Free Paper with Questions and Answers on Organizational Behaviour and Development

1. As a manager how would you motivate an underperforming team? What specific actions and, activities would you take to turn around performance?

Motivation is one of the essential factors in any given workplace. It is with the motivation that managers are always in a better position to maintain and enhance the productivity of their employees. Lack of motivation in the workplace often comes along with adverse effects such as underperformance. Underperformance also known as poor work performance mainly arises from a failure to execute entitled duties as well as performing less than the required standards.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Managers are always responsible when it comes to underperformance within their organizations. Hence they ought to work hard towards correcting the underperformance state within their organizations. One of the ways through which I would motivate an underperforming team is by focusing on giving regular feedbacks regarding employee performance. According to (Newell 2017) Performance Feedback is essential in that, for instance, employees feel appreciated by their leaders hence feeling motivated always to work harder. Feedbacks also address any given mistakes made by the employees, therefore, making it a proper channel for improvement for instance because managers ensure that they as well provide reliable strategies for mistake correction as well as preventing the repetition of similar mistakes.

Rewards and bonuses are also a substantial source of motivation especially for the underperforming teams since with these rewards and benefits; employees remain determined and motivated to maintain and enhance their general performance. Another essential action I would go by as a manager with an underperforming team is addressing any given issues by initially identifying the cause. Finding the main reasons acts as a source of motivation where employers seek to develop reliable solutions to the problems facing employees that might have in one way contributed to their underperformance.

Setting objectives is also another vital action I would implement as a manager for an underperforming team to avert poor performance. Setting clear and achievable objectives instills a level of motivation whereby employees remain focused towards a common goal and target (Newell 2017). Leading by example is also a significant move as a manager with a mediocre performing team. Employees always look up to their leaders and hence with good leadership it is undoubted that employees always remain motivated to follow their leaders' steps on their journey to success.

How would you measure whether you were successful?

When it comes to determining the success of my actions towards turning around performance, I would frequently evaluate and monitor my team in distinct aspects of the working setting. According to (O'Neill 2016) some of the areas include the quality of work done, punctuality, observing personal habits as well as carrying out client and employee surveys to determine their satisfaction levels.

2. Using the Rational Decision-Making model, discuss the toughest decision that you have had to make? Discuss the Situation/Task, the Action that you took, and the Result that occurred.

The Rational decision-making model entails multiple steps and a linear action that remains designed for problem-solving. This model starts with problem identification through to the solution to reach and make logically sound decisions (Gigerenzer 2015). The initial step towards creating a rational choice is the identifying and description of the problem through the actual definition of the present and desired states as well as any alternatives. The second step in the rational decision model identifies the decision criteria that acts as a guide towards the final decision. Weighing the established criteria is the third step of any given logical decision-making model. Some of the ways to consider the set standards include a relative and absolute comparison. A relative contrast, in this case, gets made by comparing one criterion to another while comprehensive comparison allows one to compare items side by side.

The fourth step of the rational decision-making model is generating the list of alternatives that are made more accessible from weighing the criteria as per their levels of importance. It is essential to develop as many options as possible since with a good number of alternatives it gets easy to end up with reliable and efficient decisions towards the problem at hand. The fifth step of the rational decision-making model seeks to evaluate the alternatives, and finally, the last stage comes to determining the optimal decision.

An example in this case from my experience, my parents and I lived in a relatively small house. As time passed by, our family was growing, and the little house could no longer accommodate the whole family thus this small house would not meet our needs. About the rational decision-making model, the initial step was the identification of the problem, in this case, space. One of the decisions is buying and moving to a bigger house that would accommodate and meet our needs. The decision criteria, in this case, remains based on distinct factors of cost and time where these factors significantly contributed to the decision making process. Weighing the decision criteria, in this case, follows as well as the generation and evaluation of alternatives to solving the problem. The final step, in this case, comes in where my parents decided to buy a new house that eventually ended up being our second home and appropriately met the whole family needs.

Team Dynamics

Discuss an example of the best Team Leader (Manager, Coach, Captain, etc.) whose team you have been a part of.

Working on a part-time job as an accountant at one of the banks, I drew an enormous source of inspiration from my Branch Manager especially from his leadership style that had enhanced the success of operations and the bank in general. Leadership by example is the core character of an effective manager for instance with engaging and sharing tips on expertise in the field with all employees with no discrimination (Goetsch & Davis 2014). It was an aspect that in this case motivated the whole team within the organization to always strive and prosper in line with the manager's mantra to success that particularly well-defined success as the only option in the company.

What did this person do that made them successful, and why were you impressed?

The manager's success in the field was explicit as a result of hard work and persistence even in times of failure. The manager taught his team to always face challenges with sheer courage since fear according to him led to nothing but failure. One of his quotes was that nothing comes easy and to succeed and dominate in the banking industry, the team had to work tirelessly towards the set goals. Passion stood out in him, a factor that explains the reason behind the massive success that this manager had attained throughout his career.

List these barriers that you feel inhibit effective communications.

Excellent communication skills are essential for managers and employees. For instance, right communication skills allow managers and their employees to perform their tasks more efficiently. However, there exist numerous barriers that limit excellent and effective communication. One of the common barriers to communication is a language difference. Language is a huge barrier to effective communication for instance in this case most organizations absorb distinct employees speaking from different places around the world (Baker & Warren 2015). It is a factor that has brought together individuals speaking different languages along with an aspect that significantly hinders effective communication.

Another barrier to effective communication is the lack of interest and attention during conversation. Lack of focus in most cases arises from distractions that hinder proper listening thus compromising the existence of active communication. Cultural differences are also present in most workplaces because individuals getting sourced from diverse backgrounds and ways of life that in this case bring forth the ineffectiveness in communication. Differences in perceptions is also another critical contributor to the ineffectual discussion since individuals tend to perceive different information manner hence making it difficult to uphold an effective communication.

Discuss the actions that you would take to overcome these barriers.

Overcoming the barriers to communication is vital mainly because it helps achieve efficient communications. One of the ways to overcome these communication barriers is through the use of simple and clear words to convey messages. A simplified language enhances effectiveness in interpersonal communication. Another action towards overcoming obstacles to communication is the active listening since it is from proper listening that one gets in a better situation to put across opinions in line with the other person's point of view.

References

Baker, T., & Warren, A. (2015). The Nine Common Barriers to Communication. In Conversations at Work (pp. 54-74). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Gigerenzer, G. (2015). Simply rational: Decision making in the real world. Evolution and Cognition.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Newell, C. (2017). Effective management of employee workplace performance. REIQ Journal, (Sep 2017), 34.O'Neill, M. J. (2016). Measuring workplace performance. CRC Press.