Executive MBA MAN 6244 Organizational Behavior Session 5

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Executive MBA MAN 6244 Organizational
BehaviorSession 5

• Class 2009, Session II
• Orlando Metro West
• Spring 2008
• Dr. B. Wayne Rockmore, APS

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Looking atTonights Lineup

• Perception
• Organizational Communications
• Managing Groups Teams

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Perception

• The process by which we interpret and organize
  our sensory inputs
• People perceive the world uniquely
• What they notice, how they interpret it
• Whats salient (vivid, unique, novel)
• Past experience
• Expectations
• Differences in perceptions can cause problems
• Communication
• Conflict
• Motivation

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Social Perception

• How we gather information about the social
  world--about peoples behavior, moods, motives,
  and traits
• Similar to object perception, but
• People are more dynamic than objects
• Were trying to figure out intentions, motives,
  and causes of behavior

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Object Perception
Does a distinct grouping appear among the lines
above?
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Object Perception What Do You See?
In social perception there can be a similar
shift in focus. What and whom do you focus on?
Generally, what you focus on is seen as most
causal
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Attribution and Performance Assessment

• Why did they do that?
• Internal Causes (person)
• traits
• skills
• abilities
• External Causes (environment)
• situational constraints
• Stability Consistency behavior relative to
  others, other occasions and situations
• Stable behavior
• Unstable behavior

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Four Attributions for the Cause of Performance
Stable
Unstable
Ability
Effort
Internal
Luck
Task
External
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Impression Formation What factors influence
your impression of some one?

• Some information gets more weight than others
  Stability
• Primacy
• Credible source
• Negative information
• Unusual behavior
• Influences what subsequent information we notice
  and it is interpreted
• Search for confirmatory information
• Fill-in information consistent with first
  impression

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(No Transcript)
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Strategies and Skills forCommunicating Change
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Communication and Contracts

• Sender Barrier Receiver
• (Offer) (Unclear)
  (Acceptance)
• Feedback
• (Interpretation of the
• Offer Acceptance)

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Barriers to Communication

• Filtering (status effects culture, values,
  biases, prejudice, etc)
• Selective Perception
• Emotions
• Language
• Non-verbal cues

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Richness of medium needs to match characteristics
of the message for maximum effectiveness
Highest Physical presence

(face-to-face) Media
Interactive media Richness
(phone, EM)
Personalized
static
media (text
messaging e-mails, memos, letters,
tailored
computer reports) Lowest
Impersonal static
media (flyers, bulleting)
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The Communication Model Process Sender
Encoding Message Decoding Receiver
Medium
Feedback

• Key Elements of the Model
• Sender - source of message
• Encoding - puts message into symbols
• Medium - the channel/method chosen
• Decoding - interpretation of symbols
• Receiver recipient of message

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Media Richness Channels

• Media Richness
• Multiple cues simultaneously
• Rapid feedback
• Establish a personal focus
• Medium Channels
• Letter (written correspondence)
• e-mail
• Telephone (cell)
• Fax
• Teleconferencing
• Voicemail
• Face-to-Face
• Medium can affect the effectiveness of
  communications

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Message Type Non-Routine Message Routine
Message

- greater potential - simple,
straightforward for misunderstanding
rational, logical - often characterized by -
(e.g., verifying time pressure, ambiguity,
assignments from surprise meeting) -
typified by novel events (no common frame of
reference for sender receiver) -
interpretation more susceptible to personal
feelings subjective beliefs (e.g., working
out personality conflict between 2 VPs)
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Media Sensitivity

• Effective managers are more media sensitive
• Of managers classified as media sensitive 87
  rated as good performers
• Of managers classified as media insensitive 47
  rated as good performers
• Must choose media that has the capacity to engage
  both sender receiver in mutual understanding of
  message.

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Specific Types of Feedback

• Information about a persons behavior
• Necessary for learning
• Positive and negative
• Positive feedback
• Tells the person what he/she is doing right
• Praise, recognition
• Negative feedback
• Identifies areas of improvement
• Provides information on how to improve

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Guidelines for Providing Feedback

• Focus on specific behavior
• Keep it descriptive
• Keep it goal-oriented
• Make it well-timed
• Ensure understanding
• Keep amount of information limited
• Make sure behavior is controllable
• Tailor feedback to recipient
• NOTE Connection to Charting (essential to
  Achieving)

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Negative Feedback

• Employee must understand
• Specific
• Descriptive
• Direct
• Check for understanding
• Employee must be able to accept the feedback
• Trust
• Descriptive
• Timing
• Amount
• Employee must be able to do something about it
• Identify desired action
• How can these desired actions be achieved
• Employees perspective
• Constraints
• Evaluate/Select alternative
• Determine a review or monitoring system

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Effective Listening Requires

• Intensity
• Empathy
• Acceptance
• Responsibility

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Effective Listening

• Be motivated
• Eye contact
• Show interest
• Avoid distracting actions
• Empathy
• See the whole picture
• Ask questions

• Paraphrase
• Do not interrupt
• Integrate
• Do not over talk
• Confront your biases
• Smooth transitions
• Be relaxed, calm sincere, confident

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Topic Managing Groups and Teams
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Managing Groups Teams

• Groups have greater resources than individuals,
  but group dynamics may inhibit the realization of
  the groups full potential process loss.
• Defined
• 2 or more people
• interact with one another
• share common goals, norms
• perceive themselves to be members
• Groups are notmobs, crowds, etc.
• The Four Stage of Group Development

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Teams The Good The Bad

• Advantages
• More divergent ideas
• More synergistic ideas
• Greater consensus (commitment)
• Share responsibility

• Disadvantages
• Social loafing
• Groupthink (esp in cohesive groups)
• Group shift
• Diffusion of responsibility
• winning vs. solving

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Personal Concerns How do I fit in? Whats my
role? Can I influence others? How do my goals
fit with the groups goal? What needs of mine
does this group fulfill?
To Facilitate Intro strong leader Encourage
info. exchange Assign /develop specific
goals Answer questions
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Conflict emerges Members test group
norms Subgroups develop
Allow conflict to emerge Allow members to test,
but not exceed group norms Allow subgroups, but
Ensure continued group X Recognize conflict as a
NECESSARY step -Manage conflict (productive
not destructive
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To Facilitate Provide support for goal-oriented
Lead. Encourage members to discuss and resolve
differences Present group as a whole to outsiders
(encourage group identity) Formalize operating
structure
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To Facilitate Provide group with
resources Monitor outcomes
You need to allow these to work... You need to
create a situation where they can work...
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Stages of Group Development
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Factors Influencing Group Performance

• Group Cohesion leads to . . .
• communication
• resistance
• satisfaction
• small in performance (more in smaller groups,
  military, and sport teams), but depends on norms
  (highly cohesive groups more likely to accomplish
  goals, but groups can choose high or low
  performance goals)
• Social Presence Effects
• Social facilitation - improve performance on well
  learned task
• Social inhibition - harm performance on learning
  task
• Why?
• Physiological arousal
• presence of others
• evaluation anxiety

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Cohesiveness and Performance
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Developing Effective Teams

• Attributes of Effective Teams
• Small size (210)
• Common purpose
• Specific goals
• Common approach
• Mutual accountability
• Complimentary skills
• technical
• problem solving/decision making
• interpersonal

• Building Effective Teams
• Clear goals
• Assess strengths and weaknesses
• Small wins
• Build trust
• Appraise individual and group performance
• External support
• Training
• Membership

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Why Teams Fail

• Management (culture)
• Bad strategies, practices (game plan)
• Hostile environment (rewards, climate)
• Quick fix mentality
• No transfer of learning
• Conflicting goals (between teams)
• Poor skills and/or staffing
• Lack of trust (recall this when we get to
  motivation)
• Members
• Too much, too soon
• Work style conflicts
• Results-only focus (think process, especially at
  first!)
• Roadblocks kill morale (show wins)
• Resistance to change (personality trait)
• Jerks Interpersonal skills or chemistry
• Lack of trust (motivation)