Integrated Adult - Ego II

Performance reviews are often sused as a threat aor perceived as such by the victims. They should be done with an attitude of helpfulness and should

be supplemented by more frequent positive correction and encouragement; don’t just say what you don’t like, but offer to help with improvement.

You may find that you misread the situation and that the employee is doing his best under difficult circumstances.

The fully-integrated Adult-Ego should be the ideal for any manager, as it can help to improve performance and also reduce stress, and I don’t think there are many managers who wouldn’t be pleased to cut down o stress in their lives.

If you don’t respond emotionally from the Child ego to a situation, you have already eliminated most of your stress. Stress is usually not due to a situation, but what you think about a situation. And responding emotionally can make the situation worse.

This integration of psychotherapy with more traditional disciplines is quite an interesting development. It means that modern scientists are at last prepared to look at such practices on the basis of whether they work or not, stripped of overt religious connotations.

Gregorian chant has been found to have many health benefits, for instance. And spiritual healing, when subjected to scientific scrutiny has been found to have biological effect, in that the growth and rate of increase of harmful organisms was reduced.

In the meantime, it might be an idea for an aware manager to start using techniques such as meditation. After all, it has been shown to reduce stress levels. Stress is your body’s response to an attitude you choose, and there are ways of helping you make better choices.

Isn’t time this age-old knowledge was made better use of in the workplace. We surely need something different because what we are doing now has quite drastic side effects, apart from not working that well from a humane point of view. There is also a case for encouraging your subordinatesto achieve this level of maturity.

You can do this by training and by your own example. make a habit of trying to defuse situations and minimize the emotional impact of a crisis. Adopt the attitude that it has happened and that the best way of handling it is what is needed, not finger-pointing and recrimination.

(continued from part I)