Locus of Control

Summary

• To be effective, we all must discover ourselves and play to our strengths as far as possible.
• In the session, the facilitator helps participants discover which factors do they consider responsible for the events occurring in their lives.
• If they consider these factors to be in their control, they would act differently when compared to how they would act if they pass on the responsibility to external factors.
• It is mostly about beliefs and these beliefs can change through newer life experiences.

Objectives

• Define and explain locus of control
• Differentiate between internal locus of control and external locus of control
• Identify your own locus of control to become more self-aware
• Discuss strategies to be more effective as per your strengths.

Summary

Locus of control is a very important concept discussed in the fields of personal development and self-awareness. Internal locus of control is where the individual considers that the incidents in their lives are within their control while in the case of external locus of control the incidents happen due to factors outside their control. These are beliefs that formed through our individual experiences.

Timelines

Introduction to the session and the test: 00:00 – 15:30
Discussion on the test result: 16:00
Three forces that shape our lives: 27:21
Comparing scores with performance: 33:40
Internality and performance: 41:30
Experience and beliefs: 46:59
Doubt and belief: 50:54

Full Transcript

Abhishek:
Hi, everyone, welcome to this webinar, this session actually on behavioral skills. So last time when we met, we spoke about leadership styles. And we discussed the four styles of leadership. Now today, we actually are going to talk about something else, something equally interesting. But it’s not really about leadership. It’s more about self-awareness, personal ownership, personal responsibility. In fact, I want to introduce you to a model called the locus of control model, which is one of the most popular and one of the most often used models in the world when we talk about personal ownership. responsibility, accountability, etc, right? It’s very, very useful as a self-development tool. It’s also very useful as a tool for assessing leadership potential for, but but, but I would, I would recommend using it as a developmental tool, not really using it as an assessment tool. Right. So let’s get started. So first of all, actually, what I would request all of you to do is if you can go to the chat box, I have sent a link there. See if you are able to download this document.

Just click on that link and see if you’re able to download it.

Speaker 2
Yes, we I can download it.

Abhishek
Okay, great. So just Download that PDF file, it’s a PDF file right and it says locus of control, Mirror mirror on the wall. And then after that you will see there are there is a questionnaire with some questions. So, I suggest all of you open up

Speaker 3
Can you please wait because the link is still opening is my laptop is working slow

Speaker 3:
please wait

Abhishek
As your file gets downloaded, please you can go to the participants tab below and click on the Yes button against your name or actually it’s just below there. Yeah, so I just know that you have gotten it. So I can see for example that Shiksha has gotten it. Dineshwar has gotten it.

Ami has gotten it

so just go down and click on

Yes. So I see seven of you have gotten it

Okay, again, I think if somebody has just come in I have shared a PDF file and I’m asking everybody to download that.

I’ve just shared the link again, it’s the same link as the one before

Dhwani is not able to hear me.

Is are other people able to hear me?

Speaker 3
Yes, sir.

Speaker 5
Yes, sir.

Abhishek
Okay, so anybody still downloading? Can I start?

Speaker 6
just done.

Abhishek
Okay, great. Okay, great. So now I request all of you to open the document and I’m just going to open it up and share it with you as well. And I’ll tell you what you have to do. So I think for the rest of the exercise, you will need maybe a, maybe a pen and paper so that you can give yourself this course because it’s a PDF file you can’t write on the screen. So just get a pen and paper

and, and bring it to your table. I’ll just give you some time to do that. Just take 30 seconds. You should have a pen and paper along with the PDF file on your device. Okay.

okay, so now Is everyone ready? Can I go on?

so if you have a paper and pen and if you have the PDF file in front of you we can start or even you can look at the PDF file from my computer as well right. Now if you see here there are about 30 statements here, right? Now what this is called a instrument, right?

Meaning of the Instrument used with instruction

It’s an instrument I mean, we are familiar with physical instruments, this is an instrument because it tries to measure something about human beings and their psychology. So, and usually we also say that there is no right or wrong answer.

There is no correct answer that we are trying to get to. We are just trying to understand what this answer is indicative of for what it were it sort of points towards as far as the respondent is concerned.

So now if you look at this document, you will notice that there are about 30 questions rather about 30 statements, and what you have to do is you have to indicate your level of agreement with this statement.

So for example, it says I can largely determine what matters to me in the organization. And then there is a symbol for now you can ignore the symbol and just go to score and write four. If you strongly feel that this is true, that you can indeed largely determine what matters to you in the organization, right three, if you generally feel this way, too, if you somewhat feel this way, and somewhat not one, if you slightly feel this way, and zero if you’re hardly or never feel this way, then you write zero, right? So depending upon the statement and how you feel about it, the feeling has been given a number four if you strongly feel this way, zero if you never feel this way, and three to one other, my other sort of points in the continuum from zero to four, right? So read that statement and give yourself a score.

Now How will you do that? Because you don’t have this printout with you. This is a digital copy. So here is what I recommend. Right? You open up Your sheet of paper. So let us say, this is your sheet of paper. So, what you do is you write for example one, and then you make an arrow, this is one, and if you see in front of one I is written, so right I just write that I, even though you don’t know what it means, just write it copy, don’t copy the whole sentence. So write only the symbol I and then give yourself a score whether it is four or it might not be four, it might be whatever that score is, you know that can be zero, or one, whatever that score is. So the number serial number followed by the secret symbol, which we don’t know what it means, and the score that you are giving yourself. So do this for all the 30 items,

Are the instructions clear? If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them as well. You have to look at the documents. Look at the document that I’ve shared with you. Read the statement, see how you feel about that statement, and then write it on the piece of paper that you have. Write the number, serial number, write the symbol, if you don’t know what it means we’ll come to know about it later. And the score you give to that statement, is it four or three or two or one? Is this clear everyone? I give you about 10 minutes after these 30 questions. Anyways, I’m here. So if you have any questions you can ask me. This is an individual exercise, not a group exercise. It’s a psychometric instrument for your own self. So and I would also suggest, don’t worry too much. It’s what you have to check is belief, right, you’re checking your feeling. So it doesn’t really matter whether factually, or you don’t have to analyze too much to Come to an answer. Check with your feeling. How do you feel? Do you feel this statement is only true, or it’s not true? So on the basis of that you’re given number to that statement. Right.

Any questions?

Can everybody do this?

Speaker 7
Yes, yes, sir.

Abhishek
So please start, it’s 7:15 now, I’m giving you 10 minutes to answer all the 30 questions. I’ll, again, connect with you at 7:25. But I’m here so you can just unmute and start talking if you run into trouble. Yep.

Those of you who have just come,

I request you to look into the chat box. And there is a URL there that I have shared, you can download and follow the instructions written in the document.

Go ahead, everyone

Speaker 8
Number four that’s serial number four, right? The person who are important control most matters here

Abhishek
Persons who are important. They control most of the things in the organization. People who are important or powerful they control everything in the organization. Most

Speaker 8
Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 9
But we can start,

Abhishek
okay I guess that will be very unfair.

Speaker 10
No, no, but I, yeah, you start.

Abhishek

Scoring
Okay, so now if you are done with this, what I request you now is to scroll down to this box on page number that basically the fourth page of the document actually, right. And you see this box here it says I, eo, eL. These are the three symbols that were appearing again and again. So all I want you to do is add up all the i scores together, all the eo scores together and all the eL scores together. So essentially what you will do something like i is equal to and then see which ones are i. So I think question number one is i so let us say you gave yourself three plus, and you see which which, which else is i after the first one. I think it’s the second third all first, second, third are all i. So three plus one plus two plus and calculate all the i’s and then you get a final score. So what is that final score? You write that against i similarly calculate the final score for eo and calculate the final score for eL. So, i, eo, el add up all the scores you’ve given, not the question number, the score that you’ve given, and add them to get the final score for i, eo, el.

Speaker 11
Done, sir.

Abhishek
Just give you two minutes to do it.

So again, let me know once you’ve calculated

Speaker 12
maybe due to networking, I missed. The last point Can you please explain it again?

Abhishek
I just say that add up all the i scores if you see there is a symbol right against each question, statement number. So add up all the i scores, eo scores and el scores. There are three symbols, I, eo and el, and you have to add up all the scores. So add up all the i scores, all the eo scores and all the el scores. Did you get that mam?

Speaker 13
Yes, I’ve got it. Thank you.

Abhishek
So now what you should have is, you should have three numbers. I a number for i, a number for eo and a number for el. Now what do these numbers actually mean? Right? That’s the question. What is I? What is eo and what is el? And what does what does these numbers mean? So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll look at it. But I was telling you this is one of the most important concepts in personal growth and self leadership, a personal effectiveness, and it’s called locus of control, right? And what is locus of control mean? Right? So what it means is How will you answer this question?

The question is where is the source of results and outcomes in your life? And in the context of organization, we can specifically talk about your work life. Right. So, but but the question ideally applies for all of life. So where is the source of results and outcomes in your life? Where is that source of that power that creates the results and outcomes that you experienced in your life? Who or what controls this? This the outcomes that you are creating in your life? What do you think? So maybe this is a good time. For us to have some discussion on this, right? So you’re going to unmute, and you can just share your thoughts. Where is the source of power that creates results and outcomes in your life?

Speaker 14
Hi, I would like to say

Abhishek
Go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 15
Yeah, so I would like to say source of results and outcome and one’s life, mostly I believe would be uh themselves. Okay. And internally and to some extent it depends on the workplace or, you know, the people surrounding them.

Speaker 16
Okay, so this is the person. So the source for the results and outcomes that they experience in their life is you’re saying that’s within them. Right.

Speaker 16
Yes, yes.

Speaker 16
Okay. So the

Speaker 17
Our beliefs, our beliefs and our thought process system, positivity, attracting positive things

Abhishek
Yeah. So if we have positive thoughts and then we attract. So this is so the source of personal results or the results we create in our life is inside ourselves, right? Anybody wants to add to that? Does everybody agree with that?

Where is the source for the results that we experience in our life?

Speaker 18
I believe it is internal in nature, but at the same time, it is determined by one’s experience as well. So it could be it is internal but it is detrimental to us You will not have you will not be able to be the way you are unless you experience it outwards.

Abhishek
So you are the way you are. So that’s an explanation of why I am the way I am. But the results I’m producing in my life, what is causing them? What is the source of the results that I’m producing? What causes where is the cause? Another way of asking this question is Where is the cause for the results that I experienced? Or the outcomes that I experience in my life?

Speaker 19
Good evening, sir.

Abhishek
Hi, good evening.

Speaker 20
Sir, where is the source that is how I matter the matter to people. How I can give my my impression to people or how people getting benefit of me, right Oh, people are getting a what we call output of me or how they seem that is my source of results.

Abhishek
Right. So what what I’m sorry, you didn’t get your name

Speaker 21
Sanket.

Abhishek
Sanket. So, what Sanket is saying is that the source of our results are the people around us right people around us they create or produce or to a large part impact the results in our life. Now, who are these people? Obviously, they are not strangers, they are people who have some kind of importance in our life maybe they are our could be clients could be boss, could be could be parents could be your husband or could be a wife could be your children. So, these people around us, actually right. So the source of power lies within them. Right. So that is where I’m just signifying the source of power with a heart symbol. Right. So this is Sanket’s opinion, and this is what he believes to be the case. Right. Great. Any, any any anybody has any other thoughts, anything else you want to share? Where is the cause for our life for the results that we experience in our life? So initially, somebody said though, they did qualify it, but I just sort of went with their dominant preference, which was they said that my mind my thoughts, my heart, the source of power is within me, the source of the pause is inside

Speaker 22
Yeah, hello

Abhishek
yeah. Hi.

Speaker 22
Vishnupriya here. So Hi. I’m just adding to his point like, it depends on the people or it depends on how we behave with the people.

Speaker 23
I feel like how we behave with the people

Abhishek
Yeah, so you’re just saying it is inside us is about people. It’s not necessarily about what they can do for us, but it’s also about how what we do in the game.

Speaker 23
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 24
That’s enough depend upon the situations prevailing

Abhishek
Hmm. So what do you

Speaker 25
most of the times our behavior change with the situation? Okay, though, even though we internally perceive something else, but when some odd situation comes so we are the only one to not behave the way we actually are. Something like that.

Abhishek
Yeah, we can say that, but I have a I would like to contest it a little bit actually, because I would like to ask. There is a fairly consistent pattern that we displayed when it comes to our behavior. That’s why we are recognizable.

If we were completely different in every situation, and if we are we were able to be completely different in every situation, then we would be unrecognizable actually, because you would behave differently in the morning, because the situation is different, different in the afternoon, but people who knows who work with us, our clients, our bosses, our subordinates, our team members, they recognize us. there is some kind of consistency or a constancy in the pattern of behaviors that we display, which makes us recognizable. So there is some kind of consistency we are not entirely dynamic, where we are constantly completely changing. We live in patterns, we follow patterns, we repeat patterns.

Speaker 25
So again, like so the way of behavior is like different from personal and professional right Abhishek. Because with the professional people we behave in a consistent manner right?

Abhishek
Yeah.

Speaker 26
Just asking.

Abhishek
I would say the same thing. It’s true. So, so. So would you like to place them differently that in personal life, the power or the cause is within me, but when it comes to professional life, the power causes with other people. Would you like to say that?

Speaker 26
Yeah, yeah. Something like that.

Abhishek
sure. We’ll find out soon enough. Yes. Any other thoughts?

Speaker 27
What I believe is experience, which is an external thing, external source that normally determines the results, but the outcome of those results as in how your behavior, the behavior is and how you behave in a particular situation is within and depends on you.

Abhishek
Yeah. Great. Yeah, I agree with you. Right. Okay. So where is the power to shape our life circumstances? So we can look at our life right now. Isn’t it? What has something in our life changed in the last few months?

Yes, right.

And where has been the cause for those results?

Speaker 28
Definitely not internal

Abhishek
Chance factor in life
Definitely not internal and definitely not external right. So we can say that there is also a component of a sort of a sum something which is kind of like, chance, right? So if you are a religious person, you will call it God. If you are an atheist, you will call it luck or probability. If you’re scientific minded, we’ll call it probability. If you’re an atheist, you’ll call it coincidence or luck. If you’re a If you if you are a believer, you will call it God. But the point is that there is some thing external, some destiny, some coincidence, which plays an important part in our life as well. Would you agree with that? Yeah.

Speaker 26
Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Abhishek
What forces shape our lives?
So we identify these three forces that shape our lives, right? We find the force that is inside of us, like many people argued very eloquently and quite interesting, quite quite accurately, that our beliefs and our behaviors shape the results we produce. Somebody also argued quite eloquently that it is the people around us and how they perceive us and their behavior or their their responses actually shape our lives.

And then the third point, which nobody really raised, but is also true is that and many of our scores will tell us soon is about luck or chance or probability or fate, or destiny, or karma, or whatever it is that you might believe in some unseen force, which is not in our control, but which impacts us. Right. So, for example, and these are the most obvious examples, a planetary pandemic is a good example of something like that happening. But even the recession in your industry, the 2008 financial crisis, before that, the 2001 dot-com bubble burst.

These are all examples where events happening far away from us far beyond our control. Surely we cannot claim responsibility for this pandemic. Surely, we cannot say that we are stuck at home because of our own thoughts and attitudes and beliefs and behavior, right.

There is some other force at play here, which is impacting our life, right. So these three forces, these three places you can actually place the source of power that shapes our lives,

The three forces that shape either it is inside of me, or it is with other people, significant people in my environment. My father, my mother, my husband, my wife, my children, my boss, their boss, my CEO. And that impacts the results I experienced in my life, or it is luck by chance. It’s through your luck and chance and probability and Providence and karma and coincidence and God that I am experiencing these results in my life.

So these are three places where this power can be placed, right. Now, that begs the question, what is the right answer? Right? Where is the power? Where does the power actually reside? Does the power actually reside within me? Or does the power actually reside in people in my environment? Or does the power actually reside in a supernatural Kind of a happenstance that’s responsible for my outcomes and that that question needs to be looked at. And when we look at that question, what could be the answer? What do you think where this power really resides actually factually really truthfully. In truth where does it reside?

What do you guys think?

Speaker 27
within us, interally.

Speaker 26
Sorry?

Eternity, Okay.

Then us.

Speaker 28
Talking in realistic, keeping in mind realistic situations it is a mix. It is a mixture If I need to choose one, of course it is within us. The internal factors.

Abhishek
Okay, sure.

Where does it actually live? What do you think? What is the real actual answer? What is the the actual answer to this question?

Okay. Anybody wants to share? Yeah.

Okay, so the actual answer to this question is that we don’t know. This is a question for philosophers and scientists and maybe both. Certainly not a question for Human Resource Management snails in the context of their work, at least these this is these are large philosophical life questions, inquiries, actually. Right. And that path of inquiry might lead you to different roads, it can lead you to religion, it can lead you to meditation, it can lead you to yoga, it can lead you to Western philosophy, all different kinds of paths you can choose, when you walk on this road of inquiry, when you really find out what the answer to these questions are. Now, what is in our interest or knowledge, zoom in a little bit, because we sort of went broad, you know, we went quite global in our inquiry, we said, okay, what is the source of our life’s results? And where, what is creating the results of our life, etc.

But if we zoom in a little bit now and look at it from our narrow perspective of worship, how is this relevant to HR? How is this relevant to human resource professionals? Why are we talking about this, this is suddenly beginning to sound like a session on spirituality or philosophy or something. So why are we even talking about this? So the reason we are talking about it is because this is directly related to role efficacy. This is directly related to role efficacy. So how is it directly related to role efficacy?

Here is how it is related? We don’t know. And this is very important. So I want everybody to pay attention to this. We don’t know what life is really like. We one day we wake up on a planet that is floating around in a really, really big and black universe going around the sun, like a small pebble. And we have life and we have to make sense of we don’t know what is actually going on what life is, but we do know the impact of our beliefs on our behavior and on our performance. Right?

So when we believe something, belief, what is belief, right, so that’s a that’s a very important question. As HR professionals, we must be able to answer questions like this right. So if if we say what is belief, right, so belief is a sense of certainity, right? It’s a belief is a sense of certainty. You’re sure. So when I say belief here, I don’t mean belief in a religious sense that my belief is that x y z, right? I’m talking about what is the word believe mean? Believe means having a sense of certainty, your belief. So for example, I am certain that I’m good in mathematics. Or I’m, I am confident that I will be able to clear the CHRMP exam. That is belief, right? Your sense of certainty. That’s a belief.

Now, belief has an impact on behavior, and behavior has an impact on performance. So all over the world, you can draw a straight line, from belief to performance, and belief to results, right?

Typically, people who have positive beliefs have positive results have better results than people who have negative beliefs right now here when we really talk about these three things. These three options, the first option is that the power lies within me. The second option is that the power lies with other people. And third option is the power lies in some, some kind of a supernatural force in all three options, these are beliefs, these are, this is our sense of certainty, we feel sure that the power is in me, we feel sure that the power is with other people, we feel sure that power is with luck or with God or with chance, and that impacts our belief, it that belief impacts our behavior, that behavior impacts our performance.

So how does it impact so, so are you able to see the distinction? There is a reality of philosophical truth that we are not concerned with, that the philosophers are concerned with or we might be concerned with it as a sort of more personal question as a personal inquiry. Our personal spiritual path, we might be concerned with it. But it is a separate thing. We are not really talking about that right now, we are talking about about this reality, this mysterious reality that we don’t know much about. People have a belief.

And that belief of what they think is true, not what is actually true. We don’t know what is actually true. But what we think to be true what we think is actually the case impacts our performance.

Right. In this case, by the way, is this is this getting too complicated? Guys? Are you with me? Is this making sense?

Speaker 29
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 30
Yes, sir.

Speaker 31
Yes, sir.

Abhishek
So now what is happening is this belief that you have about a reality which is mysterious reality is mysterious, we don’t know. But we believe something about that reality. Like all of you said some things you believe, right? Somebody said, No, it’s within me. Somebody said no its with other people. Somebody said it’s a mix of everything, whatever your belief is, it is impacting your performance and what is the belief? There are three things that we try to discern through the instrument that we used three things we try to discern three things we try to find out. What are they? internality i internality is the belief that the power, the source of power is within me. That is internality, i. So all the statements marked I, they are statements that say I have the power in me. The power to change things, the power to do things, the power to create results lies within me. The locus of control is within me.

What is locus of control? 
Do you remember when you were when we were children, we had that geometric box and it had a compass. And in the compass, there would be a needle that would go in the center and where the needle goes would determine what kind of a circle you Draw are where you drew the circle. So the locus of control of that circle is the place where you put the needle. So if my life is a circle that has been created around me, where is the needle of that circle? If my life is a circle that is being created around me, then where is the needle of that circle? If the needle of that circle is within me, that is internality. That is why it's called locus of control, where we are physically trying to place the source of power, which creates outcomes and results in our life. Internality means that the source of this power is within me, externality others, eo externality others means that the source of this power is with other people around me. My boss, my parents, my wife, my husband, my children, my neighbor, my relative, my elder brother. They have the power. 
This is not reality, this is my belief about reality. Very, very important to make this distinction and el is externality luck.

Abhishek
This is the belief that fate is responsible, God is responsible, luck is responsible, chances responsible, Kismet is responsible. I am not responsible. Right? So, there’s not that I’m not responsible, but to a large degree, I believe that luck is responsible. So, these are nothing these are actually three sets of beliefs. I means, either belief, I is internality. And it means that the belief that dominant belief of the person is I am responsible. eo is externality others externality, the source of power is outside and others, its with other people externality others. and externality luck is source of power is others. And it is luck. It is not even other people. Right? So internality externality others and externality luck. Now, as you can imagine, what do you think is the relationship between internality and performance or role efficacy so that when they did the research, they called it role efficacy. Now, this part we don’t know, because remember this reality. This part is us, a domain of psych of philosophers and physicists and meta physicists, and epistemologists. And they are all trying to figure it out. And even they don’t know, they are also arguing with each other and bickering with each other about what is true and what is not true. So we don’t want to get into that. But we do understand this part.

We do understand this part, that if you believe something, it has an impact on performance and that part as HR professionals we know and we can measure? So when you measure when you measure this internality, what do you think is the relationship between internality and role efficacy? Role efficacy means effectiveness in your role? how good you are at your job? Do you think internality is positively correlated with the role efficacy? Or is it negatively correlated with all effects?

Speaker 26
depends on the individual.

Abhishek
Yeah, so for for an individual who has higher internality, do you think they will be more effective in their role or they’ll be less effective and what is internality? The belief that I am in control, I create the results I am I have the power to create the results of my life. Right?

Speaker 27
Yes for a positive person, definitely, it will be a positive outcome and experience.

Abhishek
That’s right. So now actually, I asked you this question as if you’re supposed to know the answer, but we can never know these answers you have to always find this out by research, that is what research is for. So typically, for example, the way to do this research would be the questionnaire you took just now, you take that questionnaire, and you give it to let us say 50 people in your company and match their internality scores and match and you have their last performance appraisal scores.

And then see if it is actually true that people who have high internality scores also have a high performance appraisal score. So if you are able to establish that there is a positive relationship, then we can say that there is a positive correlation between we can never I mean, we will always have an assumption, we will think that this is true, but actually you should not go by that you should always research so I’m asking you, I’m just asking you to guess remember, it’s really about research and finding out the what you have to do is you have to get the internality scores to get the performance scores. And then find correlation between them. And that correlation should be statistically significant. You don’t have to do all that.

I’m just telling you how this research is done, how they came to the conclusion that internality is actually positively correlated role efficacy. This is what the research indicates, right?

So research indeed indicates that internality is positively correlated to role efficacy, externality others is negatively correlated to role efficacy. And externality luck is also negatively correlated to role efficacy, which means people who had high internality scores were more effective in their roles.

People who had high externality others roles were not that effective. People who had higher externality luck scores. Were not the not that effective. This we can say with confidence, even though we can’t say what is the reality of the universe and what is the reality of life. So we can say with confidence that people who have high internality scores are perform better than people who have high externality or high externality luck scores. So that is sort of the research that was done. And this also sort of brings into light why we did that questionnaire that we did, right. So now let’s look at our scores. Right? So if you look at the scores that you had, so by the way, so before we look at this course, any anybody wants to discuss this in a more detailed manner, wants to contest something that I’m saying you want to sort of have

Speaker 28
Abhishek what happens if i and eo scores are nearly the same?

Speaker 1
Yeah.

What would happen? what would be the analysis?

Abhishek
Yeah, so that that’s the that’s the unique mix of the individual, isn’t it? So for example if my i scores I’ll just share the score analysis with you, right, just give me a minute. Yeah.

Speaker 28
Oh, yeah. Yes.

Abhishek
But about the construct of it. Any Any questions? Any comments? Anything you want to ask? Is this all right everyone?

Speaker 29
Yes, yes. Okay.

Speaker 30
Yes sir.

Abhishek
Any first thoughts that come into your mind as you’re listening to all this? Anything you want to share? Yes?

Speaker 31
I want to say something. Hello? Yes. I just said that belief is all about certainity right?

Abhishek
Yeah.

Speaker 31
So, I would I would I had two queries in my mind, just to just to you know, looking for your perspective on this be it like we can change our beliefs right?

Abhishek
yes, we can change our beliefs

Speaker 32
and how in the first place, how somebody acquires that belief, what is the source query that acquired that belief? How does he How did he acquire it? Yes. How do we land you know, at that that premise, I mean, you know, this is going to be my sense of certainty. So, so, first of all, I mean, how does he acquire it? Second, is it you know, I mean Can he can change it over a period of time as he progresses because of certain environmental factors or some another thing

Acquiring beliefs

Abhishek
So, So think about it. It’s very interesting, right? How do how do we acquire our beliefs? It’s a beautiful question. And it has a very interesting answer. I think intuitively all of us would know that. So for example, let us say, if you believe that I am poor at mathematics, or if you believe that I am not good looking, or if you believe that I am not really tall, or I’m not very smart, these are some examples of negative beliefs. You could also believe that I am, I can do whatever I put my mind to. Or you can also believe that I really am good at dealing with people. Where do you how do you apply? Right?

So, usually we acquire these beliefs by virtue of our experience, isn’t it?

So, we have an experience we constantly get poor marks in mathematics. People constantly tell us, you’re very good looking or you’re not good looking. And we acquire beliefs like that. We also acquire beliefs through something called Significant Emotional Events, something big happens and it shakes us. It, it stirs us from inside it registers really, we get either really hurt or we get really happy. And when the sadness, big emotional event occurs, usually new beliefs can get formed, right. So we have experience, we have significant emotional events. new beliefs can also get formed by looking at other people. So for example, if you look at the environment around you and you, for example, you don’t need to burn your finger in fire to know that it is hot, you can just look at other people, you can look at some videos and you can hear people tell you stories about what happens. And you can acquire a belief like that a lot of times people tell us don’t go into the water you will drown. It’s very dangerous to go into the water and we believe that water is dangerous without really having an experience of it. So this is an example of a second hand belief that we have adopted. So these are some ways in which beliefs can be be acquired. And there are other ways as well.

But these are some common ways experience emotional events, significant people telling us something, and we acquire, us acquiring their second hand beliefs.

Can Belief change

Can beliefs be changed, of course, beliefs are changed all the time. And this is something this is what you do in a cultural intervention, all HR people, isn’t it? When we are doing a culture intervention in a company, we want to shift beliefs. This is what we want to do in a developmental training program or an attitudinal training program. When we say that we want to have a training program on teamwork, what are we trying to do? We are trying to have a training program after which people will start believing that collaboration is good. Competition is not so good. We should help each other we should cooperate with each other. All of these things they will start believing. That’s what that’s why we do a teamwork kind of a workshop, right?

Advertising is a great example of people trying to change your beliefs right?

So for example, if somebody says, You’re not really successful unless you own XYZ car, or you’re only successful if you wear ABC shirt, or XYZ tie, so when they say that, what are they trying to Do? They really want you to believe it. And how are they doing that by showing it to you again, and again, it’s not like that’s why they show the ad again. And that’s why you see one ad 20 times 30 times in the course of a month or two months, because one looking at it once is not enough for you to believe it. So they want to shift that belief they want to alter that belief. So they are constantly showing you that ad so that you start believing that all success means happiness means Coca Cola, success means this particular car or this particular shirt, okay?

Role of doubt in shifting beliefs

You can shift beliefs by creating doubt. Doubt is a very, very powerful way to destroy belief. So for example, if somebody says that I’m not good at mathematics, you create doubt for that. Is that really true? Can you think of even one time in your life when you have been good at math? Give me Tell me about that time. So you make them relive that experience. They go deep into that experience. And then you sort of ask more, elicit more. And till they start doubting and they say that, oh, really, actually, that’s true. I’m not so bad at mathematics. But I find tough mathematics or complex mathematics stuff. So now the belief has shifted from I’m not good at maths to, I find complex mathematics tough, which is a good shift. And then again, you can challenge that belief. So you can create doubt, you can change beliefs by asking people to imagine what would happen if they continue believing and imagine an alternative to that. So, beliefs are changed all the time.

We are constantly updating our model of the world. We are constantly updating our mental map, our beliefs about the world and that is how we operate and that is what we think of a called growth in our life. Right. So that’s a good question. I hope that answered your question.

Speaker 32
Yes, but I had an interesting perspective in my mind, as you say that, you know, we cannot talk about certain domain as, as convincingly it is the domain of the philosophers and physicists and scientists and all that, right. So, now I have a unique query in my mind, if you can contribute, now scientists have got the research data to back them up, right? If If somebody says that the earth is you know, round, so, we believe him because, you know, he’s got certain research data to back it up, okay. Now, suppose, tomorrow, if somebody would say the earth is flat, so he needs to back it up with scientific data, and then only we’ll change our belief right? Is it so? I mean, am I making sense?

Yeah, that’s right.

now my only question is, now my only question is, now what do we mean why people take reference to philosophers, they do not have any research data, right? But still we beliefs operate due to Confucius, all these great philosophers, right? So how does that, you know, why this contradiction?

So actually, this is a very interesting topic. And I’m really at the risk of getting swept up in this discussion and leaving our HR topic time. So I don’t want to get too deep into it, but philosophy

Speaker 33
That’s why I put a caveat.

Abhishek
Sure, sure. Earlier, everything was called philosophy, sciences was also called philosophy. Economics was called philosophy, biology, chemistry, everything was called philosophy. Now we are in the era of super specialization, so everything has gotten fragmented. And in fact, there is a movement to try and build all this fragmented knowledge into one unified body of knowledge called consilience. So that’s a that’s so so so you know, I just answered that question with a with an With a simple example, they say that if you ask a question, if for example, if you look at something The sky is blue, and you ask, Why is the sky blue? And somebody answers that, then you are a scientist. But if you ask the why twice, so why the sky is blue? And you say the sky is blue? Because light reflects like that, and ecetera, ecetera. And then you say, so why does and then you ask for a why behind that? Where did that light come from? What is the source of that light? Then you are a philosopher. So ask why once you’re a scientist and ask why twice. You’re a philosopher. This topic is very, very tempting. But I must go back to my topic.

Speaker 34
I’ll just put one last remark and then I’ll just you know, unmute unmute myself.

Speaker 35
Sure.

This is my personal opinion, I think every human being, am I audible?

Abhishek
Yeah, you’re audible.

Speaker 36
Yeah, I think every human being could agree to it. I mean, possibly majority of them. They will not be sure about the fact that either they got the scientific acumen or they would be, they would become at any point in time become the scientist, but I can certainly tell you 95% of people would say that there is a philosopher living in their living within themselves. That is, that is that is one thing that I feel that, you know, that is there, every individual in today, either he’s got a sense of philosophy, or he is ruled by a certain set of philosophies, or there is a innate philosopher that is resides within his body or in mind that guides him or that gets in the direction. That is my own personal opinion. I I don’t know about the rest of the world.

Abhishek
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us. So coming back to our research, we can see that this is what research indicates that high internality scores were positively correlated to role efficacy.

High externality scores were negatively correlated to role efficacy.

And here role efficacy means effectiveness in your Job How good are you at your job externality luck was negatively correlated to role efficacy. Now let’s look at some research data. So for example, here is what the research so this is a research conducted with I think around 280 people in an organization, there is the research I read. So now they have around greater than 33, a score of greater than 33 is very high internality very high self confidence, less than 17 is very little self confidence at work. So, now you can look at your scores actually 29 to 32 shows high trust in your own ability and effort and 22 to 28 it displays trust in your ability. 18 to 21 lacks trus, self trust and needs to examine strengths based on feedback from others. So this is what the internality scores mean. As far as so you can look at your scores and see which degree you’re where you fall, right.

Usually high internality is good, considered good for performance. Now, if you look at look at externality greater than 30 is dysfunctional dependence on others, which means there is too much of dependence on others some maybe even unhealthy dependence on others. If you look at 21 to 29, it’s sort of realistic dependence, this score is not considered poor. 17 to 20 is independence, less than 16 also is a problem because it’s like counter dependence. We are actively avoiding people and trying to build dependencies with that interdependency with that, right? externality luck again, the lower the score, the better it is. If you have a externality score, externality luck and El score greater than 10 you may have difficulties in dealing with the frustration resulting from unforeseen failure. So essentially, what will happen if you feel that luck is in charge or destiny is in charge, essentially, personally Have a feeling of helplessness I mean, you also might have a feeling of surrender or something like that, which is more spiritual kind of a thing. But you are likely to experience frustration because you feel helpless, as everything is controlled by forces that you cannot do anything to influence. Right? So this essentially, is that interpretation of the score that you have received. Right. So, what do you feel when you look at your scores? And when you look at your life, do you feel that there is a sense of because remember this, these scores have come from the scores you gave to those statements, we looked at those 30 statements and we asked ourselves, Is this true? Is this false? And we sort of analyzed it in that sense. When you look at these scores, what do you feel anybody would like to share their thoughts, their opinions? Does? Does it show a mirror to you in terms of Where is the source of responsibility in your life? Because see what happens if internality is high, which means you believe that you have Remember, this is about belief, right? So you believe that you have the power to change things. What happens is you find new ways you look out for options you take, you figure out something, you try to find some solution. Why? Because it’s up to you. So, you are trying to do something about it, right?

A very high externality score means that you are believe others are responsible.

So there is a tendency to blame that you’re you should have done this or you should have done that.

That kind of thing can happen. externality luck is like it’s all Kismet that’s all fate. So I’m not responsible for that. But those things could happen. Right? So what are your scores tell you what do you feel when you look at your scores?

Speaker 31
Hello!

Speaker 1
Yeah, hi.

Speaker 31
Yeah, this is Priyanka.

Speaker 1
Yes Priyanka.

Speaker 31
Yeah, I spoke my score. Yes I totally relate to what I believe in. And exactly see the clear picture now. That what things I need to focus on and what things and means workout by my own. So it helps really it helps

Abhishek
Right, I am very happy to hear that Priyanka. Is there something specific that you want to decide to do or something specific? You want to say that? Yeah, I think I should do this after seeing the score. Is there something like that that comes to your mind?

Speaker 31
Yeah, that the the external luck you’re talking about, m score is 18. So I would work on that.

Abhishek
Great. Yeah, that that you need to look at. So if you find yourself thinking is, I’m not in my hands. It’s luck. Or kismet maybe that’s the time to really catch yourself thinking like that and then bring it back to what can I do in this situation? You know?

Speaker 31
Correct.

Abhishek
Alright. Anybody else would like to share?

Thank you, Priyanka.

Speaker 32
Abhishek I just want to know your opinion on this, that such kind of psychometric test? Or it’s like, once we are done with these 30 questions, this is the result. And if we more keenly observe these questions again and perform the test, the points or the answers slightly differ. What do you think about that?

Abhishek
Yes, so I must tell you that that’s a good question. And I think maybe I should have started with this. That when we talk about psychometric tests, we should always remember that a psychometric test is very different in nature, from something like a test on mathematics or a test on blood test or weight test or something because when you write a test on mathematics or you take a blood test or you take a cholesterol test, or something, you know, a kind of a exact answer, you know that this is the number this is what we have.

About Psychometric tests

But psychometric tests are not like that they are not literal, they are indicative, they point to something, they don’t necessarily tell you your score in the same way that your weighing scale tells you your weight or a meter tape tells you the height, which are very tangible, very fixed. Very true. It’s not true in the same sense, it is, what is the difference between somebody who scored 35 and 36? Are if we are talking about kgs, then we can say that the difference is one kg between somebody who’s 35 kg and somebody who is 36 kgs but between if you’re talking about internality scores, somebody got 33 and somebody got 35. What is the difference really? it’s very difficult to kind of describe that. So we should but at the same time, it would also be not right to completely discount the psychometric test and say that no, no, these scores just keep changing, not nothing like that. Because these scores while they are not as tangible and as physical and as literal as the score, which measures hard, hard hard factors, it is still indicative of something, you know, why did you give yourself a four and not a three? Why did you give yourself a two and not a zero? It does indicate that your mind is in a particular state at this time. And and you have given a score, which most closely represents your beliefs and your feelings. So it does indicate something we cannot say that it doesn’t, its meaningless. We can say that it’s not as accurate as a physical test or a tangible test. But at the same time, we cannot say that it is meaningless. So I always like to say that it’s something like it points you to something. It shows you a direction of something. It doesn’t really tell you a literal score a literal fact about yourself. But it shows you an indication or a sample or a direction of where your behavior lies or where your mindset or your beliefs or your feelings, etc lie. Right. So that’s how I would like to describe that. Hopefully that makes sense.

Speaker 32
Yes.

Abhishek
Yes. Shanton, do you want to share something?

Speaker 32
Yes. Sir. I have got 29 scores in internality and in eo I got six and el I got six, okay.

Abhishek
Okay.

Speaker 32
So how will I able to identify, I think in internality got 29 so I think that is much

Abhishek
yeah, internality is 29 and externality others is much?

Speaker 32
it’s six

Abhishek
six.

Speaker 32
Yeah.

Abhishek
Six. So there is a very high dependence on self. Isn’t it

Speaker 32
eo is six and el is also six and i is 29

Abhishek
so eo is very low, right? Yeah. Are you working right now? No. Okay. So maybe since the questions were mainly about the organization where you are working right now, when you were answering the questions, were you thinking about your last office? or What were you thinking when you answered the questions?

Speaker 32
Last office.

Abhishek
last office. So maybe it that sort of has gotten mixed up with this. So if you feel still feel that the scores are actually true, and you are that that that thing has not gotten mixed up. So if you see all the questions are about workplace, right, yeah. Now I would like to ask you, what do you think happens in a workplace where everybody gets a high eo score?

Speaker 32
Pardon?

Abhishek
If in a company, you take this test to people and you See, in general, people’s eo score is very high, externality others.

What does that mean?

Speaker 32
I mean, maybe this also around me is so you know, strong. I feel they are much more experienced than me.

Abhishek
You feel that others are more powerful. Others have all the power isn’t. There is a sense of helplessness that you have about the being in the organization, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. And in your case, a very low scores probably means that you couldn’t depend on at all people around you didn’t have power at all. You feel that you were the one who had the source of power and others were powerless. Is that what you feel about your previous organization?

Speaker 32
Yes sir.

Abhishek
Yeah. So that being mirrored here. In fact, I have seen that when I consult with leaders, they often tend to get really, really worried if the ei is there. internality scores are low, because it means that in the organization something dysfunctional is happening. People believe that they cannot think get things done. Either it will happen by chance or somebody around them will do it. They will not do it. That’s a risky thing for an organization. Right.

Speaker 32
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 33
Yeah. Hi, Sunita here. Just wanted to have have an explanation with regard to independence of eo. So can you just explain a bit on how we need to evaluate that? independence? independence? Eo

Abhishek
This one right?

Speaker 33
Yes. Yeah, third one 17 to 20.

Speaker 1
Okay, so, so so 17 to 20 means that you are that the person who has that score is independent, which means they are not it’s they’re not dysfunctionally relying on others, maybe not dysfunctionally blaming others. And it’s a good score. I don’t see. I mean, is that what you want me to?

Is that the question?

Speaker 34
yeah, but

Speaker 34
yeah, I wanted to understand the meaning of what exactly is meaning by the independence?

Speaker 1
Sure. Yes. Oh, sure. So indeed, so the score 17 to 20. Or independence here simply stands for the fact that you have you have you you recognize and acknowledge the presence of others and that they have the power that they hold yet. You do not how’s your internality score, mam?

Speaker 35
Mine is 17

Speaker 1
your internality is score 17

Speaker 36
Oh, no, I’m sorry. Internality is 35.

Speaker 1
Ah, that’s right. So that’s that’s the independence thing, right? So you have a very high sense of personal ownership, and an idea of acknowledging others presence but not really depending upon others to get the work done, right. Would you describe yourself as that? Or would your coworkers describe you in that way?

Speaker 36
Ah, yes, I would describe myself like that.

Abhishek
Yeah, that’s right. So that is what has come out here. It just means that while you acknowledge and recognize that power and ownership lies with other people, you largely take control of the situation and try to accomplish your results. That’s what this score mean. Right?

Speaker 36
Thank you.

Speaker 37
Sir I have a question here?

Abhishek
Yes, ma’am.

Speaker 38
Um, can it be like this that you don’t trust others for various reasons, and you end up having, the scores low.

Abhishek
which scores ma’am?

Speaker 38
the externalities scores.

Abhishek
Yeah, that’s right. That could happen. In fact, that is something that we discuss in johari window, isn’t it? where we talk about self disclosure perceptiveness to external cues and signals, openness to feedback. So what So again, we are not really exploring the reasons why the scores are the way they are different reasons could be there, right? It somebody could have childhood experiences something that trust reasons around trust, somebody could have a larger philosophical point of view, somebody could be very religious, and that could be responsible for externality luck being very high, isn’t it? So the the instrument does not really explore the reasons why you feel what you feel or why you believe what you believe. It just tests where you look at the question, you get the statements. They say, this is a statement. Do you believe it? To what degree do you believe it? It’s not really exploring why do you believe it or what are the reasons we believe it? So yes, I agree with you, not trusting others could be a bonafide reason why your externality others score is low or high. What is your externality score?

Speaker 38
20

Abhishek
is it high or low? Yeah. So it’s independence you’re 20 because you feel you cannot trust others.

Speaker 38
And maybe in some instances where I feel okay, it could be like, the person may not take it so seriously. So I try and do it by myself. That could be the reason.

Abhishek
Sure. possible, right. That could happen, but think about it, if somebody has a high score, they will believe that it is their work, they have to do it. So why should I do it? That could be one belief, another belief could be even if I do it, they have to, they will ultimately they will not help me out to do it well, so why should I do it at all? So the you are essentially giving the power to the other party? That’s what happens when we do it.

Speaker 38
Yes. Okay.

Abhishek
I think somebody has a TV on or something guys if you can just mute it

Yeah, go ahead Vidya.

Abhishek
When we’re talking about this luck factor, external factors. is upbringing has any role with this kind of behavior of dependency, non dependency, and you know, because this the next generation that we are looking at, okay? They’re very, very independent. What I have observed, they are when it comes to taking their online sessions, they don’t depend on parents right now. And they are capable enough to decide what subject they have to choose wherein the the generation is changing, is it all because of the upbringing that the philosophers have, you know, decided something and they scored something and then decided that okay, this category, this numbers are realistic and it is Depending on the generation, or is it gonna change as you said, the way the belief changes?

Abhishek
So yeah, so I think for all of us, every human being on the planet, we, we, our upbringing and our environment in which we are brought up our primary relationships, which are, most of the time it is our parents. And they impact the initial model of the world that we create. And then they continue to impact other belief systems because it’s like a complex structure, right? So you essentially have a foundation and then on top of that, you build a complex structure and then of course, your school and your environment and your neighborhood and all of that sort of comes together to build your belief structure. Right. And so there is no denial that that is that plays a very important role in your mental model of the world, but at the same Same time, there is also no reason why this belief structure cannot be consciously updated by us. Right?

Believing new things or changing beliefs

We can. We can choose to believe new things, we can choose to believe different things. We can choose to see beliefs as beliefs and not believe them so seriously, we can and that usually leads to more easy stress management more. Because for example, if you see that things have to be a particular way for you to feel satisfied. And then you see that as a belief, and maybe if you explore that belief in the origin, and you see that the origin of it is in your childhood or in your upbringing, and you see the whole structure of that thought. And then you see that also this and it doesn’t hold that power over me anymore. So we are capable of personal change. There is no doubt about that. And there is a relationship between our upbringing and the behaviors and beliefs that we exhibit on a day to day basis. And the same is true for the younger generation also. Whatever context They are being brought up in whatever rules and regulations and whatever philosophies and cultural norms are present for them in that to that they are responding and adopt adopting, just like we did for our own in our own time. So I would not say that this generation is smarter or brighter or more intelligent or less intelligent, I would say that human the human mind responds and adapts to the situation it finds itself in, we find it amazing because we have a comparison. So we compare it to ourselves and we say, Oh, my God, we couldn’t do it, but they can. But if we were born in this time, maybe we would be equally independent and bright and smart.

Speaker 1
Right?

Speaker 39
Yes, yes.

Speaker 39
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1
Pankaj, I think you wanted to ask something you are unmuted for a while.

Okay, any other questions? Guys?

Speaker 40
No, I was just thinking about this test. You know, I think whenever one takes a test, you know, so much depends on on the environment that one would have been to in his particular organization, and definitely it would differ from organization to organization.

Abhishek
Yeah, that’s right. So in this case, it does differ from organization to organization,

Speaker 40
yeah. Because I was, again, going through the questions again, and I was thinking, Okay, my answers were totally dependent on you know, I did not know this concept of i, eo, and el. So, ideally in a situation if my i is more you know, in any other test, it would be more talking about me myself, you know, then I’m, I’m a poor team player. Yeah. Right. So my if my eo is less and if my i is more so so I would be you know. I would be said that he is not a team player. So let’s not hire.

Abhishek
No, no, no, this is not measuring that that is johari window actually. that is

But we don’t know. Because the test when we took we were not clear about this concept about i, eo, and el

but the question is then then you are trying to game the test, isn’t it?

You are trying to say that would be so is this is this test assessing my team members skills, then I should give answers according to that or is this test assessing my

Speaker 40
exactly so when we are not even clear about what this test is going to assess us on? Then we make our own assumptions and then accordingly get the answers right.

Abhishek
No, no, but the, the, the the idea is not to give an answer. On the basis of what you think the test is testing. The idea is to give an answer Which mirrors what your beliefs are. Right? So it’s not about guessing the right answer. It’s about using an answer, which indicates what your beliefs are, what your thoughts are, isn’t it?

doesn’t make sense? It’s a developmental tool, right?

We are doing here in the spirit of development and personal growth. So it’s it’s not an assessment per se. It’s not like this is a lot of part of the certification exam. So we are doing it just to find out more about ourselves in the spirit of self growth and personal development.

Speaker 40
Ideally, in what situation do we take the steps?

Abhishek
Yeah, so most of the time, I would say that 95% actually, I would say that I have rarely, if ever seen this test being used out of a developmental context, it’s always in the context of a leadership program, self discovery program, personal development lab, some kind of a self awareness workshop, it is in this context that we use it right it is, it is important to recognize this because it helps leaders and HR professionals like us to get a sense of where are we because remember, when you say that externality others is responsible, then you also outsource the entire power to change the situation to them, right? You are not in so for example, for a team leader who believes that eo is responsible externality others other people are responsible, which means team members are responsible. So then what they are doing is what what do you think will they be their leadership style? Most of the time probably what they will do is they will blame the team members or they will blame their boss and say that they are responsible For the results that we are creating as a team, that could be counter productive for the organization. But through a experiment like what we did just now a conversation like we are having just now, they are able to see that, oh, so this is what I’m doing. And I’m actually blaming others. And I believe that the power to change realities lies with other people. And this is not helping me be a better leader. So let me revisit that part of me and let me see if I can believe something.

We can also look at it the other way around, right? Like, you know, when we’re talking about externality, you know, others. You’re also saying that, you know, it was the entire team who contributed it was not only me. I’m not trying to blame but I’m also giving credit to others for being successful. We were successful as a team.

Uh, no, but if you look at the statements that have eo next to it will typically find it’s about who is in control or Who has the power to change things? Right? Those are that the statements read like that, isn’t it? Right?

If you look at the statements, it’s about people who are in charge control most matters here. People who are some people hold all the power here I can, I cannot grow in my role unless other people like me or other so I mean, I’m not I don’t remember exactly all the statements, but this is the kind of language that has been used. And what does this language signify? It signifies that the results in your life are being dependent upon other person. It is not the statements are not that everyone’s contribution is important for the success of the team. That’s not what we are saying. We are saying, for me to grow people should like me, for me to achieve Success others should support me or how are there are a few people who control everything here now this is a matter of pure perception that for my growth somebody else has to like me for my success, somebody else is responsible, this is perception. This is not in in the same spirit of acknowledging effort that you are mentioning, there would be a questionnaire for that, but this is not that. Does it make sense Pankaj? Are you able to Are you seeing them? Yeah. Sure.

Great. Wait, any other questions, guys?

Okay, so

it’s now 8:44 right, at least in India. So we will um. We will so I want to close this session. I take another five minutes or 10 minutes. I want to share a tool with you, which helps you to resolve this entire issue of internality-externality because there is a argument to be made that for example, pandemic is a good example, that large scale things do get affected by luck. For example, if you are in the hospitality industry right now, or if you are in tourism or airline, then obviously your business has been affected by the pandemic, and it is not internality you didn’t cause the pandemic but it has affected you. So that is a reality.

A lot of times decisions can be made a CEO can make a decision to lay off or close in a department or a business unit. And that can affect your life and you did not make that decision. Some other person took that decision and that has affected your life. So so there is a beautiful tool that I want to share with you. And it’s originally I think maybe the genesis of it, at least from what I have read is a book by Hiram W. Smith called 10 natural laws of time and life management.

Later on it was also adopted by Stephen R. Covey, who has written about it extensively. It’s very, very popular tool. It’s all used consistently in behavioral workshops, in leadership programs, self awareness, self discovery workshops, and it really ties all the loose ends together of what we are discussing, right. So I’ll just tell you about it very, very quickly. What what happens is we basically look at two circles. Right. And we call the internal circle, as the circle of influence. And we call the external circle as the circle of concern. And the circle of concern is basically a circle which includes those items which affect us, but which we cannot affect for example, so, what are some things that can affect us, but we cannot affect them?

Can you give an example?

Speaker 41
how the senior behaves with you?

Abhishek
yeah how somebody else behaves with you

what else?

you cannot affect their behavior even a junior person, how they behave with you, you cannot affect their behavior. Maybe you can affect your own behavior, but you cannot affect their behavior, isn’t it? They will choose how they behave, right.

Yes, what else?

give me give me four things which you cannot affect.

Speaker 42
Nature.

Abhishek
Yeah, so, nature, pandemic, recession, traffic, the natural disaster all those kind of things right you cannot affect them, but they can affect you. And inside the circle of things that you can actually affect, what are they?

What are some things that we can affect?

Speaker 43
my own performance, my attitude towards others

Abhishek
my own behavior, my own thoughts

Speaker 44
beliefs

Abhishek
what I choose to learn what I eat, who I spend time with, all of these things I can focus on. So this inner circle is contains things which I can operate, which where I can influence. So actually, the real nuance of this is very critical actually, is that internality operates in the inner circle. It cannot operate in the outer circle. It’s pandemic here no? your internality cannot operate outside. So the mistake we make in consciousness is we dis we, we operate in the outer circle rather than the inner circle. So we look at the pandemic, and we feel helpless and we feel stressed. Or we look at the traffic and we feel angry and we feel frustrated, or we look at the behavior of our boss, and we feel so then what is frustration? It’s because I can’t do anything about it. But it is anyway, something I cannot do anything about. Right? So I just have a small graphic to share with you.

I’ll just quickly share it and that will give you a very good sense of how this works, right. So essentially, if you see this is circle of concern, things you cannot influence or change. What are they? economy, your boss, other people’s beliefs, other people’s behavior, your daily commute, weather, traffic, all of these things you cannot change, right? And inside is the green circle. These are the things that you actually can change right? What are they? For example, the time you wake up in the morning what you eat, meditation, pursuing a hobby, your own behavior, these are things that you can change.

Now, the question is on a day to day basis or a moment to moment basis, which circle do you live in? Do you live in the outer circle? Or do you live in the inner circle? When I say live in it means Where are your thoughts? Where is your energy? Where are your emotions? Where are you invested? Are you invested in the outer circle or are you invested in the inner circle? If you are invested, which means you are emotionally present in the outer circle, which contains things like economy, pandemic traffic, other people’s behavior, how will you feel? frustrated, angry, depressed, helpless, most of the time, typical feelings are

sorry?

Speaker 45
irritated

Abhishek
irritated most of the time the common feelings of irritation, frustration, helplessness, anger, and sadness, because why? because You can’t do anything. What can you do about traffic? What can you do about economy, can’t do. So if you stay there, you will feel very, very frustrated. But the moment you focus on the inner circle, your whole approach changes. The moment you focus on what you can do, your whole approach changes, then you feel so how do you feel in the inner circle, guys?

Abhishek
You become calm, at peace, it tries to basically divert your mind towards those things.

Abhishek
So you essentially try to take action, isn’t it? You say, Okay, this is what I can do, because now you’re focused on what you can change. So this this tool is actually is extremely, extremely powerful. In fact, I would like to give you a homework that I request all of you to draw this. This two circles, and then if you want, you can share it with me on telegram or you can share it with each other. But the important thing is to draw this circle.

The outer circle, the only thing we can do is we can accept it, we should not fight that if you fight that fight that it leads to frustration and helplessness and the inner circle, that is where action actually lies. That is what is in control. Actually, that is what you should focus on your energy is also in any situation. If you are feeling helpless or frustrated or you don’t know what to do, look at what you can do.

Now imagine this exercise is so crucial for leaders, so crucial in crisis. Imagine if a crisis for example, we have this whole coronavirus crisis and this pandemic, in this situation, if you sit in outer circle, you can just an organization or its set of leaders can just go into a depression thinking about what they can do. But the inner circle would really help them to decide what to do and what action to take. Does it make sense everyone? Yeah?

Abhishek
Yeah I think during this pandemic, this is what we’re doing. I think we are more concentrating on the circle of influence where we are totally concentrating on learning, meditation, diet.

Abhishek
If you do that, then you feel powerful, right? You feel like you can do something. But if you’re in the outer circle, you start feeling frustrated and helpless. So consciously we should try. So at any point of time, if one is feeling overwhelmed, draw two circles on a piece of paper, write down in the inner circle the things that you do control and then focus on them and leave the others that is the way forward for any action actually, in any situation. That is what you can do. Right? Does it make sense guys?

So we have learned two important concepts today.

One is locus of control, which is really a an unbelievably popular tool for measuring locus of control. Right. It is extremely popular in the world of leadership development, self development, personal growth, human labs. We talk about where is the locus of control? Is it internal? Is it external? number one. Number two, we have learned about circle of concern and circle of influence, again, a very, very popular tool when it comes to being proactive being taking ownership because this is where proactiveness is proactiveness lives in the inner circle. Ownership lives in the inner circle. Accountability lives in the inner circle. Right? So another way of understanding this circle is to look at this prayer. Right? It’s a beautiful prayer, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, right? God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change. God grant me the strength, to change the things that I can change. But most importantly, God give me the wisdom to know that difference between these two. Isn’t it? So that’s a prayer that sort of says exactly the same thing. Right?

I will just just one second.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah. So, so that that sort of makes the same point.

Speaker 46
Abhishek you just mentioned about a novel.

Abhishek
Yeah.

It’s called 10 natural laws of time and life management, by Hyrum W. Smith, Hyru m, Hyrum W. Smith, and it talks about beliefs, but it also has a beautiful chapter on values. It begins with that actually, an exercise of walking across the steel beam and the World Trade Center. Of course, it doesn’t exist now. But it did at the time, and it’s a beautiful book,

I strongly recommend reading it. Any any it’s not a novel Actually, it’s a it’s a book. It’s a nonfiction book.

Right?

Abhishek
It’s a nonfiction book. Yeah great

Abhishek
internality scores somebody wanted to see, these are the internality scores. Okay, any other questions, guys, so this is this is my presentation for today, I’m done.

Now, the use of it is of course your own personal growth and development because as an HR person you must know what is your circle of influence that you need to work with in and you must have the tools and techniques to be proactive, take ownership, understand, and but also more importantly, understand that with your employees also the same thing is happening. If they have different internality externality, other scores, they might be blaming others they might be placing the power in others, these beliefs need to be corrected. The one way to correct these beliefs is to have conversations like the ones we are having right now because when we have these type of conversations, our minds become more open and we start seeing things which were not visible earlier, properly.

Any any final questions? Any final comments? Before we close?

Speaker 47
Very great session. It was a great session.

Abhishek
Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? Anything you want to discuss about this? Okay, so homework is to draw a circle of concern, circle of influence for your work. Maybe you can do one for your life and one for your work or just do one big one. Get a big sheet of paper and draw two circles and just write down everything. It creates a lot of clarity. I have personally done this tool. At least not hundreds, but maybe dozens of times in different situations, to get clarity and to figure out what to do. It’s a beautiful tool I would strongly recommend

Okay, that’s it, then I think it is we can close the session. Thank you so much. Have a good evening, everyone, and we’ll see you soon. Bye.

Speaker 49
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 50
Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Speaker 51
Thank you.

Speaker 52
Thank you so much.