Organizational Behavior

I started my first class this week on my journey to an MBA!

Organization Behavior – something many businesses do not work at near enough.  Unfortunately other things – the hear and now stuff – like profits, products, prices, and other priorities get in the way of doing things that can really make your business grow.

Organizational Behavior is all about systems.  How do we create a business system that can generate profits, serve the customer, keep the employees happy, and work in the society we live in.

I am really enjoying this topic.  The soft business skills really intrigue me.  I am a disciple of sales and marketing.  Organizational Behavior is kinda like looking at buying behavior, but then taking it to the complete business level – not just dealing with the sales and marketing plan.

I can see some definte holes in the organizational structure and the management systems of many of the corporations that I have been involved in over time.  And often the problem I am learning comes from past theory in OB – theory that worked then, but does not work now.  OR there is simply a better way to do things.

“Divergent thinking is an essential ingredient of creativity. Diverse groups produce diverse thinking. Ergo, diversity promotes creativity. This logic applies to corporations, research teams, think tanks, and other groups of creators. Those who rely on diverse people are more likely to innovate than those who rely on platoons of similar people.”           Mighty is the Mongrel

I have always had this ability to look at the big picture and see new ways to do things.  I drove my parents crazy with questions growing up.  And my high school science teacher got tired of answering my questions.  Now finally  . . .just maybe . . .  my inquisitiveness, along with my experience and education will start to pay off.  Not simply get me in trouble.

Back to Organization Behavior.  OB helps both managers and the employees to better deal with workplace issues.  Be it productivity, creativity or profitability.  Or simply getting along with one another.

Systems are how we, as humans, put things together in logical order to make accomplish our tasks.  Systems are made up of elements (people, items, money, etc) along with rules and methods and the boundaries that contain the system.

Human  Systems are a special system that deal specifically with Human Dynamics.

Contingency thinking takes into account the ‘what if’ – or even the ‘That depends’.  With contigency thinking you look at the whole, and then analyse how the results will differ based on certain events or stimuli.

All in all, I am beginning to grasp the depth of Organization Behavior.  Some of the examples are really quite amazing – how people try new ways of managing a business, organizing the people and other systems to do things better.  And the whole human dynamic part is very interesting, as I see that as being a critical part of Organizational Behavior.

more to come on OB.