Self Reflection on Organizational Behaviour

2/22/2010

Submitted by: - Samrat Basu

MODULE LEADER: - DR. MRIDULA DWIVEDI

MODULE: - GMSI570

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

1) Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….. 22) Self Reflection and career

stages………………………………………………………………………................ 4-123) Objectives for the next year……………………………………………………..……134) Action Plan for the next one year………………………………………………...14-155) Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...15-166) Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..16-177) References and Bibliography……………………………………………………..18-19

Introduction

My stepping stone into my academic career began when I joined school. I have been a

consistent academic performer throughout my schooling till class 12th. Besides academics, I

have given preferences to sports and other co-curricular activities too. I was fascinated by

science and so opted the same since schooling and it was a platform for me to become an

engineer. Becoming an Engineer was a milestone on my path to my destiny.

I pursued my dream and graduated as a Bachelor in Computer Science and Engineering

from a reputed University. Joining IT industry and becoming a performing software engineer

was just another goal of mine.

I started my career as a software professional at Capgemini Consulting India Pvt. Ltd, a

French multinational Information Technology giant having its operation in as many as 30

countries globally.

During my work tenure there, I had a healthy relationship with my senior manager, which

assisted me in grasping the nuances in great width of organisational cultures, ethics,

environments, etc. It taught me how managers utilise their resources at optimum and at the

same time strive their level best to secure the best possible output.

Little while later as it is a custom with aspiring engineers to feel a lack of management

knowledge, I felt the same. I appeared for management entrance exams and through a

rigorous process was able to get an admission at GD Goenka World Institute. Here I was

introduced to OB for the very first time and came to know that “In today’s competitive environment one strategy for success is to optimize your OB skills along with your professional speciality.”(Andre, 2009, pp 16)

I decided to position my career based on the 5 career stages.

They are:-

1) Working preparation in an organisation : - The entry level stage where I would

prepare myself during the duration of my MBA course for a future in International

Business in a Corporate Sector.

2) Preparation for an organisational entry: - This would be my stage as and when I

would apply for the summer internships in various organisations and ultimately would

get the opportunity of working as an intern there.

3) Early career stage: - This would be the stage where I would be employed in an

organisation and would be striving hard to make my feel present in the organisation

through constant dedication and hard work.

4) Middle career stage: - This would be the stage where I would like myself to be a

part of the decision making body of my organisation.

5) Late career stage: - The stage in my career when I would prepare myself for a

retirement after a fulfilling career and would pursue my dreams to be a part of a NGO

and get myself active through social work. (Andre, 2009, pp 18, 19)

So I decided to analyse myself based on the skills I have acquired and through a process

called self reflection. Self reflection is a process by which one is in a position to analyse

oneself and understand the skills one has acquired and what are his/her strength and

weakness and accordingly work on the weaknesses to turn it to strengths and to further

enhance the strengths to emerge a true leader.

To achieve my career objectives, I also have identified a few OB concepts that are useful for

me in building up myself and making me ready for the industry. They are :- 1) Personality 2) Group and Team Work 3) Communication and Interpersonal Relationship Skills 4) Leadership Skills 5) Motivation 6) Decision Making Skills 7) Conflict and Negotiation Skills 8) Influence, Power and Politics 9)Health and Stress at Work 10) Organisational Culture 11) Networking.

The personality of a person always would be one of the key aspects in judging behaviour. I always have this tendency to get impatient whenever I get any assignment to do. I try to

focus myself on any job I am doing, even it might be an instance when I toiled hard and

stayed back for 18 hours in office during an important assignment when a server was down

and I had to stay back for its maintenance and as and when the server was up I had to test

whether all the applications were working perfectly or not.

I generally ponder over many aspects of any complex problem at one go in an attempt to

solve all the parts and in the process may get stressed out at times when I could not come

up to any solution. I have also taken the MBTI - Jung Humanmetrics Test where my

personality type came as INFJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging) [See MBTI Test in Appendix].My Type A Personality (Robbins, et.al, 2009) is the sole reason beyond this

nature. However, I need to change myself because if I would work as an analyst in an

International Business firm and say I would be given a job of analysing a particular business

trend, I need to come out of my impatient behaviour and focus more on the analytical skills

which otherwise could lead me in making some bad decisions which in turn might affect the

business and eventually my career. Rather I have to be more patient where in I can hang in

for a while and persevere until any meaningful change occurs before taking any decision.

Introverts generally love their freedom. But Introverts cannot be a good manager. So to

attain my final goal of becoming a Manager, I need to focus myself in becoming a bit

extravert (Pareek, 2009).

Since from my childhood days, my parents and the external environment in, which my

upbringing is done taught me all the essential skills. Sharing and caring is one of the skills,

which is imbibed in me. By sharing an example I would like to make the picture clearer. I

was born and brought in a joint family and whenever my parents used to give me anything to

eat then I always loved to share it with my cousins. As the time went off and I entered in a

new world called ‘College’, where I got the chance to learn the basic practicality of the so

called Life.

I am fun loving and a pretty descent in nature, so enjoy my college life .I had made many

friends. After the hectic and stressful day of college I along with my mates used to go for fun

and frolics. To look from the general point of view it was very much clear that I had learned

how to intermingle in a group. Afterwards when I got the job, I started working in a team and

got the exact knowledge as in who the team works in the real corporate scenario. In a firm,

most of the times the brilliant piece of work is carried out by the teams or by the people

functioning jointly in groups (Baron and Greenberg, 2007). After rigorously working in

teams in my training and job period, I came across the true underlying portrait of the

responsibilities of groups and efficient functioning in teams.

While undergoing the project work in my job period, I was assigned with the task of S/W

Configuration Manager along with the two more members from the onshore team (INDIA)

and one from the offshore (USA). At the commencement of the project, it was difficult for me

to cop up with my team members and to put up with vast responsibilities. But as time

passed, I had learned many chapters and how to work in a team in corporate scenario as I

have stated before also. And on top of that I am very grateful to my team leader, who lend a

helping hand to me every time and in all of mine undertakings. While working in a corporate

environment, I have faced many problems and virtual team is amongst one of them. In case

of virtual teams I was teamed up with one of my colleague, who was in USA and the major

issue was that we had to synchronize with each other despite of the factors being

“separated by time, distance and company structure”. To synchronize with each other

we had relied heavily on the technology such as teleconferencing and various other real-time

tools such as e-mails, wireless communication and Smartphone’s (Collela, et.al, 2008).

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,

we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

Victor Frank

(http://www.quotegarden.com/change.html)

After getting familiarized with the environment I started enjoying it. While working in an

organization, whenever I used to face any problem regarding my work then used to take help

from my other co-members. At times I had faced problem times also, when I used to work

hard on particular module and my other co-member used to take all the credit. After working

in an organization and analyzing the scenario I can conclude that the above mentioned are

the learning’s for me, which will going to help me a lot in my future career life.

While pursuing this course I came across a group assignment in, which we have analyze the

case and need to put up some suggestions in context of the case. So while working in a

group I guided and lead my group and ended up with the assignment in descent manner and

played the role of an “initiator”. To enhance my team-work skills I have taken part in many

team games, short-trips, assignments and ended up by providing a boost or an extra mile to

achieve the ultimate goal. Even to justify my statement that I am a good team player, I went

through an assignment known as “group shift” in my seminar classes in, which both

individual as well team performance was judged. Individually I scored 76 points on the other

hand my group performance was 100. So the divergence of 24 points can be used to judge

my individual and team performance. Every time there is learning and for me I still need to

work upon few areas to improve my team-work skills to lead this world as an upcoming

manager and a successful team player.

I always try to initiate when I am working in a group. However in my short career as a fresher

in the IT industry, I could not get much opportunities in displaying my leadership skills, but

there are many situations where I have shown leadership skills, like arranging for the

sponsorship in my college fest during my engineering days. I had to take 2 of my friends

along with me to a mobile operator and request them for sponsorships. For that I took the

initiative and prepared a good 2-3 minutes presentation for them on what are the benefits

they would be getting on sponsoring in our fest? Like what are the strategic positions which

we would offer them to place their banners? What are the events in which we would use

their brand name and their money to sponsor for the prizes? The regional manager was

impressed and consulted with his superiors and finally they offered us around Rs 50000 for

sponsorship. As a result I was also awarded with a lot of accolades on successful

completion of the fest. Moreover I have also taken some initiative steps in my organisation

when a particular technology was to be modified in our project. Moreover in my team,

whenever we used to have a discussion on certain aspects of the project, I used to consult

with other team members or tried to get involve in a joint decision, which shows some traits

of participative leadership styles (Greenberg & Barons, 2008, pp 475).

I have taken a leadership test as shown in the below appendices. It shows a score of 31

which means that I have certain uncertainties on my motivation to lead. Currently I am

working on this through the above mentioned development program.

Many a times, we can see people stressed out, not because of work, but because of the type

and quality of work. Same type of work for many years brings us a different kind of stress

which sooner or most of the ITians have to face. We call them “Victims of the Routine”.

Greenberg & Baron seemed to find a possible solution for the same and it was evident that

people need motivation (Greenberg & Baron, 2005, pp 190) to keep stress overcoming

their overall personal and professional life. In my previous organization, HR department

found a very creative way to make employee feel less stressed at the end of the week. The

event is called “Fundoo Friday” and as the name suggests, it was full fun. The main aim

behind this event was to allow employees to get over the stress by the means of socializing

through music, games, competitions and other fun activities which demand employee

participation. My personal experience tells me that this program is a big success and help

people relax at the end of the tiresome week. People felt really motivated and refreshed.

Socializing with friends is also a very effective stress buster. A very good movie and dinner

with friends really helps get back to the work on Monday. Sometimes, managers use casual

conversational techniques to make a team member feel less pressurized and relaxed. I

remember feeling a relaxed when my manager came to my desk and ask me about a latest

Angelina Jolie movie and NOT about the next day deadline.

 

The level of appreciation also plays a very important role in the overall employee motivation

and satisfaction. An expected pat on the back from a senior can make an employee work

hard to earn it. I believe this is related to the Goal Theory (Sinha, 2008). When the returns

are good (in terms of appreciation and benefits) employees always feel motivated.

I would want to be someone who can be recognized by all colleagues and subordinates for

commitment, punctuality and dedication towards work and become a role model for all.

It’s a common nature in an organization we see that a team leader (a probable managerial

candidate) oiling a manager and obeying him completely .This can be summed up as the

power exerted by a manager and his influence on the resources.

A manager has the sole authority to influence an organizational behaviour.Citing an e.g.

when I first joined my organization I tried hard to prove my abilities over there. The reward

for me he had given me a straight 2 credit out of 5 which was quite high as compared to the

others of my periphery. My manager showed a reward power the result of which was my

salary hike.

Later on I realized the reason behind this motive was to signal me indirectly to stay in office

till late night and to come to office even on weekends if required. There was this coercive

power that I could relate that if I don’t work on weekends as required, my rating would go

for a toss.( Luthans ,2008, pp 282). To illustrate in a better way, according to the norms

under every manager there were 5 team leads, out of which 1 team lead was the next

probable managerial candidate. As a result of which the manager would deliberately mark

him down in order to devoid him of his same position.

I think I need to work upon the politics of the organization a bit. There is one such saying

which I remember from the ‘Spiderman’ movie is that ‘With great power, comes great responsibility’ which inspired me a lot. A proper visionary aim is required when you are

exerting power, otherwise you could earn the wrath of the people on whom you are using

power, for example, America’s exertion of power on the middle-east countries have forced

the Arab countries to be agitated and make those terrible terrorist activities on US soil like

the 9/11. According to Carl Jung, “Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

(http://www.wisdomquotes.com ).

In short, love and power cannot co-exist side by side. So we should know how to use power

properly keeping in mind the great responsibility.

Human nature is unpredictable. Betrayal has become the best formula to achieve success

nowadays. In every field, at every step, one may find negative contemplations about him

from his fellow men. It can even include his own friends and co-workers. Meanness and self-

centeredness often leads to backstabbing. Conflicts are often created due to ego clashes as

well. These conflicts are frequently noticed in teamwork also. But then again, these are the

part and parcel of life.

For example, I joined Capgemini after completing my graduation from college. There I got

involved into a project. Already 10 members had laid their hands upon it. The team was well

set and I was a new entrant. Initially I was learning the work under the guidance of a mentor.

Then time passed and slowly I became acquainted with the official environment. I even

succeeded in making friends. But again some people began to give rise to a number of

conflicts, stating I was a late entrant. They didn’t even leave playing the role of destructive criticizer (Greenberg & Baron, 2005, pp 417).

However as I had mentioned before, slowly, my team began to play the role of my mentor

and constructive criticism helped me a lot to lessen such conflicts. Still, I lack negotiation

skills which could help me even more to get over these conflicts. So, in order to establish this

skill, I am presently undergoing regular sessions with a friend of mine, who has some

knowledge on negotiation as he belongs to an active political background. I am sure these

skills would help me to a great extent in my intermediate aim of joining the marketing line,

because in marketing, negotiation is very essential as you need to learn the skills of how to

sell yourself effectively. A marketing manager should always be open to constructive

criticism, which would thus help in an all round development and help in establishing new

relations with the clients, thereby bringing in new sales and new customer base for the

organisation.

“The world is not a bed of roses.” We all know this phrase. But to make it more comfortable

one has to engage in a lot of activities to enrich him. In this act of enrichment communication

plays the pivotal role. From my work experience, I can say that the most important aspect in

today’s organization is the communication skill, at the end of the day your people

management skills and the way you communicate with people matters the most. Effective

communication is the only link that binds all the major disciplines of a business like Finance,

HR, Logistics, Marketing, Sales. Simply stating, communication links all of us and makes us

realise that we human beings need to commune.

Like for an example I can quote an example. When i joined Capgemini as a fresh graduate

out of college, I was soon familiarised with all the workings of the organisation, with whom

we have to interact, whom to report and many other such organisational necessities. Though

I was initially quite sigh in communication, but gradually I excelled and as I was quite

familiarised with all the technical “know hows”. Even there were situations, when my

manager used to call me and invite me on a session to express my views on the

improvement of certain work related issues. There I had to communicate with all sorts of

management experts and even senior VPs. And there in the board room I came to know of

one such VP who had also done his schooling from the same school as me. Gradually we

had some interactions and as a senior he also taught me quite a few valuable lessons what

he has learnt in life from the professional life.

Also our project requirements involved a lot of teleconferencing and other computer-mediated communication channels like e-mail, instant messaging, which is always an

important part of communication in the corporate sectors, especially in the IT sector. We

have to interact a lot with our male and female colleagues and often there is some sort of

miscommunication between the sexes as sometimes we tend to be shy. Though I was

brought up in a co-education school since my nursery days, I was a bit reserved during my

school days and my bachelors. But gradually my interaction with the opposite sex improved

drastically as I used to have regular status updates meetings with my onshore lady manager.

I base my interactions on a “great deal of information.”(Baron and Greenberg, 2007, pp 330). There are also situations where I messed up when I did not follow the downward communication system and instead escalated an issue directly to a senior manager. (Hall and Tolbert, 2005, pp 142

Decision making abilities are an important attribute that distinguish a good manager from

an ordinary manager hence it is of immense importance here to reflect on my capabilities of

decision making. I often tend to rely on intuition which “is a decision making tool that integrates experience, goals and values without using direct reasoning”. For instance

before joining GD Goenka, I devoted 2-3 days in finding out whether it would be a wise

decision for me to join the newly opened PGDBM program in the Institute? I had to analyse

whether joining the institute would be a good enough decision for me. Purely based on

Intuition I decided to enroll myself in this institute, after joining I realized that intuitively my

decision to join GD Goenka has proved to be worthwhile when after attending the classes I

felt that it is a right place to nurture my nascent management skills and would provide me

with one of the best environments to grow professionally. Intuition based decision making is

often exercised by many higher level public and private sector managers and in times of

dilemma relying on your intuition helps in taking the right decision. But while making a

decision, I often get nervous and become hesitant. However no human being can make a

100% correct decision. So I sometimes wonder whether I took a wise decision to join MBA at

this point of time or could have stayed in the IT industry for some years to gain more

professional experience before joining a management school. However my aim now is to

control this intuitive nature of me to a certain extent because marketing managers also need

to depend a lot on intuition when they launch a product and proper intuitive skills would lead

them to engage proper marketing activities to lure customers and basically create a demand

for the product. However in cases where we need to analyze in terms of statistical data,

intuition can often play spoilsport. So I need to make a proper balance of the intuitive skills

start taking decisions rationally because “A manager who can balance rationality, intuition and emotions is likely to make more sound decisions, which are acceptable to his subordinates. Employees are more likely to feel psychologically committed to those decisions, which are arrived at by taking their opinions into consideration.” (Veluri, 2009, pp 213). So a thorough team consultation is also very necessary to arrive at

any decision and making a decision for the best of the organization.

Objectives for the next year: - Time flies by in a jiffy. I joined GD GOENKA in June and

now the 2nd semester is already half finished. Within this short span of time, I could identify

myself as a much transformed individual with a lot of management knowledge. Though I

need to develop some more skills and my objectives for the coming year could be briefly

summarised as follows:-

1) Further improvement of Communication skills: - In marketing, communication

skill is of utmost importance. I am trying to learn even some more aspects of

communication in the advertising media.

2) Improve Intuitive Decision Making skills: - Intuition can help managers, but a

manager with a balance of intuition, rationality can make much better skills. So the

next year would be a discovery phase for me to change intuition and be more rational

and practical and develop much more analysing skills in me.

3) Entry into an Industry as an Intern: - The first year of my 2 year PGDBM course is

going to be over by next April end. After that we have to do an 8 week internship. I

desire to get to learn advertisement, so would be focusing on firms which would

provide me with knowledge on advertisements and marketing promotions.

4) Improve Leadership Skills: - Though I have showed traits of leadership, I am

working on improvement of leadership skills, which a good manager should possess.

I am in the process of learning and through practical knowledge trying to identify how

to manage stress; how to take a decision wisely keeping in mind the consequences it

would reap on an organisation; how to tackle politics and make a negotiation;

maintain the peace and abide by the organisational cultures.

There are many other factors and fields where there are scopes of improvements. But the

above few are the few earnest goals and objectives for me in the next coming year. The

table below shows my action plan for the next year. The action plan is given in the chart

format below.

The Action Plan for the next 1 year:-

The specific

objective:-

Opportunities

for

development

are:-

Measurable

by:-

Achievable

through:-

Relevant to

your task

because:-

Timescale for

meeting the

objective is:-

1) To enter in to

the marketing

sector or

International

Business sector

focusing on

marketing.

Searching for

related jobs

and sectors

like advertising

medias,

FMCGs like

ITC.

Information

on the

different

company’s

profile and

culture.

Setting

proper

framework as

per the

company’s

requirement.

Proper

domain

knowledge

through

study of role

of sales and

marketing

experts.

12 months

2) Improve my

communication

skills

Socialising,

interacting with

colleagues.

Identifying and

absorbing the

relevant

attributes of

communication

in others.

Group work,

going

through

different

marketing

articles, etc

By having a

highly

interactive

and learning

meet with

such persons

and

accomplices.

Need of

proper

interaction

and

learning of

effective

communicat

ion in

markets.

2-3 months

3) Improve intuitive

decision making.

Working and

practising

more and

more on the

organisational

case studies.

Applying it on

the given

projects and

assignments.

Effective

participation

in and off

class

discussions.

Supporting

my career

as a

marketing

expert.

6-7 months

4) Improve

leadership skills.

Group

assignments,

group

participation.

Boosting up

self

confidence,

feedback

Displaying

leadership

skills,

listening to

Affect future

goals and

help in my

aim of

10 months

from peers,

teachers

others. joining an

NGO.

Conclusion: -

Organisational Behaviour deals with understanding what shapes organisations/business work and business is all about people and thus, OB is an important subject for any management student. When I went through the modules

of OB I understood that in business success cannot be achieved unless one learns to

predict human behaviour. We can motivate, lead, and resolve conflicts, design organisations

if we would have an in depth understanding on the OB theories and this, enables a better

understanding of human behaviour in organisations (Andre, 2009). This subject would make

it possible for me to effectively manage individuals and groups in my future organisations. In

management “our basic building blocks of theory are all concerned with people, and not only do different people behave differently, but the same person behaves differently in different circumstances or in the same situation at different times.” (Crowther and Green, 2008, pp 198-201).It has made me answer the most important question of my career that whether my current

skill set is suitable for my dream job, and where I need to improve? OB has helped me in

identifying my weaknesses, which I will work to improve and at the same time,

it highlighted my strong points which I can further, strengthen and thereby, improving my

overall personality. Moreover, OB has helped me in thinking rationally and logically to any

problem and identifying the consequences which could have been formed earlier without

studying these human natures. OB has greatly helped me in team work, which is indeed an

important requirement for my career. Every organization has a different environment and

work culture and through OB I now know what is expected by me in the organisations,

keeping in mind to respect the diverse-cultured co-workers. OB prepares us for the real

world, depicting the live examples from the Industry. Without proper knowledge of these OB

theories, it’s not possible to depict the human behaviour, which is very complex and

ever changing. Now I have learnt to act in a manner, what situation demand, which is highly

practical skill which the most youngsters of today lack. Thereby by evaluating an employee's

personality traits, creativity, and adaptability, motivating that employee the way they need to

be motivated is a guaranteed success. At the end, I can say that OB has given me a

direction towards achievement of career goals which will shine the path

towards attainment of success.

Appendices:-

1) MBTI Test

Source: www.humanmetrics.com

2) Leadership Test

Source: www.mindtools.com

References and Bibliography

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Organizations(First Indian Reprint)South Asia: Pearson Education, pp 16,18,20,72

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Organizational Behaviour, Palgrave Macmillan, pp 140,141

3) Crowther, David. & Green,Miriam.,2008,Organisational Theory, First Jaico

Impression, pp 198-201

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