We have demonstrated the importance of interpersonal skills. However, neither this book nor other disciplines involved in this book use the concept of interpersonal skills, and the term widely used to describe this subject is organizational behavior.
Organizational behavior is a research field, which discusses the influence of individuals, groups and structures on the internal behavior of organizations, so as to apply this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of organizations. Organizational behavior is an independent skill field with a lot of general knowledge. What does it study? It studies the determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups and structures. In addition, organizational behaviorism applies the knowledge gained from studying the influence of individuals, groups and structures on behavior to practice, making the operation of organizations more effective.
In a word, organizational behavior focuses on what people do in the organization and how this behavior affects the performance of the organization. Because organizational behavior pays special attention to employment-related situations, it is not surprising that you will find that this field emphasizes behaviors related to work, absence, employee turnover, productivity, performance and management. People's views on the components or themes that constitute the subject field of organizational behavior tend to be more and more consistent. Although there is still much debate about which is more important, people have basically reached an understanding of the core topics of organizational behavior research, including motivation, leadership behavior and authority, interpersonal communication, group structure and process, learning, attitude formation and perception, change process, conflict, work design and work pressure.
First, the basis of personal behavior.
Biographical characteristics. Managers have easy access to biographical features. In most cases, everyone has this information in their personal files. On the basis of research, the most important conclusion we get is that there seems to be no relationship between age and productivity; The older an employee is, the longer his tenure is, and the lower the possibility of leaving; Compared with unmarried employees, married employees have lower absenteeism, lower turnover rate and higher job satisfaction.
Ability. Ability through ability-the adaptability of work directly affects the performance level and satisfaction of employees. What should managers do if they want the two to match reasonably?
First of all, an effective selection program can improve this adaptability. Job analysis can provide two aspects of information: what the job is doing at present and what ability the individual needs to complete the job completely. Then, through testing, interview and evaluation, we can know the level of the applicant's required ability. Second, the decision of promotion and transfer of incumbents in the organization should reflect the ability of candidates. We should, like new employees, evaluate what key abilities the incumbent should have in the specific work and match these requirements with the human resources in the organization. Thirdly, this adaptability is improved by slightly adjusting the work to match the ability of the incumbent. This kind of adjustment is often carried out without obviously affecting the basic activities of the work, so as to better adapt to the working potential of the incumbent. Examples of this are: in the employee group, changing the equipment used, rearranging tasks, etc. This method applies to both new employees and current employees. For the latter, training can also be adopted, so that when time and conditions change, they still have sufficient technical level and working ability.
Personality. The investigation of personality literature provides general criteria for effective job performance and can improve the effectiveness of employment, transfer and promotion decisions. Because a person's personality characteristics limit his behavior, it provides us with a framework for predicting behavior. For example, in social situations, shy, introverted and unnatural individuals may not be suitable for sales promotion; A person with the characteristics of obedience and conformity may not do much in advertising planning.
Can you predict high achievers in all walks of life only by one aspect of personality characteristics? Obviously not. Knowing the personality characteristics of individuals can really help us reduce the mismatch, thus ensuring the reduction of employee turnover and the improvement of job satisfaction.
We already know that certain personality traits are highly related to the success of work. Testing these features and using these data in the selection process will make the work more effective. An individual who accepts rules, obeys authority, has a high score of dependence and a low score of experience openness may be more suitable for jobs: highly structured assembly line work, hospital security or administrative officials of large public institutions; Not suitable for researchers or jobs that require creativity.
By definition, any observable behavior change is the initial evidence that learning has taken place. Here, what we want to determine is what insights the concept of learning provides to explain and predict behavior. Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool to change behavior. By affirming and rewarding behaviors related to job performance, management can improve the probability of such behaviors happening again.
Relevant studies in learning also show that reinforcement is more effective than punishment. Punishment often tends to achieve only temporary inhibitory effect without long-term transformation, and the punished object is also prone to dislike the punisher. Although punishment can eliminate bad behavior faster than negative reinforcement, its effect is often only temporary, and then there will be bad side effects, such as low morale, high absenteeism rate and high turnover rate. Therefore, we suggest that managers use reinforcement instead of punishment.
Finally, managers should know that employees regard him as an example. If you are often late for work and spend two hours for lunch and use the company's office supplies for your own use, then the employee will definitely receive this message and imitate his behavior accordingly.
Second, the basis of group behavior
Group performance. To predict group performance, we must realize that any working group is a part of a larger organization, and organizational strategy, power structure, recruitment procedures, reward and reward system and other factors will provide favorable or unfavorable atmosphere for group operation. For example, there is distrust between managers and ordinary employees in an organization, and group role models in the organization may form some norms that limit the efforts and output of employees. Therefore, managers should not look at a group in isolation, but should see how much support and encouragement the external environment of the group has given this group. Obviously, a group that is in a growth organization, rich in external resources and supported by senior managers can easily improve productivity. Similarly, if the members of a group have the skills needed to complete the group tasks and the personality characteristics that are helpful to the group, it is easy for the group to improve productivity.
There are several structural factors related to group performance, and the most important ones are: role cognition, group norms, status inequality, group size, population composition, group tasks and group cohesion.
There is a positive correlation between role cognition and employee performance evaluation. In the attitude towards employees' work, the consistency between employees and bosses affects the boss's evaluation of employees. If group norms support improving output, managers can expect employees' personal performance to be much higher than group norms, which are groups that limit output. Similarly, what kind of absenteeism rate is acceptable in a group is also determined by the group norms.
Unequal status will make group members feel frustrated, which will have a negative impact on group productivity and employees' desire to stay in the organization. For those individuals who are sensitive to equality, inequality can easily reduce their motivation and seek other ways that may bring fairness (such as finding another job). The influence of group size on group performance depends on the type of group task. Large teams are more effective for activities such as finding facts, while small teams are more effective for tasks such as taking action. Our understanding of social inertia shows that if managers use large groups, they should provide means to measure the individual performance level of group members.
We find that demographic composition is the key factor to determine individual mobility. More specifically, if the members of the team are similar in age or have joined the working group for similar time, they are unlikely to resign. The contingency factor that affects the relationship between group interaction process and group performance is group task. The more complex the group task, the stronger the dependence, and the more likely the group interaction process will lead to the decline of group performance. Team cohesion has an important influence on team productivity. This influence depends on the performance norms of the group.
Employee satisfaction. Similar to the relationship between role perception and performance, if the boss and employees have the same understanding of their work, employees' satisfaction will be higher. Similarly, role conflict is related to job stress and job dissatisfaction.
Most people like to associate with people with the same or higher status. In this way, we can predict that if employees' jobs can reduce their opportunities to communicate with people with lower status, their satisfaction will be improved.
We can intuitively imagine the relationship between group size and satisfaction: the larger the group size, the lower the satisfaction of group members. The larger the group size, the less opportunities for group members to participate and interact. At the same time, the more members, the easier it is to have disputes and conflicts within the group and form small groups. All these will make the group an unpleasant place.
Third, the basis of organizational structure
The internal structure of an organization can explain and predict the behavior of employees. In other words, in addition to individual and group factors, the structural relationship of employee organizations also has an important impact on employees' attitudes and behaviors. What is the basis for thinking that organizational structure has an impact on employees' behavior and attitude? Obviously, the organizational structure helps to reduce uncertainty, clarify the work content, clarify the concerns of employees, and solve their "what should I do?" "How?" "Who do I report to?" "If I have a problem, who can I turn to for help?" This kind of problem has an impact on employees' attitude and urges them to improve their work performance.
Of course, the organizational structure also limits the actions of employees to some extent. For example, if the organization is highly standardized and specialized, the chain of command is firm, the degree of authorization is low, and the control span is narrow, the autonomy of employees will be small. This kind of organization is strictly controlled and the range of employee behavior changes is very small; On the contrary, if the degree of specialization and regularization of the organization is low and the control span is wide, it can provide employees with greater freedom of activities, and the activities of employees are much richer. Strategy, scale, technology and environment determine the structure type of an organization. For simplicity, we can divide organizational structure design into two types: mechanical mode and organic mode. The influence of organizational structure on employees' job performance and satisfaction is related to employees' personal preferences and regulated by individual differences, as shown in the following figure.
Finally, managers should understand that structural variables such as job specialization, control span, normalization and centralization are objective variables that organizational researchers can measure. The findings and conclusions we provide in this chapter are actually the direct results of the work of these researchers. However, employees often cannot objectively measure these structural characteristics. They look at everything around them in an unscientific way, and then form their own hidden organizational structure model. How many people do I have to interview to get a chance to work in the company? How many people are there in your job? Does the company have a policy manual? If so, is it easy for everyone to get one? Do all employees in the company strictly abide by the requirements of the manual? What is the image of the company and its managers in the news media? Employees' answers to these management, combined with their own experiences and colleagues' views, will form employees' subjective impression of organizational structure. Of course, this impression may be incompatible with the objective structure of the organization.
Employees' implicit model of organizational structure is very important. People's behavior response is based on their subjective understanding, not objective reality. For example, related studies have proved that many structural variables are not consistent with their directly related performance levels and job satisfaction, and we believe that part of the reason for this phenomenon is individual differences. But another reason for these inconsistent findings may be the diversified understanding of objective characteristics, or different people have different views on the same objective thing. Researchers usually pay attention to the actual level of organizational structure, but if people interpret the same element differently, the results will be very different. Therefore, the most fundamental thing is to understand how employees know their organizational structure. For effectively predicting employee behavior, predicting employee behavior is more helpful than the objective characteristics of the organizational structure itself.
(viewpoint)
Stephen P. Robbins is a famous American professor of management and an authority on organizational behavior. He received a doctorate from the University of Arizona. Worked for Shell Oil Company and Renault Metal Company. He has taught at Blascat University, Concord University, Baltimore University, Southern Illinois University and University of San Diego. His research interests focus on conflict, authority, politics and the development of effective interpersonal skills in organizations. His related papers were published in Business Vision and International Management. Management review and management education. In recent years, Dr. Robbins has spent a lot of time compiling management textbooks. His works include: Management (5th edition), Management Basis, Essentials of Organizational Behavior (4th edition), Interpersonal Skills Training (2nd edition), Organization Department (3rd edition), Management Today, etc. These books are used as management textbooks by many universities in the United States and hundreds of universities in many countries and regions.
Organizational behavior is Robbins' masterpiece. This book was first published on 1979 and has been reprinted seven times. In addition to being used as teaching materials in many universities in the United States, it also has a large number of readers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. It is a versatile teaching material, and it is a teaching material full of wisdom written by a talented scholar. The reason why this book is so widely valued and welcomed is that it has distinctive features:
First, the style is unique. The book is divided into five chapters, 18, starting from individual behavior. This paper discusses human behavior in organizational management from the perspective of group behavior and organizational development. Each chapter has main points, learning objectives, review questions and discussion questions. What is particularly novel is that at the end of each chapter, the author designs "self-awareness exercise" and "practice with others" for readers to evaluate themselves; According to the topics discussed in each chapter, skillfully design the debate questions, including the pros and cons, so that readers can summarize their answers in the debate; Examples are introduced at the beginning of each chapter to stimulate your reading interest; In the text, the author designed two columns: "Organizational behavior in news" and "From concept to skill" to help readers understand and digest the contents of the textbook.
Second, the viewpoint is novel. This book summarizes many novel ideas from a large number of research materials. For example, the traditional overall conflict view holds that conflict is not conducive to the operation of an organization, but the author of this book believes that a certain degree of conflict is conducive to improving the operational performance of an organization.
Third, the literature is rich. This book quotes a lot of first-hand references. According to incomplete statistics, it cited tens of thousands of documents in various academic journals and newspapers. There are not only pure academic research reports, but also news reports and popular stories from mass media.
Fourth, the language is fluent. The language of this book is lively, unlike traditional textbooks, but written in a conversational tone. It's easy and pleasant to read, and sometimes I even feel like I'm talking to the author.