Organizational Behavior
Power and influence in the workplace are two things that are held by a simple minor. A person, organization, or team is said to have power when they can influence those around them. Power can be either informal or formal. A person with formal authority is able to command or influence the thoughts, behavior, or opinions of those who work for him/her. Formal authority defines organizational or societal hierarchy (Serrat, 2010). A performance problem comes about when there is a discrepancy between the actual results expected and the sought-after results. Performance related problems occur at different levels such as the individual level, team level, organizational level and the unit or department level. Depending on how power is used, it can either have negative or positive results. When power is misused, it often leads to performance related problems that may even end up destroying the organization. In the following research paper, I will try to look at the causes of performance related problems with an emphasis on influence and power in the workplace. The research paper will also look at the different tactics that can be adopted to ensure that the performance problems in the workplace are eliminated. The research paper will look at a project manager at AT&T Company who was doing his best to improve the status of the company but anytime promotion would come along, he would be sidelined because he didn’t have the necessary social connections to help him get the promotion.
Performance Measures
Performance measures are used to identify how a person is faring on the job they have been assigned. In the case being studied, the project manger was able to achieve the performance standards set for him. This was because he was able to meet his goals as a project manager. The goals were to serve the customers as well as to keep his team satisfied. At one point, one of his peers referred to his team as the dream team. He was able to keep his customers satisfied because he tried as much as possible to limit the number of phone queries that were carried over to the next day. The project he was assigned to was very successful as he was able to start a new office at Bolton area once he was transferred from Chicago area. He made a good name for the AT&T Company in the Bolton area but any time his bosses were promoted, he would not be able to get the job as it was given to another person with the right connections. This led to emotional dissonance as he could not understand what he was required to do for his efforts to be recognized. He was able to orientate the roles, control work place conflict, offer protection, give direction, and maintain the office norms.
Performance related problems’ causes
Performance related problems are mainly caused by attitude, interference, or lack of necessary skills. There are questions that managers should ask themselves if they find out that there is a performance related problem from one of the employees. Have they made their expectations clear? Does the employee in question know that their performance is below par? Are the performance standards that have been set for the employee realistic? Does the employee have the necessary knowledge, skills, and ability to tackle the work assigned? Does the employee have access to the resources, tools, and equipment required for the job? How can the working relationship between the employee and the co-workers be rated? Does the employee take time to clarify what the job entails before embarking on it? Does the employee have a mental, emotional, or physical disability that may be affecting his performance? It is only when these questions have been addressed that the manager can be able to get to the root of the problem
Analysis of the problem
In this case the project manager was experiencing a case of emotional dissonance as he was being sidelined by those in positions of power. In the first case, he was very successful but instead when his boss was promoted, her position was given to someone else. The new boss was not a better and more accomplished performer than the project manager and this definitely, did not augur well with him. The second case was when he went back to his office in Chicago. This time the assistant to the boss was the boss’ wife who was using her influence to frustrate the workers and this also did not please the project manager. The assistant had the behavior of imposing her influence on the employees as well as the manager’s peers and anyone who would as much as object would be transferred to another project. The organizational politics that were being used by the assistant were meant to scare them and ensure that one’s honest work would not be noted. One would have to do only what the boss’ assistant thought was right. The assistant was using tactics like withholding information to those who were not loyal, spreading rumors that would ruin the project manager’s reputation, leaking confidential information and also putting pressure on his peers to ensure that they wouldn’t want to be associated with him. The emotional dissonance that he experienced made him change his attitude towards his job and his behavior was also affected. He had previously been able to impact positively on his staff but he was not receiving the same from his seniors and this did little to his motivation.
The stress he was experiencing came as a result of his seniors not appreciating or even rewarding the job he was doing. It had reached a point where he had stagnated and there was no longer any improvement to his career. The constant sidelining of the project manager by his bosses in favor of their social buddies had a draining effect on him making him loose his career goal and objectives. Something had to be done to correct this situation that he had suddenly found himself in.
This showed that the project manager had already defined the problem. The right thing for him to do was to identify the decision criteria that he would use to solve the problem, weigh the criteria to identify whether it was appropriate to the situation he had found himself in, generate the alternatives to the criteria he had made incase it failed to solve his problem, rate the alternatives he had generated to help him identify which alternative would come first and finally make the final decision that he would take.
The project manager’s advantages
However, the project manager knew he had some qualities that gave him an added advantage over assistant and that he could be able to use these qualities to his advantage. He had also enjoyed success at the Bolton office and therefore his accomplishments were a great advantage over the assistant. The project manager knew he had the ability to appeal to any manager without necessarily having to appeal to the assistant. His results were always exemplary and he knew where to get them and therefore would not need the help of the assistant manager. Nobody would be able to challenge his work because his figures were good and he also had a good analysis of the projects he undertook. His statistical control was valued by the company and therefore the assistant manager could not be able to trample over him.
He had built good and healthy relationships that he hoped would work to his advantage if he ever found himself in a compromising situation. His performance if evaluated would be summarized as having the attributes of being effective, productive, timely, having quality results, creating a safe and healthy environment for his staff and also having efficiency-giving the required output using the minimum cost of resources possible.
He was able to understand and have a perception of what the problem was. He later set out to find a way of solving the problem. He was also able to make the perception of what kind of person the assistant to his boss was and this would ensure he did not fall into the trap of letting her manipulate him. Unlike his peers who had become accustomed to her and only did what she demanded, he was going to be a different person and try to achieve his objectives without being influenced by the boss’ assistant. The project manager had made the right perception as his decision was not affected by perceptual distortions that most often affect the perceptions we have over our colleagues. Some of these distortions are such as stereotyping, selective perception, contrast effects, projection, and self-fulfilling prophecy among others.
Effects brought about by emotion dissonance
The emotions of dissonance were beginning to affect everything the project manager was doing at the workplace as he no longer had the motivation to report to work each morning. Usually when one looses the motivation, they will not be able to give their all and in the end their performance becomes affected (McShane, 2009). He gained a negative attitude to his job that made him stop liking it. He could no longer be able to get the job satisfaction from his job and this in turn made him a sad man. The emotions and attitude that he had generated changed his behavior and he no longer valued the work he did in the end not taking his work seriously. This led to stress in the workplace in the end even affecting his relationship with fellow colleagues. His relationships become strained as he had lost the usual smile that the co-workers had become accustomed to. His gloomy self had the effect of pushing people away from him. It was clear to him that he needed to change his work or altogether look for another job that would serve his interests but he could not decide which option would be better.
Communication Process for the Manager
In the projects that the manger had undertaken, he had been able to build a team that was based on good communication skills. From time to time he organized team building activities that were able to build the morale of his team giving them the satisfaction they deserved from their job. The team building was meant to achieve several objectives which he achieved. The team building was able to improve communication among his workers, make the workplace that they were in enjoyable, improve the overall productivity of his project team and also help him to identify the strengths and weaknesses of his team members which he would advise them to work on (Ancona and Caldwell, 1992). In addition, He realized that the team building enabled the team members to get to know each other, learn self-regulation techniques, get motivated, and also set goals that helped improve the quality of services offered by the company. The team became a cohesive unit that interacted often and did their work to the best of their ability. This ensured that the tasks given were completed in time and this served to increase the customer satisfaction.
Appropriate Solution
The project manager debated on the several ways that he would be able to get his way and start the rise again because he realized he was slowly moving into oblivion. He needed to increase the visibility of his job performance. There are ways that he would use to increase his job performance in order to get more recognition from his seniors. Some of these ways would be to extend the contact with the senior people in the organization so that they would be able to identify him anytime a promotion opportunity came by. In addition, he would also be required to make oral presentations of his written work, participate in the available problem solving tasks that would ensure that his efforts are recognized including sending out notices to his seniors of his accomplishments at the workplace and trying to influence or even controlling some of the decision premises. The notices that he would send to his seniors would ensure that his achievements are well recognized and this would put him in a better position for promotion any time the opportunity cropped up. He would also have to make his needs and goals clear and if need be bargain effectively concerning his preferred needs and goals.
There are also ways he could use to deal with the organizational politics that e going on around his workplace. Some of the ways would be to ensure that he is data driven, build alliances that would be able to get him out of any situation that would arise in case of the politics, embrace the culture of being truthful that would give him an advantage any time there is an inquest, learn to use email sparingly and only when he has his facts right, build good relationships with his co-workers to get personal insights into them, stand up for himself when he knows he is right and also help others in the workplace in order to earn their trust. Moreover, he could find a common ground in any argument where he knows all parties would agree, try to make peace as he would earn the title of peacemaker that would ensure he is looked at favorably, know when to use the words ‘I don’t know’ rather than making up an answer for a question that has been asked and adjusting his approach to a situation he finds himself in as this would ensure he is more successful. He would also need to be prepared at all times in order to avoid entering a political argument without all the necessary facts.
He would also be required to have an alternative incase the above failed to solve his problems. This would include he uses the networks and coalitions that he had built over the years with other companies to get himself in a better position even if it meant quitting his job for a better deal elsewhere. This would ensure that he continued to march towards his set goals in his career path.
Conclusion
It is clear that the manager’s approach in dealing with the performance he is experiencing would be the best in his situation as it would allow him to avoid trouble while also achieving his goals. In the end if all else failed, he would have at least tried and known that the problem did not lie with him and there was no way he would have made it in such an organization as it was clearly biased. He would also have the option of moving on to another firm where his efforts would most probably be recognized allowing him to revive his career. This would also have given him extra confidence to deal with any other situation of the sort that he may encounter. In the end he would have become a better manager, leader, and also a better person. We all learn from our experiences and in the project manager’s case, they would place him in a position to be able to fit in any other organization.
References
Ancona, D. G., and Caldwell, D. F. (1992). Bridging the boundary: External activity and performance in organizational teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, p.634-665.
McShane, S. (2009). Organizational Behavior. New York: McGraw Hill.
Serrat, O. (2010). “Informal Authority in the Workplace.” Retrieved online on 10th December 2011 from: http://www.adb.org/documents/information/knowledge-solutions/informal-authority-in-the-workplace.pdf
