About the Book
A new workplace demands that you take charge of your anchors. It challenges you to pay attention to the aspects that drive your behaviour, attitudes, perceptions, and emotions. At the same time, recognizing the motives, needs and emotions of others is imperative for personal leadership. This will help you hone your collaborative instincts, and in embracing diversity and engaging effectively in a professional setting.
Based on the author’s experiences and her interaction with others, Mastering Behaviour explores the hinterland of behavioural insights. Applying popular psychology theories, the book helps in tackling difficult interpersonal and behavioural issues at work, such as personality clashes, stress, handling difficult interactions and workplace loneliness. With technological developments changing the way we connect, the book will provide insights to the real-world challenges of developing greater trust, engagement and collaboration within their teams and the organization.
Table of Contents:
Series Note
Note by Series Editor
Preface
Acknowledgements
The Truth about Workplaces
Understanding Your Personality
Avoiding Workplace Loneliness
Coping with Stress
Exploring Relationship Possibilities in Work Exchanges
Believe You Can, and You′re Halfway There
Role of Feedback
The Beginning
About the Author :
Payal Anand is an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, India. She has been affiliated with IIM Kozhikode since 2019. She has also taught at IIM Raipur and FLAME University, Pune, at various levels. She has been awarded her PhD from IIM Indore. Her research interest mainly includes workplace loneliness, personality traits and emotions. Her work has been appreciated by the international journal of repute such as the International Journal of Human Resource Management and Journal of Knowledge Management. She is a recipient of the prestigious ‘The Michael Poole Highly Commended Award for the year 2019’. She is a certified personal profile analysis practitioner.
Born and brought up in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, she is still close to her roots. One thing that she recalls the most is the evening gatherings that family and friends used to have back then. She has some beautiful memories from her school that she still cherishes. She believes life is much beyond a routine of 9–6, which today’s youth needs to understand. She enjoys teaching a lot as this gives her the opportunity to stay connected with the younger generation and to be able to understand them better. In her classes, she attempts to create an environment of free speech and touches upon stigmatized issues or those considered taboo by the society.
She believes in gratefulness and trusts mother nature. She believes that humans, being dominant species, have responsibility to protect all the non-dominant species by taking care of them in all capacities. She has been an animal lover all her life. Her love for felines is known to many. She aspires to dedicate her life to educating people around the stigma attached with cats. In the long term, she plans to indulge in caring and nurturing all the needy cats out there who require human love and affection. In her free time, she enjoys gardening. She also loves the conversations, a mix of innocence and curiosity, she regularly has with her younger cousin. Payal is still in search of more things that mother nature has bestowed upon the earth, which gives her life more meaning and direction.
Review :
Moving into a managerial role for the first time is challenging for most individuals. Congratulations to Payal Anand for providing a conceptually sound yet very practical guide to smoothen this transition. While she identifies the challenges involved, her positive tone should enhance the self-belief and self-confidence of readers. Highly recommended for all first-time managers.
Abstracting complexity in wrappers of simplicity is anything but easy, especially when dealing with the human species and their nuances. But Payal has refreshingly handled all this with surprising ease and a lucidity that defines courage. Yes, of course, the ocean of humanity is blue and dark. But wading us slowly instead, through the shallow and still shores, Payal shows us the crystal-clear beauty of the flora and fauna that lies therein in that seemingly opaque vastness that warrants harvest.
Quoting extensively, from Aristotle to Neil deGrasse Tyson, Payal brings home the singular need to understand ourselves and others. Into the stale and hackneyed world of manuals for new managers, Payal introduces an invigorating, read-worthy text that cannot be more handy.
Humans are social beings, and the heavy reliance on each other to survive, thrive and succeed is inevitable. With this backdrop, Mastering Behaviour: Managing Self and Others is a practical playbook that should be in the workspace of any young working professional, as it speaks to the pressing behavioural challenges faced by first-time managers and new joiners.
This book provides a wealth of insights related to the power of self-confidence that forges positive relationships, builds resilience, emanates positive aura that gravitates people towards the individual and the priceless gift of feedback—all of which accelerates the transformation into a charismatic leader. The similarities and differences in human nature can be both complementing and supplementing, and hence, the value in embracing a collectivegenius mindset is well-articulated.
If you are an aspiring leader, wanting to learn about the blind spots, traps and societal taboos that could cripple your full potential and derail your career aspirations and if you are ready to take the bull by its horns in addressing the root of it than merely addressing its symptoms, this book should be your next must-read. Professor Payal’s indomitable knowledge, interest and keenness to empower the millennial workforce to grasp the mantra of ‘self-awareness’ to overcome significant personal limitations and reach the pinnacle of their potential shines through these pages.
I am very happy to note that Professor Payal Anand has written the book Mastering Behaviour: Managing Self and Others for working professionals. The book becomes important because as students step into the corporate world and move up the ladder, they have to interact with multiple stakeholders with different expectations and personalities. As a student, success is mostly direct cause and effect; working hard generally results in good grades. However, as working professionals, employees have to quickly move from compete to collaborate mode and learn that interdependence is more important than independence.
The best part of the book is that though this is a very practical, ‘solution-oriented’ book, yet it has strong conceptual foundation for very typical problems experienced by working professionals. The language is easy to comprehend and solutions easy to implement.
This book, in my opinion, is a must-have for all working professionals, and I am sure it will be soon in the list of bestsellers. I wish her all the best.
Mastering Behaviour: Managing Self and Others is an enjoyable ride into one’s world of work. Dr Payal has introduced the real challenges that are ubiquitous yet seldom discussed. For example, Chapter 3 describes workplace loneliness. The author lucidly explains why people experience loneliness and prescribes solutions to deal with it. The book is unique as it is based on empirical data and is grounded in a solid base of research. The book brings out the real professional issues that every manager can relate to. The book drives one to the professional life, illuminates the challenges and provides a new lens through which to look at them. A mustread for practitioners and the academics!
First, I should appreciate the author for her maiden book that illustrates well on how a young manager should be emotionally balanced while executing his or her tasks. The author has brought out various attributes that a low/middle-level manager is subjected to between the workforce he or she commands and the senior management. To conduct daily affairs, personal or professional, we necessarily have to deal with people. For some, the requirements are more by the very nature of the task. For some, this comes naturally, while for others, it’s a nightmare. Like in science, so in human science, lesser the friction, smoother the movement. This book addresses the friction points. Every book or product must have a unique selling proposition. This book carries the simplicity of driving home management principles to the unless initiated without burdening them with academic jargon. Some people, especially researchers, scientists, accountants, etc., suddenly get thrown into management world without any formal training and are suddenly at a loss. This book will be a boon for them—holding them by hand while negotiating the ‘unfamiliar’. An excellent ‘Bible’ by Payal Anand and a must-read even for those not involved with low/middle management.
Mastering Behaviour: Managing Self and Others is a book that stands out among several other books on a similar theme. The book is a result of extensive research carried out by the author. The best part of the book is that it not only lists the problems faced by first-time managers, but it also offers solution to those problems.
Mastering behaviour is a one-stop solution for preparing oneself for new working circumstances. Payal has brought in an exhaustive perspective on all the behavioural issues that are unavoidable at work. The discussion points are quite pragmatic and relatable, making this book an important read not only for the new managers or managers changing jobs but also for their bosses to familiarize themselves with the possible issues mid-level managers might go through. A brilliant read for academicians and practitioners!
