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Better ways of Mood Management at work
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Better ways of Mood Management at work
MOOD MANAGEMENT:
Think of these situations at very start of the day to your office from your home:
Verbal conflict with your spouse/children/parent;
Breakfast served late;
Traffic jam on the way;
Flat tires and so on.
Even if you face any of these situations you will reach late to your office with an abysmal mood. So what? Everyone has bad mornings. Does bad mood really matters the day’s work? Yes. Researches point that both positive and negative moods affects productivity. The moods an individual bring with him/her have the stronger effects on the work productivity and efficiency, than the mood which is caused by the events in the work place. It is said that the start-of -day mood affect ones appraisal of subsequent event.
A mood is sum of effects caused by added experiences of all senses. It is individualistic in nature (it is relative but can be shared). Mood is time based, direction based (positive and negative moods), and is always manageable.
The general term for mood (and for emotions) has been described as “Affect’. Affect is subjectively experienced feeling state. Moods and emotions can be distinguished based on their duration and the degree of arousal; however the distinctions are not clear-cut.
Mood Defined:
According to Izard, bodily expressions are considered a significant aspect of emotions and, for example, the facial expressions of a number of basic emotions - such as fear, joy, anger and disgust. By contrast, moods have been characterized as a transient feeling state that may be too mild to be recognized by other people.
Why moods are important? The researchers’ postulates:
1. Mood states (positive/negative) have an influence on the evaluations individuals make about people and events;
2. Positive moods tend to retrieve information and memories that are positive;
3. Individuals make mood-congruent judgments which they think as reliable phenomenon;
4. People on good mood are less likely to closely examine the arguments presented to them;
5. A mood of contentment does not fit with creativity.
6. Bad/negative moods can be destructive in terms of both productivity and relationships.
7. Bad/negative moods lead to both physiological and psychological problems such as poor concentration, increased tiredness, apathy, loss of motivation, stress, and anxiety and so on.
8. Moods can enhance or hinder performance, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.
According to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman, each day we experience approximately 20,000 moments. A moment is defined as a few seconds in which our brain records an experience.
The quality of our days is determined by how our brains recognize and categorize our moments—either as positive, negative, or just neutral. If our mood is positive the days activity is smooth and if it’s negative or low everything is a struggle.
A bad mood spread like a virus to everyone you come into contact with. You being the “chief” of your department reach the office with a bad mood, you are then risking to lower the mood of your whole department. Every colleague/employee who comes in to contact with you is vulnerable to catch your mood state.
Bad moods can invite heavy losses for the organizations either if it is ignored or let unnoticed. Drop in performances; decreased satisfaction, increased absenteeism and turnover are the main outcomes of bad mood/negative mood.
On the other hand Affective Events Theory (AET) warns that an evaluative judgments regarding the job in general should not be confused with real emotions or moods that employees experience at work because moods and emotions have causes and consequences that are distinguishable from the causes of evaluative judgments, hence adequate authenticity is required to reason the employees’ behaviour to the ‘affect states’ (moods and emotions) of the individuals.
It is believed that ‘happy employees’ create ‘happy organizations’. It is so important that employees should have a ‘positive affect state’ during the work. It’s not only enough to have positive affective state during work hours but it is also essential that the same state is carried to home because many researchers have proved that employees who carry in their head the “positive affect state” had less family problems and tensions than those who carried with them the “negative affect state”.
Problems in the family may create unpleasant moods and emotions, which if the employees carry with them to the office, as mentioned earlier, it acts a virus and ‘organizational-catabolism’ occurs. Hence it is essential for an individual to maintain a ‘positive affect state’ to the maximum.
Affect state influencers
The factors induce the positive and negative affective states can be broadly classified into two major categories: the organizational factors and extra-organizational factors. The problems with in the family of an individual and outside the organizational context are considered to be extra-organizational factors.
The two factors are interrelated by the way its relationship is defined. The problems in the family may be due to the work-family spillover: a result of family-work life imbalances, hence both work and non-work factors act antecedent for the other. The table number 1 lists the organizational positive and negative affect factors.
Organizational factors
Positive affect factors-Negative affect factors
Task autonomy - Role conflict
Task significance-Role ambiguity
Work recognitions-Work load
Involvement in decision-making-Company policies
Goal achievements-Committing mistakes
Cooperative team-Task related problems
Challenging job/tasks (For high ‘n-ach’ individuals)
How to induce and increase the positive affect states:
1. The most difficult task is to make employees to reveal their moods and acknowledge that they might be feeling down. Employees may feel embarrassed to admit they feel low. Trust is the medicine. This means meeting the employees where they really are, not where you think they should be. Then your staff will trust you and work with you. Mood management requires great sensitivity and empathy.
2. Managers are best placed to improve the collective mood by being positive themselves and creating an environment that encourages openness, honesty, encouragement and support.
3. Examine work loads: A work load audit should take place to check the work loads and job demands
4. Empowering employees: Provide the required autonomy and create a sense of trust within the employees.
5. Manage employees’ conflict quickly. Else it might even lead to legal implications.
6. Create and build a culture of openness where the employees will breathe the feel of home and let them live their organization al life.
7. Managers should be counselors. They should be accountable for the family-work and work-family spill over that hugely influences the mood state of an individual. They should sense the employees’ affective state and bring them out from the dark clouds.
8. Self awareness can lead to positive changes to their own behaviour. The key skills of individual mood management are:
i. Gaining awareness of the causes and patterns of your individual moods and mood swings
ii. Learning how to interrupt negative moods and move to a state of relaxed alertness
iii. Learning how to improve your physical, emotional and mental state and to take charge of your mind through breathing techniques and redirecting your attention to more healthy thoughts.
Conclusion:
Let not the moods manage the organizations; let us manage the organizations by managing our moods. A healthy mind is healthy life. This applies to the organizations too. When an individual manage his/her moods he/she will not necessarily feel happy or upbeat all the time. What he/she will feel is more calm and relaxed, as he/she is able to diminish the impact of bad moods and increase the frequency and quality of good moods. This makes him/her happy and in turn he/she builds a happy organization.
Source:
http://scooponlive.com/
Think of these situations at very start of the day to your office from your home:
Verbal conflict with your spouse/children/parent;
Breakfast served late;
Traffic jam on the way;
Flat tires and so on.
Even if you face any of these situations you will reach late to your office with an abysmal mood. So what? Everyone has bad mornings. Does bad mood really matters the day’s work? Yes. Researches point that both positive and negative moods affects productivity. The moods an individual bring with him/her have the stronger effects on the work productivity and efficiency, than the mood which is caused by the events in the work place. It is said that the start-of -day mood affect ones appraisal of subsequent event.
A mood is sum of effects caused by added experiences of all senses. It is individualistic in nature (it is relative but can be shared). Mood is time based, direction based (positive and negative moods), and is always manageable.
The general term for mood (and for emotions) has been described as “Affect’. Affect is subjectively experienced feeling state. Moods and emotions can be distinguished based on their duration and the degree of arousal; however the distinctions are not clear-cut.
Mood Defined:
According to Izard, bodily expressions are considered a significant aspect of emotions and, for example, the facial expressions of a number of basic emotions - such as fear, joy, anger and disgust. By contrast, moods have been characterized as a transient feeling state that may be too mild to be recognized by other people.
Why moods are important? The researchers’ postulates:
1. Mood states (positive/negative) have an influence on the evaluations individuals make about people and events;
2. Positive moods tend to retrieve information and memories that are positive;
3. Individuals make mood-congruent judgments which they think as reliable phenomenon;
4. People on good mood are less likely to closely examine the arguments presented to them;
5. A mood of contentment does not fit with creativity.
6. Bad/negative moods can be destructive in terms of both productivity and relationships.
7. Bad/negative moods lead to both physiological and psychological problems such as poor concentration, increased tiredness, apathy, loss of motivation, stress, and anxiety and so on.
8. Moods can enhance or hinder performance, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.
According to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman, each day we experience approximately 20,000 moments. A moment is defined as a few seconds in which our brain records an experience.
The quality of our days is determined by how our brains recognize and categorize our moments—either as positive, negative, or just neutral. If our mood is positive the days activity is smooth and if it’s negative or low everything is a struggle.
A bad mood spread like a virus to everyone you come into contact with. You being the “chief” of your department reach the office with a bad mood, you are then risking to lower the mood of your whole department. Every colleague/employee who comes in to contact with you is vulnerable to catch your mood state.
Bad moods can invite heavy losses for the organizations either if it is ignored or let unnoticed. Drop in performances; decreased satisfaction, increased absenteeism and turnover are the main outcomes of bad mood/negative mood.
On the other hand Affective Events Theory (AET) warns that an evaluative judgments regarding the job in general should not be confused with real emotions or moods that employees experience at work because moods and emotions have causes and consequences that are distinguishable from the causes of evaluative judgments, hence adequate authenticity is required to reason the employees’ behaviour to the ‘affect states’ (moods and emotions) of the individuals.
It is believed that ‘happy employees’ create ‘happy organizations’. It is so important that employees should have a ‘positive affect state’ during the work. It’s not only enough to have positive affective state during work hours but it is also essential that the same state is carried to home because many researchers have proved that employees who carry in their head the “positive affect state” had less family problems and tensions than those who carried with them the “negative affect state”.
Problems in the family may create unpleasant moods and emotions, which if the employees carry with them to the office, as mentioned earlier, it acts a virus and ‘organizational-catabolism’ occurs. Hence it is essential for an individual to maintain a ‘positive affect state’ to the maximum.
Affect state influencers
The factors induce the positive and negative affective states can be broadly classified into two major categories: the organizational factors and extra-organizational factors. The problems with in the family of an individual and outside the organizational context are considered to be extra-organizational factors.
The two factors are interrelated by the way its relationship is defined. The problems in the family may be due to the work-family spillover: a result of family-work life imbalances, hence both work and non-work factors act antecedent for the other. The table number 1 lists the organizational positive and negative affect factors.
Organizational factors
Positive affect factors-Negative affect factors
Task autonomy - Role conflict
Task significance-Role ambiguity
Work recognitions-Work load
Involvement in decision-making-Company policies
Goal achievements-Committing mistakes
Cooperative team-Task related problems
Challenging job/tasks (For high ‘n-ach’ individuals)
How to induce and increase the positive affect states:
1. The most difficult task is to make employees to reveal their moods and acknowledge that they might be feeling down. Employees may feel embarrassed to admit they feel low. Trust is the medicine. This means meeting the employees where they really are, not where you think they should be. Then your staff will trust you and work with you. Mood management requires great sensitivity and empathy.
2. Managers are best placed to improve the collective mood by being positive themselves and creating an environment that encourages openness, honesty, encouragement and support.
3. Examine work loads: A work load audit should take place to check the work loads and job demands
4. Empowering employees: Provide the required autonomy and create a sense of trust within the employees.
5. Manage employees’ conflict quickly. Else it might even lead to legal implications.
6. Create and build a culture of openness where the employees will breathe the feel of home and let them live their organization al life.
7. Managers should be counselors. They should be accountable for the family-work and work-family spill over that hugely influences the mood state of an individual. They should sense the employees’ affective state and bring them out from the dark clouds.
8. Self awareness can lead to positive changes to their own behaviour. The key skills of individual mood management are:
i. Gaining awareness of the causes and patterns of your individual moods and mood swings
ii. Learning how to interrupt negative moods and move to a state of relaxed alertness
iii. Learning how to improve your physical, emotional and mental state and to take charge of your mind through breathing techniques and redirecting your attention to more healthy thoughts.
Conclusion:
Let not the moods manage the organizations; let us manage the organizations by managing our moods. A healthy mind is healthy life. This applies to the organizations too. When an individual manage his/her moods he/she will not necessarily feel happy or upbeat all the time. What he/she will feel is more calm and relaxed, as he/she is able to diminish the impact of bad moods and increase the frequency and quality of good moods. This makes him/her happy and in turn he/she builds a happy organization.
Source:
http://scooponlive.com/
