ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOR

AUGUST 13, 2019

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Personal Learning Paper
Authored by: Joydip Sarkar(FT202036)
The objective of writing this Personal Learning Paper is to reflect upon my life till date. This paper will
showcase the contribution of my Organizational behavior class, different books and my personal
experiences.

Here I am presenting this paper according to the questionnaires set for me.

My feelings/emotions/thoughts, that were aroused by the class exercises and reading materials:

Organizational Behavior is defined as “the study of both group and individual performance and
activity within an organization”. Undoubtedly, the learnings from the classes were very impactful for
me, being a future manager and a leader.
We learnt that for any organization to be successful, the treatment towards its employees play a key
factor. We learnt that while the good work practices at Google made them the best place to work,
the stern and not employee centric practices made production issues at Maruti.
It is very important us (managers) to be honest, humble, confident and empathetic towards their
subordinates and we should have clear, concise communication skills to convey what is expected
from the industry perspective.
Managers should form the strategies carefully keeping the humane values of the employees, because
the overall development comprises of both the industry and the employees.
A few quotes to mention here,
How the classroom exercises and reading materials complemented my previous experiences:

Prior to joining Great Lakes, I was working as an acting lead for Citi project in TCS. I was heading a
team of 9 members (4 of them senior to me). There have been cases in the beginning where my
directions to the team (the senior members) went in a harsh way, as a result I had to face setbacks in
my project. It was even trickier when I had to raise appraisals for my team members. I considered
only the amount of effort put by any of my team members and raised appraisals accordingly. What
happened after that was a complete chaos, as 1 of the senior member of my team literally stopped
working (even the least of the work he was doing). It went so bad that we had to release that
resource from our project. Now when I am going through the classroom exercises, I feel that I could
have handled the situation more tactfully, we might not have to release the resource with providing
the expectation of some reward for the work/ result he provides. This was one of the cases, where I
think, I failed my team although generally I was loved among the team. The love and respect for me
was because I handled all the critical issues by my own, handled all the escalations without my team
members getting the heat of it, I kept a cordial and friendly relationship with all. The learning from
the classes of Organization Behavior made me look at the overall picture of handling people and I am
confident that I will take care of my employees in a better way in the next organization I join.
My learning is what culture I bring in my organization.

Figure 1: Culture acting as a bridge between other personal traits

Orientation at Tapovan and how it helped in Understanding of my own self:

A few days back, if someone would have asked me about doing any exercise in the scorching heat, my
response would have been, “Are you kidding me?” Well, Tapovan was some experience!
The first exercise was “Blind-man’s Walk”, where I was left blind with a piece of cloth and I had to rely
on a stranger to go through an obstacle course. I must thank my guide for completing that exercise,
who has become a very good friend. This taught me that having trust on my team member is of key
importance.
In the next activity, we had to carry one without him/her touching the ground. This activity couldn’t
be completed by anyone of us individually, we had to join our hands together to complete the
activity. This taught me that, even if any situation becomes very tough for any individual, it can be
completed with the collective effort of all. Thus, team comes first.
We went through a ropeway walk, which was really an uncharted territory for us. Although, it was
scary at first, we targeted the task and completed successfully. This made us confident that even if we
are addressed with a new problem statement, we won’t falter and we can definitely think and
formulate a solution for that.
We played a game where we had to call out for an unordered set of numbers (no talk between team
members, no one can call out 2 simultaneous numbers). This required a lot of patience and
attentiveness to complete. It’s the same in any organization also. We have to pay attention to all the
activities happening in the organization (for benefit of both self and the organization).

Figure 2: Team understanding about Organizational Behavior from activities at Tapovan

With the game of Human Web, we again had a learning about team work and trust.
With the game of House Building activity, we were tested on our creativity and marketing capability,
all working in a team with a team crunch. This felt very similar to real corporate situations for me,
where we all have to work in a team and deliver our product to client within time.

Figure 3: House Building Exercise at Tapovan. The product was ready but our energy was high.

I feel like Tapovan rewarded us with a small replica of how our lives are going to be once we graduate
and gave us an opportunity to rectify our flaws and flourish us as future Leaders.
Implications of Tapovan experiences in shaping my behavior as a future manager/leader:

Quoting Erin Lap, “Managers and the top leaders of the organization need to create an environment
that is professional and motivational for top talent management and development”.
Whereas, the organization can be impacted with the wrong decision of managers:

I am presenting my learnings in the following few points:

i. It’s important to trust our team members. Trust their work/trust on their working ability.
ii. It’s ok to be friendly with all our team members. This friendliness will bring the right amount
of work from them.
iii. Having a clear vision, strategy for problems would help the team members go in the perfect
direction for a problem statement.
iv. Don’t leave our work if we find it difficult to complete, as success lies just a few steps forward.
v. Collective effort always wins against the individual brilliance.
vi. Being humane to all our team members is considered to be the most valuable ethics/stepping
stone in any organization’s success.

Figure 4: The sought out learning experiences to become a successful leader