system as a whole survives and develops.
    How is that two apparently contradictory tendencies can co-exist? The answer is that we help others in order to help ourselves. In other words, our self-interest is enlightened.
    It appears that like self-interest, social interest is also inherent within human beings – both have biological roots. Collaboration between body cells promotes the survival of each individual cell and enables the total organism to function.
    In effect, individual interests are best served by mutual cooperation. Accordingly, self-interest without social interest is misguided. So is social interest without self-interest. Always putting others first leads to resentment or a martyr attitude. People who believe they are acting purely in the interests of others are dangerous. By denying (to themselves) that their own self-interest is involved, such people may justify all types of manipulative and controlling behaviour toward others.

    You are both self-interested and socially-interested. This dual tendency is built in to your very being and begins with your basic biology. By accepting this about yourself, you will be able to do a better job of acting in your own interests – in an enlightened manner.
    What is it to be enlightened?
    The word enlightenedhas several related meanings. It is humanitarian – charitable, liberal, and idealistic; and at the same time utilitarian – useful, beneficial, and practical.
    Can you see how merging an enlightened attitude with innate self-interest can apply at all levels – to yourself, to your family, to your town or city, to your country, and to the world as a whole? Consider the effect on this planet if every person acknowledged their self-interest and then practiced it in an enlightened manner. What if every country based its external and foreign policies on the humanitarian and practical principle of enlightened self-interest?
    Why enlightened self-interest is important to stress management
    If human beings did not have an inherent will to protect themselves and further their own interests, they would not survive. If you dont attend to your own interests, who will? Knowing what is in your interests will help you get what is best for you and avoid what is harmful. It will keep you moving toward your goals – and ensure that your goals are the right ones for you.

    But you had better simultaneously take into account the interests of others. Getting people to have positive feelings toward you is a good idea. They will be more likely to treat you well and less likely to harm you. Contributing to their welfare will encourage them to contribute to yours. And contributing to the development and survival of the society in which you live will mean a better environment in which to pursue your interests.
    If you acknowledge that self-interest is inherent in your nature, you will feel less guilty about looking after yourself. If you acknowledge that altruistic behaviour is in your interests, you will be more likely to cooperate with others. If you do both, everyone gains.
    Developing enlightened self-interest
    Begin by practicing enlightened behaviours. Here are some ideas to get you started now:

  • Go out of your way to show positive feelings towards others – gratitude, respect, trust – which in turn will arouse goodwill from them.
  • Choose some new activities in various life areas – work, family, leisure – that will bring goodwill.
  • At the same time, act assertively. Ask for what you want, say Noto what you dont, and tell others (when appropriate) what you think and how you feel.
    Make a point of doing something just for yourself each day for a while.
  • Until enlightened self-interest becomes part of you, consciously seek to get more of what you want while facilitating the interests of the other people in your world.

  1. Tolerance for frustration and discomfort

    The ability to tolerate frustration and discomfort is central to stress management. High tolerance will keep you from overreacting to things you dislike. It will help you tackle problems and issues rather than avoid them. It will enable you to take risks and try new experiences.
    What is high tolerance?
    As we shown in Chapter Four of GoodStress, low tolerance for frustration and discomfort is a key cause of unnecessary distress. It arises from beliefs like: Life should not be hard, it is awful and I cant stand it when it is hard; so I must avoid pain, difficulties and frustrations.
    High tolerance, on the other hand, means accepting the reality of frustration and discomfort, and keeping their badness in perspective.
    To accept frustration and discomfort is to acknowledge that, while you may dislike them, they are realities. They exist, and there is no Law of the Universe says they shouldnot exist (though you may prefer they not). You expect to experience appropriate negative emotions like concern, remorse, regret, sadness, annoyance, and disappointment. But you avoid exaggerating these emotions (by telling yourself you cant stand them) into anxiety, guilt, shame, depression, hostile anger, hurt, or self-pity.
    To keep frustration and discomfort in perspective is to regard them as unpleasant rather than awful. You dislike rejection, pain, bad health, financial insecurity and other unwanted circumstances – but you believe that you can cope with the discomfort when they happen to you.
    Why is high tolerance important to stress management?
    Low tolerance creates distress by causing you to overreact to discomfort. It may lead to secondary problems (having a problem about having a problem) where you react to your own symptoms and end up with additional symptoms. You might for example, get angry and then feel guilty, or become depressed because you feel anxious. Low tolerance also gets in the way of using stress management strategies like changing your diet, exercising, managing your time or acting assertively.
    High tolerance, on the other hand, will help you in many ways. You will be:
    Less likely to create secondary problems by overreacting to unwanted events and circumstances.
    More willing to experience present discomfort to achieve long-term goals and enjoyment.
    Prepared to take reasonable risks.
    More able to assert yourself appropriately with other people.
    Less likely to put off difficult tasks and issues, including personal change.
    How to raise your tolerance for discomfort and frustration
    Know when you are engaging in low-tolerance behaviour designed to avoid discomfort or frustration. Keep a log of such behaviour for several weeks or longer. Watch for things like:

  • avoiding uncomfortable situations;
  • overusing drugs or alcohol;
  • compulsive gambling, shopping, exercising, or bingeing on food;
  • losing your temper;
  • putting off difficult tasks.

The technique of exposure is the best way to increase your tolerance. Make a list of things you typically avoid – situations, events, thoughts, risks and so on. Commit yourself to face at least one of these each day. Actively confront discomfort by going into uncomfortable situations. Instead of trying to get away from the frustration or discomfort as you normally would, stay with the discomfort until it diminishes of its own accord.
You can prepare yourself to cope with the discomfort by using rational self-analysis, imagery, and the blow-up technique. Afterwards, do a catastrophe scale to get your reaction to the discomfort into perspective. (These techniques are described in GoodStress and in many other REBT books).

  1. Long-range enjoyment

    Like most people, you probably want to enjoy life. As well as avoid distress, you want to experience pleasure. And you probably want to get your pleasure now, not tomorrow. As Alice said in Through the Looking Glass: It must come sometimes to jam today. But there are times when it is in our interests to forgo immediate pleasure in order to have greater enjoyment in the longer term.
    What is long-range enjoyment?
    There are two parts to this principle. You seek to get enjoyment from each of your present moments, rather than always putting off pleasure till tomorrow, or dwelling on things that have happened in the past.
    However, to keep on enjoying your present moments you will sometimes choose to postpone pleasure. You may wish to drink more alcohol – but you restrict your intake now so your body will still let you drink in ten years time. Or you wish to buy a new stereo, but instead you save the money for an overseas trip. This is the long-termpart.
    The principle can be summed up as follows: live for the present with an eye to the future. In other words, seek to get as much pleasure and enjoyment as you can in the present – while taking into account the desirability of enjoying your life in the long term.
    The concept is not new
    The underlying thinking behind long-range enjoyment has been around for a long time. The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341270 BC) proposed the idea that pleasure is the supreme good and main goal of life – and that only through self-restraint and moderation can people achieve true happiness.
    John Stuart Mill, British philosopher and economist, argued that an act is right if it brings pleasure, and wrong if it brings pain. But he introduced the caveat that the ultimate value is the good of society, and the guiding principle of individual conduct is the welfare of the greatest number of people.
    Developing long-range enjoyment
    Learn to calculate gains and losses. Weigh the short-term pleasurable effects of an action against its possible longer-term negative effects. Make sure that immediate gain doesn’t set you up for future pain – as with overindulgence in alcohol. If in doubt, do a benefits calculation.
    Weigh short-term discomfort and frustration against the prospect of greater and more enduring comfort in the long term. To start exercising will be more uncomfortable than watching television – but later you will not only feel the health benefits, you will even begin to enjoy the exercise itself.
    The strategy of paradoxical behaviour will help you put the philosophical change into action. Practice deliberately postponing gratification in order to increase your tolerance for frustration. List a few things you could go without and earmark the money you save for something you would really like. Reduce your intake of alcohol, caffeine or fatty foods, and reward yourself with an occasional special treat you would otherwise see as an indulgence. Be creative – what other ideas for practicing long-range enjoyment can you come up with?
    By now you will probably see that many of the twelve principles are interdependent. To delay gratification involves tolerating frustration. Sensible long-range enjoyment involves enlightened self-interest and moderation.
    To sum up
    If you always postponed your enjoyment till tomorrow, you would never enjoy yourself. But, if you always lived just for the present moment, your happiness and stress management in the future would eventually be compromised. Live your life with the goal of getting as much enjoyment as possible both now and in the future.
    1993.

    6. Risk-taking

    Human beings, by nature, seek safety, predictability, and freedom from fear. But humans also pursue risk. A totally secure life would be a boring one. To grow as a person and improve your quality of life means being prepared to take some chances.
    The principle

    What we are talking about is a willingness to take sensible risks in order to get more out of life and avoid the distress of boredom, listlessness and dissatisfaction. Here are some important areas of risk-taking that relate to stress management:

  • Learning new things which may challenge existing beliefs.
  • Tackling tasks which have no guarantee of success.
  • Trying new relationships.

Doing things that risk the disapproval of other people.
How is risk-taking relevant to stress management?
Risk-taking is necessary for self-knowledge. To discover your limits, you need to take some risks and try yourself out. You can open up fresh opportunities to increase pleasure and avoid boredom.
Problem-solving means risking solutions that may backfire. To act assertively is to risk disapproval or rejection. Maintaining a support system involves trusting and opening up to other people.
Finally, experimenting with different activities to discover what you like and dislike will increase your self-knowledge and help you clarify your goals and values.
Increasing your willingness to take risks
Exposure is a key technique for practicing risk-taking. Develop a list of things you would like to try, such as:

  • Asking someone for something – like a date or favour – where there is a chance of rejection.
  • Doing something where there is a chance others will disapprove – for example, speaking up and telling a group of people what you think.
  • Trying something where there is no guarantee of success.
  • Put one item a day into practice. As you do so, remind yourself that the discomfort involved is not intolerable, and that staying with it will gradually increase your tolerance.

The benefits calculation can help you make rational decisions about the usefulness of risks you are considering.
You can prepare yourself for taking risks and cope with the discomfort involved using rational self-analysis, coping rehearsal, the blow-up technique, and role-playing.

7. Moderation

Sensible risk-taking recognises the innate human desire for safety and security. The principle of moderation will help you avoid extremes in thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Why moderation is important to stress management
Extreme expectations – too high or too low, will set you up for either constant failure or a life of boredom.
Addictive or obsessional behaviour can take control of you, creating new distress. Unrestrained eating, drinking or exercising will stress your body and lead to long term health complications.
Obsessive habits in areas as diverse as your work or your sexual behaviour can damage relationships as well as stress your body.
The principle of moderation
Taking a moderate approach to your life starts with your ultimate goals and ranges through to your daily activities.

You need to develop long-term goals, short-term objectives, and tasks that will challenge and move you on. But it is equally important they are potentially achievable and do not set you up for failure and disillusionment.

If your goal, for example, is to maintain your weight at a certain level, ensure you set that level appropriate for your age and other personal factors. Avoid any tasks and activities that are extreme – like a diet that provides massive weight loss in a short time. Otherwise, not only will you damage your health, but eventually the weight is likely to go back on (probably worse than it was before), leaving you with a feeling of hopelessness. The best way to keep to an appropriate weight without stressing the body is not to go on a radical diet, but rather to moderate eating and drinking in the long-term.
This applies in most areas of life. Throw yourself into your work, play, exercise and sexual life – but avoid the stress of over-involvement. Moderate, too, your self-help work – commit yourself to personal change, but without obsessiveness.
Note that moderation does not exclude risk-taking. In fact, moderation will help you avoid taking security too far. But you can take risks without being foolhardy.
Developing a moderate approach to life

Identify any areas of your life where you tend to behave excessively – eating, exercising, sexual activity, using your computer, and so on. Note when you are demanding full satisfaction of your urges, or catastrophising about the frustration involved in restraint. Keeping a log will help you do this.

Use the strategies of exposure and paradoxical behaviour to get into action. Set up a list of tasks, sorted according to difficulty, which will give you practice in behaving moderately. In advance, set limits in each of these areas, and commit yourself to keeping within those limits.
Handle your frustration using rational self-analysis. The benefits calculation will help you decide what areas of your life you are best to moderate. Finally, if you are unable to change behaviour which has become addictive, seek professional help.

8. Emotional and behavioural responsibility

As we saw in Part One, people who see their emotions and behaviours as under their control are less prone to distress than people who see themselves as controlled by external forces. The principle of responsibility can help you take charge of your emotions, your actions, and in turn your life. It involves taking responsibility for (1) what you feel, and (2) how you act.
To be emotionally responsible is to believe that you create your own feelings in reaction to what life throws at you. You avoid blaming other people – your parents, partner, boss, or anyone else – for how you feel.
Behavioural responsibility means accepting that you cause your own actions and behaviours, and are not compelled to behave in any particular way.

The inner-controlled person
An inner-controlled person can be identified by characteristics like the following:

  • Uses language – I think that or I would like you to rather than Everyone knows that or You should.
  • Tends to be assertive when relating to other people, rather than passive or aggressive.
  • Gets on with life now – rather than dwelling in the past or dreaming about the future but doing nothing.
  • Takes setbacks in their stride – rather than catastrophising or bemoaning fate.
  • Has a problem-solving approach – when things go wrong, looks for possible solutions.
  • Does not believe in luck- believes that action and the application of skill is what makes things happen, rather than luck or fate.
  • Limits to emotional and behavioural responsibility

While your emotions are mainly caused by what you believe, there are some exceptions. Biochemical changes, for example, can lead to emotional changes. (How you react to biochemical changes, though, will still depend on how you view what is happening in your body).
While you can, largely, control your thoughts, it is unlikely that anyone could do so perfectly. Expecting flawlessness will only lead to discouragement and self-downing.
While you are largely responsible for the consequences of your actions, some outcomes will be outside your control. If, for example, you say Noto a request, the other person may be disappointed – an appropriate reaction. You would be somewhat responsible, in that your Nowas the trigger. But what if they became clinically depressed – an inappropriate over-reaction? That would be their responsibility, not yours. You have no control over whether people choose to view your actions in ways that are rational or self-defeating.

Finally, an important point. Dont fall into the trap of blaming yourself because you are responsible for what you feel and do. Blame and responsibility are not the same thing. Blameis moralistic. It seeks not only to identify who may be the cause of a problem, but also to damn and condemn them.
Responsibility, on the other hand, is practical. It seeks either to identify a cause so it can be dealt with; or to identify who needs to take action for the problem to get solved – irrespective of who or what causedit. Responsibility is concerned not with moralising, but with finding solutions.
Why responsibility is important to stress management
Suzanne Kobasa has conducted research on, as she calls them, hardypeople – people who thrive on stress rather than become sick. A key characteristic of such people is their belief that they are in control of their lives. Hardy people generally have better physical and mental health – they are less affected by the ageing process, recover faster from medical episodes such as a heart attack or surgery, and are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.

If you take responsibility for your feelings and behaviours, you will avoid making yourself a victim or over-reacting to what other people say or do. You will be able to change your own feelings even though the world does not change to suit you. Finally, you will have confidence in your ability to handle your feelings, whatever happens – freeing you to take risks and try new experiences.

Developing responsibility
Use rational self-analysis to identify and dispute any irresponsible thinking.
Make a list of things you do that show irresponsibility – unassertiveness, dwelling in the past, catastrophising, drifting with problems hoping something will come along. Use the technique of paradoxical behaviour to act differently in these areas, taking responsibility for how you feel and behave.

9. Self-direction and commitment

Emotional and behavioural responsibility lay the basis for taking control over your life and committing yourself to action and involvement.

Self-direction
Taking responsibility for the direction of your life involves:

  • Choosing your goals, making sure they are your own.
  • Actively pursuing your goals, rather than waiting and dreaming.
  • Making your own decisions, even though you may seek opinions from others.
  • Choosing to work at managing stress, developing your potential, and changing things you dislike, rather than just drifting along or expecting a miracle to occur.
  • Not condemning any person (including yourself) when things go wrong in your life, even though you or someone else may be responsible; but rather identifying any causes and looking for solutions.

Self-direction does not mean open opposition and non-cooperation with others. You can keep your self-direction on the right track by balancing it with other principles such as enlightened self-interest, long-range enjoyment, moderation, and flexibility.
There are several prerequisites for self-direction. First, you need to see what happens to you as influenced (though not totally controlled) by what you do. As we saw earlier, inner-controlled people tend to be assertive, get on with life, and do not see themselves as victims. Second, to direct your own life you need to know what you want to do with it. Have you clarified your goals and values? Chapter Nine will show you how to do this.

Commitment
Commitment follows on from self-direction. There are two elements:
Perseverance. The ability to bind yourself emotionally and intellectually to courses of action. This involves a willingness to do the necessary work (and tolerate the discomfort involved) in personal change and goal-achievement.
Deep involvement. The ability to enjoy and become absorbed in (but not addicted to) other people, activities and interests as ends in themselves – where you get pleasure from the doing, irrespective of the final result. This may include such areas as work, sports, hobbies, creative activities, and the world of ideas.

Limits to self-direction and commitment
Some of what happens to you will be out of your control, and this will place limits on how much you can influence them. Remember, though, that how you react is your responsibility.
Further, while self-direction implies independence, it recognises some limits in the interests of mutual support and cooperation with others.
If carried too far, commitment can become obsession. Dont get so involved with one or a few things that other areas of your life suffer. Avoid, for example, allowing work to stop you from any recreational activity, or recreation to leave no time for relationships.
Why self-direction and commitment are important to stress management
Avoiding decisions or action creates tension and leaves problems unsolved. Action and persistence are needed to break unwanted patterns of behaviour and achieve personal change. A life of superficial involvements would lead to boredom and dissatisfaction.
Commitment is required for confidence to develop. You dont, for example, develop confidence in playing a musical instrument unless you commit yourself to practicing with it.

Self-direction can affect your health. Salvatore Maddi, from the University of Chicago, ran courses for men and women in management aimed at increasing their sense of control. These led to lower anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, headaches, insomnia, and blood pressure, as well as more job satisfaction – results which lasted well beyond the end of the courses.

Aiming for your own goals rather than having others direct your life will affect how you implement many of the strategies in Part Three of Good Stress. It will determine how you manage your time. It will help you assert yourself. You will also maintain more stimulation and variety in your life by doing the things you want.
Developing self-direction and commitment
Make a list of things you do that indicate lack of self-direction. Watch for behaviours like asking for permission, avoidance due to fear of disapproval, unnecessarily seeking other peoples opinions, and the like. Select one item each week and deliberately act differently, in line with what you would rather be doing.
Use rational self-analysis and imagery to cope with the discomfort involved.
Make a decision now to develop one new interest in your life in which you will get absorbed. Commit yourself to taking some steps toward it over the next week or so.

10. Flexibility
Flexible people can bend with the storm rather than be broken by it. They know how to adapt and adjust to new circumstances that call for new ways of thinking and behaving. They have resilience – the ability to bounce back from adversity.

The principle of flexibility
To be flexible is to be open to change in yourself and in the world. As circumstances alter, you are able to modify your plans and behaviours. You are able to adopt new ways of thinking that help you cope with a changing world. You are able to let others hold their own beliefs and do things in ways appropriate to them while you do what is right for you.
Flexibility in thinking means:

  • Your values are preferences rather than rigid, unvarying rules.
  • You are open to changing ways of thinking in the light of new information and evidence.
  • You view change as a challenge rather than a threat.

Flexibility in behaviour means:

  • You are able to change direction when it is in your interests.
  • You are willing to try new ways of dealing with problems and frustrations.
  • You can let others do things their way.
  • You avoid distressing yourself when others think or act in ways you dislike.

Why flexibility is important to stress management
Flexibility aids survival in a changing world. The world, as it always has, continues to change – but the pace of change is increasing. If there is not a corresponding change in attitudes there will be distress. We see this in the so-called generation gap. Parents who are inflexible find it harder to cope when their children behave in ways unthinkable in their generation. We can cope better when we see change as a challenge rather than a threat. As Suzanne Kubosa has found, this attitude is one of the characteristics of hardiness.
Flexibility leads to better problem-solving. As Roger Von Oech states, there are times we need to step outside what we know or usually do and look at a problem from new angles in order to find new solutions. Even negative events like being made redundant – can create opportunities to step outside.
Flexibility will make it easier to change your goals to suit new circumstances. Getting older or sustaining a disability, for example, usually requires one to adapt to significant lifestyle changes.
Flexibility will help you break out of boring routines and maintain stimulation and variety in your life. It will also help you manage your time better, by enabling you to change your plans to suit changing situations.
Developing flexibility
Use rational self-analysis to identify and change inflexible thinking. Watch especially for any demanding shouldsand musts.
Expose yourself to new ways of looking at things. Read books that adopt positions other than yours, talk to people with differing views, watch movies you would normally not bother with.
Practice flexibility by rearranging your office or home furniture, hanging some new pictures, visiting places you have never been.
Get into the habit of pausing before you take action on a problem and look at ways of solving it different to what you would normally do. In other words, attempt to act out of character on a regular basis.

11. Objective thinking

Flexibility and openness, as well as the other principles, require freedom from ways of thinking that are narrow-minded, sectarian, bigoted and fanatical; or that rely on uncritical acceptance of dogmatic beliefs or magicalexplanations for the world and what happens in it.
Objective thinking is scientific in nature. There are four aspects – it is (1) empirical, (2) logical, (3) pragmatic, and (4) flexible.
Objective thinking is empirical
It is based on evidence gained from observation and experience rather than on subjective feelings or uncritical belief. It seeks to avoid distortions of reality.
Objective thinking is logical
It reaches conclusions that validly follow from the evidence. It is possible, as the example below demonstrates, to have the right evidence but draw the wrong conclusions:
Evidence: My supervisor has criticised me, I don’t like being criticised
Conclusion: I can’t stand this, it shouldn’t happen to me, and it shows that my supervisor is a rotten person.
Even though the two pieces of evidence are correct, this does not make the conclusion correct. It does not logically follow that because I have been criticized and I don’t like this (both of which are true), that my supervisor is rotten, I cant stand it, and it shouldn’t happen (beliefs which go beyond the evidence).
More logical conclusions could be: My supervisor has done something I dislike; This is unpleasant; and I prefer this not to happen to me.
Illogical beliefs are often overgeneralizations, like, for example:
Something that is unpleasant becomes terrifying (awfulising);
Something that is hard to bear, becomes intolerable (discomfort intolerance);
Because I prefer to avoid discomfort, therefore I absolutely must avoid it (demandingness);
Because I behaved stupidly, therefore I as a person am stupid (self-rating).
To check the logical validity of your conclusions, ask yourself questions like:
Do my conclusions logically follow from the evidence?
What other conclusions may be possible?
Am I catastrophising, demanding, or self/other-rating?
Objective thinking is pragmatic
Science evaluates an idea not just on its evidence or logical validity, but also on its usefulness to human beings. In other words, we need to be concerned with the effects, both short- and long-term, of what we believe. Questions to ask might be:
What effect does believing this have on how I feel and behave?
Does this belief help or hinder me in achieving my goals?
Objective thinking is open-minded and flexible
Nothing is seen as absolute or the last word. Beliefs are seen as theories that are subject to change as new evidence comes along and existing ideas are proved false. Objectivity encourages us to continually search for explanations that are more accurate and useful than the ones we have now.
Why objective thinking is important to stress management
Objective thinking is a necessary component of the other attitudes. For example, increasing your tolerance for frustration and discomfort means keeping their badness in perspective, rather than overgeneralising them into awful or intolerable.
Unscientific thinking can itself create distress. This can happen when you view criticism as unbearable, demand that you succeed, or rate yourself as a total person because you fail at something.
Believing you are controlled by outside forces, like fate or luck, can lead to feelings of anxiety, powerlessness and hopelessness; and cause you to take a passive approach to life and its problems.
Erroneous thinking, as we shall see later, can also make it hard to practice the coping strategies in Part Three.
Developing objective thinking
Use rational self-analysis to challenge erroneous thinking
Use essays to critically examine magical thinking.
Read up on rational thinking.
Developing many of the other principles will also move you toward more objective ways of thinking (especially emotional and behavioural responsibility, self-direction, and flexibility).

12. Acceptance of reality

It makes sense, wherever possible, to change things you dislike. But there will be some things you will not be able to change. You then have two choices – you can rail against fate and stay distressed; or you can accept reality and move on.
The principle of acceptance
To accept something is to (1) acknowledge that it exists, (2) believe there is no reason it should not exist, and (3) see it as bearable. Lets examine these three aspects of acceptance in more detail:
Acknowledgment of reality. This involves admitting that reality – including unpleasant reality – exists. You see it as inevitable that many things will not be to your liking. You view uncertainty, frustration and disappointment as aspects of normal life.
Absence of any demand that reality not exist. This means that although you may prefer yourself, other people, things, or circumstances to be different from how they are (and you may even work at changing them), you know there is no Law of the Universe which says they should or must be different.
Keeping unwanted realities in perspective. You dislike some things, and find them unpleasant – but you avoid catastrophising them into horribleor unbearable.
Acceptance of reality includes many things
There are many realities people are called upon to accept. Here are some that are especially relevant to stress management:
Uncertainty. In the real world there are no certainties. The outcomes of our actions can never be guaranteed. It is helpful to anticipate the future, but we can never know for sure what it holds.
Utopia is unlikely. You and I will almost certainly never get everything we want. This includes total happiness or personal perfection. We will probably always experience some pain, anxiety, or depression.
There are limitations to personal change. There are many things we can change, like anxiety and depression. But there are some things that will not change no matter how much we try, as Martin Seligman points out in his book What You Can Change and What You Cant. Accepting this reality can help people avoid much unnecessary distress.
We cannot change others. One thing we can never change is other people. Only they can change themselves. Accepting this reality may save a lot of pain.
What acceptance is not
Many people have trouble with the idea of acceptance. They think that to accept something means they have to like it, agree with it, justify it, be indifferent to it, or resign themselves to it.
Acceptance is none of these things. You can dislike something, see it as unjustified and continue to prefer that it not exist. You can be concerned about it. You can take action to change it, if change is possible. But you can still accept it by rejecting the idea that it should not exist and that it absolutely must be changed.
Why acceptance is important to stress management
Hurting yourself does not change what you dislike, and will only take away energy better used to confront and solve problems. By reducing the intensity of your bad feelings, you will be less disabled by them. Acceptance can, paradoxically, increase your chances of changing what you dislike!
Acceptance will help you tolerate what you cannot change, and avoid adding unnecessary emotional pain to the unpleasantness of the situation itself.
Acceptance, finally, will help you avoid wasting time and energy and risking your emotional or physical health by striving for what is unattainable.
Developing acceptance of reality
Take note of non-accepting thoughts and behaviour. Watch out for:
Believing that people or things should be different to how they are; that it is awful and intolerable when things are not as they should be; that the world should be a fair place; that one should always be treated fairly.
Feeling angry but unable to do anything.
Needing to get other people to admit they are wrong, or avoiding acceptance because it might mean giving away a sense of self-rightness.
Keep reality in perspective. When facing an unpleasant development in your life:
Use the time-projection technique.
Ask Is this situation, event or possibility really so bad for me?
Develop a catastrophe scale.
Query yourself: How much do I really need to upset myself over this?
Challenge your demands that reality not be as it is. Ask yourself:
Can I really change (this person, this situation, etc.)?
Though I would prefer that be different to how it is, where is it written that it should be?
Why must this not happen?
Is demanding that this person change going to make them change – or would I be better to try and understand how they see things and then attempt to talk with them?
Practice acceptance:
Regularly remind yourself that human beings are fallible and not perfectible.
Don’t retaliate when people do things you dislike.
See the world for what it really is (and always has been) – imperfect.
Practice being satisfied with compromises and less than perfect solutions to problems.
To sum up
We can sum up our discussion of acceptance – and in fact all the rational principles – with a paraphrase of a well-known saying. It suggests that to achieve happiness, there are three things to strive for: the courage to change the things we can, the serenity to accept the things we cant – and the wisdom to know the difference.
One last thing. Dont make these principles into demands. They are ideals. Probably no-one could practice them all consistently. Rather than see them as absolute mustsfor managing your stress, use them as guidelines to a better life.

Management Notes

Importance of Goal Setting

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Goal setting does not have to be boring. There are many benefits and advantages to having a set of goals to work towards.

Setting goals helps trigger new behaviors, helps guides your focus and helps you sustain that momentum in life.

Goals also help align your focus and promote a sense of self-mastery. In the end, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve upon something that you don’t properly manage. Setting goals can help you do all of that and more.

The Importance and Value of Goal Setting

Up until 2001, goals were divided into three types or groups (Elliot and McGregor (2001):

  1. Mastery goals
  2. Performance-approach goals
  3. Performance-avoidance goals

A mastery goal is a goal someone sets to accomplish or master something such as “I will score higher in this event next time.”

A performance-approach goal is a goal where someone tries to do better than his or her peers. This type of goal could be a goal to look better by losing 5 pounds or getting a better performance review.

A performance-avoidance goal is a goal where someone tries to avoid doing worse that there peers such as a goal to avoid negative feedback.

Research done by Elliot and McGregor in 2001 changed these assumptions. Until this study was published, it was assumed that mastery goals were the best and performance-approach goals were at times good, and other times bad. Performance-avoidance goals were deemed the worst, and, in fact, bad.

The implied assumption, as a result of this, was that there were no bad mastery goals or mastery-avoidance goals.

Elliot and McGregor’s study challenged those assumptions by proving that master-avoidance goals do exist and proving that each type of goal can, in fact, be useful depending on the circumstances.

Elliot and McGregor’s research utilized a 2 x 2 achievement goal framework comprised of:

  1. Mastery-approach
  2. Mastery-avoidance
  3. Performance-approach
  4. Performance-avoidance

These variables were tested in 3 studies. In experiments one and two, explanatory factor analysis was used to break down 12 goal-setting questions into 4 factors, as seen in the diagram below.

Confirmatory factor analysis was used at a later date to show that mastery-avoidance and mastery-approach fit the data better than mastery alone.

Why Set Goals in Life?

The truth is that some goals are achieved while others are not and it’s important to understand why.

Mark Murphy the founder and CEO of LeadershipIQ.com and author of the book “Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” has gone through years of research in science and how the brain works and how we are wired as a human being as it pertains to goal setting.

Murphy’s book “Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” combines the latest research in psychology and brain science on goal-setting as well as the law of attraction to help fine-tune the process.

A HARD goal is an achieved goal, according to Murphy. Murphy tells us to put our present cost into the future and our future benefit into the present.

What this really means is don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today. We tend to value things in the present moment much more than we value things in the future.

Setting goals is a process that changes over time. The goals you set in your twenties will most likely be very different from the goals you set in your forties.

Whatever your age doesn’t really matter in the end, as long as you continually revisit your life goals and work to update them.

Benefits of Goal Setting

Edward Locke and Gary Latham (1990) are leaders in goal-setting theory. According to their research, goals not only affect behavior as well as job performance, but they also help mobilize energy which leads to a higher effort overall. Higher effort leads to an increase in persistent effort.

Goals help motivate us to develop strategies that will enable us to perform at the required goal level.

Accomplishing the goal can either lead to satisfaction and further motivation or frustration and lower motivation if the goal is not accomplished.

Goal setting can be a very powerful technique, under the right conditions according to the research. (Locke and Latham).

According to Lunenburg (2011), the motivational impact of goals may, in fact, be affected by moderators such as self-efficacy and ability as well.

5 Proven Ways Goal Setting is Effective

Locke and Latham’s research have shown us that goal setting is indeed very effective.

In the 1968 article “Toward a Theory of Task Motivation” Locke showed us that clear goals and appropriate feedback served as a good motivator for employees (Locke, 2004).

Locke’s research also revealed that working toward a goal is a major source of motivation, which, in turn, improves performance.

Locke reviewed over a decade of research of laboratory and field studies on the effects of goal setting and performance. Locke found that over 90% of the time, goals that were specific and challenging, but not overly challenging, led to higher performance when compared to easy goals or goals that were too generic such as a goal to do your best.

Dr. Gary Latham also studied the effects of goal setting in the workplace. Latham’s results supported Locke’s findings and showed there is indeed a link that is inseparable between goal setting and workplace performance.

Locke and Latham published work together in 1990 with their work “A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance” stressing the importance of setting goals that were both specific and difficult.

Locke and Latham also stated that there are five goal-setting principles that can help improve your chances of success.

  1. Clarity
  2. Challenge
  3. Commitment
  4. Feedback
  5. Task Complexity

Clarity is important when it comes to goals. Setting goals that are clear and specific eliminate the confusion that occurs when a goal is set in a more generic manner.

Challenging goals stretch your mind and cause you to think bigger. This helps you accomplish more. Each success you achieve helps you build a winning mindset.

Commitment is also important. If you don’t commit to your goal with everything you have it is less likely you will achieve it.

Feedback helps you know what you are doing right and how you are doing. This allows you to adjust your expectations and your plan of action going forward.

Task Complexity is the final factor. It’s important to set goals that are aligned with the goal’s complexity.

Goal Setting Improve Performance

Goal setting and task performance were studied by Locke & Latham, (1991). Goal setting theory is based upon the simplest of introspective observations, specifically, that conscious human behavior is purposeful.

This behavior is regulated by one’s goals. The directedness of those goals characterizes the actions of all living organisms including things like plants.

Goal-setting theory, according to the research, states that the simplest and most direct motivational explanation on why some people perform better than others is because they have different performance goals.

Two attributes have been studied in relation to performance:

  1. Content
  2. Intensity

In regard to content, the two aspects that have been focused on include specificity and difficulty. Goal content can range from vague to very specific as well as difficult or not as difficult.

Difficulty depends upon the relationship someone has to the task. The same task or goal can be easy for one person, and more challenging for the next, so it’s all relative.

On average though the higher the absolute level is of a goal, the more difficult it is to achieve. According to research, there have been more than 400 studies that have examined the relationship of goal attributes to task performance.

According to Locke & Latham, (1991), it has been consistently found that performance is a linear function of a goal’s difficulty.

Given an adequate level of ability and commitment, the harder a goal, the higher the performance.

What the researchers discovered was that people normally adjust their level of effort to the difficulty of the goal. As a result, they try harder for difficult goals when compared to easier goals.

The principle of goal-directed action is not restricted to conscious action, according to the research.

Goal-directed action is defined by three attributes, according to Lock & Latham.

  1. Self-generation
  2. Value-significance
  3. Goal-causation

Self-generation refers to the source of energy integral to the organism. Value-significance refers to the idea that the actions not only make it possible but necessary to the organism’s survival. Goal-causation means the resulting action is caused by a goal.

While we can see that all living organisms experience some kind of goal-related action, humans are the only organisms that possess a higher form of consciousness, at least according to what we know at this point in time.

When humans take purposeful action, they set goals in order to achieve them.

Management Notes

Periodicity in Goal Setting: Short, Medium, Long-Term

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Goal Setting is an activity that many coaches undertaken with their teams to try to set a point in the horizon for individuals and the team to work towards. Setting targets if completed properly can lead to increased performance and the ability to monitor and evaluate a program on a number of different levels.

When undertaking this type of exercise it is important to realize there are three categories goals, targets or Keep Performance Indicators (KPI’s) can be utilized within. These are short, medium, and long-term goals. The exact length of time for each target depends on the overall length of time a program is in operation for. For example, if a program ran for six months, then the long-term goals would be built around a six-month period. Medium term goals could be up to a month in length with short-term goal being based on weekly stages.

Short-term targets or KPI’s should build up to achieving what the desire medium term goals are. These medium term goals once cumulated, should then attain the long-term objectives. By structuring the ambitions of an individual or team in this way, they will link together and make often complicated or significantly larger goals more manageable and easier to plan in achieving.

Short Term Goals should be developed with a finite amount of time in mind. These goals should be the easiest to achieve in regards to minimal time allocated to the task. This may include for instance an individual player aiming to improve their road running time over three kilometres by five seconds each week. This goal during seasonal competition can then be aimed for each week and achieved within this time.

Medium Term Goals should be the result of an individual/team achieving or completing a task because of consistently satisfying the requirements of their short-term goals. An example of a medium term goal for the individual in our earlier referenced running scenario might be that the player increases the distance to four kilometres at the end of the first months training.

Like with the cumulative effect of the short-term goals leading to the completion of a medium-term goal, so too when a series of medium-term goals are completed then a Long Term Goal should be satisfied. Continuing with our example of the players running efforts, by the end of the season the player will be aiming to be running a total distance of eight kilometres.

Goals’ setting is a valuable tool once it is implemented properly and with purpose. By building goal setting into your team’s activities players will be able to better identify what is expected of them from the team. Additionally as a coach, you will also be able to remind players or teams of their responsibility and commitment to the team goals and hold the individual/team accountable to these.

Management Notes

Setting and achieving goals

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Have you thought about what you want to be doing in five years’ time? Are you clear about what your main objective at work is at the moment? Do you know what you want to have achieved by the end of today?

If you want to succeed, you need to set goals. Without goals you lack focus and direction. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life’s direction; it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Think about it: having a million dollars in the bank is only proof of success if one of your goals is to amass riches. If your goal is to practice acts of charity, then keeping the money for yourself is suddenly contrary to how you would define success.

To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can’t simply say, “I want” and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between, there are some very well-defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish.

The Five Golden Rules

  1. Set Goals That Motivate You

When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you: this means making sure that they are important to you, and that there is value in achieving them. If you have little interest in the outcome, or they are irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.

Set goals that relate to the high priorities in your life. Without this type of focus, you can end up with far too many goals, leaving you too little time to devote to each one. Goal achievement requires commitment, so to maximize the likelihood of success, you need to feel a sense of urgency and have an “I must do this” attitude. When you don’t have this, you risk putting off what you need to do to make the goal a reality. This in turn leaves you feeling disappointed and frustrated with yourself, both of which are de-motivating. And you can end up in a very destructive “I can’t do anything or be successful at anything” frame of mind.\

  1. Set SMART Goals

You have probably heard of SMART goals  already. But do you always apply the rule? The simple fact is that for goals to be powerful, they should be designed to be SMART. There are many variations of what SMART stands for, but the essence is this – goals should be:

  • S
  • M
  • A
  • R
  • Time Bound.

Set Specific Goals

Your goal must be clear and well defined. Vague or generalized goals are unhelpful because they don’t provide sufficient direction. Remember, you need goals to show you the way. Make it as easy as you can to get where you want to go by defining precisely where you want to end up.

Set Measurable Goals

Include precise amounts, dates, and so on in your goals so you can measure your degree of success. If your goal is simply defined as “To reduce expenses” how will you know when you have been successful? In one month’s time if you have a 1 percent reduction or in two years’ time when you have a 10 percent reduction? Without a way to measure your success you miss out on the celebration that comes with knowing you have actually achieved something.

Set Attainable Goals

Make sure that it’s possible to achieve the goals you set. If you set a goal that you have no hope of achieving, you will only demoralize yourself and erode your confidence.

However, resist the urge to set goals that are too easy. Accomplishing a goal that you didn’t have to work hard for can be anticlimactic at best, and can also make you fear setting future goals that carry a risk of non-achievement. By setting realistic yet challenging goals, you hit the balance you need. These are the types of goals that require you to “raise the bar” and they bring the greatest personal satisfaction.

Set Relevant Goals

Goals should be relevant to the direction you want your life and career to take. By keeping goals aligned with this, you’ll develop the focus you need to get ahead and do what you want. Set widely scattered and inconsistent goals, and you’ll fritter your time and your life away.

Set Time-Bound Goals

Your goals must have a deadline. Again, this means that you know when you can celebrate success. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases and achievement will come that much quicker.

3. Set Goals in Writing

The physical act of writing down a goal makes it real and tangible. You have no excuse for forgetting about it. As you write, use the word “will” instead of “would like to” or “might.” For example, “I will reduce my operating expenses by 10 percent this year,” not “I would like to reduce my operating expenses by 10 percent this year.” The first goal statement has power and you can “see” yourself reducing expenses, the second lacks passion and gives you an excuse if you get sidetracked.

  1. Make an Action Plan

This step is often missed in the process of goal setting. You get so focused on the outcome that you forget to plan all of the steps that are needed along the way. By writing out the individual steps, and then crossing each one off as you complete it, you’ll realize that you are making progress towards your ultimate goal. This is especially important if your goal is big and demanding, or long-term. Read our article on Action Plans  for more on how to do this.

  1. Stick With It!

Remember, goal setting is an ongoing activity, not just a means to an end. Build in reminders to keep yourself on track, and make regular time-slots available to review your goals. Your end destination may remain quite similar over the long term, but the action plan you set for yourself along the way can change significantly. Make sure the relevance, value, and necessity remain high.

Management Notes

General principles of Time Management

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Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves a juggling act of various demands upon a person relating to work, social life, family, hobbies, personal interests and commitments with the finiteness of time. Using time effectively gives the person “choice” on spending/managing activities at their own time and expediency. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects, and goals complying with a due date. Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Time management is usually a necessity in any project development as it determines the project completion time and scope. It is also important to understand that both technical and structural differences in time management exist due to variations in cultural concepts of time.

The major themes arising from the literature on time management include the following:

  • Creating an environment conducive to effectiveness
  • Setting of priorities
  • The related process of reduction of time spent on non-priorities
  • Implementation of goals

Time management is related to different concepts such as:

  • Project management: Time management can be considered to be a project management subset and is more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time management has also been identified as one of the core functions identified in project management.
  • Attention management relates to the management of cognitive resources, and in particular the time that humans allocate their mind (and organize the minds of their employees) to conduct some activities.

Organizational time management is the science of identifying, valuing and reducing time cost wastage within organizations. It identifies, reports and financially values sustainable time, wasted time and effective time within an organization and develops the business case to convert wasted time into productive time through the funding of products, services, projects or initiatives at a positive return on investment.

Analysis

ABCD analysis

A technique that has been used in business management for a long time is the categorization of large data into groups. These groups are often marked A, B, and C—hence the name. Activities are ranked by these general criteria:

A – Tasks that are perceived as being urgent and important,

B – Tasks that are important but not urgent,

C – Tasks that are unimportant but urgent,

D – Tasks that are unimportant and not urgent.

Each group is then rank-ordered by priority. To further refine the prioritization, some individuals choose to then force-rank all “B” items as either “A” or “C”. ABC analysis can incorporate more than three groups.

ABC analysis is frequently combined with Pareto analysis.

Pareto analysis

The Pareto Principle is the idea that 80% of tasks can be completed in 20% of the given time, and the remaining 20% of tasks will take up 80% of the time. This principle is used to sort tasks into two parts. According to this form of Pareto analysis it is recommended that tasks that fall into the first category be assigned a higher priority

The 80-20-rule can also be applied to increase productivity: it is assumed that 80% of the productivity can be achieved by doing 20% of the tasks. Similarly, 80% of results can be attributed to 20% of activity. If productivity is the aim of time management, then these tasks should be prioritized higher.

The 7 Principles of Time Management

1. Have a clear vision

  • Ask yourself “What am I actually trying to achieve?”
  • The clearer you are about your vision, the more likely you are to achieve it.
  • It’s as much about what you’re not going to to do as it is about what you are, you are establishing limits. For example, “I will process my emails for no more than 20 minutes.”

2. Do one thing at a time

  • Successful people don’t take on too much. They concentrate on doing and finishing one thing at a time as far as possible.
  • Little and often: The human mind works best when we apply this principle.

3. Define your limits

  • The best way to be creative is not to try to think without limits, but to carefully define what those limits should be. Limitations actually encourage creativity.
  • If you feel you can’t get going or you’re getting nowhere, it’s probably due to poorly defined limits. For instance, if you have a limited amount of time you will be able to concentrate your efforts better than if you have unlimited time.

4. Use closed lists

  • Any list that has a line drawn at the end of it can’t be added to. This enables you to deal with all the items on it without the distraction of new work being added. 
  • Once defined, it can only stay the same or get smaller. 
  • It doesn’t matter which order you do things, provided you are going to clear the whole list.  
  • If you have a backlog of work to deal with, use the closed list principle.

5. Isolate your backlog don’t add to it

  • Get the system for new stuff right. You need to be able to process a day’s work.
  • Get rid of the backlog if you’ve got steps 1 and 2 right you can chip away at the backlog. It will only get smaller, until it disappears altogether.

6. Reduced random factors

  • These are things that stop us from completing our planned actions and can never be eliminated. Your day starts to run you rather than you running it.
  • We tend to react to random elements; that is, we use the reactive part of our brain to react to who, or whatever, makes the most ‘noise’. 
  • We tend to prioritize by this noise.

7. Commitment v Interest

  • Compare ‘I’m interested in writing’ to ‘I’m committed to getting a regular column into the local newspaper’. Nothing is likely to come of it unless interest is turned into commitment.
  • What are you prepared to commit to? Commitments are limited. Knowing your commitments is an essential part of making decisions and therefore one of the key principles of time management that can be called effective. They are what make the real difference in your life and work.
  • Often, our rational and reactive minds pull in opposite directions. For example, “I want to be slim, but I also want some cake”. The question to ask is “How will you feel when you’ve done it?” This is where commitment counts.
  • If you’re considering a commitment, ask yourself three questions: (1) What would I need to start doing in order to commit myself fully to this? (2) What would I need to stop doing in order to commit myself fully to this? (3) Would I be prepared to pay the price for full commitment to this?
Management Notes

Elements of Creativity Influence and Flexibility

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Creativity is something that you can turn on at will just like a light switch.

All you need are the four essential elements of Creativity: Focus, People, Tools and Time.

  • Focus: Find an area of general or specific focus finish this sentence: “I want to generate ideas in the that will help me”
  • People: The number of people only depends on who is around you can do it with Numero Uno, 15, 50 or more. Try to get a few mavericks to attend more formal planning sessions to help you see a different picture.
  • Tools: Thinking tools are essential you can use simple tools such as SCAMPER to generate ideas (divergent thinking) and harvest those ideas (convergent thinking) are easily grasped and applied.
  • Time: Taking time out to think in a deliberate manner will allow you to have creativity on demand. Use that time to take walks, meditate, muse over things will give you those.

Creative thinkers try to play with the fundamental concepts of all established facts using different analogies and metaphors and through the usage of unique symbolisms. They try to find as much similarity of their idea with the present situation so that the listeners do not get alienated and then pitch in their individual thoughts. This saves them from premature judgement and filtering.

Creative thinkers take caution that they don’t sound too extreme in their ideas. They always opt for the intermediate approach while building imaginative and ideal situations. They also share techniques in which their vision can become a feasible reality and they do it by relating their ideas with previously mentioned processes and find links with them, which makes the listeners think about the idea in a different light.

The most effective methods to increase creativity in a team are:

  • To be happy and cheerful
  • Encourage transparent communication
  • Trust people and accept failures
  • Be in contact with external information
  • Be independent of apprehensions
  • Support participation in decision making
  • Encourage new ideas

While innate creativity doesn’t need to be particularly nurtured, training the management staff in creativity should be done by experts on how to stimulate creativity in their team members and how to provide motivation. The management should also encourage people for the use of creative techniques and initiate their team mates towards them.

Application of Creativity

Creativity uses a generation of ideas with value to combine various features from them and create a new path to solve concrete problems. This helps people in adapting to change, while still improving the performance of the organization. Creative thinking encourages participation in crucial decisions which immediately changes the attitude of the staff of the organization in a positive direction.

Some expected results of the creativity process are as follows:

  • Innovation through new product and processes
  • Improvement of existing products or services
  • Increase in employee productivity
  • Increase in work efficiency
  • Increase in flexibility
  • Increase in quality

Characteristics of Providers

The implementation of creative techniques in an organization needs the assistance of external consultants and experts who undertake such projects and are well acquainted with the implementation of such processes within the boundaries of the organization.

Their job description revolves around presenting different techniques, teaching their application, profiling people based on their job requirements and providing them with focused training methods. They also define the problems and initiate the changes as per the needs of the process.

Management Notes

Factors influencing creativity

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Creativity is something which cannot be taught as well as not something you are born with either. But it certainly is the most important part of any brilliant innovators success. When talking about creativity the conversation can’t be constrained to artists like musicians, dancers, painters, etc. It is a broader term under which multiple segments flow and it includes everyone from a school student trying to embellish his school project to an entrepreneur with his budding brilliant idea. But why some turn out to be amazing while some fail? Well there are several factors that influence one’s creativity, have a look at them and find out why you are so creative or why you are not. It also includes the reason why one’s creativity levels fluctuate.

  • Experiences: Experiences are a key player in creative thinking, the more you experience more influenced you get. These experiences define your ideas and creativity which are presented through your work.
  • Fearlessness: Fearlessness is a major factor having impact on one’s creativity. A person who thinks that he is not creative can never be. Having doubts is ok, but being worried about the success of an idea clearly shows that you lack faith in your ideology. Experts say ‘Be fearless with your creativity and you’ll open more doors for new ideas.’
  • Desire: Desire is factor of creativity which is often overlooked but it is as vital as any other criterion for growing as a creative individual. Science bluntly states that, if you simply don’t want to change things (or solve problems or inspire others or do new things) then you won’t.
  • Atmosphere and Environment: Yes! It all about the world around us. Atmosphere and environment both go hand in hand to influence an individual’s creativity levels. ‘Environmental Factors Affecting Creativity and Innovation’ says: Although innovation and creativity can emerge in a variety of settings and situations, some environments are more conducive to the creative process. In one large study, it was found that having a vision, being task-oriented, and engaging in external communication had a strong relationship to creativity and innovation.
  • Space and Time: Productivity may increase under pressure but creativity has no positive influence if the undisturbed space and right amount of time is not provided. John Cleese’s talk on creativity states: That having a start and end time to keep your creative space open is essential. Without a dedicated time block, it is easy to leave a creative mindset to focus on trivial matters that are easier to deal with than to take the time to do things that are important. It also takes time to get into your creative mode.He says that you must realize that it will take time to achieve something truly original and creative. There is a sense of discomfort.
Management Notes

Methods of enhancing creativity

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Creativity can be enhanced through many creative techniques. In fact, creativity can not only be enhanced but also directed and focused on a branch of study or craft. For example, people in sales and marketing may utilize a different set of creative techniques, as compared to those in quality management.

Attempts to enhance the creativity in the minds of people can be put under two important classifications:

Techniques suited to enhance creativity in individuals, and

Creativity enhancing techniques for a group of individuals, which suits the needs of the working force.

Improving creativity for individuals is the act of enhancing the powers of intuition and removing mental blocks, such as fear of criticism and ridicule. At the basic level, enhancing creativity in work circles is not possible without first enhancing team building. This will bring a change in group dynamics and will pave the way for creative thoughts and innovation.

All group creativity techniques can be applied to individuals successfully. That is because Creativity is an attribute of an individual person, however it can be developed more efficiently in a group or a team because individuals need to interact with other individuals to express their creative ideas and make a practical working model based on it.

Creativity

There are many computer-based creativity supporting tools, such as artificial intelligence models, information systems, etc. which can be used to enhance creativity, explore alternatives to fixed ideas and to encourage imagination.

Analytical Techniques

Analytical Techniques involve a linear approach to thoughts as in a sequence of steps to follow. A prime examples of this technique will be the “Wh-question” technique, where the participant is encouraged to carry his thought forward by asking him leading questions such as, “Who, What, When, Where, Why and How). These questions are known to stimulate different directions of thought and help in organizing all the points of these thoughts under one context or narrative.

Intuitive Techniques

In comparison, Intuitive Techniques are less structured techniques, where the instructor has the option to skip a few steps and allow the participant to give a whole answer at the end, as per his narrative. It is often compared with the “Wishful Thinking” technique.

Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Thinking

A third classification of creativity, apart from the Analytical Approach and the Intuitive Approach, is dependent on Divergent Thinking and Convergent Thinking.

Divergent Thinking is the process of encouraging generation of free-flowing ideas, which are then channelized in different directions depending on the requirements of the process.

In contrast, Convergent Thinking is all about filtering all the free-flowing thoughts generated during the Divergent Process and subjecting them to further filtration to single out those ideas that have a truly innovative and practical value.

Both these thinking processes are complementary and help people find numerous alternatives to seeing the same situation and finalizing the one that can be implemented. Caution must be observed in comparing divergent thinking with combination thinking, which may sound the same but are different.

In combination thinking, the conflicting ideas of people are put in a coherent context, so that everyone agrees to the final suggestion without feeling that his/her idea has been stifled or compromised with.

Management Notes

Brainstorming, Brain Stilling

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Brainstorming is one of the most frequently used group-based creativity process used for problem solving. It is a method using which numerous ideas can be collected from a group of people in a short time. It also provides a good background to have open discussions and communication during the entire project’s duration.

Brainstorming sessions generally take place between 10 people, however the numbers vary depending on various factors. The discussions of the group will be moderated by a leader who can also help in triggering different thoughts, which gives the participants time to connect their thoughts organically.

The whole process of brainstorming often takes one hour and is conducted through several stages, the first one of which is stating the topic of discussion and calling for different solutions. However, a creative thinking expert will replace the standard approach from “How to”, and put it down as “In how many ways can we”.

The four basic rules of brainstorming are:

  • No prejudice against any participant.
  • No criticism of any idea, however unlikely.
  • More the ideas, the better. People use them to connect different thoughts.
  • Sharing relevant experiences to help people use ideas to construct new ones.

Like the verbal communication method used in brainstorming, there is also another written medium of creative thinking known as Brain-Writing. In this process, ideas are generated by individuals and then written down on a piece of paper. These notes are then reproduced and exchanged with other members of the group, who will then read these notes and write down ideas.

Generally, Brain-Writing follows the 6-3-5 Method in which six members of the group generate and write down three ideas in five minutes. After five minutes, each member of the group will pass his paper to the participant on the right, who reads it and adds three new ideas in another five minutes. This process continues until each participant gets the original piece of paper back.

When you’re marketing a business, creativity, fresh ideas and innovation can contribute greatly to the success of your efforts. But creativity isn’t easily controlled, and often fresh ideas are hard to find. When you’re trying to come up with effective marketing campaigns, advertisements or slogans, brainstorming can help you get the creative juices flowing.

Collects Different Viewpoints

In any business, when a single person is responsible for generating all of your ideas, those ideas are likely to become stale or repetitive at some point. During a brainstorming session, however, you can collect ideas from a number of others. Those ideas may not be brilliant or even viable, but as you brainstorm together your ideas may evolve into something that is fresh and effective. Since your coworkers or associates likely have varying backgrounds, interests and motivations, they may help you generate ideas that no single individual could have fleshed out on her own.

Encourages Critical Thinking

One major advantage of brainstorming is that it requires you to think critically to solve a certain problem or create something innovative. The more you brainstorm, the better you become at encountering a problem and thinking about it critically. This means taking a topic or situation and looking at it in a logical and clear way, free from personal bias. Critical thinking may require you to break a topic or problem down into smaller parts. For instance, if you need to form a campaign around a new product, you’ll need to consider various pieces of the campaign, like product packaging, advertising mediums and messaging.

Gets You Out of Your Head

When you need to be creative, your own brain can become your worst enemy. That’s because creative thoughts may get jumbled and confused in your head, preventing you from thinking them through clearly. You also may come up with a vague idea, but find yourself unable to get the idea to take definite shape. Brainstorming requires you to pull the jumbled ideas from your head and get them out either audibly or on paper. Seeing or discussing these ideas can help you give them detail and shape, increasing the likelihood of finding something innovative.

Brainstorming Builds Teams

When you practice brainstorming as a group, you take team ownership of a campaign, product or event. This means that one person isn’t left feeling like he is carrying the workload for the entire company, and also cultivates a feeling of team ownership. Groups that practice brainstorming together may also learn how to work together better. Your brainstorming sessions will enable you to see certain talents or expertise in your coworkers of which you weren’t aware, which can be a great advantage when you need help in the future.

Brain Stilling

Brain stilling is allowing unconscious mind to work on the problem. The unconscious mind provides intuitive solutions. Brain stilling is also used to understand the others’ viewpoint with full concentration on the description provided. Ability to suspend judgment till the other person presents his view completely is important. Top managers need to cultivate the ability to combine intelligences of many people. Spirituality scholars with focus on management even talk of utilizing the universal intelligence in decision making.

Brain storming is a group creativity enhancing technique. In this technique, the members of the group are provided continuous stimulation in the form of ideas presented by others. Some of these ideas may provide the stimulus to bring forth new ideas. Every idea is recorded without any evaluation to encourage further participation by others. Top managers will get the benefit of conscious effort by many in the organization by holding brain storming sessions. The brain storming sessions can be followed by individual suggestions that are communicated after providing more time for external search and individual thinking. There is scope for intuitive suggestions also when time is provided to many for thinking.

After brain storming, some time can be given for brain stilling to allow time for the unconscious to bring out from the depths of one’s mind and brain some thing interesting that is of use to solve the problem under investigation.

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