Focus: Objectivity & Balance

Productivity mentalities must focus on a largely impersonal world, which requires objectivity and balance.

Well-being mentalities must be psychologically focused, which requires subjectivity and responsiveness.

Productivity Set

These mentalities live in a world of purpose and consequences, and so are preoccupied with

• maintaining objectivity &

• keeping feelings in check so as to be balanced,

while releasing passion for the task.

Moving down the diagonal, there is:

• more engagement with external reality, &

• more beneficial integration of emotions into activities

i.e. increasingly subjective objectivity.

• Perspective-centred individuals maintain objectivity by disengaging emotionally from the subject being studied. They accept the messiness of reality and seek win-win-win Win-win just refers to the two parties. The third win refers to benefit for the social context: the group or organization or community or wider society. solutions.

Feelings & Distress

Feelings: Their personal feelings may contribute to a choice of topic or task and the sensitivity required to understand.

Distress: tends to be handled by withdrawal from contact, avoidance of debate, and dissociation from inner experiences.

• Cause-centred individuals maintain objectivity by accepting regimentation and by following rules principles and procedures developed by the discipline or dogma.

Feelings & Distress

Feelings: Adherents are encouraged to develop passion (zeal) but to keep emotions focused and controlled. Dangerous inner experiences, often well-known thoughts or temptations not in keeping with the ideal, must be managed effectively by self-control.

Distress: Succumbing to inappropriate emotions or thoughts leads to penalties. Adherents about to succumb are instructed to withdraw temporarily from activities or to seek counselling.

• Market-centred individuals maintain objectivity in their endeavours in a variety of ways e.g. dispassionately weighing costs and benefits, applying quantitative and qualitative analyses, or using independent advisors.

Feelings & Distress

Feelings: Giving way to emotions, resulting in loss of objectivity or balance, typically leads to financial losses. Yet passion plays a positive part in business. In jobs, self-control is beneficial but emotions may need to be displayed. In entrepreneurial efforts, emotional intelligence, i.e. knowing and using the emotional positions of protagonists including oneself, is integral to success.

Distress: Dependence on hope or problems «just going away» is usually fatal. So, persistent distress must be regarded as a warning sign either of loss of objectivity, or of a business problem not being faced squarely.

Well-being Set

Those with well-being mentalities are certainly capable of objectivity and balance at work or in specific situations calling for such a focus. However, they do not worry too much about objectivity and balance in regard to what is most important for them: their social relationships.

• Kinship-centred people expect and accept being unbalanced by intense emotions and wishes in relation to family members.
• Power-centred people expect and accept being unbalanced by slights, impulses and fears from within and without their group.
• Community-centred people expect and accept being unbalanced by neglect and mistreatment, blatant unfairness or mindless social damage affecting the members of a community.
• Reality-centred people expect and accept being unbalanced by the slightest event or extraneous stimulus when it gets suddenly filled with intense significance.

Imbalance in any of these mentalities naturally generates interaction or talk with relevant people in their group. Their whole approach to effective perception is different.

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• See how the well-being set stays focused.

Originally posted: July 2009