Organization Behavior of the Friendly Bank - Case Study Example

Organisational behavior Organization behavior A case study of the Friendly bank Introduction Organizational behavior plays an important role in an organization by influencing individual or groups to have good practices within the organization (Mount & Reiter, 2002). Whenever, people interact, several factors play a significant role. Understanding the organization helps to develop strategies to understand how people are likely to behave. Moreover, value of organization behavior contributes to the important aspects of top management and offers specific perspective to employee management. In this situation, we are going to analyze the organizational structure of the Friendly bank and determine the reasons the organization is not performing. Some of the problems include leadership, organization design, teamwork, demotivation and power. Friendly organization design problems A convenient organizational design should enable work activities to deliver the organization competitive strategy (Daft, 2001). Criteria such as technology and structure should be aligned within the organization and compatible with each other. In Friendly, there are several organization design problems. First, the organization structure did not ensure there was appropriate management of the organization key strategic initiatives and capabilities. For example, Sheila was not competent team leader because she never bother to encourage the team to improve on the Sales Against Target figure (SAT). The primary strategy of the Friendly was to increase their SAT in order to gain a completive advantage. In addition, the team members were not bothered about hitting the targets. The company did not staff it with the right talent, and that’s why it was failing. During the creation of a new design the company should give role depending on an individual skills and talent. Secondly, there were several complicated links within the organization structure. The staff did not cooperate well, and there were communication problems within the organization. If the staffs do not work as a team the organization objectives, will not be met. Paul says that the team’s members were in conflict with Sheila because of her lack of drive, which resulted in Jeanne leaving her job. When there are conflicts between the employees the productivity level becomes very low (Daft, 2001). Friendly management should strengthen the informal networks between the individuals involved in difficulty links can be an effective solution because there will be no need for active management of a supervisor. Lastly, Friendly organization did not protect critical specialists. The management was aware of Sheila incompetence; however, they did not make the necessary changes. There were no boundaries within the organization, for example, Sheila spent most of her time helping the customer advisors. On the other hand, the management is also aware that Paul is more qualified to be the team leader, yet he was not assigned the job. The management should ensure there are boundaries to control the objectives and measure the performance of the unit leaders. In addition, the groups should be assigned with individual responsibilities to allow development of specialist skills. Teamwork problem Teamwork is very crucial for the implementation of the overall goal of an organization. The team members should trust one another, have high individual confidence and high anticipated consequences result to great cooperation, leading in increased productivity. An efficient team should have several qualities including honesty, consistency, credibility and compassionate.  At friendly, the team members lacked all these qualities that are necessary to meet the team objectives. The Sheila team lacked creativity. Sheila loses focus in her role as a team player and does not ensure that the team works hard to hit their SAT targets. In addition, there is the lack of trust among all the employees. Paul thinks that Sheila is solely responsible for the team failure and also behind the reason the team is not meeting the SAT targets. On the other hand, Carl thinks that Paul is incompetent because he is not dedicated to his roles but rather busy at pointing other employee’s failures. The level of trust among teams affects how the ideas are generated to ensure creativity (Tjosvold & Tjosvold 1991).  Moreover, if the members believe one another, they will be able to resolve conflicts among one another. At Friendly, conflicts have played important roles in disabling the team progress towards attainment of its goal. For example, the conflicts between Jeanne and Sheila resulted in lack of continuation of services. As a consequence, the team never met its target because they cannot share ideas on how to improve their sales. In other words, the objective was not met. Moreover, Paul confronted Keith about Sheila incompetence so that she would be confronted and create a scene. The management should make sure the team demonstrates skills, bring reliable information and encourage the members to show sincere interest to improve the level of trust. In addition, there was poor communication within the organization. Research indicates that effective communication results in improved productivity, reduce grievances and better problem-solving. Paul, for example, did not give accurate information. This could have resulted in more conflict between Keith and Sheila. Moreover, the organization did not communicate clearly individual roles and responsibility which results to low productivity. Sheila and Paul had conflicting roles because Paul played the team leader position which was Sheila’s responsibilities. Motivation problems Employee motivation is that drives which, causes an individual to take action towards their jobs. The organization should create a working environment where the staffs are motivated to work (Thomas, 2000). This can be done by fulfilling their needs and expectation and the workplace environmental factors. Friendly employee has low expectation for success. The management does not provide engaging works to the employees so that their self-esteem and confidence in job performance. For example, Keith says Friendly’s promises that it would be a great work place, most of the customer advisers knew the work would not be stimulating. Low expectations ensure that the employees remain demotivated and will not perform as expected (Thomas, 2000). Friendly pays were poor. Paul says despite Sheila’s team having the highest level of turnover, they receive the lowest bonuses after working on the eight-day shift teams. Therefore, the workers resulted in other activities so that they can get extra income. The employee’s put more efforts competing with each other to make the most sales. Others, concentrated on other activities like redesign the systems to make them more effective. Carl also says he knows there is no real point working too hard because Sheila team never get bonuses. Therefore, the employees innovativeness was reduced leading to low productivity. Moreover, there was the lack of appreciation when the employees performed well. Some employees like Carl are hard workers; he enjoys working at customer service and takes a genuine interest in people’s situation. Additionally, he was very talented in identifying a genuine sales opportunity. Not only could he sell the product but also actually selling something the customer needs. Paul was also responsible for holding Sheila team together, and the management too was aware. However, he was not put in charge of the team. The management should use simple praise and words of encouragement for the task well performed to ensure that the employees continue working hard. Power problem In most cases, organizations do not follow their defined scope of powers strictly. Therefore, it is crucial to recognize the dynamics of power so that the organization can be managed conveniently (Albrecht, 2003).  Power is dependent on an individual strength or competencies. There are various issue of power in Friendly organization regarding power distribution. Sheila is the team leader despite her incompetence. She did not encourage the team to work hard so that they can meet the targets. She is always away from her place of work, where all the customer advisors were located. In addition, she was never interested in meeting the targets. Jennie requested for transfer because the team leader, Sheila, lack of drive. In addition, other team members had just lost patience due to the unwillingness to do anything because she knew the management will not punish her for failure. On the other hand, Paul was not rewarded to be the team leader despite his effort in making sure the team was in order. He also believes that, if he were the team leader there would be practical changes in the team. In addition, he has excellent credentials that make him a good fit for the job. Decision-making problems Leadership is very paramount in any decision-making process of an organization. A good leader should demonstrate talent, result oriented and inspiration to other employees (Mount & Reiter, 2002). Friendly organization had a major decision-making problems as a result of weak leadership. Leaders were not preoccupied with their roles. Sheila did not demonstrate good leadership qualities because she did not encourage the team. In addition, she was not result oriented as she spent most of her time away from the place of work, therefore, could not monitor whether the team was working effectively. Keith was also aware of Sheila’s failure, to show good leadership skills, she could have taken action. Conclusion Understanding the organizational behaviour is very crucial in order to understand the employee’s future behaviour in the organization. Friendly bank is currently facing many challenges in its organization structure because the employees are not assigned task depending on their skills and talents. In addition, there are several conflicts among the teams that have resulted in low productivity. The leadership is also another problem because the leaders are not result oriented, thereby poor performance. Finally, the workers are demotivated, as a result, they lack creativity and innovativeness. Reference list Albrecht, K. (2003). The power of minds at work: Organizational intelligence in action. New York: AMACOM. Daft, R. L. (2001). Organization theory and design. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western College Pub. Mount, K. R. & Reiter, S. (2002). Computation and complexity in economic behavior and organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, K. W. (2000). Intrinsic motivation at work: Building energy & commitment. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Tjosvold, D. & Tjosvold, M. M. (1991). Leading the team organization: How to create an enduring competitive advantage. New York: Lexington Books. Read More