February 11, 2009

Forgiveness as a workplace intervention

Apropos of Monday’s outburst, this came across my feed this morning:

Improving individual, team and organizational performance is a primary focus of management and human resource development (HRD). However, only in the past decade has the literature begun to report specific research on the effects of many of the psychological and behavioral constructs that influence performance and productivity of individual employees.

The purpose of this review is to explore the literature related to interpersonal forgiveness in organizations and its possible implications for management and HRD theory and practice. It defines forgiveness and provides a theoretical framework for its consideration within the workplace environment. It also reviews and discusses the benefits and risks of forgiveness, the role of leadership in a forgiving culture, and the literature regarding related business interventions...

Based upon the reviewed literature, we propose the following integrated perspective of forgiveness: forgiveness is a psychological act, a communicative act, and a social act.

  1. At the individual (psychological) level it involves letting go of offense even if being offended is justified and the hurt is sustained.

  2. At the dyadic (communication) level, it involves letting the offending party know that the offense has been removed or erased.

  3. At the organizational/cultural (social) level, it means that the relationship and associations are in balance and functioning effectively.

"Forgiveness as a Workplace Intervention: The Literature and a Proposed Framework" by Madsen, Gygi, Hammond and Plowman in the Journal of Behavioral & Applied Management , Jan 2009

Feb 11, 2009 2:14:30 PM | Delta Blues (leadership & change), SenseMaking (cognition, learning, KM & CI)

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Steve

Steve Barth consults to international government, NGO, academic and corporate clients. Recent work has focused on organizational learning and KM strategies in economic development and peace and security. Award-winning writer specializing in organizational intelligence and knowledge worker productivity.

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