Self Reflection on Organizational Behaviour

/2010

Submitted by: - Samrat Basu

MODULE LEADER: - DR. MRIDULA DWIVEDI

MODULE: - GMSI570
TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

1) Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….. 2
2) Self Reflection and career
stages………………………………………………………………………................ 4-12
3) Objectives for the next year……………………………………………………..……13
4) Action Plan for the next one year………………………………………………...14-15
5) Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...15-16
6) Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..16-17
7) References and Bibliography……………………………………………………..18-19
Introduction
My stepping stone into my academic career began when I joined school. I have been a
consistent academic performer throughout my schooling till class 12 th. Besides academics, I
have given preferences to sports and other co-curricular activities too. I was fascinated by
science and so opted the same since schooling and it was a platform for me to become an
engineer. Becoming an Engineer was a milestone on my path to my destiny.
I pursued my dream and graduated as a Bachelor in Computer Science and Engineering
from a reputed University. Joining IT industry and becoming a performing software engineer
was just another goal of mine.
I started my career as a software professional at Capgemini Consulting India Pvt. Ltd, a
French multinational Information Technology giant having its operation in as many as 30
countries globally.
During my work tenure there, I had a healthy relationship with my senior manager, which
assisted me in grasping the nuances in great width of organisational cultures, ethics,
environments, etc. It taught me how managers utilise their resources at optimum and at the
same time strive their level best to secure the best possible output.
Little while later as it is a custom with aspiring engineers to feel a lack of management
knowledge, I felt the same. I appeared for management entrance exams and through a
rigorous process was able to get an admission at GD Goenka World Institute. Here I was
introduced to OB for the very first time and came to know that “In today’s competitive
environment one strategy for success is to optimize your OB skills along with your
professional speciality.”(Andre, 2009, pp 16)
I decided to position my career based on the 5 career stages.
They are:-
1) Working preparation in an organisation : - The entry level stage where I would
prepare myself during the duration of my MBA course for a future in International
Business in a Corporate Sector.
2) Preparation for an organisational entry: - This would be my stage as and when I
would apply for the summer internships in various organisations and ultimately would
get the opportunity of working as an intern there.
3) Early career stage: - This would be the stage where I would be employed in an
organisation and would be striving hard to make my feel present in the organisation
through constant dedication and hard work.
 4) Middle career stage: - This would be the stage where I would like myself to be a
part of the decision making body of my organisation.
5) Late career stage: - The stage in my career when I would prepare myself for a
retirement after a fulfilling career and would pursue my dreams to be a part of a NGO
and get myself active through social work. (Andre, 2009, pp 18, 19)

So I decided to analyse myself based on the skills I have acquired and through a process
called self reflection. Self reflection is a process by which one is in a position to analyse
oneself and understand the skills one has acquired and what are his/her strength and
weakness and accordingly work on the weaknesses to turn it to strengths and to further
enhance the strengths to emerge a true leader.
To achieve my career objectives, I also have identified a few OB concepts that are useful for
me in building up myself and making me ready for the industry. They are :- 1) Personality 2)
Group and Team Work 3) Communication and Interpersonal Relationship Skills 4)
Leadership Skills 5) Motivation 6) Decision Making Skills 7) Conflict and Negotiation
Skills 8) Influence, Power and Politics 9)Health and Stress at Work 10) Organisational
Culture 11) Networking.

The personality of a person always would be one of the key aspects in judging behaviour. I
always have this tendency to get impatient whenever I get any assignment to do. I try to
focus myself on any job I am doing, even it might be an instance when I toiled hard and
stayed back for 18 hours in office during an important assignment when a server was down
and I had to stay back for its maintenance and as and when the server was up I had to test
whether all the applications were working perfectly or not.
I generally ponder over many aspects of any complex problem at one go in an attempt to
solve all the parts and in the process may get stressed out at times when I could not come
up to any solution. I have also taken the MBTI - Jung Humanmetrics Test where my
personality type came as INFJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging) [See MBTI Test
in Appendix].My Type A Personality (Robbins, et.al, 2009) is the sole reason beyond this
nature. However, I need to change myself because if I would work as an analyst in an
International Business firm and say I would be given a job of analysing a particular business
trend, I need to come out of my impatient behaviour and focus more on the analytical skills
which otherwise could lead me in making some bad decisions which in turn might affect the
business and eventually my career. Rather I have to be more patient where in I can hang in
for a while and persevere until any meaningful change occurs before taking any decision.
Introverts generally love their freedom. But Introverts cannot be a good manager. So to
attain my final goal of becoming a Manager, I need to focus myself in becoming a bit
extravert (Pareek, 2009).

Since from my childhood days, my parents and the external environment in, which my
upbringing is done taught me all the essential skills. Sharing and caring is one of the skills,
which is imbibed in me. By sharing an example I would like to make the picture clearer. I
was born and brought in a joint family and whenever my parents used to give me anything to
eat then I always loved to share it with my cousins. As the time went off and I entered in a
new world called ‘College’, where I got the chance to learn the basic practicality of the so
called Life.

I am fun loving and a pretty descent in nature, so enjoy my college life .I had made many
friends. After the hectic and stressful day of college I along with my mates used to go for fun
and frolics. To look from the general point of view it was very much clear that I had learned
how to intermingle in a group. Afterwards when I got the job, I started working in a team and
got the exact knowledge as in who the team works in the real corporate scenario. In a firm,
most of the times the brilliant piece of work is carried out by the teams or by the people
functioning jointly in groups (Baron and Greenberg, 2007). After rigorously working in
teams in my training and job period, I came across the true underlying portrait of the
responsibilities of groups and efficient functioning in teams.

While undergoing the project work in my job period, I was assigned with the task of S/W
Configuration Manager along with the two more members from the onshore team (INDIA)
and one from the offshore (USA). At the commencement of the project, it was difficult for me
to cop up with my team members and to put up with vast responsibilities. But as time
passed, I had learned many chapters and how to work in a team in corporate scenario as I
have stated before also. And on top of that I am very grateful to my team leader, who lend a
helping hand to me every time and in all of mine undertakings. While working in a corporate
environment, I have faced many problems and virtual team is amongst one of them. In case
of virtual teams I was teamed up with one of my colleague, who was in USA and the major
issue was that we had to synchronize with each other despite of the factors being
“separated by time, distance and company structure”. To synchronize with each other
we had relied heavily on the technology such as teleconferencing and various other real-time
tools such as e-mails, wireless communication and Smartphone’s (Collela, et.al, 2008).

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,

we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

Victor Frank

(http://www.quotegarden.com/change.html)

After getting familiarized with the environment I started enjoying it. While working in an
organization, whenever I used to face any problem regarding my work then used to take help
from my other co-members. At times I had faced problem times also, when I used to work
hard on particular module and my other co-member used to take all the credit. After working
in an organization and analyzing the scenario I can conclude that the above mentioned are
the learning’s for me, which will going to help me a lot in my future career life.

While pursuing this course I came across a group assignment in, which we have analyze the
case and need to put up some suggestions in context of the case. So while working in a
group I guided and lead my group and ended up with the assignment in descent manner and
played the role of an “initiator”. To enhance my team-work skills I have taken part in many
team games, short-trips, assignments and ended up by providing a boost or an extra mile to
achieve the ultimate goal. Even to justify my statement that I am a good team player, I went
through an assignment known as “group shift” in my seminar classes in, which both
individual as well team performance was judged. Individually I scored 76 points on the other
hand my group performance was 100. So the divergence of 24 points can be used to judge
my individual and team performance. Every time there is learning and for me I still need to
work upon few areas to improve my team-work skills to lead this world as an upcoming
manager and a successful team player.
I always try to initiate when I am working in a group. However in my short career as a fresher
in the IT industry, I could not get much opportunities in displaying my leadership skills, but
there are many situations where I have shown leadership skills, like arranging for the
sponsorship in my college fest during my engineering days. I had to take 2 of my friends
along with me to a mobile operator and request them for sponsorships. For that I took the
initiative and prepared a good 2-3 minutes presentation for them on what are the benefits
they would be getting on sponsoring in our fest? Like what are the strategic positions which
we would offer them to place their banners? What are the events in which we would use
their brand name and their money to sponsor for the prizes? The regional manager was
impressed and consulted with his superiors and finally they offered us around Rs 50000 for
sponsorship. As a result I was also awarded with a lot of accolades on successful
completion of the fest. Moreover I have also taken some initiative steps in my organisation
when a particular technology was to be modified in our project. Moreover in my team,
whenever we used to have a discussion on certain aspects of the project, I used to consult
with other team members or tried to get involve in a joint decision, which shows some traits
of participative leadership styles (Greenberg & Barons, 2008, pp 475).

I have taken a leadership test as shown in the below appendices. It shows a score of 31
which means that I have certain uncertainties on my motivation to lead. Currently I am
working on this through the above mentioned development program.

Many a times, we can see people stressed out, not because of work, but because of the type
and quality of work. Same type of work for many years brings us a different kind of stress
which sooner or most of the ITians have to face. We call them “Victims of the Routine”.
Greenberg & Baron seemed to find a possible solution for the same and it was evident that
people need motivation (Greenberg & Baron, 2005, pp 190) to keep stress overcoming
their overall personal and professional life. In my previous organization, HR department
found a very creative way to make employee feel less stressed at the end of the week. The
event is called “Fundoo Friday” and as the name suggests, it was full fun. The main aim
behind this event was to allow employees to get over the stress by the means of socializing
through music, games, competitions and other fun activities which demand employee
participation. My personal experience tells me that this program is a big success and help
people relax at the end of the tiresome week. People felt really motivated and refreshed.
Socializing with friends is also a very effective stress buster. A very good movie and dinner
with friends really helps get back to the work on Monday. Sometimes, managers use casual
conversational techniques to make a team member feel less pressurized and relaxed. I
remember feeling a relaxed when my manager came to my desk and ask me about a latest
Angelina Jolie movie and NOT about the next day deadline.
 
The level of appreciation also plays a very important role in the overall employee motivation
and satisfaction. An expected pat on the back from a senior can make an employee work
hard to earn it. I believe this is related to the Goal Theory (Sinha, 2008). When the returns
are good (in terms of appreciation and benefits) employees always feel motivated.

I would want to be someone who can be recognized by all colleagues and subordinates for
commitment, punctuality and dedication towards work and become a role model for all.
It’s a common nature in an organization we see that a team leader (a probable managerial
candidate) oiling a manager and obeying him completely .This can be summed up as the
power exerted by a manager and his influence on the resources.

A manager has the sole authority to influence an organizational behaviour.Citing an e.g.

when I first joined my organization I tried hard to prove my abilities over there. The reward
for me he had given me a straight 2 credit out of 5 which was quite high as compared to the
others of my periphery. My manager showed a reward power the result of which was my
salary hike.
Later on I realized the reason behind this motive was to signal me indirectly to stay in office
till late night and to come to office even on weekends if required. There was this coercive
power that I could relate that if I don’t work on weekends as required, my rating would go
for a toss.( Luthans ,2008, pp 282). To illustrate in a better way, according to the norms
under every manager there were 5 team leads, out of which 1 team lead was the next
probable managerial candidate. As a result of which the manager would deliberately mark
him down in order to devoid him of his same position.

I think I need to work upon the politics of the organization a bit. There is one such saying
which I remember from the ‘Spiderman’ movie is that ‘With great power, comes great
responsibility’ which inspired me a lot. A proper visionary aim is required when you are
exerting power, otherwise you could earn the wrath of the people on whom you are using
power, for example, America’s exertion of power on the middle-east countries have forced
the Arab countries to be agitated and make those terrible terrorist activities on US soil like
the 9/11. According to Carl Jung, “Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where
power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
(http://www.wisdomquotes.com).

In short, love and power cannot co-exist side by side. So we should know how to use power
properly keeping in mind the great responsibility.

Human nature is unpredictable. Betrayal has become the best formula to achieve success
nowadays. In every field, at every step, one may find negative contemplations about him
from his fellow men. It can even include his own friends and co-workers. Meanness and self-
centeredness often leads to backstabbing. Conflicts are often created due to ego clashes as
well. These conflicts are frequently noticed in teamwork also. But then again, these are the
part and parcel of life.
For example, I joined Capgemini after completing my graduation from college. There I got
involved into a project. Already 10 members had laid their hands upon it. The team was well
set and I was a new entrant. Initially I was learning the work under the guidance of a mentor.
Then time passed and slowly I became acquainted with the official environment. I even
succeeded in making friends. But again some people began to give rise to a number of
conflicts, stating I was a late entrant. They didn’t even leave playing the role of destructive
criticizer (Greenberg & Baron, 2005, pp 417).

However as I had mentioned before, slowly, my team began to play the role of my mentor
and constructive criticism helped me a lot to lessen such conflicts. Still, I lack negotiation
skills which could help me even more to get over these conflicts. So, in order to establish this
skill, I am presently undergoing regular sessions with a friend of mine, who has some
knowledge on negotiation as he belongs to an active political background. I am sure these
skills would help me to a great extent in my intermediate aim of joining the marketing line,
because in marketing, negotiation is very essential as you need to learn the skills of how to
sell yourself effectively. A marketing manager should always be open to constructive
criticism, which would thus help in an all round development and help in establishing new
relations with the clients, thereby bringing in new sales and new customer base for the
organisation.

“The world is not a bed of roses.” We all know this phrase. But to make it more comfortable
one has to engage in a lot of activities to enrich him. In this act of enrichment communication
plays the pivotal role. From my work experience, I can say that the most important aspect in
today’s organization is the communication skill, at the end of the day your people
management skills and the way you communicate with people matters the most. Effective
communication is the only link that binds all the major disciplines of a business like Finance,
HR, Logistics, Marketing, Sales. Simply stating, communication links all of us and makes us
realise that we human beings need to commune.

Like for an example I can quote an example. When i joined Capgemini as a fresh graduate
out of college, I was soon familiarised with all the workings of the organisation, with whom
we have to interact, whom to report and many other such organisational necessities. Though
I was initially quite sigh in communication, but gradually I excelled and as I was quite
familiarised with all the technical “know hows”. Even there were situations, when my
manager used to call me and invite me on a session to express my views on the
improvement of certain work related issues. There I had to communicate with all sorts of
management experts and even senior VPs. And there in the board room I came to know of
one such VP who had also done his schooling from the same school as me. Gradually we
had some interactions and as a senior he also taught me quite a few valuable lessons what
he has learnt in life from the professional life.

Also our project requirements involved a lot of teleconferencing and other computer-
mediated communication channels like e-mail, instant messaging, which is always an
important part of communication in the corporate sectors, especially in the IT sector. We
have to interact a lot with our male and female colleagues and often there is some sort of
miscommunication between the sexes as sometimes we tend to be shy. Though I was
brought up in a co-education school since my nursery days, I was a bit reserved during my
school days and my bachelors. But gradually my interaction with the opposite sex improved
drastically as I used to have regular status updates meetings with my onshore lady manager.

I base my interactions on a “great deal of information.”(Baron and Greenberg, 2007, pp

330). There are also situations where I messed up when I did not follow the downward
communication system and instead escalated an issue directly to a senior manager. (Hall
and Tolbert, 2005, pp 142

Decision making abilities are an important attribute that distinguish a good manager from
an ordinary manager hence it is of immense importance here to reflect on my capabilities of
decision making. I often tend to rely on intuition which “is a decision making tool that
integrates experience, goals and values without using direct reasoning”. For instance
before joining GD Goenka, I devoted 2-3 days in finding out whether it would be a wise
decision for me to join the newly opened PGDBM program in the Institute? I had to analyse
whether joining the institute would be a good enough decision for me. Purely based on
Intuition I decided to enroll myself in this institute, after joining I realized that intuitively my
decision to join GD Goenka has proved to be worthwhile when after attending the classes I
felt that it is a right place to nurture my nascent management skills and would provide me
with one of the best environments to grow professionally. Intuition based decision making is
often exercised by many higher level public and private sector managers and in times of
dilemma relying on your intuition helps in taking the right decision. But while making a
decision, I often get nervous and become hesitant. However no human being can make a
100% correct decision. So I sometimes wonder whether I took a wise decision to join MBA at
this point of time or could have stayed in the IT industry for some years to gain more
professional experience before joining a management school. However my aim now is to
control this intuitive nature of me to a certain extent because marketing managers also need
to depend a lot on intuition when they launch a product and proper intuitive skills would lead
them to engage proper marketing activities to lure customers and basically create a demand
for the product. However in cases where we need to analyze in terms of statistical data,
intuition can often play spoilsport. So I need to make a proper balance of the intuitive skills
start taking decisions rationally because “A manager who can balance rationality,
intuition and emotions is likely to make more sound decisions, which are acceptable
to his subordinates. Employees are more likely to feel psychologically committed to
those decisions, which are arrived at by taking their opinions into consideration.”
(Veluri, 2009, pp 213). So a thorough team consultation is also very necessary to arrive at
any decision and making a decision for the best of the organization.

Objectives for the next year: - Time flies by in a jiffy. I joined GD GOENKA in June and
now the 2nd semester is already half finished. Within this short span of time, I could identify
myself as a much transformed individual with a lot of management knowledge. Though I
need to develop some more skills and my objectives for the coming year could be briefly
summarised as follows:-
1) Further improvement of Communication skills: - In marketing, communication
skill is of utmost importance. I am trying to learn even some more aspects of
communication in the advertising media.

2) Improve Intuitive Decision Making skills: - Intuition can help managers, but a
manager with a balance of intuition, rationality can make much better skills. So the
next year would be a discovery phase for me to change intuition and be more rational
and practical and develop much more analysing skills in me.
 3) Entry into an Industry as an Intern: - The first year of my 2 year PGDBM course is
going to be over by next April end. After that we have to do an 8 week internship. I
desire to get to learn advertisement, so would be focusing on firms which would
provide me with knowledge on advertisements and marketing promotions.

4) Improve Leadership Skills: - Though I have showed traits of leadership, I am

working on improvement of leadership skills, which a good manager should possess.
I am in the process of learning and through practical knowledge trying to identify how
to manage stress; how to take a decision wisely keeping in mind the consequences it
would reap on an organisation; how to tackle politics and make a negotiation;
maintain the peace and abide by the organisational cultures.

There are many other factors and fields where there are scopes of improvements. But the
above few are the few earnest goals and objectives for me in the next coming year. The
table below shows my action plan for the next year. The action plan is given in the chart
format below.
 The Action Plan for the next 1 year:-

The specific Opportunities Measurable Achievable Relevant to Timescale for

objective:- for by:- through:- your task meeting the
development because:- objective is:-
are:-
1) To enter in to Searching for Information Setting Proper 12 months
the marketing related jobs on the proper domain
sector or and sectors different framework as knowledge
International like advertising company’s per the through
Business sector medias, profile and company’s study of role
focusing on FMCGs like culture. requirement. of sales and
marketing. ITC. marketing
experts.

2) Improve my Socialising, Group work, By having a Need of 2-3 months

communication interacting with going highly proper
skills colleagues. through interactive interaction
Identifying and different and learning and
absorbing the marketing meet with learning of
relevant articles, etc such persons effective
attributes of and communicat
communication accomplices. ion in
in others. markets.

3) Improve intuitive Working and Applying it on Effective Supporting 6-7 months

decision making. practising the given participation my career
more and projects and in and off as a
more on the assignments. class marketing
organisational discussions. expert.
case studies.
4) Improve Group Boosting up Displaying Affect future 10 months
leadership skills. assignments, self leadership goals and
group confidence, skills, help in my
participation. feedback listening to aim of
from peers, others. joining an
teachers NGO.

Conclusion: -
Organisational Behaviour deals with understanding what
shapes organisations/business work and business is all about people and thus, OB is
an important subject for any management student. When I went through the modules
of OB I understood that in business success cannot be achieved unless one learns to
predict human behaviour. We can motivate, lead, and resolve conflicts, design organisations
if we would have an in depth understanding on the OB theories and this, enables a better
understanding of human behaviour in organisations (Andre, 2009). This subject would make
it possible for me to effectively manage individuals and groups in my future organisations. In
management “our basic building blocks of theory are all concerned with people, and
not only do different people behave differently, but the same person behaves
differently in different circumstances or in the same situation at different times.”
(Crowther and Green, 2008, pp 198-201).
It has made me answer the most important question of my career that whether my current
skill set is suitable for my dream job, and where I need to improve? OB has helped me in
identifying my weaknesses, which I will work to improve and at the same time,
it highlighted my strong points which I can further, strengthen and thereby, improving my
overall personality. Moreover, OB has helped me in thinking rationally and logically to any
problem and identifying the consequences which could have been formed earlier without
studying these human natures. OB has greatly helped me in team work, which is indeed an
important requirement for my career. Every organization has a different environment and
work culture and through OB I now know what is expected by me in the organisations,
keeping in mind to respect the diverse-cultured co-workers. OB prepares us for the real
world, depicting the live examples from the Industry. Without proper knowledge of these OB
theories, it’s not possible to depict the human behaviour, which is very complex and
ever changing. Now I have learnt to act in a manner, what situation demand, which is highly
practical skill which the most youngsters of today lack. Thereby by evaluating an employee's
personality traits, creativity, and adaptability, motivating that employee the way they need to
be motivated is a guaranteed success. At the end, I can say that OB has given me a
direction towards achievement of career goals which will shine the path
towards attainment of success.

Appendices:-

1) MBTI Test

Source: www.humanmetrics.com
2) Leadership Test
Source: www.mindtools.com
 References and Bibliography

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