Organizational Behavior Terminology & Concepts

Organizational Behavior Terminology and Concepts

I am not sure who made the term “dress for success” popular but I believe the term falls short. Anyone can dress up and look great but there is much more to success then dressing the part. While it is important for organizations to have their employees presenting themselves with a professional look and manner, there are also many other concepts within an organization that need to be addressed.

Organizational Behavior, as defined in our text, is the study of human behavior in organizations (Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn, 2005, p. 17). How organizations behave within their ranks is in my opinion what truly can make them successful. The concepts of culture, diversity, communication, etc; need to be addressed so that employees can work well together and business can run smoothly.

How employees of an organization think and work together creates an organizational culture. This organizational culture could be bad or good depending on many factors. As an example, on my own job we have several crews and each has its own culture. The stronger crews’ tend to have better leadership, morale, and team structures that are built upon support for one another. This creates a strong crew culture where every member is thinking alike and working together toward the same goal with the best of intentions and greatest of efforts.

The crews within my organization are also greatly diverse. All employees are required to attend diversity training to better understand and accept the differences between one another. My crew consists of 28 individuals from a number of different countries. The ages vary as do the religious backgrounds and much more. With having such a diverse workforce, diversity training is a key element toward making a team learn how to function and communicate well together.

Communication in an organization is another key concept to an organizations success. Information needs to be communicated from the top of an organizations managerial ladder all the way to the bottom. Employees also have to exchange information between each other. Meetings, emails, memos and phone calls seem to be the norm within my own organization but another aspect of communication is how people speak to one another. Professionalism should be maintained during communications not only during verbal communication but also with how emails and memos are written. Certain terminologies, jokes and labels do not belong in workplace communication. The wrong type of dialogue can often lead to embarrassing situations. Mayor Nagin from New Orleans recently referred to his city’s plight as “rebuilding chocolate town” on live television. This was a bad slip of the tongue that the media focused in on. Now instead of what seemed to be his goal of injecting some hope and inspiration towards his city’s plight has turned into a free for all for the media questioning Mayor Nagins personal ethics. Communication breakdowns such as this can affect an organizations effectiveness and efficiency.

An organizations effectiveness