Critical thinking questions from chapter 4
“Emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence in influencing an individual’s success” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Fully support your perspective
The statement that “Emotional Intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence in influencing an individual’s success” is correct. This is due to the fact that emotional processes normally occur before cognitive processes and consequently influence the latter. Emotions are physiological, psychological and even behavioral episodes experienced towards a person or object. They are brief and create some state of readiness and they are directed towards someone or something for instance pleasure or annoyance.
Emotions are experiences that represent changes in the physiological state of the human body for instance low blood pressure, behavioral state like facial expressions and psychological state. They occur without a warning and place individuals in a state of readiness for instance when hungry, the stomach rumbles to make the body ready to consume food. Therefore, the fact that emotional intelligence precedes cognitive intelligence, an individual’s success solely depends on emotional well being.
Describe a time when you effectively managed someone’s emotions-either personally or professionally. What happened? What was the result?
A time when I effectively managed individual’s emotions was when a friend of mine got so mad because his laptop had been stolen. This is an individual who is easily irritated but since I’ am aware of his personality, I tried several ways to help him calm down. I requested my friend to step back and first analyze the situation instead of reacting immediately the way most people do. Life is full of challenges and when we overcome them, we become stronger thus can deal with any situation that comes our way.
I also maintained an optimistic perspective towards my friend and this helped a great deal. After analyzing the situation, it was clear that my friend was careless in that he always left his property in unsecured places. The result was that he leant his lesson and since then he was more careful with his belongings.
What factors influence an employee’s organizational loyalty? What factors are important to you? Thoroughly explain the reasons for these factors
There are several factors that influence an employee’s organizational loyalty and the first factor is justice and support. Employees get committed to an organization when their obligations are fulfilled and also when humanitarian values such as fairness are abided to. The second factor is shared values where employees believe that their values are harmonious with the values of the organization. Employees also feel comfortable when they are in agreement with the values underlying corporate decisions hence they become highly motivated to stay in the organization.
The third factor is trust where employees gain loyalty when they trust their leaders in their organization. The fourth factor is organizational comprehension which entails how well employees understand their organization. Those employees that have a better understanding of the strategic directions and social dynamics of their organization tend to be loyal as compared to those that don’t have the slightest idea about their organization. Employees are supposed to be updated on all the events of their organization since it is not easy to identify with something unfamiliar.
The fifth factor is employee involvement where those employees that are involved in their organization activities strengthen their social identity with the organization. Employees feel that they are part of the organization when they are involved in processes like decision making. When employees are granted this power, they feel that the organization trusts them.
The factors that are important to me are justice and support, trust and employee involvement. These factors are significant because they contribute major to a friendly working environment that is necessary for good performance. Justice and support is very fundamental to employees in any organization because they contribute to the element of job satisfaction. When employees are satisfied with their jobs, they get highly motivated thus contribute whole heartedly to the success of the organization.
Trust on the other hand foster creativity and encourages talent in an organization. Organizational events and activities are crucial in the sense that employees need to be involved to avoid cases of dissatisfaction or discrimination. When decisions are made without involving employees for instance, great tension arises since the employees are not psychologically prepared to the new regulations.
A senior official of a labor union stated: “All stress management does, is help people cope with poor management. (Employers) should really be in stress reduction.” Discuss the accuracy of this statement so that someone who does not know anything about Organizational Behavior Theory can understand your argument
Organizations today tend to get concerned about employee stress which can be defined as the circumstance which individuals face constraints and the results is erratic. Employees in an organization experience stress when excessive pressure or irrational demands are placed on them and this condition affects the way they carry out their duties at the work place. The results of stress at the workplace are similar to those of any other place and the negativity is both on a cognitive and emotional level. Individuals deal with stress in different ways hence the response top pressure at the work place varies from employee to employee.
Stress at work has been known to influence negatively employee performance hence it is the responsibility of organizational officials to ensure that their employees work in a stress free environment. The organizational behavior theory states that organizations have a responsibility to their workers and to the society in general. The theory asserts that the health of society members is more important than just making profit. Employers should therefore ensure that their employees receive quality management but not just reduce the existing stress that is as a result of poor management.
Read case study 5.1(page 158)-“Vetements Ltee”
What symptom(s) in this case suggest that something has gone wrong?
The symptoms that suggest something has gone wrong in this case are the complaints from store managers regarding the performance of their sales staff. Managers are concerned about inventory duties which most employees are not willing to do. Stores have faced shortage of stock because merchandise was not stocked or reorder forms were not filled in a timely manner.
What are the main causes of these symptoms?
The main cause of these symptoms is the new incentive system that was introduced where sales employees are paid a fixed salary plus a commission based on the percentage credited to that employee over the pay period. Sales staff therefore started standing near the entrance tagging customers as theirs and this was for the purposes of getting high commission.
What actions should the company executives take to correct the problem? Clearly explain your position with regard to your recommendations
To correct the problem, the company executives should assign supervisors to supervise the sales staff when conducting inventory duties. Those sales staff that is placed in a slow area should be granted a higher commission as compared to those assigned in a fast are. This is because; employees in any organization need to be treated fairly for them to get motivated. High employee motivation is fundamental since it increases the productivity of any organization.
Self-Assessment 6.4-“What is your attitude towards money?”
Purpose: This self-assessment is designed to help you understand the types of attitudes toward money and assess your attitude toward money
Instructions: Read each of the statements on the assessment survey provided on page 194.
Circle the response that you believe best reflects your position regarding each statement.
Questions:
1.-3 neutral
2.-4 agree
3.-5 strongly
4.-4 agree
5.-5 strongly agree
6.-strongly agree
7.-4 agree
8.-4 agree
9.-5strongly agree
10.-3 neutral
11.-4 agree
12.-2 disagree
Then use the scoring key in Appendix B (page 517) to calculate your results.What are your scores for the three money attitude scale dimensions as well as total?
Explain your agreement or lack of agreement with each money attitude dimension score and total score.
Refer to the MBA student percentile table on top of page 518.How do you compare to the percentile results for each money attitude dimension score and total score? Overall, are you surprised with your results when compared to the percentile table?
Critical Thinking questions from chapter 7
A management consultant is hired by a manufacturing firm to determine the best site for its next production facility. The consultant has had several meetings with the company’s senior executives regarding the factors to consider when making the recommendation. Discuss the decision making problems that might prevent the consultant from choosing the best site location.
Decision making involves identifying, selecting and applying the best possible alternative. The decision making process is a complex one and making a sound decision is not an easy task. There are several problems that might prevent the management consultant from choosing the best site and one of them is lack of enough information. Adequate information regarding the site is necessary so that the consultant may analyze and evaluate the consequences of these alternatives and come up with a better solution. The consultant might also not be able to choose the best site location due to lack of enough finances.
A good site might be identified but again it might be too costly for the manufacturing firm to afford thus this will prevent the firm from purchasing this particular site. Another problem that might prevent the consultant from choosing the best site is due to the fact that not all alternatives and there outcomes may be evaluated. The consultant may also evaluate the alternatives sequentially rather than evaluating all of them at the same time. An alternative preferred by the consultant may be compared to the rest and this may hinder effective decision making.
Intuition is both an emotional experience and an unconscious analytic process. One problem however, is that not all emotions signaling that there is a problem, or opportunity, represent intuition. Explain how we would know if our “gut feelings” are intuition or not and if not intuition, suggest what might be causing them.
Intuition can be defined as the ability to know when a problem or opportunity exists and to select the best course of action without conscious reasoning. Not all emotions signaling that there is a problem are intuition. This is because intuition involves rapidly comparing our observations with deeply held patterns learnt through experience. These templates represent tacit knowledge that has been implicitly acquired over time.
They are mental models that help us to understand whether the current situation is good or bad depending on how well that situation fits our mental model. However, not all gut feelings are intuition and to know whether our gut feelings are intuition, there should be a deeply held pattern leant through experience. Those “gut feelings” that do not represent intuition may be as a result of emotional or rational processes.
A developer received financial backing for a new business financial center along a derelict section of the waterfront, few miles from the current downtown area of a large European city. The idea was to built several high-rise structures; attract to those sites prestigious tenants requiring large leases and have the city extend transportation systems out to the new center. Over the next decade, the developer believed that others would build in the area thereby attracting the regional or national offices of many financial institutions. Interest from potential tenants was much lower than initially predicted and the city did not build transportation systems as quickly as expected. Still the builder proceeded with the original plans. Only after financial support was curtailed did the developer reconsider the project. Using your knowledge of escalation of commitment, discuss three possible reasons why the developer was motivated to continue with the project. Be specific.
There are several possible reasons why the developer was motivated to continue with the project. One of them is self justification where the developer was motivated to maintain his course of action since he had a high need to justify his decision. Despite the fact that things did not work out as the developer expected, he still proceeded with his original plans. The second reason is prospect theory where the developer was feeling strong negative emotions. This was due to the amount of lose he would encounter hence he was taking a bigger risk to avoid the loss. The third reason is perceptual blinders where the developer did not see the problems soon enough. Serious problems like low interest from potential tenants looked like random errors along the trend line to success.
Two characteristics of creative people are that they have relevant experience and are persistent in their quests. Does this mean that people with the most experience and the highest need for achievement are the most creative? Explain your answer.
It is true that people with the most experience and the highest need for achievement are most creative. This is because, as much as intelligence assists people to discover new ideas, the most significant characteristic is the person’s persistence to seek out these ideas through trial and error in the face of resistance. Those individuals who are less creative give up easily.
