Marketing

“Organizational behaviour can be defined as the understanding, prediction and management of human behaviour in organizations”

It is known that experiential learning does not have any substitute in life. The different moulds of life especially the crest and trough of both work life and personal life teaches as much as any classroom. Prior to my work experience, I did not have any hands on knowledge of human behaviour in work place. I had seen my father, my relatives jostling to manage work-life balance but the practical aspect of it was always absent. Human behaviour is both unpredictable and predictable depending on different situations. If one knows the person closely, then one can predict the behaviour to a certain degree of accuracy but prediction of the behaviour of an unknown person is not one without flaws.

The subject of organizational behaviour sparked an interest in me from the first term here in GLIM. The aspect of human behaviour has always generated an unconventional enthusiasm in me be it in organization or in any public place. The different theories related to human behaviour and especially in organizations are something which one cannot conceive of when entering the work field for the very first time. If I take my own example, I had entered Cognizant Technology Solutions straight after my graduation and did not have any prior experience in handling corporate world whatsoever. To my friends in school and college, I had always been perceived as an academically inclined person with genuine interest in various extra-curricular activities. I was described as amicable, honest and sometimes as blunt. If there was any constructive feedback, either I had incorporated it in my behaviour or nullified it on grounds of fallacy.

Coming back to initial few months in Cognizant, I clearly remember they were days conceived as “Honeymoon days of CTS” where the trainees didn’t work for any project but only acquired different nuances of technology. The aspect of Organizational Behaviour didn’t take any shape at that instant. It was post my project allocation and a year after, that the fog of corporate world was unveiled and I came to know of the follies of my prejudices. My mistakes were not related to the accuracy in work but in understanding the dimensions of organizational behaviour. I had perceived the Corporate World as any other field and had not adapted myself in terms of behaviour and attitude to suit to the work environment. The judicial decisions of being diplomatic was something I could not think of at the cost of being honest and blunt. I could not understand initially why I was not at the receiving end of awards and was not appreciated for my excellence in work despite the efforts. I had the perception that genuine effort will lead to rewards. The very first assessment of my efforts in my project by my manager demotivated me. Although it propelled me to work harder but in a way it also made me more introvert. I was trying too hard to please my peers and supervisors in terms of my work rather than working on the problem of adjusting myself to be more diplomatic. I used to spent endless hours in office even after normal scheduled time to learn new technologies and do extra work than that was assigned to me. I was not able to grasp of human behaviour of my seniors.

Now, comparing this to my learnings in GLIM, the knowledge of perception, behaviour, attitude and motivation has made me rethink of my years in Cognizant. Now, I know that my perception of myself differed radically from that of my seniors which in a way triggered their harsh attitude towards me. I was at times very depressed at myself seeing that nothing came out good. My peers in other departments were getting recognized and promoted while I was still tasting the dust at the bottom of the organization. It ruined any sort of motivation I had initially while joining Cognizant.

Pygmalion Effect which talks about self-fulfilling prophecy where if you think something will happen, you may unconsciously make it happen through your actions or inaction. After two successive ratings in Cognizant, I had assumed that whatsoever I may do, it will never take good shape. I had very low expectations and it demotivated me to perform to my potential. I was also simultaneously trying to go for higher studies, but the constant feeling of disappointment in workplace way back in 2012 somehow made me perform badly in all the management related examinations. The below par performance in exams demotivated me further in the following year.