Search

Soft Facts

A precise definition of soft facts does not (yet) exist in the scientific literature. We refer to everything that makes up a person - hard facts (professional competencies), soft skills (methodological competence, social competence, personal characteristics, etc.) - as well as the result that emerges from group dynamic processes as soft facts. This outcome includes personal experience, trust, responsibility, communication, mindfulness, resilience, motivation, emotional intelligence, self-efficiency, proactivity and learning. By looking at these dynamic processes that occur in the social context between people, it is possible to make soft facts measurable - just like hard facts.

Greiser, C., Martini, J., Stephan, L., Tamdjidi, C. (2020) Tap Your Company's Collective Intelligence With Mindfulness. Boston Consulting Group x Awaris

https://wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/harte-und-weiche-faktoren

https://wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/soft-skills

https://dorsch.hogrefe.com

Personality

Personality is understood as the totality of all temporally stable characteristics that can be used to describe a person's experience and behaviour (Asendorpf, 2020).

Asendorpf, J. (2020, September 03). Persönlichkeit. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/persoenlichkeit

Roles

Derived from the French word "rôle", which refers to the role of an actor in theatre, Driskell et al. (2017) define the role that a team member takes on as an internalised, enduring repertoire of behaviours. According to Driskell et al. (2017), roles are important in a team because they represent patterns of behaviour that are linked to the behaviour of other team members.

Driskell, T., Driskell, J., Burke, C., Salas, E. (2017). Team Roles: A Review and Integration. Sage Publications

Values

A value describes what a person considers desirable and worthwhile for themselves and others (Kluckhohn, 1951). Values guide people's behaviour and form the basis of decisions (Frey, 2016).

Kluckhohn, C. (1951). Values and value orientations in the theory of action. In: T. Parsons, & F. A. Shields (eds.), Toward a general theory of action (pp. 388–433). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Frey, D. (2016). Psychologie der Werte. Springer Verlag: Berlin Heidelberg

Motives

A motive is considered to be the latent evaluative disposition for goals and situation characteristics that lead to the expectation of goal achievement or goal failure. Motives refer to content classes of goals. Motives can be understood as organism-side determinants of motivation and thus as internal causes of behaviour (Puca, 2019).

Puca, R. (2021, January 12). Motiv. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/motiv

Way of Working

According to the Duden dictionary, working methods are the way of working, the method of working. Components of a person's ways of working are, for example, the desired way of interacting, the preferred focus working hours and the skills of a person.

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Arbeitsweise

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a translation of the Pali term sati, which refers to the ability of the mind to stay with something and be present with attention (Walach, 2020).

Walach, H. (2020, October 29). Achtsamkeit. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/achtsamkeit

Trust

According to the Duden dictionary, trust is a firm conviction of the reliability of a person or thing. Trust is defined in many different ways, but what they all have in common is that trust is an advance performance of the person(s) trusting associated with a positive expectation of the future. Trust implies taking individual or collective risks, as trust can be linked to negative consequences (Clases, 2020).

Clases, C. (2020, October 29). Vertrauen. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/vertrauen

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Vertrauen

Communication

Communication refers to a process in which an individual or a group conveys information about ideas, feelings and intentions to another individual or group. Communication goes beyond the mere transmission of a message; in addition to the exchange of information, motivational, emotional and social aspects are significant (Bierhoff, 2021).

Bierhoff, H. (2021, October 29). soziale Verantwortung. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/soziale-verantwortung

Motivation

The term "motivation" means movere in Latin, to move. Motivation describes processes that involve setting and evaluating goals (Achtziger, 2020).

Achtziger, A., Gollwitzer, P., Bergius , R., & Schmalt, H., & (2020, October 29). Motivation. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/motivation

Self-Efficacy

Efficacy beliefs or self-efficacy beliefs serve to assess one's own possibility of being able to realise measures to cause consequences. Accordingly, the self-efficacy expectation is the generalised conviction or specific expectation of achieving desired results with one's own behaviour (Heinecke-Müller, 2020).

Heinecke-Müller, M. (2020, October 29). Wirksamkeitsüberzeugungen, Selbstwirksamkeitsüberzeugungen. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/wirksamkeitsueberzeugungen-selbstwirksamkeitsueberzeugungen

Learning

Learning potential describes a competence that is not only about the ability to learn, i.e. the ability to learn, but also about the desire to learn, i.e. the motivation to learn (Sarges, 2020).

Sarges, W. (2020, October 29). Lernpotenzial. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/lernpotenzial

Proactivity

Proactivity can be understood as a characteristic that includes identifying and acting on opportunities. Also characteristic of proactive behaviour is showing initiative and taking action and maintaining action until meaningful change occurs (Crant, 1995).

Crant, M. (1995). The Proactive Personality Scale and Objective Job Performance Among Real Estate Agents. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(4), 532-537.

Responsibility

The Dorsch Dictionary of Psychology does not define the term responsibility without the word "social". In the team context, we are primarily concerned with responsibility in relation to other people, which is why the definition of social responsibility is considered an important part of the construct. Social responsibility has both the aspect of supporting the welfare of others and pursuing one's own goals without harming others in the process (Bierhoff, 2020).

Bierhoff, H. (2020, October 29). soziale Verantwortung. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/soziale-verantwortung

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is understood as the multidimensional ability to recognise feelings, to deal with and use feelings and to express feelings appropriately (Rindermann, 2020).

Rindermann, H. (2020, October 29). Intelligenz, emotionale. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/intelligenz-emotionale

Resilience

Resilience describes the resilience of an individual to develop successfully despite adverse and critical life events (Warner, 2020).

Warner, L. (2020, October 29). Resilienz. In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/resilienz

Performance

The Dorsch Lexicon of Psychology defines performance as the value created through the expenditure of energy. Psychologically, performance is the use of a person's available abilities as well as their result. The term "collective intelligence" is also closely interwoven with team performance and is described in a study by the Boston Consulting Group and Awaris as "a groups ability to perform the wide variety of tasks required to reach a goal. (Greiser et al., 2020).

Leistung (2020, October 29). In Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie. Retrieved from: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/leistung

Greiser, C., Martini, J., Stephan, L., Tamdjidi, C. (2020) Tap Your Company´s Collective Intelligence With Mindfulness. Boston Consulting Group x Awaris

Work Satisfaction

The Dorsch Dictionary of Psychology defines job satisfaction as a positive emotional state resulting from one's evaluation of one's job or experiences in one's job (Locke, 1976).

Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette, Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (S. 1297–1349). Chicago: Rand McNally.