Neuro Linguistic Programming-Connector Between Managers and Subordinates
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NLP: CONNECTOR BETWEEN MANAGER AND SUBORDINATE
Palwasha Khan
Sana Iqbal
Sundus Younis
Faculty of Engineering Management
Center of Advance Studies in Engineering (CASE)
Abstract:
Neuro Linguistic Programming is thought to be an advance communication tool which incorporates Human cognition, behavioral contour, and unconscious verbal/nonverbal patterns in order to understand the way information is being perceived, processed and acted upon by the individual and how he interact with his environment including the human factor. It is continuously being probed for its impact over successful human interactions and relationship. Usage of NLP in business world is still unexplored in certain aspects. This research paper is meant to study the impact of appropriate NLP techniques over the relationships that typically exist between managers and subordinates. Using a survey questionnaire, data is being collected from employees of a variety of organizations and found out that though mostly, NLP is unconsciously applied in managerial sector, it does play its role in improving the perceived manager-subordinate relationship, through improving the trustworthiness of the managers and the social bonding that exist between the managers and their subordinates. NLP also impacts to a lesser degree upon the feedback process and participative management style of the manager. Currently managers give more credit to importance of NLP techniques in better relationship building than the subordinates. Therefore, the awareness regarding NLP must be increased and other significant aspects of the concept should be explored to be able to judges its true compatibility in business world. Further, the ethical aspects of NLP application should also be pondered about to avoid any ethical concern to exist at the receiving end.
INTRODUCTION:
The time space we are living in can be safely tagged as an era of high pressures, where businesses are encountering heavy competition and undergoing drastic changes in order to remain profitable. This increased competition, coupled with economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures, lead them to cut their costs, while demanding more productivity from their human resources. Such demands of over-productivity, continuous innovation and efficiency comes along with deleterious health, job insecurity, extended work hours, reduced control at work and managerial stress for the employees, all of which eventually, creates bottlenecks in achieving business excellence (Patterson et al. 2000 as inferred by Singh & Abraham, 2006).
When this uncertainty grows, the most critical issue for the businesses appears in shape of an even tougher task of attracting and retaining best employees as well as having an overall satisfied and motivated work force. Companies may announce many different motivators to accomplish these two hard-to-get goals, ranging from increase in priced benefits to launching attractive training and development programs, but the competitive forces demands a fair cost-cutting making these options hard to implement. Therefore, the best a company can do, to not only motivate its existing employees but also to make itself a worthy employer for the available talent in the market, is to plan and improve its work-environment which is comparatively very cost effective while paying off the efforts in terms of its impacts.
Importance of Communication:
This work environment is now widely established to be improved through implementation and execution of effective communication systems, which has long been credited as prime factor in the attainment of high level of organizational effectiveness. Therefore, it is now recognized as a major activity of today’s management (Greenbaum, 1974), where managers are required to work upon their people skills to improve the extent and impact of their interaction with the work-mates around them, especially with their subordinates. The basic purpose of such organizational communication, both formal and informal, is to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals, through bringing in conformity, adeptness, morale, institutionalization and productivity into the organization (Greenbaum, 1974). Such high quality integrative communications, which are concerned with the feeling for self , associates and work itself; is reported to be not only positively linked with employee morale (Greenbaum, 1974) and satisfaction in relationships maintained by the employee but also is associated with increase in the work motivation for managers (Byrne & LeMay, 2006). This satisfaction of an individual with the communication from top management and from one’s immediate supervisor i.e. the two key sources of information in an organization (Byrne & LeMay, 2006), is eventually translated into the overall perception of satisfaction at job (Perkes, 2011). Such organizational communication systems provide the employees to create and share their perceptions of all the organization’s defining features (Wiesenfeld, Raghuram & Garnd, 1999).
One important point here is the fact that this pressing demand of effective communication from a manager along with playing a part in achieving organizational wellbeing, is also necessary for the manager himself, as many studies have shown that the people who are usually successful in the corporate environment depicts an ability to develop and maintain good relationships and even add value to their peers, managers and subordinates (Beale, 2010). Thus, this skill set of managers are not only valued at employers’ end but also is a priced characteristic in personal success story of an individual.
As a result of above discussed facts, managers all around the world are actively looking for ways to master the skill of communication and interpersonal dealings. Neuro-linguistic Programming is one such approach to human communications that combine cognitive theories, split-brain processing and sensory perceptions (Wood, 2006), in order to facilitate the managers to better calibrate the responses of their subordinates towards the communication, they have with them and alter their pattern or dynamics of communication till they get the response they intends to receive (Singh & Abraham, 2006). Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), despite of many misperceptions due to its highly technical-sounding name, can be useful in dealings with others. For managers, it is helpful in coaching their team-members, getting their subordinates to work together, creating and communicating the way forward and enabling their teams to be more motivated and positively tuned-in (Yemm, 2006).
What Is NLP?
This useful instrument to achieve human excellence by allowing a person to have a control over his own thoughts, emotions and actions (Dospinescu & Mucea, 2011), as well as of others to some extent; is named as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, because of the implied involvement of three operational levels i.e. ‘Neuro’ means to understand how a person process and thinks about things and happenings in the environment, the ‘Linguistic’ is to consider the words a person uses and the clues within those words, and finally the ‘programming’ stands for how people generate the patterns of behavior or thought within themselves and how they keep these patterns running and act or alter as and when required (Yemm, 2006). The basic concept is defined in various ways by different researchers or experts like as a set of guiding principles, attitudes and techniques that enable an individual to change behavior patterns as per one’s wish (Yemm, 2006), where as Grinder (2001) described it as the study of subjective experiences and a theory of communication. NLP is also defined as the user manual of the brain (Bodenhammer & Hall, 1999), which shows how the mind work or what is that one does with the mind to produce a behavior or experience. Thus, NLP is the exploration of how we think, communicate and change, in order to enable us see what experts of the field are doing in similar situations and end up successfully, generate models of their behaviors, replicate these models in our routines in order to improve our performance on a certain situational scenario (Beale, 2009). In short, NLP is an approach to developing successful practices by modeling effective behaviors (Dragovic & Andersen, 2010 inferred from Dragovic, 2007).
Though the above mentioned definitions give an overall idea of what NLP is, but for the purpose of this research, the term is being defined as a model of human behavior and cognition, which describes how people represent their world, how they interact and communicate with the world and with one another (Heap, Unpublished). These models teach individuals a series of linguistic and behavioral patterns that have proved highly effective in enabling people to change the belief and behaviors of other people (Byrne & LeMay, 2006). NPL works via combining the conscious and unconscious resources (Beale, 2009), in order to achieve whatever goals are being set by the user i.e. it combines logical, sensory, emotional and intuitive aspects of human body and mind, so that to enable him/her to have better awareness and control over oneself, appreciate other’s feeling persona and behavioral portfolios, which will obviously, in turn lead the person to be more influential for others both at emotional and mental level (Beale, 2009). This advance theory of communication (Walker, 2002) takes into account how people connect with the outer world through their sensory experiences and how then store, share and change this experience by using their minds and bodies.
Although the philosophy of NLP appears as very difficult to understand, it is being used at more of an unconscious level ever since the start of human race. In order to further clarify the procedural details, the following diagram will depict the five pillars which lay the foundation of NLP building, and are involved in almost all the recognized and used skills of this concept:
Diagram 1.1: Five Pillars of NLP
Techniques of NLP:
There are more than 120 recognized skills, which are being used by the practitioners over a wide variety of fields, mostly those which involve persuasion (Dospinescu & Mucea, 2011) like psychology, selling, and negotiations etc. Usage of NLP techniques in general management is not new and these are always being used of various management gurus for a very period of time now, but mostly this application is unconscious. The most popular and commonly used techniques of business world includes rapport building through mirroring & matching; identifying the preferred representational semantic type of an individual out of auditory, visual and kinesthetic model; and the triggering of a certain desired behavior upon presentation of a specific event in the environment of an individual occurring due to the actual of perceived association between the two and many others.
Each one of us acts in our lives based upon our own interval representation of the environment, which depends upon the preference we give to one sense over the other while taking information in. These representations may appear to be very different from what the actual reality is and are called the maps of an individual. These maps are made up with the help of our five senses, though three are mostly used by majority of human beings, through building internal pictures of the actuality, sounds or verbalize the situation or feeling/experiencing the reality (Heap, Unpublished).These representational systems, called semantic models, predict that different people can make drastically different maps of the same encountered reality. Similarly, when people experience or perform a behavior, they create mental movies in their mind about the reality, associating certain emotions or behaviors with specific factors available in the environment, where most of this association activity occurs at unconscious level of mind. Later on, upon running the same movie in mind or appearance of the similar factors will help in initiating the similar behaviors as were present at that particular point of time (Singh & Abraham, 2006). This methodology is known as anchoring. While, rapport building is mere synchronization of two persons by the help of using direct or indirect matching or mirroring of body movements and general body posture of the next person.
All these methods are reported to be commonly used by business managers (Walker, 2002), where managers communicate by calibrating others and “speaking their language” (Dospinescu & Mucea, 2011). At a more personal level, these skills enable an individual to develop more flexibility in actions and interactions along with taking more responsibility of their own thoughts and actions (Yemm, 2006), which is obviously, the first step in becoming change-inflictor for others. This NLP concept also help the individuals to improve their self awareness in order to develop greater skills like self-management, communications and interpersonal dealings, while reinforcing emotional intelligence present in him/her (Yemm,2006).
LITERATURE REVIEW:
Interactions at a work place forms the very basis of organizational setups and organizational efficiency depends a whole lot of upon them; where coordination and control in these interactions are mandatory to ensure organizational goal achievement because the productivity of employees depends on their ability to formulate reliable expectations about the behavior pattern of other people and to rely on others in order to perform the functions they are delegated with, in a timely and consistent manner (Singh & Abraham, 2006). Majority of connections which are encountered by a typical employee revolve around himself and his manager. Though the success of this relationship between a manager and subordinate is thought to be bilateral, but keeping in view the influential power a manager possesses by virtue of his position and authority, the main liability stands on their shoulders. Today, the managers are expected to perform all the traditional duties, along with having a mandatory ability to understand the human behavior (Singh & Abraham, 2006), in order to work effectively with their subordinates. This shifted the HR focus from more physical and mechanistic skills to those about the social context of work and the assessment of cognitive demands from the managers (Singh & Abraham, 2006). This social context has gradually become one of the most important KPI of a typical manager’s JD, where managers are expected to maintain good relationships with their subordinates in order to work together towards the effective achievement of organizational goals. Studies have shown that this relationship with managers and coworkers affect the job-satisfaction of an employee (Kim, 2002 inferred from Emmert & Taher 1992).
Though, this job satisfaction still has no theoretically proven relation with the job performance but many researchers have revealed that low job-satisfaction definitely leads to high absenteeism, reduced commitment with the employer, high turnover and job stress (Eby et al., 1999), which is obviously not affordable by any organization.
The concept of job satisfaction is increasingly being related with the supervisors’ or managers’ characteristics (Oldham & Cumming, 1996, London & Larson 1999 as referred to by Kim, 2002), especially with his/her skills in effective communication. Similar findings were suggested by Byrne & LeMay (2006) that the majority of employees usually derive their satisfaction from the information they receive regarding their respective jobs from comparatively richer communication channels such as via face-to-face meetings with their immediate supervisors. Both the verbal and non-verbal aspects are important in the success of such processes, where non-verbal exists like around 60 to 70 percent of interpersonal communication (Wood, 2006), where researches have shown that the ability to interpret non-verbal aspects across all perceptual levels is present in all individuals (Montepare, 2003) and are automatically (without conscious controls) perceived and interpreted (Gladwell, 2005). These perceptions of non-verbal signals such as facial expressions eventually forms the basis of impressions of personality traits (Puce et al, 2003) of managers, thus triggering both the likeability and trustworthiness of the individual. Both of these traits determine the fate of a relationship in the long run, as subordinates continue to assess the trustworthiness of the relationship with their subordinates based upon these mental impressions using mostly the nonverbal cues given by the manager (Winston et al, 2002).
It is managerially vital for all ‘boundary-spanning positions’ (the managers) to be able to understand and look for such significant signal or cues that a subordinate uses and interpret about them, when evaluating their trustworthiness (Wood, 2006) on an interpersonal level. This identification, control and alteration of non-verbal language is what Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is all about. A manager using NLP techniques effectively can actually determine his/her subordinate to buy-in work processes, even when the subordinate does not intend to (Dospinescu & Mucea, 2011). Thus, an NLP Enabled manager leads by making others self-motivated by directing their behavior to opt for themselves the most user-friendly and reciprocated solutions disseminated through the most effective communication channels (Singh & Abraham, 2006).
According to Singh & Abraham (2006) NLP provides the managers and his/her staff with a “Quantum Leap” in the effectiveness while working all together, understanding and motivating other people both individually and in teams. But the question arises how? Actually, NLP teach an individual about how to precisely look for the signals both in the nest person’s verbal expression and unconscious non-verbal factor, interpret them and understand the next person comparatively well (Dragovic & Andersen, 2010). Further, this NLP suggests that the ability of our brains to process our environment i.e. our thought patterns or maps of the reality can be classified to one or a combination of three primary sensory representation systems i.e. Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (Nickels, Everett & Klein, 1983). There are five representation/ semantic systems in total but the above named three are most common. This classification of individuals into one of these models develops mostly from their usage of words (Wood, 2006), as found out by 18, that these representational systems are revealed by the person’s style of speaking, the words he or she chooses and even the eye-movement while executing certain actions or behaviors. There exists specific eye-movement patterns associated with these models, which can reliably be identified by trained observers (Buckner, 1987) and related positively between other predicates of the model (Baddeley, 1991).
NLP enable individuals to understand the preference of their own senses to take in information so as of others and deliver the message in the way preferred by the listener (Singh & Abraham, 2006). As managers’ have their own preferred representational system which is expressed through their non-verbal signals/language, they should develop enough awareness of their own cues and need to practice projecting those that are either matching the exact model of the receiver/subordinate or at least are not conflicting with all preferred representational systems (Wood, 2006), because communication signals that initiate trust building likely matches with desired perceptual and mental processing method of the receiver, here the subordinates. Turan and Stemberger (2000) further reinforced the statement by finding that matching another person’s representational language enhances the perceived empathy, which is taught and facilitated by the concept of NLP.
Mostly, the major issue of ‘not connecting’ with subordinates may not be because of any problem with the managerial techniques applied by a manager, rather with a lack of ‘synchronization’ between them and their subordinates (Wood, 2006). This synchronization is mostly termed as rapport in corporate world, which is one of the basic concepts of the field of NLP. NLP experts claim that by matching and mirroring a person verbal and non-verbal behavior (e.g. aspects of speech, gestures, body posture, breathing and blinking pattern and rhythm etc.), an individual can tune himself in on the next person’s representation of the world (so called Maps of reality), thereby facilitating rapport, understanding and effective communication between the two (Heap, Unpublished). This increased understanding of the behavioral persona of subordinates by the managers, lead them to inflict participative management style in their normal work life especially when they are playing in teams. This perception of participative strategic planning processes generate job-satisfaction in employees (Bernstein, 1993), especially those which incorporate effective supervisory communications (Kim, 2002). The sense of such active participation will lead employees to feel that they have greater control in the organization. The discussions which are resultant of managers’ participative managerial style will create openness in staff to discuss issues and ideas with colleagues and managers, thus, eventually build trust & loyalty among them (Singh & Abraham, 2006).
Rapport building, in NLP is done through mirroring and matching other consciously. Chartrand & Bargh (1999) found that when people mirrored others, others’ perceive them as ‘more likable’ and that they had ‘smoother interactions’; both of which are necessary to maintain a good relationship between manager and subordinate. Similarly, Poulsen et al. (2007) proposed in their study that only few can detect the mimicry (if done a bit consciously) and those who could not do so liked the person mirroring them, rating him more friendly, interesting, honest and persuasive, and eventually paid him better attention. All these traits are ideal in a relationship, no matter personal or professional, in order to make it a success. Simultaneously, NLP application also makes the work environment better via not only improving work relationships but also via making the work place more user friendly (Singh & Abraham, 2006). As the key factor of NLP is respecting each other’s Map of reality, the resultant mutual respect has improved the wellbeing and team spirit (Singh & Abraham, 2006), eventually leading the organization to be a good place to work. It is further observed that the outcome based thinking, sharing and introducing the outcome through different preferred modalities, using the art of rapport, gives everyone of work-team hype in efficiency and effectiveness at their respective jobs (Andy Smith, 2002).
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
In light of the above mentioned scenarios and based upon the literature review, few questions arises, like what is the quantitative measure of the role played by NLP in making a work relationship better?. This and few other points lead us to ask the following research questions for this paper: * How literate are Pakistani managers and employees to the term or concept of Neuro Linguistic Programming? * Do the Managers use NLP techniques consciously or unconsciously at their workplaces while dealing with their subordinates? * What is the impact of these NLP techniques when used by Managers upon the relationship with their subordinates? * Should organizations give their managers relevant introductory/ training sessions on NLP and its application?
PROPOSED HYPOTHESES:
In order to be able to answer the above questions, we have proposed simple testable statements so as to measure and test the relationship between the usage of NLP techniques by Managers (Independent Variable) and the manager-subordinate relationship (dependent variable) by the help of a survey administration. These statements are: * Null Hypothesis: Managers who practice appropriate NLP Techniques enjoy the same relationship with their subordinates as the managers who don’t. * Alternate Hypothesis: Managers who practice appropriate NLP Techniques enjoy a better relationship with their subordinates, than managers who don’t.
RESEARCH DESIGN:
Being a social research, the intended study is objected on exploration and description (Babbie 2001; Neuman 2003) of the managers’ and subordinates’ perspective about the importance of NLP techniques, used by managers, no matter consciously or unconsciously, in developing a better relationship between those managers and their subordinates. For the purpose of this research, the flexible exploratory and qualitative approach goes hand in hand with quantitative data collection mode i.e. the survey instrument, primarily to achieve both the depth and objectivity through this study. Started with few well stated research questions, two hypotheses whose dimensions are described through exploratory research (through the process of conceptualization), measured against the responses of sample respondents on a questionnaire rated on Likert Scale, afterwards statistically analyzed to gauge actual relation, this method had allow us to remain explanative and impersonal simultaneously (Carson et al, 2001; Neuman, 2003). The collection of survey data is carried out by the help of self administered written questionnaire fill-ups from 150 respondents (working in the Pakistani organizations at managerial or non-managerial jobs). Questionnaires were distributed to these respondents in person or through email, whichever is feasible for the administration, obviously after seeking the willingness to attend our questionnaire. Educational and experience level of the respondents are limited/controlled in order to ensure the understandability of the questionnaire. Employees from different organizations are contacted so as to broaden the applicability of the research. This administration activity leads to a total of 150 completely filled questionnaires.
Missing Values And Outliers Treatment:-
In order to deal with them, missing values & dropped-out respondents were eliminated through fill ups of extra 27 questionnaires (15.24 %) i.e. in order to substitute the questionnaires with missing values and those which are outliers i.e. one with whole responses at either the extremes of the scales or the exact middle and are merely the result of haste or non-seriousness of respondents while depicting very little or no actual opinions of the employees on the usefulness of NLP techniques.
Instrument Design:-
We designed and used a self-administered questionnaire comprising of in-actual 19 items (relevant to the subject matter) and a total of 24 items (inclusive of all) in form of simple non-directed statements which are rated by the respondents on scale of highest to lowest agreeability to the statement. The wording/phrasing of the questionnaire is kept free from the usage of technical NLP terms to avoid any confusion or misinterpretation by respondents. These questions are measured on a likert scale of 1-5. Introductory lines giving out filling instructions and confidentiality statement are mentioned to minimize the chances of any possible error or uneasiness. Questionnaire was designed and phrased keeping in mind all the ethical consideration & respecting the individual difference. Participation of respondents was voluntary and full confidentiality is maintained as well as no personal contact information is asked in the instrument.
Conceptualization of Variables:-
By the help of basic exploratory research, we have selected the three most commonly used NLP techniques by business manager i.e. mirroring & matching for rapport building, semantic models and anchoring for the purpose of defining the NLP techniques used by managers, our independent variable. Similarly, in order to define the characteristics tagging a relationship between manager and subordinates, we have described the dependent variable in terms of five traits which are trustworthiness of manager, participative management style of manager, providence of effective feedback by the manager, the social bonding that exists between manager and his/her subordinates, and finally the attention given by the manager toward the development of their subordinates. This makes our conceptual framework to look like the following:
MANAGER-SUBORDINATE RELATIONSHIP
Effective Feedback
Trustworthiness
Social Bonding
Participative Management
Development of Subordinates
NLP Techniques Used by Managers
+
+
+
+
+
Diagram 1.2: Conceptual Framework of Research
All relevant mediating and controlling variables are declared to be constant for the purpose of this study.
Sample:
Sample was chosen through a convenient random sampling technique, out of the population of all employees working in organizations operating within the geographical boundaries of Pakistan. The instrument was floated to a total of 177 respondents, working in organizations like National Bank of Pakistan, Mobilink, NADRA, UFone, Askari Commerical Bank, Allianet Pvt. Ltd., Ikonami Pvt. Ltd., SNL Financials and PTCL etc., out of which 150 came back as complete fill-ups while 27 were discarded either due to drop-out, incompleteness and/or being outliers. Total of about 8 days were consumed in data collection process, where these respondents were contacted either in person or through email.
Pilot Test & Cronbach’s Alpha Test:-
Our devised questionnaire was pilot tested on 10 individuals (not including in the main sample) in order to establish it internal consistency and validity, based upon which few statements were changed/deleted/re-phrased. Cronbach’s alpha reliability test was used to predict the reliability measuring of the questionnaire after this Pilot test, by the help of SPSS. Following are the results of this test where according to Nunnally (1978) recommends that score of above 0.70 is sufficient to establish the consistency of the questionnaire:
Internal consistency of items measuring Overall effectiveness of NLP techniques used by managers: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .655 | 3 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about the application of the NLP techniques applied by Managers: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .690 | 5 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about effectiveness of NLP techniques against the feedback process existing between an employee and his manager: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .606 | 2 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about the effectiveness of NLP techniques used by managers for trustworthiness of the manager in front of subordinates: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .703 | 4 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about the effectiveness of NLP techniques used by managers towards the social bonding between the two, the manager and subordinate: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .755 | 3 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about the effectiveness of NLP techniques against the participative management style applied by managers in their relationships: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .753 | 4 |
Internal consistency of items measuring responses about the effectiveness of NLP techniques used by managers in development of subordinates: Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha | N of Items | .729 | 3 |
Besides, the overall average alpha value of the questionnaire is about 0.713, which is only acceptable in terms of internal consistency of the instrument. The unit of analysis for this research is individuals, time horizon was one-shot (cross-sectional), while the study setting was non-contrived i.e. natural with minimum intervention by us. Afterwards, this collected data after the successful administration, was analyzed using SPSS via the tools of descriptive statistics i.e. regression analysis, correction analysis and ANOVA.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS (Analysis and Interpretation):
* SAMPLE DESCRIPTION:
As mentioned earlier, the survey outliers and the drop-outs were being tackled through getting 27 extra fill-ups of the administered questionnaire. A total of 177 questionnaires were floated to the respondents, out of which 13 (7.34%) were not received back after completion or being declined by the addressee employee. 6 (3.38%) were more than 75% incomplete and would not be helpful in determining the actual opinion of the respondent, thus could not be included in for the analysis purpose. 9 questionnaires (5.08%) were tagged as outliers as responses in them lay on either the extremes of answer options or at the exact middle of the scale i.e. answering each statement as either strongly agree or strongly disagree or throughout remained undecided; therefore, these 27 questionnaires were disregarded in terms of their inclusion in the sample or further analysis. This brings the sample size to exactly 150 individuals.
The basic information seeking items of the questionnaire ask about the number of subordinates, if any, of the respondents. This declaration gives out the fact that about 67 (44.6%) of the 150 sample are manager having at least one or above number of subordinates working under them, while about 83 (55.3%) are working at some non-managerial position in their respective jobs. This characteristic directly impacts the viewpoint of respondent i.e. how they look at the subject of the questionnaire i.e. from a manager’s eye or from a subordinate’s angle. Similarly, the name of organization is asked in order to somewhat determine the nature of work and the implied extent or importance of work relationships can be taken in consideration, while guessing upon the opinions of those respondents. The nature of work/type of industry profile of the sample looks something like:
Sr. # | Name of the Organization | No. of Respondents | Industry | Normal Work Timings | | | Manager | Subordinate | | | 1 | National Bank of Pakistan | 23 | 27 | Banking | 9:00-5:30 (8 hours on average) | 2 | Mobilink | 5 | 6 | Telecom | 9:00-6:00 (9 hours on average) | 3 | PTCL | 6 | 5 | Telecom | 9:00-5:00 (8 hours on average) | 4 | NADRA | 4 | 5 | Data Bases | 9:00-5:00 (8 hours on average) | 5 | Askari Commercial Bank | 2 | 4 | Banking | 9:00-5:30 (8 hours on average) | 6 | Allianet Pvt. Ltd. | 5 | 13 | Software House | 9:00-6:00 (9 hours on average) | 7 | Ikonami Pvt. Ltd. | 3 | 6 | Software House | 10:00-7:00(9 hours on average | 8 | Ufone | 3 | 6 | Telecom | 9.00-6.00 (9 hours on average) | 9 | International Islamic University Islamabad | 6 | 7 | Education | 9:00-3:00 (6 hours on average) | 10 | SNL Financials | 2 | 0 | Financial Services | 9.00-6.00 (9 hours on average) | 11 | Higher Education Commission | 4 | 4 | Education | 9:00-5:00 (8 hours on average) |
Table 1.1: Organization profile of the sample
The above information strengthen the generalizability of this research in terms of the fact that the sample comes from a good variety of industries, having different work structures and thus these employees would be encountering good extent of manager-subordinate relationship, also shown by the normal work hours averaging more than 8 hours a day which means that they spend a significant portion of their lives at their organizations. Thus, their experience and knowledge, about the dynamics involved and the impacts of a better managerial work relationship, was ensured. Further, the years of experience shows that about 34 (22.6%) out of 150 have an experience of less than 1 year or barely started their careers, while 34.6% (52) declared their experience as between 1 to 4 years whereas 27 (18%) have an experience of 5 to 9 years and the remaining 37 (24.6%) shows an experience of more than 10 years. The majority of sample got enough experience with the professional world that they understand the importance of a good manager-subordinate relationship and are accustomed with the traits or techniques that can improve this vital part of professional life of an individual.
The educational profile of the sample was considered to ensure the depth and preciseness of mental processes along with the perceptions about the intended scenario-based questions of our instrument. This shows that almost 62% of the sample is post-graduate, majority with business/economics or engineering as their majors. The remaining 34 (22.7%) are graduates and 23 (15.3%) are under-graduates. Finally, the numbers of subordinates were asked and the resultant frequency chart shows that 83 (55.3%) of the respondents do not have any subordinate working under their command, while 24% (36) have about one to two people working under them as their subordinates, about 22 respondents (14.7%) were supervising 3 to 7 employees and the remaining 9 (6%) were managing more than 7 people at their current jobs. None of our respondents were head of their organization, mainly because the organizations involved in this research were huge ones and are not (mostly) any sort of family owned businesses.
The frequency chart of the pre-hand knowledge or know-how of the term or concept of Neuro-linguistic programming shows the following chart, through which we can see that managers mostly know this term and its techniques, where as subordinates are not very acquainted with the subject matter.
Position at Work | Stranger | Heard the Term | Acquaintance | Expert | Managers | 4 | 16 | 38 | 9 | Subordinates | 41 | 25 | 17 | 0 |
Table 1.2: NLP Knowledge Profile
* DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS:
The administered questionnaire used to collect data was rated, while keeping the alternate hypothesis as our main hypothesis i.e. the responses favouring this statement are scored high on the Likert Scale. The descriptive statistical depicters i.e. Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation are being shown by the help of following table:
Means and modes (most frequently-occurring value) of the above mentioned variables clearly depicts that these values lingers around the value 3, which is pure average of our scale, showing that most of our respondents are not convinced and remain nearly undecided about whether there is any positive relationship between any of the dependent and independent variable. But comparatively high values of variance and standard deviation depicts that the results are wide spread across the spectrum of the scale. These results make us look into it after getting the sample bifurcated into managers and subordinates. The values came up as expected:
By comparing the mean and other descriptive values now, we can clearly deduce that managers seem more positive towards the impact of NLP techniques over creation and development of a better manager-subordinate relationship, as compared to what subordinates think. Managers’ responses seem to be more favorable to all the conceptualized variable components than the subordinates in our respondents, except in development of subordinates where both remain either undecided or neutral about the positive relation between the NLP technique usage and the temperament or efforts for development of subordinates. Significantly, it can be noted that in the above mentioned separate analysis, much lower values of standard deviation and variance further confirmed the fact that managers are more convinced about the effectiveness of NLP techniques in regard to manager-subordinate relationship, as compared to the subordinates or the people working at non-managerial positions.
* CUT-OFF SCORE ANALYSIS:
This technique is the simplest of all statistical analysis, done in order to find out what the majority of the sample says about the subject matter i.e. how many of the sample favoured the selected alternate hypothesis and vice versa. This technique actually calculates a score which sets the lower limit of positive opinion towards a particular phenomenon i.e. role of NLP techniques when practiced by manager in making the manager-subordinate relationship better. Cut-off score is calculated by the formula where highest possible score on a questionnaire i.e. 95 (19*5); is added to the minimum possible score of that questionnaire, 19 (19*1); and the sum is divided by 2, and comes up for this research to be equal to 57.
The individuals whose total scores on the questionnaire stood above this limit depicts an overall positive opinion or are affirmative of the proposed hypothesis, while those who score below 57 shows their negation of the idea proposed in the undertaken hypothesis. There are a total of 98 (65.33%) individuals in our sample, who score above the cut-off of 57 and thus, show their confirmation with the fact that NLP technique (when practiced by the managers) do help in making the existing work relationship between managers and subordinates improved and better. Further, below given table 1.3 shows the results based upon the scores of the respondents i.e. against the 19 items of the questionnaire when rated on Likert scale.
Sample | Average Score of respondents | Number of respondents scoring above cut-off | Percentage of respondents | Managers | 68.465 | 47 | 70.14% | Subordinates | 54.102 | 51 | 61.44% |
Table 1.3: Depicting Cut-Off Scores on the Questionnaire
The above mentioned scores clearly establish two facts, one that the majority believe in NLP effectiveness (whether consciously or unconsciously) and think that in one way or the other NLP techniques enables the manager to develop a better relationship with his/her subordinate, which while negating the null hypothesis, establishes our alternate hypothesis. Second fact is that the managers are more positive towards this perception as compared to the subordinate as depicted by the help of percentages shown above. * REGRESSION ANALYSIS:
Regression analysis as is used to produce an equation that will predict a dependent variable using an independent variables meaning that how much of dependent variable is happening as it is because of the one particular independent variable, therefore, is very useful in hypothesis testing researches. The regression equation takes the form of:
Dependent variable = A + B (independent variable)
Where, A is the value of residuals how much of dependent variable is occurring because of all factors other than the selected independent variable, B is the regression coefficient that is the actual effect/change impact on the dependent variable occurring due to one unit change in the independent variable. Table 1.4 and table 1.5 shows the regression analysis between the usage of NLP techniques by the manager while dealing with his/her subordinates and the dependent variable i.e. relationship that exist between a manager and subordinates, through impacting the trustworthiness, social bonding, effectiveness of feedback, participative management style of manager and developmental steps taken by manager for their subordinates.
Model Summary Predictors(Constant) | Model | R | R Square | Adjusted R Square | Std. Error of the Estimate | Overall Effectiveness of NLP Techniques | 1 | .803(a) | .644 | .635 | .17980 | Trustworthiness | 1 | .721(a) | .519 | .515 | .02462 | Social Bonding | 1 | .575(a) | .330 | .220 | .15378 | Effective Feedback Process | 1 | .323(a) | .104 | .107 | .22452 | Participative Management Style | 1 | .437(a) | .190 | .179 | .14571 | Development of Subordinates | 1 | .163(a) | .026 | 0.25 | .26343 |
4.4 a Predictors: (Constant), Application of NLP Techniques
Keeping in consideration of the above mentioned statistical figures, and looking at the estimated regression line of Manager-Subordinate relationship on the considered independent variable i.e. the usage of NLP techniques by the Manager, it can be seen as:
Overall Effectiveness of NLP = 2.809 + 0.803 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers) in Manager-subordination Relationship
Trustworthiness of Manager = 3.079 + 0.721 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers)
Social Bonding between = 2.548 + 0.575 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers)
Manager and Subordinate
Effective Feedback Process = 3.001 + 0.323 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers)
Participative Management = 1.981 + 0.437 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers)
Style of Manager
Development of Subordinates = 3.668 + 0.163 (Application of NLP Techniques by Managers)
In order to elaborate the above mentioned figures, we can see that there are comparatively high values of residuals i.e. from 3.079 to 1.981, which shows that the manager subordinate relationship depends on many other factors besides the NLP techniques applied by managers. On the other hand, overall slightly lower values of beta coefficient i.e. 0.721 down to 0.163 depicts that though the NLP techniques do play a role in improving the relationship that exists between managers and subordinates, but this role is either not very significant or may be simply not very apparent, or might be remain unclear with the current level of application and awareness about the concept and techniques of NLP in Pakistani professional world. The above mentioned regression relations show that with ever one unit increase in application of NLP techniques by managers will result in a unit increase of about 0.803 to 0.163 unit increase in one or the other characteristic of manager-subordinate relationship. The highest impact is on the overall manager-subordinate relationship showing that the actual relationship can be defined in ways other than these five characteristics. Lowest impact of NLP application is supposed to be on the development of subordinates may be because this character needs more practical steps or proves from the manager other than just through effective communication or understanding of an individual. Pretty lower values of significance shows that there are only 1.8% to about 5.7% chances of these results to be occurring as an outcome of sampling error or any such possibility and the remaining 94.3% to 98.2% of results are due to actual predicted dependency of dependent variable over independent one.
Analysis of each feature of the manager-subordination relationship with the NLP application by the managers predicts our alternate hypothesis while contradicting the null hypothesis. Further inferences from the regression analysis shows that NLP techniques of the managers makes them more trustworthy, because it is the most impacted character of the manager-subordinate relationship. The reasoning behind this might revolve around the more intrinsic nature of this relation-trait as compared to other, and unconscious of human may play a deeper role in this regard, which is indeed influenced by the unconscious non-verbal aspects of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
* ANOVA TEST FOR THE SAMPLE:
ANOVA compares the differences between means against the spread of score within each sample i.e. acts as sample t-test. The within-sample variability provides an estimate of chance variation and if the difference between means of within and between variables is large (i.e. variance due to regression is high than variance due to residual), one can conclude that variables correspond with each other, affecting each other in the way predicted by the hypothesis.
ANOVA(b) Model | | Sum of Squares | Df | Mean Square | F | Sig. | 1 | Regression | .838 | 1 | .838 | 6.113 | .013(a) | | Residual | 8.007 | 149 | .054 | | | | Total | 8.845 | 150 | | | | a Predictors: (Constant), NLP Application by the Manager b Dependent Variable: Manager Subordinate Relationship
This table clearly shows the analysis of variance where a model with a large regression sum of squares in comparison to the residual sum of squares indicates that the model accounts for most of variation in the dependent variable, as in this case the value for sum of square of regression is 0.838 which means that there is in-actual variation in the dependent variable caused and predicted by the independent variable, thus, validating the proposed model, as well as, the existence of value of regression more than zero do disprove the null hypothesis, thus, supporting the respective alternate hypothesis.
Further upon examining the F-score, it comes up higher i.e. 6.113, being the ratio of mean square of regression (between groups) to the mean square of the residual (within group). When this ratio is greater than 1, it shows the validity of predicted model. The high value of F-score will be the support of the proposed model as predicted in the alternate hypothesis. Here P (a probability estimate) is 0.013 which is less than 0.05, therefore establishing that there is a relationship existing between the two understudy variables, followed by acceptance of the research hypothesis i.e. keeping all other variables constant, application of NLP techniques do pave a way to improved manager subordinate relationship.
INFERENCES AND CONCLUSION:
Keeping the above discussion in mind, it is now clear that the null hypothesis is being rejected and the existence of a relationship is established between the manager’s use of NLP techniques and manager-subordinate relationship, thus, favoring our alternate hypothesis i.e. the managers who implement appropriate NLP techniques at their work place when dealing with their subordinates enjoy a better relationship with their subordinates than managers who do not apply so. The above discussed points give us the following inferences: * NLP does play a role in improving a relationship that exists between a manager and his/her subordinate. * Though this role is not very significant, but in trials of improving a work-relationship, these techniques can assist a manager in many different aspects. * NLP usage is mostly at unconscious level where neither managers nor the employees are aware of the fact that they are using NLP techniques when they do things like imitating a person to create rapport, or try to speak in the language/tone/volume best liked by the subordinates etc. * Managers are more aware of the NLP concept and its techniques as well as are more informed about the ways these could be implemented in their work lives. Whereas, subordinates are less aware of this field neither are they aware of the implied benefits of any such technique. * Managers are more positive towards the idea that NLP techniques when applied in routine environment at their different work relationship, enables these to get better. This means that majority of managers think that if they apply appropriate NLP techniques according to the specific relationship requirement, this will help them to built stronger and effective work relationships especially with their subordinates. While on the other hand, subordinates does not seem to be that much convinced about the role played by NLP techniques in the success of their relationships especially with those who are in actual practice such techniques upon them. This difference of opinion can be rooted into two basic reasons. Number one is the awareness level of manager and subordinates about NLP and the understandability of related concepts. Usually, the higher the awareness level, higher will become the positivity of opinion about that particular subject matter. Therefore, managers who are more aware of NLP techniques and its dynamics seem to be more bended towards the positive effects of the phenomenon as compared to comparatively less aware subordinates. Second implied reason for this opinion difference may be the ethical consideration that especially concerns the receiving end i.e. the subordinates, who can get manipulated, one of the most unethical usages of NLP technique. It is a matter of fact that person who is executing a thing will feel in control and thus, would take it positive as compared to the person who is only the receiver, basically due to ethical issue involved. This established the importance of ethical concerns to be taken in consideration while educating employees about NLP, giving training or via mentoring, or simply in applying these techniques, in order to enable the respondent feel it as a way to increase empathy and understanding and not manipulation or deception generally. * Coming towards the specific aspects of a work-relationship existing between managers and subordinates, on which NLP impacts are apparent; NLP techniques when used by managers enable the subordinates to perceive managers as more trustworthy and there may exist stronger social bonding between the two. Trustworthiness and social bonding are relied on the internal mental perceptions of empathy, friendliness, mutual respect or the feel of effective grievance handling and easy accessibility of subordinate to the manager. These implicit feeling aspects of the relationship depend directly on the unconscious processes which can be altered or influenced through one or more NLP techniques. Further, NLP enabled managers are in better position to use participative management style with their subordinates as well as enable them to give better, focused and effective feedback to subordinates. These all actions eventually improve the relationship between managers and their subordinates; paving towards a better work environment which can act as a one of greatest competitive advantage for organization at this current point of time.
LIMITATIONS:
Though we have tried to make our research activity worthwhile, yet we have our own limitations, like the generalizability of the research is questionable, majorly because of a limited sample size i.e. only 150. This is such a small sample size that it cannot contain all the traits/opinions present is the population. Along with this, consideration of important variables to be constants, the Cronbach’s Alpha test showing only acceptable level of consistency i.e. below 0.9, ignoring personal differences or personality typos between individuals and ignoring special work-forces like distant-worker, off-site workers, one-man-teams and free lancers, all give limitations of this paper, and can be improved in further researches. These limitations present good areas of further research, to be carried out to investigate these patterns in other situations in future researches.
ADDITION TO CURRENT BODY OF KNOWLEDGE AND AREAS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:
This research is an addition to the current body of knowledge, academically, because it explores the importance of NLP and related skills in making a manager-subordinate relationship better. This research suggests managers to acquaint themselves with such skills in order to influence their subordinates and make their relationship better and more efficient to let in all the benefits of team work and better work environment so that their organizations get more satisfied work force and effective teams working together towards the achievement of organizational goals. This study will lead the top management of organization from a wide variety of industries to understand the importance of NLP techniques so that they can work to inculcate NLP as a topic in their managerial training portfolio.
Exploring many other possible industry specific processes or work-site specific scenarios and other then the three chosen NLP techniques poses good research avenues for future researchers. One important point here is the fact that NLP is not very implemented and explored concept in Pakistan therefore, commenting on its total capacity of benefits and shortcomings will be too soon. Thus, exploring this topic stood out, academically, as a worthy research in the fact that it enables businesses to build better work-relationships and make their work environment more satisfying and motivating. Finally, this research paves the way to motivate businesses into using NLP practices ethical while deciding the mode of influence to be used by their managers in order to turn their work groups into full fledge effective high spirited teams.
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APPENDIX-I
INTRODUCTION:
We are undergoing an academic research and for this purpose, this survey questionnaire requires your opinion-based responses. There is no right or wrong answers for the following statements; neither would you be judged upon your responses. Your information will remain confidential and will not be used in any published/unpublished source other than as aggregate results.
Kindly read the questions and respond to all. In case of any confusion or difficulty, you may ask us in person or by responding to this email.
Thank you for your time. Please accept our gratitude as we highly appreciate your concern in filling out and sending this questionnaire back at your earliest convenience. * Employer (Name of the Organization): ___________________________________________________ * Years of Experience: Less than one year 1-4 year 5-9 years More than 10 years * Educational Qualification (Name the Degree): _________________________________________________ * Number of Subordinates: None 1-2 3-7 More than 7 I am the Head of organization.
Have you ever heard the term of NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming?
Never, I don’t know what it meant Only once or twice, but not sure what it meant Often & understand the basic concept I am an Expert
PART-I (a)
Please encircle the response, which best indicates your attitude/agreement to the given statement: 1. During a discussion with subordinate, a manager should imitate the posture/body language of the subordinate. Every time Very Often Don’t Know Rarely Not at All 2. When talking to a subordinate, manager’s voice tone, volume and rhythm should be compatible with the subordinate. Every time Very Often Don’t Know Rarely Not at All 3. During a meeting with a subordinate, a manager should pay attention to the words used by the subordinates. Every time Very Often Don’t Know Rarely Not at All 4. The manager should assign tasks to or motivate a subordinate after calibrating the things about him/her which suggests the ways s/he becomes more attentive. Every time Very Often Don’t Know Rarely Not at All 5. The manager should use certain expressions/words/gestures with the subordinates, which are already associated with good feelings prior to delegating any tough task or providing negative feedback. Every time Very Often Don’t Know Rarely Not at All
PART-I (b) 1. The steps mentioned in part I(a) if taken by the managers, leads to an effective communication process between a manager and subordinate. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 2. The actions mentioned in part I(a) are important in developing cohesiveness among manager and subordinates. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 3. The actions mentioned in part I(a) plays a good role in helping manager to understand his/her subordinates and develop a good relationship between the two. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree
PART-II
Please encircle the response, which best indicates your attitude/agreement to the given statement: 1. Knowing the response/attentiveness of a subordinate towards certain aspects of a situation (visuals or sounds or the experiential aspects or any combination of these) may help the manager to decide the right timing of giving out feedback to the subordinates. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 2. Imitating a subordinate’s posture or general body language by the manager leads the subordinate to think that manager is friendlier towards him. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 3. Calibrating an individual’s way of processing or thinking about environment helps the manager to better delegate the decision making authority to the subordinates. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 4. Knowledge about the ways to bring change in a personality is necessary for the manager to execute personality development techniques on a subordinate. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 5. Developing affinity between the manager and subordinate leads the manager to easily handle the grievances of the subordinate. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 6. The words used by the subordinate help the manager to decide what should be his/her tone and words of feedback for the subordinate. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 7. The feeling of behavioral similarity between managers and subordinates results in high empathy between the two. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 8. The identification and usage of appropriate behaviors which can bring on positivity in subordinates makes the knowledge sharing easy for the managers. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 9. If a manager can guess about the mental processes of the subordinate, he can empower the subordinates in the job to a greater extent. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 10. A strong feeling of behavioral similarity between the managers and subordinates bring in greater mutual respect than otherwise. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 11. Standing-up-for-the-employee (speaking for the employee rights in front of higher management) is a characteristic more apparent in managers who wants to induce positivity/motivation in the subordinates through using their own behaviors/events. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 12. Managers who bring-in change in their subordinates through their own actions often act as a filter for the errors of the subordinates. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 13. Perception of the subordinates about similarity of behavior and general body language with their managers improves the perception of easy accessibility to the manager. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 14. Good knowledge about the cognitive processes of the subordinates enables the managers to generate quicker consensus building in the work teams. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 15. Ability of a manager to pinpoint the most attended aspects (visuals, sounds or experiences of an environment) for a subordinate helps him to suggest frequent and worthwhile trainings for the subordinate. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree 16. Information about the factors which are more attended by the subordinates helps the manager to call in frequent and successful meetings in the team. Strongly Agree Agree Don’t Know Disagree Strongly Disagree
