Introduction

Chapter-01

Course Name: An Analysis of human and organizational behavior

Importance of Interpersonal Skills:
Managers have three skills that assist them to achieve their organizational goals; technical,
human and conceptual. The second one, human skill is the most essential skill for a
manager, which also known as interpersonal, communication or people skill. Interpersonal
skill is the ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually
and in groups.
Succeeding in management requires good interpersonal skills. Recognition of the
importance of developing managers interpersonal skills is closely tied to the need for
organizations to get and keep high-performing employees. Regardless of labor market
conditions, outstanding employees are always in short supply. Companies with reputations
as good places to work have a big advantages.
Having managers with good interpersonal skills is likely to make that workplace more
pleasant, which, in turn, makes it easier to hire and keep qualified people. In addition,
creating a pleasant workplace appears to make good economic sense. For instance,
companies with good reputation, as good workplaces to work, have been found to generate
superior financial performance.
We have come to understand that, technical and conceptual skills are necessary, but they
are not enough to succeed in management. In todays increasingly competitive and
demanding workplace, managers cant succeed on their technical skills alone. They also
have to have good people skills.
Managers and Organizations:
Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources,
and direct the activities of others to attain goals. The people who oversee the activities of
others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these organizations are managers.

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Managers do their works in an organization, which is a consciously coordinated social
unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to
achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Management Roles:
Henry Mintzberg undertook a careful study of executives and on the basis of his
observations, he concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated roles
or set of behaviors attributed to their jobs. These roles can be grouped as being primarily
(1) interpersonal; (2) informational; (3) decisional.
Role

Description

Examples

contact

Personal

Interpersonal
Figurehead

Symbolic head, required to Greet

visitors,

perform a number of routine documents,

duties of a legal or social cutting
nature.
Leader

attend

legal
ribbon

ceremonies,

host

receptions, etc.

Responsible for the motivation Includes almost all interactions

and direction of employees.

Liaison

sign

with subordinates.

Maintains a network of outside Business

correspondence,

contacts that provide favors participation in meetings with

and information.

representatives

of

other

divisions or organizations.

Passing Information

Informational
Monitor

Receives a wide variety of Scan/read

trade

information; serves as nerve press, periodicals, and reports;

center of internal and external attend
information

of

the training;

organization.
Disseminator

seminars
maintain

and
personal

contacts.

Transmits information received Send

memos

and

reports;

from outsiders or from other inform staffs and subordinates

employees to members of the

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Chapter-01
organization.

Spokesperson

Transmits
outsiders

3
of decisions.

information
on

to Pass on memos, reports and

organizations informational

plans, policies, actions, and participate

materials;
in

conferences/

results; serves as expert on meetings and report progress.

organizations industry.

Making decisions

Decisional
Entrepreneur

Searches organization and its Implement innovations; Plan

environment for opportunities for the future.
and initiates to bring about
change.

Disturbance

Responsible

for

handler

action when organization faces subordinates; Choose strategic

important,

corrective Settle

conflicts

between

unexpected alternatives; Overcome crisis

disturbances.

situations.

Resource

Makes or approves significant Draft and approve of plans,

allocator

organizational decisions.

schedules,

budgets;

Set

priorities.
Negotiator

Responsible for representing Represent during negotiations

the

organization

at

major with unions, suppliers, and

negotiations.

defend interests.

Differences between Liaison and Negotiator:

Liaison

Negotiator

1. Maintains a network of outside contacts Responsible

that provide favors and information.
2. Work

as

participates

business
in

representing

the

organization at major negotiations.

correspondence, Represent
meetings

for

during

negotiations

with

with unions, suppliers, and defend interests.

representatives of other divisions or

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organizations.

Chapter-01

3. Needed anytime to provide network.

Needed when any type of problem with

outsiders arise.

Management Functions:
Henri Fayol stated that all managers perform five management functions: planning,
organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Today, modern management have
condensed these to four: planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Planning a process which includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and

developing plans to coordinate activities.

Organizing determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the

tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
Leading - a function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting

the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

Controlling monitoring activities to ensure that they are accomplished as planned
and correcting any significant deviations.

Management Skills:
Robert Kertz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human and
conceptual.

Technical skills: The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

Human skills: The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people both

individually and in groups.

Conceptual skills: The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

Effective vs. Successful:

Fred Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers and found that all these
managers engaged in four managerial activities.

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1. Traditional management: decision making, planning, and controlling.
2. Communication: exchanging routine information, and processing paper work.
3. Hums resource management: motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing,
and training.
4. Networking: socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
Managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their
organization) had a very different emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in
terms of quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of
their employees).
Among successful managers, networking made the largest relative contribution to success,
and human resource management activities made the last relative contribution. Among
effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking
the least.
Effective management is managing organization by using right way to reach to desired
output, defined in terms of quantity and quality of their performance and the
satisfaction and commitment of their employees. Successful management is defined in
terms of the speed of promotion within organization; it may use any ethical or nonethical way to get the output. But we cannot say effectiveness is opposition of success.
As, if a manager uses wrong ways to be successful, now or then he will get seized
because of it. So, if a manager wants to be successful, have to be effective.
Organizational Behavior:
Organizational behavior is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals,
groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying
such knowledge toward improving an organizations effectiveness.
Systematic Study and Intuition:
Systematic Study: Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and

effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.

Intuition: A gut feeling not necessarily supported by research.

Disciplines:

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Psychology: The science that seeks to measure, explains, and sometimes changes

the behavior of humans and other animals.

Social Psychology: An area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology

and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.
Sociology: The study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Anthropology: The study of societies to learn about human beings and their
activities.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB:

Understanding organizational behavior has never been more important for managers than
it is today. A quick look at a few of the dramatic changes now taking place in organizations
supports this claim. There are a lot of challenges and opportunities today for managers to
use OB concepts.

Responding to globalization: Organizations are no longer considered by national

borders. McDonalds sells hamburgers in Moscow. ExxonMobil, a so-called
American company, receives almost 75% of its revenues from sales outside the
United States. The world has become a global village. In that process, the

managers job is changing.

Increased foreign assignments
Working with people from different cultures
Coping with anti-capitalism backlash
Overseeing movements of jobs
Managing people during the war on terror
Managing workforce diversity: One of the most important and broad-based
challenges currently facing organizations is adapting to people who are different,
which is termed as Workforce diversity. Workforce diversity means that
organizations are becoming a more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of
gender, age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. A diverse workforce, for
instance, includes women, people of color, the physically disabled, senior citizens,

and gays and lesbians.

Improving quality and productivity: Today, almost every industry suffers from
excess supply. Automobile factories can build more cars than consumers can
afford, and most cities now have far more restaurants than their communities can

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support. Excess capacity translates into increased competition and forces managers
to reduce costs and improve their organizations productivity and the quality of the

products and services they offer.

Improving customer service: OB can contribute to improving an organizations
performance by showing managers how employee attitudes and behaviors are

associated with customer satisfaction.

Improving people skills: Ability to explain and predict the behavior of people at

work is important for managerial effectiveness.

Stimulating innovation and change: An organizations employee can be imputes for
innovation and change or they can be a major stumbling block. The challenge for

managers is to stimulate their employees creativity and tolerance for change.

Coping with temporaries: Workers need to update their knowledge and skills
continually to perform new job requirements. Managers must learn to live with

flexibility, spontaneity and unpredictability.

Working in net-worked organizations: The managers job is different in networked

organization, especially when it comes to managing people.

Helping employees balance work-life conflicts: Recent studies suggest that
employees want job that give them flexibility in their work schedules so they can

better manage work/life conflicts.

Creating a positive working environment: OB concerns how organizations develop
human strength, foster vitality and resilience and unlock potential. Instead of
responding to competitive pressure, some organizations are trying to realize a

competitive advantage by fostering a positive work environment.

Improving ethical behavior: Situations in which individuals are required to define
right or wrong conduct.

Differences between Administrator and Manager:

Managers

Administrators

1. Managers oversee the activities of others Administrators supervise the activities

and responsible for attaining goals of of employees and make decisions.
organizations.
2. Managers

found

in

profit

making Administrators generally work in

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organizations.

Chapter-01
non-profit organizations.

3. Managers do works according to the Administrators

policies of organizations.

take

8
policies

for

over

the

business decisions.

4. Managers are closer to the employees.

Administrators

are

management.
5. Manager controls the employees.

Administrators manage the outside

contacts and facilities as a whole.

6. Example: Bank manager.

Example: Principle of a School.

Differences between Leader and Manager:

Managers
1. Managers

manage

Leader
and

take A leader takes charge is influential and sets

responsibility if a situation.
2. Managers

have

an example.

subordinates

who L;eaders have individuals who believe in

follow their rules.

what

they

say,

otherwise

know

as

followers.
3. Managers

focus

on

concise, Leader focus on human emotion and

scientifically proven methods to lead.

charisma to lead.

4. The manager has responsibility and is A leader is an examplefor the others and is
able to delegate and impalement plans.

someone

who

doesnot

have

large

responsibily.

Differences between Leader and Figurehead:

Figurehead

Leader

1. Symbolic head, required to perform a number of Responsible for motivation and

routine duites of a legal or social nature.
2. McLain is a figurehead.

direction of employees.
Obama is a leader.

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Differences between Negotiator and Disturbance Handler.
Disturbance Handler

Negotiator

1. Responsible for corrective actions when Responsible

organizations

faces

important

for

representing

the

and organizations at major negotitations.

unexpected problems.
2. His

action

budgeting,

involves

allocator

of

subordinates authorization.

scheduling, His actions include bringing advantages

duties

of to the organization during the access of

negotiation.

3. Organization uses at the time of particular Organization uses at the time of regular
problem.

problem.