organizational behavior

Introduction Chapter-01 1

Course Name: An Analysis of human and organizational behavior

Importance of Interpersonal Skills:

Managers have three skills that assist them to achieve their organizational goals; technical,

human and conceptual. The second one, human skill is the most essential skill for a

manager, which also known as interpersonal, communication or people skill. Interpersonal

skill is the ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually

and in groups.

Succeeding in management requires good interpersonal skills. Recognition of the

importance of developing managers’ interpersonal skills is closely tied to the need for

organizations to get and keep high-performing employees. Regardless of labor market

conditions, outstanding employees are always in short supply. Companies with reputations

as good places to work have a big advantages.

Having managers with good interpersonal skills is likely to make that workplace more

pleasant, which, in turn, makes it easier to hire and keep qualified people. In addition,

creating a pleasant workplace appears to make good economic sense. For instance,

companies with good reputation, as good workplaces to work, have been found to generate

superior financial performance.

We have come to understand that, technical and conceptual skills are necessary, but they

are not enough to succeed in management. In today’s increasingly competitive and

demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed on their technical skills alone. They also

have to have good people skills.

Managers and Organizations:

Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources,

and direct the activities of others to attain goals. The people who oversee the activities of

others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these organizations are managers.


Managers do their works in an organization, which is a consciously coordinated social

unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to

achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Management Roles:

Henry Mintzberg undertook a careful study of executives and on the basis of his

observations, he concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated roles –

or set of behaviors – attributed to their jobs. These roles can be grouped as being primarily

(1) interpersonal; (2) informational; (3) decisional.

Role Description Examples

Interpersonal

Per

son

al c

onta

ct

Figurehead Symbolic head, required to

perform a number of routine

duties of a legal or social

nature.

Greet visitors, sign legal

documents, attend ribbon

cutting ceremonies, host

receptions, etc.

Leader Responsible for the motivation

and direction of employees.

Includes almost all interactions

with subordinates.

Liaison Maintains a network of outside

contacts that provide favors

and information.

Business correspondence,

participation in meetings with

representatives of other

divisions or organizations.

Informational

Introduction Chapter-01 3P

assi

ng

Info

rmat

ion

Monitor Receives a wide variety of

information; serves as nerve

center of internal and external

information of the

organization.

Scan/read trade

press, periodicals, and reports;

attend seminars and

training; maintain personal

contacts.

Disseminator Transmits information received

from outsiders or from other

employees to members of the

organization.

Send memos and reports;

inform staffs and subordinates

of decisions.

Spokesperson Transmits information to

outsiders on organization’s

plans, policies, actions, and

results; serves as expert on

organization’s industry.

Pass on memos, reports and

informational materials;

participate in conferences/

meetings and report progress.

Decisional

Mak

ing

dec

isio

ns

Entrepreneur Searches organization and its

environment for opportunities

and initiates to bring about

change.

Implement innovations; Plan

for the future.

Disturbance

handler

Responsible for corrective

action when organization faces

important, unexpected

disturbances.

Settle conflicts between

subordinates; Choose strategic

alternatives; Overcome crisis

situations.

Resource

allocator

Makes or approves significant

organizational decisions.

Draft and approve of plans,

schedules, budgets; Set

priorities.


Negotiator Responsible for representing

the organization at major

negotiations.

Represent during negotiations

with unions, suppliers, and

defend interests.

Differences between Liaison and Negotiator:

Liaison Negotiator

1

.

Maintains a network of outside contacts

that provide favors and information.

Responsible for representing the

organization at major negotiations.

2

.

Work as business correspondence,

participates in meetings with

representatives of other divisions or

organizations.

Represent during negotiations with

unions, suppliers, and defend interests.

3

.

Needed anytime to provide network. Needed when any type of problem with

outsiders arise.

Management Functions:

Henri Fayol stated that all managers perform five management functions: planning,

organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Today, modern management have

condensed these to four: planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Planning – a process which includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and

developing plans to coordinate activities.

Organizing – determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the

tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.

Leading - a function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting

the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.


Controlling – monitoring activities to ensure that they are accomplished as planned

and correcting any significant deviations.

Management Skills:

Robert Kertz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human and

conceptual.

Technical skills: The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

Human skills: The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people both

individually and in groups.

Conceptual skills: The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

Effective vs. Successful:

Fred Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers and found that all these

managers engaged in four managerial activities.

1. Traditional management: decision making, planning, and controlling.

2. Communication: exchanging routine information, and processing paper work.

3. Hums resource management: motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing,

and training.

4. Networking: socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.

Managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their

organization) had a very different emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in

terms of quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of

their employees).

Among successful managers, networking made the largest relative contribution to success,

and human resource management activities made the last relative contribution. Among


effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking

the least.

→ Effective management is managing organization by using right way to reach to desired

output, defined in terms of quantity and quality of their performance and the

satisfaction and commitment of their employees. Successful management is defined in

terms of the speed of promotion within organization; it may use any ethical or non-

ethical way to get the output. But we cannot say effectiveness is opposition of success.

As, if a manager uses wrong ways to be successful, now or then he will get seized

because of it. So, if a manager wants to be successful, have to be effective.

Organizational Behavior:

Organizational behavior is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals,

groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying

such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

Systematic Study and Intuition:

Systematic Study : Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and

effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.

Intuition : A gut feeling not necessarily supported by research.

Disciplines:

Psychology : The science that seeks to measure, explains, and sometimes changes

the behavior of humans and other animals.

Social Psychology : An area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology

and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.

Sociology : The study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.

Anthropology : The study of societies to learn about human beings and their

activities.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB:


Understanding organizational behavior has never been more important for managers than

it is today. A quick look at a few of the dramatic changes now taking place in

organizations supports this claim. There are a lot of challenges and opportunities today for

managers to use OB concepts.

Responding to globalization: Organizations are no longer considered by national

borders. McDonald’s sells hamburgers in Moscow. ExxonMobil, a so-called

American company, receives almost 75% of its revenues from sales outside the

United States. The world has become a global village. In that process, the

manager’s job is changing.

→ Increased foreign assignments

→ Working with people from different cultures

→ Coping with anti-capitalism backlash

→ Overseeing movements of jobs

→ Managing people during the war on terror

Managing workforce diversity: One of the most important and broad-based

challenges currently facing organizations is adapting to people who are different,

which is termed as Workforce diversity. Workforce diversity means that

organizations are becoming a more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of

gender, age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. A diverse workforce, for

instance, includes women, people of color, the physically disabled, senior citizens,

and gays and lesbians.

Improving quality and productivity: Today, almost every industry suffers from

excess supply. Automobile factories can build more cars than consumers can

afford, and most cities now have far more restaurants than their communities can

support. Excess capacity translates into increased competition and forces managers

to reduce costs and improve their organizations’ productivity and the quality of the

products and services they offer.

Improving customer service: OB can contribute to improving an organization’s

performance by showing managers how employee attitudes and behaviors are

associated with customer satisfaction.


Improving people skills: Ability to explain and predict the behavior of people at

work is important for managerial effectiveness.

Stimulating innovation and change: An organization’s employee can be imputes

for innovation and change or they can be a major stumbling block. The challenge

for managers is to stimulate their employees’ creativity and tolerance for change.

Coping with temporaries: Workers need to update their knowledge and skills

continually to perform new job requirements. Managers must learn to live with

flexibility, spontaneity and unpredictability.

Working in net-worked organizations: The manager’s job is different in networked

organization, especially when it comes to managing people.

Helping employees balance work-life conflicts: Recent studies suggest that

employees want job that give them flexibility in their work schedules so they can

better manage work/life conflicts.

Creating a positive working environment: OB concerns how organizations develop

human strength, foster vitality and resilience and unlock potential. Instead of

responding to competitive pressure, some organizations are trying to realize a

competitive advantage by fostering a positive work environment.

Improving ethical behavior: Situations in which individuals are required to define

right or wrong conduct.

Differences between Administrator and Manager:

Managers Administrators

1. Managers oversee the activities of others

and responsible for attaining goals of

organizations.

Administrators supervise the

activities of employees and make

decisions.

2. Managers found in profit making

organizations.

Administrators generally work in

non-profit organizations.

3. Managers do works according to the Administrators take policies for


policies of organizations. business decisions.

4. Managers are closer to the employees. Administrators are over the

management.

5. Manager controls the employees. Administrators manage the outside

contacts and facilities as a whole.

6. Example: Bank manager. Example: Principle of a School.

Differences between Leader and Manager:

Managers Leader

1. Managers manage and take

responsibility if a situation.

A leader takes charge is influential and sets

an example.

2. Managers have subordinates who

follow their rules.

L;eaders have individuals who believe in

what they say, otherwise know as

followers.

3. Managers focus on concise,

scientifically proven methods to lead.

Leader focus on human emotion and

charisma to lead.

4. The manager has responsibility and is

able to delegate and impalement plans.

A leader is an examplefor the others and is

someone who doesnot have large

responsibily.

Differences between Leader and Figurehead:

Figurehead Leader

1. Symbolic head, required to perform a number of Responsible for motivation and


routine duites of a legal or social nature. direction of employees.

2. McLain is a figurehead. Obama is a leader.

Differences between Negotiator and Disturbance Handler.

Disturbance Handler Negotiator

1. Responsible for corrective actions when

organizations faces important and

unexpected problems.

Responsible for representing the

organizations at major negotitations.

2. His action involves scheduling,

budgeting, allocator of duties of

subordinate’s authorization.

His actions include bringing advantages

to the organization during the access of

negotiation.

3. Organization uses at the time of particular

problem.

Organization uses at the time of regular

problem.

organizational behavior

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