Organizing framework steps

MAKING OB WORK FOR ME

What Is OB and Why Is It Important?
THE VALUE OF OB TO MY JOB AND CAREER

The term organizational behavior (OB) describes an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding and managing people at work. To achieve this goal, OB draws on research and practice from many disciplines, including:

· Anthropology

· Economics

· Ethics

· Management

· Organizational theory

· Political science

· Psychology

· Sociology

· Statistics

· Vocational counseling

A photo of a woman sitting in an office. Every part of the desk and shelving is covered in stacks of paper and folders.

How OB Fits into My Curriculum and Influences My Success
A Contingency Perspective—The Contemporary Foundation of OB
A contingency approach calls for using the OB concepts and tools that best suit the situation, instead of trying to rely on “one best way.” This means there is no single best way to manage people, teams, or organizations. A particular management practice that worked today may not work tomorrow. What worked with one employee may not work with another. The best or most effective course of action instead depends on the situation.

Thus, to be effective you need to do what is appropriate given the situation, rather than adhering to hard-and-fast rules or defaulting to personal preferences or organizational norms. Organizational behavior specialists, and many effective managers, embrace the contingency approach because it helps them consider the many factors that influence the behavior and performance of individuals, groups, and organizations. Taking a broader, contingent perspective like this is a fundamental key to your success in the short and the long term.

How Self-Awareness Can Help You Build a Fulfilling Career
The Stanford Graduate School of Business asked the members of its Advisory Council which skills are most important for their MBA students to learn. The most frequent answer was self-awareness.6 The implication is that to have a successful career you need to know who you are, what you want, and how others perceive you. Larry Bossidy (former CEO of Honeywell) and Ram Charan (world-renowned management expert) said it best in their book Execution: “When you know yourself, you are comfortable with your strengths and not crippled by your shortcomings. … Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learnPage 6 from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing.”9 They also argue that you need to know yourself in order to be authentic—real and not fake, the same on the outside as the inside. Authenticity is essential to influencing others, which we discuss in detail in Chapter 12 . People don’t trust fakes, and it is difficult to influence or manage others if they don’t trust you.

As professors, consultants, and authors, we couldn’t agree more! To help you increase your self-awareness we include multiple Self-Assessments in every chapter. These are an excellent way to learn about yourself and see how OB can be applied at school, at work, and in your personal life. Go to Connect, complete the assessments, and then answer the questions included in each of the Self-Assessment boxes.

Uncommon Sense
Let’s return to common sense. At first glance the contingency perspective may look like simple common sense. But it’s different. Common sense is often based on experience or logic, both of which have limits, and it suffers three major weaknesses you need to be aware of and avoid:

· Overreliance on hindsight. Common sense works best in well-known or stable situations with predictable outcomes—what worked before should work again. But modern business situations are complex and uncertain and require adapting to change. Common sense is especially weak in responding to the unknown or unexpected. And because it focuses on the past, common sense lacks vision for the future.

· Lack of rigor. People comfortable with common-sense responses may not apply the effort required to appropriately analyze and solve problems. If you lack rigor, then you are unlikely to define the problem accurately, identify the true causes, or recommend the right courses of action.

· Lack of objectivity. Common sense can be overly subjective and lack a basis in science. In such cases we are not always able to explain or justify our reasoning to others, which is a sign that common sense lacks objectivity.

In BusinessNewsDaily, Microsoft researcher Duncan Watts says we love common sense because we prefer narrative: “You have a story that sounds right and there’s nothing toPage 8 contradict it.” Watts contrasts a more effective, scientific approach in his book Everything Is Obvious Once You Know the Answer: How Common Sense Fails Us. “The difference [in a scientific approach] is we test the stories and modify them when they don’t work,” he says. “Storytelling is a useful starting point. The real question is what we do next.” 10

OB is a scientific means for overcoming the limits and weaknesses of common sense. The contingency approach in OB means you don’t settle for options based simply on experience or common practice if another solution may be more effective. Thus the goal of OB is to give you more than common sense and thus enhance your understanding of situations at work and guide your behaviors. This in turn will make you more attractive to potential employers and more effective once hired. Let’s explore this idea in more detail, beginning with the importance of possessing and developing both hard and soft skills.

Employers Want Both Hard and Soft Skills
· Hard skills are the technical expertise and knowledge required to do a particular task or job function, such as financial analysis, accounting, or operations.

· Soft skills relate to human interactions and include both interpersonal skills and personal attributes.

How OB Fits into My Career
What It Takes to Get Hired
What It Takes to Get Promoted
A photo of a man and woman facing each other. The man is holding a notepad and a pen.

A line graph showing three job levels (front-line, management, and executive) and the importance of technical and personal skills at each level.

Performance Gives Me Credibility
Performance matters because it gives you credibility with your peers and those you may manage. Just be aware that early in your career your bosses will be looking for more. They will evaluate your management potential, and their opinion will affect your opportunities. So even in a line (nonmanagement) position, you need to know how to:

· Apply different motivational tools ( Chapter 5 ).

· Provide constructive feedback ( Chapter 6 ).

· Develop and lead productive teams ( Chapters 8 and 13 ).

· Understand and manage organizational culture and change ( Chapters 14 and 16 ).

RIGHT VS. WRONG—ETHICS AND MY PERFORMANCE
Ethics guides behavior by identifying right, wrong, and the many shades of gray in between.

Ethics also gets priority because many OB topics have a direct and substantial influence on the conduct of individuals and organizations. Notably, reward systems ( Chapter 6 ), decision making ( Chapter 11 ), leader behavior ( Chapter 13 ), and organizational culture ( Chapter 14 ) all can powerfully call upon our ethical standards at work.