Organizational Behavior, Styles of Coaching, and Effective Motivation Programs - Assignment Example

Task: Organizational Behavior Question Bratton et al. describes personality as a unique and comparatively enduring model ofthinking, feeling and acting that characterizes an individuals’ reaction to his environment and identity. Notably, both coaches are depicted as having been good motivators of their teams. Coach K for instance, was quoted in the Times Magazine as having said “nothing is greater than telling a person that you believe in them, that they are good and that you are there for them” as their leader (Snook, Perlow and Delacey 06). On the other hand, Coach Knight is depicted as having believed in the will to win and that a more important will is the will to prepare to win. Another major similarity is that both coaches believed in success; coach Knight had an astonishing career at Indiana, which earned him a position on the top five coaches with most wins in the Division 1 at college level. Similarly, Coach K is overwhelmingly growing Duke’s basketball program to among the most successful college sports ever. In fact, he was named America’s Best Coach in 2001 by Time Magazine and CNN. Furthermore, both coaches believed in the virtue of discipline; Coach K is said to have been teaching discipline by investing in maneuvers and skills with his players, set play practicing and analysis of practices. Likewise, Coach Knight always demanded maximum discipline from his players daily and this made him very strict with no favoritism to any player that might have performed poorly. Both coaches taught at their respective colleges with Coach K serving on the faculty of Dukes’ business school and Coach Knight teaching Methods of Coaching at Indiana University. On the contrary, the two also exhibit various differences. First, Coach K was very loving and understanding and always embraced the idea of togetherness treating his players as a family while Coach Knight was very tough and never tolerated any nonsense even manhandling and calling his players names. Second, Coach K was accommodative of his players’ ideologies of training rule and he believed that his players should not only do what is detrimental to them, however, Coach Knight was very critical on strict following of rules that he believed in, in fact he would throw players out of training for not working hard as expected of them. Third, Coach K kept teaching about love and sincerity, always treated his players as if they were his family members while Coach Knight was a man full of controversies, and always intimidated people. Bratton et al argues that certain personality magnitudes tend to be more established than others. For instance, introversion-extroversion is quite established right from childhood to adulthood and throughout the adult years. Coach K is depicted as having grown into ranks of responsibility from a young boy, leading his teammates as a captain and later becoming a coach. Styles of Coaching Both coaches have different perceptions of work and thus varied styles of coaching. Perception is the course of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information so as to make sense of the world around us. In job environments, employees or managers have individual ideologies that they use in running their duties. Perception is important in designing organizational behavior since work organizations represent a challenge to humans’ perceptual abilities. In reality, perception is subjective, selective and largely automatic rather than mindful. The two coaches are depicted as two different perceivers of work and capture dissimilar aspects of the coaching work through selective attention to their duties. Perception is not just something within an individual; it depicts an emotional and social breadth since perceptions are affects individuals’ behavior. Coach K, on the other hand, is depicted as having adopted a more culturally accepted style of dealing with players. In fact, it is stated that his players loved associating with him at all times in what they referred to as a family. He had one rule in his life, that of being a leader rather than a manager or a dictator. This made him stand out as the best coach in history of American basketball; coupled with this he also earned many prices and became a leader even holding an annual leadership conference that was attended by executives across the world. His style of leadership and love for the work that he was doing for Indiana University was exposed when he was offered a better deal by Lakers which her later declined stating he would love to keep the legacy going in his present workplace rather than seeking a better financial offer. This was proven by the continued performance of his team. Coach K valued the human nature, was a real motivator and a good manager who demonstrated trustworthiness and love for work. On the other hand, Coach Knight had little value for human nature, was a good motivator and an average manager since he kept on registering god results and bad ones almost in equal measure. Question 2 Having discussed the traits and styles of the two coaches, Coach K stand out as the more effective of the two. This is because he has a more appealing and accommodative way of dealing with his players than Coach Knight. Coach K is depicted as humble, loving, encouraging, hardworking and above all respected by his players and a wide range of personalities while Coach Knight as a leader who had lots of controversies, uses bad language, intimidates people, has a high temper and rigid since he believed strictly in his rules and would not accommodate views from other persons. While making considerations for hiring a coach, I would go for Coach K for his obvious outstanding performance and personality including a higher degree of motivation (Snook, Perlow and Delacey 09). If say I am a club owner and looking to hire a coach who can improve the performance of my team, and instill discipline and love among players the Coach K will be the best choice. He has an outstanding score of leadership and excellent performances and thus can bring a major improvement in the performances of a team. Coupled with this, he is able to interact with players in a way that does not harm them, he is also an all time encouragement to players as he keeps advising them to work hard without necessarily subjecting them to ultimatum training schedules. Since he performed exemplarily better in the advisory role for the president of the University president, he can be well poised to perform and offer an added advantage to the team, as he is also talented in advisory sector. On the other hand, Coach Knight would not be an immediate candidate for hiring to handle a team except when there are less appealing options. In such a case, I would appoint Coach Knight as simple the head coach and equip him special trainers who will handle the players’ training sessions. Such trainers will also offer him advice on the quality and fitness of players and offer him advice on which players to include in the lineup for a match. This will limit his interactions with players thus reducing player frustrations. He will act more as a manager offering technical advice and to whom the trainers report. According to Bratton et al., the idea of explaining individual personalities began long time with the Greeks using the Humoral Theory. This stated that the body contained four fluids: black bile, blood, phlegm and yellow bile and that one’s personality would be categorized according to the dominance of the fluid produced. Presently, psychologists have designed a statistical tool which helps in identification of human behaviors. They are categorized into clusters, and the tool itself is referred to as factor analysis. The definition of the human behavior is labeled as introversion-extroversion. It explains that at one end of the dimension are the extremely introverted behaviors and at the other end are the extremely extroverted behaviors. Considering the Big Five Model of personality, Coach K belongs to the dimensions of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness while Coach Knight belongs to the dimension of Neuroticism. For that reason, Coach K is more effective than Coach Knight. Question 3 Personally, I have been motivated by most exceptional of them all being the motivation from my parent to work hard in school and life, in general. Ever since I was growing up, I admired the success of my parents for which I would relate to stories that they told me about their childhood. In particular, my mother would ensure that as a young boy growing up education was mandatory to me, and that she wanted me study hard until one day I graduate from the university with a good grade and get a well-paying job. Both my parents believed that education was a key to success and granted me education and were responsible for all the expenses it came with. As a young boy, I remember my mom would only go to work after she ensured that I had caught the bus to school, an assurance that her son was destined for success in life. Once each week, my parents would hold some motivational talk with me urging me to work hard in school. During such sessions, motivational books by successful people like Bill Gates would be brought to me so I can love reading literature and acquaint myself with various success strategies. This was always a two way talk in which I would say my challenges in school, explain difficult areas of study, while as for them they would offer me advice in any areas that I had problems coping with in school. I would consider my parents’ way of motivation effective majorly because they were never too harsh on me, and even when I made mistakes, better corrective measure would be used on me. According to McClelland’s theory of needs, individuals are motivated by the need to satisfy six fundamental human needs namely: achievement, power, affiliation, independence, self-esteem, and security. He argued that individuals vary in the degree to which they experience desires for achievement, affiliation, and power. Individuals, therefore, are expected to respond positively to the efforts being placed upon them by their motivators and act in a manner suggesting that they possess the needs for achievement and power. Every individual, however, has his own desires, and it is important for motivators to consider this when giving encouragements. In this light, my parents adopted the above theory to enable me succeed throughout my education and that one day in life I will be a powerful and influential personality in the society. In their endeavor, I succeeded throughout all that I engaged in while in school and other co-curriculum activities. However as much as I credit my parents for this, I also demonstrated an adequate response to the pieces of advice that I was presented with. This constituted the entire success that has come my way since the time I started receiving advice from my parents. In conclusion, an effective motivation program requires effort, persistence and understanding of an individual coupled with the individual’s positive response to the efforts he is being subjected to. A sense of understanding is also central in successful motivation since some people are slow learners while others have a high understanding capacity. Question 4 Motivation is the forces within an individual that affect his trend, passion and determination of voluntary behavior. Motivation on my part has taken place between me and my friend who was an all time art talented individual. In my neighborhood, I had a friend who had a great passion for general art but especially fine art. He was good at drawings and making wood carvings of people and objects. Amazingly, he was so good that some fine art students would visit his studio to view some of the activities he was working on and those he had completed. He would do extraordinarily well despite the fact that he had never stepped foot on a fine art class; his was more of a talent. I kept encouraging him to work hard, that talents are God-given, and one should always improve them instead of letting them derail. Two major theories describe the idea of motivation: content theories of motivation and process theories of motivation. Content theories of motivation assert that individuals possess a set of basic needs. On the other hand, process theories of motivation center on how individuals make conscious decisions that are leading to a specific work behavior. Emphasis is made to the role of a person’s cognitive process in determining his level of work motivation. Elements that define motivation are effort, persistence, and direction. Having been the motivator of my friend, I can be described as an intrinsic motivator because I kept encouraging him to keep working on his talent and grow it to higher levels without any rewards in return. Generally, persons who are intrinsically motivated often seek new challenges and discover new means of doing things and learning. Sometimes motivation can face challenges resulting from the beliefs and behaviors of the motivator. In my case, I ensured that I blend with my friend’s ideologies to avoid any idea clashes. This created a harmonious operating ground that ensured he succeeded in his endeavor to become one of the greatest artists of all time. After heading to my call for advice, he managed to secure a contract that would see him work for a big art company from which he later started his own business and art studio. This is a clear example of an effective motivation program since he was able to grow into a big artist name just from mere encouragement on talent development. During the period in which I acted as a motivator, I became more of a mentor to my friend providing him with incentives that would make him successful in his art life. Since I had an empty room from which he could work, I supported him with the space from which he did most of his drawing and carvings. This would act as his store for a long time as she grew his ambitions to become one of the best artists in the neighborhood. This room was his small showroom for displaying his artifacts. As a motivator, I believed in him because each time I would visit his showroom there were always people there in need of either drawing or buying the carvings. This was a great indication of an effective motivation. Question 5 Motivation, human nature, and management are key elements of a good manager and are ideal for anyone who wishes to mentor someone into a success. Assumptions that uphold the importance of observing these three elements are enshrined in the Alderfer’s ERG theory of motivation. This theory suggests that an individual’s requirements can be categorized into three needs namely: existence, relatedness, and growth. Existence needs are nutritional in nature, safety and material requirements. Relatedness needs are individual relationships with friends and family, and workmates. Growth needs are a reflection of the desire for individual psychological growth and development. This theory emphasizes the need for employees or subjects satisfied needs and that growth needs to be become more relevant when they are satisfied. The advantage of this theory is that its application enhances a management to motivate their employees with great ease. Personality is also important when dealing with people who are under you either as a manager, coach, teacher or any other profession that deals with people. The idea of motivation has always been associated with many success stories of the world, therefore, is upheld as an important function in the development of individuals. Currently, it is important to recognize the fact that people sail from different cultures and backgrounds, therefore, cannot be treated the same way. Therefore, human nature is a value that should be upheld and respected. It is very unnecessary for one to disrespect the conventional wisdom of respect for human nature; instead humans should live in harmony in a continued support of each other. Management, on the other hand, refers to the function that coordinates the labors of people to achieve goals and objectives set aside by using available resources efficiently and successfully. A good manager should be one who relates well to his employees and understands their needs. A good example of a good manager is Coach K, who knew how to blend with his players and was even shown love by his players. Good management also requires that one treat his players or employees with the utmost respect to maintaining good working relationship (Bratton 63). The assumption here is that management should tend to be helpful to the subjects more than it appears to suppress them. Human nature is an aptitude from God and needs care, respect, and good correlation. Consequently, management, human nature, and motivation should appear to be blending in a more conventionally accepted way for good results and success in workplaces. In social life, these three elements always interplay due to the interaction of humans in various sectors of employment and sports. In particular, each organization comprises of people and a manager; motivation always plays a major role in the interaction of any system. This is irrespective of whether the management is top-down or bottom-up because either way individuals have to interact. Therefore, the interplay of the three is vital for the success of any organization and should be upheld at all times. This is with the recognition of the importance and equality of all people constituting the organization. The manager can often hold motivational talks to his employees and grant them incentives that will enable them perform better and feel part of the organizations’ activities. Works Cited Bratton, John. Work and Organizational Behaviour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print. John Bratton, et al. Work and organizational behavior 2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print Snook, Scott, Perlow Leslie, and Delacey Brian. “Coach K: A Matter of the heart.” Harvard Business School, , 406.44 (2005): 2-12. Print Snook, Scott, Perlow Leslie, and Delacey Brian. “Coach Knight: The will to win.” Harvard Business School, 406.43 (2005): 2-14. Print Read More