Swathic Baby FT174091

6/8/16

Organizational Behavior

Recently I read a short story titled as The Egg. This story took my thought process to a whole new level. My
perceptions about life took a rollercoaster ride. I dwell on this new concepts about life for a long time and soon
realized I could never think about life in the old way anymore. The crux of the story is a conversation between a man
recently passed away and God. God told the man, In this universe theres just you and I. The man asked God in a
confused tone, But then what about others on Earth.God answered, They are different incarnations of you.
What if the story is true? What if there is only one human being? Then we all are different incarnations of him at
dissimilar time periods. I was once Hitler and once Mother Teresa. I was once a thief and once a police. Oh my God,
every time I humiliated someone, I was humiliating myself. Every feeling, whatever it may be, experienced by anyone
at any time, was experienced by me. And all the emotions that have to be experienced by the next generation have
to be experienced by me. So whatever I do now, the repercussions on that will be faced by me at a later time. So its
better to do good things now, so that I can enjoy its outcomes at a later stage as a different incarnation. The world
will be much better if different incarnations of me in different parts of this world were able to comprehend the story
in the same sense as I did.
According to Bratton, perception is a process that select, organize, and interpret information to create meaning of
everything around us. Everything around us are subject to interpretation. Whatever interpretation prevails at a
particular instant will be a function of perception and not truth. - Friedrich Nietzsche. I consider interpretation of
information is a significant process. Our mind has an inclination to take things for granted without much analysis.
When Perception was taught in the class, I could relate to one incident when my interpretation went wide of the
mark. While I was working in Angel Blue aviation academy for a short tenure before joining Infosys, I had the
opportunity to shortlist schools from which students are selected for air hostess training program. I did not shortlist
a school which was located very near our office. My reasoning for this was, as its a Government school the students
lack English proficiency. We conducted interviews in various schools that I had shortlisted. But still few seats were
there to be filled. Consequently HR manager decided to conduct interview procedure in that particular Government
school which I did not shortlist. On the day of interview I realized my perception about the school was wrong. Five
students performed very well and they rightly deserved seats. But only two seats were remaining and hence we had
to eliminate three deserving candidates. The HR manager was furious as I did not shortlist this school in the first
place. I did not take the effort to check the track record of this school. That school was performed decently well in
last three years. I did jump to the conclusion without validating my perceptions. In OB, I studied how perceptions
determine how we conduct over selves, handle challenges, formulate opinions, interpret information and manage
decisions. We all consider ourselves as fair judge of ones character, but often our impressions will be proved flawed.
I understood in an organizational context, we should be more cognizant and observant. We should be reluctant to
make assumptions or jump to conclusions. Paul J. Brower mentioned in his paper The Power to see ourselves,
mentioned whatever we perceive is influenced by how we see ourselves. Further on attending Organizational

Behaviour sessions, I understood that the most imperative attributes a perceiver must have is to know oneself which
would in the end help one to see others precisely.
Attitude is the one thing that makes me what I am. I believe an attitude which is very deterministic in making even
a small change can do wonders. I came across a story in which a young man was picking up and throwing star fish
to the ocean. The sun was up and the tide was going out. The starfish would die if he did not throw it to ocean. But
there were millions of starfish all along the beach and he could not save them all. When someone pointed out this
to him he took one another starfish and threw it into ocean. And then said he made a difference to the life of one
starfish. Yes, attitude matters. Whatever situation we are in, if we have a positive attitude to support others we
could make a difference. Nelson Mandela once said, Everything seems impossible until its done. After 9 more
months when I start working again I will be thrown into situations which will not be easily manageable. Then
attitude is what that will determine my success. One of the worlds greatest football Player, Lionnel Messi once
said, It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success. Yes success cannot be accomplished
overnight, it depends on how hard we fight our challenges. In Malayalam there is one saying, Theeyil kurutherh
veyileth vadila , which means the ones who are born in the fire will not be withered when exposed to sunlight.
Yes, we Greatlakers are thrown into the rigor which is the fire from which we the future managers are born and, so
I am sure we will not be frustrated when challenges are thrown to us. Thats the attitude I am trying to inculcate in
me.

Motivation reflects one's actions, desires, and wants. In other words it is what that prompts the person to act in a
definite way, or at least develop an inclination for particular behavior. During my organization behavior lectures I
understood the various concepts of motivation that plays an immense role in organizational context. Motivation
can be classified into two theories known as Intrinsic (internal) motivation and Extrinsic (external) motivation. Both
type of motivations are equally important to strive forward with diligence. Og Mandino the author of The Greatest
Salesman in the World said, Failure will never overtake me if my motivation to succeed is resilient enough. I am
highly motivated to achieve greater heights and Great Lakes is grooming me for that in a big way.

In my OB classes I learnt Emotional intelligence as the capability to identify their own, and other
people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and to use emotional information to guide thinking
and behavior. KARMA-YOGA, a Leadership Program at Great Lakes is an ideal platform for experiential learning of
emotional intelligence. It is all about inculcating passion, compassion, humility and transform you into an
emotionally intelligent leader. I think one of the important trait in business is to get along with others and have a
positive impact in their actions. Now I am extremely content as my Great Lakes life enabled me to be a better
human with refined perception, motivational attitude and emotional intelligence.