Leadership

Organizational Behavior Introduction Congratulations on the recent purchase of your company San Fran Global (SFG.)The following documentdiscusses what we, here at 49er Consultations believe is crucial for your global shipping company to become a successful and prosperous organization. By focusing on the management of you company’s organizational behavior you can exceed your expectations and dominate the competition. Organizational behavior is a field of study that focuses on how individuals or groups impact behavior within an organization. By focusing on a few key aspects of organizational behavior and following the framework outlined in this presentation, you can build an organizational culture committed to success and excellence. Establishing your organizational culture Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization and includes the meanings that the people attach to their actions. Culture includes the organization values, visions, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. It is also the pattern of such collective behaviors and assumptions that are taught to new organizational members as a way of perceiving, and even thinking and feeling (Wikipedia, 2013) Organizational culture affects the way people and groups interact with each other, with clients, and with stakeholders. The establishment of you unit’s cultureis the foundation of your organization and what we believe is instrumental for your organizations success. Ask yourself, what do you want you organizational culture to be' It is our belief that the most effective companies take stock and value in their people and the job satisfaction of your people directly correlates with their performance and thus the success of your company. By focusing on our framework of 7 time tested management principals you can develop an organizational culture to dominate the competition. Our 8 principals include: 1) providing motivation, 2) organizational learning, 3) dealing with diversity, 4) managing conflict and communication, 5) mentorship and feedback, 6) adapting to change, 7) and transformational leadership. We will begin by discussing these principals followed by a discussion of what our behavioral management process entails. Organizational learning In order for your organization to grow and remain competitive it must learn. Peter Senge, the founding chairmen of the Society of Organizational Learning (SoL) and MIT Professor with a PhD in Management made the theory of organizational development popular in his 1990 book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. According to Senge (1990), learning organizations are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. Just like everyone has the capacity to learn, every organization or group has the capacity to learn as well. It is the responsibility of the leadership to provide the tools and format of learning within their organization (the facilitating factors), in order to remain flexible and adaptive in today’s tumultuous economic market. Senge defines people as agents which act upon the structure which they are a part of. You must commit to be a learning organization and develop you programs to continuously improve through training, experiment, and even looking for new ideas from outside you organization. You must minimize the fear within your organization to experiment and try new thinks. Thinking “outside the box” is a commonly used phrase which reflects this idea. Providing motivation Motivation is a psychological process of providing arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal oriented (Central Michigan University, 2009). Our approach to motivation centers on employee job satisfaction through identifying intrinsic or extrinsic motivation factors that affect your employees. Intrinsic motivation occurs when an employee is satisfied by the positive feeling they get from a job well done. Extrinsic motivationoccurs when people are motivated by rewards; for example pay, awards, or recognition. Traditionally motivation is deemed as an individual phenomenon and the extent and how people are motivated differs from person to person. The purpose of identifying motivational factors in your organization is to predict behavior and create persistent positive results to reach your organizational goals (Mitchell, 1982). Dealing with diversity Managers stand in the line of fire when dealing with motivation especially in today’s diverse workforce. Diversity is more than the differences between employee race, gender, religious beliefs, age, etc..; diversity also includes less obvious factors like attitudes and beliefs. Managers need to be properly trained on how to create effective workforce environments with the multitude of diversities they face today. Teaching managers to recognize their own biases is a key aspect is the successful management of diversity. By understanding diversity it is our belief your company will be more successful in recruiting and retaining people, thus adding to a varied pot of experiences and perspectives in your company. By managing diversity you can improve collaborative efforts on projects, specifically helpful in problem solving. Lastly, through understanding diversity your company will be more competitively advantageous in regards to marketing and competing for contracts from outside agencies. Managing conflict and communication Let our team of expertly trained professional train your team on how to recognize the major forms of conflict: personality conflict, intergroup conflict, and cross-culture conflict (Central Michigan University, 2009). Once your team learns how to recognize conflict they must be taught how to effectively manage and resolve this conflict. We believe communicationis the key. In order to resolve conflict within your organization face to face communication between employees and management leads to better understanding and sharing of collaborative ideas and solutions on a multitude ofissues. Intergroup conflict can lead to negative impact on your organization. Through understanding and dealing with intergroup conflict your organization you begin to build a cohesive team. Several of our tips include conducting thorough investigation, which is clearly documented and retributive in nature if continued. Remember to remain unbiased and encourage face to face communication between individual, allowing the involved parties to work things out on their own. Let groups interact, the more they interact with each other the less conflict you will see, this is known as the contact hypothesis. Contact hypothesis reduces stereotypes between groups thus improving group to group interaction and performance (Central Michigan University, 2009). The goal is to have everyone involved believing in the win-win approach, where if we succeed then I succeed. Mentorship and feedback Mentoring is based on building lasting relationships where leaders take on the role of teacher/coach to develop junior employees. Through mentoring you can develop your organizations culture because you begin to create a sense of oneness and membership within your organization. Development through mentorship amplifies a junior employee’s ability to be successful, providing job satisfaction through the development of relationships diversity and strength. Diversity of developmental relationships refers to the social systems as well as the different people a person uses in their development. The greater the diversity the more the junior is exposed to for learning and experience. Developmental relationship strength refers the quality of the relationships between the interacting parties. When these parties interact frequently and positively then strong bonds are built, versus the weak bonds developed in superficial relationships(Central Michigan University, 2009).The development of strong bonds results in career satisfaction and bottom to top communication, allowing the nurturing of your organizational culture. Adapting to change In order to compete organizations often require change. Change should be considered a process involving a myriad of organizational behavior aspects to include: 1) leadership, 2) business strategy, 3) processes, and 4) problems (Central Michigan University, 2009).The way a business manages its change is key to its success or failure. Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist, developed what we believe is the cornerstone to understanding organizational change, this process is known as the Lewin’s Change Model. This model follows three change processes: 1) unfreezing, 2) changing, and 3) refreezing. Think of unfreezing stage consists of ensuring everyone knows why change is necessary. You must be ready to replace the values, beliefs and behaviors which currently define your organization. During the changing stage people begin to accept the new way and the uncertainty of the unfreezing change begins to wane. Change is made possible through constant and clear communication and well as employee involvement. In the refreezing stage people accept the new way and embrace their new roles. Ensure you celebrate the success of getting through this difficult period; this can be accomplished by extrinsic rewards and continual mentorship (Connelly, 2008). Transformational leadership One of the most difficult things for managers to come to terms with is that they are not just managers, but leaders as well. However, position or title alone does not dictate that they are good leaders. Leaders influence others to accomplish the goal; ideally the influence is positive in nature. Of all the leadership approaches we believe the most effective is transformational leadership. Transformational leaders have the ability to influence others to want to change by effecting their values, beliefs, goals, and aspirations. There are four factors to transformational leadership (known as the four I’s): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation (Hall, Johnson, Wysocki&Kepner, 2012). Leaders with idealized influence are trusted role models with in the organization. They believe in sacrificing for the group and place the needs of the organization above their own. Inspirational motivation refers to the ability to get the group to commit to the organizational vision. Leaders with individualized consideration act as coaches or teachers (mentors), they encourage and empower their employees. Intellectual stimulation is the act of encouraging employees to be creative and critical in their problem solving, in order to better the organization. Intellectual stimulation leaders will bring groups together to discuss different viewpoints are more likely to participate with the in-group exchange model of leadership. In-group exchange model of leadership is based on relationships, mutual trust, and respect. It is a part of a leadership theory called the leader-member exchange model or leadership. In this model the focus is on top to bottom relationships. We believe the development of relationship with your employees is paramount. Researchers have found that in positive leader-member exchange relationships there is less resistance to change and greater job satisfaction, performance, goal commitment, trust, and satisfaction (Central Michigan University, 2009). Connecting the framework Now that we have discussed and laid the basic framework of what we feel is important in developing your organizational culture, we can now connect them together. Our team utilizes a four step process to focus and build a detailed program for your organization to reach its goal. These steps include: 1) identifying the behavior, 2) identifying the cause of the behavior, 3) the solution, and 4) implementation. In identifying the behaviors it is important to understand what behavior is desired to reach your goal. Your team may already be exhibiting some of the behaviors required for exceptional performance, however, they may not be exhibiting this behavior frequently enough to be effective. In other instances the desired behavior may be missing entirely. Once you have identified the behaviors you want to change or encourage you need to understand what is motivating your employees to behave in the manner they are. You need to look at the structure of you organization and have the self-insight to understand if you as a manager are responsible for your employees behavior. Identifying the cause can be very difficult especially when your part of the group. By allowing us to look at your organization from the outside in we can give perspective and insight otherwise not seen. Next you need to device a solution. You have many different options when assessing what solution is best to reach your behavioral goals. It is important to communicate and discuss your options with your superiors, peers, and subordinates alike. During this step your motivational and leadership skills will be tested as you will need to ensure your team buys into what you are trying to sell them. The last step is the implementation of you solution. You will need to come up with a defined plan to accomplish you behavioral goals. Our team can help keep you focused during this stage as you may feel you have fallen outside your comfort zone. Dwight D. Eisenhower once said “planning is useless, but we need to plan anyways”. Remember things may not always go as planned, so remain flexible and prepared to adjust your plan as needed. Conclusion In this presentation we discussed 7 key principals which we believe build the framework for establishing your organizational culture. Keep in mind our 7 principals are meant to build of each other and certain aspects of one principal often intertwine with others. They are not to be considered inclusive to your particular organization; however we do believe they are the framework to success. If you choose to hire our team of professionals we will analyze what organizational behaviors we feel your organization requires for success. We are also capable of adding additional organizational behavior principals to our plan which fit your organization’s requires. References Central Michigan University.(2009). Organizational dynamics and human behavior. (2nd ed.). United States of America: McGraw-Hill Companies. Connnely, M. (2008).Kurtlewin: Change management model. Retrieved from http://www.change-management-coach.com/kurt_lewin.html Hall, J., Johnson, S., Wysocki, A., &Kepner, K. (2012, June).Transformational leadership: The transformation or managers and associates . Retrieved from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hr020 Mitchell, T. Motivation: New directions for theory, research, and practice. (1982). The Academy of Management Review, 7(1), 80-88. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.catalog.lib.cmich.edu/stable/257251 Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organization. London: Century Business Wikipedia. (2013, April 23). Organizational culture. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture