INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 - RIM

1 CHAPTERWHAT ISORGANIZATIONALBEHAVIOR?1 PART IuINTRODUCTIONCHAPTER OUTLINEWhat Managers DoEnter Organizational BehaviorReplacing Intuition with Systematic StudyChallenges and Opportunities for OBContributing Disciplines to the OB FieldThere Are Few Absolutes in OBComing Attractions: Developing an OBModelIt s not what we don t knowthat gives us trouble, it swhat we know that ain t so. W. RogersChapter EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site1 Define organizational behavior (OB)Describe what managers doExplain the value of the systematic study of OBList the major challenges and opportunities formanagers to use OB conceptsIdentify the contributions made by majorbehavioral science disciplines to OBDescribe why managers require a knowledgeof OBExplain the need for a contingency approach tothe study of OBIdentify the three levels of analysis in thisbook s OB model87654321 After studying this CHAPTER , you should be able toLEARNING OBJECTIVESC hapter EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site2 ABMeet David Kwok.

2 A 1987 graduate of the University of California at a major in cognitive science, David works for a company calledThe Princeton Review that prepares students to take college and graduateschool admission the age of 31, David directs fifty to sixtyinstructors at Princeton Review s Los Angeles office. My academic training in artificial intelligence didn t really prepareme for my biggest job challenge understanding and motivating peo-ple, says David. For instance, nothing at UCLA really emphasizedhow to get people psyched me, people are the unknown partof the equation that determines how effective I am in my , like scheduling or customer relations, give me very I ve learned is that when things go wrong, it s almostalways a people ve worked hard to make our teaching stafffeel like a small family and to learn techniques for getting them it s been on-the-job training for didn t learn any of thisin school.

3 David Kwok has learned what most managers learn very quickly:A large part of the success in any management job is developing good inter-personal or people Weinbach, chief executive at theaccounting firm of Arthur Andersen & Co., puts it this way: Pure technicalknowledge is only going to get you to a that, interpersonalskills become critical. 1 Although practicing managers have long understood the importance ofinterpersonal skills to managerial effectiveness, business schools wereChapter EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site3slower to get the the late-1980s, business school curriculafocused almost singularly on the technical aspects of management, empha-sizing courses in economics, accounting, finance.

4 And quantitative work in human behavior and people skills received minimalattention relative to the technical aspects of the pastdecade, however, business faculty have come to realize the importance thatan understanding of human behavior plays in determining a manager s effec-tiveness, and required courses on people skills have been widely added to EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site4 Recognition of the importance of developing managers inter-personal skills is closely tied to the need for organizations toget and keep high-performing employees.

5 For instance, thechief executive of Chrysler Corporation, Robert Eaton, sees hisworkforce as an asset that provides his company with a sustainablecompetitive advantage. The only way we can beat the competitionis with people, say Eaton. That s the only thing anybody culture and how you motivate and empower and educate yourpeople is what makes the difference. 2 The head of Starbucks, therapidly growing Seattle-based coffee retailer, concurs: Our only sus-tainable competitive advantage is the quality of our workforce.

6 3A study of 191 top executives at six Fortune 500 companiessought an answer to the question Why do managers fail? The sin-gle biggest reason for failure, according to these executives, is poorinterpersonal Center for Creative Leadership inGreensboro, North Carolina, estimates that half of all managers andthirty percent of all senior managers have some type of difficultywith with these findings are surveys that havesought to determine what skills college recruiters consider mostimportant for the job effectiveness of MBA sur-veys consistently identify interpersonal skills as most have come to understand that technical skills are necessary,but insufficient, for succeeding in management.

7 In today s increas-ingly competitive and demanding workplace, managers can t suc- CHAPTER EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site5ceed on their technical skills alone. They also have to have goodpeople skills. This book has been written to help both managers andpotential managers develop those people Managers DoLet s begin by briefly defining the terms managerand the placewhere managers work the organization. Then let s look at themanager s job; specifically, what do managers do?Managersget things done through other people.

8 They makedecisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others toattain goals. Managers do their work in an organization. This is aconsciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more peo-ple, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve acommon goal or set of goals. On the basis of this definition, manu-facturing and service firms are organizations and so are schools,hospitals, churches, military units, retail stores, police departments,and local, state, and federal government agencies.

9 The people whooversee the activities of others and who are responsible for attain-ing goals in these organizations are managers (although they resometimes called administrators, especially in not-for-profit organi-zations). CHAPTER EndChapter StartContents**QuitVideoWeb Site6managersIndividuals who achievegoals through other consciously coordinatedsocial unit, composed of twoor more people, that func-tions on a relatively continu-ous basis to achieve a com-mon goal or set of FunctionsIn the early part of this century, a French industrialist bythe name of Henri Fayol wrote that all managers performfive management functions: They plan, organize, com-mand, coordinate, and , we have condensedthose down to four.

10 Planning, organizing, leading, and you don t know where you re going, any road will getyou there. Since organizations exist to achieve goals, someone hasto define those goals and the means by which they can be is that someone. The planningfunction encom-passes defining an organization s goals, establishing an overall strat-egy for achieving those goals, and developing a comprehensivehierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate are also responsible for designing an organization sstructure. We call this function organizing.