Welcome to MGMT 3720 organizational behavior, I'm your professor, Dr.

Jae Webb,
this is week one. And our topic is an introduction to organizational behavior. Our
formal definition for organizational behavior is the study of human action in the
context of formal group environments. However, organizational behavior is really
all about understanding what people do or do not do when they're at work together,
and specifically why.

Now, organizational behavior is itself a discipline, but it is also built on a

foundation of other disciplines, primarily these for psychology, social psychology,
sociology and anthropology. Now from psychology, we gained tools for assessing the
status of the individual, their likes, dislikes, their tendencies, their
capacities, their proclivities and personalities. From social psychology, we gain
an understanding of the dynamic nature of groups and the influence that others have
on us. As individuals, we gain cognizance of processes, relationships and
communication between people from sociology. We gain an understanding of culture,
values and the priorities of people. From a macro perspective, sociology studies
how people work. Is one giant organism from anthropology regain an element of
objectivity about people? The focus here is on rituals, customs and behaviors of
people as creatures and nature's kingdom. Anthropology literally means the study of
mankind. Now, when you look at the definition of organizational behavior, there are
three prime elements to be broken down and understood more fully. These are human
beings, action and groups, specifically formal groups. You'll see here definitions
that should give you a foothold for each of these concepts, but we'll take more
deeply into them as we move forward because establishing a shared common knowledge
around these concepts is critical to successfully understanding organizational
behavior. Let's first take a deeper look at human beings who are, above all, highly
complex organisms. Now try as we might. There is no simple way to describe the
fullness of a human being. Sure, we exist as a network of nerves and chemicals and
electrical signals that all combine into this mystery that is human consciousness.
And this network that makes us up exists within a network of other people like us.
And yet the sum of our parts is so complex it cannot be broken down fully into
individual components and understood separate from its entirety. Yet one thing we
do know about people is that they are responsive. We experience the world around us
and that sparks us to respond to painters who fail to learn from failure and to
start all over again in a responsive cycle of engagement that tethers us to the
world we live in. Now, we also know that people have many different drives that
motivate them, but the most universally shared is the pursuit of self-preservation.
In all things we do, we act with an underlying motive to continue existing from
drawing breath to avoiding an oncoming train. We have a biological imperative to
act in such a way as to maximize our own chance of continuing to persist. The
strength of this drive, as evidenced by the very fact that you're still here
listening to this now. We also know that everything people do revolves around
making sense out of their world, using specifically their senses, creating meaning
that helps to fuel other drives, specifically self-preservation. People must
understand that falling off of the cliff or laying down in a fire or trying to pet
a lion means danger while smiling faces and warm meals. Clean shelter means greater
odds of self-preservation. Everything we are and everything we do feeds into and
from our ability to understand the meanings in the world around us. The last thing
we know to be most universally true about human beings is that we are social
creatures. Now granted some more than others, but without parents to nurture us,
peers to guide us and leaders to inspire us, wither and fail, connecting to other
human beings is a part of our self-preservation. It's a part of our meaning making.
But overall, it's simply a part of what it means to be human, to connect to others
in a substantive way. It's literally wired into our genes. Next, we look more
deeply at action specifically as an element of being human, as stated, humans are
responsive organisms. Malcolm, you are managing people. You must understand that
all actions are a reaction to something else. It looks something like this. There
is first a catalyst. Something occurs in the external world that the person becomes
aware of through their senses, sight and sound and touch. Second, there is a
process of sensemaking, conscious or unconscious processes occur to identify,
assess and label this external events. This process is called upon past experience
to categorize this event. Next, desire comes into play in relation to this sense
that we've made of the event, a desire desires either consciously or unconsciously
identified. This is then classified as a need relative to the desired end. And then
finally, an action necessary to obtain that need is considered, potential outcomes
are weighed, possible alternatives come into play and a final decision is made.
Now, the length of this process is sometimes instantaneous and sometimes more
deliberative, depending on the situational variables in our last element, we must
understand the differences between groups and formal groups. Now, any time people
come together in the same location, we can call them a group. I could say I saw a
group of people walking into the building, but it doesn't mean they're connected in
a meaningful way. When we talk about formal groups, women, people who are together
for a reason, a common purpose, we call these formal groups organizations to
signify their intentionality and their structure. These formal groups share many
things in common, such as goals, culture roles and so much more.

Thank you very much for your time and as always, if you have any questions after
viewing this material, please feel free to reach out.