Understanding people involves understanding why they behave as they do and what influences their behavior. However, human behavior is complex as each individual is different and behaves differently in various situations and contexts over time. Personality, traits, perceptions, attitudes, and compatibility with tasks and others all shape workplace behavior. Managing people effectively requires understanding these factors and how individuals see themselves and the world around them.

2. Understanding People
In order to manage people, we need to understand
people. If we understand why people behave as they do,
we may be able to encourage – or change – their
behavior
If you know what types of behavior make people
effective as workers, we may be able to encourage or
change their behavior in such a way as to increase their
contribution to organizational goals

3. Understanding People Cont…
Unfortunately or fortunately – human behavior is not easy to
describe, let alone to explain – let alone to predict! All individuals
are different, and so behave differently
Each individual behaves differently over time, in different
circumstances and with different people
Interpersonal behavior (the interaction between two or more
people) is different from individual behavior
Groups of people behave rather differently than the individual
members would if they were on their own

4. Personality
Personality is the total pattern of characteristic ways of thinking ,
feeling, and behaving that constitute the individual’s distinctive
method of relating to the environment
There is a debate about whether or how far the factors of heredity
(nature) and environment (nurture) influence personality
Individuals possess a selection of these traits, which tend to go
together in compatible trait clusters, effectively dividing people
into personality types; personality develops through interaction
with the environment and how he sees himself

5. Personality
If we say someone is generally sweet-tempered or undemonstrative, we
are identifying traits in their personality
Individual personality is simply a ‘pick and mix’ from a range of possible
traits
People are different because individuals possess different traits, and
different strengths of the same trait
However, possessing a particular trait means to possess certain other
compatible or related traits; trait clusters
A person sociable and expressive is also likely to be impulsive, risk-
taking, active, irresponsible and practical – extrovert personality

6. Individual Traits
Each person has different personality and trait
The Big Five Factors Can help us to understand some of them
 Openness to Experience – describes an individual’s pro-active seeking
and appreciation of experience for its own sake
 Conscientiousness – describes how energetic and enthusiastic a person
is – especially when dealing with people
 Agreeableness – describes a person’s attitudes towards other people
 Neuroticism or natural reactions – measures the different ways people
have of reacting emotionally to pressure and stressful circumstances

7. Individual Traits
Our behavior is really determined by these internal traits,
giving the situation a small role in determining behavior
In other words these traits leak to an individual acting a
certain way in a given situation
What would be the desirable trait for an organization
What would be the desirable trait for an individual

8. Desirable Traits
It is not one straight rather difficult and complex process to
select the desirable traits
Ability and experience, education and skill training,
motivation, job design, age, attitudes, opportunity and many
other factors will influence job performance
Research has simply not been able to show significant
correlation between any personality trait and successful
performance

9. Self and Self-Image
People have a subjective ; picture of what their own self is like; Self-
image is developed primarily through experience, and interaction with
other people
We evaluate ourselves according to the effect of our behavior on other
people, and how they respond to us
If people regularly praise your hard work, for example, you may have an
image of yourself as a conscientious, successful worker
People tent to behave in accordance with their self-image, and how they
expect to be treated

10. Personality and Work Behavior
The compatibility of an individual’s personality with the task
The compatibility of an individual’s personality with the systems and
management culture of the organization
Some people hate to be controlled, but others want to be controlled;
find responsibility threatening
Some people have a strong desire of success and strong fear of failure
Such people tend to want personal responsibility, moderately difficult
tasks and goals (which challenge them but do not present the risk of
failure) and clear, frequent feedback on performance

11. Personality and Work Behavior
The compatibility of the individual’s personality with that of others in the
team
Personality clashes are a prime source of conflict at work
An achievement-oriented personality – tends to be a perfectionist, s
impatient and unable to relax, and will be unsociable if people seem
to be getting in the way of performance
Such a person will clearly be frustrated and annoyed by laid-back
sociable types working (or not working) around him
Even attractive traits, like a sunny temper, can get on the nerves of
people of a different type

12. Incompatibilities
Restore compatibility – this may be achieved by reassigning an
individual to tasks more suited to his personality type or changing
management style to suit the personalities of the team
Achieve compromise – individuals should be encouraged to :
 Understand the nature of their differences; personal differences Should not
be taken personally – as if they were adopted deliberately to annoy
 Modify their behavior, if personality develops according to feedback from
interactions with others, the popple can be encouraged and trained to
adopt positive traits and overcome negative ones; we may train people to
be more achievement oriented

13. Incompatibilities Cont…
Remove the incompatible personality – in the last
resort, obstinately difficult or disruptive people may
simply have to be weeded out of the team
Team selection should as far as possible ensure that
potentially incompatible people never become part
of the team in the first place

14. Perception
Different people ‘see’ things differently
Human beings behave in the world – not ‘as it really is’ but
as they see it
This is why we need to understand perception
Perception is the psychological process by which stimuli or
in-coming sensory data are selected and organize into
patterns which are meaningful to the individual

15. Perceptual selection
The sensory apparatus of humans (eyes, ears, skin etc.) has limitations,
which filter out certain stimuli; certain pitches of sound
Perception acts as a further screen
We are constantly bombarded by sensory data of all kinds, not all of
which is interesting or useful to us, we would not ne able to function if
we had to deal with every sound, sight, smell, and touch
The filtering process is called perceptual selectivity
It means that the world picture that our brains actually hold is not a
whole or accurate one

16. Perceptual selection Cont…
The context – people ‘see what they want to see’; what ever
is necessary or relevant in the situation in which they find
themselves. You might notice management or motivation
which normally you would not notice
The nature of stimuli – Our attention tends to be drawn to
large, bright, loud, unfamiliar, moving, and repeated stimuli.
Advertisers know it….

17. Perceptual selection Cont…
Internal factors – Drawn to stimuli that match our
personality, needs, interests, expectation and so on;
If we are hungry, we will pick the smell of food out
of a mix of aromas
Fear or trauma – people are able to avoid seeing
things that they don’t want to see
Things that are threatening to their security or self-
image, or things that are too painful for them

18. Perception and work behavior
We need to remember that human beings do not respond to the world
‘as it really is’ but as they perceive to be
If individuals act in ways that seem illogical or contrary to you, it is
probably not because of stupidity or defiance, but because they simply
do not see things in the same way you do
Consider whether you might be misinterpreting the situation or
others
Get people involved to define the situation as they see it. Then
everyone will know what they mean and differences of perception
can be cleared up before they can cause confusion

19. Common Clashes
Managers and Staff – the experience of work can be very
different for managerial and no-managerial personnel, and
this has tended to foster ‘them and us’ perceptions
Work Cultures – different functions in organizations may
have very different time-scales and cultures of work , and
will therefore perceive the work – and each other – in
different ways
Race and Gender

20. Attitude
Attitudes are our general standpoint on things; the
positions we have adopted in regard to particular
issues, things and people, as we perceive them
An attitude is ‘a mental and neural state of
readiness….exerting a directive or dynamic influence
upon the individual's response to all objects and
situations with which it is related’

21. Attitude Cont….
Attitudes are thought to contain three basic
components
Knowledge, beliefs or disbeliefs, perceptions
Feelings and desires (Positive or Negative)
Volition, will or the intention to perform an
action

22. Attitude Cont….
So our attitude towards something includes what
we think and feel about it – and also predisposes us
to behave in a certain way in response to it
This will be of particular interest to a manager,
because it suggests that I you can identify people’s
attitudes to things, you may be able to anticipate
how they will behave