Dealing with Attitudes Professionally

By Dr. Ben S. Graham, Jr.
Chairman
The Ben Graham Corporation
© Copyright 2005, The Ben Graham Corporation. All rights reserved.

This article addresses a variety of attitudes that plague efforts at process improvement including resistance to change, credit and blame, underestimating and overestimating abilities based on status, etc.  It explains, in understandable terms, how to channel the energy tied up in ineffective attitudes into cooperation.

The strength of this article is in the explanation of why attitudes get the way they do and how to change the work situation to promote functional attitudes.  Specifically, it describes common attitude patterns, dos and don’ts for dealing with attitudes, and strategies for building cooperation.

Common Attitude Patterns

Attitudes are complex.  There are many subtle variations and apparent contradictions.  There is so much variation that no two people are alike.  In fact, as circumstances change, no one person remains the same.  However, there are fundamental consistencies that underlie attitudes.  These consistencies can be understood.  They help us to see the purposes that attitudes serve, to understand how they develop and most importantly, they give us an idea of what we can do to improve attitudes and get people cooperating effectively.

There are three basic types of attitudes found within every person...

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