Behaviors

The course, Organizational Behavior, gave me insight why people act and react in certain fashions within small groups and with individuals. I find myself observing how people interact with each other in an effort to recognize their pattern of behaviors and to alter my behaviors to avoid unnecessary conflict. When we recognize that not everyone thinks the same as we do, we are then able to alter our behaviors in order to reach a common goal; many times that is easier said than done. What I gained most from this course was how to deal with people from all walks of life, how to recognize when it is time to take a stand or to stand down, and most importantly I learned how to recognize my strengths and weaknesses and how to deal with them appropriately.

I work at a company that has a very diverse employee population; many of the employees only speak Spanish. I recently went with one of the supervisors to begin the task of cycle counting inventory and while I was with her I observed so many things that I was able to utilize what I learned in this course. My observation was that this woman is constantly going from one thing to the next with no flow. She has seven employees and while they are very capable of doing their jobs with little or no supervision, I watched them run her ragged by asking her to get materials or they did not have any work to do. I observed this for one day. I expressed my concern with the process with my supervisor and I made several suggestions in an attempt to less the stress of the supervisor.

Here is where the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Thomas-Kilmann, 2007) provided me with great insight. The supervisor is very “accommodating” (Thomas-Kilmann, 2007, p. 8) and it is very apparent as she works through the day. No matter what is asked of her, she drops everything she is doing and immediately helps the person. This type of behavior has caused problems with her department because throughout the day her employees...