Leadership

Situational Model of Leadership
As a leadership model, the best known example was developed by Paul Hersey, a professor who wrote a well known book "Situational Leader" and Ken Blanchard, the management guru who later became famous for his "One Minute Manager" series. They created a model of situational leadership in the late 1960s in their work Management of Organizational Behavior (now in its 9th edition) that allows one to analyze the needs of the situation, then adopt the most appropriate leadership style. It has been proven popular with managers over the years because it is simple to understand, and it works in most environments for most people.
The model rests on two fundamental concepts; leadership style, and development level.
Leadership styles
Blanchard and Hersey characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and support that the leader provides to their followers. They categorized all leadership styles into four behavior types, which they named S1 to S4:
S1: Directing/Telling Leaders define the roles and tasks of the 'follower', and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way.
S2: Coaching/Selling Leaders still define roles and tasks, but seek ideas and suggestions from the follower. Decisions remain the leader's prerogative, but communication is much more two-way.
S3: Supporting/Participating Leaders pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower. The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower.
S4: Delegating Leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower. The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved.
Of these, no one style is considered optimal or desired for all leaders to possess. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation. However, each leader tends to have a natural style, and in applying situational leadership he must know his intrinsic style
Development levels
The right leadership style will depend on the person being led - the follower. Blanchard and Hersey extended their model to include the Development Level of the follower. They stated that the leader's chosen style should be based on the competence and commitment of his followers. They categorized the possible development of followers into four levels, which they named D1 to D4:
D1: Low Competence, High Commitment - They generally lack the specific skills required for the job in hand. However, they are eager to learn and willing to take direction.
D2: Some Competence, Low Commitment - They may have some relevant skills, but won't be able to do the job without help. The task or the situation may be new to them.
D3: High Competence, Variable Commitment - They are experienced and capable, but may lack the confidence to go it alone, or the motivation to do it well or quickly.
D4: High Competence, High Commitment - They are experienced at the job, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. They may even be more skilled than the leader.
Development Levels are also situational. A person might be generally skilled, confident and motivated in their job, but would still drop into Level D1 when faced, say, with a task requiring skills they don't possess. For example, many managers are D4 when dealing with the day-to-day running of their department, but move to D1 or D2 when dealing with a sensitive employee "issue"
The development level is now called the performance readiness level (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2008). It is based on the Development levels and adapted from Hersey's Situational Selling. Ron Campbell of the Center for Leadership Studies has expanded the continuum of follower performance to include behavioral indicators of each readiness level.
R1: Unable and Insecure or Unwilling - Follower is unable and insecure and lacks confidence or the follower lacks commitment and motivation to complete tasks.
R2: Unable but Confident or Willing - Follower is unable to complete tasks but has the confidence as long as the leader provides guidance, or the follower lacks the ability but is motivated and making an effort.
R3: Able but Insecure or Unwilling - Follower has the ability to complete tasks but is apprehensive about doing it alone or the follower is not willing to use that ability.
R4: Able and Confident and Willing - Follower has the ability to perform and is confident about doing so and is committed.
Leadership and development matching
Blanchard and Hersey said that the leadership style (S1 - S4) of the leader must correspond to the development level (D1 - D4) of the follower. Furthermore it is the leader who must adapt, not the follower. To get the most of situational leadership, a leader should be trained in how to operate effectively in various leadership styles, and how to determine the development level of others.
For an example of a mismatch, imagine the following scenario. A new person joins your team and you're asked to help him through the first few days. You sit him in front of a PC, show him a pile of invoices that need to be processed today and then excuse yourself to a meeting. He is at level D1, and you've adopted S4, an obvious mismatch. Everyone loses because the new person feels helpless and demotivated and you don't get the invoices processed.
For another example of a mismatch, imagine you're handing over your duties to an experienced colleague before you leave for a holiday. You've listed all the tasks that need to be done and given him a detailed set of instructions on how to carry out each one. He is at level D4, and you've adopted S1. The work will probably get done, but your colleague will despise you for treating him like an idiot.
But leave detailed instructions and a checklist for the new person, and they'll thank you for it. Give your colleague a quick chat and a few notes before you go on holiday, and everything will be fine. By adopting the right style to suit the follower's development level, work gets done, relationships are built, and most importantly, the follower's development level will rise, to everyone's benefit
SL II
In 1979 Ken Blanchard and wife, Marjorie Blanchard formed a separate company now called The Ken Blanchard Companies where they and a group of founding associates continue to work on further refinements to the original Situational Leadership Model. The development of Situational Leadership® II has been the collaborative work of Blanchard associates over the years (Ken Blanchard, Margie Blanchard, Don Carew, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Fred Finch, Laurie Hawkins, Drea Zigarmi, and Patricia Zigarmi).
The work of Drs. Don Carew and Eunice Parisi-Carew with Group Development theory was the initial impetus to change the original model. In particular, the Carews cited the extensive research of Lacousiere, who found there is a sequence to the stages of development that groups and teams go through over time. The initial stage is orientation (Stage 1), when group members first come together and are eager to participate, but are unsure of how to work together. Next comes the seemingly inevitable occurrence of dissatisfaction (Stage 2), as working together turns out to be more difficult than anticipated. If the group is able to work through this dissatisfaction, it moves into resolution or integration (Stage 3), where members learn how to work together. If interactions continue to improve, the group reaches the final stage of production (Stage 4). The Carews were able to show that the leadership styles needed to move a group through these stages correspond to the flow of the four leadership styles of Situational Leadership® II.
Style 1, Directing, is appropriate for orientation, where goals have to be made clear and roles defined. Style 2, Coaching, is necessary to move through the dissatisfaction stage, since the group still needs direction but now also needs support, encouragement, and listening behaviors. Once a group gets to the resolution or integration stage, the leader’s role could change to Style 3, Supporting, as a facilitator is needed. Now direction is provided by the group. Finally, in the production stage, an outside observer would not be able to determine the designated leader. Here, Style 4, Delegating, is appropriate.
The research influenced changes in the original model. The belief being that it is preferred to hire either winners—people who are experienced and already developed in a particular job and can operate effectively with an S3 or S4 style—or else potential winners who need to be trained. Potential winners, are often low in competence (knowledge and skills), but are high on commitment because of their initial motivation and eagerness to learn this particular job and their confidence in their learning capacity. Thus the second level of development/maturity should be “unable and unwilling” (some to low competence/low commitment) to correspond with the dissatisfaction stage of group development.
Again, consistent with the stages of group development. When people take on a new task where they are inexperienced, after awhile disillusionment sets in. They are often frustrated and overwhelmed—the task is much harder than they thought it would be because they need more time and energy to gain competence than they had anticipated. When that occurs, while they have some competence (more than they had in the beginning) their motivation and confidence drops.The new thinking required reconstructing the representation of the stages of development in order to depict individual growth that moved from an enthusiastic beginner to a disillusioned learner, on to a capable but cautious performer, and finally to a self-directed achiever. The result was a continuum from “developing” to “developed.”
(Courtesy: Wikipedia)

Communication

Issues discussed in the Class
What is communication?
Communication and Media Technologies
Interactive Communication in Organizations

What is Communication?
Communication is a learned skill. Most people are born with the physical ability to talk, but we must learn to speak well and communicate effectively. Speaking, listening, and our ability to understand verbal and nonverbal meanings are skills we develop in various ways. We learn basic Communication skills by observing other people and modeling our behaviors based on what we see. We also are taught some Communication skills directly through education, and by practicing those skills and having them evaluated.

Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way by both sender and receiver. It is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged, There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the use of writing. Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.

Communication is the articulation of sending a message, through different media whether it be verbal or nonverbal, so long as a being transmits a thought provoking idea, gesture, action, etc.
Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for most beings, as well as certain machines. Several, if not all, fields of study dedicate a portion of attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspects of communication one is speaking about. Definitions of communication range widely, some recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction.

Nonetheless, communication is usually described along a few major dimensions: Content (what type of things are communicated), source, emisor, sender or encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which medium), destination, receiver, target or decoder (to whom), and the purpose or pragmatic aspect. Between parties, communication includes acts that confer knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of communication. The form depends on the abilities of the group communicating. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person or being, another entity (such as a corporation or group of beings).

Communication and Media Technology: Telecommuting as an emerging phenomenon
Technology has overtaken personalized communication in recent years. Some of the media technologies are:
Telephone/Cell Phone
Email
Voice mail
Fax
Internet
Intranet
Audio-Visuals/CD-ROM
Wireless
An outgrowth of the communication technology explosion has led to a unique phenomenon called Telecommuting.
Telecommuting, e-commuting, e-work, telework, working at home (WAH), or working from home (WFH) is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Many work from home, while others, occasionally also referred to as nomad workers or web commuters utilize mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or myriad other locations.
The roots of telecommuting lay in early 1970s technology, linking satellite offices to downtown mainframes by dumb terminals using telephone lines as a network bridge. The massive ongoing decrease in cost and increase in performance and usability of personal computers forged the way to decentralize even further, moving the office to the home. By the early 1980s, these branch offices and home workers were able to connect to the company mainframe using personal computers and terminal emulation.

The adoption of local area networks promoted sharing of resources, and client server computing allowed for even greater decentralization. Today, telecommuters can carry laptop PCs around which they can use both at the office and at home (and almost anywhere else). Telecommuters are linked to their home office by using groupware, virtual private networks, and similar technologies to collaborate and interact with team members. As the price of VPN-capable routers, high-speed Internet connections to the home, and VOIP technology has plummeted in recent years, the cost to connect a telecommuter to their employer's intranet and telecommunications system has become negligible when compared with the operating costs of conventional offices.

Advantages of Telecommuting:
Advantages of Telecommuting for the organization include increasing retention rates, maximizing office space, reducing absenteeism, sick time, and overtime pay, increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction. Telecommuting allows the employee control over the work. Besides, it helps in reducing travel time and cost and thereby augments carbon footprints in a positive manner.

Disadvantages of Telecommuting:
Decreased face to face communication
Less opportunities for socialization at the workplace
Lesser control of the managers over their employees
Sense of loneliness
Absence of office support system
Alienation from organizational culture

Interactive Communication in Organizations
Interactive Communication in an organization refers to horizontal communication. It helps in coordinated and cross functional effort in achieving organizational goals. It is widely used in networked organizations.

There are many behavioural implications in the interactive process. Communication with peers, that is, with persons of relatively equal status on the same level in an organization, provides needed social support for an individual. People can more comfortably turn to a peer for social support than to those above or below.
Purpose and Methods of Interactive Communication
Task Coordination: HODs may hold meetings on regular intervals to discuss common issues
Problem solving:Members of a particular department may meet to solve a problem
Information sharing: Members of one department may meet the members of other departments to share some information
Conflict Resolution: Employees of different departments may meet to resolve a conflict.

Corporate and promotional storytelling

Effective communication skills are vital tools in business and corporate life. Storytelling training develops these skills enabling staff and executives to communicate with energy, impact and flair. Good storytellers are good communicators. They respond to an audience, large or small, with flexibility and creativity. They draw on an understanding of narrative structure, metaphor, characters and dialogue to present 'stories' in ways that each specific audience can connect with.
Stories and storytelling in all of its forms has survived and served us for so long because of the unique qualities of the story or the narrative form. Stories encapsulate information in a form that can be accessed by all ages and all cultures. Using the magic of the narrative form, stories can take complex sets of information and summarise and transform them into entertaining and engaging reports, proposals and scenarios.
Our corporate stories are just as important as our names and logo. The stories that customers tell about service, or that employees tell about their experience, can support or erode corporate plans and campaigns. Success stories, campaign stories, life stories, the corporate history, motivational stories, problem solving stories, inspirational stories - there are so many useful story forms that businesses and corporations can access and utilize.
The Power of Stories in the Corporate Environment
Stories and the way we tell them have provided insights into our individual and cultural values since we began telling them. In stories we find our history, our future dreams and our visions. Stories can present to the world our ideals and our motivations. If we know clearly what stories are being told about our projects, our organizations, our leaders then we can understand past events and organize future strategies more effectively.
Campaign stories, success stories, life stories, the corporate history, motivational stories, problem solving stories, inspirational stores - there are so many useful story forms that businesses and corporations can access and utilize.In a paper entitled ‘Organizational Story and Storytelling: A Critical Review’ in the Journal of Organizational Change, 1996, Mary E.Boyce, Professor, Dept. of Management & Business, Whitehead College, University of Redlands, California said, ‘Shared storytelling has a number of applications that warrant consideration by organizational members, managers, and practitioners.
These are:
(a) expressing the organizational experience of members or clients; (b) confirming the shared experiences and shared meaning of organizational members and groups within the organization; (c) orienting and socializing new organizational members; (d) amending and altering the organizational reality; (e) developing, sharpening, and renewing the sense of purpose held by organizational members; (f) preparing a group (or groups) for planning, implementing plans, and decision making in line with shared purposes; and (g) co-creating vision and strategy.’ Narrative The key to understanding stories can be found in the narrative structure - character, setting, problem and resolution. Just about all stories, true or fictional, can be interpreted in this way.
The human brain is wired to work with patterns of information and variations in patterns. Humans make good use of the narrative pattern in stories. We engage with them, relate them to previous stories we’ve heard, remember them easily and retell them when appropriate.Engaging narratives have: characters who come alive through interesting description and quotes; - settings that the reader can remember long after they have read the story because they have been described in just enough detail;- a problem or issue that needed to be overcome and that the audience can understand on an emotional level;- a solution or a resolution to the problem that makes a significant difference. Collecting stories & building relationshipsHow individual storytellers construct and tell their stories by including and excluding different characters, describing a setting, having characters interact, creating a problem and then resolving that problem can often tell us as much about the storyteller/s as it does about the components of the narrative.
Collecting project stories is an effective way of evaluating projects especially with regard to the human elements such as motivation and commitment of project teams. This process can bring submerged issues to the surface allowing new corporate learning. Retelling the stories of shared experiences whether pleasant or painful is also an effective way to build and maintain relationships.
Touchstone stories
Often these stories are written down and published or turned into jokes or anecdotes or even encapsulated in logos, symbols and icons. The Bell Telephone image of the linesman rejoining the phone line in the snow storm is a good example of a story that has so captured the imagination and motivation of a company that it has endured and achieved mythological status. It not only continues to motivate Bell employees but probably everyone who views it subconsciously creates their own version of the story imagining what it would be like to be the character in that storm setting. Touchstone stories like this one can inform an organisation’s vision, motivation, commitment and processes.
Just as important however, are the informal stories that are being told about an organization by customers and staff. The emotion being expressed in these stories can tell so much.
Organizational Storytellers
One of the skills of the professional storyteller is to model how to tell a story well. A good storyteller will: - describe and bring characters alive- provide enough detail of a setting so listeners/readers can imagine themselves there- include emotions, problems, challenges and dreams- tie up loose ends so that the stories feel resolved for the listener or reader. Sometimes however modelling is not enough to overcome culturalisation about not being creative or expressive that is so common in society today. So a storyteller comes equipped with a range of tools for establishing safety and for helping contributors to access their stories. The most important of these is being a good active, acknowledging listener. Telling stories under these conditions becomes an enjoyable and empowering experience for the participant. Enabling these stories to become published, distributed and celebrated provides valuable lessons and organisational resources for communities and corporations.
Storytelling is also an effective way to present complex reports for planning and decision making. Stories are like road maps. They provide a way of codifying information at the level of complexity necessary for the specific journey or scenario. They are infinitely flexible and adaptable to the need at hand. Findings can be encapsulated into the narrative form and presented in entertaining and thought provocative ways to planners and decision makers.
Present a problem or a set of results in an appropriate story form and it allows the listener or reader to leave the logical left hand brain in neutral for a while and go off on a creative right hand brain exploration of the possibilities. What the storyteller understands is what is an appropriate story for a particular audience and how to tell it so they can relax, suspend judgement and creatively enjoy the ride. Stories reveal. Stories motivate. Stories bind individuals into teams. Stories create solutions.
[Source: http://www.storytell.com.au/artnscorp2.html]

Introduction to Organizational Behaviour

What is an Organization?
Organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of a group of people, which functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve common goal or a set of goals.
Organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual or organizational goals.Organization is group of people with specific responsibilities acting together for achieving specific purpose.
Organization is a social arrangement that pursues collective goals.
Organization is a collection of people working together in a division of labour to achieve common purpose.
While Henry Fayol emphasized that the purpose of an organization was to get work done in a specialized, machine-like function, Peter Drucker proposed that ‘the organization is above all, social, it is people’.
According to Herbert Simon, an Organization influences its members by
Division of Labour
Standard Practices
Decision making
Communication
Training

What is behaviour?
Behaviour is the pattern of how a person responds to a stimulus.
Responses can be influenced by
Culture: the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.
Attitude: a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's like or dislike for an item; mental position relative to a way of thinking or being. The current popular usage of attitude implies a negative mindset, a "chip on the shoulder" behavior, and an inner anger toward the prevailing majority of thought.
Emotion: a feeling that is private and subjective; a state of psychological arousal an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses.
Values: beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)
Ethics: response based on what is right; the process of determining how one should hold the interests of various stakeholders, taking into account moral values/principles
Authority: the power or right to give orders or make decisions
Coercion: obtaining a response by use force; compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats/intimidation
Persuasion: obtaining a response by convincing a person; the process of guiding people toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic (though not always logical) means. It is strategy of problem-solving relying on "appeals" rather than force.
Genetics: inherited from parents; pertaining to genes or any of their effects.

What is Organizational Behaviour?
A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structures have on behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organization’s effectiveness.–Stephen P Robbins
Organizational Behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour in organizations.–Fred Luthans
An academic discipline concerned with understanding and describing human behaviour in an organizational environment. (This definition seeks to shed light on the whole complex human factor in organizations by identifying causes and effects of behaviour)–Keith Davis
A systematic study of the nature of organizations: how they begin, grow, and develop and their influence on individuals, groups, organizations and institutions.–Joe Kelly
A field that seeks knowledge of behaviour in organizational settings by systematically studying individual, group and organizational processes.–Baron & Greenberg

The academic discipline of Organizational Behavior encompasses three broad areas:
Behavior of People in Organizations OB draws on psychology, anthropology and sociology to gain insight into the behavior of individuals in organizational settings. Topics studied include:perception, cognition, learningpersonality and motivationleadership, power, conformity, communicationdecision making
Organizational Structure Organizations consist of people organized to achieve organizational goals (like manufacture cars). One of the most important strategic elements of an organization is its structure: how the people are arranged so as to produce what the organization produces. Topics include:task identification and division of labordepartmentationcoordination and control mechanismsprocesses and procedures, such as promotion, hiring policies, compensationorganizational form (e.g., bureaucracy)size centralization of decision-making, the relationships among these variables
Behaviour of organizations Just as we can study the interactions of individuals with the organization and with each other, we can also study the interactions of organizations with their environments, which include individual citizens and other organizations including the government. Some of the behaviors of organizations that we are interested in include:adoption of new practices such asdownsizingteam-based structuredomestic partner benefits (e.g., partners of gay employees get full medical coverage)re-engineeringenvironmental protection ("green" practices)adaptation to changing conditionsglobal competitionincreasing pace of technological changechanging social structure (e.g., status of women)

Why to study Organizational Behaviour?
Organizational Behaviour facilitates the process of explaining, understanding, predicting, maintaining and changing employee behaviour in an organizational setting.Organizational Behaviour focuses on five levels of analysis:
Individual
Inter-personal
Group
Organizational
Environmental
Study of Organizational Behaviour becomes important because of broad nature and scope of the subject:
Organizational Behavioour is Inter-disciplinary: It integrates knowledge from various relevant disciplines e.g. Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Medical Science, Engineering etc.
Organizational Behaviour is an Applied Science: It is oriented towards understanding the forces that affect behaviour so that their influences can be predicted, monitored and guided towards better and effective functioning of the organization.
Organizational Behaviour uses Scientific Methods: It follwos the scientific methods and uses logical theory in its investigation and answering the research questions. It is empirical, interpretative, critical and creative science.
Behavioural Orientation: It is directly connected with the human side of management. More precisely, it looks at all the management functions from behavioural perspective.
Contingency Approach: There are few absolutes in Organizational Behaviour. The approach is directed towards developing managerial actions that are most appropriate for a specific situation.

Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Behaviour
Responding to globalization
Shifting Work/Employment Relationships
Work-life balance
Empowering people
Ethical behaviour
Responding to labour shortage
Improving people skill
Managing workforce diversity
Improving Quality and Productivity

Shifting Work-Employment Relationship

Robotized workplaces
Unmanned workstation
Officeless work
Open 24 hours, 24X7
Contract for work –Contract of work
Employed worker—Independent Contractor
Permanent—Temporary
Office—Home
Fixed—Flexible working hours
Jobs as property—Jobs as prosperity
Lifetime employment—Lifetime employability
Single task/career—multiple task career
Individual—Team
Functional—Cross-functionalManagers–Facilitators
Autonomous hierarchies—Independent Partnerships
Employee as a servant—Employee as a partner
Loyalty—Competence
Control—Commitment
Direction—Empowerment

Groups and Teams

Concept of Group
Edgar Schein has defined group as a collection of people who interact with each other, are psychologically aware of each other, and who perceive themselves to be in a group. A work group meets these criteria, but in addition, the members have task-centred goals. Interestingly, while the group members support each other, they each have their own area of responsibility for which they are individually accountable. In comparison, a work team is composed of members with complementary skill who are involved in a common set of goals for which they are collectively accountable.
On the other hand, Jennifer & Gareth have defined a group as a set of two or more people who interact with each other to achieve certain goals or meet certain needs.
Interaction and common purpose are important elements of any group. The group goals bind the members together.
Thus a group or a work group has the following features:
It has a common goal;
There is constant interaction among members;
Each member identifies with the group;
Members are interdependent;
Members are emotionally connected.

Why people form groups?
Broadly speaking, people form groups for the following reasons:
Psychological need: People want to align themselves with other individuals having identical interests, attitudes, personality, perception etc.Socio-cultural need: Individuals join the groups to be identified with their social class, caste, religion, region, ethnicity, culture etc.
Security need: People need a support system to meet the contingencies of life like sickness, disablement, financial crisis, termination etc. Groups serve as an important support system for the people.
Theories of Group Formation
Groups are formed due to Propinquity: This is the basic theory of group formation. Propinquity means that people form groups because of spatial or geographical proximity. In an organization, employees who share their workstations are more likely to combine as a group. However, this theory has been criticized in the wake of globalization and internet revolution that facilitate group formation without proximity or face-to-face interactions.
Groups are formed due to activities, interactions and sentiments (Classic Theory of Group Formation): This theory has been propounded by George Homans who suggests that the more activities the persons share, the more numerous will be the interactions and the stronger will be their sentiments. Similarly, the more interactions among the persons, the more will be their shared activities and sentiments; and the more sentiments persons have for one another, the more will be interactions and shared activities.
Groups are formed due to similar attitudes towards commonly relevant objects and goals (Balance Theory of Group Formation): This theory has been proposed by Thoedore Newcomb who suggests that persons are attracted to one another on the basis of similar attitudes and values related to religion, politics, lifestyle, marriage, work, authority etc. Once the relationship is formed, the participants strive to maintain a symmetrical balance between the attraction and the common attitudes and values.
Groups are formed reward-cost-outcomes of interactions ((Exchange Theory of Group Formation): this theory has been propounded by John W Thibaut and Harold H Kelley who suggest that a minimum positive level (rewards greater than costs) of an outcome must exist for the formation of a group. Rewards from interactions gratify needs whereas costs incur anxiety, frustration, embarrassment, or fatigue.

Types of Groups
Groups are broadly categorized as Formal and Informal. Some scholars have also categorized the groups as primary group, peer group and reference group.
Formal Work Groups:
Command group: It is an association of employees who report to the same supervisor.
Command groups are based on the basic reporting relationship in any organization. The existence of such groups is represented on organizational charts as departments e.g. Finance Department, Personnel Department, etc,
Committees: People with diverse backgrounds are brought together to accomplish a particular goal. They may not report to the same supervisor and may not be at the same level in organizational hierarchy.
Team: (explained later)
Self-managed teams: (explained later)
Informal Work Groups
Friendship/Peer Groups: People who enjoy each other’s company and love to socialize form their own groups in an organization. They join hands to meet their needs of socialization besides developing a strong support system to help each other in times of crisis.
Interest Groups: Employees may form interest groups when they have a common interest or goal to achieve in an organization. Because of the common interests, it helps the members to unite and voice their concerns in a powerful manner.

Stages of Group Formation
Forming: This is the first stage in the development of a group. At this stage, the members try to know each other and establish common understanding among them. They struggle to clarify group goals and determine appropriate behaviour. The forming stage is said to be complete when the members are fully integrated to identify themselves with the group.
Storming: This stage is characterized by disagreements and conflicts among group members. This stage ends up with greater mutual understanding and clarity of goals and roles of various members.
Norming: At this stage, the members really start feeling that they belong to the group. They develop very close intimacy and relationship with each other. A well-developed sense of common purpose of the group emerges among the members who also agree on standards/norms to guide the behaviour/interaction amongst themselves.
Performing: The real work of the group gets done at this stage.
Adjourning: Once the group has accomplished its goals, it gets dissolved. However, a number of permanent work groups remain at Performing stage although new members join when old ones leave.

Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness is a condition when the group appears to be very attractive to its members; individuals value their group membership, and have a very strong willingness to retain membership of the group.
Factors increasing group cohesiveness
Agreement on goals
Frequency of interactions
Personal attractiveness
Inter-group competition
Favourable evaluation
Factors decreasing group cohesiveness:
Disagreement
Large size of the group
Unpleasant experiences
Intra-group competition
Domination by any one member
Impact of group cohesiveness on productivity
Stanley Schachter, Norris Ellertson, Dorothy McBride and Doris Gregory have studeied the impact of group cohesiveness on productivity. They have defined cohesiveness as the average resultant force acting on members in a group. They have suggested four possible combinations having a bearing on productivity of the group:
High cohesive, positive induction
Low cohesive, positive induction
High cohesive, negative induction
Low cohesive, negative induction
On the basis of their study, they have developed a pitchfork productivity curve, which suggests that productivity depends more on how the group is induced (positive or negative) rather than cohesiveness itself. A highly cohesive group or a less cohesive group with positive induction provides a higher productivity. Leadership decides how a group can be positively or negatively induced.

Roles assumed by group members:
In the context of groups, role may be defined as a position that evolves from established norms. Leigh L Thompson talks about five roles that a member of a group can assume:
The boundary spanner who acts as a facilitator and bridge between units or groups which would not otherwise interact.
The buffer who protects and filters negative or disappointing news and information that might cause group members to be upset and cause morale to suffer.
The lobbyist who promotes and tells others how successful and important the group is to the outsiders.
The negotiator who is empowered by the group to act on its behalf and to get resources and make deals.
The spokesman who is the voice of the group.

Dysfunctions of the Groups
Dysfunction of the groups implies any aberration in the group processes and functions such as leadership issues, lack of coordination, misunderstanding, disengagement, deliberate withholding of efforts, etc. Dysfunctions of the group are caused due to norms’ violation/role ambiguity, groupthink/conformity problem and social loafing.
Norms’ violation and role ambiguity:Violation of group norms that are set by the members themselves lead to dysfunction of the group. Moreover, in case the members are not clear about their roles, they may not contribute their mite towards achieving group goals. Role ambiguity occurs due to unclear job descriptions, incomplete orders, and inexperience. Sometimes role conflicts arise especially when a member is asked to perform conflicting tasks or settings or to perform a task that conflicts his personal values.
Groupthink and Conformity problem:Irving Janis believes that group pressures lead to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment. Indeed, groupthink is the tendency of the group members to seek consensus and ignore/suppress alternative ideas or minority viewpoints especially when faced with some crisis situation. The result of groupthink can be poor quality decisions because it discourages full assessment of the problem, thorough information search, and proper evaluation of a wide range of alternatives. According to Janis, following are the symptoms of Groupthink:Illusion of invulnerability: nothing can happen to the group, none can ever hurt/damage the group.
Unquestioned belief: rationalizing information that contradicts the group’s beliefs/opinionSelf-censorship: self-imposed restrictions of the group members
Illusion of unanimity: belief that there is total unanimity on any issue in the group whereas there might be unvoiced concerns.
Self-appointed mind-guards: protect the group from contradictory information
Intra-group stereotyping: negative stereotypes of group membersAnother problem associated with groupthink is that group pressures lead the individuals/minority subgroups within the group into conformity that ultimately results in group dysfunction.
Social Loafing: It is a unique condition in the entire group process where members reduce their efforts or performance levels. Following factors are attributed to social loafing:
Role ambiguity
Task being not intrinsically motivating
Difficulty in identifying individual contribution due to large size of the group
Sucker effect: not wanting to do more than perceived efforts of other members.

Teams at modern workplaces
Teams have turned out to be instrumental in providing competitive edge to the corporate houses across the globe. Toyota, Motorola, General Electric, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard etc pioneered the concept of teams at modern workplaces. Interestingly, most of the Fortune 1000 companies use project teams (diverse managerial/professional employees working on projects for a defined, but typically extended period of time. Moreover, a large number of them use parallel teams (employees working on problem-solving or quality teams in parallel to the regular organizational structure). Besides, many of the Fortune 1000 companies have permanent work teams (self-contained work-units responsible for manufacturing products or providing services.

How work groups and teams are different?
The work group has a strong, clearly focused leader; the team has shared leadership roles.
The work group has individual accountability; the team has individual and mutual accountability.
The work group’s purpose is the same as the organization’s; the team has a specific purpose.
The work group has individual work products; the team has collective work products.
The work group runs structured meetings; the team encourages open ended, active, problem solving meetings.
The work group measures effectiveness indirectly (for example, financial performance of the overall business); the team measures performance directly by assessing collective work products.
The work group discusses, decides and delegates; the team discuses, decides and does real work.

Types of Teams
Cross-functional teams These teams are made up of individuals from various departments or functional specialties. It is possible to reduce the time needed to get things done while simultaneously augmenting productivity and profit margins by combining the abilities and skills of individuals. Success of the cross-functional teams however depends on the following factors: Selection of suitable members
Clarity of purpose of the team
Fair understanding of group functions by each member
Team-building
Achievement of noticeable results
Virtual teams are groups of people who work interdependently with shared purpose across space, time and organizational boundaries, using Information Technology to operate and collaborate without face-to face interactions with each other. Tools that they use include e-mails, chat-room, virtual community/group etc.
Self-managed teams A self-managed team is a group of employees who are responsible for managing and performing technical tasks that result in a product or service being delivered to an internal or external customer. Self-managed teams at Hewlett-Packard and Harley-Davidson are empowered to hire, organize and purchase equipments without prior approval of the management. And outcomes at both the companies are indeed very flattering.
A number of empirical studies indicate that self-managed teams have led to increased job satisfaction, higher productivity, better customer service, and organizational commitment. However there are a few issues that lead to failure of self-managed teams:
Reluctance of the team members to give up their past practices and set aside their power and position
Skill disparity among the members.
Sucker effect
Personal belief-system being in conflict with that of the team.

How to make teams more effective?
Team building
Team building (GE Model)
1. Establish credibility: the trainers must establish their knowledge and credentials
2. Allow ventilation: the trainees should be provided with ample opportunities to clear off their anxieties and unresolved issues before the training begins
3. Provide an orientation: the trainers should give specific verbal directions and provide clear expectations and models of behaviour
4. Invest in the process: help the team in identifying its problems and concerns
5. Set group goals: let the trainees create their own mission statement and then set specific goals and specific activities and behaviour to accomplish these goals
6. Facilitate the group process: let trainees learn how group functions
7. Establish intra-group procedures: help trainees set up a meeting format that might include reporting minutes, making announcements, discussing problems, proposing solutions, taking action and making new assignments
8. Establish inter-group processes: let the trainees select a leader to interact with other teams
9. Change the role of the trainers
10. End the trainer’s involvement

While the GE model of Team-building is quite structured method, the following are equally relevant for augmenting effectiveness of teams as proposed by Fred Luthans:
Establishing a sense of partnership
Attractive work arrangement
Sharing of collective intelligence
Well-defined goals
Creating a learning organization
Developing a bond among the team-members
Collaboration

Collaboration
The process of collaboration involves learning how to improve interpersonal interactions in group settings while committing to a common agenda. Collaboration is a structured, recursive process where two or more people work together toward a common goal—typically an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require leadership and can even bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.Essential Competencies for Collaborative Partnerships: Ten Lessons (taken from http://www.medscape.com/medscapetoday)
Lesson #1: Know thyself. Many realities exist simultaneously. Each person's reality is based on self-developed perceptions. Requisite to trusting self and others is in knowing your own mental model (biases, values, and goals).
Lesson #2: Learn to value and manage diversity. Differences are essential assets for effective collaborative processes and outcomes.
Lesson #3: Develop constructive conflict resolution skills. In the collaborative paradigm, conflict is viewed as natural and as an opportunity to deepen understanding and agreement.
Lesson # 4: Use your power to create win-win situations The sharing of power and the recognition of one's own power base is part of effective collaboration.
Lesson #5: Master interpersonal and process skills. Clinical competence, cooperation, and flexibility are the most frequently identified attributes important to effective collaborative practice.
Lesson #6: Recognize that collaboration is a journey. The skill and knowledge needed for effective collaboration take time and practice. Conflict resolution, clinical excellence, appreciative inquiry, and knowledge of group process are all life-long learning skills.
Lesson #7: Leverage all multidisciplinary forums. Being present both physically and mentally in team forums can provide an opportunity to assess how and when to offer collaborative communications for partnership building.
Lesson #8: Appreciate that collaboration can occur spontaneously. Collaboration is a mutually established condition that can happen spontaneously if the right factors are in place.
Lesson #9: Balance autonomy and unity in collaborative relationships. Learn from your collaborative successes and failures. Becoming part of an exclusive team can be as bad as working in isolation. Be willing to seek feedback and admit mistakes. Be reflective, willing to seek feedback, and admit mistakes for dynamic balance.
Lesson #10: Remember that collaboration is not required for all decisions. Collaboration is not a panacea, nor is it needed in all situations.

Group Leadership
Leadership is concerned with control and power in a group. Leadership can be aimed at either maintaining the interpersonal relationships in the group or prodding the group to achieve its task. Groups will sometimes have two leaders: one for the social dimension and one for the task dimension. There are also three main perspectives on leadership. First, some researchers believe some people are born with traits that will make them a good leader. A second perspective is that the group's leader selects an appropriate leadership style for the given task. A third way of understanding leadership says that to some degree, leaders are born with traits that make them good leaders, but that they also learn how to become a leader and use strategies appropriate to a given situation.

Understanding of cultural issues in global situations
Today, most of the teams/groups have to operate in multi-cultural settings. As culture shapes our inter-personal relations to a great extent, it is very important to understand cultural nuances of the team-members for effective collaboration.An illustration of unique cultural traits:Why workers in China laugh when you point out mistakes? (Economic Times, 14 December 2007) “Can you increase my salary?” This is a question, which is almost a taboo at workplaces in India. However, in China, this is something, which one hears often. And it comes from those employees who want to stick around with a company, make a career with it and contribute to its growth. Another example is at the time of recruitment. Having gone through the entire process, it is quite possible that the candidate will come back and ask for a higher salary, because “the job requires much more work than what I thought before.” Chinese employees have a practical approach towards reciprocity - what they give to the company and what they get in return.This is usually preceded by a high degree of commitment towards work, done in a manner which is not showy at all. Chinese personnel go about their work in a methodical manner. While it is common to see employees put in long hours in India, the key difference in China is that the long hours are put in with the sole intent of getting the job completed, rather than make a show of work, or staying in the office till the boss is there.Normally, sub-ordinates do not badger superiors too much and will try and finish the tasks assigned to them clinically. However, once in a while, it is essential to listen to sub-ordinates - and not give them advice, unless asked. When they talk, one must have a willing ear (and open mind) for a whole lot of stuff, which might seem like a confused state of mind. Quite infrequently, they will ask the superior for a solution to a problem. It is essential to give a specific answer rather than present them with options. If they could decide among a given set of alternatives, they would not have approached the superior.A significant difference between China and India, especially at middle and senior management levels, is to bring the issue to closure. With great language and analytical skills, one often sees an Indian manager spend inordinate time in scoring an “intellectual victory”; the tactic employed in China is to cut to the chase and reach a solution as quickly as possible. Intellectual victories do not count for much in this scheme of things.Multi-tasking is an alien concept in a typical Chinese workplace, in as much as taking a horse to the water, but being unable to force it to drink (these being two separate tasks). This is something which unnerves most expatriate bosses in China, especially those from India, who are used to intelligent young men and women handling a plethora of tasks deftly and without any qualms.Chinese employees will not undertake a task unless they are confident of doing it well and without mistakes. They will also spend a fair bit of time in understanding what is required - much more than their Indian counterparts. This philosophy is quite different from what exists in India, where we hardly say “no” to our bosses. However, Multi-tasking can be developed in a Chinese employee by giving them a situation to handle and letting them complete it to fruition. There is a strong need to build upon small successes.Training takes on a special meaning in the Chinese work environment. It is highly coveted among the work-force, more so at junior and middle levels. Being nominated for training is interpreted as a strong affirmation of the value that the company is placing on the particular employee and hence generates a disproportionately high airtime in conversations around the water coolers. If the training is being conducted overseas, or is being conducted locally but by “foreign” trainers, it makes for excellent bragging rights. That is why it is not uncommon for employees to be constantly discussing “training-needs” with their superiors.There is an interesting example of some behavioural aspects of Chinese people. In XYZ Limited, a senior manager, Mr Mathur, had come from India on a short assignment in technology. One day, he was quite upset with one of his Chinese sub-ordinates, Wang Ling. On further enquiry, it was revealed that the aforesaid Chinese employee had made a mistake and when Mathur has asked him an explanation, Wang just stood in front of him and kept smiling. Slowly, Mathur’s temperature went up, as the smile turned into laughter (the fact that Mathur did not know any Chinese didn’t help matters much either).When Mathur could not take it anymore, he took this matter to the CEO, Mr Sharma. The latter, having relatively more experience in China, decided to tread the path carefully and talked to some other senior Chinese employees to find out the reason for this apparently bizarre behaviour of Wang. It so emerged that when Chinese employees makes a mistake, they are so embarrassed that they would like to laugh the matter away and try to lighten up the environment. You can rest assured that they will never commit that mistake again, by being absolutely focused on the job thereafter.Do not ask them and they will not tell you: this is an almost Universal dictum which is prevalent across all kinds of organizations - more so in state-owned enterprises. Even if there is a serious problem which can bring down a company, the information is given to the superior only at the last minute; at which time, the sinking ship can be saved only at a high cost. No wonder this can leave many a manager pulling his hair in exasperation. The plausible reasons for this lie much deeper.The Chinese try to solve the problem themselves, even if it means going through endless rounds of re-work and mistakes. They just cannot come up to their superior and admit defeat - it is tantamount to losing face. This is an integral part of the centuries old Chinese culture and is an all-pervading phenomenon of the business environment of China.Do only your job and turn a blind eye to whatever else is happening around you: this is the result of the strictly hierarchical work system in China, which has got further conditioned by a work-to-instruction culture. Tell them what to do in clear and unambiguous terms, and your Chinese employees can perhaps become the best this world can have. That said, investment in people always pays handsomely in the end - and the same is true for China. One has to travel a long and arduous journey towards developing excellent first-line managers, but there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.

Syllabus

Introduction to Organizational Behaviour
What is OB?
Why to Study OB?
Challenges and Opportunities
Developing an OB Model
Organizational Structure
What is Organizational Structure?
Determinants of Organizational Designs
Organizational Designs
Corporate Restructuring
Organizational Culture
What is Organizational Culture?
Creating and Sustaining Organizational Culture
Groups and Teams
Concept of Groups
Why people form groups?
Stages of group formation Group structure
Group decision-making
Difference between groups and teams
Why teams are important?
Creating high performing teams
Communication
What is Communication?
Communication and Media Technology
Interactive Communication in Organization
Decision-making
Decision-making Process
Decision rationality
Models of Behavioural Decision-making
Leadership
What is leadership?
Leadership in the new environment
Leadership stylesLeadership skills