Reflection Paper

1. Introduction

The intention of this paper is to reflect and review the underlying concepts of the people
management from the perspective of the organisational behaviour studied in the class. The theories and
concept presented in this reflection paper will not cover all the aspects of the subjects but hope to reflect
most parts of the course studied in the class.

1.1 What is organisational behaviour? And why is it important?

It is the study and understanding of individual and group behaviour and patterns of structure in
order to help improve organisational performance and effectiveness. (Page 3, Organisational setting,
Management and Organisational Behaviour, Ninth Edition, Lurie J. Mullins.)

In order to attain their goals and objectives, all organisations need to manage their resources. The
resources can be the capital investment, land and buildings, machine, patented formula, specific
knowledge, talents, intelligence and human resources etc. Among all these resources, the people are the
crucial and most important part of the organisations to achieve competitive advantage. This is because all
the other resources can be substituted, acquired and created. Only people can make real difference with
their commitment, motivation, intelligence and ethic against the competitors in the fierce and demanding
markets.

Managing people is not the easy job. For machine, it is created with blueprint, operational
instruction, repairing guideline and warning. Therefore, if the operator or engineer understand the basic or
detail electrical and mechanical concept, the technician can operate or repair the machine within the
boundary of instructions, guidelines and warning. The instructions and warnings are the same for all the
machines of the same model. But for people, everyone is unique and there is no same model. People also
are different in opinion, thoughts, perception and personality etc. People also have right, dignity and
individual freedom which are meant to be respected and must be treated with care and kindness. People
also react differently for the same stimulation or the situation in tune with their belief, culture and
individual perception. The people are the crucial part of the organisation and they are too sophisticated to
manage. Therefore, it is crucial to understand managing in organisation and organisation behaviours
which encompasses massive theories and concepts related to psychology, social science and
anthropology.

1.2 What are the core concepts and theories reflected in this paper?
(A) The Organisation Aspect
1. Structure

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 2. Team and group
3. Culture
4. Leadership
(B) The Individual Aspect
5. Personality
6. Motivation

2. The structure

The organisation is made up of employees and must react with the people from the external
environment such as customers, the Government, alliances and rivals. Therefore, all the people require
guideline for who to communicate and how. By this way, the organisation structure takes important role
of in managing people.

The organisation structure reveals the hierarchal authority power, division of work,
communication channel and span of control etc. Generally, most of the structures have the tiles and rows
like an excel sheet. The tile separates the workforce so that the employee can focus on the specific
function they are responsible for. It also explains the span of control under each of the position. The row
is useful to define the position power, rank and authority for each post in the hierarchy. Promotion means
the level of the person in the hierarchy is raised towards the top. The more level of the person in the
hierarchy raises up to the top, the more span of control and positional power the person will possesses and
the less specialisation he/she will has.

2.1 Tall and Flat structure

Generally, the shape of the organisation is triangle. Most of the organisations fall into two
categories which are tall and flat triangles while a few are formed in diamond shape, too many same ranks
in the middle of the hierarchy, which can be found in organisations with many technicians or operators.

Tall structure means the hierarchy and chain of command are long. The span of control is small.
The tall structure can be found in the Governments and large corporations. The weakness of tall structure
is the information and instructions are likely to deviate from the originals and take time to travel along the
chain. The structure is unresponsive in the environment with the rapid change.

Flat structure means the hierarchy and chain of command are short and narrow. The span of
control is relatively large. The flat structure is suitable for the small firms with simple functions. The
large organisations can also apply flat structure by removing middle layers and deploying management
software such as artificial intelligence, People Soft application, Enterprise Resources Planning programs
and advanced communication technologies to support and make efficient in managing people and other

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resources. The possible weakness of this structure is difficulty in management because of the large span
of control and lack of specialities. The responsibilities between the members are likely to be overlapped
and non-specific.

2.2 Types of structure

(A) Structure based on function

(B) Structure based on output

(1) Grouping by product

(2) Grouping by geographical area

(3) Grouping by type of customer

(C) The matrix structure (The structure in which every subordinate has two leaders, a functional direct
superior, and a project leader)

2.3 Real Life Story

According to my experience as a Human Resources Manager, many of the local companies I

worked for, known and familiar are likely to be formed with bureaucratic system and centralised structure
whether it is tall or flat, big or small. Most of the structure are based on function. Some are based on
output and varied from product based to customer based but the matrix structure is likely to be rare. Many
of the directors and managers love micromanagement and large span of control which make them fell too
many direct subordinates to order and manage. Many CEOs or Managing Directors do not follow and
respect hierarchical decision power, chain of command and unaware of delegation. They love to decide
every decision they may encounter and communicate every position directly along the chain of command.
They also love to set themselves as bottle neck in the decision-making process which make the whole
operation paralyse without them. From my point of view, the top management must only hold the
decision of whats and delegate middle or front-line management the decision of hows. All the positions in
the hierarchy including top management should respect the chain of command and positional power for
decision making. The structure also should be flexible enough to react the changes in the environment.
The communication along the chain should be flow freely and fast. There also should be cross functional
cooperation at all level of hierarchy in order to deliver desired results.

3. Team and Group

By observing the structure, it is easy to understand the relationship between the positions and
functions. Teams and groups also are visible in the structure. They can be a part of a function,
multifunctional team, committee and Board of Directors. The teams are formed with the specific

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intentions and expected results which are parts of the border organisational goals. Unlike Departments,
teams are likely to be more small and solid. To be more precise, Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg
School of Management, stated that"[a] team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect
to information, resources, and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal".

3.1 Formal and Informal Group

Teams can be mentioned as visible and formal groups formed with an intention while informal
groups could be formed with or without intention. Informal group is formed by people who shared their
value to the others in the group. They also use to create group norms and possibly have a leader and
moderators. The bond between the members the informal group could be stronger than the that of formal
team because they voluntarily involved in the informal group. Managing formal teams is not easy but not
complicated. For the informal groups, it is not easy to identify these groups and too complicate to
manage. But ignoring informal teams could lead to leaking the sensitive information, demotivation among
the formal team members and allowing them and us culture etc. which will negatively impact on the total
performance.

3.2 Bruce Tuckman’s team development model

The team development model was introduced by Mr. Bruce Tuckman, a psychology professor.
He explained that a team has to pass the four stages from initial unproductive stage to the final state with
delivered results. These stages are forming, stringing, norming and performing stage. Each stage has its
own characteristics in relation with three issues which are content, process and feeling issues. He also
developed the fifth stage called adjourning which involves disengagement of relationships between team
members and a short period of recognition for the team achievement. (Written by Rebecca Nestor for
Aurora, 2013). It is possible to skip some stages in reaching the final stage or the processes is not reached
to the final stage. There also can be setback to the initial stage form the middle stages.

3.3 Reflecting theories with my experience

According to my experience, there is no organisation which is successful because of the

contribution of the individual. Individuals are full of defects. When people are organised as a team such
as strategic business unit or agile team and developed through Mr. Tuckman’s team development model,
the result can be wonderful. In order to manage a team well, the team leader has to understand and assess
the attitude, skill required, relevant general knowledge and specific detail knowledge which are related to
the assigned tasks, past experience of the team members and has to decide which management style of the
contingency theory of Mr. Fiedler to apply. The leader also has to aware the existence of the informal
groups and how this groups can influence and impact on the team he has to lead. The crucial determinant

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of a team’s performance is selecting the right members. People who have enough ability to perform, share
the information and value, are supportive to each other, go extra miles for the team can create synergy
effect which will lead to the superior team performance.

4.0 Culture

The culture is like the general rules of thumb among people. It is a conventional shared value of
the people in the specific group or in an organisation or in a society. According to Mr. Charles Handy,
organisation culture can be defined as the way we do things around here.

4.1 How do we know the influencing culture in an organisation?

By examining the following factors, the influencing culture in an organisation can be identify.

(1) The mission statement (Clearness, Awareness and Acceptance at all levels of the organisation.)
(2) The dominant behaviour patterns (The interaction within the organisation and how it reacts to the
stakeholders)
(3) The distribution of authority (Centralised authority or Decentralised and Delegated authority)
(4) The structure (Tall or Flat, Specialisation focus or Generalisation oriented)
(5) The nature of leadership (Transient or Transaction, Authoritarian or Democratic.)
(6) The value of the organisation (The way the in which the organisation responds to the needs and
aspirations of its own staff and the other stakeholders.)
(7) The entrepreneurial spirit of the organisation (Innovation, Competitiveness and Flexibility)
(8) The readiness to embrace change ( Proactive or Reactive)

4.2 Mr. Charles Handy’s Organisational Culture

Mr. Charles Handy introduced the model of organisational culture. In his model, there are four type of
organisation cultures in relation to the organisational structures as follow.

(1) Power Culture (Spider Web shape)

In this culture, the position at the centre of the web is the source of power. All the decisions come
from the centre and there is little or no delegation. The leadership style is more like to the authoritarian.
The culture is only suitable for small organisations.
(2) Role Culture (Greek Temple Shape)
The role and power go hand in hand in this culture. The role of the individual is the more important than
the person himself or herself. Each function is responsible for its own tasks which is focusing on
specialisation and the role at the strategic level has to focus on coordination and cooperation.

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Entrepreneurial spirit and embrace to change are subject to limit. This culture is influencing in many
Governments’ structure and Corporations.
(3) Task Culture (The Net)

The power and influence are allocated through the matrix in order to deliver results. Every
subordinate has two reporting lines, one is to the functional direct line manager and the another is to the
project manager. The matrix structure was introduced first in the moon landing project in NASA. In this
culture, coordination and cooperation are required at all levels. The culture is flexible enough to embrace
change and be proactive. The dark side of this culture is power struggling i.e. every position has to try to
influence to the others in order to achieve their own objectives.

(4) Person Culture (The cluster)

The most important aspect of this culture is individual aspiration. The bond between the members
is very loose. The members are likely to be experts in their own fields and can perform the tasks alone.
Teamwork, cooperation and coordination are not crucial aspect of this culture. The person culture is often
found in small law firms, consultancies, doctors’ surgeries, etc.

4.3 Reflecting the theories with my experience

Most of the organisations I was working for are dominated by power culture although they were
Holding companies, Group of companies and franchises. The owner (shareholders) and management has
no border. That means most of the shareholders are MD or CEO of the companies. When the organisation
becomes larger beyond their micro-management control, they chose to establish bureaucratic structure
(which is appropriate with role culture) with power culture. They created many small spider webs and
appointed the faithful or relative followers at the centre of the webs. Almost all the projects were lack of
task culture and matrix structure because they never heard the concept.

4. Leadership

Sun Tzu stated that “leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage,
and discipline ...”. Some theorists revealed that leadership is related to gene and some other
theorists suggested that leadership ability can be attained by receiving proper training. In general,
leadership is the ability to influence people by organising, motivating, directing, supporting,
rewarding to achieve common goals.

4.1 Types of Leadership

There are a lot of theories revealing and explaining about Leaderships. Among them, Mr. Max
Weber introduced three types of leadership and authority.

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Charismatic Leadership

This type of leadership is based on the superior personality, ability and knowledge of the leader
which cannot be transferred. The leader has faithful followers and the leader rules as his/her wish.

Traditional Leadership

Traditional leadership is based on precedent and usage. Leader doesn’t need any superiority than
the followers. There are no disciples. People follows the leader because of the conventionally accepted
power.

Rational Legal Leadership

The leadership style is founded on the reason and logic. Every part of the organisation is
considered and designed to deliver results which will fulfil the goals of the organisation. This leadership
style requires bureaucratic management system. The leader wielded his/her power within the boundary of
the system, the subordinate can reject the power of leader if the instruction is beyond his/her legitimacy.

4.2 Reflection leadership theories with my own experience

Most of the companies I was working for are founded on Charismatic leadership and most of
which are their wealth and relationship with the Government and Military although they have no
superiority in personality or innovation or academic knowledge. The most admirable leadership for me is
that of Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi. She is a charismatic leader, also a transactional leader and a
transformational leader. She never leaves her followers in the hardest time (the time during which the
military government oppressed her in any possible means, from 1988 to 2010). And she forgave all the
military generals who insulted her when she became the leader of the Nation. Her weak point is forgiving
the bad persons and groups by giving them second chance and they exploited on her forgiveness by
corruption, sabotage and releasing propagandas on social media with fake accounts. The lessen for me is
not to forgive and give second chance to the guilty and evil individuals and groups until the
transformation is completed.

5. Personality

Generally, personality is the personal attribution of an individual which is related to the behaviour,
emotion and cognition and which can be emerged from the bottom of the mind or influenced by the
environment. There are a lot of concepts and theories on personality. Among them, the structural model
of personality by Mr. Sigmund Freud and five factor model (big five or ocean personality traits) are
selected to report and reflect.

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 5.1 Structural Model of Personality

According to the Mr. Sigmund Freud, personality of an individua has three components which are ID,
Ego and Superego. As per his typology, ID is in the core of the human mind and has innate unconscious
nature. It obeys the rules of pleasure, a tendency and willing to consume all the wishes and desires
appeared in the mind. Ego is developed from ID when the ID is less relevant to the real world. Ego
follows the rules of reality act as a buffer between the drive of the ID and social acceptances. Superego is
made up of the internalised moral standard and acquired value from the environment such as parents and
elder guardians. It produces general guideline for judgement on social behaviour. These three components
have to function properly and be in balance. Therefore, everyone in the workplace or classroom or any
social group should aware of this concept and try to control the ego and being selfish for the wellbeing of
the social groups.

5.2 Five Factor Model

The model is also known as big five or trait personality model. The model has five constituents.
Openness, Conscientious, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability and Extraversion. This model is useful in
recruitment process by assessing the applicants, constructing the ideal personality profile based on the
requirement of the jobs. Designing the assessment questions for the applicants is not easy and it is the
work of the concerned professionals. Nevertheless, in the era of internet, it is easy to make assessment on
some reliable websites and the websites produces the results and some even provide recommendations.

5.3 Real life story

In 2012, I had a chance to attend ABA Trait Personality Inventory Workshop conducted by Aston
University. The chance is the sponsored by PS business school. In the workshop, the facilitator and
instructor taught that there is to major domains in this model of personality, introvert and extrovert. And
there are 13 trait dimensions under the five constituents. After explaining the theory, the participants
including me were tested with their assessment form online. At the end of the training, the facilitator
provided the results and recommendation. As a Human Resources Manager, I introduced this test and
applied the concept in recruitment process for the companies I was working for as I had realised the
benefits of the applying the concepts in the workplace.

6. Motivation

Motivation is the burning desire to achieve or fulfil the aims. It derives from the word motive which
is the underlying cause or reason of why people do things. The study of motivation is wide and there are
many well known theories. The Hawthorne effect of Mr. Elton Mayo and Two factor theory by Mr.
Herzberg.

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 6.1 Hawthorne effect

The finding of Mr. Elton Mayo is an accident. His initial intention is to find the optimum level of
lighting in the plant in order to achieve maximum productivity. Surprisingly, he found that the level
of productivity is increased in both scenarios of increasing lighting and decreasing lighting. Later, he
found that the increase in productivity is because of the motivation of the workers who thought that
they were playing important role in the research and performed better than any other previous time.
Mr. Elton Mayo concluded that performance is affect by the organisation structure, physical factor
and more importantly by psychological and sociological factors (motivation).

6.2 Two factor theory

Mr. Herzberg revealed another theory of motivation called two factor theory. He explained that
there are two factors that the organisation can tune in order to influence the motivation of the employees.
He stated that the two factors are
(1) Hygiene factors

These are the cause of dissatisfaction but only with the factors, it is less likely to increase
motivation. (e.g. company’s policy, salary, relation with boss, supervision etc.)

(2) Motivators

These factors can motivate employee and encourage people to work harder if they are positively
present. (e.g. achievement, recognition, the work itself, growth, advancement etc.)

He concluded that the lack of dissatisfaction doesn’t mean satisfaction and it just means no
dissatisfaction. And the two factors are not on the same continuum. Therefore, management has to focus
on both factors in order to prevent dissatisfaction and demotivation.

6.3 Reflecting theories with realities

As a Human Resources and Business Development employee, I have known a lot of employees in
some organisation and I found that the motivations of the employee are unstable and changing day by
day. The most influencing factor is the relation with the direct line manager or boss. Most of the
employee leaves the organisations because of their direct supervisors. The other important factor is salary
and bonus which are meant to be competitive. And the another influencing factor is the job itself which
has to be meaningful and not to be bored and which provides employee advancement. The other factors
are structure, culture relationship between colleague etc. Most of the organisations are not aware of
motivation and most of the management thought that salary and bonus can increase the motivation of the
employee. But they don’t realise it is only one factor of the extrinsic motivators and always ignore the

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intrinsic motivators of the employees. From my point of view, there are two causes which can motivate
people. The one cause is the group of greedy, lust and thirst. The other cause is the group of fear, anger
and unwillingness. They all come from the bottom of a person’s mind although many theorists argued that
motivation comes from external factors and internal factors. As Mr. Stephen R. Covey stated that
“Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.”, I assumed that everything including
motivation comes from the inside of the individual’s mind.

7.0 Conclusion

In this reflection paper, most of the tiles learned in the Organisation Behaviour class are
reviewed, reflected and the reinforced with my own experience. Some important titles such as change,
ethic and emotional intelligence etc. are omitted due to the limitation of the space. Understanding the
theories and concepts is important. Nevertheless, if these acquired knowledge are not applied in our real
life, there will be zero work done. Therefore, I will apply these concepts as much as I can in my real life. I
also am a mentor in PS business school and I will share my knowledge especially the thesis and research
papers acquired in the class to the new generations.

In the class, we also have chance to discuss about the environmental green issue. We all are
aware of sustainability, saving energy and waste, efficiency and effectiveness, program theory and
changing society. The group I have involved discussed about the threat of the illegal drug which is
spreading among the young people, made them mad and violent, and how to eliminate the threat to the
society. Individually, I have promised that I will always put my waste materials into the dust bin, and I
will use the public transportation service whenever I can. I will keep my promise.

Reference: Study Manual, Managing in Organisation, The Association of Business Executives, United
Kingdom, 2010.

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