Q: 01. What is the importance of interpersonal skills?

Interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills" refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social
communications and interaction to reach certain effects or results. The term
"interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a
person's ability to operate within business organizations through social communication
and interactions. Interpersonal skills are how people relate to one another.

Studies say 90 percent of executive failures are attributable to interpersonal competencies

—factors such as leading teams, developing a positive work environment, retaining staff,
inspiring trust, and coping with change. The message is clear—if you’re going to excel as
a leader in any industry, you must master the “soft” skills.

In healthcare management, where the basic unit of business is the person, these skills are
even more important. If physicians on your staff are spending time replaying a conflict in
their minds, their energy is directed away from patient care. If you lack the skills to
motivate your frontline employees to accept and optimally use new information
technologies, your organization could be missing revenue opportunities or negatively
affecting patient outcomes. Emotional intelligence— however “soft” it seems—has a
direct effect on aspects of the organization as concrete as patient safety, clinical
outcomes, and profitability

To succeed in management you need good interpersonal skills, you need to understand
how to deal with other people. This unit will help you gain an awareness of your skills
and understand that an awareness of the interpersonal skills of others can help us
enormously in dealing with the work tasks we are responsible for.

Q: 02. What managers do in terms of functions, roles, and skills?

Management functions

Basic management functions are four Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.

Planning

It is the foundation area of management. It is the base upon which the all the areas of
management should be built. Planning requires administration to assess; where the
company is presently set, and where it would be in the upcoming. From there an
appropriate course of action is determined and implemented to attain the company’s goals
and objectives

Planning is unending course of action. There may be sudden strategies where companies
have to face. Sometimes they are uncontrollable. You can say that they are external
factors that constantly affect a company both optimistically and pessimistically.
Organizing

The second function of the management is getting prepared, getting organized.

Management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the
course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function. Through this
process, management will now determine the inside directorial configuration; establish
and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources.

Directing

Directing is the third function of the management. Working under this function helps the
management to control and supervise the actions of the staff. This helps them to assist the
staff in achieving the company’s goals and also accomplishing their personal or career
goals which can be powered by motivation, communication, department dynamics, and
department leadership.

Employees those which are highly provoked generally surpass in their job performance
and also play important role in achieving the company’s goal. And here lies the reason
why managers focus on motivating their employees. They come about with prize and
incentive programs based on job performance and geared in the direction of the
employees requirements.

Controlling

Controlling, the last of four functions of management, includes establishing performance

standards which are of course based on the company’s objectives. It also involves
evaluating and reporting of actual job performance. When these points are studied by the
management then it is necessary to compare both the things. This study on comparison of
both decides further corrective and preventive actions.

In an effort of solving performance problems, management should higher standards. They

should straightforwardly speak to the employee or department having problem. On the
contrary, if there are inadequate resources or disallow other external factors standards
from being attained, management had to lower their standards as per requirement. The
controlling processes as in comparison with other three, is unending process or say
continuous process. With this management can make out any probable problems. It helps
them in taking necessary preventive measures against the consequences.

Management Roles

Management roles are classified into three categories which are further divided into more
categories which are mention.

Interpersonal Role

Interpersonal role is divided into three categories.

Figurehead: All social, inspiration, legal and ceremonial obligations. In this light, the
manager is seen as a symbol of status and authority.

Leader: Duties are at the heart of the manager-subordinate relationship and include
structuring and motivating subordinates, overseeing their progress, promoting and
encouraging their development, and balancing effectiveness.

Liaison: Describes the information and communication obligations of a manager. One

must network and engage in information exchange to gain access to knowledge bases.

Informational Role
Information role is divided into three categories.

Monitor: Duties include assessing internal operations, a department’s success and the
problems and opportunities which may arise. All the information gained in this capacity
must be stored and maintained.

Disseminator: Highlights factual or value based external views into the organization and
to subordinates. This requires both filtering and delegation skills.

Spokesman: Serves in a PR capacity by informing and lobbying others to keep key

stakeholders updated about the operations of the organization.

Decisional Role
Decisional role is divided into four categories.

Entrepreneur: Roles encourage managers to create improvement projects and work to

delegate, empower and supervise teams in the development process.

Disturbance handler: A generalist role that takes charge when an organization is

unexpectedly upset or transformed and requires calming and support.

Resource allocator: Describes the responsibility of allocating and overseeing financial,

material and personnel resources.

Negotiator: Is a specific task which is integral for the spokesman, figurehead and
resource allocator roles.

Management Skills
Management skills are base on three types of skills.

Technical Skills

Technical skills are more closely related to the tasks that are performed by workers. A
manager must know what the workers who are being supervised are doing on their jobs or
assistance cannot be provided to them. For example, a manager who is supervising
accountant’s needs to know the accounting processes; a manager who is supervising a
machinist must know how to operate the equipment; and a manager who supervises the
construction of a home must know the sequence of operations and how to perform them.

Human Skills

Human Skills Relating to other people is vital in order to be a good manager. Workers
come in about every temperament that can be imagined. It takes a manager with the right
human skills to manage this variety of workers effectively. Diversity in the workplace is
commonplace. The manager must understand different personality types and cultures to
be able to supervise these workers. Human skills cannot be learned in a classroom; they
are best learned by working with people. Gaining an understanding of personality types
can be learned from books, but practice in dealing with diverse groups is the most
meaningful preparation.

Conceptual Skills

The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations

Decision making, for example, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives
that can correct them, evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one.

Q: 03. What is organizational behavior (OB)?

Organizational behavior

Organizational behavior is the systematic study and careful application of knowledge

about how people - as individuals and as groups - act within organizations.

Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and application of knowledge about how
people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does this by taking a system
approach. That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the whole
person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Its purpose is to build
better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social
objectives.

Organizational Behavior creates and disseminates knowledge that advances the

understanding of how to lead and manage with the aim of increasing personal and
organizational effectiveness. Although specific research interests span a wide range of
subjects, the faculty shares a problem driven, interdisciplinary, multi method approach
that has led to significant impact on theory and practice.

Q: 04. Why is it important to complement intuition with systematic

study?

Each of us is a student of behavior:

A casual or commonsense approach to reading others can often lead to erroneous
predictions.
You can improve your predictive ability by replacing your intuitive opinions with a more
systematic approach.
The systematic approach used in this book will uncover important facts and relationships
and will provide a base from which more accurate predictions of behavior can be made.
Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation and
what is important to him or her.
While people’s behavior may not appear to be rational to an outsider, there is reason to
believe it usually is intended to be rational by the individual and that they see their
behavior as rational.
There are certain fundamental consistencies underlying the behavior of all individuals
that can be identified and then modified to reflect individual differences.
These fundamental consistencies allow predictability.
There are rules (written and unwritten) in almost every setting.
Therefore, it can be argued that it is possible to predict behavior.
When we use the phrase systematic study, we mean looking at gathered information
under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous
manner.
Systematic study replaces intuition, or those gut feelings about-why I do what I do and-
what makes others tick. We want to move away from intuition to analysis when
predicting behavior.

Q: 05. What are the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute
to OB?

Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions

from a number of behavioral disciplines. The predominant areas are psychology,
sociology, social psychology, and anthropology.

Psychology: Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of humans and other animals.
Early industrial/organizational psychologists concerned themselves with problems of
fatigue, boredom, and other factors relevant to working conditions that could impede
efficient work performance.

Sociology: Sociologists study the social system in which individuals fill their roles; that
is, sociology studies people in relation to their fellow human beings.
Their greatest contribution to OB is through their study of group behavior in
organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations.

Social psychology: An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and
sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.

Social psychology blends the concepts of psychology and sociology

It focuses on the influence of people on one another
Major area how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance

Anthropology: The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Anthropologists work on cultures and environments; for instance, they have helped us
understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behavior among people in
different countries and within different organizations.

Q: 06. Why are there few absolutes in OB?

There Are Few Absolutes in OB

 There are few, if any, simple and universal principles that explain organizational
behavior.
 Human beings are complex. Because they are not alike, our ability to make
simple, accurate, and sweeping generalizations is limited.
 That does not mean, of course, that we cannot offer reasonably accurate
explanations of human behavior or make valid predictions. It does mean,
however, that OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions.
 Contingency variables situational factors are variables that moderate the
relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
 Using general concepts and then altering their application to the particular
situation developed the science of OB.
 Organizational behavior theories mirror the subject matter with which they deal.

Q: 07. What are the challenges and opportunities for managers in using
OB concepts?

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

There are many challenges and opportunities today for managers to use OB concepts.

Responding to Globalization

Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders.

Globalization affects a manager’s people skills in at least two ways.
First, if you are a manager, you are increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign
assignment.
Second, even in your own country, you are going to find yourself working with bosses,
peers, and other employees who were born and raised in different cultures.

Managing Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity is one of the most important and broad-based challenges currently
facing organizations.
While globalization focuses on differences between people from different countries,
workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries
Workforce diversity means that organizations are be coming more heterogeneous in terms
of gender, race, and ethnicity. It is an issue in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan, and
Europe as well as the United States.
A melting pot approach assumed people who were different would automatically
assimilate.
The melting pot assumption is replaced by one that recognizes and values differences.

Members of diverse groups were a small percentage of the workforce and were, for the
most part, ignored by large organizations (pe1980s); now:

47 percent of the U.S. labor force is women

Minorities and immigrants make up 23 percent
More workers than ever are unmarried with no children.
Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice.
Shift to recognizing differences and responding to those differences
Providing diversity training and revamping benefit programs to accommodate the
different needs of employees

Improving Quality and Productivity

Total quality management (TQM) is a philosophy of management that is driven by the

constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all
organizational processes.
Implementing quality programs requires extensive employee involvement.
Rather than make incremental changes, often old systems are eliminated entirely and
replaced with new systems
To improve productivity and quality, managers must include employees.

Responding to the Labor Shortage

If trends continue as expected, the U.S. will have a labor shortage for the next 10-15
years (particularly in skilled positions).
The labor shortage is a function of low birth rates and labor participation rates
(immigration does little to solve the problem).
Wages and benefits are not enough to keep talented workers. Managers must understand
human behavior and respond accordingly.

Improving Customer Service and People Skills

The majority of employees in developed countries work in service jobs-jobs that require
substantive interaction with the firm’s customers. For example, 80 percent of U.S.
workers are employed in service industries.
Employee attitudes and behavior are directly related to customer satisfaction requiring
management to create a customer responsive culture.
People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness.
OB provides the concepts and theories that allow managers to predict employee behavior
in given situations.

Empowering People

Today managers are being called coaches, advisers, sponsors, or facilitators, and in many
organizations, employees are now called associates.
There is a blurring between the roles of managers and workers; decision making is being
pushed down to the operating level, where workers are being given the freedom to make
choices about schedules and procedures and to solve work-related problems.
Managers are empowering employees.
They are putting employees in charge of what they do.
Managers have to learn how to give up control.
Employees have to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate
decisions.

Coping with “Temporariness”

Managers have always been concerned with change:

What is different today is the length of time between changes
Change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of continuous
improvement, for instance, implies constant change
In the past, managing could be characterized by long periods of stability, interrupted
occasionally by short periods of change.
Today, long periods of ongoing change are interrupted occasionally by short periods of
stability!
Permanent ―temporaries:
Both managers and employees must learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity, and
unpredictability
The jobs that workers perform are in a permanent state of flux, so workers need to
continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements.
Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux.
Predictability has been replaced by temporary work groups, teams that include members
from different departments and whose members change all the time, and the increased use
of employee rotation to fill constantly changing work assignments.
Organizations themselves are in a state of flux.
They reorganize their various divisions, sell off poor-performing businesses, downsize
operations, subcontract non-critical services and operations to other organizations, and
replace permanent employees with temporaries.

Stimulating Innovation and Change

Successful organizations must foster innovation and the art of change.

Companies that maintain flexibility, continually improve quality, and beat their
competition to the marketplace with innovative products and services will be tomorrow’s
winners.
Employees are critical to an organization’s ability to change and innovate.
Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts

The creation of the global workforce means work no longer sleeps. Workers are on-call
24-hours a day or working non-traditional shift.
Communication technology has provided a vehicle for working at any time or any place.
Employees are working longer hours per week-from 43 to 47 hours per week since 1977.
The lifestyles of families have changes creating conflict: more dual career couples and
single parents find it hard to fulfill commitments to home, children, spouse, parents, and
friends.
Employees want jobs that allow flexibility and provide time for a life.

Improving Ethical Behavior

In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing worker

productivity, and tough competition, many employees feel pressured to engage in
questionable practices.
Members of organizations are increasingly finding themselves facing ethical dilemmas in
which they are required to define right and wrong conduct
.
Examples of decisions employees might have to make are:

Blowing the whistle on illegal activities

Following orders with which they do not personally agree
Possibly giving inflated performance evaluations that could save an employee’s job
Playing politics to help with career advancement, etc

Organizations are responding to this issue by:

Writing and distributing codes of ethics
Providing in-house advisors
Creating protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal unethical practices
Managers need to create an ethically healthy environment for employees where they
confront a minimal degree of ambiguity regarding right or wrong behaviors.

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