September 06, 2019 in Psychology

Self-reflection Paper

In the course of our learning, we have been able to learn several things about organizational behavior being one of them. Through organizational behavior, we have been imparted with important knowledge about the group and individual dynamics of organizations. Information about organization behavior is helpful in various workplaces that people go to work after completing education. It is during my time as a volunteer in Juma’s service department that I was able to see firsthand the concepts that we have been taught about organizational behavior. 

Challenging Team Project Aspects

Soon after joining Juma’s service department, one thing that I learned was that people there worked as a team. The management team of the company had the notion that people were more productive when working as a team. It is with this that I found myself in one of the team projects at the company. One aspect of the team project that I found challenging was integrating with the old members. Having never worked there again, it took some considerable amount of time before understanding how things operated at the company and; thus, I made a few mistakes before I could fully understand how things worked. However, most of the project team members that I was put with were not understanding and most of the times laid the blame on me in case anything went wrong. Were it not for the help of one of the people in the team project, I would have quitted long ago.

 The other aspect of team project that I found challenging was having to understand and accommodate the different personalities that people in the team project had. As expected, the team that I was put in had people with different personalities, some of which were not appealing. People had different personalities that they brought into the team. The differences in the personalities that people had were the main source of conflicts in the team and; thus, everybody, including me, had to be accommodating. The different personalities that people in the team had me began having stress on how to accommodate all of them. 

Organizational Behavior at the Company

However, my time at Juma gave me the chance to learn about the organizational behavior of the company. One of the things that I was able to learn is that incentives played a huge part in motivating the employees. Most of the workers were able to put in impressive performances if they knew that there was a certain incentive in place. For instance, the company’s top management would give an incentive like a holiday trip to the workers who produced exemplary results at a certain time and with the knowledge of the incentive, workers put in extra efforts to stand a chance of getting the incentive. Motivated employees tend to work extra hard, something that helped improve the performances of the company. 

The other factor that motivated people are working in the company was that of pay increment. In a view of making people put consistent good results, the management team of the company introduced the performance linked pay increment. The best performing workers in the company would have their salaries evaluated where after they could receive a pay rise. However, this avenue of motivating employees had its disadvantages. One of the things that I was able to find out is that workers started becoming envious of each other, as there was internal competition in the company. Coordination within the organization was jeopardized as people were competing to put in impressive performances. 

The other aspect of the organization that I was able to learn is the effectiveness of communication. Since we were working in groups, communication was essential in the group operation. It is through communication that instructions were given to us. Another impressive aspect of communication in the organization is that communication was done on all levels. That is, there was upward, downward, and horizontal communication. The management team of the organization had created an environment where it was easy for a junior staff to communicate directly with the senior staff. For instance, it was possible for me to have a talk with the human resource manager. Through the upward communication that occurred at the company, it was possible for an individual to articulate his or her concerns to the senior officials at the company. Regarding the downward communication, the senior officials could easily initiate communication with the staff members at the lower levels. Mostly, downward communication occurred during the issuance of instructions or reviewing of the employee performances. Lastly, the environment at Juma made it possible for workers at all levels to communicate with each other. It is imperative to note that horizontal communication was helpful in ensuring that workers had coordination and cohesion while carrying out their responsibilities. With the numerous teams formed in the company, the horizontal communication that took place in the company was important. 

The troubles associated with ineffective leadership is the other organizational behavior aspect that I was able to learn during my time at Juma. First, Juma uses a traditional system that is not efficient. With the traditional system, information is all over the place, and thus I am required to go through numerous entries to find information on the sales force system. Upon investigating the reason the company still uses a traditional system, I was able to learn that the top management was not dynamic and rarely change with the changing times. Apparently, the management team of the company is confident with the traditional system and is not ready to alter it. The stubborn nature of the management has resulted in massive losses and inconveniences to the company. For instance, there are tenders that go unnoticed as information on them is scattered all over the place. Also, the working in teams means that there are workers are not personally liable for their actions, and thus there are no follow-ups made.

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Individual Outcomes

Working in the company has helped me know more about myself. First, I have been able to realize that I work well with clear instructions. It is during my self-evaluation that I was able to realize that I put in exemplary results when working under clear instructions. I think that being given clear instructions gives me the confidence needed to work, as I knew what was expected of me. Under the unclear instructions, I tend to find myself confused as to what was required of me and thus put below par performances. 

The other aspect that I have been able to learn about myself from working at Juma is that working in a team that I am confident and have a good relationship with others helps me achieve my full potential. During my first month at the job, I was paired with unfriendly people who always looked down on me. During this time, it was hard for me to concentrate on the responsibilities given to me and; thus, I tended to work on schedule at most of the times. However, after being switched to a more friendly team, I have started noticing that I was now able to put performances on time and achieve my full potential. It is also in the second team that I started producing good results with minimum supervision. I feel that I can try out anything as the group members have my back and are supportive of my actions. The confidence that the team members have showed me is that main reason I have been able to achieve my full potential.

The other thing that I have been able to learn about me is that incentives are one of the ways of motivating me to work even better and much harder. The company has several incentives that it gives to its staff. With these incentives, I have been able to put in extra efforts in my work. One of the most appealing incentives that make me work harder is that one of gaining permanent employment. The company has a policy whereby an intern who puts in impressive performances stands a high chance of gaining permanent employment at the company upon completing his or her studies. It is with this incentive that I can put on extra hours so that I can complete a given task.

One of the individual dynamics that I have been able to learn from working at the company is that team projects are very helpful to workers. It is during the team projects that I have been able to discover new things about me. For instance, I have been able that working with a team of exemplary performing people pushes me to the limit, something that helps me achieve my goals. People when working as a team push each other to achieve their full potential. Besides, working as a team is helpful as it makes an individual acquire a new set of skills used to carry out a responsibility.

Interaction with Group Members

 Upon learning that I will be working in teams, there are some expectations that I have for interacting with group members. One of the expectations is that had and has already been fulfilled is that of acquiring new set of skills and knowledge. From the group member, I have been able to learn new skills that have helped me carry out my responsibilities within the minimum shortest period and with ease. It is important to note that I learn almost something new on a daily basis. 

The other expectation that I had about group participation is that every person in the group is motivated and have the goals of the organizations at heart. However, I have been disappointed in finding out that not most of the group members are motivated, something that makes them put in lesser impressive performances. It is sad to report that there have been several members of the group who do not work as hard as the others, an action that brings the performance of the group down. I always thought that every group member works hard to put impressive results for the benefit of the whole group. However, I have been able to find out that there are some people who are like joyriders in the group. One of the characteristics of such people is that they do not achieve their targets and are always late in delivering results. In such a case, making an individual evaluation of group members rather than evaluating the performances of the group as a whole would help deal with the group members who do not have the proper motivation to conduct their duties.  

The other expectation that I had about group participation is that a person can be able to specialize, something that has been met with the group participation that I am involved in at the company. In the group participation, responsibilities are shared and thus a person can major on only a portion of the responsibility rather than the whole of it. It is with this reduced responsibility that a person can be able to specialize. 

Benefits of Service Learning

Service learning has helped me gain a lot of knowledge about organizational and group mechanisms. One of the things that I have been able to learn is that it is not easy to practically apply the things that we learn in class due to the different scenarios and situations that present themselves. For instance, a person might be made to adopt a different leadership style when dealing with people. 

The other thing that I have been able to learn from the service-learning is that any information that a person knowledge acquires in class is helpful in the outside world. For instance, information about the about dealing with the numerous personalities that people have is helpful when dealing with a huge crowd. One of the things that a person should expect from dealing with a huge crowd is that there are different personalities with people. 

Application of Learning in Future Roles

There are numerous things that I have been able to learn which I think are helpful in my future endeavors. One of it is that a person should expect all types of reactions when dealing with a group of people. With this knowledge, I believe that I will be more open minded in future as I have learned to expect anything, especially when working in groups. I believe that I will not be shocked at any negative reaction that I might receive in future. The one are of organization behavior that I have grown the most is that of motivation. I believe that an organization’s success depends on the motivation put in place for the workers. Finally, the area of organization behavior that I would like to grow is leadership. I believe that leadership determines the success of any organization. I intend to have as much knowledge as possible on leadership. 

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