Kiva Talk Radio Women in Business Interviews Dr. Diane Hamilton
Kiva Talk Radio Women in Business Interviews Dr. Diane Hamilton
Mark the date . . . October 20, 2010: 10:30 am and 5:00 pm
Show Name:KIVA Talk Radio’s Women in Business Interviews Dr. Diane Hamilton
10/20/2010 10:30 AM – 45 min and 5:00 pm – 1 hour and 30 min
Description:
She’s an accomplished businessperson with real-life experience working in real estate, finance, technology and pharmaceutical industries . Her experience also includes working as an organizational development consultant helping companies with training, time management, emotional intelligence and facilitating the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument.
Having Difficulty Making Decisions? Take a Quiz to See if You see Things in Black and White or Shades of Gray
There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about why people can’t make decisions.
Of interest was how some people are so ambivalent. Shirley Wang’s article in the WSJ stated: Now, researchers have been investigating how ambivalence, or lack of it, affects people’s lives, and how they might be able to make better decisions. Overall, thinking in shades of gray is a sign of maturity, enabling people to see the world as it really is. It’s a “coming to grips with the complexity of the world,” says Jeff Larsen, a psychology professor who studies ambivalence at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Do you see the world in black and white or in shades of gray?
Different Strokes PEOPLE WHO SEE THE WORLD AS BLACK AND WHITE TEND TO…
• Speak their mind or make quick decisions.
• Be more predictable in making decisions (e.g., who they vote for).
• Be less anxious about making wrong choices.
• Have relationship conflicts that are less drawn out.
• Be less likely to consider others’ points of view.
PEOPLE WHO SEE THE WORLD IN SHADES OF GRAY TEND TO….
• Procrastinate or avoid making decisions if possible.
• Feel more regret after making decisions.
• Be thoughtful about making the right choice.
• Stay longer in unhappy relationships.
• Appreciate multiple points of view.
To find out what type you are, take the test, by clicking here.
How to Prepare For Employment Tests
Many companies are testing their potential future employees. What can do you do to be sure you ace those tests? It helps if there is a way to find out what type of test they will be administering. If you know someone who works for the company, they may be able to tell you. When I was applying to be a pharmaceutical representative in the 80s, they gave me a personality test where I had to chose from groups of words that I would use to describe me and from words I would think others would use to describe me. Today, there are a lot more tests out there and it can be a challenge to find out which ones are being used.
The Washington Post had some advice for the job applicant faced with taking a test. Some of the advice they gave were to find out details about the test, search online for practice tests to try ahead of time, try not to over-analyze the questions, don’t get freaked out if you just simply can’t remember something, and ask for your results so that you can improve on areas where you didn’t do as well.
It is important to realize that testing is becoming part of the norm. According to Forbes, “Psychological scrutiny and rigorous simulations are fast becoming a requisite part of the interview process. Gone are the days when a clutch golf swing or well-schmoozed dinner might score you a spot in the C-suite. The downturn has shed a decidedly unflattering light on subjective hiring practices. Even the standard application-interview-résumé-and-reference-check formula has come under fire for being too soft and unreliable.”
To try out some free aptitude and employment tests, check out:
http://www.jobtestprep.co.uk/jtpsite/content/en-GB/3/chooseTrial.aspx
http://sjlibrary.org/research%5Cweb/iguide_subjectList.htm?t=36&catID=1095
Facial Recognition and Emotional Intelligence
I have quite a few of my doctoral students who are working on their dissertation on emotional intelligence. In our book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I include a chapter about emotional intelligence. When I wrote my dissertation on the relationship between emotional intelligence and sales performance, I found one book to be particularly useful in explaining the different models. If you are researching emotional intelligence, I would suggest reading: Emotional Intelligence: Key Readings on the Mayer and Salovey Model. I think another very interesting and useful thing to read on the topic is this article by Mayer, et al, Human Abilities: Emotional Intelligence. It has some very comprehensive information about emotional intelligence, the difference approaches and measurement techniques, as well as what it does and does not predict. No list of important reading in the area of emotional intelligence would be complete without mentioning Daniel Goleman’s book as well . . . See: Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ.
One of my students is looking into adding the facial recognition aspect to her studies. If you missed my blog about taking facial recognition quizzes, click here. For those of you who have seen the TV show Lie to Me, they have some interesting research they tie into that show about facial recognition. Dr. Paul Ekman’s work was the inspiration for this show. On his site, he discusses whether you can be like the show’s character Cal Lightman. Ekman does a review of the show on a blog where he points out what is based on truth and what is not. Eckman has produced some courses for facial recognition called the Microexpression Training Tool or METT and the Subtle Training Expression Tool SETT. Click here for more information. To find out more about Dr. Ekman’s books, including one he wrote with the Dalai Lama, click here.
Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs and Twitter
I found an article in Psychology Today titled Understanding the Psychology of Twitter. There are some pretty interesting statistics in it about Twitter, including how only 10% of American internet users use it. One of the things the author, Moses Ma, discusses in the article is how Twitter ties into Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs.
In our book about It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I write about Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. If you’ve ever taken a business course, you will have heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow was all about understanding those things that create self-actualization, and proposed that we think of human needs as a pyramid. On the bottom you have basic needs such as physiological (the need for air, food, water, etc.), then the next level up on the pyramid is safety, followed by love/being, then esteem, and lastly self-actualization. Maslow is famous for saying many things, but the following is one that we like to quote: “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”
To read the entire article from Psychology Today, click here, or read the excerpt below about Maslow’s Theory and how it relates to Twitter.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
It’s useful to dig a bit deeper into our need for community. In fact, needs analysis one of the most powerful tools for innovators to understand, which invariably leads to the meaning of their products. So let’s look at Twitter in the context of Abraham Maslow’s concept of a hierarchy of needs, first presented in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation.”
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is most often displayed as a pyramid, with lowest levels of the pyramid made up of the most basic needs and more complex needs are at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to higher levels of needs, which become increasingly psychological and social. Soon, the need for love, friendship and intimacy become important. Further up the pyramid, the need for personal esteem and feelings of accomplishment become important. Finally, Maslow emphasized the importance of self-actualization, which is a process of growing and developing as a person to achieve individual potential.
Twitter aims primarily at social needs, like those for belonging, love, and affection. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments and families help fulfill this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community or religious groups. Clearly, feeling connected to people via Twitter helps to fulfill some of this need to belong and feel cared about.