I will like my future boss or any manager I will be working with to understand in its totality the concept of individual behavior. I think that understanding the concept is very important to the success of manager and employee relationship at workplace. But the one aspect that stand out for me during the discussion in class was stereotype which come from perceptual distortion.
Most of us are guilty of this distortion. As we learned in class, it present itself in many forms. But the one most common at workplace is stereotypes. I think we are familiar with that word by now. Because of its presence in the news all the time. However, before talking about stereotype specifically, let see what perception distortion is and how is related to stereotype. Perception is how we view the world around us, how we receive and interprete information from the environment. But how we receive and interprete information is greatly influence by individual backgrounds, values, experiences, etcetera. Consequently, these influences which lead to individual differences on how we view the world around us might lead to distortion. Hence perceptual distortion in the form of stereotype often lead to inaccurate assumption about people. Stereotype which stem from this distortion in my opinion is a way of trying to describe or predict the performance of an individual base on the gender, creed, believes, or race of that individual.
I believe is paramount that my future manager or any manager should understand the danger of stereotype. To have a preconceived notion about an employee, a manager misses the opportunity to know the employee on a personal level. Stereotype always inhibit the avenue to foster a good relationship. It might be that it is the personal rapport that the employee needs for motivation to perform better. Or a situation where a qualified applicant was not hired because of stereotype. These examples are just tip of the iceberg about the dangers of stereotype. I think my future manager we get more out of me and the other employees if we have a better understanding.
We are all unique, and I believe every individual should be treated that way. As we learned, our personality is already set and we can do nothing about that. But the propensity of a group or some notion about a group should not be used to determine the outcome of our performance or competency. Rather, every individual should be judge base on their personal abilities and the ability to produce results.
I agree, if someone stereotypes someone before they get to know them personally they can miss out on a great worker and person.
ReplyDeleteI want to join your idea that managers must understand concepts of individual behavior in order to avoid perceptional distortions traps, such as stereotyping and others, and be able to objectively evaluate employees and their performances. If managers are able to use fair judgement of person's strength, talents, weaknesses and potential capabilities, they will be able to make better decisions while assigning responsibilities and managing work projects.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand where you are coming from. Many people , including our potential employers do use stereotypes in perceiving other people. I saw that many times and I have some friends who became victims of hidden discrimination because of perceptual distortion. That is a big problem but I think, as world is becoming more globalized, such things are slowly starting to disappear.
ReplyDeleteSometimes having an undesired accent or background might cause you a position in a company. Both me and you are immigrants here and potentially we might become victims of perceptual distortion. However, there is hardly a better place than New York to avoid being discriminated. People here are from all over the world and I noticed that my accent or background does not matter. If a person likes me, the initial barriers usually disappear quickly.
Employors may know that too people should not judge a person by their stereotyple but they still won't hire you because they do not want take risk. Some people have stereotyple that woman is bad driver so they will not hire woman to be their driver. I am certain that they know no every woman is bad driver but the fact that women has higher percentage of car accident than men may hold them back. I have hard time tell the different between stereotyple and fact. I totally agree with what you wrote above thou.
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