OB & HRM Notes 2020/21

Introduction & Overview

People with social skills tend to:

● Earn higher wages (controlling for determinants of wages)
● Work in occupations with less routine tasks
● Earn higher wages in those
occupations

“Nearly all job growth since 1980 has

been in occupations that are relatively
social-skill intensive, while jobs that
require high levels of analytical and
mathematical reasoning, but low levels
of social interaction, jobs that are
comparatively easy to automate, have
fared relatively poorly” [David J. Deming,
NBER, 2018]

Definition: An organisation is a group of people that work independently towards some

purpose

Definition: Organisational behaivour (OB) is the study of human behaivour in organisational

settings, the interface between human behaivour and the organisation, and the organisation
itself.

OB can be categorised as micro (individuals in organisations) or macro (organisational).

Differences in problem solving arise from different approaches:
● Top-down – from organisations to individuals
● Bottom up – from individuals to organisations

Work:
● POOLED – simple process, where work is done independently by different people
● SEQUENTIAL – more complex, work is passed between departments in a linear
fashion
● RECIPROCAL – most complex, all people working on the same thing @ same time

Case study: Sam Cunningham

● Sam is toxic, not team oriented and does not respect

Individual problems the rules and regs of organisation
● Comfortable clone syndrome?
● Not well integrated / overlapping sales territories
Organisational problems
● Formal penalties lacking

Individual solutions
Organisational solutions
● Poorly defined roles
● Perhaps people don’t respect ES and SC because of
age/tenure/gender etc
● Better feedback processes
● Explore individual strategy + create skill set for
employees that align e.g. create a specific role for
Sam
● Collect data of revenue before and after Sam
● Clearer processes for custom requests
● Team based incentive systems
● Socialising and training to enable integration

Pre-reading: The Congruence Model (HBS)

Organisations are complex systems with interconnections and interdependence between the
different parts. The congruence model is a tool that helps us consider how the different
parts of an organisation come together. It presents a useful framework for identifying and
addressing opportunity and performance gaps that may stand in the way of optimal
organisational performance.
● Opportunity gaps – misalignment between environment and organisations strategy
o Can be addressed by designing strategy to exploit opportunities
● Performance gaps – misalignment between strategy and realised output

The alignment of work processes, culture, people and structure is critical for maximum
performance. Any change in one element is likely to offset the balance in another element.
The congruence model can be used for self-evaluation.

External evaluation can use certain criteria:

1. Goal attainment (how well a firm meets its strategy)
2. Resource utilisation (efficiency)
3. Adaptability

How to apply the congruence model in practice:

1. Identify the performance gaps at unit-level
2. Describe critical tasks and work processes
3. Check for organisational congruency with other elements
4. Develop solutions and take corrective action
 5. Observe the response and learn from the consequences

Personality, Individual Differences & Decision Making

Self-monitoring: the extent to which you are aware of the way other people see you. It is a
personality trait that refers to an ability to regulate behaviour to accommodate social
situations. It is highly correlated with successful managers and higher emotional instability.

Pre-reading: Putting Your Whole Company’s Brain to Work (Leonard & Straus)

Managers who dislike conflict or who value only their own approach often fall victim to the
comfortable clone syndrome, surrounding themselves with people who think alike and who
share similar interests and training.

Cognitive differences are varying approaches to perceiving and assimilating data, making
decisions, solving problems, and relating to other people. These are preferences and can be
a choice.
● Left brained thinking = analytical, logical and sequential approach to problems
● Right brained thinking = intuitive, values-based and non linear approach

Creative abrasion is the productive result of those with different perspectives working
together. To achieve creative abrasion you must:

1. Do your own profile first

o Become familiar with the ways in which your preferences shape your leadership
and patterns of communication
2. Create “whole brained” teams
o Identify the styles that are missing so you’ll know what to focus on e.g. At Nissan
Design, Jerry Hirschberg hires designers in pairs – a free-form thinker and
alongside someone more analytical
3. Employ strategies that exploit the team’s full spectrum of approaches (e.g. make sure
everyone in the group is talking)
4. Actively manage the creative process
o Take time to acknowledge teammates’ differences
o Devise clear simple guidelines for working together
o Keep the project goal in sight
o Disagreement is allowed if rationale is explained
o Create time for both divergent and convergent thinking
o Don’t treat members the way you wish to be treated
o Depersonalise conflict – be hard on the issue, soft on the person

TO INNOVATE SUCCESSFULLY, YOU MUST HIRE, WORK WITH, AND PROMOTE PEOPLE WHO
ARE UNLIKE YOU.

Pre-reading: Can personality be changed? (Dweck CS)

Acquired beliefs (self-theories) can play a critical role in how well people function.
“Some people have a fixed theory, believing that their qualities, such as their
intelligence, are simply fixed traits. Others have a malleable theory, believing that
their most basic qualities can be developed through their efforts and education.
Research shows that people with a malleable theory are more open to learning,
willing to confront challenges, able to stick to difficult tasks, and capable of bouncing
back from failures.”

e.g. when students are praised for intelligence they move towards a fixed theory, but when
they are praised for their thinking process they take a more malleable theory

Furthermore, managing peoples expectations can be critical. If people expect to be accepted

they are more likely to engage in motivational, self-regulatory and interpersonal patterns.

Conclusion – When beliefs can be changed then personality can change too! [ADAPTIVE
FUNCTIONING]

Definition: Personality is the relatively stable way of thinking, feeling, and acting that make a
person unique. It is often determined by genetics and environment.

Your personality does not change over time as it is a preference for how you understand and
interact with information

Locus of control: the degree to which people believe they have control over the outcomes of
events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control.
Internal: people who base their success on their own work
External: people who attribute their success/failure on external influences
Personality in theory: 3 approaches

Approach 1 – What are the elements of personality? (The Big 5)

Openness The extent to which the individual is creative, curious, and

cultured verses practical with narrow interests
Conscientiousness The extent to which the individual prefers to make plans, is
organised, dependable and persevering verses easy going,
unreliable and spontaneous
Extraversion The extent to which a person is outgoing, assertive, and
positively interactive with others
Agreeableness The extent wo which an individual is warm and co-operative
Neuroticism (emotional The degree to which a person is calm, self-confident and cool
stability) verses sensitive and nervous

Factors are stable over long periods but are also malleable. They may be heritable and
culturally universal. These factors are useful for insight and improvement through reflection.
These mix of these factors often change geographically.

Approach 2 – How can we distinguish the different ways people approach life? (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on psychoanalytic theories of Carl Jung and
reflects cognitive style. There are 16 possible temperaments (2x2x2x2) e.g. ENTJ. The styles
are often paired up:
The MBTI measures holistic personality and preferences in thinking styles and
communication. However, it is complex and not very scientific as results do not stay stable
over time
The Big 5 is scientifically valid, less complex and looks at different aspects individually.
The MBTI/Big 5 does not measure ability, intelligence, courage, integrity, empathy.

Approach 3 – What skills enable us to interact effectively with others? (Emotional

Intelligence)

Definition: Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of and sensitive to your own and
other’s emotions and to use that information to guide behaivour. This can be developed
over time.

1. Self-awareness: skill in perceiving your own emotions, strengths and self-confidence

2. Self-management: self-control, adaptability and initiative
3. Social-awareness: ability to perceive others emotions and understand social situations
4. Relationship-management: skill in using social awareness to navigate social life

Arguments FOR personality testing in the workplace:

● Personality tests can improve hiring and placement decisions in situations where
personality degree relates to job performance
● Personality tests offer an opportunity to capitalise on “diversity”
● A track record of company success

Arguments AGAINST personality testing in the workplace:

● Personality it not fixed, but changes according to the situation (Gladwell)
● Personality in organisations is not real, but it an impression by “actors”
● Personality is not a significant factor in strong social situations like work
In general people are drawn to personality tests because it improves self-understanding,
provides a sense of belonging and is narcistic (all about me).

Negotiation

The structure of a negotiation usually follows one aspect:

● Congruent aspect i.e. identical preferences
o These are often missed opportunities because the negotiators assume a
‘zero-sum’ or ‘fixed-pie’ game
● Distributive aspect i.e. win/lose, single issue
● Integrative aspect i.e. win/win, multiple issues

The whole point of a negotiation is to avoid a NON-AGREEMENT.

In a negotiation, BATNAs (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) can be useful if used

correctly. A BATNA is an alternative option someone has in a negotiation e.g. if a
homeowner knows party A will buy their property for x amount so they go into a negotiation
with party B with this in mind

Concept: Anchoring is an important negotiating term and refers to a mental shortcut where
people use a number as a starting point and the adjust their figures.
● To your disadvantage…if you get anchored to your BATNA
● To your advantage…if you are anchored to your target and you get your opponent to
anchor a number desirable for you

Concept: Principled negotiation (Fisher, R) is the idea that interests do not equal positions
i.e. the position someone takes in a negotiation does not necessarily reflect their best
interests.
● Interests: People should be concrete about their interests and discuss these rather
than bargain over position. Interests are often basic human needs.
● People: Tactically be hard on the problem, soft on the person i.e. empathise with
your opponents interests and dissociate egos from negotiation
● Opinions: Generate a variety of possibilities for mutual gain before deciding what to
do
● Criteria: Insist that the result be based on some objective standard if a negotiation is
reaching a dead end

Tactics for claiming value: up your target, estimate and cultivate your BATNA, set a
reservation price, ask questions to learn about the other’s RP, appeal to shared principles
and norms

Tactics for creating value: set priorities on issues, build trust and rapport, invite questions,
reveal information, ask questions to learn the other’s priorities
Common negotiation mistakes:
● Assuming a ‘fixed pie’
● Confrontational approach (CONS: damages relationships and the other person may
have a different negotiation approach)
● Ignoring rationality (sunk cost fallacy) and your opponent (overconfidence)
● Lack of planning e.g. Winner’s curse and Framing effect

Negotiation tips:

Pre-reading: “Don’t Bargain Over Positions” Chapter 1 (Fisher, R)

All negotiations should seek to end in a wise agreement – “one that meets the legitimate
interests of both sides to the extent possible, resolves conflicts fairly, is durable, and takes
community interests into account”
● Positional bargaining usually does not end in a wise agreement because negotiators
lock themselves into their positions and their position becomes identified with their
ego.
● Positional bargaining is inefficient and endangers ongoing relationships
● Positional bargaining uses hard and soft bargaining tactics (H usually beats S)
● In negotiations there is 1) the actual negotiation 2) the rules of the negotiation
● The rules of the negotiation are dictated by how you present your negotiation
In contrast to positional bargaining, principled negotiation focusses on mutual basic interest
and fair standards that typically results in a wise agreement. This method allows you to
reach an agreement efficiently and amicably

Pre-reading: When to make the first offer in negotiations, HBS (Galinsky, A)

Commonly people believe that waiting for your opponent to make the first move in a
negotiation is wiser, but this belief is debatable. People believe you will gain valuable
information about your opponent’s bargaining position and clues about acceptable
agreements but it fails to account for the powerful effect that first offers have on the way
people think about the negotiation process.

In a situation of uncertainty and ambiguity, first offers have a strong anchoring effect i.e.
even though people know that first anchors should not cloud their judgement, they are
often incapable of resisting it’s influence and thus insufficiently adjust their valuations away
from the anchor. High anchors might signal towards the positive qualities of an item while
low anchors might highlight negative qualities.

Confidence/sense of control 🡺 first offer 🡺 anchoring 🡺 better outcomes

There is one situation where making a first offer is a disadvantage – when the opposite side
has much more information than you e.g. salary discussions.

First offers should be aggressive but not absurdly so. Most negotiators make first offers that
are not aggressive enough. Advantages:
● Higher/lower final settlements
● Allows you to offer concessions and still reach a beneficial agreement better than
alternatives

Interestingly, negotiator satisfaction also comes from the number and size of concessions
extracted from the opposition. Thus by making an aggressive first offer, you’ll not only get a
better outcome but also increase opposition satisfaction by making concessions

Reservation price – price that is the minimum before you walk away
Target price – price at which all hopes and desires achieved

Between reservation and target price is the bargaining zone. People who focus on their
target prices and make offers outside the negotiation zone often lead to better outcomes.

Motivation and Reward Systems

Definition: Motivation is the willingness to exert persistent effort toward a goal.

● Motivation and performance are distinctly
separate (MARS model)

Sources of motivation:
● Internal & external
 ● Desire and commitment [positive motivation]
● Fear and avoidance [negative motivation]

How do businesses motivate their employees?

A common source of motivation is extrinsic factors (e.g. salary, bonuses, financial

incentives). This is a common form of motivation but has several issues:
● Reinforcement theory – behaivour only exists when reward exists
● Satiation effects – the more money we get the less we care about it
● Dependence breeds reactance – look back people are not always satisfied with
extrinsic rewards
● Line of sight problem – how often do employees actually think about salary in their
day-to-day schedule?

When there is no cognitive input involved, rewarding drives performance up

When there is cognitive input required, the more reward you give, the less they work
Giving more money → stress → poorer performance if there is significant responsibility

Pre-reading: The basics of motivation, Chapter 7 (Robbins, S)

Theories of motivation
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs This assumes that motivation is driven by
human needs (e.g. food, security, actualisation).

PROS – widely known, used by managers, good

way to categorise different needs

CONS – in reality the order doesn’t always hold

As each need becomes substantially
satisfied the next one becomes
dominant
McCelland’s three-needs theory:
1. Need for achievement
● Personal responsibility, feedback
reasonable goals
2. Need for power
● Seek influence, competitive
3. Need for affiliation
● Acceptance, friendship,
cooperation
All these needs are social
up
This assumes that people are motivated by
needs
PROS – these needs can be mapped onto
organisation systems (e.g. congruence model)
i.e. nAch 🡺 reward system, nPow 🡺 job design,
nAff 🡺 culture, people’s needs can be measured
and can be predictive of job satisfaction, needs
can be manipulated or socialised

The most effective leaders are high in

nPOW and nAff
 Self-determination theory:
Concerned with the beneficial effects
for intrinsic motivation and the harmful
effects of extrinsic motivation
Goal-setting theory:
Specific (knowing what to expect) and
difficult goals (↑difficulty = ↑work) with
feedback lead to higher performance
Knowing how close/far you are from
goals can help guide the required
behaviour
Participative goal setting can be useful
Process – how are goals set?
Content – what are the goals?
Feedback – how am I doing?
Self-efficacy theory:
Belief that an individual can perform a
task
Equity theory:
Fairness of outcome, process to
determine outcome, treatment with
dignity and respect
In comparison to system, self, others
etc.
Inequalities in job input and output
Expectancy theory:
Motivation stems from perceptions
about ability and perceived value and
reliability of an award
Effort 🡺 performance 🡺 reward 🡺
personal goals
Effort: belief that working harder will
improve outcome
People prefer to have control over their actions,
so anything that underlies this (e.g. a reward)
will undermine intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic = better quality
Extrinsic = more quantity
Assumes properties of the task drive motivation
PROS – applicable to business settings,
managers can impact goals
CONS – issues with rewarding A when hoping
for B, false sense of participation, curvilinear
effect of challenge on performance, goals can
conflict
How to increase self efficacy:
1. Enactive mastery (do)
2. Vicarious modelling (watch someone else do)
3. Verbal persuasion (someone telling you)
4. Arousal (thinking about it)
Assumes people are motivated by the relative
value of external rewards. Organisational
justice is key to motivation
PROS – recognises the importance of
perception of rewards as not just quantitative
measures, recognises the importance of context
CONS – harder for managers to deal with
Assumes motivation is rational
PROS – draws attention to individual beliefs
rather than objective perception, makes
cognitive perception of reward visible, suggests
concrete tools for motivation i.e. strongly
connects rewards to tasks and increasing
individual ability
CONS – only applies when behaivour is
voluntary, ignores long term variables that
impact behaivour (e.g. commitment, justice,
identity)
Performance: belief that if you meet a
goal or do better, you will get rewarded

Outcome: belief that the offered

reward is something I value

Cognitive evaluation theory is a version of self-determination theory in which allocating

extrinsic rewards for behaviour that had previously been intrinsically rewarding tends to
decrease the overall level of motivation

Self-concordance = how strongly people’s goals align with their core values

Promotion focus = a self regulation strategy that involves striving for goals through
advancement and accomplishment

Prevention focus = a self-regulation that involves striving for goals by fulfilling duties +
obligations and avoid conditions that distract from goals.

Case Study: Barbara Norris

Impact

Achievable

When setting goals, we need to set goals that are achievable and impactful.

Herzberg’s 2 factor theory:

A theory that relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and associates extrinsic factors with
dissatisfaction

Motivation (satisfaction) = collaboration and teamwork, reliable colleagues,

acknowledgement, meaning of work, learning and growth, promotional oppts,

Hygeine (dissatisfaction) = faulty performance review system, quality of supervision, physical

work conditions, basic advocacy, fair pay

Team Processes and Innovation

Elements of an effective team:
● Creating commonalities
● Adjusting to diversity
● Managing conflict
● Fostering trust
● Effective communication

Definition: A group is two or more people who interact with one another, share similar
characteristics, and have a sense of common identity. People in a group often share common
identities, interests, values and social interactions.

We see groups because of our heuristic-based thinking. Heuristics impact 1) what

characteristics of other we attend to and 2) what those characteristics mean. Grouping is
automatic and can have strong impacts e.g. Jane Elliot experiment with children with blue
and brown eyes…

Concept: Grouping is the inherent ability to categorise people into different groups based off
our heuristics.
● Identification – we associate with certain groups (ingroups)
● Categorisation – we understand the social world by putting others into categories or
groups (outgroups)
● Comparison – we compare our groups (ingroups) with other groups (outgroups),
seeing a favorable bias towards the group to which we belong. This may mean we
see outgroups negatively
● Psychological distinctiveness – we desire our identity (and/or our ingroup) to be
distinct from and positively compared with other groups

How organisations can deal with unconscious bias:

● Unconscious bias training
● Remove identifying information from selection process
● State objective unbiased selection criteria

Grouping is often a consequence of personal experiences, culture, and social stereotypes, all
of which contribute to our unconscious bias. These biases can impact our decisions and
behaivours e.g. starting salary offers, how much time we spend with people, who to
shortlist, how much pain we think others experience and how much to prescribe [studies on
Maria’s lecture].

Definition: Diversity is the presence of differences among members of a team, group, or

organisation and these differences can cause grouping. There are 2 types:
1. Surface level – immutable, almost immediately observable, objectively measured e.g.
gender, age, nationality, education
2. Deep level – more mutable, subjective e.g. values, personality, knowledge

Studies my McKinsey report that companies in the top quartile for gender diverse executive
teams (relative to the bottom quartile) are 21% more likely to have above average
profitability. The same study showed those in the top quartile on culture and ethnic diversity
are 35% more likely to have above average profitability. Yet in the UK BAME board members
are just 7.4% of the total and only 3.3% of CEOs/CFOs (Green Park 2019)

In the presences of diversity, information sharing, persuasion, and listening behaivour

changes in groups [POSTIVE IMPACT]
● More comprehensive sharing and seeking of info because we do not assume we all
share the same info
● More openness to a divergent perspective when delivered by someone different to
ourselves
● Better preparation for meetings/persuasion attempts because we anticipate having
to work harder to change minds of others different to ourselves

However, diversity has been linked with conflict in groups [NEGATIVE IMPACT]
● Task conflicts benefit performance through improved consideration for different
alternatives and group problem solving
● Relationship conflict, because of a focus on interpersonal issues, largely detracts
from group performance because of misspent time and efforts

Diversity can lead to failure of collaboration if team members do not develop trust and
goodwill among themselves and also lead to lack of knowledge sharing is team members
withhold their individual knowledge from other team members

Definition: Teams are a type of group that interact and influence each other and are
mutually accountable for a goal

Pre-reading: Bridging faultlines in diverse teams (MIT Sloan Management Review)

As teams get to know each other, faultlines can form along surface and deep forms of
diversity. Initial faultlines appear around surface-level diversity while later faultlines appear
around deep-level diversity. External pressures (e.g. deadlines) can exacerbate existing
faultlines.

Leadership style is an important factor in determining whether destructive faultlines appear.

Faultlines are often dynamic, fluid and trivial. A leader can avoid faultlines:
1. Think about team diversity and predict probability of faultlines emerging
2. Focus on task orientation when a task is newly formed → subgroups often emerge
around task-orientated characterics such as expertise
3. Learn when to switch between task-orientation and relationship-orientation

Focussing on relationships early may only deepen faultlines. As a guideline, when all
members of a team have developed specific expectations for a project and have negotiated
a widely accepted influence structure, then the time is right to switch to a
relationship-oreinted leadership style

Strong faultlines can appear between homogenous subgroups within a team

● Also emerge when there is a few similar characteristics between team members with
moderate diversity
Weak faultlines appear within homogenous or heterogenous groups

Pre-reading: Managing your team, 1995 (Hill, L. A)

Managing an effective team involves 2 sets of responsibilities:

1. Managing the team’s boundary
a. Scanning the competitive environment
b. Managing external relationships
2. Managing the team itself
a. Setting the agenda i.e. setting clear goals
b. What type of teamwork is required
c. Team composition and structure selection
d. Facilitating the team process
e. Shaping the team’s culture
f. Coach the team to overcome challenges

What is an effective team (3 questions)

1. Does the team’s output meet the standard of those who have to use it?
2. Does the team experience contribute to the personal wellbeing and development of
its members?
3. Does the team experience enhance the capability of the members to work and learn
together in the future?

Managing paradoxes:
● Embrace individual differences AND collective identity and goals
● Foster support AND confrontation among team members
● Focus on performance AND learning and development
● Balance managerial authority AND team member discretion and autonomy

Solutions:
● Empower and share responsibility with team members

Everest Simulation Debrief

Definition: The common information effect states that information held by more members
before team discussion has more influence on team judgements than information held by
fewer member, independent of the validity of the information.
● Groups tend to spend too little time discussing unshared information
● This can lead to discussion bias

Why does discussion bias occur?

 1. Increased probability that what is discussed is correct
2. Mutual enhancement – discussing shared info feels good, members are judged as
more task competent and credible after discussing shared instead of unshared
information, shared information is judged as more important, accurate, and
decision-relevant than unshared information
3. Bias for preference-consistent information e.g. confirmation bias
4. Some groups miss optimal solutions

What does work to eliminate common information effect?

● Team leader is information manager
● Suspend intitial judgement
● Frame as information sharing problem rather than judgement to be made
● Minimise status differences
● Emphasise that each individual has unique expertise

What doesn’t work?

● More discussion
● Separate review and decision
● Bigger team
● More information
● Accountability for decision
● Pre-discussion polling

Definition: Psychological safety is “being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of
negative consequences of self-image, status or career” (Kahn, 1990)
● Correlated with moderate risk taking, creativity, speaking up

Team members can take the leading role in enabling effective team communication.
Research shows that if people are inclusive, team members feel that the team processes are
more fair (procedural justice) and they are more committed to the decisions the team makes
(decision commitment)

Leadership and feedback

Pre-reading: The Feedback Fallacy, HBS 2019

“For years, managers have been encouraged to praise and constructively criticise just about
everything their employees do. But there are better ways to help employees thrive and
excel” (Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall)

Research shows that:

1) We aren’t reliable raters of other people’s performance that we think we are
a. Our ratings of others are often a reflection of our own biases
2) Criticism inhibits the brain’s ability to learn
a. Neurologically, we grow more in areas of greater ability
b. The strong negative emotion invoked by criticism stimulates
sympathetic nerves which narrow brain activity
c. Praise stimulates the parasympathetic system which enhances
neurological development
3) Excellence is idiosyncratic, can’t be defined in advance and isn’t the opposite
of failure
a. It is not universal and differs from person to person

Solution – Managers need to help their team members see what’s working, stopping them
with a “Yes! That!” and sharing their experience of what the person did well. Look for
positive outcomes, re-enforce the feelings surrounding them and replay your instinctive
reactions.

Definition: Leadership is the process whereby one individual influences others toward
attaining defined goals.

Understanding leadership: different approaches

Trait Who are leaders?
Structure Who is in the best position to lead?
Followers How do leaders interact with those they lead?
Contingency What type of leader is effective for which situation?
Behaivour What tasks to leaders do?

A manager is in a position of formal authority and status. Their roles are:

● Interpersonal roles – figurehead, liaison, leader
● Informational roles – monitor, disseminator, spokesperson
● Decisional rules – entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator

4 common challenges of becoming a leader:

1. Managing down
a. Subordinates may be differently motivated to you
b. Dealing with poor performers
2. Managing up and out
a. Working through others
b. Setting clear expectations with your boss
 3. Managing oneself
a. Shifting from being an individual performer to getting work done by others
b. Succeeding by helping other’s succeed
4. Managing disappointment
a. Take space to absorb the negative feedback
b. Seek out feedback and social support
c. Focus on your response to setback; not the set back itself

Giving feedback Receiving feedback

Plan ahead to identify desired results and
mutual understanding of relationship and
expectations
Make sure your assessment criteria is
concrete and well communicated
Focus on performance, be specific, and
forward looking
Emphasise the positive as your report will
focus more attention on negative
comments
Plan ahead to identify your goals for
professional development and anticipate
areas of concern
Focus on what is said not how it is said
You can’t control the judgements people
have already made about you, focus instead
on how you respond
Focus on positive feedback too

The Manager’s Job – Mintzberg

Fact (reality) Folklore (myths)

Unrelenting pace; action orientated
Regular ritual + ceremonial duties
Real time, verbal & “soft” information flows
Management is intuitive, complex and
difficult to teach
A reflective, systematic planner
No regular duties
Formal aggregated informaition flows
Management is a science & profession
Power and Authority

Power can be used in very positive and/or highly detrimental and frightening ways.

Definition: Power is the ability to get things done despite resistance

● “The ability of an individual or group to achieve their own goals or aims when others
are trying to prevent them from realising them? (Weber, 1968)

Definition: Persuasion is guiding people toward the adoption of an attitude, behaivour, or

belief through rational or symbolic means.

Types of power:
● Coercive – capacity to punish
● Reward – capacity to reward
● Authority – officially sanctioned position
● Expert – task knowledge
● Referent – significant model to whom others look up to or feel loyal

3 ways to get people to do what they didn’t want to do:

1. Persuasion (6 principles)
2. Power (e.g. Milgram experiment, 5 levels of power)
3. Moral disengagement – self-persuasion to enable activities that cause discomfort

Pre-reading: “Harnessing the science of persuasion” (Cialdini, R 2001)

1. Liking – people prefer to comply with the requests of people they know and like
a. The underlying theory is that we assume people who like us are less likely to
take advantage of us than people who don’t like us
b. Factors that influence liking: similarity, praise, association, physical
attractiveness, repeated exposure
2. Reciprocity – people feel obligated to repay others
a. Creates a sense of obligation i.e. recipient feels guilt if they do not repay
b. “Door in the face” technique – influencer starts with an inflated request (that
is likely to be rejected) and then retreats to a smaller request that appears to
be a concession
c. “That’s-not-all” technique – influencer begins with an inflated request, but
immediately adds to the deal by offering a bonus or discount
d. Managers can elicit the desired behaivour from co-workers and employees by
displaying it first
e. Gives us confidence that we will get something in return for our actions
3. Social proof – people follow the lead of similar others
a. Generally we make fewer mistakes by paying attention to what others are
doing
b. People are mentally lazy and following doesn’t take much thinking
4. Consistency – people align with their clear commitments
 a. Personal consistency is highly valued by society
b. Consistency provides a shortcut for making decisions
c. “Foot in the door” technique – influencer starts with a small request to gain
eventual compliance with a larger request
d. Low-ball technique – influencer obtains commitment from the person, and
then reveals the hidden costs of the request
e. Labelling technique – influencer assigns a label to an individual and then
requests a favour consistent with that label
f. Legitimisation of palty favours technique – influencer makes a small amount
of aid acceptable
5. Authority – people defer to experts
a. We are socialised to respect and obey authority figures
b. Genuine authority figures possess high levels of knowledge, wisdom and
power
c. People mistakenly assume that others recognise and appreciate their
experience i.e. people should take time to establish their expertise before
exerting influence
6. Scarcity – people want more of what they can have less of
a. Things that are difficult to attain are generally more valued
b. As things become less available, we lose freedom. Most people hate to lose
the freedoms they have

Experiment: The Milgram Experiment

Milgram on the “Agentic shift” [autonomy vs agency]

“The person entering an authority system no longer views himself as acting out of his own
purposes but rather comes to see himself as an agent of executing the wishes of another
person.”

“They even try to get out of it, but they are engaged in something from which they cannot
liberate themselves. They are locked into a structure, and they do not have the skills or inner
resources to disengage themselves” [ONCE YOU COMPLY IT’S VERY HARD TO GO BACK]

“The results…are to this author disturbing…A substantial proportion of people do what

they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of
conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority”
[AT SOME POINT, PEOPLE STOP RESISTING AND GIVE UP CONTROL – THEY LOSE
INDIVIDUALITY AND BECOME THE AUTHORITY FIGURE’S AGENT]

Definition: Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of discomfort stemming from holding two

contradictory ideas simultaneously. Once committed to an action, hanging course would
require accepting wrong doing. Participants either change their behaivour or adjust their
perceptions.

Definition: Moral disengagement is a process by which people engage in negative behaivours

without believing they are causing harm or wrongdoing.
 ● Moral justification – framing harmful or morally wrong acts to be in the service of the
greater good
● Euphemistic labelling – using pleasant language to rename harmful acts to make
them feel more benign
● Advantageous comparison – contrasting the negative behaivour with a worse
behaivour
● Distortion of consequences – minimising, ignoring, or distorting the seriousness of
the effect’s of one’s actions
● Diffusion of responsibility – attributing the blame for one’s actions to the system
● Displacements of responsibility – attributing the responsibility to authority figures

How to prevent moral disengagement:

1. Clearly articulated value systems
2. Accountability partner who you trust to speak frankly to
3. Consider how you would feel if what you are about to do was reported as a headline

Culture

Definition: Culture is “a system of shared values and norms that define appropriate attitudes
and behaivours for organisational members”. (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1996)
● Stable, deeply embedded, broad, patterning

Symptoms of organisational culture:

● Language used to communicate assumptions, values, ideology
● Artifacts/props used to reinforce values and ideologies
● Stories and jargon used to draw attention to norms, heroes and role models
● Ceremonies and rituals to build in-group cohesion and morale
● Dress and uniform used to establish positive organisational identity
● Physical settings and surroundings

Pre-reading: The Structure of Culture (Schein, 2016)

Basic assumptions are behaivoural guides and culture can help act as a signal to how we
should behave in certain siutations.

Culture is strong when agreement and commitment are high. The stronger the culture the
more it influences behaivour.
● Agreement = extent to which organisation members agree with the same values
● Commitment = degree of commitment to living and maintaining the values of the
organisation
Culture as strategy:
● Cultivate positive emotions that fuel motivation and create social capital
● Align values, beliefs and actors
● Facilitate communication
● Enable control

Culture as control

Cultures are shaped by management to increase work meaningfulness and employee

satisfaction while delivering on the company’s strategy.
OR
Cultures are put in place by manipulative management to trick people into working harder
for less money in order to line the pockets of executives and shareholders

Based on research by Kish-Gephart, Harrison & Trevino:

Who is likely to behave unethically at work?
● Obedient, Machiavellians who tend to not take individual responsibility for their
actions
What environments are likely to elicit unethical behaivour?
● Cultures that focus employee attention on self-gain rather than on the well-being of
stakeholders

Culture can help answer 3 basic questions:

1. Am I safe?
 a. What characteristics are values? What behaviours are rewarded and
punished? The more safe you feel, the more you can relax and focus on work?
2. What information is safe to share?
a. Can I give frank feedback to peers or superiors? Can I share what is happening
in my private life?
3. What should I do?
a. Where are we headed? How will we get there? How much improvisation is
allowed along the way?