Attitudinal Reengineerig: The Science and the Art of Enhancing Attitude

By Dr. Juan Pablo Aguilar Meza

What lies behind attitude? Does it have any impact on the results we see on a day-to-day basis? Is it possible to improve our attitude or help others to do it?

In Attitudinal Reengineering: The science and the art of enhancing attitude, Juan Pablo Aguilar, PhD; one of the pioneers and main researchers on attitudinal reengineering with a vast experience helping people and organizations to improve attitudes, shares the results of his investigations on attitude and how to improve it, as well as a great variety of tips and practical tools for Attitudinal Reengineering.

If you want to address challenges from a more productive point of view, better understand the people around you and support them to live more satisfactorily or if you desire to get better and more transcendent results with the activities you do daily and the resources you invest in them, Attitudinal Reengineering: The science and the art of enhancing attitude is the book you are looking for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: INDRAC
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9788832522563

Dr. Juan Pablo Aguilar Meza

Soy un investigador y divulgador de la Reingeniería Actitudinal, esto me ha permitido presentar charlas de temas empresariales y personales ante universidades, gobiernos, asociaciones y empresas, así como en distintos encuentros y congresos (en uno de los cuales nació mi apodo de “Dr. Actitud”). Buscando otras formas comunicar mis hallazgos con más personas escribí los libros “Reingeniería Actitudinal: La ciencia y el arte de potenciar la actitud” (disponible en español y en inglés), “Arquitectura Personal: 10 pasos para diseñar un proyecto de vida emocionante” y participé con una sección en el libro “Tópicos Selectos de Logoterapia: Seis casos de aplicación”. Me encanta aprender: estudié licenciatura y maestría en Administración, doctorado en Ciencias del Desarrollo Humano, un postdoctorado en Logoterapia y he tenido la oportunidad de obtener varias certificaciones, entre ellas la de coach de vida por la International Association of Coaching. Mi misión personal es ser un agente de cambios positivos y trascendentes en las personas y organizaciones con las que Dios me permite compartir camino y que creen que sí se puede mejorar. Facebook.com/DrJuanPabloAguilar Twitter@DrJuanPabloAgui Linkedin.com/in/drjuanpabloaguilar

Book preview

crime.

DEDICATIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To you reading these lines, I wrote this book thinking of you. I believe there is no such thing as a coincidence, this book is in your hands for some reason.

I also wish to dedícate this book, with my deep appreciation, to the following persons:

To the people that, with their books, articles, videos, conferences, diploma courses, classes, and workshops, have walked with me in this learning path and helped me discover that people are even more important than knowledge.

To my clients, students, conference and workshop attendees, to my colleagues and to my doctoral studies and certification courses classmates, as to everyone participating in my researches, thank you for granting me the great gift of your attention and trust.

A special mention to my accomplice, partner in life and in business, Mónica, who with Olympic patience became the Rosetta stone, able to translate my idea whirl into the understandable writings that compose this book and has now translated it to English.

To Carmen, who has helped me become the person she thinks I am.

To my parents, my first fans, who, along with the institutions that granted me scholarships, have given me a vote of confidence.

To Leonardo Ravier, for his human and professional quality and for making the impossible to make the foreword possible.

To my detractors, who have helped me refine, sustain and improve my ideas.

To God, for letting me discover this marvelous life project and giving me the opportunity of, in the simplicity of my everyday tasks, achieve progress in my pursuit to share this legacy with the largest possible number of people.

To everyone who, directly or indirectly, allowed this book to become a reality.

PROLOGUE

It is very likely that the Latin root of the word actitūdo (attitude) is originally derived from act or actum, which means act or action. It could be said, summarising, that attitude is a posture and/ or a disposition of the particular being we are towards particular kinds of actions.

Dr. Juan Pablo Aguilar Meza perceiving a difference between motivation and attitude seeks to unveil in this work, in a practical (not scientific) way, how to change our attitudes or influence others so that the actions and the obtained results can really satisfy our needs, both professionally and personally.

Juan Pablo’s work is really commendable. As we coaches notice there is nothing we can do before our clients’ I don’t want to, Juan Pablo sets out to present a model, called Attitudinal Reengineering, in which he precisely goes in depth into the practical, yet thorough, analysis of the elements and influences that determine a person’s attitude, and so achieve to modify or influence that attitude unsatisfactory for human action.

Juan Pablo speaks of reengineering (which in fact connotes a mechanical and static idea not really applicable to the dynamic and organic nature of the human being) but I must recognize his work strives to overcome mechanistic models for human behavior modification’s deficiencies, due to the fact that his transdisciplinary research is heavily based upon Non- Directive (European- Humanist) Coaching, as well as Logotherapy and Humanist Psychology. Hence, he is right to clarify that Attitudinal Reengineering has an influential -non-determinant- nature.

Such influence and humanist character of the model (opposed to mechanicism) can be seen, both in EXIDIS method -where he specifies that exploration must be carried through neutral observation (without a judgment), and intervention starts from a self- discovery that generates from-the-inside-out dynamics-, as in the Attitudinal Leader skills which are based on Non-Directive Coaching’s basic meta-competences (such as observing, listening and asking questions).

Beeing this work’s objective getting to know how to produce positive and transcendent changes in the way of thinking and acting of human beings, the proposal of an essentially humanist model that pursues enabling said change without persuasive, invasive or manipulative methods, done respecting human being’s most basic integrity and dignity, turns very engaging.

Attitudinal Reengineering: The science and the art of enhancing attitude is a book that strives to -respectfully and in a responsible manner- explore the undecipherable intricacies of previous-to-action human essence, it presents a theoretical-practical model to be applied to individuals, groups or organizations in order to influence individual attitudes constructively and efficiently in a non-invasive way.

Leonardo Ravier, PhD

September 2015, MADRID.

INTRODUCTION

I thank you for your interest in this book I wrote thinking of you, you will realize that far from being a scientific or technical text, its aim is to share with a practical approach the discoveries of more than half a decade of research, training in different areas and implementation of what I learned about attitudes and the way one can help improve them, on the understanding that this is a work that still can (and I hope it will), be enriched with more findings, experiences, and contributions.

Like many people who seek their collaborators’ wellbeing, I used to preach about motivation’s importance, however, I was not satisfied because I once and again witnessed how ephemeral its outcomes were; until one blessed day, I listened to someone talking about differences between motivation and attitude. That’s when everything started…

Attitude can be the anonymous hero responsible for helping us cope even in the worst of conditions, but if we let it, it can be the villain that makes that even having it all we live unsatisfied, creating or looking for the worst possible scenario for ourselves and for the people who come our way.

Have you realized that with the wrong attitude whatever you do can become a series of unproductive efforts, loss of time and other resources and, above all, strong emotional distress?

In addition, if we consider that we devote an average of 60% to 70% of the time we spend awake time to work and activities related to it, we will have an idea of the influence our attitude towards work has in our life quality: it can take us to be paid for doing what we love; it can make the difference between having the best or the worst job of the world.

A person’s attitude towards work has a two-way effect: it impacts the person’s life and the work he/ she does. I’ve had the experience of frequenting businesses that after having time, money, illusions, etc. invested on them or even having bought a proven business model, generated unsatisfied costumers, complaints, products beneath the expected quality and disappointing experiences. Looking for a common denominator I found the attitude of many of their collaborators (and sometimes the owner’s), had played the villain. Conversely, I have met other companies that not having the ideal facilities or even a formal structure count on the excellent attitude of the people within them, which have allowed them to add satisfied and loyal customers and collaborators.

Bussines and people are constantly looking for new forms of getting more and better results, Attitudinal Reengineering is an answer to that pursuit: if you improve attitudes you initiate a virtuous circle in every field; however as a result of my investigation I know most people –despite wanting it- don’t know how to change their own attitude or influence other people’s attitude, this book wants to answer that need.

Along the text you will find various examples in some of which I have been directly involved, others have been referred to my by collaborators, clients or friends (for privacy reasons I have changed peoples’ and places’ names).

In order to facilitate its handling and understanding, I have divided the book’s contents into the following chapters: in the first one, I outline what is attitude, what is its relevance and its characteristics. Chapter two considers attitude’s place in our lives, how to identify and classify attitudes. In the third chapter I plunge into Attitudinal Reengineering, explaining what is it, how it works and its connection to other disciplines. Chapter four explains Attitudinal Metamodel which allows a better understanding of the way attitudes build and its constituent elements. In chapter five the methodology to influence attitude is described as well as considerations for the people carrying it out and general remarks to its implementation in business. Chapter six is composed of examples of changes of attitude and some advice on how to apply this to ourselves. Finally, chapter seven presents the Attitudinal Reengineering’s current situation, its trends and some areas that show strong potential for its implementation.

In the appendixes you will find tools used for Attitudinal Reengineering which, not being so common (most come from my authorship or are adaptations of mine) are explained in detail, they are marked in the text with a star (*).

A specialized terms glossary for concepts which definition is hard to find or can vary according to the context is included, such words are identified by a double star (**).

In order that you get the most out of this book, I recommend that you read it the first time in the suggested order so you can have an overall perspective on my approach, although probably when you finish it you will want to go back and reread some sections or chapters because Attitudinal Reengineering is best when cooked on a low heat.

The journey I have traveled to accomplish the learnings about attitude and how to influence it that I share with you in this book has changed my life positively, I sincerely hope it improves yours too.

Welcome to this discovery journey!

Juan Pablo Aguilar, PhD

Chapter 1

Attitude? what, why

and what for

Attitude? what for?

Attitude definition

Attitude’s characteristics

ATTITUDE? WHAT FOR?

As time passes by I get more and more convinced that we all are artists called to make works of art out of our life and our job, that making a choice of answering such a