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We’re still in introduction-land, some people didn’t register the venue change and turned up at the wrong place. Part of the seminar was house-keeping like agreeing to bringing communal snacks in order to survive the 6-9pm time slot.
So OB: the art of understanding, predicting and influencing organisational behaviour. I’m all for that. The introduction felt a lot like a soft science working very hard to establish itself as a ‘science’ – I remember this from my aborted psychology days! We briefly skimmed over globalisation and workplace diversity (more women in the workplace is a ‘trend’ and we’re ‘not going to touch *delicate shudder* sexual orientation’). There was a somewhat incongruous slide slagging off Gen Y and some talk about methodology, models, motivation and role perceptions. One interesting thing that stood out for me was talking about motivation and how you can provide all the situational triggers you want (money, attractive work environment, interesting work, praise etc.) but the motivation to be there and work has to come from the individual.
We talked about values and how organisations use values as hooks to align members with their goals/tasks then formed groups of seven and did a group activity called Crocodile River (reproduced in a separate post if you want to do the exercise, don’t look below the cut until you have). The stated goals of the exercise were to:
I feel giving an example of really crap behaviour with five characters and only one a woman made the exercise problematic, I felt it put the female character in the position of representing and being judged on behalf of all women. I felt the female character was an amalgamation of unpleasant stereotypes about women and it triggered very strong reactions. I felt uncomfortable arguing with the six men in my group that their unanimous choice of the female character as the most reprehensible was representative of some pretty unpleasant gender-based prejudice. I mean, it didn't stop me, but it was overwhelming.
What the exercise did achieve was to reinforce my pre-existing beliefs about the prevalence of inappropriate gendered behaviour in this culture and reduce my level of trust for the men of the group and the lecturer, I felt a discussion like that needed moderation and appropriate debrief. I have already given my version of the ‘do not use anti-woman language’ speech to one person and I feel… battered. It was high energy, but I feel the cost in terms of building group trust and establishing appropriate behaviour boundaries was too high.
The other notable event was 46 people trying to leave the building and having our swipe cards not work on any of the exits. A *cough* representative of the group eventually hit the ‘break glass to escape’ panel with a water bottle – effective but I’m feeling for the security guard who presumably turned up to deal with the aftermath and I am wondering why the need arose in the first place.
Next week: Personality, stereotyping and the Johari Window!
So OB: the art of understanding, predicting and influencing organisational behaviour. I’m all for that. The introduction felt a lot like a soft science working very hard to establish itself as a ‘science’ – I remember this from my aborted psychology days! We briefly skimmed over globalisation and workplace diversity (more women in the workplace is a ‘trend’ and we’re ‘not going to touch *delicate shudder* sexual orientation’). There was a somewhat incongruous slide slagging off Gen Y and some talk about methodology, models, motivation and role perceptions. One interesting thing that stood out for me was talking about motivation and how you can provide all the situational triggers you want (money, attractive work environment, interesting work, praise etc.) but the motivation to be there and work has to come from the individual.
We talked about values and how organisations use values as hooks to align members with their goals/tasks then formed groups of seven and did a group activity called Crocodile River (reproduced in a separate post if you want to do the exercise, don’t look below the cut until you have). The stated goals of the exercise were to:
- Introduce you to the field of organisational behaviour
- To help you realise the different perceptions, values and attitudes that people have on common, everyday happenings.
- To give you an opportunity to compare your values with those of the other MBA students in your class.
I feel giving an example of really crap behaviour with five characters and only one a woman made the exercise problematic, I felt it put the female character in the position of representing and being judged on behalf of all women. I felt the female character was an amalgamation of unpleasant stereotypes about women and it triggered very strong reactions. I felt uncomfortable arguing with the six men in my group that their unanimous choice of the female character as the most reprehensible was representative of some pretty unpleasant gender-based prejudice. I mean, it didn't stop me, but it was overwhelming.
What the exercise did achieve was to reinforce my pre-existing beliefs about the prevalence of inappropriate gendered behaviour in this culture and reduce my level of trust for the men of the group and the lecturer, I felt a discussion like that needed moderation and appropriate debrief. I have already given my version of the ‘do not use anti-woman language’ speech to one person and I feel… battered. It was high energy, but I feel the cost in terms of building group trust and establishing appropriate behaviour boundaries was too high.
The other notable event was 46 people trying to leave the building and having our swipe cards not work on any of the exits. A *cough* representative of the group eventually hit the ‘break glass to escape’ panel with a water bottle – effective but I’m feeling for the security guard who presumably turned up to deal with the aftermath and I am wondering why the need arose in the first place.
Next week: Personality, stereotyping and the Johari Window!