Organisational Behaviour #1 - Introduction

[samvara]

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:

1. Introduce you to the field of organisational behaviour
2. To help you realise the different perceptions, values and attitudes that people have on common, everyday happenings.
3. To give you an opportunity to compare your values with those of the other MBA students in your class.

The results were... challenging. I was in a group with six men who all felt Abigail was easily the most reprehensible and Slug the least. After some heated discussion in which I argued that 'beat him brutally' was more reprehensible than 'was unfaithful and vindictive' we then argued about how to rank Sinbad and Gregory, the guys were quite keen on Sinbad, they felt he was 'honest, upfront and practical' and that he 'provided a service for a price', my view that he was a blackmailer and a sexual predator was hard to put across in a way that made sense to them. They were also quite sympathetic to Gregory who was 'honest and principled' *grins* I felt he was passive and judgemental! I heard people using words like ‘bitch,’ biatch’ (sp?), ‘hysterical’ ‘crazy’ ‘woman scorned’ and so on and much of the discussion felt into heated gender lines.

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!

Comments

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

*So* interesting. I hope you continue to write up your classes!

[angriest.livejournal.com]

That is a really badly written hypothetical. I just wrote my answer in the other post, but oh my word it's an awful exercise for pretty much the reasons you describe.

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

That was almost exactly the conversation we had about Tess of the D'Urbervilles in Year 12. (Tess = Abigail, Angel = Gregory, Alec = Sinbad). I actively disliked a lot of the boys in my class after that discussion. It's horrible that the line of thought that 16 year old boys took is still the line of reasoning in an MBA class.

I honestly thought that the one that wouldn't help at all would be the easiest to work with - he basically poses no personal threat with Sinbad being the most threatening, because his way of 'practical straightforward trade' is the one that makes you complicit in your own humiliation.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

the person i want to work with least is the facilitator for using such an inappropriate, possibly triggery example.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty bad example. I think this is a case of using sex and sexual mores in a bad way, which reinforces the status quo rather than making the participants learn something and question the status quo.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

This is the sort of thing that gets me into trouble with the organisers of these kinds of events. I tend to break from the group entirely and present the flaws directly to the facilitator - which usually does not go down well, because they are not equipped to take criticism.

Why are they not equipped? Because they usually did not prepare the material or understand the theories behind it. They are usually - to be blunt - actors, and not very good ones. They are presenting material with no real knowledge beyond the script, so when the script itself is challenged, they do not have an appropriate response pre-learned.

To offer a slightly less confronting example:

A couple of years back our team at work was sent on a 'team building' exercise. Part of it consisted of being handed $50 and being told to gamble it at the casino. I objected to this on moral grounds, and most of the team agreed with me until the facilitator stated that the team would not pass if it did not do as instructed. I took the matter up as being a significant failing in the exercise - and got blank looks from the organisers. They could not comprehend that there could be an objection to it. They could not even handle the concept of the possibility of compulsive gamblers in the group! They simply could not cope.

My own manager, OTOH, did take notice, and, oddly enough, we have never used that company again.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Thank you - it will be good practice for me to review/summarise as well :)