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MGMT 451 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Fall 2008

Class
Days: Tuesdays & Thursdays Tuesdays & Thursdays
Time: 8:00 am – 9:15 am 9:30 am – 10:45 am
CRN #: 11675 13237
Location: Constant Hall 1052 Constant Hall 1052

Professor
Name: Dr. Brian McNatt Office: Constant Hall 2167
Phone: 683-3572 work; 484-2379 home E-mail: dmcnatt@odu.edu
Office hours: Monday 10:00-11:30 am, Thursday 2:00 - 3:30 pm, by appointment, or drop by

COURSE DESCRIPTION

“People are our most important asset.”

This stock phrase can be found, in one form or another, in most annual reports and CEO speeches. Is it true? Certainly, nearly all managers would agree that managing people effectively is an important ingredient of organizational effectiveness. In fact, a recent analysis of the world’s most admired companies concluded that the most important success factor was the effective acquisition and management of people (“The World’s Most Admired Companies,” Fortune [October 27, 1997]). Most managers would further argue, however, that managing people effectively, and developing competent “soft” (interpersonal) skills, is not something you can learn in a class. Rather, good people skills are a matter of experience and “street smarts.” Thus,

“Managing people effectively and good soft skills are important, but they are simply matters of keen intuition, experience, and common sense.”

The first part of the above statement is right but the latter part is wrong. I am not denying that experience and good intuition are helpful in managing people and interpersonal relations. Unfortunately, common sense, experience, and intuition often fail to provide accurate knowledge of behavior. And when our convictions about behavior are inaccurate, it is often difficult to know how badly they’ve served us. Even if we discover our errors, we often become uncritical consumers of faddish remedies. They mostly comfort our intuitions and increase organizational costs, but rarely have...