Introduction
Before starting the course OB & HRM, I expected to develop my proficiency in the understanding of the human factor in organizational structure. On the basis of the lectures, tutorials, and study material, I forecasted that I would have to deal with interesting issues regarding organizational behavior and human resource management. This included –but was not limited to– questions such as “Why do humans change their behavior when entering an organization?” and “What kind of behavior will benefit an organization?”. After this course has been completed, my desire lies in the field of comprehending complex issues regarding OB & HRM, in order to be able to apply the obtained knowledge in circumstances that involves human behavior in organizational structure.
Human behavior has always been an interesting topic for me. Not only in terms of organizational structure, but also in daily life. In my opinion, it is important to develop your understanding of how to behave in situations. Comprehending the strengths and weaknesses of different people makes people more involved in an organizational environment. Human behavior seems to be the glue in order to connecting individuals and teams. Therefore, if I decide to become a manager or director at a company after I have finished my study in International Business Administration, I will need the ability to deal with a variety of complex situations in the work environment. This course will develop my skill concerning self-reflection on personal development and moreover, it will help me recognize the outcomes of my own learning, knowledge, and actions. Hence, this assignment will be a part of the effort I have to execute in order to accomplish my expectations and objectives. In order to bridge the course theory and practice, I will elaborate on two personal learning reflections that I have experienced during the course.
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My first learning experience is based on tutorial five and lecture six of this course. During this tutorial, I practiced a negotiation exercise based on a conflicting florist, grocer, and baker. Key topics such as human behavior and personality came across in this game. My fellow negotiators and I interacted in a negotiation setting whereas the bottom line was that teamwork would lead to the highest collective result, at the expense of the individual benefit. In this case, I was faced with the question of whether I had to determine either confrontation or negotiation. The lecture has provided me with essential knowledge in regards to several concepts and theories about teams, conflicts, and negotiations, with the aim that I could apply the expertise during the negotiation game.
My second learning experience is based on the debate session that had been held in tutorial four. The session contained two debates in total, but during the first debate I was supposed to be in favor of my own statement, and in the latter, I pretended to be against a statement. Not only the debate session was graded, but also the quality of the provided feedback as part of the gradation. Therefore, it was important to observe well during the debates, because the observations could contribute as input for this assignment. The learning objective of the debate session was to practice my social skills in terms of being able to master several roles in a cross-cultural setting.
First Learning Experience: Confrontation or Negotiation?
Factual Description
During tutorial five, I wielded a negotiation exercise in which participants were informed that they would enter a negotiation with two other parties. Participants were led to expect that they would face an integrative negotiation where mutual benefit could arise from teamwork. It was insisted that in this negotiation they could not only look after the interests of their own business (a baker, florist, or grocer) but also need to attend to the collective interest of their fellow negotiators (as tenants of a shopping center). Thus, the multi-party negotiation focused on decision making, in which the objective, in particular, was to make it possible for customers to shop in a pleasant and convenient way to increase sales of all parties involved. This established the foundation for the appropriate measurement of prosocial value orientations, which clearly has a link between OB & HRM.
Personal Experience
Beforehand the negotiation, I set priority on my individual interest, even though I did not assimilate the negotiation exercise thoroughly. I participated as a florist, who was having a competition with two other retail businesses –a bakery and a grocery– regarding the design, rent, and store temperature for their brand new store in a shopping center. However, I always had been supposing that bargaining was not my best skill, but the outcomes of the surveys –that I had to fill in ahead of the tutorial related to personality traits– made me feel more comfortable. These surveys, in conjunction with the scope of the learning goals, actually helped me to become more aware of my own strengths and weaknesses during negotiations and other team activities. Therefore, I was looking forward with much more confidence to the negotiation than I normally would.
At the moment of reading the instructions of the game, I observed that respectively the baker, grocer, and florist all had different positions on each of the three negotiable factors that they would prefer. Therefore, I assumed that the occurrence of teaming up would be more obvious. Nonetheless, I still persisted in my individual strategy in order to establish an initial negotiation room, which subsequently was a mistake on my side. After hardly five minutes, I observed that my fellow ‘competitors’ also adopted the same individualistic intention. From that moment, I realized that the negotiation outcome would probably not arise in optimized results if all negotiators –including me– would continue with their individual attitudes and actions. For instance, the hostile-acting grocer initially attempted to bluff, by wielding ultimatums. From my point of view, the application of such concessions often seemed to be a relatively threatening development during the negotiation. As a result, I instantly changed my attitude in order to lighten the ambiance. As a result, I noticed that the formal vibe changed into a more personal one, which clearly was appreciated among all negotiators. At this point, we realized that collaboration would be the best solution for this game. Under the veil of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”, we rapidly came to a mutual solution with which we all agreed with. I was feeling really satisfied with this result.
Naive and Theoretical Reflection
At first, I realized at the beginning of the negotiation game that if I would set out an initial negotiation framework by using power, I possibly could gain the trust of my fellow negotiators. This is a concept that links with one outcome of the study of Mooijman et al. (2019), which states that using power during a negotiation will enhance trust. However, during the game, I observed that I was not the only one that wanted to force power. Therefore, I unconsciously became insecure, which I revealed by being less individualistic. This circumstance has also a connection with Mooijman et al. (2019) that concludes that the use of ‘uncertain’ power reduces trust among the participating negotiators because the situation causes concerns about losing power to others. In consideration of emotions, I didn’t plan to change my personality due to the negotiation game. By smiling a lot, I thought that I could create some goodwill. This evidently corresponds with a study by Pietroni et al. (2008), which specifies that showing happiness in negotiations will increase integrative behavior. Moreover, during the game, I also came across a situation that I perceived as a threat. During the negotiation, the situation occurred that baker attempted to do a concession in terms of “take it or leave it”. My perception of that was that it could negatively affect the negotiation outcome. However, according to a study by Ma et al. (2019) about ‘final offers’ in negotiations, the role of a choice mindset will subsequently arise in a mediation to improve persistence and moreover, enlarge the bargaining outcomes. Actually, this claim has been proven in this negotiation game, since the outcome was the best outcome regarding mutual benefit. In regards to cultural values, I clearly perceived differences in negotiation styles. This had to do with my fellow negotiators, who both were international students. However, I did not take into account the presence of cultural differences, the study by Caputo et al. (2019) about the relationship between cultural values, cultural intelligence, and negotiation styles proves that the first two aspects both have a direct and indirect influence on negotiation styles.
Second Learning Experience: the Debate Session
Factual Description
In tutorial five, we exercised a debate session in which I debated twice. During the debate session, each debate consisted of two ‘conflicting’ teams: 1 in favor of the statement and 1 against the statement. Furthermore, a third team was participating as the judge of the debate. Their responsibility was to provide quality feedback by observing the debate. Each debate was divided into six rounds: the introduction round, the starting rounds, the strategizing moment, the defending round, the concluding round, and the feedback round. The general rules of the game were that each team was not permitted to interrupt the other team during their round. Also, the time had strictly to be respected, so when the time was over, no new arguments could be made. Lastly, everyone in each team had to contribute to the debate, so it was not possible to let only 1 or 2 persons of a certain team debate. The debate session focussed on the practice of social skills in terms of being able to master several roles in a cross-cultural setting.
Personal Experience
Before the debate, all teams were required to prepare themselves for the session. I tried to prepare myself for the debate by doing a lot of research to use information that I could use during the debate session. I always have been a control freak, so it is not strange that I wanted to prepare myself to the fullest: a good start is half the work. I was really nervous due to the fear of failure, so I tried to calm down. Once I kicked off our first debate in which we were in favor of our own statement, I immediately felt more comfortable than before the session. This gave me a lot of faith, so I was not afraid anymore to fail. As a result, I was able to tell my part with complete confidence, and moreover, by exuding confidence, I also directly boosted my team members’ confidence. During the first debate, I felt that we were the best team. As a result, we did what we actually expected: to set a good performance by using well-reasoned arguments. Moreover, I insisted to my team members that they all have to contribute during the debate if the situation permits it. I was happy that that also actually happened because it is hard to do that while having to perform under pressure. In the second debate, my team and I felt that we had nothing to lose since we already had put down a good performance. Therefore, we were also feeling accomplished when the second session was finished. The most interesting part of the debate session for me was clearly being the judge. I realized that I listened to the debate between the two other teams in a more different and difficult way. I discovered that physical aspects such as body language and persuasiveness actually were more important than the information. I was convinced that a confident expression will lead to a better performance than only good information with an insecure attitude. Moreover, I was lucky due to the fact that my opponents were actually friends of mine. Therefore, giving feedback was a relatively easy and effective process when it came to my classmates. Lastly, I perceived that the way of communicating feedback is also significant in order to hand over feedback. Starting the feedback conversion with the goods points, continuing possible future improvements, and thereafter, ending with positive words makes me feel more appreciated.
Naive and Theoretical Reflection
At first, I was acting very nervous. This had to do with the fact that I am a perfectionist. According to a study by Ståhlberg et al. (2019), perfectionist among students will achieve their objectives the most, since they are more secure in setting goals and are more willing to achieve them, in comparison to students with low concerns and low strivings. It seems that my nervosity actually helped me to perform well during the debate session. This correlates with the study of Fransen et al. (2017), which states that team confidence can transform within a single sports game, due to the circumstance of having to perform under pressure. However, it is not investigated yet whether this is also applied to students’ performance, I can perceive similarities between my debate performance and the outcome of the study regarding team confidence. I also needed to perform under pressure, since the debate was graded, and moreover, the amount of team confidence changed within the debate. Another theory that possibly clarifies my behavior during the debate session, is the study of Cochran et al. (2019). During the debate of the two other teams, I had to fill in the role of the judge and I found out that It was easy to give critical feedback, especially to my classmates that I already knew. This links with the outcome of Cochran et al. (2019), which states that personal judgment accuracy becomes better if people already have allocated more time with each other. In my opinion, the debate has helped me with achieving one of my expectations, namely to become more proficient in different situations regarding behavior.
Conclusion and Integration
To conclude, both of the learning experiences will contribute to my personal and professional development. My most useful learning experience is the negotiation game, in which I learned to look through the strategy of other negotiators. This experience helped me to develop my skills relating to my new sales job, where I will need to negotiate often. Another expertise that I have obtained due to this reflection, is the study of Ståhlberg et al. (2019), which specifies that perfectionists really do perform better. Thus, I obtained the knowledge that perfectionism not necessarily is a weak point. Moreover, the study of Mooijman et al. (2019) regarding power and trust has given me a new insight into the field of negotiating. In particular, the outcome of the study shows that power leads to trust, but ‘forced’ power will reduce trust. This may also correspond with the second learning reflection in consideration of the debate. During this session, I perceived a positive modification in my amount of confidence, which had let me force power with more confidence.
Before this course, my desire lay in the area of comprehending complex issues regarding OB & HRM, in order to be able to apply the obtained knowledge in circumstances that involves human behavior in organizational structure. A critical note and therefore, improvement is that in future negotiations I need to adopt a ‘choice mindset’ in which I provide ultimatums. It is proven by Ma et al. (2019) that doing concessions during negotiations will enhance persistence and moreover, the bargaining outcomes. If I am willing to improve my negotiation ability, then this useful outcome can assist me.
Due to this assignment, I created more awareness of my behavioral decisions. Becoming more aware of your own behavior is more important than ever since in this cross-cultural era I have to face a lot of different situations, in different contexts.
Reference list
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.05.003
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.011
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.06.007
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.03.009
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.07.005
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.04.024
- https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.046
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