Productivity and Success: Psychologist Reveals a New Model for Business Leaders and Decision Makers in the Workplace

IRVINE, Calif., June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's workplace environment reflects the excess that has occurred in the country, which has finally caught up with us.

"Whether it is obesity, taking medications, rampant healthcare costs or failed budgets at the personal, state or federal level - we can no longer ignore our lack of self control," said J.R. Slosar, a psychologist and author of "The Culture of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success" (ABC-CLIO: Praeger). "Nor can we ignore the reasons that contribute to it. Financial collapse and the great recession have forced workers to make changes for economic survival and to stay employed. Companies that are rebounding are now faced with a rapidly changing culture that must redefine what 'success' is. These cultural forces include the speed of technology, technology coupled with media and the risk-taking that comes with excessive capitalism."

Understanding these trends and their impact on behavior has profound implications for the workplace.

Slosar explores and discusses these cultural trends and offers recommendations for everyone to develop a focused self-control and utilize good judgment and effective decision-making skills.

Here are some key points of the book that can help offset the fast and uncontrolled pace of today's workplace.

1. Develop Quantitative Skills.

Today's workers have much avoidance of numbers and anxieties surrounding math. This is reflected even with overall U.S. scores in school in math and science. Employers desperately need people with math and quantitative skills. It is paramount for employers to help workers develop quantitative thinking and skills. The development of these skills has a carryover effect: the use of analytic thinking and better decisions. This is because this thought process is slower, more deliberate, and avoids the fast screen media impulsivity that leads to poor decisions.

2. Establish Boundaries and Limits.

Surveys show that one of the most prized workplace issues today is to have flexibility. Workers constantly want to not have fixed hours, to work at home, and to have much flexibility in their schedules. Unfortunately, this contributes to a less structured and diffuse environment that contributes to less self-control. Employers (like parents) have to set boundaries and limits. A young employee cannot grow and develop without boundaries and limits. Employers seem to think that productivity increases with flexibility because workers are happier. Slosar points out that the primary culprit in declining self-control reflected in increased risk-taking and cheating, is the lack of boundaries and limits. He states: "In an era that prized deregulation, we have deregulated our internal mechanisms of self-control."

3. Develop New Measurements of Success.

Total emphasis today in business is usually on quantity and dollar figures, that is, the proverbial bottom line. It is important for decision makers to develop qualitative measures and show how they relate to workplace improvement. Today's new model of success is more refined and qualitative. It results in finding ways to improve efficiency, develop better customer relations, and making things safer, easier, and more efficient at work. If it makes life easier, it will surely be noticed and improve the "bottom line."

The dramatic changes that have come from The Great Recession demand a new perspective and a new model of success. What is more important is that improvement in the above areas will develop an efficient, healthy and productive workplace.

The Culture of Excess is available on Amazon in hard cover and Kindle. It is also available from the publisher (http://www.ABC-CLIO.com). Discussion and blogs are available at his web page: http://www.cultureofexcess.com    

About the Author:

Jay Slosar is a Psychologist in private practice in Irvine, CA, and the author of The Culture Of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success. (ABC-CLIO, 2009). He delivers presentations and seminars in the areas of cultural trends in the workplace, judgment and making effective decisions at work, and redefining success at work.

SOURCE Jay Slosar