Fundamentals of Management and Organizational Behavior

Please read the assignment and answer the questions at the end.

Your responses should be informed by the readings in the textbook.
Textbook is: Understanding And Managing Organizational Behavior 6th Edition available online

Exercise Overview: Interpersonal skills refer to the ability to communicate with, understand,
and motivate individuals and groups. Implicit in this definition is the notion that a manager
should try to understand important characteristics of others, including their personalities. This
exercise will give you insights into both the importance of personality in the workplace and some of the difficulties associated with assessing personality traits.

Exercise Background: You will first try to determine which personality traits are most relevant
for different jobs. First, read each of the following job descriptions:

Sales representative: This position involves calling on existing customers to ensure that they
are happy with the firm’s products. It also requires the sales representative to work to get
customers to increase the quantity of their products they are buying, as well as to attract new
customers. A sales representative must be aggressive but not pushy.

Office manager: The office manager oversees the work of a staff of 20 secretaries,
receptionists, and clerks. The manager hires them, trains them, evaluates their performance, and sets their pay. The manager also schedules working hours and, when necessary disciplines or fires workers.

Warehouse worker: Warehouse workers unload trucks and carry shipments to shelves for
storage. They also pull customer orders from shelves and take products for packing. The job
requires workers to follow orders precisely and has little room for autonomy or interaction with
others during work.

Exercise Task: (1) Identify one or two personality traits that you think is especially important
for a person to be able to effectively perform for each of these three jobs. (2) Explain why you
think these traits might be particularly important for each job. (3) Next, write two questions that, when answered by a job applicant, will help you assess how that applicant scores on that
particular trait. (4) What abilities (cognitive or other abilities) must the jobholder possess for
each job?

Your responses should be informed by the readings in the textbook.
Textbook is: Understanding And Managing Organizational Behavior 6th Edition available online