Organizational Choice

In the last byte, we discussed occupational choice. In today's byte, we look at the organizational choice one has to do at the beginning of their career.

One completely rational way of making the choice of the organization is using the expectancy model of decision making. When applied in the context of organizational choice, we can claim that individuals choose organization sthat mazimise positive outcomes and avoid negative outomes and then compare the probabilities across organization. 

But in reality, this might not be possible - people may tend to make less rational decision. One such approach is the satisficing approach that the individual might use - the first organization that meets one's criteria list might be chosen. The candidate then justify their choice by distroting their perception!

There is no encompassing appraoch that people might adopt - their choice might be a combination of the expectancy theory and others that might seem less rational. The choice may be complicated by the conflicts that can occur between individuals and the organization. 

We shall look into this in the next byte.

Occupational Choice

In the last byte, we classified the choices at the beginning of one's career into organizational and occupational choices. In today's byte, we look at occupational choice.
Individuals assess their needs, values, abilities and preferences and attempt to match them with an occupation that could provide them with the fit they seek. (Many a times, people at the early states of this - would need to pick up the skill of networking to really make this assessment possible)
 

Personality plays a role in the selection of occupation. The research by John Holland identified six types of personalities - each personality characterized by a set of interest and values. We could group occupations similarly. The following table summarizes these:

 The assumption that drives the theory is that people choose occupations that match their own personalities. 

Beyond the personality that influences occupational choice, others like social class, parents' occupation, economic conditions and geography all play a major role in the occupational choice.

Occupational and Organizational Choices

In the last byte, we looked at the role EI played in Career Success. In today's byte, we look at some of the preparations that would help entering the world of work. 

Prior to beginning one's career, individuals must make several important decisions. We are not just referring to only the educational experience one might have, but also the personal experience that might help an individual develop the skills and maturity needed to enter a career. This preparation is a development processes and takes a long time to develop. 

We can classify the decisions into two buckets:

• Choice of occupation
• Choice of Organization

The first also called occupational Choice, while the second is also called the Organizational Choice. We shall discuss these in the next two byte.

Role of EI for Managers

In the last byte, we looked at some statistics about managers and their failure to handle different demands of their career. If we closely look at the statistics again, we can point these to the lack of human skills. In this byte, we discuss the role played by emotional intelligence(EI). 

Recollect, we had discussed briefly about emotional intelligence earlier and highlighted the role it plays in conflict management. For ease of recollection here are some of the attributes of emotional intelligence one could think of: self-awareness, self-control, trustworthiness, confidence, empathy etc. 

As one moves up the career ladder, emotional intelligence becomes more valuable for managers. Employers look for emotional intelligence in their hiring processes - these may not be consciously always. Even during internships, it was found that the companies where willing to offer long term employments to the interns who had demonstrated higher levels of EI. 

Large corporate have identified the role EI plays and have consciously included EI assessment as part of their hiring process. This has not just let to improved performance in the traditional measures of their role's impact but also reduced the turnovers - that is a good investment in the long term for the company!

There is good news for those are thinking if they can develop their EI - yes! EI could be developed and also has been found to improve throughout life.

Need for Human Skills for Managers

In the last byte, we looked at how becoming your own career coach would help develop the necessary skills for career management. In today's byte, we look at some of the points for failure of new managers.

Here are some statistics quoted from the reference book:

• 40 % of new managers fail within the first 18 months on the job!
• 82% of the failures are because the new manager doesn't buid relationships with peers and subordinates
• 58% of the failures are because they are confused or uncertain about what their bosses expect
• 50% of the failures are because of the lack of internal political skills
• 47% of the failures are due to their inability to achived two or three most important objectives of their new job.

Isn't it pretty clear that these are due to the lack of human skills?

Develop the necessary skills for your Career

In the last byte, we looked at the shift from  the top-down firms of the old career paradigm to organizational empowerment to new career paradigm. In today's byte, we looked at a means of developing the necessary skills for career progression.

If an individual thinks of oneself as being in the business for oneself, even if the individual works for someone else, then there would be an enormous positive impact on the career. Knowing the skills one has to package for other employers, helps acquire the necessary skills. Organizations too need employees who have acquired multiple skills and are adept at more than one job - note that there is the skills that would help dealing with change. The self-reliance necessary to deal with the change is a key skill. 

The flexible and team-oriented people, those energized by change, those who are tolerant to ambiguity are all found to easily adjust in the scenarios of a new career paradigm. The people who have rigid in their thinking, learning styles, and have a high need for control are those who become frustrated in the new career. 

As a famous researcher says - "a commitment to continuous, lifelong learning will prevent your from becoming a professional dinosaur!"

From corporate allegiance to project allegiance

In the last byte, we looked at the shift from top-down firms of the old career paradigm to organizational empowerment to new career paradigm. In today's byte, we look at the shift from corporate allegiance model (old paradigm) to project allegiance model (new paradigm).

We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

From Top Down to Organizational Empowerment

In the last byte, we looked at the shift from one-employer focus (old paradigm) to occupational excellence (new paradigm). In today's byte, we look at the shift from top-down firms of the old career paradigm to organizational empowerment to new career paradigm. 

We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

From a single employer focus to Occupational Excellence

In the last byte, we discuss the shift from Mutual Loyalty Contract (Old Paradigm) to Discrete Exchange (New Paradigm). In today's byte, we look at the shift from one-employer focus (old paradigm) to occupational excellence (new paradigm). 

We could interpret the change between the two in the following table:

From Mutual Loyalty Contract to Discrete Exchanges

In the last byte, we looked at the broad categories in which the change from old career paradigm to the new one has occured. We discuss this a bit more closely today on the shift from Mutual Loyalty Contract (Old Paradigm) to Discrete Exchange (New Paradigm). 

We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

Changing Paradigm of Careers

In the last byte, we looked at the definition of career and career management and understood why it would be important for a manager to understand career management. In today' byte we look at the chaging paradigm of career. 

The concept of life-time employement in a single organization is almost a reality today - and the challenge is to create a constantly learning organisation. We use the reference book table 17.1 to understand the old and new paradims of career in this byte and the next few.

We do this on 4 broad heads in which we can look at these transitions:

• The mutual loyalty contract has given way to Discrete exchange
• The one-employer focus has given way to occupational excellence
• The top-down firm structure is now one of organizational empowerment
• Corporate allegiance has given way to project allegiance

We shall look at these closely in the next byte.

Career and Career Management

In the last byte, we understood the various paths one could take for a cultural change in their organisation. In today's byte, we initiate our discussion on careers and career management. 

We define Career as: The pattern of work-related experiences that span the course of a person's life. Note here that it is beyond the "job" that one does in an organization - it is just related to the job one pick up as part of the role. 

Career Management is: a life-long process of learning about self, jobs and organizations; setting personal career goals; developing strategies for achieving those gals, and revising the goals based on work and life experience.  

As managers we could think of three resons to gain an understanding of career management:

1. If one know what to look forward to in our career, one could take a proactive step towards planning and managing them.
2. The experience of employees and coulleagues as they pass through the various stages of careers over their life span could be better understood.
3. It is a good business! Better trained employees keep up with their fieldds so that organization could protect valuable investment in human resource.

Changing Organizational Culture 2

In the last byte, we began our discussion on changing organizational culture. In today's byte, we continue looking at the same.

Referring to the diagram shown in the last byte; there are two approaches to changing the existing culture:
Path  1: helping current members buy into the new set of values
Path 2: adding newcomers and socializing them into the organizations and removing current members as appropriate
 

Lets Explore path 1 first:
The first action is to change behavior in organization. Behavior is an artifact of culture - so individuals may change heir behavior bu not the values that drive it. Managers must use actions to justify the changed behavior. All artifacts should send consistent message about the new values and beliefs.
 

Lets now look at path 2:
The organization can look at revising its selection strategies to more accurately reflect the new culture - and let go of people who resist cultural change.

Changing Organizational Culture

In the last byte, we looked at assessing the organizational culture. In today's byte, we begin looking at how change in organizational culture could be initiated. 

We could visualize the process of changing the organizational cultural in the following diagram.

Assessing Organization Culture

In the last byte, we looked at socilization as cultural communication. In today's byte, we begin look at ways to  assess organization culture. 

There are two widely used quantitative assessment instruments:

1. Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI)
2. Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap Survey

OCI focuses on behaviors that help employees fit into the organization and meet the expectations of coworkers. The two underlying dimensions of the OCI are task/people and security/satisfaction. 

Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap Survey focuses on the gap between what actually happens in the organization and the expectations of others in the organization. It has two underlying dimensions - technical/human and time(short/long). 

While quantitative methods listed above are precise, comparable and objective - the use of qualitative methods like interviews and observations offer a detailed, descriveptive and unique measure of the scenario. Thus, "Traingulation" methods are generally prefered in study of organizational culture.