Influencing Organizational Events

Influencing Organizational Events

It’s nice to understand and predict organizational events, but most of us want to influence the environment in which we live. Whether you are a marketing specialist or a computer programmer, you need to know how to communicate effectively with others, manage conflict, make better decisions, build commitment to your ideas, help work teams operate more effectively, and so on. OB knowledge will help you influence organizational events. Most organizational behavior scholars take this prescriptive view by concluding their systematic research with specific recommendations for organizational action.

This articles takes the view that organizational behavior knowledge is for everyone – not just managers. Indeed, as organizations reduce layers of management and delegate more responsibilities to the rest of the employees, the concepts described in this articles will become increasingly important for anyone who works in and around organizations. We all need to understand organizational behavior and to master the practices that influence organizational events. That’s why you won’t find very much emphasis here on “management”. Yes, organizations will continue to have managers (“adult supervision,” as young employees cynically call them), but their roles have changed. More important, many employees are now expected to manage themselves. As one forward-thinking organizational behavior scholar wrote many years ago: Everyone is a manager.

Satisfying the Need to Understand and Predict

Satisfying the Need to Understand and Predict

All of us have an inherent need to know about the world in which we live. This is particularly true in organizations because of their profound effect on our lives. We feel more comfortable when we can understand why organizational events occur and accurately anticipate future events. The field of organizational behavior uses systematic study to help us understand and predict organizational life. OB’s crystal ball isn’t perfectly clear because human behavior is influenced by a complex combination of factors. Nevertheless, OB helps us make sense of the workplace and, to some extent, predict what people will do under various conditions.

The OB knowledge presented in this book also gives you the opportunity to question and rebuild your personal theories that have developed through observation and experience. For example, what theories do you hold about effective leadership? Look at “It All Makes Sense,” the Self-Assessment Exercise at the end of this chapter. How many of these theoretical statements are true? Even if you answer most of them correctly, the information you will read in this book can further develop and crystallize your personal beliefs so that they more accurately model and predict organizational behavior.