Basic Approaches of Organisational Behavior

i) An Interdisciplinary Approach: It is integrating many disciplines. It integrates social sciences and other disciplines that can contribute to the Organizational Behavior. It draws from these disciplines any ideas that will improve the relationships between people and organization. Its interdisciplinary nature is similar to that of medicine, which applies physical, biological and social science into a workable medical practice. Organizations must have people, and people working toward goals must have organizations, so it is desirable to treat the two as a working unit.

ii) Scientific Management Approach: The fundamental concern of the scientific management school was to increase the efficiency of the worker basically through good job design and appropriate training of the workers. Taylor is the father of the scientific management movement and he developed many ides to increase organizational efficiency. Taylor showed that through proper job design, worker selection, employee training and incentives, productivity can be increased. The scientific management school advocated that efficiency can be attainted by finding the right methods to get the job done, through specialization on the job, by planning and scheduling, by using standard operating mechanisms, establishing standard times to do the job, by proper selection and training of personnel and through wage incentives.

iii) A Human Resources (Supportive) Approach: It is developmental approach concerned with the growth and development of people toward higher levels of competency creativity and fulfillment, because people are the central resource in any organizations and any society. It helps people grow in self-control and responsibility and then it tries to create a climate in which all employees may contribute to the limits of their improved abilities. It is assumed that expanded capabilities and opportunities for people will lead directly to improvements in operating effectiveness. Work satisfaction will be a direct result when employees make fuller use of their capabilities. Essentially, the human resources approach means that better people achieve better results.

iv) A Contingency Approach: Traditional management relies on one basic principle – there is one best way of managing things and these things can be applied across the board in all the instances. The situational effect will be totally ignored in this traditional management. Situations are much more complex than first perceived and the different variables may require different behavior which means that different environments required different behavior for effectiveness. Each situation much be analyzed carefully to determine the significant variables that exist in order to establish the kinds of practices that will be more effective.

Contingency theorist argues that the external environment and several aspects of the internal environment govern the structure of the organization and the process of management. Effective management will vary in different situations depending on the individual and groups in the organization, the nature of jobs, technology, the type of environment facing the organization and its structure. For example, if the employees are highly matured and willing to take more responsibility, the managers can follow delegating style and give full freedom to their employees. If the employees are not so matured and avoid taking any responsibility, the managers must follow directing style. Depends upon the situation, that is, employees level of maturity, managers will adopt different style of leadership to ensure more successful results.

v) A Systems Approach: This implies that organization consists of many inter related and inter dependent elements affecting one another in order to achieve the overall results. Conceptually a system implies that there are a multitude of variables in organization and that each of them affects all the others in complex relationships. An event that appears to affect one individual or one department actually may have significant influences elsewhere in the organization. Systems theorists describe the organization as “open to its external environment”, receiving certain inputs from the environment such as human resources, raw materials etc, and engaging in various operations to transform those raw materials into a finished products and finally turning out the “outputs” in its final form to be sent to the environment. The organization, since it is open to the environment, also receives feedback from the environment and takes corrective action as necessary.

Key Elements of Organisational Behavior

The key elements in organizational behavior are people, structure, technology and the external elements in which the organization operates. When people join together in an organization to accomplish an objective, some kind of infrastructure is required. People also use technology to help get the job done, so there is an interaction of people, structure and technology. In addition, these elements are influenced by the external environment, and they influence it. Each o f the four elements o f organizational behavior will be considered briefly.

People

People make up the internal social system of the organization. They consist of individuals and groups, and large groups as well as small ones. People are the living, thinking, feelings beings who created the organizations. It exists to achieve their objectives. Organizations exist to serve people. People do not exist to serve organizations. The work force is one of the critical resources t hat need to be managed. In managing human resources, managers have to deal with:

• Individual employee who are expected to perform the tasks allotted to them
• Dyadic relationships such as superior-subordinate interactions
• Groups who work as teams and have the responsibility for getting the job done,
• People out side the organization system such as customers and government officials

Structure

Structure defines the official relationships of people in organizations. Different jobs are required to accomplish all of an organization’s activities. There are managers and employees, accountants and assemblers. These people have to be related in some structural way so that their work can be effective. The main structure relates to power and to duties. For example, one person has authority to make decisions that affect the work of other people.

Some of the key concepts of organization structure are listed as below:

• Hierarchy of Authority: This refers to the distribution of authority among organizational positions and authority grants the position holder certain rights including right to give direction to others and the right to punish and reward.
• Division of Labor: This refers to the distribution of responsibilities and the way in which activities are divided up and assigned to different members of the organization is considered to be an element of the social structure.
• Span of Control: This refers to the total number of subordinates over whom a manager has authority
• Specialization: This refers to the number of specialities performed within the organization.
• Standardization: It refers to the existence of procedures for regularly recurring events or activities
• Formalization: This refers to the extent to which rules, procedures, and communications are written down
• Centralization: This refers to the concentration of authority to make decision.
• Complexity: This refers to both vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation. Vertical differentiation: outlines number of hierarchical levels; horizontal differentiation highlights the number of units within the organization (e.g departments, divisions)

Organizations can be structured as relatively rigid, formalized systems or as relatively loose, flexible systems. Thus the structure of the organizations can range on a continuum of high rigidity to high flexibility. There are two broad categories of organization: i) Mechanistic form of organization ii) Organic form of Organization

Mechanistic form of Organisation

It is characterized by high levels of complexity, formalization and centralization. A highly mechanistic system is characterized by centralized decision making at the top, a rigid hierarchy of authority, well but narrowly defined job responsibilities especially at lower levels, and extensive rules and regulations which are explicitly make known to employees through written documents. In mechanistic organization, labor is divided and subdivided into many highly specialized tasks (high complexity), workers are granted limited discretion in performing theirs tasks and rules and procedures are carefully defined (high formalization); and there is limited participation in decision making which tends to be conducted at the highest levels of management high centralization.

Organic form of Organisation

A highly organic system is characterized by decentralized decision-making which allows people directly involved with the job to make their own decisions, very few levels in the hierarchy with flexible authority and reporting patters, loosely defined job responsibilities for members, and very few written rules and regulations. It is relatively simple, informal and decentralized. Compared with mechanistic organizations, employees in organic organizations, such as design firms or research labs, tend to be more generalist in their orientation.

 Jobs and Tasks

Job refers to the sum total of an individual’s assignment at the workplace. Tasks refer to the various activities that need to be performed to get the job done. The nature of tasks, it’s executives by various individuals, nature of interdependence and inter-relatedness, group activities etc have implication for organizational effectiveness. Thus the jobs and tasks have to be designed and managed properly.

Core Job Characteristics: There are five job characteristics which are central to providing potential motivation to workers. They are: Skill variety, Task identity, Task significance, Autonomy, and Feedback from the job itself.

• Task Variety: This denotes the extent to which any particularly job utilizes a range of skills, abilities and talents of the employees. If number of different skills is used by the employee on the job, the job is going to provide challenge and growth experience to the workers.
• Task Identity: This indicates the extent to which the job involves a ‘whole’ and identifiable piece of work. If the job involves the whole components (eg – painting a portrait), then the individual can identify with the ultimate creation turned out by him and derive pride and satisfaction from having done a good job.
• Task significance: This refers to the meaningfulness or significance of the impact that a job has on the lives of others – both inside and outsider of the organization. If what one does has an impact on the well being of others, the job becomes psychologically rewarding to he person who performs it.
• Autonomy: This refers to the extent to which the job provides an employee the freedom, independent and discretion to schedule work and make decision and formulate the procedures to get the job done without interference from others. The greater the degree of autonomy, the more the person doing the job feels in control.
• Feedback from the Job itself: This indicates the extent to which the person who is working on the job can assess whether they are doing things right or wrong even as they are performing the job. That is, the job itself is stimulating one and enjoyable.

Job Design: Jobs can be designed to range from highly simple to highly complex tasks in terms of the use of the workers skill. Some of the job design options are as follows:

• Job Simplification: The jobs are broken down into very small parts as in the assembly line operations where a fragmented task is repeatedly done over and over again by the same individual.
• Job Rotation: This involves moving employees among different tasks over a period of time. Management does not have to bother with combining tasks, but at the same time, the workers do not get bored with doing one simple task over several years. The employee is periodically rotated from one job to another within the work setting
• Job Enlargement: This involves simply adding more tasks to the job so that the workers have a variety of simple tasks to perform rather than doing just one task repetitively. Two or more tasks are combined and the individual does the combined tasks altogether.
• Job Enrichment: This offers a greater challenge to the workers because it requires the use of variety of skills possessed by them. This involves building in motivating factors into the job, giving the workers more responsibility and control over work, and offering learning opportunities for the individual on the job.

Technology

Organizations have technologies for transforming inputs and outputs. These technologies consist of physical objects, activities and process, knowledge, all of which are brought to bear on raw materials labor and capital inputs during a transformation process. The core technology is that set of productive components most directly associated with the transformation process, for example, production or assembly line in manufacturing firm. Technology provides the physical and economic resources with which people work. They cannot accomplish much with their bare hands, so they build buildings, design machines, create work processes and assemble resources. The technology that results has a significant influence on working relationships. An assembly line is not the same as a research laboratory, and a steel mill does not h ave the same working conditions as a hospital. The great benefit of technology is that it allows people to do more and better work, but it also restricts people in various ways. It has costs as well as benefits.

Classification of Technology:

Thomson classified technology into three categories: Long-linked technology, Mediating Technology and Intensive Technology.

• Long linked Technology: In this, tasks are broken into a number of sequential and interdependent steps, where the outputs of one unit become the input of the next. (eg. Assembly line) this facilitates to have high volume of output and efficiency. This technology calls for mechanistic structures with high levels of specialization, standardization and formalization.
• Mediating Technology: This links different parties who need to be brought together in a direct or indirect way (eg. Banks – use mediating technology to lend money to borrowers by taking money from depositors)
• Intensive Technology: It is used when a group of specialists are brought together to solve complex problems using a variety of technologies (eg. Hospital – parties are treated with the help of experts drawn from different fields of specialization). Coordination of the different activities is achieved in the system primarily through mutual adjustment among those engaged in solving the problem in the different units. Organic structures would fit in this system using intensive technology.

 Environment

All organizations operate within an external environment. A single organization does not exist alone. It is part of a larger system that contains thousand of other elements. All these mutually influence each other in a complex system that becomes the life style of the people. Individual organization, such as a factory or school cannot escape from being influenced by this external environment. It influences the attitudes of people, affects working conditions, and provides competition for resources and power. Every organization interacts with other members of its environment. The interactions allow the organization t o acquire raw material, hire employees, secure capital, obtain knowledge, and build, lease or buy facilities and equipment. Since the organization process a product or service for consumption by the environment, it will also interact with its customers. Other environmental actions, who regulate or over see these exchanges, interact with the organization as well (distributors, advertising agencies, trade associations, government of the countries in which business is conducted)

Two Distinct Sets of Environment:

i) Specific Environment: This includes the suppliers, customers, competitors, governments’ agencies, employees, unions, political parties etc.

ii) General Environment: It includes the economic, political, cultural, technological and social factors in which the organization embedded. Organizations are embedded in an environment within which they operate. Some of the external factors may be completely beyond the control of the organization to change, such as the cultural, social or economic, or governmental aspects. However, many of the other factors such as sizing up the market, being in tune with the technological changes takes place, being a step ahead of competition, or stocking up and buffering supplies when certain materials are likely to be in short supply, are all within the control of the organization. Effectively managing these situations, however, requires constant and close vigilance, adaptability to changes, and being able to manage problematical situations through good decisions making. Those organizations which are proactive (that is, watchful and take action before crisis situations occur) and can manage their external environment are more effective than those that are reactive (that is, caught off guard and wake up after facing the crises situation) and are unable to cope effectively.

Fit between Environment and Structure: Firms facing a fast changing or turbulent external environment were very effective when they had more organic structures which provided flexibility for quick changes to be make within the internal environment of the system. Similarly, firms which operated in a relatively stable external environment were very effective when they had more mechanistic structures. This mechanistic structure allowed the system to operate in a predictable manner since authority, responsibility, procedures, and rules were clearly specified.

F W Taylor

F W Taylor - (1856 - 1915), USA- The Scientific Management School

Taylorism involved breaking down the components of manual tasks in manufacturing environments, timing each movement ('time and motion' studies) so that there could be a proven best way to perform each task. Thus employees could be trained to be 'first class' within their job. This type of management was particularly relevant to performance drives e.g 'Action On' projects.

This was a rigid system where every task became discrete and specialized. It is fair to suggest that this is unlikely to be of value to the NHS with the Modernisation agenda suggesting that we should have a flexible workforce.

Key points about Taylor, who is credited with what we now call 'Taylorism':

• he was in the scientific management school
• his emphases were on efficiency and productivity
• but he ignored many of the human aspects of employment

For the managers, scientific management required them to:

• develop a science for each operation to replace opinion and rule of thumb
• determine accurately from the science the correct time and methods for each job (time and motion studies)
• set up a suitable organisation to take all responsibility from the workers except that of the actual job performance
• select and train the workers (in the manner described above)
• accept that management itself be governed by the science deployed for each operation and surrender its arbitrary powers over the workers, i.e. cooperate with them.

For the workers, scientific management required them to:

• stop worrying about the divisions of the fruits of production between wages and profits.
• share in the prosperity of the firm by working in the correct way and receiving wage increases.
• give up their idea of time wasting and co-operate with the management in developing the science
• accept that management would be responsible for determining what was done and how
• agree to be trained in new methods where applicable

The benefits (mainly for the management) arising from scientific management can be summarised as follows:

• its rational approach to the organisational work enables tasks and procedures to be measured with a considerable degree of accuracy
• measurement of paths and processes provide useful information on which to base improvements in working methods, plant design, etc
• improving work methods brought enormous increases in productivity
• it enabled employees to be paid by results and to take advantage of incentive payments
• it stimulated management into adopting a more positive role in leadership at shop floor level.
• it contributed to major improvements in physical working conditions for employees
• it provided the formation for modern work studies

The drawbacks were mainly for the workers:

• it reduced the worker's role to that of a rigid adherence to methods and procedures over which he/she had no discretion
• it led to increased fragmentation of work due to its emphasis on divisional labour
• it generated an economically based approach to the motivation of employees by linking pay to geared outputs
• it put the planning and control of workplace activities exclusively in the hands of the managers
• it ruled out any realistic bargaining about wage rates since every job was measured and rated 'scientifically'

Therefore, in summary, while the scientific management technique has been employed to increase productivity and efficiency both in private and public services, it has also had the disadvantages of ignoring many of the human aspects of employment. This led to the creation of boring repetitive jobs with the introduction of systems for tight control and the alienation of shop floor employees from their managers.

Taylorism prevailed in the '30s through to the early '60s - and in many organisations considerably later than this. Peters and Waterman in the 70s/80 and Senge late '80s/early '90s led us towards what we now call 'systems thinking' where the rights and potential wider contributions of employees received considerably greater emphasis.

Henri Fayol

Henri Fayol (1841 - 1925), France

 

1.Division of work	Reduces the span of attention or effort for any one person or group. Develops practice and familiarity
2. Authority	The right to give an order. Should not be considered without reference to responsibility
3. Discipline	Outward marks of respect in accordance with formal or informal agreements between firm and its employees
4. Unity of command	One man superior
5. Unity of direction	One head and one plan for a group of activities with the same objective
6. Subordination of individual interests to the general interest	The interests of one individual or one group should not prevail over the general good. This is a difficult area of management
7. Remuneration	Pay should be fair to both the employee and the firm
8. Centralisation	Is always present to a greater or less extent, depending on the size of the company and quality of its managers
9. Scalar chain	The line of authority from top to bottom of the organisation
10. Order	A place for everything and everything in its place; the right man in the right place
11. Equity	A combination of kindliness and justice towards the employees
12. Stability of tenure of personnel	Employees need to be given time to settle into their jobs, even though this may be a lengthy period in the case of the managers
13. Initiative	Within the limits of authority and discipline, all levels of staff should be encouraged to show initiative
14. Esprit de corps	Harmony is a great strength to an organisation; teamwork should be encouraged

Advantages

• Fayol was the first person to actually give a definition of management which is generally familiar today namely 'forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to co-ordinate and to control'.
• Fayol also gave much of the basic terminology and concepts, which would be elaborated upon by future researchers, such as division of labour, scalar chain, unity of command and centralization.

Disadvantages

• Fayol was describing the structure of formal organizations.
• Absence of attention to issues such as individual versus general interest, remuneration and equity suggest that Fayol saw the employer as paternalistic and by definition working in the employee's interest.
• Fayol does mention the issues relating to the sensitivity of a patients needs, such as initiative and 'esprit de corps', he saw them as issues in the context of rational organisational structure and not in terms of adapting structures and changing people's behaviour to achieve the best fit between the organisation and its customers.
• Many of these principles have been absorbed into modern day organisations, but they were not designed to cope with conditions of rapid change and issues of employee participation in the decision making process of organisations, such as are current today in the early 21st century.
  
  

6 Most Overrated Management Concepts

Making a company successful requires, above all, clear thinking.

Unfortunately, there are dozens of management concepts that, far from making success easier, tend to encourage fuzzy ideas and bad decisions.

Here are a few of my favorites. Make sure you're not falling into any of these traps:

1. Consensus

Managers often strive to reach consensus among groups and individuals before any important decision is made. That sounds reasonable (hey, it's the "wisdom of crowds"), but in practice consensus drives weak decisions.

Strong decisions--the ones that create powerful futures--entail cutting away other options, and that generally means disappointing somebody. Consensus favors what's bland over what's innovative, what's safe over what's risky, and the status quo over carpe diem.

2. Customer Focus

If you focus on the customer, you'll be better able to satisfy the customer's needs, right?  Well, not really. "Focusing" on the customer is viewing the situation from your own perspective as a vendor. What's really required is the ability to listen to and absorb what the customer is saying and project yourself into the customer's shoes.

Understanding a customer is not so much a visual act (like using a microscope) as a passive act: It involves rapport, empathy, and imagination.

3. Brainstorming

Getting people together to bounce ideas off one another (in a supportive environment) sounds like a great idea. Until you actually try making it work, that is. Creativity is not a group process, and great ideas do not emerge out of dumb, half-baked ones.

What's more, no matter how supportive the environment, people know they'll be judged on the quality of their contributions. That's why brainstorming usually creates nothing more than a dull drizzle.

4. Rightsizing

Rightsizing is a weasel word intended to make mass firings seem as if they're strategic. The real truth is that big layoffs are always the result of lousy management. Though it's sometimes necessary to make staffing changes, well-run companies with farsighted management never require such drastic surgery. So let's stop using jargon that hides the fact that management failed.

5. Human Resources

The problem with calling humans "resources" is that you just dehumanized them into objects. The term puts human beings conceptually in the same bucket as raw materials on the factory floor or the network wires inside the wall. It ignores the fact that people are complicated and multifaceted, and that getting them to work together requires treating them as individuals rather than as plug-and-play commodities.

6. Leadership

Before he died, the management visionary Peter Drucker pinned the excesses of corporate America on the bloated concept of leadership. He believed businesses have more than enough leaders; what they really need are competent managers who can do the hard work of decision making, planning, and coaching.

In my experience, the typical business leader is like the leader of a marching band--he waves a stick while other people do the work.

Needless to say, feel free to leave a comment if you disagree.

THE SHOES

"positive thinking & negative thinking"

You will perhaps have heard this very old story illustrating the difference between positive thinking and negative thinking:

Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a shoe manufacturer to an island to investigate and report back on market potential.

The first salesman reported back, "There is no potential here - nobody wears shoes."

The second salesman reported back, "There is massive potential here - nobody wears shoes."

This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation may be viewed in two quite different ways - negatively or positively.

We could explain this also in terms of seeing a situation's problems and disadvantages, instead of its opportunities and benefits.

When telling this story its impact is increased by using exactly the same form of words (e.g., "nobody wears shoes") in each salesman's report. This emphasizes that two quite different interpretations are made of a single situation.

THE MECHANIC AND THE SURGEON

"PERCEPTION: THE NATURE OF BIG DIFFERENCE"

A heart surgeon took his car to his local garage for a regular service, where he usually exchanged a little friendly banter with the owner, a skilled but not especially wealthy mechanic.

"So tell me," says the mechanic, "I've been wondering about what we both do for a living, and how much more you get paid than me.."

"Yes? " says the surgeon.

"Well look at this," says the mechanic, as he worked on a big complicated engine, "I check how it's running, open it up, fix the valves, and put it all back together so it works good as new.. We basically do the same job don't we? And yet you are paid ten times 

what I am - how do you explain that?"

The surgeon thought for a moment, and smiling gently, replied, "Try it with the engine running."