What does a psychologist in my company?. EN

Carmen López

Psychologist. Master in Human Resources.

Looking for talent doesn't mean that you have to read a lot of curriculums, but to follow the trace it leaves: An excellent work. Because the most important thing is not what you learn, or the companies in which you have worked in. The most important thing is what you do.

You need five things to make your work exceptional: Energy, focus, time, creativity and an total commitment to quality.

Behind these five pillars there's just one thing: Motivation. Motivation is the difference between the world champion and the second classified. Motivation makes a runner run to the finish line when he has no more stamina left, a climber reach an impossible summit, a creator fight against himself until his work is perfect. With motivation you find time where there's no more time, motivation keeps your energy level and your focus at the highest level, and makes you see the world differently. When you are motivated you are capable of throwing away an almost finished work and starting it again until it is excellent.

The motivation is generated by the necessity. It's clear: If someone is hungry, no doubt he will put all his mental, physical and time resources to satisfy that necessity. The necessity is the motive; the necessity shoots the motivation up. This isn´t new. In the 1930's, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory about the human needs. According to it, the people who mobilize their resources do it on account of a necessity: Eating, sex, money, belonging, acknowledgement or self-realization.

But to find the source of Talent we have to look beyond the necessity. There´s no doubt that the physical needs subjugate the rest: Hunger, thirst, to avoid pain... but in developed economies, these needs are very often covered. Most of the people are motivated by the superior needs in the Maslow Pyramid: Money, power, belonging, freedom, acknowledgement or self-realization. And how the marketing experts and the sales people know very well, the needs can be created, changed or slanted. You just need to control one thing: the beliefs. If someone is absolute convinced about something he becomes unstoppable.

The beliefs are the origin of everything else.

It's simple: A lot of the company's problems take place on the head of their workers and managers before they get to the income statement. Let's take a look to some examples:

Problem 1:

Communication management

Before a key employee goes to our competitor she has been thinking about it for a while. Before thinking about it there has been a reason behind. And this reason behind has probably began with a little incident. What if we could know WHAT incident? What if the solution was just telling her how important is her last project for the company? If you could with a sentence save the cost of losing a key employee, How much would you pay for those words?

Solution: The psychology of course doesn't let us read other's minds, but can detect the signs of unsatisfaction. Psychology allows us to create environments where the employees can express their doubts and frustrations. This way you can look for solutions to the conflicts before it costs money.

Problem 2.

Emotions management.

Economy are numbers, money, maths, all of them concepts controlled by the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that most diferentiates us from the rest of the animals. In the blink of an an eye we are able to master consciously our brain to make a mathematical operation, controlling the prozess all the way long. But everything starts with the behaviours and the emotions, and they are not so easy to master. Try this: Next time you're angry, try not to be angry in an instant. You won't be able to do it though you are about to ruin an important business meeting. Emotion defeats reason and negative emotions like fear, anger and anxiety are the most dificult to control.

Solution: Psychologists know that the best solution to this problem is to control the emotion before it appears, identifying the signals. Throught training you can get that skill and save a lot of problems in the office, and at home.

Case 3.

Change Management

Imagine that creativity has become a major competitive advantage to face an ambiguous market that changes rapidly. Imagine that your "Total quality" statement doesn't properly serve the demands of your customers. That statement lead you to success in the past, but today it threatens to make your company irrelevant. How to go from a Zero-Error mentality to a Continuous-Innovation one?

Solution: Psychology uses different strategies in this case, but one of the more important is the change of leadership style. You must cheer errors instead penalizing them. You have to encourage risk taking, and you have to communicate it to your employees or team. To get to that point you and your people have to change behaviors and learn to react differently to failure. The change has to come from above, from managers and directors. The most important thing is not what you say to your people, but what you DO and how you REACT. You are the role model for all of them. The psychologist can work with the behaviors and emotions of the leaders so they can transmit that change to all the people.

Psychology is a very powerful tool. Working with behaviors and emotions you can get a better work climate, more enhanced focus to the company goals, more satisfaction and motivation of your team. And at the end it is reflected on the income statement.