Management Articles

Why do you need to know about human emotion and reaction?

One can employ many management tools to analyze the success or failure for any company. While they may be all true or valid, knowledge of management tools can be viewed as a pyramid with a common denominator at the top which evaluates all other data below it. If one is able to know and master the top level of the pyramid, one can easily understand how to apply the remaining management tools by correctly using the data.

At the top of the pyramid of the management tools, we can have a common denominator that is knowledge of human emotion and reaction. Regardless of the type, size and industry of any company, the only thing that can motivate or inhibit any productivity or performance within or outside the company is human emotion and reaction.

If a public relations executive did not understand correctly the human emotion and reaction of the individual, he would launch an ineffective public relations campaign with incorrect emotional tone, either too high or too low to the actual emotional tone of the public to the subject. In other words, the public relations campaign could not convey the message in a correct emotional tone to get the expected human reaction though the campaign had all other needed ingredients.

If a marketing manager did not understand the human emotion and reaction to the product of the company, there could be a waste of marketing campaign and effort not geared to the direction to lure the public to the right desired reaction to be interested in the company’s product.

If a salesman had a fixed idea that one needs to be enthusiastic to sell to anyone at all times, his closing rate would be terrible and he will easily drive away a lot of businesses from the company.

If a finance director knew the human emotion and reaction of the bankers with whom he needed to negotiate some financing terms for the company, he could easily add the advantages to the company by communicating at the right emotional tone with relevant financial data. Otherwise, the credit rating and liquidity of the company could be at risk.

Likewise, if the management did not know the human emotion of its managers and employees, it would be a puzzle on how to motivate the human resource and channel them to the right direction of the reality of the management as a team effectively. To be either angry by threat or using propitiation to manage the staff could be the last failing resort to get things done but not for the long-run success of the company.

So you see the understanding of human emotion and reaction is no longer solely restricted to the human resources department of your company. And yes certainly this department does carry the indispensable duty to make sure your company getting the right staff by knowing their actual emotional tone rather than social tone as demonstrated in many regular job interviews to confuse many human resources managers and cause catastrophe. But this skill is definitely not limited to that department by any means whatsoever.

As you know, people do not know instantly the various human emotional tone, reaction and behavior simply by intuition. However, a more observable and workable approach can be established to provide us effective tools to understand human emotion and reaction.It’s too simple to classify people with positive or negative emotions. In fact, there is an emotional tone scale that one can be as high as enthusiastic or as low as apathy. There’re also various emotional tone positions even in the negative emotional band. Everyone is virtually in a particular "emotional state" or tone at any given time. And just like a musical scale, these emotional tones can be high or low--with each emotional tone having an inherent set of predictable and observable personality characteristics.

People react and behave differently on various emotional tone positions, and therefore require different methods of communication and handling. Once you have mastered it, the rest of the management tools can be integrated easily to give you better understanding and competence to fully implement all other management tools for better success of your company.

Now, based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard, there are answers to these emotional tones. One can learn and master the answers for results. For example, there’s a film DVD: “Emotions in the workplace”* to illustrate the various emotional tones that you can quickly grasp the subject of emotional tone and apply it in business world. To learn about the tools of emotional tone scale and how to apply it in the workplace effectively, please contact us.

So know your people, and they are your staff and your customers, for the success of your company!

P.S. You will find the above same article to be published on the web site of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management!

What kind of personality is required to do well for a certain job?

Personality is a complex of inherited and environmental factors that any individual has acquired in handling himself, others and his environment. It can therefore tell a lot about the person when considering whether the person fits the job or not. Many hiring errors and damages are often resulted from not knowing someone's personality correctly during the recruitment and selection process.

According to the size, industry type, job category, company's location and culture, even the same job title can sometimes require a very different set of the personality when making any decision in hiring.

On reviewing some of the recent job posting online, it's not difficult to find out that some advertisers understand the importance of personality in recruitment and selection, and openly list out some specific personality requirement required for the job.

For example,

* great interpersonal skills

* fast learner and capable to handle new projects independently

* have good initiative with strong sense of responsibility and attentive to details

* have ability to work independently and under pressure

* Energetic, motivated and aspired to build a business

However, how do we know what type of personality is required for a certain job? Even if we know what type of personality is required, how can we establish whether the candidate has the core personality that we are looking for from the resume and interview? They are not easy questions, but if one knows the answers, one will be more able to find the right staff for the company.

If you want to find out more of the above, please contact our Performia consultant by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone at (852)-21599191

NOT KNOWING YOUR PEOPLE=FAILURE IN YOUR COMPANY

HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR EXECUTIVE TEAM TO GUARANTEE THE SURVIVAL OF YOUR BUSINESS OVER THE FINANCIAL TSUNAMI?

"Financial Tsunami" has finally exposed the weakness of our leadership and management in many sectors of the world. We have heard a lot of such shocking stories from many businesses with no exception in Hong Kong, like we hardly perceive how a few key executives from a public company: Citi Pacific Ltd can cause the company for the loss of over HK$150 billion (half of the total assets of the company) via some derivative tools without downside risk protection within a few months. And even worse, as of today, the Chairman of the company still could not identify the real source of the problems as a leader but superficially passed the responsibilities to his some management staff.

During this financial tsunami and its subsequent impact to the bankruptcy and layoff from many companies, you may wonder what had brought to this condition.

We may simply attribute this bad economic condition to the unpredictable nature of the market in stocks, commodities, currencies, etc as our economy works in a cycle that up and down is inevitable. Yet, such answer leads us no solution to the problem. The answer is always the question itself. So what are the questions that can open the door for solution?

The valid questions are "Who had brought us into this bad condition? Who have competence, leadership and insight that can protect us from such bad condition, lead us to play fair and safe game and the business can continue to survive even during economic downturn?"

If you really dig and look at the root of any bad condition that any company may have experienced, you will probably find some destructive executive personalities at work or some incompetent executives possibly also under the bad influence of destructive personalities to make wild and unbelievable mistakes. That's why the management of the business should be very careful whom they select to work with or promote to some key senior decision making executive positions.

Human capital can be the most important asset or the biggest liability to any company, depending on how the company hires, retains and develops its management and executive team so to achieve the goals and purposes of the business together.

In this troubled time, Performia Hong Kong would like to offer a very special Performia Direct Introductory Executive Evaluation Package(up to 10 candidate or staff) especially if your company is actively looking for good staff that you donâ€™t want to commit any catastrophic hiring errors. You can rely on our online tests for your recruitment and internal staff evaluation that our consultant will provide you written report as well as recommendation and evaluation over the phone. If used in the internal staff evaluation, much more information and time are needed and therefore the service fee is higher.

We take the three major online tests (out of our eight tests) for this introductory package, that is: executive personality test, IQ test, and aptitude test. Unless in certain circumstance, we need to use more other tests for the person concerned, a special 50% discount is applied to other tests. Please call us at 21599191 to get more information of our introductory offer to minimize your risk of employing wrong staff.