The Psychodynamic Concepts, Accounting and Information System - Essay Example

?Introduction Modern organisational leaders need to define their leadership style keeping a number of things in mind. The most critical concern for these leaders is to present themselves in a manner that appeals to their audiences. Given the connectivity between modern private and organisational life, it comes as no surprise that the modern organisational leader has to project a coherent image of himself. This means that the modern organisational leader has to have the same values and principles in action in his personal life and his organisational behaviour. In addition, the modern working individual has to be sufficiently equipped to deal with change management. The dynamic nature of the modern markets means that organisations and their operating principles will always be on the change. Unless the modern working individual can change just as fast or faster, there is little relevance of his work to the organisation anymore. These personal changes have their wider impact on the organisational culture as well since people working in one organisation are deeply interlinked. These issues gain greater momentum when put under the light of dealing with a large number of staff members with varying socio economic and ethnic backgrounds. The multicultural environment in the modern workplace necessitates the individual to be accommodating, tolerant and ready for change as required. When viewed closely, these issues relating to change in the modern workplace all point to the same direction – the individual. As organisations change in one way or the other, the individual employed in these situations has to mould himself or herself accordingly. This indicates that the individual working for these establishments has to be quick and responsive to change by being accustomed to changes in leadership styles, management of change and their impact on others around them. These needs and requirements of change in the modern workplace mean that the individual has to be equipped with knowledge of psychodynamics to change. However, since psychodynamics is not a part of essential learning and training in most organisations, a large number of employees find it hard to change. It is only recently that psychodynamics has been employed in organisations to explain change on an individual level. This paper will employ the psychodynamic concepts elucidated by Vries (2004) in order to explain organisational change and its relevance to personal change. The facets of personal change and organisational change experienced by the author in an organisational work environment will be explored in detail in different sections. The first section will concentrate on the primary issue that caused a personal change in an organisational environment to occur. Both the core issues and their deeper context will be explored with reference to the organisation. The second section will focus on the causes that caused recognition of change and its corresponding management. The third section will expound how the author dealt with such changes and ensured its sustainability. The fourth section will deal with how this change affected the greater organisational culture and particularly the people around the author. Focal Event A focal event in terms of personal change can represent a decisive event that forces a person to change. It must also be mentioned that the focal event does not precipitate without past events that are gradually moving a person to a change. The focal event that is being referred to in this paper has been likened to the “last straw on the camel’s back” (Vries & Balazs, 1999). Therefore, the focal event can be treated as a minor or major event that triggers a person to pursue change that had been developing over a period of time for any number of factors. My focal event was when I was transferred from an existing unit to a new unit that was just being set up. The management had asked me if I intended to shift to the new unit. I was appraised that the setting up of a new unit would allow me to experience many things for the first time and it would add considerably to my current knowledge base. However, I was bogged down with a number of improvements in the existing unit such as changes to the procurement system, upgrading the inventory management philosophy and managing safety. Despite being lured into a transfer, I rejected the idea since it would force me to leave my existing work in between. Over the years, I had worked hard and had acquired a number of new skills including advanced information technology (IT) skills in order to augment my existing improvements. I felt that moving to the new unit would force me to change my priorities and would leave my skill development incomplete. With all said and done, I was transferred to the new unit and was put in charge of setting up the new systems and training the newly hired staff. The management’s decision to move me despite my refusal and the availability of alternatives set me into a gloomy state. After moving to the new unit, I was not performing at peak levels since my work seemed forced onto me. I had performed rather well in my previous assignments and I felt that my efficacy at handling problems and finding solutions along with my commitment to my work forced the management’s hand for the transfer. The problems at the new unit were unique and challenging but I had little interest except for finishing my day at the office so that I could finally leave. The incorporation of a short time thinking strategy meant that problems were piling up rather than getting solved. In due course of time, the management was all over me regarding the setting up of the new unit. I was told that I was performing far more poorly than had been anticipated. The change in my personal fortunes from a high flier to a third rate worker tended to produce anxiety. This anxiety persisted throughout my average day at the office and at home. I slowly felt that I was drifting into depression and paranoia. My state of gloom continued unabated for around two months. One day while watching television on the weekend I saw a documentary related to chameleons in the wild. I realised looking at the documentary that the chameleons changed colour in order to survive while the colour of the environment stayed the same. I quickly realised that it was analogous to my current situation where the environment demanded a change but I was too stuck to my older ideas to change effectively. I was expecting my environment to change for me whereas I had to change for the environment to gain substantial results. Underlying Causes When my focal event is looked into detail, it becomes clear that the transfer had a major impact on how I perceived my environment. This stands all the more true for the management of the organisation that I previously had a lot of faith in. When asked about the transfer by the management, I had sincerely believed that I would not be transferred after my refusal. In addition, I had pointed out to the management the urgency of my current tasks and my need to take them to completion. This provided me with another mental guarantee that I would not be transferred since the management had need for me at my current tasks. These ideas and attitude carried by me regarding a transfer can be likened to the stage of denial in the Kubler Ross model (Santrock, 2007). The Kubler Ross model expounds denial as the very first stage of grief. In my case, denial was the very first step to resist change. Like any other employee of the company, I had agreed to go with the wishes of the management by being employed at my current workplace. A deeper exploration of the issue revealed later that I had family and friends where I was currently stationed and there is a high probability that I did not want to leave them when I was transferred. I failed to realise this very issue in the beginning but as time wore on I realised that my attachment to a lot of things in my life forced me to resist change. For one thing, I was very fond of the apartment I occupied which was only a few blocks from where I worked. Shifting to a new city meant that this convenience disappeared altogether. Now I had to scuffle through around ten blocks in order to get to the office. Another major factor that I did not account for initially was the separation from my social circle. For a large part of my life, I had been close to family and friends. The newfound independence as a bachelor meant that I did not consider family and friends a major reason that I did not want to move. However, after I shifted over to a new city, I was constantly reminded of what my family and friends would be doing right now. This made me realise that I was more attached to both my family and friends that I had initially thought. All of this changed after my realisation developed that I had to change for my environment to work smoothly rather than the environment changing for me. I had a large role to play in streamlining the haphazard nature of operations at the new unit. Another major area for focus was training the staff who had little idea how to go about routine tasks in a routine fashion. The lack of proper training was affecting the very method in which our business operations functioned. My personal evaluation on the issue later revealed to me that my psychological system had gone into defensiveness as I was developing anxiety and paranoia (Carlson, 2010). My complacency with the state of affairs at the new unit was affecting my career which was in turn affecting my personal life. I discovered later that I had revisited my family and friends every weekend for the first three weeks but had stopped visiting later citing professional commitments. After going into a defensive posture, I realised that I had to change for things to get better. My psychodynamic system configured me to accept change by initiating defensiveness so that I would not suffer long term psychological damage from constant anxiety and stress. The consistent stress was turning into depression over time and I remember spending quite a few evening alone watching out the window as people went about. In addition, my attachment to my previous situation and the onslaught of social isolation meant that I was not socialising at all. This stood true for both my office environment as well as my personal life. Typically, I remember people’s names well and can recall names even if I meet people after a very long time. However, in those two months I specifically remember asking for the names of my office staff on more than one occasion and asking for the names of my neighbours repeatedly. In order to avoid these problems, defensiveness set in and allowed me to accept change. Change Management / Adaptive Leadership I have always seen myself as an innovative person. When put into my new position, I failed to understand where all of my innovativeness had disappeared. The most common of tasks such as developing Excel applications for keeping the record became esoteric for me. The strains of the new situation had probably diverted my innovative energy in another direction – the direction of change. My focal event and its aftermath allowed me to learn a number of new things. I realised later that I had never experienced such a pervasive change before in my life. The strains of the new situation and the very strain of change itself had thrown me into negative capability. When faced with the rising odds, my system forced me to fight back and to find innovative methods of dealing with change (Mitrani, 2008). For example, instead of visiting my friends and family I chose to interact with them online through Skype. Previously, using Skype to interact with family and friends was beyond question since I lived around them. However, the constraints of the new situation forced me to think and to find a quick fix that would work. Interacting with friends and family allowed me to drift out of the state of paranoia I was in. The encouragement and the very notion of talking to people I loved allowed me to accept new changes every single day. In addition, as I started to concentrate on my new tasks more, I started to lose my anxiety and stress. It became easier to remember people’s names and to remember which tasks to perform. Negative capability allowed me to focus my energy to find solutions in situations where I had previously failed due to my resistance to change (Ou, 2009). In addition to negative capability, I was helped out in large part by mature defences. Looking back on the situation, it is clear to me that defensiveness had set in after my focal event in order to save me from long term psychodynamic damage. There could have been chances that I might have committed suicide in case that the depression or the paranoia continued for too long (Hovanesian et al., 2009). However, my psychological system opted for defensiveness in the form of mature defences to protect me in the situation. This allowed me to foster change on a number of different fronts in my life especially my work environment to accept new ideas and values. In terms of mature defence, my psychodynamic system allowed me to use anticipation to plan more realistically for the future. This allowed me to re-establish the bonds between my social circle and myself and to anticipate changes required in my work style. Over a period of time, I was able to utilise sublimation in order to channel my negative thoughts and ideas into positive thoughts and ideas (Freud, 2011). This in turn allowed me to change my negative behaviour into positive behaviour that was appreciated by my senior managers. While anticipation allowed me to plan for change, sublimation allowed me to make that change practical. The only real question now was sustainability of change management. I was helped out with sustainability through identification (Wade & Tavris, 2000). I was able to identify with one of my managers who was a high flier and had been moved around by the company repeatedly. I realised that by being moved around and by being assigned a challenging position, I might be able to progress similar to my identified manager. After constant interaction with this manager, I was able to grasp a number of techniques he used in order to manage change in his personal and work life. The acceptance of change on more than one front meant that I was transformed as a person especially in terms of my leadership style, my work ethic and style, my interaction with other people and the recognition of my own insecurities. Personal and Organisational Transformation The process of accepting change and the impacts of accepting change have had major implications for my life. My current workplace participation has changed to a very large degree given my experience with these changes. For one thing, I am more adventurous at work now and am willing to accept movement and change more than ever. In my current roles and possibly my future career direction, I have become more open to movement from one challenging position to another. Looking back, I feel that my previous actions of sticking to one form of known work made me more of an insecure tethered goat than anything else. The confidence to move around, to explore, to learn, to innovate and to deliver has made me more of an effective leader than ever before. I feel that being more adventurous as a leader allows my people to view my example and to innovate and think of new methods of getting things done. My newly trained staff has not been part of the system for too long but are able to suggest deeply nested changes that would improve the system by a large degree. My work ethic and my work styles have also changed by a large degree due to my experience with accepting and processing change. Previously I was more comfortable with routine tasks that demanded little innovation. However, now I am more comfortable with tasks that force me to innovate in order to bring about results. I also believe that my previous work ethic was falsely mired in the belief that I should choose what to do. My new work ethic has allowed me to delegate my career’s progression in my current organisation to my senior management. Since the senior management has a better vantage point and greater vision than I do at my position, so it only makes sense if they choose my future directions. In a similar manner, my interaction with people around me has changed. In terms of my family and friends, my dependence on them for emotional support has decreased as I realised that sooner or later they would all go away. In terms of my office environment, my interaction with other people has become more pleasant and I am more willing to delegate responsibility to allow other people to change. My attitude with other people is more cooperative and tolerant since I understand that people are constantly changing and they require the right kind of encouragement to shoulder change. Furthermore, my insecurities in terms of my attachment to my previous work areas and my family and friends have also removed themselves over time. This has allowed me to become more independent and self reliant over time. My confidence levels have gone up and I am more than willing to take risks compared to before. I plan on keeping this change management sustainable through a variety of methods in order to bring about the benefits of change to myself and other people around me. Bibliography Carlson, N.R., 2010. Psychology: the science of behaviour. 4th ed. Ontario: Pearson Education Canada Inc. Freud, A., 2011. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. Karnac Books. Hovanesian, S., Isakov, I. & Cervellione, K.L., 2009. Defense mechanisms and suicide risk in major depression. 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