change management

organizational and personal change management, process, plans, change management and business development tips

Here are some rules for effective management of change. Managing organizational change will be more successful if you apply these simple principles. Achieving personal change will be more successful too if you use the same approach where relevant. Change management entails thoughtful planning and sensitive implementation, and above all, consultation with, and involvement of, the people affected by the changes. If you force change on people normally problems arise. Change must be realistic, achievable and measurable. These aspects are especially relevant to managing personal change. Before starting organizational change, ask yourself: What do we want to achieve with this change, why, and how will we know that the change has been achieved? Who is affected by this change, and how will they react to it? How much of this change can we achieve ourselves, and what parts of the change do we need help with? These aspects also relate strongly to the management of personal as well as organizational change. See also the modern principles which underpin successful change. Refer also to Psychological Contract theory, which helps explain the complex relationship between an organization and its employees. Do not 'sell' change to people as a way of accelerating 'agreement' and implementation. 'Selling' change to people is not a sustainable strategy for success, unless your aim is to be bitten on the bum at some time in the future when you least expect it. When people listen to a management high-up 'selling' them a change, decent diligent folk will generally smile and appear to accede, but quietly to themselves, they're thinking, "No bloody chance mate, if you think I'm standing for that load of old bollocks you've another think coming" (And that's just the amenable types the other more recalcitrant types will be well on the way to making their own particular transition from gamekeepers to poachers.) Instead, change needs to be understood and managed in a way that people can cope effectively with it. Change can be unsettling, so the manager logically needs to be a settling influence. Check that people affected by the change agree with, or at least understand, the need for change, and have a chance to decide how the change will be managed, and to be involved in the planning and implementation of the change. Use face-to-face communications to handle sensitive aspects of organisational change management (see Mehrabian's research on conveying meaning and understanding). Encourage your managers to communicate face-to-face with their people too if they are helping you manage an organizational change. Email and written notices are extremely weak at conveying and developing understanding. If you think that you need to make a change quickly, probe the reasons - is the urgency real? Will the effects of agreeing a more sensible time-frame really be more disastrous than presiding over

a disastrous change? Quick change prevents proper consultation and involvement, which leads to difficulties that take time to resolve. For complex changes, refer to the process of project management, and ensure that you augment this with consultative communications to agree and gain support for the reasons for the change. Involving and informing people also creates opportunities for others to participate in planning and implementing the changes, which lightens your burden, spreads the organizational load, and creates a sense of ownership and familiarity among the people affected. See also the excellent free decision-making template, designed by Sharon Drew Morgen, with facilitative questions for personal and organizational innovation and change. To understand more about people's personalities, and how different people react differently to change, see the personality styles section. For organizational change that entails new actions, objectives and processes for a group or team of people, use workshops to achieve understanding, involvement, plans, measurable aims, actions and commitment. Encourage your management team to use workshops with their people too if they are helping you to manage the change. You should even apply these principles to very tough change like making people redundant, closures and integrating merged or acquired organizations. Bad news needs even more careful management than routine change. Hiding behind memos and middle managers will make matters worse. Consulting with people, and helping them to understand does not weaken your position it strengthens it. Leaders who fail to consult and involve their people in managing bad news are perceived as weak and lacking in integrity. Treat people with humanity and respect and they will reciprocate. Be mindful that the chief insecurity of most staff is change itself. See the process of personal change theory to see how people react to change. Senior managers and directors responsible for managing organizational change do not, as a rule, fear change - they generally thrive on it. So remember that your people do not relish change, they find it deeply disturbing and threatening. Your people's fear of change is as great as your own fear of failure.

responsibility for managing change

The employee does not have a responsibility to manage change - the employee's responsibility is no other than to do their best, which is different for every person and depends on a wide variety of factors (health, maturity, stability, experience, personality, motivation, etc). Responsibility for managing change is with management and executives of the organisation - they must manage the change in a way that employees can cope with it. The manager has a responsibility to facilitate and enable change, and all that is implied within that statement, especially to understand the situation from an objective standpoint (to 'step back', and be non-judgemental), and then to help people understand reasons, aims, and ways of responding positively according to employees' own situations and capabilities. Increasingly the manager's role is to interpret, communicate and enable - not to instruct and impose, which nobody really responds to well.

change must involve the people - change must not be imposed upon the people
Be wary of expressions like 'mindset change', and 'changing people's mindsets' or 'changing attitudes', because this language often indicates a tendency towards imposed or enforced change (theory x), and it implies strongly that the organization believes that its people currently have the 'wrong' mindset, which is never, ever, the case. If people are not approaching their tasks or the organization effectively, then the organization has the wrong mindset, not the people. Change such as new structures, policies, targets, acquisitions, disposals, re-locations, etc., all create new systems and environments, which need to be explained to people as early as possible, so that people's involvement in validating and refining the changes themselves can be obtained. Whenever an organization imposes new things on people there will be difficulties. Participation, involvement and open, early, full communication are the important factors. Workshops are very useful processes to develop collective understanding, approaches, policies, methods, systems, ideas, etc. See the section on workshops on the website. Staff surveys are a helpful way to repair damage and mistrust among staff - provided you allow allow people to complete them anonymously, and provided you publish and act on the findings. Management training, empathy and facilitative capability are priority areas - managers are crucial to the change process - they must enable and facilitate, not merely convey and implement policy from above, which does not work. You cannot impose change - people and teams need to be empowered to find their own solutions and responses, with facilitation and support from managers, and tolerance and compassion from the leaders and executives. Management and leadership style and behaviour are more important than clever process and policy. Employees need to be able to trust the organization. The leader must agree and work with these ideas, or change is likely to be very painful, and the best people will be lost in the process.

change management principles

1. At all times involve and agree support from people within system (system = environment, processes, culture, relationships, behaviours, etc., whether personal or organisational). 2. Understand where you/the organisation is at the moment. 3. Understand where you want to be, when, why, and what the measures will be for having got there. 4. Plan development towards above No.3 in appropriate achievable measurable stages. 5. Communicate, involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and as fully as is possible.

John P Kotter's 'eight steps to successful change'

American John P Kotter (b 1947) is a Harvard Business School professor and leading thinker and author on organizational change management. Kotter's highly regarded books 'Leading Change' (1995) and the follow-up 'The Heart Of Change' (2002) describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change. Kotter's eight step change model can be summarised as:
1. Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant. 2. Build the guiding team - get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. 3. Get the vision right - get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy, focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency. 4. Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against. 5. Empower action - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognise progress and achievements. 6. Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones. 7. Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones. 8. Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, new change leaders. Weave change into culture.

Kotter's eight step model is explained more fully on his website www.kotterinternational.com. Related to Kotter's ideas, and particularly helpful in understanding the pressures of change on people, and people's reactions to change, see a detailed interpretation of the personal change process in John Fisher's model of the process of personal change.

ideas on illustrating change management issues

When people are confronted with the need or opportunity to change, especially when it's 'enforced', as they see it, by the organization, they can become emotional. So can the managers who try to manage the change. Diffusing the emotional feelings, taking a step back, encouraging objectivity, are important to enabling sensible and constructive dialogue. To this end, managers and trainers can find it helpful to use analogies to assist themselves and other staff to look at change in a more detached way.

On this site there are several illustrations which can be used for this purpose, depending on the type of change faced, and the aspect that is to be addressed. Here are a few examples, useful for team meetings, presentations, one-to-one counselling or self-reminder, particularly to help empathise with others facing change: On the Stories section look at 'Murphy's Plough' (negative thinking = obstacle to change) and 'We've always done it that way' (not questioning need for change). Both good aids for understanding and explaining why people - all of us - find it difficult to change assumptions, conditioned thinking, habit, routine, etc. Look also at the Monkey Story, as to how policies, practices, attitudes and even cultures can become established, and how the tendency is to accept rather than question. Just as the state of 'unconscious incompetence', needs to be developed into 'conscious competence' to provide a basis for training, so a person's subjective emotion needs to be developed into objectivity before beginning to help them handle change. None of us is immune from subjectivity, ignorance or denial. The lessons and reminders found in stories and analogies can help to show a new clear perspective. Aesop's Fables section has other short and beautifully simple analogies useful for illustrating aspects of causing or dealing with change, for example (all on the Aesop's Fables section): The Crow and the Pitcher (change being provoked by pressure or necessity) The North Wind and the Sun (gentle persuasion rather than force) The Lion and The Ass (enforced change - might is right) The Crab and his Mother (lead by example and evidence - or you'll not change people) The Miller, his Son and the Ass (no single change is likely to please everyone - everyone wants something different) The Oak and the Reeds (the need for tolerance - changer or 'changees') The Rich Man and the Tanner, (time softens change - given time people get used to things) The Ass and the Mule (agree to reasonable change now or you can risk far worse enforced change in the future)

job reorganization, task analysis, job transfer due to IT development or outsourcing etc
First see the modern principles which underpin successful change. It's not always easy or perhaps even possible to consider matters at such depth, but try to if you can, or try to persuade others above in their ivory towers to think about the fundamental integrity of the situation, instead of short-term profit, or satisfying greedy shareholders. There are various approaches to task analysis and job reorganization, whether prompted by outsourcing or IT development. Generally change process of this sort is pragmatic, and it's difficult to identify transferable processes, templates, etc. Examples of projects don't generally find their way into the public domain, although the likelihood is increasing of government project pdf's becoming available on the web as this sort of information is increasingly required to be available to the public. IT vendor case studies and trade journals of the IT and outsourcing sectors can also provide indicators of best practice or transferable processes. There are some useful software tools now available, which are helpful, especially if the change involves a high level of complexity and a large scale. As a broad guide when managing this sort of change, these aspects are important for the process:
y

y y

Really understand and clarify mutual expectations about the level of detail and cost that the project requires. Sometimes it's possible to see it what you need on a table napkin. The organisational context, and other strategic drivers, personalities and politics are often more significant influences than the task analysis. If you are a consultant or project manager, agree expectations on a pragmatic basis. Agree the templates and systems to be used and the the level of report data required for the decisions to be made. Assume that the situation can be improved - it generally can be, so while it's essential to capture all activities based on current jobs, many of these can be absorbed, superseded, updated, etc., when you begin to look at the ideal situation ('blank sheet of paper') possibilities, so; A new overview analysis enables fresh unencumbered look at the whole, which suggests new and better ways of doing things. A flip chart and a few creative minds are the main prerequisites. It makes a great workshop session and is good for creating ownership and buy-in for major change. It's a good process also to cascade down to departments to bring out ideas for improved processes and new ways of doing things. In terms of capturing all current processes and inputs, the individual job analysis templates need to enable jobs to be broken down into sub-tasks, and elements within sub-tasks. This is a tricky one, and not practicable in certain X-Theory cultures, nevertheless, be aware of the high probability of upsetting people whose jobs are threatened by change and try to develop a way of anticipating and reducing damaging fall-out. Treat people at risk with the respect they deserve and avoid keeping them in the dark - involve threatened people wherever possible so they can see what's happening and why. If possible encourage the executive team to take the same humane approach, and try to establish counselling and support resources if none exist already. Analyses are more helpful if they identify critical vs essential task elements - this will help you to help the decision-makers to be more pragmatic (not least because by applying pressure to some

y y y

of the 'essential' elements will reveal them to be habitual dispensable or traditional replaceable elements). Flow diagrams identify subtask linkage (inter and intra), variation and chronology. Behaviour needs identifying aside from processes. Standards, performance tolerance, % reliability, etc., should be indicated in task analysis as applicable to the sub-task or activity concerned.

other points about people and change

Strong resistance to change is often rooted in deeply conditioned or historically reinforced feelings. Patience and tolerance are required to help people in these situations to see things differently. Bit by bit. There are examples of this sort of gradual staged change everywhere in the living world. The Psychological Contract is a significant aspect of change, and offers helpful models and diagrams in understanding and managing change - potentially at a very fundamental level. Also, certain types of people - the reliable/dependable/steady/habitual/process-oriented types often find change very unsettling. People who welcome change are not generally the best at being able to work reliably, dependably and follow processes. The reliability/dependability capabilities are directly opposite character traits to mobility/adaptability capabilities. Certain industries and disciplines have a high concentration of staff who need a strong reliability/dependability personality profile, for example, health services and nursing, administration, public sector and government departments, utilities and services; these sectors will tend to have many staff with character profiles who find change difficult. See the personality styles page to help understanding about different types of people. Age is another factor. Erik Erikson's fascinating Psychosocial Theory is helpful for understanding that people's priorities and motivations are different depending on their stage of life. The more you understand people's needs, the better you will be able to manage change. Be mindful of people's strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone welcomes change. Take the time to understand the people you are dealing with, and how and why they feel like they do, before you take action.

business development driven change

Business development potentially includes everything involved with the quality of the business or the organization. Business development planning first requires establishing the business development aims, and then formulating a business development strategy, which would comprise some or all of the following methods of development.
y y y y y y y y y

sales development new product development new market development business organization, shape, structure and processes development (eg, outsourcing, ebusiness, etc) tools, equipment, plant, logistics and supply-chain development people, management and communications (capabilities and training) development strategic partnerships and distribution routes development international development acquisitions and disposals

Generally business development is partly scientific, and partly subjective, based on the feelings and wishes of the business owners or CEO. There are so many ways to develop a business which achieve growth and improvement, and rarely is just one of these a single best solution. Business development is what some people call a 'black art', ie., difficult to analyse, and difficult to apply a replicable process.

fast changing environments

Planning, implementing and managing change in a fast-changing environment is increasingly the situation in which most organizations now work. Dynamic environments such as these require dynamic processes, people, systems and culture, especially for managing change successfully, notably effectively optimising organizational response to market opportunities and threats. Key elements for success:
y

Plan long-term broadly - a sound strategic vision, not a specific detailed plan (the latter is impossible to predict reliably). Detailed five years plans are out of date two weeks after they are written. Focus on detail for establishing and measuring delivery of immediate actions, not medium-to-long-term plans. Establish forums and communicating methods to enable immediate review and decisionmaking. Participation of interested people is essential. This enables their input to be gained, their approval and commitment to be secured, and automatically takes care of communicating the actions and expectations.

y y y y

Empower people to make decisions at a local operating level - delegate responsibility and power as much as possible (or at least encourage people to make recommendations which can be quickly approved). Remove (as far as is possible) from strategic change and approval processes and teams (or circumvent) any ultra-cautious, ultra-autocratic or compulsively-interfering executives. Autocracy and interference are the biggest obstacles to establishing a successful and sustainable dynamic culture and capability. Encourage, enable and develop capable people to be active in other areas of the organization via 'virtual teams' and 'matrix management'. Scrutinise and optimise ICT (information and communications technology) systems to enable effective information management and key activity team-working. Use workshops as a vehicle to review priorities, agree broad medium-to-long-term vision and aims, and to agree short term action plans and implementation method and accountabilities. Adjust recruitment, training and development to accelerate the development of people who contribute positively to a culture of empowered dynamism.

'troubleshooting' tips for investigating apparent poor performance

If you are ever give the job of 'troubleshooting' or investigating (apparent) poor performance, perhaps in another location or business belonging to your own organisation, or perhaps as a consultancy project, here are some simple tips: Actually 'troubleshooting' isn't a great word - it scares people. Use 'facilitator' or 'helper' instead. It sets a more helpful and cooperative tone. On which point, you could well find that the main issue will be people's resistance and defensiveness to someone coming in to their organisation do what you are doing. When you overcome that challenge, then you can start comparing what's happening with what the organisation sets out to do (mission, values, goals, priorities, targets, key performance indicators, processes, measures); how the people feel about things (staff turnover, retention, morale, attitudes); and how customers and suppliers feel about things too (actually go out and visit customers, and ex-customers particularly). You must observe protocols very diligently - introduce yourself properly to people and explain who you are and what you are doing. Don't assume that your task gives you the right to be secretive, or to have access to anyone or anything without permission. Ask for help. Ask for introductions. Ask for permission. Be polite and courteous. Respect people more than you would do normally, because they will be sensitive, understandably so. Look at the Sharon Drew Morgen facilitation method, which helps with the style and approach you should use. You must aim to help, enable and facilitate discovery and clarity, not work in splendid isolation, as an outsider, who's come to 'sort things out'.

And then be led by the people there as to what can be improved. You should adopt the role of a researcher and enabler rather than a problem solver. Plan lots of questions that will help people to tell you how they feel about things - customers and staff and suppliers - and what they think can be done to improve things. Avoid asking 'why' unless they're really trusting you and working with you. Used early, 'why' puts people on the defence and you'll not find out anything. Look at the customer relationship materials as well - customers will tell you what's best to focus on, and will give you an early opportunity to facilitate some improvement responses. Also look at the employee motivation survey material. It's likely that you'll have to write a report and recommendations afterwards, in which case try wherever possible to involve the people in what you say about them. Let there be no surprises. Be constructive. Accentuate the positive. Be straight and open with people. Enjoy the experience. Be respectful and helpful to people and they'll be respectful and helpful to you

Strategies for Developing an Effective Team

What is it?
A team is made up of a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. An effective team has certain characteristics that allow the team members to function more efficiently and productively. An effective team develops ways to share leadership roles and ways to share accountability for their work products, shifting the emphasis from the individual to several individuals within the team. A team also develops a specific team purpose and concrete work products that the members produce together.

How does it work?

Effective teams will have open-ended meetings and develop active problem-solving strategies that go beyond discussing, deciding, and delegating what to do; they do real work together. When necessary, individuals in a team will set aside their own work to assist other members of the team. In a well-functioning team, performance is based not on an individual member's ability to influence other members, but rather is assessed directly by measuring the work products of the whole team. Rewards based on the whole team's effort help underscore the importance of team responsibility. Seven Characteristics of an Effective Team 1. Team members share leadership roles

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Team develops own scope of work Team schedules work to be done and commits to taking time allotted to do work Team develops tangible work products Team members are mutually accountable for work products Performance is based on achieving team products Problems are discussed and resolved by the team

5 Stages of Group Development

Stage 1: Forming

In the Forming stage, personal relations are characterized by dependence. Group members rely on safe, patterned behavior and look to the group leader for guidance and direction. Group members have a desire for acceptance by the group and a need to be know that the group is safe. They set about gathering impressions and data about the similarities and differences among them and forming preferences for future subgrouping. Rules of behavior seem to be to keep things simple and to avoid controversy. Serious topics and feelings are avoided. The major task functions also concern orientation. Members attempt to become oriented to the tasks as well as to one another. Discussion centers around defining the scope of the task, how to approach it, and similar concerns. To grow from this stage to the next, each member must relinquish the comfort of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict.
Stage 2: Storming

The next stage, which Tuckman calls Storming, is characterized by competition and conflict in the personal-relations dimension an organization in the task-functions dimension. As the group members attempt to organize for the task, conflict inevitably results in their personal relations. Individuals have to bend and mold their feelings, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs to suit the group organization. Because of "fear of exposure" or "fear of failure," there will be an increased desire for structural clarification and commitment. Although conflicts may or may not surface as group issues, they do exist. Questions will arise about who is going to be responsible for what, what the rules are, what the reward system is, and what criteria for evaluation are. These reflect conflicts over leadership, structure, power, and authority. There may be wide swings in members behavior based on emerging issues of competition and hostilities. Because of the discomfort generated during this stage, some members may remain completely silent while others attempt to dominate. In order to progress to the next stage, group members must move from a "testing and proving" mentality to a problem-solving mentality. The most important trait in helping groups to move on to the next stage seems to be the ability to listen.
Stage 3: Norming

In Tuckmans Norming stage, interpersonal relations are characterized by cohesion. Group members are engaged in active acknowledgment of all members contributions, community

building and maintenance, and solving of group issues. Members are willing to change theirpreconceived ideas or opinions on the basis of facts presented by other members, and they actively ask questions of one another. Leadership is shared, and cliques dissolve. When members begin to know-and identify with-one another, the level of trust in their personal relations contributes to the development of group cohesion. It is during this stage of development (assuming the group gets this far) that people begin to experience a sense of group belonging and a feeling of relief as a result of resolving interpersonal conflicts. The major task function of stage three is the data flow between group members: They share feelings and ideas, solicit and give feedback to one another, and explore actions related to the task. Creativity is high. If this stage of data flow and cohesion is attained by the group members, their interactions are characterized by openness and sharing of information on both a personal and task level. They feel good about being part of an effective group. The major drawback of the norming stage is that members may begin to fear the inevitable future breakup of the group; they may resist change of any sort.
Stage 4: Performing

The Performing stage is not reached by all groups. If group members are able to evolve to stage four, their capacity, range, and depth of personal relations expand to true interdependence. In this stage, people can work independently, in subgroups, or as a total unit with equal facility. Their roles and authorities dynamically adjust to the changing needs of the group and individuals. Stage four is marked by interdependence in personal relations and problem solving in the realm of task functions. By now, the group should be most productive. Individual members have become self-assuring, and the need for group approval is past. Members are both highly task oriented and highly people oriented. There is unity: group identity is complete, group morale is high, and group loyalty is intense. The task function becomes genuine problem solving, leading toward optimal solutions and optimum group development. There is support for experimentation in solving problems and an emphasis on achievement. The overall goal is productivity through problem solving and work.
Stage 5: Adjourning

Tuckmans final stage, Adjourning, involves the termination of task behaviors and disengagement from relationships. A planned conclusion usually includes recognition for participation and achievement and an opportunity for members to say personal goodbyes. Concluding a group can create some apprehension - in effect, a minor crisis. The termination of the group is a regressive movement from giving up control to giving up inclusion in the group. The most effective interventions in this stage are those that facilitate task termination and the disengagement process Prioritizing Problems Using a Prioritization Matrix Frequency Importance Feasibility Total Points 0 0 5

Problems

1. No appointments for the afternoon 5

2. Delays in registration 3. Incomplete laboratory 4. Insufficient care in dentistry 5. Not enough doctors 6. Not enough materials for the lab 7. Broken down ambulance 8. Segregation of patients 9. Long waiting time 10. Disrespect of patients

6 9 10 6 3 0 7 7 4

1 11 12 0 0 3 12 14 6

5 6 8 5 0 0 11 15 10

12 26 30 11 3 3 30 36 20

By using this method of prioritizing problems, Mr. Diaz is able to look at the data and determine which problems are most important according to this group of users. Mr. Diaz determines that the general consensus of the group is that long waiting time is a widely perceived problem. The second most important problems, according to users, are segregation of patients and insufficient care in dentistry, and the third most important problem is the incomplete laboratory. Disrespect of patients is also a serious concern. Mr. Diaz shares the matrix with the team members and the rest of the clinic staff. He reviews how effective this process has been in uncovering and making clear areas needing quality improvement and points out how much longer it would have taken a formal research method to achieve the same results.

What are the five discipline of the organizational behavior?

In: Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science [Edit categories] [Improve]

Psychology, sociology, psychology social, anthropology and science politics

A review of the use of experimental techniques to develop and test theories of personality processes. Threats to valid inference including problems of scaling, reliability, and unintended confounds are considered. Basic experimental designs are discussed as ways of eliminating some, but not all threats to validity. A number of basic analytical procedures are demonstrated using simulated data that can be accessed from the web based appendix. Personality is an abstraction used to explain consistency and coherency in an individuals pattern of affects, cognitions, desires and behaviors. What one feels, thinks, wants and does changes from moment to moment and from situation to situation but shows a patterning across situations and over time that may be used to recognize, describe and even to understand a person. The task of the personality researcher is to identify the consistencies and differences within and between individuals (what one feels, thinks, wants and does) and eventually to try to explain them in terms of set of testable hypotheses (why one feels, thinks, wants and does). Personality research is the last refuge of the generalist in psychology: it requires a familiarity with the mathematics of personality measurement, an understanding of genetic mechanisms and physiological

systems as they interact with environmental influences to lead to development over the life span, an appreciation of how to measure and manipulate affect and cognitive states, and an ability to integrate all of this into a coherent description of normal and abnormal behavior across situations and across time. Although the study of personality is normally associated with correlational techniques relating responses or observations in one situation or at one time with responses in other situations and other times, it is also possible to examine causal relations through

Why Study Personality?

If we know a person is confident, or outgoing, or friendly, what do we need to study? Why is it important to research and theorize about personality? To answer these questions, you need to understand a little about the field of psychology in general. Psychology is the study of thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and their interaction with each other and the world. There are five basic goals of psychology: 1. Describe The first goal is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail, what was observed as objectively as possible 2. Explain While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go beyond what is obvious and explain their observations. In other words, why did the subject do what he or she did? 3. Predict Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to speculate what will happen in the future. Theres an old saying, which very often holds true: "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior."

4. Control Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to happen in the future, we can excerpt control over it. In other words, if we know you choose abusive partners because your father was abusive, we can assume you will choose another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to change this negative behavior. 5. Improve Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they want to do so in a positive manner, they want to improve a persons life, not make it worse. This is not always the case, but it should always be the intention. As you can see, the ultimate goal of psychology is to improve the quality of life through a better understanding of individual differences and similarities. Personality is concerned a great deal with all five of these goals, but we will spend the majority of the text discussing the first three. In other words, personality theory is concerned with observing individual characteristics, understanding how these different characteristics came about, and finally, how they are impacting the individuals quality of life. We will, however, delve into the last two goals when we discuss personality disorders and treatment later in the text.

Personality Theories
So we've defined personality, we understand why it is important to study personality, and we know what our ultimate goal is, but how do we get started? Although the concept of personality seems like a simple one, hundreds and hundreds of years have gone into studying it and we still don't all agree how it develops or even the important characteristics. Personality theories are attempts at understanding both the characteristics of our personality characteristics and the way these characteristics develop and impact our life. As we progress through the theories, keep the following questions in mind, as they represent the basic idea behind personality theory and development: 1. What are the basic personality traits? 2. Can individual traits be grouped into categories or clusters? 3. How do these traits develop? What role does biology, environment, and the individual play? 4. What role do states play in an individual's personality? Why do people respond differently to similar situations? 5. Can we use what we know about personality to make predictions? Can we use assessment devices to determine personality? 6. Can personality be changed? If so, under what circumstances should this be attempted, and how do we go about bringing about change? If you can answer these questions for each of the theories we discuss, then you will have a solid grasp of introductory personality. So, lets get started...

What is Personality

Everybody's heard the term personality, and most of us can describe our own or our friend's personality. What most don't know, however, is that personality is one of the most theorized and most researched aspects of psychology. So what is personality? To understand this concept, you first need to understand the difference between a trait and a state. A trait is a relatively permanent individual characteristic. For example, most of know people who are outgoing, friendly, confident, or shy. When we describe these people, we use these traits to better understand their personality; to better understand who they are. A state, on the other hand, is a temporary change in one's personality. Examples of states might be angry, depressed, fearful, or anxious. We typically use states to describe a person's reaction to something. To make matters more confusing, a trait can also be a state, and visa versa. The man who has the personality trait of outgoing might be shy at first around new people. The woman who is typically confident, might exhibit fear or self-doubt when presented with a new stimulus. The key to understanding the difference is to think about how the person typically is (trait) and how the person has temporarily changed (state) in response to something. As we progress through personality theory and development, we will focus primarily of traits; the characteristics of a person that makes him or her unique.

The impact of personality and approaches to learning on information behaviour

Jannica Heinstrm Department of Information Studies bo Akademi University Henriksgatan 9, 20500 bo, Finland

Abstract Previous studies have shown how personality influences learning strategies and learning outcome. In this study this will be taken further by combining personality and approaches to learning with information behaviour. The aim of this study is to show how the five traits of the Five-Factor Inventory related to the approaches to learning of the ASSIST-test affect information behaviour. The subjects will be approximately 500 university students writing their dissertation.

In a pilot study it was shown that personality traits can be related to approaches to learning. Moreover they seem to form distinctive information behaviour.

Introduction
The tradition of research in information studies has become more user centered since the beginning of the 1980s (Kuhlthau, 1991). It has been acknowledged that the user studies have important implications on the availability of information and the development of libraries. Psychology gives us essential understanding of search behaviour (Awaritefe, 1984). This creates a base through which we can develop the search systems and make the information more available for the customer. Instead of, as before, studying the safe and stable information systems the focus is now on the users who often are uncertain and confused (Kuhlthau, 1991). Today it is increasingly important to be information literate. An information literate person realizes the need for information, finds, evaluates and effectively uses the information he needs (American Library Association, 1989). The aim of the library and information skills curriculum is not only to teach how to locate and access information sources but to develop logical and critical thinking in the students. (Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1988). Talents like cognitive competence, systematical thinking, energetic information-seeking and an optimistic attitude towards problem solving are important in the information society (Savolainen, 1995) Understanding of the connection between personality and information seeking can ease the understanding of the different seeking behaviour of the students and help teachers, tutors and librarians support the students in their searches. You must meet each student in the framework of his personal search style, some for instance finds it easier than others to search databases (Hawk, 1993). No single search strategy is the right one, the crucial criteria is how well it suits the individual in question. The aim of this study is to compare the relationship between personality on the one hand and approaches to learning and information behaviour on the other. The personality, search behaviour and learning style will also be compared to the studentsown estimated study result.

The Impact of Personality on Information Behaviour

This research is based on Wilsons (1997) definition of information behaviour, a term including information seeking and the needs of the user. The term includes the need of information, inner processes and environmental factors affecting the individuals way of responding to the information need. Palmer (1991) showed that the information behaviour of scientist could be clustered into five groups of information searchers characterized of different personalities. The first group was the non-seekers. They were not really motivated for information seeking. The second group was the lone, wide rangers. They liked working alone and often found the solution to their problems by chance. They subscribed to more journals than the other groups. They sought information very widely. They also had more personal contacts than the other groups. This could be due to their longer experience in the field. The third group was the unsettled, self-conscious seekers. This group consisted of fresh researchers who were still quite new to the field. They visited the library more frequently than the other groups. They also consulted their colleagues perhaps due to

insecurity about their role and their information seeking. They had not chosen the subject for their research themselves. The fourth group was the confident collectors. They didnt put much effort into conscious information seeking but they tried to keep an open mind for new information. They trusted themselves for getting the proper information. They had worked in their field a long time. The last group was the hunters. These researchers worked in biochemistry, a rapidly changing field. They had developed their own strategies to cope with the information flow. They all had information seeking routines, some even visited the library every day. They had wide contact with colleagues both in the same country and abroad. (Palmer, 1991) Information-seeking behaviour has also been related to for instance attachment style (Bowlby, 1969). Secure and anguished persons are more curious than avoiding people. Secure persons have a constructive and positive attitude towards information and seek a lot of information. Anguished persons prefer personal contacts when seeking information whereas avoiding persons tend to avoid social contact also in their search behaviour. Insecure persons have more difficulties in coping with unpredictability, disorder and ambiguity. They have a tendency to finish the search process as soon as possible resulting in decisions based on early-received information. They are less prone to change their views and accept new information. (Miculincer, 1997). This insecurity could be linked with neuroticism (Schouwenburg, 1995) which in turn can be linked with a surface learning style (Entwistle, 1988).

The Five Factor Model of Personality

During the last years conformity about the basic personality traits has emerged. It has been stated that they are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. These dimensions are stable across the lifespan and directly related to behaviour. They also seem to have a physiological base. (Revelle & Loftus, 1992) The five factors are the following;
1. Extraversion

The extraverts tend to be more physically and verbally active whereas the introverts are independent, reserved, steady and like being alone. The person in the middle of the dimension likes a mix between social situations and solitude. (Howard & Howard, 1998). Extraverts are adventurous, assertive, frank, sociable and talkative. Introverts are quiet, reserved, shy and unsociable. (Boeree, no date).
2. Agreeableness

The agreeableness scale is linked to altruism, nurturance, caring and emotional support versus hostility, indifference, self-centeredness and jealousy. Agreeable people are altruistic, gentle, kind, sympathetic and warm. (Boeree, no date).

3. Conscientiousness

The conscientious, focused person is concentrating on only a couple of goals and strives hard to perceive them. He is career oriented, while the flexible person is more impulsive and easier to persuade from one task to another. Conscientiousness has been linked to educational achievement and particularly to the will to achieve. (Howard & Howard, 1998). The more conscientious a person is the more competent, dutiful, orderly, responsible and thorough he is.
4. Neuroticism

The persons with a tendency towards neuroticism are more worried, temperamental and prone to sadness. (Howard & Howard, 1998). Emotional stability is related to calm, stable and relaxed persons, whereas neuroticism is linked to anger, anxiousness and depression. (Boeree, no date). The name neuroticism doesnt refer to any psychiatric defect. A more proper term could be negative affectivity or nervousness. (McCrae & John, 1992).
5. Openness

People with a high openness have broader interests, are liberal and like novelty. This factor relates to intellect, openness to new ideas, cultural interests, educational aptitude and creativity (Howard & Howard, 1998). These individuals are cultured, esthetic, intellectual and open. (Boeree, no date). The openness to experience can be connected to activities like writing, science and art (Wallach & Wing, 1969).

The Relationship between the Five Factor Model Personality Traits and Learning
Personality traits are expressed in learning styles, which are in turn reflected in learning strategies, which eventually produce a certain learning outcome. (De Raad & Schouwenburg, 1996). Personality traits serve as directors or blocks for motivation and learning strategies. (Mumford & Gustafson 1988 in Blickle, 1996). Conscientiousness and openness to experience are of special educational interest. (de Fruyt & Mervielde, 1996). Blickle (1996) has compared the Five Factor Model personality traits with learning strategies and learning outcome. He found that particularly conscientiousness and openness were related to learning style. The students personality was related to learning outcome mediated by learning strategies. Conscientiousness is related to work discipline, interest in subject matter, concentration and considering studying as quite easy. (Schouwenburg, 1995). Different ways of learning in higher education have been described by Entwistle & Tait (1996). Students using the strategic approach are good at organizing their work, managing their time and work hard in their studies. They care about their working conditions and have clear goals for their studies. (Entwistle & Tait, 1996). They have an intrinsic motivation and a positive study attitude (Entwistle, 1988)

Openness is linked with questioning and analysing arguments. (Schouwenburg, 1995). It is further related to critical evaluation, searching literature and making relationships (deep approach) (Blickle, 1996). The students with a deep approach want to find out the deeper meaning in the text. They are critical, logical and relate what they learn to their previous knowledge. (Entwistle & Tait, 1996). Their motivation is intrinsic and they look for a personal comprehension independent of the syllabus. (Entwistle, 1988). Neuroticism is linked to lack of concentration, fear of failure and experiencing studying as stressful. Moreover neuroticism is linked with a lack of critical ability and problems in understanding how things relate to each other. (Schouwenburg, 1995) This can be linked to the surface learning style (Entwistle, 1988). The student with a surface approach concentrates on memorising without any concern of finding a deeper meaning or understanding of the material. They are most concerned about getting through the exams and are not really interested in the material itself. (Entwistle & Tait, 1996). Their motivation is extrinsic and they take on a strategic, syllabus-bound approach to studying (Entwistle, 1988)

The Relationship between Learning Style and Search Behaviour

There seems to be a relationship between learning style and search approach. (Limberg, 1998). Searchers characterized by different learning styles adopt different search strategies. (Wood et al, 1996). Subcritical students seek authoritative sources in order to find the objective truth. They memorise and describe the information rather than value it. They seek only superficial information and the most important sources. The surface-critical students value the information clinically in order to impress their teachers. They need information from many sources. The deep-critical group seeks information from many sources in order to form their own opinion. (Ford, 1986). In Fidels 1984 study search styles were compared to the two different learning styles. It was found that the search style obtained was related to the learning style used. The conceptualist search style can be compared with the wholist learning style (Pask, 1976) and the second search style corresponds to the analytical learning approach (Pask, 1976). (Fidel, 1984) Limberg (1998) also found relationships between search style and learning style. The first group in her study had an atomistic approach to information seeking, concentrating on finding facts. They wanted information that was easy to find, understand and could be reached by the least effort. The second group wanted to find information to be able to make the right choice. The third group wanted more information to be able to analyse it. Their aim was to understand and critically reflect over the material. They used many different kinds of material and many different search paths. This group could be compared to the wholistic learning style. There were different use of information and for instance relevance judgement in the three groups as a result of different conceptions of information seeking. (Limberg, 1998).

The Study

In order to find out if personality and approaches to learning are related and how they effect information behaviour 500 university students will be asked to fill out three questionnaires regarding their information behaviour, personality and approaches to studying. There is likely to be a similarity between learning style and search behaviour as they both spring from the same source, the personality structure. The personality is a filter that influences both learning style, search behaviour as other types of behaviour. The questionnaires are the following;
1. Questionnaire about information behaviour

The questionnaire regarding information behaviour is based on previous research in the area of personality, learning styles, search behaviour and their relationships. It will consist of questions covering cognitive aspects, resources, search strategies and information sources.
2. The Personality test

The Five-factor inventory (FFI) is a test of five personality factors; neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. It has developed from the Five-Factor Model of personality, which claims that these factors are the most essential in human personality. The Five-Factor Model (FFM) is based in a belief that people are rational beings and can account for their own personality and behaving. According to this theory people generally understand their own way of being and can analyze their own actions and reactions. (McCrae & Costa, 1996). One of the best proofs for the FFM is the convergence between lay-observer ratings, expert ratings and self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1996).
3. The Approaches to Studying Test

The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for students (ASSIST) (Entwistle & Tait, 1996) test is a learning approach inventory specially designed for use in higher education studies (Entwistle & Tait, 1996). The main purpose of the test is to give information about the students motivation for education and their learning styles. The learning style categories used in this test are deep, strategic and instrumental (surface) approach. Previous versions of the ASSIST test have been used in many studies. A short version of the ASSIST-test will be used in this study in order to easy the students workload in completing the various questionnaires. This short version correlates with the complete version of the test (Entwistle, personal communication 1999).

Pilot study
A pilot study was done on 7 doctoral students in Information Studies to test the questionnaires. It is important to notice the group of subjects, as they are supposed to be more or less professional in the field. The results might have been different in other groups. A homogeneous group was on the other hand useful for this purpose as the influence of subject area and methods in the area was reduced and minimized. This was good, as the purpose of the test was to test the influence of personality and approach to learning.

The material was tested statistically mainly by correlation and factor analysis. The most significant result was found in the correlation between a strategic approach to learning and a conscientious personality. This shows a clear relationship between these variables. In a factor analysis it was shown that conscientiousness linked to the strategic approach to learning formed a search behaviour that was orderly and systematic. These students put much effort into their information seeking; that is they were willing to pay for articles, spend much time on information seeking and go through trouble obtaining information. It has previously been shown that the conscientiousness scale is related to effort (Blickle, 1996) and this can thus also be related to the effort put into information seeking. These students also used fairly many different sources, including informal sources. They planned their searches in databases in advance and were confident in their ability to judge relevance. This group also had a considerably better study result than the other groups. This result can be related to previous research that has shown that conscientiousness is the most important characteristic related to academic success (de Fruyt & Mervielde, 1996). It has also been found that strategic approaches to studying and work discipline are predictors of a good study result. (Schouwenburg & Kossowska, 1999). Another significant correlation was the one between a surface approach to learning and neuroticism. These traits also formed a factor in the factor analysis. These students had a low critical ability. For this group it was important that the books they used had a nice physical appearance. If the book was torn or worn out they rejected it. It was also crucial for them that the source was of high scientific quality. These students preferred material which were acknowledged in the field as opposite to new, paradigm-challenging material. This can directly be related to the extrinsic motivation, where the students look for authorities to tell them what to do. The expected correlation between the deep approach to learning and the openness personality trait was not proved in the pilot study, at least not by a high correlation. These trait together formed an information behaviour which was characterized by looking for new ideas and paradigm-challenging material. These students had a quite high critical ability. This finding can be confirmed by previous studies which state that openness is linked with questioning and analysing arguments, in other words critical ability (Schouwenburg,1995; Blickle, 1996).

Discussion
It is important to remember that the pilot study was performed on only a few subjects, moreover in the field of Information Studies, presumingly good at handling information-related problems. Still it was encouraging to see differences according to personality and approaches to learning even in such a homogenous group. In the real study students of different disciplines will fill out the questionnaire and the different disciplines are likely to affect their information behaviour. In a larger group it is on the other hand easier to find patterns of information behaviour, personality and approach to learning. The study is basically descriptive. The main aim is to point to the influence of personality also on information behaviour. In previous studies the influence of discipline, working environment, social class etc have been studied. Only a few studies (e.g., Palmer, 1991 and Miculincer, 1997) have related the variation of information behaviour to personality.

Information behaviour is largely a question of training and tradition, but it is important to have an awareness that personality can influence how we learn. One aim of this study is to increase the understanding of why different persons search information in different ways. An awareness of the personality factor in teaching students how to seek information can be important and might increase the understanding of why different persons approach their search tasks in different ways. It is important to take these differences into account when planning the teaching. Also the development of search systems should be more flexibly designed so that different ways of approaching the search tasks might be met. To some extent information searching can be learned, but there will always be differences in the ways different people seek information. There can never be only one way to approach the search problem, why then have just one search design, as the consequences will inevitably be shutting out some people. It is important to adjust the systems to the learners instead of just teaching the learners to use the system. They will still to some extent hold their previous behaviour and can never be taught exactly how to search in every situation. For this study a quantitative approach was chosen in order to be able to generalize more freely from the findings. But there are also obvious drawbacks to this method. When students are forced to choose between a certain set of alternatives when describing their information behaviour, the result is obviously limited. Many types of information behaviour will thus not be described in this study simply because the subjects will not have the opportunity to express them. On the other hand the aim of the study was not qualitative descriptions of the matter but instead finding general patterns.

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