Anyone who has ever taken a class in organizational
behavior, teamwork, leadership, etc. knows that frustration that comes when the
instructor is asked a question and the answer is some variation of “it
depends…” There are very few truly
reliable answers, answers that cut across contexts, in our field.
One of those truly reliable answers, comes from some of the
early work of Kurt Lewin (1890-1947). In 1936 Lewin first proposed the theory
that B=f(p*e); that is that for any
given person, their behavior (B) is a function of the person (p) (or rather their personality) and the
environment (e).
While it easy to look at this theory know and say, “of
course, that is just common sense.” One needs to remember however that in the
early 20th century, psychologists (and indeed many others) were
fully immersed in the “nature vs. nurture” debate. Freudian psychology, advances
in psychological testing such as the IQ test, and longer held traditions such
as Plato’s philosophy of the mind and religious beliefs about the soul fueled
many people to believe that people behaved in certain ways because that was
simply “who they were”, that certain behavioral patterns were inherent in an
individual because of genetics, early childhood environment, predestination,
etc.
In contrast to the “nature”
side of the debate, those on the “nurture”
side looked to the philosophy of Aristotle, Locke, and the learning theories
developed by initially by Pavlov, Thorndike and others. They argued that human
beings are highly pragmatic and shape their behavior in response to the
environment. These arguments ultimately led to Pavlov’s theory of operant conditioning or behaviorism, that behavior is purely a
function of punishment and reward.
Lewin’s “middle road”, that behavior is based upon both an
individual’s personality and their environment, helps us to realize how
complex human behavior actually is. Not only does a manager need to come up
with potentially a different motivation/reward system for every individual
(because people are motivated individually), one needs to realize that events
will happen in the work environment which will impact the behavior of even the
most focused, most dedicated worker. The problem is how does the manager
interpret and react to those situations?
Our tendency (as I will talk more about in a later post) is to interpret
these incidents by focusing on the “p”
in Lewin’s equation – that a person’s behavior is due to their own motivation,
personality, goals or values. However it is critical to remember that sometimes
people are simply reacting to the environment around them, whether that be reward
systems, deadlines, authority figures, or other aspects of their environments.
The solution then, when encountering a person engaged in
problematic behavior, is to first understand whether this particular behavior
stems primarily from the person or
the environment. Only then can you
take the appropriate actions to try to change the behavior.
