Applying the principles of “New Psychology” to Business
Both New Psychology and New Science are underlying themes in this Superblog. Let’s just take a first brief look at what we mean by the terms New Psychology and Old Psychology and next time we’ll look at “New Science”.
The following is adapted from a Paper presented by Barry Mapp in 1994 at the ERIK Network European Conference “Regional Successes in Creating and Connecting Companies – European Union Perspectives”
Psychology has always been important in Business
In Business, psychology (i.e. our understanding of, or beliefs about, human behaviour) has always been an important factor in “how we do things around here”. Psychology thus underpins the workings of both the old and new style company paradigms.
The Psychology of Compliant Companies is “Old Psychology” (behaviour that is predicted primarily from studies on starving animals or unhappy or sick human beings).
The Psychology that underpins successful Creation Companies is “New Psychology” where people behaviour is predicted from the studies of animals that were happy and cared for, or from research on human beings that are living happy and fulfilled lives.
Note that nearly all textbook psychology is “Old Psychology” – so you won’t find much about new psychology from standard psychology books.
It is interesting to note that most of our business advisory groups (like Business Link in the UK) still promote business systems based on old psychology and indeed their own organisational structures and processes are rooted in old psychology.
Most Government strategy around influencing business and services is based on old psychology and even most business consultants (including those who profess to be thinking outside the box) are often using “old psychology” techniques and theories.
The following table shows some of the fundamental differences between Old Psychology and New Psychology approaches.
Old Psychology Principles (this includes):
- (extensive use of) Extrinsic Motivators (Carrot and Stick)
- People Treated like children (heavy on rules and regulations)
- External Targets set from above (nearly all are arbitrary!)
- Blame culture. Whose fault? Whose head must roll?
- Visible are many of the Seven Deadly Diseases of Management
New Psychology Principles (this includes):
- (Mostly) Intrinsic Motivation (very reduced use of punishment or rewards, work not bonus driven)
- People Treated like adults (owning the work principles)
- Goal setting by the people (seeking alignment with the leaders goals)
- A ‘No Blame’ culture. What happened? What can we learn?
- Cured, or nearly cured, of the Seven Deadly Diseases of Management
In many ways the Old Psychology is the Psychology of the exceptions – the study of the minority studied under unusual or poor conditions.
New Psychology is based upon understanding how the majority will behave under good conditions. So Old Psychology does hold true under stressful or fear conditions, and likewise New Psychology holds true under joyful and happy conditions.
The New Psychologies embrace ideas like those of Glasser (Choice Theory), Kelly (Constructive Alternativism) and Griffin and Tyrell (Human Givens approach). New Psychology is congruent with Kohn’s research on Co-operation and Motivation, with Dweck’s research on “Self-Theories” and with Deming’s ideas on the transformation of management. (More about each of these Psychologies in later blogs)
Coming Next: New Science, New Thinking and Creation Companies
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