Organizational Behavior: The Birkman Method - Term Paper Example

Contents I.Introduction 2 II. The Team Organizational Focus 4 A.The Significance of Each Color 4 B.Understanding the Color Bar Lengths 6 C.Organizational Focus Strengths 7 III. The Areas of Team Interests 8 A.Numerical Significance Related to motivation 8 1.Motivators 8 2.Needs 10 3.Areas to Minimize 10 B.The Team as Motivators and Needs 11 C.Areas the team is not motivated by 11 IV. Summary of the Team 12 V. References 13 VI. Appendix 14 Appendix 1: Chart for Organization Focus Scores and Areas of Interest Scores 14 I. Introduction Birkman International Inc. is a consulting company that helps its client companies to develop and build up on human resource related solutions and strategies in both individual as well as organizational settings. The consultations and solutions provided by this company provides the clients with services and assessments which are of high quality and are authentic, relevant and helpful in adding value to the organizational behavioral aspects of the client companies. The Birkman Assessment method is an important organizational behavior and human resource management tool that is used to analyze the motivations, passions, interests and behaviors of individuals and teams. This report is prepared with the aim of evaluating the strengths, diversity, motivation factors and effectiveness of a team from the point of view of organizational behavior through the use of the Birkman Assessment framework. Teams are essential components of any organization. The functioning of individual teams in a company adds up to form the total capability of an organization in terms of performance, efficiency and effectiveness. It is essential to capitalize on the diversity, personality and strengths of the teams within a company to ensure that the company is able to attain the maximum possible performance targets. Developing an understanding of the present situations and dynamics of the teams operating within a company can be greatly advantageous for the overall organizational setting and culture and fro developing future organization behavior strategies and solutions within a business. A team consisting of four to six members is selected and analyzed through the use of the organizational focus based on color bars and the interest based grid coordinates developed by the Birkman international Inc. This analysis encompasses an identification and evaluation of the motivations, strengths, weaknesses, diversity as well as the areas of interest and lack within the team. This helps to gauge the effectiveness and capacity of the team to perform in a value adding manner as well as add to the overall capabilities and performance levels of the organization (Gundry, Kickul and Prather, 2004, p.44). An understanding and insight into the different types of factors that directly or indirectly impact the behavior and capability of a team helps a company to promote innovation, foster creativity, improve the organizational performance levels and take suitable business and corporate decisions (Thompson, 2003, pp.96-109). The Birkman’s lifestyle grid of colors is used as the basic framework for studying the effectiveness and performing capabilities of the selected team. This framework makes use of four significant symbols and four different color codes to reveal the orientation of the team members and individual teams of a company towards the activities included in communication, expedition, planning and administration (Keith and Frese, 2008, pp.102-104). This framework helps to assess the individual and overall behavior of teams and team members and also helps to identify the behavior of teams in normal and stressful situations, the primary and secondary motivation and support factors for the teams, the components of the organizational culture required for the functioning of the teams, the most effective and efficient styles of functioning for the individual teams and the way the general styles of performance of teams are altered under situations involving stress and conflict (Pearsall, Ellis and Evans, 2008, pp.204-206). II. The Team Organizational Focus A. The Significance of Each Color The organizational profile of any organization can be explained through the use of the interests versus grid coordinates as devised by the Birkman International Inc. which is commonly used as an assessment tool in the discipline of organizational behavior. The grid including the coordinates and interests as mapped in the organization profile is used as a technique of analyzing and evaluating the different dimensions of a team. This further helps to identify and evaluate the various areas of interest, motivation, shortcomings, focus strengths, primary and secondary needs and the effectiveness of the team as a whole functioning unit within an organization (Schermerhorn, Hunt and Osborn, 2004, p.112). The organizational focus areas as differentiated and explained through the use of different color codes in the grid are given in Figure 1. Figure 1: Color codes for organizational focus (Source: Birkman International Inc., 2012, p.25). There are four main colors used in the grid coordinate to understand the level of interest and the learning potential of each of the members in the team. The four colors used in this model are blue, green, red and yellow where blue signifies the focus of the organization towards planning, green signifies the focus of the organization towards communication, red signifies the level of interest shown by the organization towards expedition and yellow color denotes the level of interest shown by the organization towards administration. The measurement of planning interests of an organization indicates the inclination of the teams and departments of the organization towards the maintenance of innovation, creation, people oriented and social perspectives. This fosters direct communication and means that the organization is more oriented towards people than towards results and tasks (Knights and Willmott, 2007, p.89). Communication represents a high level of orientation towards motivation, persuasion, promotion and direct and indirect communication. Expedition as represented by the red color denotes the level of interest of the organization towards achieving task objectives and finding solutions to practical problems. Administrative interests of an organization as denoted by the yellow color signifies the interest of a business towards different kinds of administrative functions including general, numerical and leadership levels of administration within the teams of the organization. B. Understanding the Color Bar Lengths The analysis shows that the selected team is fairly proficient in the four types of organizational interests. As per the grid coordination model of Birkman International Inc., the team which is being analyzed displays a higher level of focus towards the activities involved in communication and administration. This means that the organization prioritizes on activities that require direct communication, focus on results and completion of task within pre specified time periods through the development of communication among the team members and also focuses on admistratiev activities. The team is less effective in other organizational interest profiles like communication and planning. The bars for the green color and yellow color are highest with the total score of the team being 6 for each of the colors with the other three scores varying from 4-5. This means that the main efforts of the organization are aimed at improving the functional capabilities of the teams of the business. The team which is being analyzed is identified to be more oriented towards communication and administration as compared to the orientation towards strategy formulation, planning and expedition. C. Organizational Focus Strengths The focus strengths of the team under study lie in the areas of communication and administration. The company is more proficient in maintaining direct and indirect communication activities among its individual teams and also among the different units and departments of the business. The team which is being analyzed is efficient in communication because the scores of the individual team members as well as that of the whole team for communication are high. When the scores of the individual team members are analyzed it can be identified that the communication function is more effective among the team members. However, when the combined scores are taken into consideration, it indicates that this team of the selected organization adds to the focus strengths of both communication and administration within the organization. III. The Areas of Team Interests A. Numerical Significance Related to motivation 1. Motivators An analysis of the team through the use of the interest grid model of Birkman International Inc. indicates that the main area related to team interest is represented by the green color which signifies communication. The high numerical scores in the green color and yellow color which are 6 in each of the color bars indicate that the team is inclined towards the communication and administration related functions and activities. These may include promotional and selling activities, persuasion related activities, motivation, counselling and teaching related activities as well as different types of administrative activities. Therefore, the team motivation level for this team as per the framework developed by Birkman International Inc. is high with the team members preferring to indulge in activities which involve a high level of direct communication combined with a medium level of indirect communication and also a high level of administrative capabilities. This suggests that the motivation of the team is generated from communication, working in collaboration, administrative functions as well as from team spirit. Also, the individual scores of the team members indicate that all the team personnel are motivated through activities like selling, prompting, directing, motivating, building agreements among people, persuading, teaching or counselling. As per the report the score of Almuraihil, H has scored low in blue, green and red but high in yellow. This means that this particular team member is motivated by the factors like administrative activities. The score of Almuqbil, A. is highest in green which represent communication. Thus, it can be said that this team member is likely to be motivated by activities which require a high level of communication with other entities. Also, this means that the strength of Almuqbil lies in communication. Therefore, this team member would act as a strong entity in business activities which require communicative abilities like sales, marketing and promotional activities. This team member scores lowest in red color which means that he is weak in the area of technology and technology implementations in his job role. The third team member Alqahtani, S. also has highest scores in green color which means that this employee is more motivated by communication related activities. The weakness of this employee lies in the area of technology implementation in his job role. The fourth member of the team Almurays, M. has also scored 8 in the area of communication. Thus, it can be interpreted that this member is also competent in activities that require communication. In contrast, this member has scored 5 in both blue and red colors and 6 in yellow color. This means that this member is weak in other business activities like administration, designs and technology. The team member Almutairi, I. has scored 5 in all the four colors of the grid. This indicates that this team member is weak in all the four dimensions of the grid. Overall, all the members of this team are found to have scored lowest in red color which indicates that the overall performance of the team is lacking in terms of the use and adoption of technology in its performance. Most of the team members have scored high in the green color of the coordinate. The average scores for the team are 6 for both green and yellow color which means that the strength of the team as a whole unit lies in the area of communication as well as administration. Thus, the team would be strong in business activities like managing and record keeping which are based on administrative capabilities and selling, counseling, guiding, marketing etc. which are based on communication abilities. 2. Needs The analysis of the scores indicates that the persuasive and directive needs of the team are on the higher side. The team members are identified to have achieved a delicate balance between straightforwardness and direct behavior and intuitive and insightful behavior. The primary needs of all the five members of the team i.e. Almuraihil, Almuqbil, Alqahtani, Almurais and Almutairi are based on the need for conducting activities based on communication. The skills of all the team members are also embedded in persuasive and communicative actions. As such, the members are likely to excel in sales promotion and marketing but are less proficient in other areas like administration, planning, strategy designing and implementation of technology in their job roles. The primary need of the team can be established to be a direct and people oriented approach towards communication. Other identified needs of the group are collaboration, genuine approaches, controlled level of conflicts, security, incentives, risk taking and ability to direct and manage. The need for acceptance and the need for esteem are on the higher side whereas the need for organizational structure and need for systematic approaches are minimal for this group. 3. Areas to Minimize The main areas that are to be minimized and controlled in this group are the natural tendency of the group members to be straightforward and direct in the communicative processes. Also, the areas of sensitivity, inclination towards putting emphasis on personal opinions and judgment and the use of tactless statements in the communication processes should be controlled. B. The Team as Motivators and Needs The selected team is analyzed through the use of organizational behavior techniques and models which have been developed by the Birkman International Inc. The team which is studied is found to be a value adding team for the organization in terms of proactivenss, communication and administration. The team members are found to be active contributors to the administrative and communicative capabilities of the team and subsequently that of the company. The team needs to improve its capabilities in the organizational arenas like planning, use of technology and expedition. The team is most active in the organizational arena of communication and administration followed by planning. The team is found to be lacking in the area of expedition, strategy designing and planning. This means that the motivating factors for the team stem from the need for acceptance, esteem and support rather than from the other ancillary needs like the need for challenges, need for freedom and the need for a well-defined organizational structure. C. Areas the team is not motivated by The team seems to be least dependent on technological and operational factors as denoted by the red color and strategy and design functions as denoted by the blue color and is likely to be most valuable for the sales and marketing functions as denoted by the green color and administrative and fiscal functions as denoted by the yellow color in the organizational focus evaluation grid. The basic needs of communication, acceptance and awareness are high for the team. These are considered to be the primary needs and requirement that are mandatory for the team to function in an effective and value adding manner. IV. Summary of the Team The numerical scores of the selected team indicate that the individual motivation factors of the team members are based on communicative and administrative capabilities. Also, when the whole team is considered as a unit then the motivation factors are found to be based in communication, people orientation, acceptance needs and organizational culture. The strengths of the selected team are communication, teamwork, collaborative capabilities, administration, motivation and planning. The team is identified to be significantly lacking in terms of task orientation and task expedition. The team has a high score in communication, administrative and fiscal capabilities. Additionally, the team is found to have fewer interests in the areas of planning and management, strategy design and development and value creation (Appendix 1). Since the team is more driven by communication, therefore, activities which are largely based on communication and collaboration are more efficiently performed by the team. Therefore, the core strengths of the team lies in selling and promotional activities, counseling and teaching activities, motivating and directing, persuading and advocating activities as well as human resource development, social services, planning, innovation and people orientation because all these activities need a high level of communication skills. On the other hand, the team seems to be significantly lacking in the domains of task orientation, result oriented approach, systematic organizational structures, technological and practical aspects involved in the functioning of the team. To summarize, the team has major strengths in the area of administrative capabilities and persuasive and communicative activities whereas the skills in technological and practical functions are not identified in the group. V. References Birkman International Inc. (2012). Birkman Preview Report. Retrieved from http://www.iculturelink.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Essential-Package.pdf. Gundry, L. K., Kickul, J. R., & Prather, C. W. (2004). Building the creative organization. Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 22(1), p.44. Keith, N., & Frese, M. (2008). Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 93(1), pp.102–104. Knights, D. & Willmott, H. (2007). Introducing Organizational Behavior and Management. London: Thomson Publishing. Pearsall, M. J., Ellis, A. P. J., & Evans, J. M. (2008). Unlocking the effects of fault lines on team creativity: Is activation the key? Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 93(2), pp. 204–206. Schermerhorn, J., Hunt, J. & Osborn, R. (2004). Core Concepts of Organizational Behavior. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Thompson, L. (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 17(1), pp. 96–109. VI. Appendix Appendix 1: Chart for Organization Focus Scores and Areas of Interest Scores Read More