MGT 301 Organizational Behaviour Paper

Q1-Think of a job that requires very high levels of certain cognitive abilities. Can you think of a way to redesign that job so that people who lack those abilities could still perform the job effectively? Now respond to the same question with regard to emotional and physical abilities.

Q2- Consider the personality dimensions included in the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and the RIASEC model. If you had to “slot” those dimensions into the Big Five, would you be able to do so? Which dimensions don’t seem to fit?

Q3-Think about a highly successful team with which you are familiar. What types of task, goal, and outcome interdependence does this team have? Describe how changes in task, goal, and outcome interdependence might have a negative impact on this team.

Q4-Think of a team you’ve worked in that performed poorly. Were any of the causes of the poor performance related to the forces that tend to create process loss? If so, which force was most problematic? What steps, if any, did your team take to deal with the problem?

Q5- Who is the most influential leader you have come in contact with personally? What forms of power did they have, and which types of influence did they use to accomplish objectives?

Q6-You are required to reply to at least two peer discussion question post answers to this weekly discussion question and/ These post replies need to be substantial and constructive in nature.

1- My first colleague’s post:

1- There is no human being in the world that has all the abilities i.e. cognitive, physical and emotional abilities. People with different abilities can achieve the goals of an organization.

Let us take the example of car manufacturing. People who have higher cognitive ability design the parts of the car and the assembly plan. People who have physical ability assemble a car using machines and psycho-motor skills. People who have emotional abilities organize the people in the factory floor and administer sales of cars. Every organization requires human abilities to achieve its goals; it is impractical to replace human abilities with their systems, which includes job redesign.

2- Personality assessments tools helps to understand people based on their personality make up.

Though these tools attempt to understand personality of a person, they are based on distinct theoretical model and empirical research. The context of development and the theoretical basis of each assessment tool is different.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Big five Personality factors and Holland’s RIASEC model are taxonomies of personality characteristics. Each of these is developed based on distinct theoretical foundations and empirical research. Though some factors appear to be similar in all taxonomies, many are unique for interpretation. It would be ideal to use the tools independently rather than comparing their commonality.

3- A team is a group of individuals who are interacting, influencing and are interdependent on each other with the target and commitment of achieving the common goals of the organization as whole.

The example of a successful football team can be where all the players are interdependent Interdependence removes the redundancies of work efforts and is therefore very efficient. The team has a task interdependency of scoring a goal against the opposition to achieve an outcome interdependence of winning the match. Therefore, their task is a collective interdependence, and the effort is a collective one with constant interaction.

If any change in the interdependence occurs, each individual player would think about personal achievements and therefore only play for himself. But working in teams require proper coordination and cooperation among the members, which makes teamwork challenging. The outcome interdependence will change and even if the player scores high number of goals, still there is a little probability the team would succeed.

4- Researchers have identified two kinds of team processes i.e. one that enhances the outcomes of the teamwork and the other one which diminishes the outcomes of team work. The scholar calls the former outcome as ‘process gain’ and the latter is called ‘process loss.

The student had the experience of working in a team whose teamwork process lead to a process loss. The team was a community volunteering group, and it had the following characteristics:

other as rivals

about rival members

meetings

The team leaders should have taken the following steps to avoid the process loss:

Suggestions Teamwork process has moderate contribution to outcome but has tremendous effect on the commitment of team members.

5- True leaders enjoy the art of persuading and motivating other individuals and controlling their thought process through consultation, appeals, and various tactics of ingratiation, coalition pressure and exchange and therefore leading and guiding them to achieve the common goal.

The immediate reporting manager of the current organization is a perfect example of the most influential leader who inveigled her subordinates to identify their potentials. Being the manager,

she promotes basic individual rights and freedom of speech, privacy and thought processes through the legitimate power and even foster integrity and fair treatment to every individual by being just, honest, and reasonable by exerting the required coercive power. The power tactics complementing the legitimate power to meet the deadlines on time is through legitimating and imposing pressure tactics by using the authoritative power or even coercive power. At times exchange tactics are used to motivate the employees to enhance their productivity through reward power.

Having an insatiable learning agility can leverage her analyzing skills, decision making abilities, thereby nurturing her expert power. Even being an avid learner by approaching and learning from those who already possess the knowledge even if they are subordinates is the best way to gain expert power as per her ideology. She has a modern and positive outlook towards the employees. She believes in democratic leadership rather than autocratic one.

Confidence is one of her important traits and has adequate zeal and conviction on herself. By being an effective communicator, she exchanges ideas and suggestions with every level of subordinate of the organization but acts strategically applying personal intellect. She is demanding but at the same time maintains sociability. She is a true enthusiast towards her job and maintains integrity, loyalty, and competency and has the best decisiveness.

My second colleague’s post: