The Importance of Interpersonal Skills

• Understanding OB helps determine manager

effectiveness
– Technical and quantitative skills are important
– But leadership and communication skills are CRITICAL

• Organizational benefits of skilled managers

– Lower turnover of quality employees
– Higher quality applications for recruitment
– Better financial performance
 What Managers Do

• They get things done through other people.

• Management Activities:
– Make decisions
– Allocate resources
– Direct activities of others to attain goals

• Work in an organization
– 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 Functions
Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles
• Discovered ten managerial roles

• Separated into three groups:

– Interpersonal
– Informational
– Decisional
Katz’s Essential Management Skills
• 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
Luthans’ Study of Managerial Activities
• Is there a difference in frequency of managerial activity
between effective and successful managers?

• Four types of managerial activity:

– Traditional Management
• Decision-making, planning, and controlling.
– Communication
• Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
– Human Resource Management
• Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing and training.
– Networking
• Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others.
Successful vs. Effective Allocation by
Time

Managers who promoted faster (were successful) did different

things than did effective managers (those who did their jobs well)
 Organizational Behavior
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 organization’s
effectiveness.
 Intuition and Systematic Study

The two are complementary means of predicting behavior.

An Outgrowth of Systematic Study…
Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

Basing managerial decisions on the best available

scientific evidence

Must think like scientists:

 Managers Should Use All Three
Approaches

The trick is to know when to go with your gut.

– Jack Welsh

• Intuition is often based on inaccurate information

• Faddism is prevalent in management
• Systematic study can be time-consuming

Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition

and experience. That is the promise of OB.
 Contributing Disciplines
Many behavioral sciences
have contributed to the
development of
Organizational
Behavior
 Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and
sometimes change the behavior of humans and other
animals.

•Unit of Analysis:
– Individual
•Contributions to OB:
– Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception
– Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction
– Individual decision making, performance appraisal attitude
measurement
– Employee selection, work design, and work stress
 Social Psychology
An area within psychology that blends concepts from
psychology and sociology and that focuses on the
influence of people on one another.

•Unit of Analysis:
– Group
•Contributions to OB:
– Behavioral change
– Attitude change
– Communication
– Group processes
– Group decision making
 Sociology
The study of people in relation to their fellow human
beings.

Unit of Analysis:
-- Organizational System -- Group

• Contributions to OB:
– Group dynamics – Formal organization theory
– Work teams – Organizational technology
– Communication – Organizational change
– Power – Organizational culture
– Conflict
– Intergroup behavior
 Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human beings and
their activities.

Unit of Analysis:
-- Organizational System -- Group

• Contributions to OB:
– Organizational culture – Comparative values
– Organizational environment – Comparative attitudes
– Cross-cultural analysis
 Few Absolutes in OB
Situational factors that make the main relationship
between two variables change—e.g., the relationship
may hold for one condition but not another.
 Challenges and Opportunities for OB
• Responding to Globalization
• Managing Workforce Diversity
• Improving Quality and Productivity
• Improving Customer Service
• Improving People Skills
• Stimulating Innovation and Change
• Coping with “Temporariness”
• Working in Networked Organizations
• Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts
• Creating a Positive Work Environment
• Improving Ethical Behavior
 Developing an OB Model
• A model is an abstraction of reality: a simplified
representation of some real-world phenomenon.
• Our OB model has three levels of analysis
– Each level is constructed on the prior level
 Types of Study Variables
Independent (X) Dependent (Y)
– The presumed cause of the – This is the response to X (the
change in the dependent independent variable).
variable (Y). – It is what the OB researchers
– This is the variable that OB want to predict or explain.
researchers manipulate to – The interesting variable!
observe the changes in Y.
 Interesting OB Dependent Variables
• Productivity
– Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the
concepts of effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency
(meeting goals at a low cost).
• Absenteeism
– Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.
• Turnover
– Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an
organization.
• Deviant Workplace Behavior
– Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational
norms and thereby threatens the well-being of the organization
and/or any of its members.
 More Interesting OB Dependent
• Variables
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
– Discretionary behavior that is not part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, but that
nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of
the organization.
• Job Satisfaction
– A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s
job; a positive feeling of one's job resulting from
an evaluation of its characteristics.
 The Independent Variables
The independent variable (X) can be at any of these three
levels in this model:
•Individual
– Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values
and attitudes, ability, perception, motivation, individual learning
and individual decision making.
•Group
– Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust,
group structure, conflict, power and politics, and work teams.
•Organization System
– Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices,
and organizational structure and design.