Psychological Attributes

Part 4 in this series will focus on the enabling Human Asset Attribute of:

Psychological Attributes – which include “items” such as positive attitude, aggressiveness, risk taking, cautiousness, detail orientation, big picture orientation, etc.

From Wikipedia:

In psychology, the Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality. The theory based on the Big Five factors is called the Five Factor Model (FFM).^[1] The Big Five factors are

• openness
• conscientiousness
• extraversion
• agreeableness
• neuroticism

Acronyms commonly used to refer to the five traits collectively are OCEAN, NEOAC, or CANOE. Beneath each factor, a cluster of correlated specific traits is found; for example, extraversion includes such related qualities as gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions.

The Big Five model is able to account for different traits in personality without overlapping. During studies, the Big Five personality traits show consistency in interviews, self-descriptions and observations. Moreover, this five-factor structure seems to be found across a wide range of participants of different ages and of different cultures.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Not all of the items or behaviors or ways of thinking, that one might find in successful performers, are needed for each job task. And those that are needed may be needed only for some of the Task Performance requirements.

Be careful to not overgeneralize.

The goal is to find those that truly are key enablers of critical task performance and routine task performance, and determine whether someone’s psychological strength – or their weaknesses – will have an impact on job performance and job satisfaction.

Rocking Around the EPPI 12 Box Model Clockwise: 

The Enablers are again of two types:

Human and Environmental.

The Human Assets are:

• Awareness, knowledge, skills
• Physical attributes
• Psychological attributes
• Intellectual attributes
• Values

Awareness, knowledge, and skills – come in many types and varieties. Further complicating the performance context/ situation, one performer might need to be only aware of what other performers need to know much more about, while yet another group of performers may need to have an actual skill level.

Physical attributes – include “items” such as the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell; as well as height, weight, strength, endurance, etc.

Psychological attributes – include “items” such as positive attitude, aggressiveness, risk taking, cautiousness, detail orientation, big picture orientation, etc. Many Models exist.

Check out the APA’s Big 5 model:

• openness
• conscientiousness
• extraversion
• agreeableness
• neuroticism

I’ve posted on this Big 5 before – here and here.

And finally… wrapping up the human aspects of enablers…

Intellectual attributes – can include “items” such as conceptual thinking, concrete thinking, strategic thinking, process thinking, etc.

Values – can include such “items” as customer satisfaction orientation, teamwork, diversity, fairness, honesty, work ethic, family, etc.

And the Environmental Assets include:

• Information/ data
• Tools/ equipment
• Materials/ supplies
• Facilities/ grounds
• Budget/ headcount
• Consequences (+/ –)

Data & Information – includes all of the work orders and instructions, the policies/procedures, and all data/information needed to enable job holders to perform.

Materials & Supplies – provide all of the materials and supplies needed to enable job performance.

Tools & Equipment – provide the tools, equipment, machinery, and vehicles needed to enable performers to perform at a level of mastery.

Facilities & Grounds – provide the buildings, grounds, facilities and utilities for communications/power/water/and so on, as needed to enable performance.

Financial Systems – provide the capital and expense budgets, and the headcount budgets to management, needed to enable and support job holders in performing.

Culture & Consequences – provide and reinforce the enterprise cultural norms, and all of the management reinforcements (and extinguishments) needed to encourage (or discourage) performance.

And…

Next Month: Intellectual Attributes

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