Issue 3: Week 1& 2 — Organization Behavior
What is Organizational Behavior and why is it important? These are some of the questions we would be answering during this course.
Learning Objective
1. Week 1: Introduction Organizational Behavior (OB)
2. Why is OB important?
3. TED talk 1: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator
4. Week 2: Diversity in Organizations
5. Organizations - Managing Diversity
6. TED talk 2: The power of Diversity within yourself
Week 1: Introduction Organizational Behavior (OB)
OB is the study of people in an organizational setting: How do they think(“attitudes”), feel(“emotions”), an act(“behavior”). An organization can be considered as multiple individuals, working interdependently, towards a common purpose. A good example is the army.
Organizations consist of multiple levels: the individual, the group(team), and the organizational level. The individual level(microlevel) can be considered from their personality to motivations. While the organization (macro level) consist of the culture and diversity of the entire organization.
Issues at the Organization can ‘trickle down’ from the top, down the levels to everyone else.
The goal of OB is to improve the effectiveness of organizations — key elements include the motivation, productivity and satisfaction of individuals and teams.
Personally, I believe OB is part psychology, part management.
An understanding of OB will enable you develop knowledge about different aspects of organizational life such as diversity, stress and resources, leadership and followership, ethics, teamwork and culture.
Why is OB important?
1. Enables you understand why people display different behaviors or attitudes at work e.g., why they perform well or not, why they are motivated or lack motivation.
2. Apply OB concepts and processes to improve performance and wellbeing at the workplace.
3. OB provides the knowledge and tools to reflect and develop yourself personally, and professionally (e.g., your leadership skills, motivation, teamwork)
TED talk
As you watch the talk below, think about your answers to the questions:
What are your (best or worst) procrastination habits?
How will you overcome procrastination during this quarter? Who could support you and how?
Week 2: Diversity in Organizations
What is Diversity?
Diversity can simply be defined as differences between employees, and are commonly based on gender, race, age, and ethnicity. These are examples of Surface level diversity and are easier to observe.
Another type of diversity which is harder to observe are Deep level. These include differences in personality, values, and attitudes.
“Each employee is unique. Sometimes managers forget the need to identify the individual differences in their employees in order to capitalize on their unique strengths”.
This can lead to an over-generalization, where we ascribe attributes to members of a group vs the individual. These are Stereotypes. “Stereotypes are the fuel that powers the discrimination engine.”
What is Discrimination?
Discrimination is an unfair treatment of employees at:
The Structural level: Organizational policies that result in unequal rewards or opportunities. e.g., promotion policies
The Interpersonal level: Disrespectful or harmful treatment e.g., bullying and sexual harassment.
Discrimination at the workplace originates from stereotypes against minority-group employees. This can be counteracted by a successful diversity management program.
Organizations — Managing Diversity
Managing diversity involves everyone and is beneficial to everyone at the organization. ‘Diversity management involves training and sensitizing all organizational members to support diversity and recognize/counteract discrimination’.
Diversity Management programs can backfire, especially when employees are forced to attend diversity training.
Watch:
Why the Most Common Diversity Programs Don't Work
And what to do instead.hbr.org
Read:
Why Diversity Programs Fail
Idea in Brief The Problem To reduce bias and increase diversity, organizations are relying on the same programs they've…hbr.org
Diversity management that works include recruitment initiatives targeted at women and minorities, setting up a diversity taskforce, and encouraging voluntary participation in diversity trainings.
Conclusion
Diversity is an important OB concept because individual differences influence preferences for communication styles, negotiation styles and many other interactions within the organization.
An increase in diversity may increase discriminatory practices. Hence the need for an effective diversity management strategy.
TED talk
As you watch the talk below, think about your answers to the questions:
What are the different identities that you have experienced within yourself?
What do you think, how can diversity help to create better organizations?
Summary
1. OB looks at individuals, groups(teams) and the entire organization.
2. Organization operate at different ‘levels’.
3. Organizational issues can ‘trickle down’ the levels e.g., ethics and culture
4. Diversity is a key issue of OB and discrimination holds back individuals, teams and organizations.
5. Diversity management can back fire, the implementation matters.
Next week we would learn about — Stress and Resources at Work.
Click here to join my newsletter
Have a question? Why not leave a comment below
Reference
This summary is adapted from the MSc Organizational Behavior course at Durham University Business School.
Robbins, Stephen P., and Timothy A. Judge. Organizational Behavior, Global Edition, Pearson Education Limited, 2018.
https://hbr.org/video/5108682441001/why-the-most-common-diversity-programs-dont-work