Organizational Behavior: Motivation, Teams, and Personality
Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts
Topic 1
What is Organizational Behavior?
It is the impact that individuals or groups have on behavior within organizations.
Organizational behavior is much more than the interaction between workers, groups, and company structures. It deals with the analysis of how these variables influence the development of human talent and performance in general. This concept is applied to promote human development within companies and organizations.
The disciplines that contribute to the proper functioning of organizational behavior are: psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
Measuring Personality
Company managers need to know how to measure personality, as accurate measurement will give them an advantage in the selection and hiring process to attract talent and achieve job success.
The most common way to measure personality is through self-report surveys.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
According to MBTI, individuals are classified into:
- Extroverted or Introverted (E or I)
- Sensing or Intuitive (S or N)
- Thinking or Feeling (T or F)
- Perceiving or Judging (P or J)
These classifications combine into 16 personality types. A person’s personality type can be captured by 4 letters, for example:
- INTJs are visionary; they usually have original minds and are characterized as skeptical, determined, and stubborn.
- ESTJs are organizers, logical, analytical, and have a natural head for business or mechanics.
Topic 2
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the process that explains the intensity and persistence of an individual’s effort to achieve a goal.
Motivation Theories:
- Content theories: focus on the needs a person is trying to satisfy and the characteristics of the work environment that seem to satisfy them (Maslow’s theory, Herzberg’s theory, McClelland’s theory).
- Process theories: focus on how different variables combine to influence the amount of effort people are willing to put forth to obtain some outcome (Goal-setting theory, goal theory, equity theory, expectancy theory).
Topic 3
Difference Between Emotions and Moods
Emotions are feelings that come and go that are produced by specific causes. Examples: Anger, fear, sadness, joy, disgust, or surprise.
Moods are feelings that are usually less intense than emotions and last longer. Examples: nervous, sad, depressed, calm, relaxed, content, and happy.
What is Emotional Intelligence For?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and express emotions in oneself and others and to regulate emotions accordingly.
People who know their own emotions and know how to read them are more likely to be effective in job performance.
Emotional Intelligence should be a factor in hiring to ensure employee suitability.
Topic 5
Team Building
Researchers have identified 5 stages that many teams seem to go through:
- Forming: people join the group, define the structure, purpose, and leadership of the team.
- Storming: characterized by conflict within the group.
- Norming: group members begin to bond.
- Performing: when the group is fully functional. This is the last stage of permanent working groups.
- Adjourning: this is the last stage of temporary working groups, during which the members of the group are concerned with concluding the activities.
Effective Teamwork
Objectives must be clear to the team, with relevant skills to achieve the desired objectives.
Maintain mutual trust among team members to ensure greater commitment.
Adequate leadership with negotiation skills is important; teams are more effective in making adjustments as to who does what at any given time. In this way, the team is kept motivated and guided at the same time.
Spanish Individualistic Culture vs. English Collectivistic Culture
The Spanish individualistic culture is characterized by promoting independence and autonomy. On the other hand, the English collectivist culture promotes the needs of the group over those of the individual.
Social Loafing
This is the tendency of individuals to make less effort in a group than individually.
Company managers must reduce the possibility of anti-social behavioral activities, such as wasting resources or stealing.