The effectiveness of any organisation is influenced greatly by human behaviour.
People are a resource common in all organisations. One important principle of psychology (we always refer to psychology because it is a field that deals with human behaviour) and that each person is different. Each has unique perception, personality, and life experiences. People have different cultural backgrounds, different capabilities for learning and handling responsibility, different attitudes, belief, and aspiration levels. We have moved from an era in which large portions of the workforce doesn’t look, think, or act like the workforce of the past that was loyal to do as told because the employer had all bargaining powers. To be effective, leaders and managers of organisations must view each employee or member as a unique embodiment of all these behavioural and cultural factors. Many culturally diverse individuals are spread through- out the workforce.
Organisations are social
systems
The relationship among individuals and groups is organisations create expectations for individuals’ behaviour. These expectations result in certain roles that must be performed. Some people must perform leadership roles, while others must participate in the roles of follower. Middle managers, because they have both superiors and subordinates must perform both roles. Organisations have systems of authority, status and power, and people in organisations have varying needs from each system. Groups in organisations also have a powerful impact on individual behaviour and on organisational performance.
Multiple factors shape organisational behaviour
A person’s behaviour in any situation involves the interaction of that individual’s personal characteristics and the characteristics of a situation. Thus identifying all of the factors in time-consuming and difficult; frequently, the task is impossible. To help identify the important managerial factors in organisational behaviour, we use the contingency or situational approach. The basic idea of situational approach is that there is no best way to manage; a method that is very effective in one situation may not work at all in others. The situational approach has grown in popularity because research has shown that given certain characteristics of the job and certain characteristics of the people doing the job, some management practices works better than others, hence the long debate on leadership as to; are leaders born are made? The reality of the matter is that where people are involved, there is no one standard procedure or rule that can be applied but the situation will determine how best to apply oneself in that particular instance.
Structure and processes affect organisational behavior and the emergent culture
An organisation’s structure is the formal pattern of how its people and jobs are grouped. Structure often is illustrated by an organisation chart. Processes are activities that give life to the organisational chart. Communication, decision making, and organisational development are example of processes in organisations. Sometimes, understanding process problems such as breakdown in communication and decision making will result in a more accurate understanding of organisational behaviour than will simply examining structural arrangement.
The pattern of basic assumptions used by individuals and groups to deal with the organisation and its environment is called its culture. In straight forward terms, the organisational culture is its personality, atmosphere, or “feel”. The culture of an organisation defines appropriate behavior and bonds, it motivates individuals, and it governs the way a company process information, internal relations, and values. Its functions at all levels from the subconscious to the visible.
An organisational culture has been likened to one of those ink blots in which we see what we want to see. An organisational culture is shared thoughts, feelings and talk about the organisation. It is always good for an organisation to develop a positive culture because once employee’s behavior is established it gets to be very difficult to change the negative culture. When employees share emotions about working for an organisation that creates a feeling of togetherness. Hence organisations that want to change a negative culture have to engage in change management which cost time and money. Cultures of organisations can be positive or negative. An organisational culture is positives if its helps to improve productivity.
A negative culture can hinder behaviour, disrupt group effectiveness and hamper the impact of a well designed organisation. Effective leaders and managers know what to look for in terms of structures, process, and culture and how to understand what they find.
Therefore, leaders must develop diagnostic skills; they must be trained to identify conditions symptomatic of a problem requiring further attention. Problem indicator includes; declining profits, declining quantity or quality of work, increase in absenteeism, or tardiness, and negative employee attitudes. Each of these problems is what constitutes organisational behaviour.