Chapter 01 – Organizational Behavior and Your Personal Effectiveness
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Chapter 1
Organizational Behavior and Your Personal Effectiveness
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Effective management has a strong personal dimension. Great managers are good learners, have
a high level of self-awareness, and actively seek to improve their skills. Good management also
requires relying on good evidence rather than on hunches or folk wisdom. This chapter discusses
the importance of Evidence-based management and presents a model of self-management. The
overt charge to learners is to get beyond hope and take action to improve their personal
effectiveness.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
KNOWING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand how OB evidence is the source of effectiveness
2. Appreciate the cost of bad managers and toxic organizations
3. Understand the importance of self-awareness and personal effectiveness
4. Know the fundamentals of professional behavior
DOING OBJECTIVES
1. Use proven methods of self-management to make personal improvements
2. Seek feedback and focus on your strengths
3. Act professionally
4. Build a personal network to enhance your success
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KEY STUDENT QUESTIONS
Students will approach this chapter asking two primary questions:
1. What is personal effectiveness, and how can I improve my skills to maximize my
personal effectiveness?
2. What is Evidence-based management and how and why is it used?
In response to the first question, it is important to stress that effectiveness differs across people
and situations. A manager who is very effective in one situation may be less effective in another.
There are many examples of this: Rudy Giuliani, who was hailed as a hero for his actions as
someone’s personality than in a weaker situation like a casual party. Likewise, it is harder to tell
if someone is extroverted when they are sitting in a class listening to a lecture than in the hallway
after class. For all these reasons, assessments of personal effectiveness may not always be
reflected in a person’s actual behavior in a work setting.
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With regard to the second question, Evidence-based management is a philosophy and style of
management whereby managers rely on solid research evidence to make business decisions
rather than relying on hunches or blindly copying what another organization is doing. Evidence-
based management is not always easy; it can be time-consuming to gather, interpret, and apply
such, casinos should comp meals and hotel rooms to draw in high rollers. However, Harrah’s
didn’t automatically buy into this assumption. In their research they found that the key to their
profits was not high rollers but locals who played at the casino frequently for entertainment
purposes. Because they were locals, these customers were less interested in free hotel rooms but
much more attracted to the allure of free gambling chips.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction to Organizational Behavior
A. Managing people is a distinct and critically important skill set
B. Compelling research evidence shows that strong management skills creates competitive
advantage
1. Meta-analysis demonstrating financial performance is significantly associated with
management practices
2. Good management is associated with reduced turnover and theft and increased
satisfaction and team performance
C. Unlike most texts, this text focuses on management skill development
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II. The Central Role of Management in Organizations
A. Managerial realities:
1. Management is the process of getting things done through others
2. Managers get rewarded for what their employees do
5. People problems are more complex than other organizational problems
B. Managerial competencies needed
1. Conceptual competencies = data collection and analytic skills used to diagnose and
evaluate problems
2. Technical competencies = understanding of technical/administrative aspects like
3. Interpersonal competencies = people skills like motivating, communicating and
negotiating
C. Getting serious about OB right now
1. Six key general work activities of managers
a. Managing human capital
b. Managing tools and technology
c. Managing decision-making processes
d. Managing administrative activities
e. Managing strategy/innovation
f. Managing the task environment
2. Of these skills, multiple studies show people-related skills are the most important
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III. Becoming a Great People-Manager
A. Differentiating good evidence from hunches and half-truths
1. Half-truth = practices that may be true some of the time
2. Evidence-based management (EBM) = translating principles based on the best
scientific evidence into organizational practices
B. Five key practices in EBM
1. Learning about cause and effect connections
2. Isolating variations that affect desired outcomes
3. Reducing the overuse, underuse, and misuse of specific practices
4. Building decision supports to promote practices that evidence validates
5. Creating a culture of evidence-based decision making and research participation
C. Organizational Behavior (OB) = a social science that attempts to describe, explain, and
predict human behavior in organizations
D. How to learn about OB
1. The necessity of active experience
2. Evaluating and using evidence
a. Our hunches and folk wisdom sometimes are incorrect
b. Big E Evidence = generalizable knowledge regarding cause and effect
relationships obtained through scientific research
c. little e evidence = local data that informs a specific decision
d. Practices should be based on good evidence
E. Overcoming the knowing-doing gap
1. Good management is about more than what you know but also what you do
2. Management skills can be improved via conscious rigorous practice
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IV. Learning and Personal Improvement
A. Personal Effectiveness: The Foundation of Great Management
1. Only those who can first manage themselves can manage others.
2. Elements of Personal Effectiveness – Actionable Knowledge and Behaviors
3. Myths of Personal Effectiveness
a. Management learning comes with age and experience.
b. We know ourselves.
c. Growth opportunities lie solely in our weaknesses
d. It’s not me, it’s them!
4. Learning How to Learn
a. Albert Bandura – Social Learning Theory
i. Learning is dependent on the person, the environment, and the behavior, and
all three influence each other (i.e., reciprocal determinism)
ii. Learning is not only a function of rewards and consequences for an individual
– most learning is done through observation and modeling the behaviors of
others.
iii. Both knowledge and practice are needed for skill mastery.
iv. Four components required to learn through observation
a.) Attention – learn to focus
b.) Retention – understand and remember
c.) Reproduction – translate knowledge into behavior
d.) Motivation – people need conscious reasons to change behaviors
b. Charles Manz – A Model of Self-Management
i. Modifying one’s own behavior requires:
a.) Systematically altering how we arrange different cues in our world.
b.) Changing how we think about what we hope to change.
c.) Attaching behavioral consequences to our actions.
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ii. Five essential elements to behavioral change
a.) Self-observation – Determine why, and under what conditions, you
currently use certain behaviors.
b.) Self-set goals – Determine what desired outcome or improvement
behaviors look like.
c.) Management of cues – Create reminders and attention focusers that you
slips and lapses – they are inevitable – learn from them and move on.
iii. Putting It All Into Practice
a.) Self-management can only be effective if the strategies are used
consistently and together – it is not enough just to set goals – you have to
make sure the goals work for you, manage cues, think positively, and
reward yourself for reaching those goals as well.
V. Building Self-Awareness
A. Self-Awareness: The Key to Successful Learning and Growth
1. The best managers consistently seek feedback to understand both how to improve and
how to capitalize on their strengths.
B. Individual Differences and Their Importance
1. Recognizing individual differences is important because they have an impact on how
we react and behave in different situations.
2. Individual Differences that Matter for Managers
a. Ability
i. What people are capable of doing
ii. Can include cognitive ability, physical ability, and emotional ability.
b. Personality
i. The pattern of relatively enduring ways in which a person thinks, acts, and
behaves.
ii. Personality is determined by both nature (genetics) and nurture (situational
factors), and represents our “dominant” or “natural” behavior.
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iii. Behavior is a function of both personality and environment.
3. The Essential Management Assessment Profile
a. Individuals on a quest for specific self-knowledge ultimately gain the most from
assessments.
b. Seven key aspects of self-awareness are critical for managers:
i. Cognitive Ability
a.) The capacity to learn and process cognitive information such as reading
comprehension, mathematical patterns, and spatial patterns.
ii. Emotional Intelligence
a.) The ability to accurately identify and manage emotions in oneself and
others.
b.) Although emotional intelligence has a genetic component, many
iii.) Predicting your emotional future.
iv.) Doing things with feeling.
iii. Personality Traits
a.) Big Five personality dimensions include:
i.) Extraversion
ii.) Emotional Stability
iii.) Agreeableness
iv.) Conscientiousness
v.) Openness to Experience
b.) Personality traits are represented by a continuum – people can be low,
high, or somewhere in between.
c.) Relation of personality traits to work outcomes.
i.) Conscientiousness is universally important for all jobs.
ii.) Emotional stability and extraversion are important for success in sales
positions.
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iii.) Agreeableness is related to successful customer service.
iv.) Openness to experience is related to success in managerial training.
iv. Cultural Intelligence
a.) Represents a person’s ability to function in culturally diverse situations.
b.) CQ (Cultural Quotient) contains four different sub-skills
i.) CQ Strategy – how a person interprets and understands inter-cultural
experiences
iv.) CQ Behavior – a person’s capability to modify their own verbal and
non-verbal behavior so that it is appropriate for the culture.
v. Personality Preferences (Temperament)
a.) Preferences refer to how we like to do things – the choices we make as we
navigate our world.
b.) Four major preference areas
c.) Personality preferences are most frequently measured with Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator
d.) There is little evidence that any given personality type is positively related
to job performance.
vi. Personal Values
a.) Values are enduring beliefs about what is important in an individual’s
world
b.) Occupational fit occurs when there is relative agreement between an
organization’s (or industry’s) values and an individual’s values.
c.) A strong fit of values can result in:
i.) decreased turnover
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ii.) increased job and career satisfaction
iii.) increased willingness to help out coworkers.
vii. Career Orientation
a.) Career orientation is a preference for a specific type of occupation and
work context.
b.) People who work in occupations outside their preferences are more subject
to burnout and dissatisfaction.
c.) Holland Career Preferences
i.) Realistics – like work with animals, tools or machines.
energy
vi.) Conventional – like work that involves meeting precise standards and
using numbers in a structured way.
C. Important Self-Awareness Issues
1. Assessment results are just feedback – having certain personality characteristics is less
important than how you attempt to put yourself in positions where those traits are
most valued and rewarded.
2. Not all personality assessments are alike – look for those that have an established
norm base and have research evidence showing that they are relevant to managerial
work.
3. People can act outside their preferences, but it takes a significant amount of attention,
direction, and energy.
4. Look for patterns and consistencies across instruments, rather than relying on the
results of a single assessment alone.
D. Involve Others – Seek Regular Feedback
1. Feedback from others is critical for accurate self-assessment, but many people don’t
seek out this information.
2. The major obstacle to seeking feedback is fear.
3. Multi-rater feedback enhances self-knowledge and consequently improves managerial
performance.
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E. Focus on Strengths – Not Just Weaknesses
1. Deficit reduction or “problem fixing” may hinder personal effectiveness.
2. May be more effective to manage weaknesses by taking ownership of them, and
finding ways of minimizing their impact on you.
3. Strategies for managing weaknesses include:
4. It is often most productive to place your focus on your strengths and those things you
can productively change.
“MANAGE WHAT” SCENARIOS
The following sections contain suggested debriefs for each of the “Manage What” scenarios in
this chapter.
1. Making the Case for People Management Skills
Summary:
Students are asked to put themselves in the role of an employee in a committee meeting who
must make a solid case for why resources should be devoted to building better people-
management. The boss wants the employee to “be specific and use examples.”
Debrief:
Students could cite numerous examples from the chapter in which the authors have reported
not socially responsible.
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2. Using OB Evidence Instead of Just Intuitions
Summary:
Students are asked to respond to several questions about EBM: 1) Why are more decisions not
made on good research evidence? 2) How do you go about relying more on evidence? Where
would you find evidence and how might you apply It to commonly faced organizational
situations?
1) Evidence-based management is still a relatively new philosophy. Just like Evidence-
plan out there because it takes hard work and time to practice it. But it works!
2) Relying on evidence requires that we think about problems objectively and collect and
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Making a Personal Improvement
Summary:
Students are told to imagine that their boss has identified time management as a weakness that
must be addressed before they can move up in the organization. They are asked to identify what
steps they would take to improve their skills, and in what order. They are also asked what
specific strategies are most likely to improve their skills.
Debrief:
Making personal improvements is curiously hard to do but often made harder because people too
rarely use the principles and techniques that have been shown to be most effective. As the
5) Stay positive and reward yourself for achievement.
Appropriate student answers might include the following:
The very first step in the time management challenge is to “self–observe” and get some data on
how you do things. In what specific areas is your time management lacking? Are you missing
deadlines, coming late to meetings, or holding up others? Whatever it may be, it is essential that
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Provided you have clear benchmarks and some models to emulate, the remaining keys are to
where there is some evidence that it will pay off in changed behavior.
Describing Your Self & Your Style: Expanding Your Self-Awareness
Summary:
Students are put in a position where they have to tell their new reports about themselves. Using
self-assessment information, students are asked to tell the group about themselves (“Who am I?”)
and how they will manage. They are also asked to think about what they need to know to answer
the question more effectively in the future.
Debrief:
There are, of course, an almost infinite number of things students could talk about (education,
students might think about previous experiences with managers and observe current managers to
see what kinds of traits and behaviors the managers they admire possess.
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MANAGEMENT LIVE
1.1 What is the Real Cost of a Bad Manager?
This Management Live introduces the idea of “value added analysis” in education which
assesses student performance change during the course of an academic year. Students who
by the textbook authors.
Instructors might also pose questions about the GPTWI studies:
1.2 The Best Places to Work Also are the Best Performing Companies
This Management Live reports that companies that are good places to work also tend to
perform better financially; specifically, the Fortune list “The 100 Best Companies to Work
1.3 Knowing vs Doing: The Disturbing State of Applied Management Effectiveness
This Management Live reports on a knowing-doing gap: many people have high cognitive
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Instructors could develop a class activity to demonstrate the knowing-doing gap. For
1.4 Where Does Talent Really Come From?
1.5 Identifying and Crafting Your Own Personal Brand
This Management Live discusses the idea of “branding” an individual in a way similar to
1) What is important to them personally for their own personal brands?
2) What kinds of things do they see online about their peers that could tarnish their brands?
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© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
The instructor might also lead a discussion of the frequency with which companies do online
searches of job applicants before hiring them.
TOOL KIT
1.1 Five Behavior-Focused Strategies to Improve Self-Management
Tool Kit 1.1 provides a list of 5 behavior-focused strategies to improve self-management.
1) Have you ever attempted to reach the goal you set before? How did your
experience this time differ from your earlier experiences?
2) How committed to achieving your goal were you when you set it? What role do
you think commitment plays in accomplishing individual goals?
3) Was there anyone who felt that the action planning process did not work for
them? Why do you think it didn’t work?
4) How did having a class goal influence your behavior with regard to your
individual goal? Would you use team goals along with individual goals in the
future?
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SUGGESTED ANSWERS FOR CASE STUDY DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
eHarmony
1. Self-awareness is important in this process because if people don’t know themselves it is
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2. Using a detailed survey, eHarmony pairs people based on interests, values, and
process are likely to drop out.
3. Taking surveys like those on eHarmony or the online Big Five measure can enhance self-
4. One advantage of self-reported assessments is that no one knows your own thoughts and
feelings like you do! Additionally, such assessments can pose questions that make us
5. Individual responses will vary. Some students might try to alter their profile to gain more
should probably start with the most important areas for improvement.
In a Near-Death Event, a Corporate Rite of Passage
1. Responses will vary. Some students may be surprised and encouraged to learn that John
to some new styles of communication like video blogging.
2. Setbacks and failures are part of achieving greatness according to Chambers. Everyone