Symbols in dreams

 

Talk of psychology and you recall 3 names for sure - Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler.

 

While Freud is known for association of dreams and Adler for fictional finalism, Jung is known for concept of collective unconscious.

 

I had meant to read Jung’s work ‘Man and His symbols’ for quite some time, and I finally managed to read it.

What are some of the things that stayed with me? Are there a few things that have relevance to field of HR?

Here are ideas/concepts that stayed with me:

1. Dreams are representations of unconscious and they have their own significance. Hence we must pay heed to them.
2. Symbols in dreams are sometimes collected from collective unconscious - that has been shaped across generations of human beings. Hence certain symbols have usually standard meanings/representations. Additionally certain kind of symbols tend to pop up across dreams.
3. Archetypes -are symbols/representations from collective unconscious, e.g-archetype of beauty and beast.
4. Unlike the conscious mind, unconscious mind is not logical but it does have significance. Hence a dream may seem illogical but it still might have meaning.
5. Every individual has a shadow. We must acknowledge shadow before ego starts developing and being in control. ‘Mandala’ usually represents centered self with a completely developed ‘ego’.
6. Concept of Synchronicity- meaningful co-incidences that are not linked by cause and effect but nonetheless these incidences seem to co-happen.
7. Animus-male archetype; and Anima- female archetype. These exist in every human being.
8. Concept of Projection- when we see a part of our shadow (which we are not comfortable acknowledging in ourselves) in someone else, we tend to get very agitated.

 

Some of these concepts seem to have applicability at workplace:

1. When you come across an employee who can't stand a colleague for no apparent reason- projection maybe at work. Hence projection may be a cause of inter-personal conflicts.
2. If you were to lead a group of employees through an associated/dissociated visualization process about company/team-- what kind of images/symbols might pop up? This might give some hints about collective unconscious/cultural essence of a company/team and that in turn might hint to what need to be worked consciously within the team.
3. Synchronicity. If it is March, employees may be less receptive to development feedback. Frankly, this sounds more like cause and effect. But I do have a feeling that synchronicity has a place in workplace too.

 

These are some initial applications I can think of. Can you think of some other applications?

 

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Sourav

Triad of learning

Is an individual responsible for his/her own learning? Most of us will contend yes.

But then what are responsibilities of other 2 stakeholders in process- manager and HR?

Other day I heard someone delineate succinctly the responsibilities.

'Employee owns, manager supports, and HR enables learning'.

Statement sounds simple and relevant! It resonates with me.

But how might this state manifest at workplace?

Employee will own initial identification of learning need and sharing same with manager.

Manager will explore along with the employee whether the correct need has been identified or not (e.g.- by using evidence procedure), facilitate effective choice of 70/20/10 learning mix, work with stakeholders (including HR) on ensuring relevant 70/20/10 learning opportunities materialize, and provide opportunities for transfer of learning back to workplace (for 20 and 10 percent).

HR supports the manager being  more effective in supporting employee through learning process.

But HR's also plays a role is enabling the process. So HR person needs to have an understanding/independent view on how process is running and intervene if process is stuck somewhere- with employee or manager.

But then HR's role is akin to a tight rope walk- you have to enable the employee and manager to drive the process and not to take over ownership of the process.

I also do feel manager has a role to play in enablement. Manager can clear log jams if s/he finds employee stuck somewhere.

A related point is that employee/manager may be stuck at what, when/where, how, or why of learning. A skill in 'enablement' is to figure out where is block/log jam and accordingly facilitate the process.

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Sourav

 

 

 

An Individual Salary Scale

'We are good paymasters. We have provided x% salary increases every year for last y years.'

'We are competitive paymasters. Our salaries are at x percentile of the market.'

These are some usual statements I have heard companies make to showcase to employees/prospective employees the external parity of their salaries.

I often felt these statistics revealed necessary but not sufficient data for a ‘particular employee’. On second thoughts, that’s obvious given that statistics are calculated on basis of a ‘representative employee’.

Hence a particular employee might still be left with a question – ‘so how competitive is my salary wrt market? Is external parity of my salary high, medium, or low?’.

Managers usually respond to such questions by sharing ‘representative employee’ data. But employees also compare their particular situation to anecdotal evidence e.g. – what their friends are earning in other companies, what exiting employees are being offered.

Manager may well counter anecdotal evidence by sharing compensation benchmarking data. Frankly, that’s the best a manager can possibly do.  But compensation benchmarking data is still for a ‘representative employee’.

Can an employee find some compensation comparison data point which is more specific/particular to his/her situation?

A few years back I formulated a relevant methodology specific/particular to an employee. I must share that this makes more sense from an Indian market perspective – given the consistently high salary growth rate in India over last decade.

An employee could look at ' his salary grows y times in how many years’.

For e.g - let's take y as 2. Hence metric is ' your salary doubles in how many years'.

If your salary is doubling every 5 years, your salary is growing annually at 15% (calculate it for yourself J)  That’s a little higher than annual salary growth rate in India for last decade. So you probably are doing well for yourself.

If it’s doubling every 4 years, your salary is growing annually at 19%. If that’s the case, you are doing really good for yourself.

If it’s doubling every 3 years, your salary is growing annually at 26%. If that’s the case, you possibly are doing damn good for yourself.

Do a quick math and check for yourself what rate your salary has been growing at. L

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Sourav

Blind Spots: Intentions v/s Perception of Actions

 

I often find quite a bit of difference between one’s self-perception and perception of one by others. That's where concepts like Johari window and 360 degree processes add value – they make individuals aware of their blind spots.

 

Even well intentioned people seem to have these blind spots. When I first realized this, I was a bit surprised.

 

But then, should it be a surprise?

 

I think the cause of this phenomenon is - we evaluate ourselves on basis of intentions behind our actions while others evaluate us on basis of how our actions are perceived by them'.

 

This also is probably cause for the phenomenon of - we don't seem to live up to the standards we expect from others.

We see actions of others, which we perceive to fall short of standards we expect.

Similarly our actions are perceived by others to fall short of these standards. But we don't realize it as we evaluate ourselves on basis of intentions behind our actions; these intentions usually meet the standard.

 

Hence an important step in self-awareness is to figure out how our actions are being perceived by others.

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Sourav