Organizational Behavior is a science based on daily life. By studying OB, I find many behavior patterns that usually happen in daily life, which I hardly ever had noticed before, for example, the self-concordance, self-determination theory and reinforcement theory. When I correlate the theories with my life experience, I found that there is circular and cumulative causation among them.
I would like to use my learning experience of playing the violin to analyze the relationship of these theories. First of all, I am interested in playing violin so I am willing to practice and continue to study further. The time I spent and the energy I put into violin study increases the likelihood of success, and I do have good performance in playing violin. This is the positive outcome of high self-concordance. During study, whenever I have improvement, there will be a sense of achievement since I got a higher level of skills. This is what OB calls “intrinsic rewards”. Thus, intrinsic rewards motivated me to put in effort and achieve goals in every stage. These positive results are the driving force that inspire me to keep going. To say it in OB term, it is reinforcement theory.
From my own experience, I believe that interest is an important factor to one’s achievement. Personal goals and positive psychological suggestions are the driving force to further success. Hence, when we contribute tasks, we need to consider workers’ interests and personal goal settings. As a leader, it is important to guide workers to success in the initial stage, in order to make positive consequences. Thereafter, it is easy to have a virtuous cycle.