Management and Organisational Behaviour at Google Company - Case Study Example

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR BY (NAME) SUBJECT PROFESSOR SCHOOL CITY DATE TABLE OF CONTENT TABLE OF CONTENT 1 MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR 1 Executive Summary 1 Introduction 2 Organization Culture Model by Edgar Schein 3 Google company work culture 4 Work groups and teams at google and their impact to the organisation culture 6 Conflict and Negotiation at google and their impact to the organisation culture 8 Conclusion 9 References 11 MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR Executive Summary Organisation behaviour refers to how things are done in an organisation. Although many of the tasks in an organisation are individualised, organisations have teams that because some tasks require people to integrate to improve quality of outcome. Interaction among people at the organisation cause conflicts that can either be constructive or destructive. Work teams also influence the decision making and motivation of individuals thereby changing their behaviour and the overall behaviour of an organisation. Schein theory of organisation culture defines the three levels of organisation culture. The artifacts level is characterised by use of unique items, symbols and visions that are often associated with the organisation. Artifacts are used to build a unique brand. The second level entails use of values that the organisation holds. These values are documented and communicated to all organisation stakeholders. The last level is the Assumed values. They are not documented and cannot be quantified but are strictly upheld. Google Company has developed work groups and teams that are a reflection of an organisation culture. Since conflicts are normal in an organisation, it has inculcated a culture where employees differ on constructive ideologies. Through arbitration and negotiation, most of the ideological conflicts are solved thereby contributing to development of a successful organisation culture. Introduction The rise in global business competition has necessitated that firms identify and improve factors that promote success or failure of businesses. Several businesses attribute their successes to the management and organisation behaviour. Organisation behaviour entails, the ethics, attitude, way of doing work and all other factors influence how decisions or actions are done in a particular organisation. People are key determinants of success in any organisation. Therefore, investing in management of employees, groupings and conflict management promote the culture of innovation, competitiveness and creativity that attracts and maintains business customers. Moreover, management has a duty to cultivate successful among organisation teams. This essay, will analyse the management and organisation behaviour of Google Company in relation to its work groups and teams, conflict and negation as well as their impact in developing the successful organisation culture responsible for its success (Mullins, 2007, pp. 1–15) The behaviour of people in an organisation is seen in how they interrelate. Within the organisation there are work groups and teams which make decisions that reflect the organisation behaviour. Work groups and teams refer to categorisation of employees into small task oriented groups. It also refers to people who work together within a larger workforce. Informal groups may develop within an organisation and influence the organisation culture (Turner, 2014). As workers interact within the organisation structures and daily activities, conflicts arise. The organisation structures set for prevention, mitigation and management of conflict are important in reducing staff turnover and wastage of other resources such as time. The organisation environment and relationship structures contribute to conflicts within an organisation. The goal of an organisation leadership is not to avoid conflicts since all organisations experience conflict but to keep them manageable and useful in the organisation. A good leadership would provide negotiation and keep thereby keeping conflict minimal and productive to the development of an organisation. Organization Culture Model by Edgar Schein According to Schein (2010, pp. 1–21), organization culture is revealed by the values and beliefs that an organisation has in addition to the principles and ideologies upheld by the people in a certain organisation. He reports that organisation culture is a very powerful too in that it influences how people interact, work and behave towards organisation outsiders. Besides, failure of individuals to meet the requirements of an organisation culture often results into a conflict and demotivation. Schein (2014), postulates that organisation culture develops over a period of years as the organisation transition various development stages. New employees are forced to adopt an organization culture. He classified levels of organization into three, namely; Artifacts, Values and Assumed Values. At the artefact level, there are unique features of an organization that differentiates it from the others. For example the dress code, official colours, structural designs, vision and behaviour of the employees. The values level refers to the mind-set and values of each employees. It entails what employees think matters in an organization. The last level is the assumed values which are belief, practices and facts that cannot be measured or documented but remain hidden. Based on Schein views of organization culture, it is evident that the culture of an organisation can be defined based on the three levels of Schein’s organisation culture. Google Company has a mission statement which all employees are expected to ascribe to. The mission is to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google has strong and unique values. For example it has documented that it values on working on a single item excellently other than multitasking. Another unique belief among ten believes is that you can be serious without putting on a tie. However, not all values are documented. Examples of Google’s assumed values is that it values trustworthiness of employees, creativity and self-control as evidenced by lack of official working hours for its employees (Google Inc, 2015a) Google company work culture Google’s work culture has been largely influenced by its beliefs and ideals. While describing its culture, Google documents that it accommodates people of all walks of life and makes them share a common goal and vision. The aspect of embracing diversity is evidenced by Google’s support to ensure employees engage in diverse activities such as bee keeping during out of office hours. The company is open to all its employees who have freedom to raise opinions and ideas over the running of its businesses. Additionally, all Google employees have a direct communication with its founders via emails (Google Inc, 2016). A closer view of Google’s work place environment indicates a freely interactive workplace. It is fitted with play grounds for the employees. Google associates this type of culture with it belief that someone can be serious with the work without necessarily dressing in a serious tone or without working in a busy serious environment (Feloni, 2015) Key to its organization culture is the management of Google’s employees. The Human Resource Manager is referred to as The Head of People’s Operations as an indication of the value that Google places on science and art of managing employee relations. The company is known for hiring extraordinary people through interview that do not necessary look for perfection but the thoughtful individuals with problem solving skills (Google Inc, 2015b). It maintain employees by providing them with several attractive perks. For example, breakfast, lunch and dinner are free, free health services and insurance benefits among others. The free services for its employees are expensive to the organisation but they have also made it one of the best places to work worldwide. Additionally, Google has device a warm greeting for new employees as a way of improving their productivity. However such cultures are not written but form part of Google’s Assumed Values (“Inside Google’s Culture of Success and Employee Happiness,” n.d.). Most importantly, the company has employed a Chief Cultural Officer whose role is to ensure employees are always happy and to ensure there are no hierarchies in running of the business. Google employees have a perception that what is important to them it maintaining innovation and creativity as well as communicating them to the team, managers or founders. The multiple interaction structures in Google has enabled it to be open. Every new employee at google is conditioned to believe he/she is the best employee there is in the market and that they are expected to deliver creative and actionable innovations (Google Inc, 2016). Work groups and teams at google and their impact to the organisation culture According to Turner (2014), Organisations are broken down into sections, departments and units that comprise smaller groups of people. Although individual performance is important in an organisation, some of the task require coordination and partnership of a group of people. In a globalised business world, companies have formed work groups and teams comprising of experts from various parts of the world. Diversity in a work group or team is valued because it enables the team to address diverse challenges without additional support. Work groups and teams are dynamic and have dynamic challenges too. Global work groups and teams have challenges communicating and understanding each other which can easily lead to a dysfunctional team or work group. Effective work groups and teams have some level of informality and emotional connection that makes communications and work flow easier. Besides, effective teams build trust through common understanding of the meaning of certain behaviours. An effective team is sensitive to differences of the members although the team has a single identity. Sharing the vision and common goals of the organisation is essential for a team to remain cohesive, focused and with a single identity. Besides, disagreements in work groups and teams are necessary and should be encouraged. However, the challenge is maintaining the disagreements within a moderate range and focusing the debate to issues (Schein, 2010, pp. 519–585). Google invests in building work groups and teams (Ryan, 2016). By studying workers and analysing why some teams were successful than others, Google was able to put people in groups that match their personality. For example, Google would classify introverts together or grouping people who were friends outside workplace together. The strategy of grouping with commonalities together enhanced Google’s friendly working culture, kept workers happy, socializing and minimizing conflicts and discouragements (Duhigg, 2016, p. 1). Although work groups are highly valued in organisations, they require monitoring and control through development of group norms. Group decisions and influence have more value than incentives. Google’s teams have developed norms and rules that guide their operation as well as provide room for them to be independent, creative and self-governing. Moreover, Google has created formal teams that are deliberately formed by the management, have a specified task and reporting guidelines. Hence, the organisation culture on innovation, responsiveness and time keeping are upheld. The main criteria used in formation of groups at google is the function to be carried out and products. An example is a team that is formed to work on a single line of product such as Nexus devices (Smithson, 2015). Another feature of Google’s team is disregard of the reporting structure. Teams are allowed to interact will various organisation players disregarding protocol. This has created a culture of openness and a workplace where all employees are valued. There is a high level of interaction among teams and employees at Google, due to their ability to meet and interact with other teams, middle level managers and founders of the company. Therefore, Google’s Organization structure is flat. A warm environment where employees feel they are not working alone, but at the same enjoying independence in small work groups and teams has paid the investment at Google because it has improved employee satisfaction, effectiveness, innovatiness and friendliness towards other employees and the outsiders (Smithson, 2015). Conflict and Negotiation at google and their impact to the organisation culture Conflicts arise in an organisation due to disagreements over opinions and issues of substance. Emotional differences cause conflicts between individuals and/or groups. Conflicts can be divided into substantive and emotional conflicts based on whether they are about goals or interpersonal differences respectively. Besides, constructive conflicts have positive outcomes while dysfunctional conflicts have negative outcomes such as destroying group cohesion, interpersonal hostilities and negative environment for workers. Therefore, conflict management is essential in creating a successful organisational culture. Cultural differences are causes of conflicts and conflicts and conflict management contribute to building of an organisational culture. Management of an organisation should strive to merge various individual culture into the desired organisation culture. Organisational culture is built through setting of the code of conduct, rules and regulations. Additionally, conflict prevention and management policy in an organisation is influential in determination creating a successful organisation culture. Conflict can be managed effectively, in a way that can contribute to the progress of an organisation. Effective conflict resolution starts with a diagnosis of the causes of conflict. Conflict arise along hierarchical levels between managers and juniors or horizontal level between the work groups and individual employees. Conflicts in an organisation are solved through mediation along hierarchical levels. For example, a conflict among junior employees can be solved by the immediate supervisor or organisation culture. However, some organisations have a conflict resolution committee that arbitrates conflicts emanating from the organisation. Conflict resolution takes various forms such as accommodation, compromise, authoritative command, collaboration or avoidance. Often, conflict resolution requires negotiation whereby the conflicting teams can accept a win-win agreement or win-lose agreement. A successful negotiation occurs conflicting parties resolve their differences and maintain a normal working relationship. The processes that are used in negotiation are unique to an organization culture. Google has exceled in conflict management using the negotiation especially on external relations of with the company. An example is the negotiation it had with its competitors who had complained of its dominance. In another case, Google avoided a 10% revenue charge by Federal Trade Commission when it negotiated with European competitors to reserve their space high. Therefore, negotiation saved the company litigation and penalty expenses (Bauer and Erdogan, 2017, p. 69). Google’s openness to its employees allows them to raise complaints of all sorts. Usually there is a neutral arbitrator who listens to all the conflicting parties and makes a determination. For example, technical related differences are solved by allowing all the parties to submit their proposals. At first, the differing sides are allowed to convince each other based on the merits of their proposal. In such a case, one party may agree to step down or both parties may formulate a mechanism of working together. If both parties cannot agree, then a neutral arbitrator makes a final determination which is abiding to all the parties. Decisions at Google are made based on the quality of the ideas presented and not based on the author (Havard Law School, 2016; Meet the Boss, 2016). Conclusion Organisation behaviour is a collection of individual behaviours that members uphold. Increasing rivalry and globalisation has necessitated investment in building organisation behaviour to create competitive advantage. As explained above, one such company is Google. Google’s organisation behaviour is shaped by their laid down organisation beliefs. Additionally, employees are made to believe that what is expected of them is creativity, innovatiness and greatness. By inculcating a culture of warming to each other, Google has great focus to its clients when designing its products. The company has flat organisation culture. At Google, work is subdivided into smaller groups who can report to individuals, other groups or directly to the senior managers. Conflict management is democratic. Differing parties are given a chance to negotiate with each other. If there is no agreement reached, a neutral arbitrator is allowed to make a ruling based on the ideas presented. Such approaches have built a relaxing, friendly culture for employees to maximise their productivity thereby contributing to increased effectiveness of the organisation. References Bauer, T., Erdogan, B., 2017. Organizational Behavior 1.1 | Flat World Education. Duhigg, C., 2016. What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. N. Y. Times. Feloni, R., 2015. Google has found that its most successful teams have 5 traits in common [Online]. Bus. Insid. URL http://www.businessinsider.com/google-explains-top-traits-of-its-best-teams-2015-11 (accessed 1.21.17). Google Inc, 2016. Diversity - Google [Online]. URL https://www.google.com/diversity (accessed 1.21.17). Google Inc, 2015a. Ten things we know to be true – Company – Google [Online]. URL https://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/ (accessed 1.21.17). Google Inc, 2015b. Bring questions. Build answers. - Google Careers [Online]. URL https://careers.google.com/ (accessed 1.21.17). Havard Law School, 2016. Negotiation Case Studies: Google’s Approach to Dispute Resolution. PON - Program Negot. Harv. Law Sch. Inside Google’s Culture of Success and Employee Happiness [Online], n.d. URL https://blog.kissmetrics.com/googles-culture-of-success/ (accessed 1.21.17). Meet the Boss, 2016. Pt 4: How We Manage Conflict at Google. Meet The Boss. Mullins, L.J., 2007. Management and organisational behaviour. Pearson education. Ryan, N., 2016.What Google discovered is the makeup of a great teams Network [Online]. Blue Jeans Netw. URL https://www.bluejeans.com/blog/what-google-discovered-makeup-great-team (accessed 1.21.17). Schein, E.H., 2010. Organizational culture and leadership. John Wiley & Sons. Smithson, N., 2015. Google’s Organizational Structure & Organizational Culture. Panmore Inst. Turner, M.E., 2014. Groups at work: Theory and research. Psychology Press. Read More