FTMBA2020_II Organizational Behavior

This course is about the people side of business - about you! People are an organization’s most valuable asset. But how to unfold people’s full potential? In this class, you will be learning the fundamentals of managing organizations from a people perspective. We discuss how people can manage themselves, their relationships, their teams and their stakeholders successfully to foster their company’s competitive advantage – and their own careers.

Lead yourself

1. Unfold your full potential during teamwork
2. Give and receive positive feedback that will increase your career
3. Give and receive negative feedback that will help yourself and your relationships grow

Being led by others

1. Make faster and better decisions in teams
2. Understand cultural differences in intercultural teams
3. Constructively solve problems and conflicts in intercultural teams

Lead others

1. Manage weak bosses successfully without ruining the relationship to your boss
2. Survive a toxic leader without suffering too much
3. Successfully navigate organizational politics

In this class, you will …

1.... understand key issues and concepts of organizational behavior,

2. ... learn how to apply them in practice,

3. ... experience the power of organizational behavior through experimental exercises,

4. ... reflect on your own experiences,

5. ... gain insights about hot behavioral topics in international top companies,

6. ... learn how top leaders pushed their careers by effectively managing people,

7. ... and ultimately, develop better people skills.

Course Book: Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy Judge, and Timothy Campbell (2017)Organizational Behaviour, 2/E, Pearson, ISBN-10: 1292016558 • ISBN-13: 9781292016559Lecture Slides:Will be provided as pdf downloadsbefore the session via MoodleAdditional articles and book chapters:Will be referenced during the respective sessions in the additional reading appendix

This class builds upon previous classes, such as “Personal Growth” and others to help you understand and further grow your people skills. We will dig deeper into how you can lead yourself, being led by others and leading others. In particular, we will:

1. Discuss about relevant theories that help you understand why and how humans act the way they do and what you can do specifically to enhance your people skills.
2. Engage in individual and team reflections to analyze your (past) own behavior.
3. Engage in class exercises helping you to experience the power of people skills.
4. Use case studies to learn mastering specific people skills.

You can obtain 50 points as part of this course. Your grade will be determined by:

1. Individual reflections (5 points): There will be individual reflections, guided by pre-formatted reflection sheets for you to systematically reflect upon specific people topics and your personal experiences in dealing with these topics.
2. Teamwork (5 points): There will be several team exercises and team reflections, too.
3. Individual final reflection note (40 points): By the end of this class, you will be asked to reflect upon your key learnings from this class. In this vein, I will ask you to envisage specific, challenging people-situations and then to explain, how you would solve these situations based on the key learnings from this class.

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