Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Human Behaviour in Organizations

This was a post I had written before my HBO Course at AIM! Didn't publish it here! Now as I read it I realize how important Human Behaviour is in Organizational Development.

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"Kumaran, will you please behave yourself" - 2nd grade.

"Kumaran, look at how the other children behave" - 4th grade.

"Kumaran, will you watch over your sister so that she doesn't misbehave" - 8th grade.

"Kumaran, this behaviour of yours is unacceptable" - High School.

"Kumaran, please note that misbehaviour of any sort will not be acceptable here" - Graduate School.

"Kumaran, any of these activities will get you booked for dysfunctional behaviour" - Business School.

Man.... have I heard that word all through my life..... We have been observing the behaviour of the people around us often to our discomfort and have also been made observant of our behaviour more often than necessary all along.... Our very character has been built upon the "behaviour" that was imbibed into us by means of family, teachers, friends and others....

All of this learning in life.... And now we have a course specifically to study "Human Behaviour"... So what is this all about......

Well, I believe that Human Behaviour could possibly be the most complex of algorithms that can be cracked as it is difficult to fit any person's behaviour into a definite pattern, because despite the best laid patterns, there are always random erratic variations.... For example, I may be known to be a gentle person, but some day or the other, I may behave erratically - This could be due to various reasons (family, girlfriends etc) but to the other person, I would probably appear weird.... This I think forms the basis for the need to be able to analyze to the best of our abilities Human Behaviour....

And of course, considering the fact that we are to be Managers in charge of huge teams, it makes it all the more important to study the Human Behaviour in Organizations. All of us in our jobs would have encountered different sets of people whose ideas and thought processes vary largely from ours. Some of these people, we have been able to gel with, but more of these others, we have landed up being frustrated with.... So what do we do at this stage.... We have no choice but to work with these people because it's not possible to say that you aren't going to be working with anyone you don't like..... We thus need to hone our skills to be able to listen patiently and hold our judgement in order to be able to work together in a team.

I have been in a boarding school right from the age of 5 and have hence had the opportunity to meet a wide variety of people. When I was 5 it was easy for me to walk away from those I couldn't get along with and say that I wouldn't talk to those people. But as I grew older, I realised that there was more to learn from people who didn't think along my lines and that no two people could ever be the same. One had to learn to adjust and give way when it was needed and at the same time being assertive when needed.... I learnt that there was a fine line between being Assertive and Aggressive.... And the variety of people I've stayed with is so wide and hence I call this infinite variety of behaviour of man - "myriad concoctions".


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