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The Organizational Personality and Employee Performance What’S Your Organization’S Personality, and How Is It Affecting Your Employees’ Work?

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The Organizational Personality and Employee Performance What’S Your Organization’S Personality, and How Is It Affecting Your Employees’ Work? The Organizational Personality and Employee Performance What’s your organization’s personality, and how is it affecting your employees’ work? BY VINCENT J. NATOLI, JR. rganizations, like people, • employee motivation and commit- 2. Punitiveness is the extent to have personalities. Some ment which employers punish employees. It is personality traits, such as • employee selection related to authoritarianism because authoritarianism and con- • employee complaints such as authoritarians control people by punish- formity, apply to both people grievances, unionization, regula- ing them. An employer inclined to control andO organizations. Others, such as employees with HR practices that punish tory agency complaints, and employee participation, are unique to them is more likely to rate high on puni- litigation organizations. Understanding your tiveness, and also authoritarianism, than • implementation of incentive plans organization’s personality can help you an employer who controls employees • implementation of performance attain the results you want from your through non-punitive practices. employees. appraisals Performance outcomes associated • empowerment with employer punitiveness include: • effectiveness of organizational • empowerment Five Organizational Personality Traits change • performance appraisals Over 60 performance outcomes have • productivity and effectiveness • turnover been associated with five organizational • organizational learning • absenteeism • unlearning old behaviors traits. Thus, by adjusting one or more of • coaching • employee creativity these traits, you can change your • employee need achievement • organizational learning employees’ performance. Here are the • employee creativity • productivity. five all-important traits and the perform- • job enrichment programs ance outcomes they influence: • absenteeism 3. Employee conformity is the • bullying extent to which employers move employ- 1. Authoritarianism encompasses • employee turnover ees to the organization’s norms—that is, three behaviors: • work stoppages standards of behavior. • aggression • quality Among the organizational perform- • submission • workplace violence. ance outcomes associated with employee • conventionalism conformity are: There is good reason to believe that Organizations can be characterized • organizational learning employers can improve their authoritari- as authoritarian if they have human • role conflict resource (HR) practices scoring high on an behavior. The theoretical literature • autonomy these three behaviors and non-authoritar- shows that authoritarians don’t realize • job satisfaction ian if they don’t score high on all three. they are authoritarian and, once made • willingness to quit Performance outcomes associated aware of it, are often willing to change • organizational change with authoritarianism include: their behavior. • employee involvement. 2003 • February January 25 4. Employee participation is the • retaliation against whistle-blowers 3. Check your organization against extent to which employees share in the • productivity practices common in your industry. decision-making process. In some organi- • motivation zations, employee participation is mini- • bureaucratic control 4. Encourage feedback from mal, with employers simply telling • commitment and satisfaction employees to see how they view your employees what is occurring in the • performance organization’s practices. organization. At the other extreme are • employee stress. 5. Use benchmarking to see how organizations in which employees sit on your organization stacks up to similar the board of directors and influence Three Ways Organizations Gain organizations. major organizational decisions. Compliance Organizational performance out- It is especially useful to compare comes affected by employee participa- There are three types of organiza- your organization’s personality with tion include the following: tions in terms of how they gain their another organization when considering a • productivity employees’ compliance: merger or acquisition. If an organization • organizational learning low on employee participation considers 1. Coercive organizations, such as • organizational change merging with an organization that is high prisons and custodial mental hospitals, • competitiveness on that trait, for example, it is less likely are the most authoritarian, the most puni- • employee stress (which is related to have a successful merger than if the tive, and the least participative. They also to health care costs) two organizations have a similar level of have the least socialized members. Such • job satisfaction and commitment employee participation. organizations gain compliance by force. • employee creativity Listen to what your employees are saying through their words and actions. If • employee performance 2. Normative organizations such there is a particular behavior or outcome • employees’ sense of security as religious institutions and charities, are you want to change, look at the personal- • implementation of gainsharing at the other extreme. They are the least ity traits that influence it. By optimizing programs authoritarian and punitive with the high- your organizational personality, you can • retaliation against whistle-blowers est level of employee participation and attain the outcomes you want. I • absenteeism organizational socialization. They gain • turnover compliance through common values. Resources • morale Kilmann, Ralph, “Managing Your Organization’s Culture,” Nonprofit World, • motivation 3. Utilitarian, or remunerative, organizations lie between coercive and Vol. 3, No. 2. • safety Knowlton, Lisa Wyatt, “Study Shows Gaps • decision-making. normative organizations. Utilitarian in Nonprofit Management–and How to organizations, which include most busi- Improve,” Nonprofit World, Vol. 19, No. 3. 5. Organizational socialization is nesses, use material rewards to gain their Muehrcke, Jill, ed., Personnel and Human Resources Development, Leadership Series. the the extent to which employees are employees’ compliance. Muehrcke, Jill, “What’s Your Personality acculturated to the organization’s norms, Type?”, Nonprofit World, Vol. 14, No. 5. values, and behaviors. Just as authoritari- Neck, Christopher & Robert Ashcraft, Five Ways to Determine Your “Inner Leadership: Mental Strategies for anism and punitiveness are related, Organization’s Personality Nonprofit Staff Members,” Nonprofit World, employee participation and organization- Vol. 18, No. 3. al socialization are related. Research There are five ways to determine where your organization stands in rela- These resources are available through the shows that when people are given input Society’s Resource Center, 734-451-3582, into decisions that affect them, they are tion to other organizations on the five www.snpo.org. more committed to those decisions. Thus, personality traits discussed above, par- employees tend to be more committed to ticularly the trait of authoritarianism. Vincent J. Natoli, Jr., DBA, is president of values and behaviors into which they 1. Check the law. If your practices Organizational Assessment, Inc., the orga- have input. The more socialized employ- violate American legal standards, then nizational personality experts (314 East Sidlee Street, Thousand Oaks, California ees are, the fewer bureaucratic mecha- you need to adjust your organization’s nisms are needed to control them. 91360, 805-379-9070, www.assessorgs.com, personality, at least on the issue of [email protected]), a consulting firm Performance outcomes linked to concern. that uses the organizational personality to organizational socialization include: improve organizational performance • turnover 2. Compare your organization’s through organizational personality audits, supervisory training, and employee selec- • discipline personality with standard American tion. Copyright by Organizational • organizational stability Assessment. All Rights Reserved. Nonprofit World, Vol. 21, No. 1 Vol. World, Nonprofit conventions. 26.
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