Organizational_Behavior

Paper No. 1 – Motivation and Reward Introduction I am lead to believe that people are demotivated and to cease to exist when they believe that they are not needed. Everyone t needs to feel needed otherwise what’s the point of existence. This first paper is an analysis of motivation and rewards in the workplace. As we read further we will get a deeper appreciation for the need theories and job design. Mary Joe has been employed at Lloyds TSB Bank Bahamas Limited for the past eighteen months as a filing clerk and during this time she had varying degree of motivation. We will explore Maslow’s needs hierarchy of physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem and self actualization. 1. Needs Analysis A. Needs Theories Motivation is like oil in the engine or rather the fuel in the gas tank that sparks life to the ignition system of an automobile. Once that spark ignites it jumpstarts the engine and allows it to take off. Like Mary Joe all of us have needs; at the foundation of Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory lies the physiological need of the body’s existence. Mary Joe requires air, warmth, sleep, food, shelter and so on in order to exist, otherwise Mary would cease to be in the land of the living if these need are not met. However on the job Mary requires coffee breaks, comfort on the job and reasonable working hours. Upon the concept of physiological need stands the need for safety. Mary needs to feel secured in here neighborhood, on the job or wherever she may choose to go. There is also the need for job security and compensation benefits and safe working conditions. Belongingness and love is the next layer upward which Mary requires support and love from her family and friends. This love has to be demonstrated and not just lip service as love is an action word. The lack of belongingness will throw Mary into a state of depression. Likewise on her job Mary depends heavily of her work family to be pleasant, friendly and to encourage her on the right path. On the job team members usually encourages each other and this encouragement motivates Mary to performing her task well. If we were to closely examine the learned needs theory of affiliation we would see that it is matched against the need to belong. This need comes through when Mary seeks approval from others, possesses the willingness to fall in line with achieving the goals of the company while avoiding conflict and confrontation. One of the higher level needs is esteem; in this regard Mary takes her job very seriously, she is always present and on time. She is highly respected and demonstrates respect in return for all. She continues to excel in her job because she knows that she would be generously rewarded for her faithfulness. Often times when goals are met as a result of going over above and beyond Mary is recognized and praised by having her picture placed on the ‘Wall of Fame’ for that particular quarter. The publication ‘Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Does It Apply In A Collectivist Culture’ by Gambrel and Cianci in 2003 reports that, “Maslow as quoted by Hersey (1996) states "human needs arrange themselves into a hierarchy" . Maslow's theory posits that an individual will satisfy basic-level needs before modifying behavior to satisfy higher-level needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs…include physiological, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization. In Maslow's model, individuals initially seek to satisfy physiological needs. These are the basic human needs required to sustain life and include food, clothing and shelter. Any other needs provide little motivation until these basic needs are satisfied.” At the top of the pyramid stands actualization where employees are very creative and are placed in challenging positions. Here flows the need of purpose, self fulfillment and the realization of potential. B. Job Design Job design consists of processing and applying tasks to a particular job and can also involve interdependency of tasks with other jobs. Nowadays, the focus has been shifted to the motivator-hygiene theory whereby employees are motivated if they have job security, satisfaction in a good working job environment. In today’s wake of uncertainty and in light of the steady climb in the unemployment rate in the United States and around the world, just having a job is a source of motivation. Job characteristic module outlines five basic dimensions that sum up three psychological states, including skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and job feedback. While Mary was employed in the filing room, when that area was slow in activities she would assist in updating the computer database with new entries. This identifies with skill variety; and because Mary understands the importance of her job, she is willing to ensure that her assigned tasks are executed for the overall success of the company which proves her knowledge of task significance and a critical psychological state of meaningfulness. Secondly, autonomy is outrightly expressed in the filing room as she manages and sets the scheduling and procedures to complete her work load; this calls for freedom and independence which are tied to a high degree of responsibility. Finally, Mary’s feedback from her job is a positive on as colleagues often express their thanks and appreciation for timely responses and helpfulness which presents a clear position of Mary’s knowledge in performing her tasks. II. Recommendations A. Needs Theories After observing Mary it seems that her most prominent need id belongingness and affiliation and is motivated by rewards. Therefore, I would recommend that social events are held at least biannually. This would develop and stimulate the work environment to promote caring for fellow colleagues. Another recommendation would be to have a write up in the major newspapers to highlight the employees of the various months. If goals are met in a department then rewards should line up with performance. In this sense if a team makes an accomplishment then perhaps the team should go to lunch on the company’s account. Such rewards should also be valuable which means that they should be appreciated by the receiving party. B. Job Design Three recommendations to improve motivation in the job characteristics model are: i. Job rotation whereby employees are transferred to various departments to improve or support multiskilling, work flexibility and job diversification. ii. Job enlargement adds more tasks to the existing ones with freedom and autonomy. iii. Job enrichment allows employees to plan and coordinate their own work. Conclusion Motivation and rewards are like twin brother with just a step away from each other. Certainly, for the most part people are extrinsically motivated, meaning that their inner desire to perform is tied or connected to being stimulated by a reward. In the work environment we know that rewards are not certain, however, employees work with the expectation that if they achieve the company’s objective then a reward is just around the corner. I’ve experienced that achieving objects requires an employee to go above and beyond the basic requirement needed for the task. Paper No. 2 – Decision-Making and Creativity Introduction The situation that is described in this paper is about a decision that I had to make in my early life of employment. I was a one of the early shift supervisor of a local fund company. One day a problem arose where there a customer receives some losses as a result of a fund transaction. I immediately convened a meeting and a decision was made in the best interest of all parties. I. Decision-Making Process Analysis A. Rational Choice Rational choice decision making is centered around the process of making rational decisions. Decisions are made every minutes of the day in our personal lives and in the work environment. Informed decisions involve identifying, selecting, and applying the most appropriate alternative. Such decisions have to make sense and be logical. In other words decisions should not be plucked out of a hat at random but instead a thought process should be applied otherwise there could be far reaching consequences for these decisions. The situation described above involved a colleague who received an instruction to transfer some securities to the clients account to our sister company in another jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the request had some minor errors and was sent back for correction. Our company received the corrected instructions about six working days later. My colleague who was the administrator of the portfolio in question processed the request and forwarded the relevant instruction to the third party establishment where the securities were held. Later the third party bank called my colleague and enquired about the name of contact person from our sister company to receive the securities and also advise that to speed up the process she could instead liquidate the securities and transfer the proceeds instead to save on time. In the midst of the high volume of activities at the time my colleagues erroneously conceded to the latter option which conflicted with the customer’s intent to have the securities transferred in specie. The customer called the office and complained about the losses he incurred as a result of the low market rates at the time. This situation called for an immediate decision making. The decision making process for this matter was to firstly identify the problem. The problem here was that there was a dissatisfied client as a result of the company’s error. Secondly, the decision making process had to be selected. Since I was the supervisor in charge and losses were involved; I contacted the CEO and had a conference call to determine a decision. Thirdly, alternative solutions were developed including, whether to have the entries reversed, repurchase the securities and reimburse the portfolio to cover the losses incurred, let the client know that the company was not prepared to cover such losses. Clearly, the best alternative was very simple as the sale of the securities could not be reversed, the most appropriate solution was to repurchase the securities and cover the losses in the portfolio. The current market rates were obtained and the securities were purchases with losses recovered and applied to the customer’s portfolio. The decision outcome was evaluated and founded that the client was happy and the company avoided any potential reputational risk. BI. Involvement and Creativity Employee involvement in this decision making process was very low. This is due to the fact that my colleague involvement was only to the extent to provide information in the form of a synopsis of the state of event that led to the problem and to determine the losses resulting from this problem. In this case the involvement was source of decision knowledge as she had full knowledge of the events that took place. A. Rational Choice Recommendation Employees should have some involvement in the decision making. I believe my recommendation in this case would be to increase the head count to avoid these happenstances from reoccurring or to request additional help from another department during peak volumes of work. I would also suggest the four eye principle whereby such transactions are approved and signed off on than just a mere e-mail. BI. Involvement and Creativity Recommendation Two recommendations to encourage creativity would be associative play, and redefining the problem. Conclusion Problem solving entails various steps to come to some sort of decision. Decisions should be informed and should include in some instances employees in the decision making process in order for the decision to be accepted and appreciated by employees. When management takes control of all the decisions the atmosphere is not charged with high motivation. In most cases employees are in the best position to make recommendations as they are in the heart of the day to day activities. In cases where risk and conflict are present then a low involvement decision making from employees are recommended. Sometimes the alternative chosen may be influenced by emotion which is why it is important to choose the best alternative. Jurásová, and Spajdel, reported this year in the publication ‘The role of regret in rational decision making’ that, “In the decision making process we have to choose one of several alternatives. So we try to evaluate all alternatives and choose the one which predicts the highest utility. The likeness of this expected utility is based only on a prediction, but it significantly affects our decision. In a rational choice the expected utility equals the experienced utility (for a review see Zeelenberg, 1999). However, the experienced utility is influenced by emotions after the decision. Paper No. 3 – Teamwork Introduction This paper is about team effectiveness and the work environment at Lloyds TSB Bank where I was employed for about five years. As a documentation administrator, team work was very essential to the overall objective of the company. Teams consists of groups, however not all groups are considered a team. This is primarily because groups do not necessarily have interrelated goals but instead in many cases are just mere gatherings. The team at Lloyds operated as a team and not a group because we demonstrated cohesiveness to the ultimately satisfy purpose for which the department was created. For example the overall processing of a client set up consist of members interdependencies; one member review and approve the documents, while another set up the information electronically, thereafter the filing clerk assembler the file and archive the physical file. I. Team Effectiveness Analysis A. Organizational and Team Environment Teams are very essential in achieving overall goals and objectives and can consist of two or more members.  Teams are constructed for specific purposes and are carefully structured to accomplish various tasks.  I we were to look at a football team we will understand that there are various positions for example, quarterback, half back, full back, wide receiver, tight end, offensive tackle, offensive guard and center.  Each of these positions is vitally important to achieving the set goal which is winning the game.  Teams are effective when each member performs his or her assigned duty.  A quarterback would be ineffective if her were to play the tight end or wide receiver position as he has not been trained for those positions.    The documentation team at Lloyds TSB Bank was given objectives to be met at various times throughout the year. In light of the above so it is in the work environment.  During my employment at Lloyds Bank I was assigned to the documentation department where my tasks included, filing, updating the various databases, and reviewing incoming documentation to ensure that the company standards were met. When targets are met for our team and any other team the company is successful because goals are achieved and it is comforting to understand and know that our team contributed to the overall success of the company. While on the other hand if our team did not match set targets this would not be beneficial to the company and therefore our team would have no effect. Organizational and team environment is essential to the extent to which the team is effective. The elements of that influence team environment are rewards, communication, organizational structure, organizational leadership and physical space. The strongest influence that motivates and drives our team to success is rewards. At the end of each year’s performance review evaluation to determine whether objectives were met my team members are very excited for the reward that’s ahead. Usually employees are compensated with bonuses during the Christmas season when the atmosphere is filled with jollification and excitement. I will not trade a feeling like this for anything else. Just after receiving such bonuses, employees are immediately motivated and begin preparation to meet next year’s objectives. The incentive is that if Lloyds Bank meets objects then the employees share in profit sharing. I can recall when I receive my share of profit sharing, I was very excited. B. Team Process IB. Team Norms Team norms are informal rules and common expectations established by groups to standardize members’ behavior and exist only for behaviors that are important to team. Norms are formed almost immediately in teams. Some norms include the style in which members are greeted at a meeting; the sitting position in meetings; quick responds to e-mails and experiences and values that members bring to the team. For example the value of life-life balance discourages long hours and work overload. Unfortunately, the working hours in the department can sometimes be overwhelming and calls for one to work extended hours. 2. Team Cohesiveness Team cohesion is the extent of which people feel connected to the team and whether they are motivated to remain members. Team cohesion is influenced by similarity, size, interaction, difficult entry, team success and external competition challenges. I can say that while I was in the documentation department and performing at a high level i wanted a more challenging position in another department and for this reason I had no similarities with the other members who were content. Members’ interaction was high and the team was small and family oriented. The team did not have any restrictions or difficulties getting in as a matter of fact most employees begin their successful journey in the documentation department. II. Recommendations A. Organizational and Team Environment Three recommendation of improving team effectiveness are: i. Cooperation with the team including sharing resources ii. Effective communication can improve the team by providing comfortable atmosphere of self worth iii. Conflict resolution to resolve conflict and ability to recognize and skillfully diagnose the situation at hand Conclusion Team dynamics are important to the success of the company. Teams work together to achieve a common goal and a single member should not have to handle all positions at once. Otherwise, there is no use for the team. Being on the same accord shows togetherness, unity and oneness. Team members should also posses the ability to resolve conflict. Esquivel and Kleiner states in ‘The importance of conflict in work team effectiveness’ that, “The use of work teams is becoming more and more prominent in organizations today. Corporate America is learning that empowered work teams can and do offer a creative and competitive solution to problems such as product quality, morale, productivity and most importantly the viability of the organization. With a variety of corporate issues needing to be solved, there are many types of teams used for each situation, such as cross-functional, continuous improvement, quality improvement and ad hoc. Paper #4 - Communication Introduction Communication is essential in all aspects of life.  As a child growing up like most people today, I believed that communication involves only relaying a message.  However over the years I have come to realize that listening and understanding are vital components for effective communication.  Communication is the means by which messages are transported, clarified, and coordinate activities.  While employed at Lloyds Bank the Managing Director at the time had appointed me to organize and plan our final Christmas gathering.  The success of this event required effective communication.  To kick off this event I sent an e-mail to invite a representative from each department to attend a meeting and to formulate a planning committee.  In order for communication to be successful the sender and receiver has to possess the ability to encode and decode information. In this regard I was the sender because I initiated contact while the committee members were on the receiving end of the message. I The Communication Channel A. Communication Channel Communication channels consist of mediums whereby information is transported.  Such channels can be verbal or nonverbal.  Verbal communication is expressed via spoken or written words whereas nonverbal communication is expressed via body language and expressions. One has to have the capability of using the various communication channels. Such channels can be face to face communication and perhaps is one of the most effective mediums use for successful communication. While my initial contact to the committee members to organize the Christmas party was through the e-mail channel, there were subsequent face-to-face meetings that were fruitful in the success of this venture. This medium is very rich and effective in communication because we were able to deliberate and clear away any misunderstanding on the spot. At the end of the face to face meetings all minds were clear. I recalled during one of our meetings that there was some ambiguity as to whether the venue of the event was to be held at the Manor located at Cable Beach or Paradise Island which are two unrelated hotels having the same restaurant name. Immediately, the question was asked in the face to face as to clarify the venue of party. Clarification was given and all doubts went out the window, hence the reason why face to face is on the top of the charts for media richness. There was also another time when I needed to convince management to send me on an overseas assignment. Initially I sent an e-mail and outlined the various reasons why I believed that I was the best candidate. I quickly realize that this was communication was very lean for the message I wanted to convey. Thereafter, I arrange a formal presentation because I needed to persuade management that I was the best choice for the assignment. Effective persuasion requires face to face interaction with the correct measure of body language, varying voice tones and animation. This strategy was perfect as it landed me the assignment whereas I would not have been successful by sending a mere email. B. Communication Barriers (Noise) Communication is ineffective when barriers are present; such barriers are noise that hinders effective communications. Sometimes we assume that the receiver has the capability of understanding the sender’s intent. Barriers are coated with choice of words, metaphors, jargon and rhetorical question. Figurative speaking is sometimes open for opinion and causes ambiguity in communication. Barriers in communication exist when managers are insecure and unwilling to have an open mind or take constructive criticism which makes causes the environment to be unsupportive for effective communication. Carr-Smith, reported in the article ‘Overcoming defensive barriers to communication-A transactional analysis approach’ that, “The fact that business managers who arouse defensiveness make it difficult to communicate ideas clearly and to solve managerial problems effectively must be stressed. Effective business managers can: 1. listen without premature criticism or evaluation, 2. be open to ideas and information, and 3. create a supportive climate for employees.” Further, there are gender barriers between mail and females because they have varying styles of communication. The female gender seeks to build relationships through rapport rather than reports which men seems to cling to. This conflict causes men to become aggravated when their advice is rejected by women. II Recommendation Ineffective communication could very well be avoided. In the case where clarification was needed for the venue of the Christmas party event, if this was emphasized then perhaps there would be been no ambiguity. I was taught that repetition is a vital means of understanding and had this information been repeated surely clarification would not have been necessary. Also, the timing of these meeting should be at a time of high concentration for all. Conclusion Communication rules the world and for this reason it is important to communicate effectively. This can only be possible if the message being conveyed by the sender is clearly understood and decoded by the receiver. One must remember to listen more and talk less; in order to understand and process information it is only logical to clearly receive what is being said. To overcome noise barriers listen goes a long way and perhaps asking questions for clarity if the information received is ambiguous. APA Format Gambrel, P. A., & Cianci, R. (2003). Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Does it apply in A collectivist culture. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 8(2), 143-143-161. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/203916225'accountid=40833 Jurásová, K., & Spajdel, M. (2011). The role of regret in rational decision making. Studia Psychologia, 53(2), 169-169-174. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/874326938'accountid=40833 Esquivel, M. A., & Kleiner, B. H. (1996). The importance of conflict in work team effectiveness. Team Performance Management, 2(3), 42-42-48. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/217104001'accountid=40833 Carr-Smith, N. (1978). Overcoming defensive barriers to communication-A transactional analysis approach. Business Communication Quarterly, 41(1), 12-12. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/236859181'accountid=35996