LWC Organizational Behavior New Management Challenges Discussion

Questions:

Organizational Behavior
Chapter 2 INDIVIDUAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
PowerPoint Image Slideshow
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer these
questions:
1. How do managers and organizations appropriately select individuals
for particular jobs?
2. How do people with different abilities, skills, and personalities build
effective work teams?
3. How do managers and employees deal effectively with individual
differences in the workplace?
4. How can organizations foster a work environment that allows
employees an opportunity to develop and grow?
5. How do managers know how to get the best from each employee?
6. What is the role of ethical behavior in managerial actions?
7. How do you manage and do business with people from different
cultures?
Exhibit 2.2 Relation of Personality to Attitudes and Behavior
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)
1. How do managers and organizations
appropriately select individuals for particular
jobs?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What are the various abilities and skills
that should be considered when hiring
employees?
2. How should the personality differences
and work values be taken into account
when selecting employees?
3. What is the role of cultural diversity in
selecting employees
Table 2.1 Dimensions of Mental Abilities
Table 2.2 Dimensions of Physical Abilities
Exhibit 2-3 Basic Conflict Between Employees and Organizations
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)
Exhibit 2.4 Relationship of Culture to Values, Attitudes and
Behavior
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)
Exhibit 2.5 Appropriate Managerial Behavior in Different
Countries
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)
2. How do people with different abilities, skills, and
personalities build effective work teams?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. Why should abilities and skills be taken
into account when selecting
employees?
2. Describe the components of mental
abilities, cognitive complexity, physical
ability, and psychomotor abilities.
Before You Decide: 3 Steps to Better Decision Making
Section 2.2 provides an outline of
several high-level aspects connected to
making decisions, including the timing
to a decision and even whether or not
a decision must be made or not. This
video should add to this framework by
providing a good explanation of some
additional key concepts to help set the
stage for the remaining content in this
chapter. To start, think about the first
suggestion that presenter Matthew
Confer makes to consider the
constraints that might be assumed to
exist in any decision scenario. Did his
$5 envelope example make sense to
you?
Before You Decide: 3 Steps to
Better Decision Making
1. Often sports teams carry out what is called a port-mortem (literally after
death) review of a completed game by watching tapes and critiquing
their performance. How is this different to the Pre-Mortem decision
tactic suggested by Confer?
2. What about the idea to “check the basics”; what exactly did Confer mean
by that?
3. Were there any other take-aways of value that you learned from this
video presentation?
Exhibit 2.7 Cultural Differences among Managers in Four
Countries
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)
3. How do managers and employees deal effectively
with individual differences in the workplace?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What is the role of personality and
personality development in the
workplace.
4. How can organizations foster a work
environment that allows employees an
opportunity to develop and grow?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What are the things that managers can
do to foster an environment where
employees can gain personal
development and grow?
The 4 Personality Types
Patrick Bet-David
outlines his “STAR”
approach to
personalities; they
are S – Stability T Technical A Action R Relationship.
The 4 Personality Types
1. How does the video and the approach in Section 2.4 in the text agree
and diverge?
5. How do managers know how to get the best
from each employee?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What are some things that managers
can do to foster organizational
harmony where they get the best
results from all employees?
Table 2.3 Average Hours Worked and Vacation Time Taken
per Worker
6. What is the role of ethical behavior in managerial
actions?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What role do managers undertake to ensure
an environment where ethics and values are
followed?
Why We Need Core Values
What are your core values and
are you using them to improve
the quality of your life and your
work? Part of discovering what
values exist at your core is looking
back at the failures and triumphs
of life to improve and ensure a
successful future.
Why We Need Core Values
1. How are core values relating to James Franklin’s football team applicable
to business organizations?
2. What are the differences in the football team and a business
organization?
Code of Ethics
Watch both interviews on the next slide where members of the American
Association of Professional Landmen explain their Code of Ethics and
Standards of Practice, and the CFP (Certified Financial Planner) Board’s CEO
Kevin Keller and General Counsel Leo Rydzewski discuss details and insights
on their new (as of 2018) Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct.
As Exhibit 2.6 illustrates, culture plays an important integrating role in
organizations both externally and internally. Strategy, structure, people,
and systems all are affected by an organization’s culture. Some companies
have their codes of ethics framed and hung on office walls, included as a
key component of employee handbooks, and/or posted on their corporate
websites.
Code of Ethics
Code of Ethics
1. After watching the interviews and reviewing the codes from other
organizations, do you think that formal codes and standards make
employees behave in a more ethical manner?
2. Some people believe that formal codes do help influence better
behavior, but that others think that they are little more than public
relations gimmicks. If senior management abides by the code of ethics
and regularly emphasizes the code to employees, do you think this will
likely have a positive influence on behavior?
3. Do you believe that formal codes of ethics are effective tools to influence
an organization’s culture to be more ethical and transparent overall?
7. How do you manage and do business with
people from different cultures?
CONCEPT CHECK
1. What role do managers play to ensure
that the culture of individuals are
valued and appreciated and contribute
to a successful work environment?
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and any changes must be noted.
New Management Challenges for the New Age
Today’s news is littered with scandals, new allegations of sexual assault, and
tragedy. Since 2017 and the #metoo movement, stemming from the Harvey
Weinstein scandal, more and more public figures have been put into the spotlight to
defend themselves against allegations from women around the globe.
Not only publicly, but privately in companies around the world, there have been
firings and investigations into misconduct from coworkers, managers, and CEOs. It
is a relevant topic that is getting long-overdue publicity and encouraging more men
and women to come forward to discuss openly rather than hide the events and
injustices of the past. Other events showcase the tumultuous and on-edge society we
are living in, such as the Charlottesville, VA, attack that left one dead and 19 injured
when a person drove a car through a crowd of protestors during a white nationalist
gathering.
With unanticipated events on a daily business, it is important for companies to take
a stand against racial hatred and harassment of any kind, and to have firm policies
when such events occur. Take Netflix, for example, who in July 2018 fired their
chief communications officer for saying the “N-word” in full form. This event
occurred during an internal meeting in which the speaker was not directing the slur
at anyone specific, but claimed it was being made as an emphatic point about
offensive words in comedy programming. The “Netflix way,” the culture that is built
around radical candor and transparency, was put to the test during this occurrence.
The offender, Jonathan Friedland, attempted to apologize for his misdeed, hoping it
would fade away and his apology would be accepted. However, it didn’t work that
way; instead, the anger was palpable between coworkers and eventually led to the
firing of Friedland after a few months of inaction.
Netflixers are given a high level of freedom and responsibility within their “Netflix
way” culture. Blunt feedback is encouraged, and trust and discretion are the ultimate
gatekeeper, as employees have access to sensitive information and are ultimately
trusted for how they expense items and take vacation time.
In the insanely fast-paced streaming-services industry, it is hard to keep this culture
at a premium, but it is imperative for the success of the company overall. “As you
scale a company to become bigger and bigger, how do you scale that kind of
culture?” said Colin Estep, a former senior engineer who left voluntarily in 2016. “I
don’t know that we ever had a good answer.”
In order to keep up, sometimes the company is seen as harsh in their tactics to keep
the best of the best. “I think we’re transparent to a fault in our culture and that can
come across as cutthroat,” said Walta Nemariam, an employee in talent acquisition
at Netflix.
Netflix has stayed true to their cultural values despite the pressures and sometimes
negative connotations associated with this “cutthroat” environment. Their ability to
remain agile, while displaying no tolerance for societal injustices, puts them at the
forefront of new-age companies. It is a difficult pace to stay in line with, but it seems
that they are keeping in stride and remaining true to who they are, for now.