Organizational Behavior and Me, Essay Example

During this course, I have learned a great deal about organizational behavior and how it relates to myself currently and how it will relate to myself in the future.

First and foremost, organizational behavior is a field of study which described  the way in which organizational framework affects behavior within organizations. We learned about organizational behavior at different levels, both intimate and “big picture”. Micro organizational behavior deal with individual and group organizational settings and macro organizational studies involve entire industries and organizations and their ways of adapting, developing strategies, and constructing. I learned how culture is involved in companies and how it much it can be a predictor of the way a company behaves as a whole. Organizational development can enhance performance on individual and group levels and improve satisfaction and commitment.

Concepts such as leadership, making decision, and building and motivating teams are concepts that are prevalent in organizational behavior. Other core topics of organizational behavior include the three primary determinants of behavior in organizations which are individuals, groups, and structure, which I was very interested in.

The first determinant in organizations is the people that comprise them. These people will have came from very different backgrounds and will be very different themselves when it comes to ages, gender, and ethnicity. They all can possess different skills set and all may have different reasons for choosing to work at the location and remain committed to the company. The people of an organization will most likely learn differently and work differently. When a manager is able to find a way to incorporate these differences into a system that keeps the team productive, they have successfully been able to manage them.

Of all the differences in the people of an organization, there also must be similarities that allow the people to fall into natural groups. There are also groups that may be put in place by the company to improve the productivity of a company. Employees may expose different behaviors when they are in group setting. Some are able to take the lead in group projects and others are not so inclined, and tend to stay in the helper and supportive type roles.

Organizational structure is the third determinant that was learned and it describes the levels of management within a company. A company has to find a balance in order to function; too many managerial positions, and the company’s production will go down as more workers would be supervising tasks, rather than working to get them completed. Too few managers and the company’s production could be less, because there is a loss of focus, or of less quality because there is less motivation. Learning about the ways that a company can be stifled by being unbalanced was intriguing to me, and something that I will use in the future.

Another concept that I enjoyed learning about early on in the class is the steps and pieces of the communication process. We all communicate with each other every day and mostly do it without thinking of the many steps that our messages go through and the obstacles that can arise. The key components of communication are the sender, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver, noise, and feedback. These are all part of what is called the communication model.

A message is what is to be sent from one person to another (or multiple people). The sender is the persons who initiates the delivery of the message to the receiver(s). The message is nothing before it is encoded, which is the process of becoming constructed. Signs, symbols, and language are processed into a form that is transferable. The message is sent through a channel, which could be formal or informal. Formal channels are channels that are put in place by the organization and are related to work activities. Channels could be sound wave, light waves, paper, email, etc. The receiver receives a message from the sender the moment he decodes it. After, a receiver might send feedback to the sender in response to the original message. Noise can be described as anything that prevents a message from moving through a channel, or prevents a sender from encoding, or a receiver from decoding the message.

The readings have impacted my understanding of individual and group level organizational issues. In-class exercises supported my learning of specific skills.

I was able to learn all about work groups and work teams. A work group is a group of people that work withing a group but do not work together. The group interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to help each member perform within that member’s area of responsibility. These people generally complete their work independently and are grouped together because their tasks are similar. A work team work together for a common goal and generally show more job satisfaction and increased productivity.

I also learned about synergy when working in teams. Synergy is when a team produces more than the sum of ideas and work that could be produced by each member of the group individually. Synergy is a very positive aspect of working in a group and shows that when people put their heads together and work hard, the outcome can be much greater than what they could do on their own.

In was interesting to learn that there are so many different kinds of teams. I have discovered that I have been a member of such teams before or expect to be in the future. The  various types of work teams are: problem solving teams, virtual teams, self-managed teams, command teams, task teams, cross functional teams.

Problem-solving teams are groups of people that are brought together with the purpose of acknowledging a problem, fixing it, and implementing a plan so that it does not happen again in the future. A virtual team is a team that will work together but physically be in different locations. This is possible through modern technology, that allows people to communicate with each other, though geographically far apart, with little face-to-face interaction. A self-managed team is a team in which members share or take turns providing leadership responsibilities. Command teams are groups who work within the company between management and others in the company, such as service workers. A task team can also be called an action group and it occurs when a group of people are gathered together to focus on and complete a specific task. This group could be a permanent or temporary group. Lastly, a cross functional team is a team that incorporates members from other departments or divisions within the organization. As with most teams, they are working together to accomplish a common goal. They work together because the members are able to use each others talents and skills to work towards their objective much faster than they may have been able to do using only their own.

In one exercise, we did a very interesting group exercise. With 5 people per group, the class read an exercise called “Mist Ridge”. The exercise explained that we were to imagine we were put in a situation where we were with a group of people (classmates) taking a day long hiking trip of around 14 miles. There were going to be many dangers that we could be exposed to including dehydration, exertion, and hypothermia.

There were fifteen items listed to be ranked from 1, the most important, to 15, the least important that we were to choose from to bring along on our trip. The items were as follows: a canteen full of water, matches, a compass, hat, repair kit, first aid kit, one sleeping bag per person, sunglasses, a flashlight, topographic map and trail guide book, food, a tent that could fit all the members of the group, sunscreen, rain gear, and insect repellent.

First, I had to figure out for myself what I thought would be the most important to bring along. After, my group discussed and settled on a  group ranking. I found this process very similar to what a person would do in a group situation. First, they might form an opinion of what they thought was the best for the group, and then they would discuss with the group and the group would work together to find an outcome that they could all agree upon. The discussion included consideration and deliberation. Each member of the group was given time to let the other members know what they thought was important to bring and why it was more crucial to have along as opposed to another item.

After the groups came to agreements, the professor informed us of what actual experts ranked the 15 items. We were then able to calculate a personal and group score in comparison. I was able to score a 72, and my group scored a 74. Through this exercise I learned about the group decision making process, what worked well, and what did not.

Using the reflections that I learned about myself, I have been able to look to the future and to the implications of what I have learned. I was also about to identify some personal goals that I would like to achieve or develop more over the next few years. In the immediate future, I would like to become more aware of the communications that I share with other people in the various groups in my life including at home, at school, and at work. Becoming more aware of my roles within these various groups will allow me to learn what works and what does not work when dealing with people who communicate differently than myself. I would also like to learn more about what motivates me to work harder whether within a group or simply for myself. Learning more about what keeps me committed to a task will help me in the future in other employment. As I could see from this class, and from other indicators such as media and the experiences of my peers, supervisory staff are not always the most motivational, and I need to be able to know what keeps me on track, without having to rely on others. In addition, I am very interested in developing leadership skills and discovering in what ways I could be a great leader and create a productive team at the head of an organizational structure. I believe that the sooner I am able to hone my skills in this area, the better leader I will be in the future.

In an internship, or my first job after college, I would like to be effective at work by using some of the skills and concepts that I have learned in the class. Using these skills I will be able to be successful at an organization.

For example, having an idea of how culture relates to company productivity, during a job interview, I might ask about how the company culture is a a particular to employer. Using this information, I could better understand what would be expected of me while I’m working. In asking this, I might also be able to gauge how satisfied I will be doing a particular job.

Learning about the vast number of teams has made me take many things into consideration. Now that I know all the different kinds of teams that can be gathered to achieve a common goal, I can determine what kind of team I am in, and use my newly acquired knowledge to be a great member and contribute to the team’s synergy and production. If I want to become a supervisor or manager in the future, I now know all the different ways that a team under me can be broken down into groups to become more productive. I could even pitch the idea of interdepartmental teams to higher ups, showing that the competencies of the department members could help reach a company goal at a faster rate.

Though we use communication in our daily lives, now that I know the different pieces of the process, I am better able to better determine what noise can prevent a message from being sent to my intended receiver, or even what noise could prevent a message from being sent to me.

Because I am not the most social person, and I am very shy in the class, this organizational behavior class given me much confidence and knowledge. I was able to work with others in group activities, while learning about how group activities help companies with their productivity. I am looking forward to using the concepts that we have studied now and in the future.