Learning Diary – Organizational Behaviour

Learning Diary – Organizational Behaviour

Submitted by,

Raju Kumar-G15103

Aristotle once said that “Man is a social animal”. S (he) who lives without society is either beast or God. By this he means that since birth to death, a man always needs a society to fulfil his/her aspiration. Without society, existence of man cannot be anticipated. We all are linked to an organization of one kind or another. Some organizations are formal some are informal, but both need a set of behaviours which are acceptable to all. Organizational behaviour (OB) taught me those acceptable behaviours and gave me an insight to know myself and other member of organization.

It is the people’s behaviour what makes an organization, and take it to either zenith of success or nadir of failure. For example, once considered as an investment banking giant, “Lehman Brothers” filed chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2008. Who were actually responsible for the plight of “Lehman Brothers”? It is the behaviour of people within organization who brought it from zenith to nadir. Here comes the organizational behaviour into picture. In our course I learnt that how our behaviour affect our organization and using this knowledge how we can I improve the effectiveness of organization.

When I became a part of OB group I could not able to understand the need of such group. Initially, I was actually not able to relate the group activities which were given in the class, and also the behavioural science of OB mentioned in the text book. But, In due course of time I was able to connect the dots. I learnt how psychological terms like motivation, perception, job satisfaction, emotion, attitude, communication, group process among others have bearing on our team performance. At the end of the course I am equipped with all the tools to analyse the individual, team and organizational structure which is actually study of Organizational Behaviour. Therefore, in technical term I can say that it is behavioural science with combination of Psychology, Social psychology, sociology and Anthropology.

Everyone has certain attitude in his/her work life. Some have positive some have negative attitudes. Positive attitudes of team member brings success at each and every level but in practice that rarely happens. In our team activities especially in project work some members participated with enthusiasm but few remain passive, when we moved from forming stage to storming satge. Passive members could not involve themselves because they felt that their ideas were ignored by the team. Eventually, they developed negative attitude. This is the stage at which maximum organization fails. Here we tried to develop emotional intelligence (EI) to perceive and understand the emotion of other members especially of passive members. However, as we moved from storming to norming we were able to motivate each member of our team to own the team’s idea. When we were able to see some tangible result of team effort, passive members also engaged themselves and took responsibility in no time. Now we all are able to regulate our own emotions and thereby maintained emotional stability.  

When we further moved from norming to performing some tangible result came out. Our effort were also recognised by local media and acclaimed at our social networking sites. Our job satisfaction were at high level and no absenteeism, which in turn gave further motivation to the whole group.

When we say motivation it does not mean that it is selfless motivation without any need. Sometimes we get motivated because of our own need. In our team project although we are motivated to make some difference to the society but at the same time we also wanted that it should also be reflected in our grades. Keeping these aspects in mind Graham Maslow developed “Hierarchy of needs”. He says that there are two types of need, one is lower order and another one is higher order. Physiological and Safety needs come under lower order whereas social, esteem and self-actualization are part of higher order needs. So he actually means that completely dissatisfied people are motivated to satisfy himself/herself whereas satisfied people get motivated for next need level.

McClelland also talks about need for motivation. People get motivated to achieve something, to get or hold power in their hands and for affiliation or to have friendly relationships with others.

Another Social scientist Fredrick Herzberg has given two factor theory which is also known as motivation-hygiene theory. He says that company needs to remove the dissatisfaction within them by giving adequate growth opportunities, job satisfaction, and recognition of achievements among others to motivate the employees.

Motivation has three important elements. When we try hard to achieve our goal it means that the intensity with which we trying to get it. Just only being hard working is not going to increase job performance but its direction in which it is channelize also matters. But, sometimes even with both two we do not achieve our goals. Persistence effort is final element which test other two elements.

During this course I also learned about the various types of personality model and its determinants. The Big five personality model predict the people’s behaviour in varieties of real life situation. Among these five I found conscientious is most important factor. This factor describe people who are responsible, dependable, persistent, and organised. This factor is most important for the front line staffs of an organization.  These models not only helped me to under the others personalities but also helped me to rediscover myself. It was the first time when I knew that I have INFJ personality. This has increased my self-awareness and I am sure that it is definitely going to help me throughout career and personal life.

Every organization needs some dominant personality type. Accordingly, a theory has been developed called as person-Organization fit theory. For example, organization involved in innovation more frequently, like Google needs artistic personality. Whereas, organization involved in more or less routine jobs needs conventional personality.

OB course has taught me about the work values in today workforce at different history of time frame. How the work values has been changed from hardworking, conservative with emphasis on comfortable and secured life in socialist culture to technology, entrepreneurial, high growth with sense of entitlement in Millennials.

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