DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION

What Is Perception And How Does It Occur?

What is the definition of perception? Think of it as the process of becoming aware of the world around you through your senses.

Your senses play a critical role in perception and behavior. They not only allow you to perceive your environment, they also enable you to act in response to it.

Sensation and perception psychology is one of the oldest fields of study in social psychology. Below I'm going to take you through the process we go through to become aware of anything in our environments.

The Definition Of Perception: The Sensing Process

Perception happens in one of five ways:

• You see something with your eyes
• Smell something with your nose
• Hear something with your ears
• Feel something with your skin
• Taste something on your tongue 

Because there is an overabundance of stimulation hitting your senses in every moment, most sensations will be filtered out. This is why only a fraction of your surrounding environment will ever reach your conscious awareness.

Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes one's ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input. In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process.

Thus, perception in humans describes the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. That experience, or percept, is the joint product of the stimulation and of the process itself. Relations found between various types of stimulation (e.g., light waves and sound waves) and their associated percepts suggest inferences that can be made about the properties of the perceptual process; theories of perceiving then can be developed on the basis of these inferences. Because the perceptual process is not itself public or directly observable (except to the perceiver himself, whose percepts are given directly in experience), the validity of perceptual theories can be checked only indirectly

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MEANING OF PERCEPTION

Perceptions vary from person to person. Different people perceive different things about the same situation. But more than that, we assign different meanings to what we perceive. And the meanings might change for a certain person. One might change one's perspective or simply make things mean something else.
This is a famous picture. What does it look like to you?

Some people see a young lady looking away. Others see an old lady looking down. Depending on how you look at it, part of the picture might be the young woman's nose and eyelash, or it might be a wart on the old woman's nose. What is the young woman's ear might be the old woman's eye. What is the young woman's necklace might be the old woman's mouth. The picture hasn't really changed. You just emphasize different parts of it and assign them different meaning.
Look at these two arrows. Which horizontal line is the longest?

They are exactly the same size. However the top one looks longer than the bottom one. It is on optical illusion tricking us into assigning a different meaning to what we see.
We fill in a lot of blanks with our minds. If we have incomplete perceptions, which we practically always do to a certain extent, our minds fill in the rest. 
Are those letters? Or are they just lines and blotches on the paper? How do you know?




Do you see a vase or do you see two faces looking at each other?The meaning of something will change when you look at it differently. You can look at anything differently and it will have a different meaning.
There is no fixed meaning to anything. You can always change perspectives and change meanings. Why not change them to what you prefer them to be? 

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FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT

Management has been described as a social process involving  responsibility for economical and effective planning &  regulation of operation of an enterprise in the fulfillment of  given purposes. It is a dynamic process consisting of various  elements and activities. These activities are different from  operative functions like marketing, finance, purchase etc.  Rather these activities are common to each and every manger  irrespective of his level or status. Management is creative problem solving. This creative problem  solving is accomplished through four functions of management:  planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The intended  result is the use of an organization's resources in a way that  accomplishes its mission and objectives.  In Management Excel, this standard definition is modified to  align more closely with our teaching objectives and to  communicate more clearly the content of the organizing  function. Organizing is divided into organizing and staffing so  that the importance of staffing in small businesses receives  emphasis along side organizing. In the management literature,  directing and leading are used interchangeably Different experts have classified functions of management.  According to George & Jerry, “There are four fundamental  functions of management i.e. planning, organizing, actuating  and controlling”. According to Henry Fayol, “To manage is to  forecast and plan, to organize, to command, & to control”.  Whereas Luther Gullick has given a keyword ’POSDCORB’  where P stands for Planning, O for Organizing, S for Staffing,  D for Directing, Co for Co-ordination, R for reporting & B for  Budgeting. But the most widely accepted are functions of  management given by KOONTZ and O’DONNEL i.e. Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing and Controlling. PLANNING It is the basic function of management. It deals with chalking  out a future course of action & deciding in advance the most  appropriate course of actions for achievement of  pre-determined goals. According to KOONTZ, “Planning is  deciding in advance - what to do, when to do & how to do. It  bridges the gap from where we are & where we want to be”.  A plan is a future course of actions. It is an exercise in  problem solving & decision making. Planning is  determination of courses of action to achieve desired goals.  Thus, planning is a systematic thinking about ways & means  for accomplishment of pre-determined goals. Planning is  necessary to ensure proper utilization of human &  non-human resources. It is all pervasive, it is an intellectual  activity and it a also helps in avoiding confusion,  uncertainties, risks, w                                  Planning is decision making process. It is making decisions on future course of actions. Planning involves taking decisions on vision, mission,  values, objectives, strategies and policies of an  organization. Planning is done for immediate, short term, medium  term and long term periods. It is a guideline for execution/implementation. It is a measure to check the effectiveness and efficiency  of an organization. ORGANISING It is the process of bringing together physical, financial and  human resources and developing productive relationship  amongst them for achievement of organizational goals.  According to Henry Fayol, “To organize a business is to  provide it with everything useful or its functioning i.e. raw  material, tools, capital and personnel’s”. To organize a  business involves determining & providing human and  non-human resources to the organizational structure.              Identification of activities. Classification of grouping of activities. Assignment of duties. Delegation of authority and creation of responsibility. Coordinating authority and responsibility relationships. Organizing involves determination and grouping of the activities. Designing organization structures and departmentation based on this grouping. Defining the roles and responsibilities of the departments and of the job positions within these departments. Defining relationships between departments and job positions. Defining authorities for departments and job positions. STAFFING It is the function of manning the organization structure and  keeping it manned. Staffing has assumed greater importance in  the recent years due to advancement of technology, increase in  size of business, complexity of human behavior etc. The main  purpose o staffing is to put right man on right job i.e. square pegs  in square holes and round pegs in round holes. According to  Kootz & O’Donell, “Managerial function of staffing involves  manning the organization structure through proper and effective  selection, appraisal & development of personnel to fill the roles  designed un the structure”. Staffing involves MANPOWER  PLANNING                        Recruitment, selection & placement. Training & development. Remuneration. Performance appraisal. Promotions & transfer. It includes manpower or human resource planning. Staffing involves recruitment, selection, induction and positioning the people in the organization. Decisions on remuneration packages are part of staffing. Training, retraining, development, mentoring and counseling are important aspects of staffing. It also includes performance appraisals and designing and administering the motivational packages. DIRECTING It is that part of managerial function which actuates the organizational methods to work efficiently for achievement of organizational purposes. It is considered life-spark of the enterprise which sets it in motion the action of people because planning, organizing and staffing are the mere preparations for doing the work. Direction is that inert-personnel aspect of management which deals directly with influencing, guiding, supervising, motivating sub-ordinate for the achievement of organizational goals. Direction has following elements:                                       Supervision Motivation Leadership Communication Supervision- implies overseeing the work of subordinates by  their superiors. It is the act of watching & directing work &  workers. Motivation- means inspiring, stimulating or encouraging the  sub-ordinates with zeal to work. Positive, negative,  monetary, non-monetary incentives may be used for this  purpose. Leadership- may be defined as a process by which manager  guides and influences the work of subordinates in desired  direction. Communications- is the process of passing information,  experience, opinion etc from one person to another. It is a  bridge of understanding. It is one of the most important functions of management to translate company's plans into execution. It includes providing leadership to people so that they work willingly and enthusiastically. Directing people involves motivating them all the time to enthuse them to give their best. Communicating companies plans throughout the organization is an important directing activity. It also means coordinating various people and their activities. Directing aims at achieving the best not just out of an individual but achieving the best through the groups or teams of people through team building efforts. CONTROLLING It implies measurement of accomplishment against the  standards and correction of deviation if any to ensure  achievement of organizational goals. The purpose of  controlling is to ensure that everything occurs in  conformities with the standards. An efficient system of  control helps to predict deviations before they actually  occur. According to Theo Haimann, “Controlling is the  process of checking whether  or not proper progress is being made towards the objectives and  goals and acting if necessary, to correct any deviation”.  According to Koontz & O’Donell “Controlling is the  measurement & correction of performance activities of  subordinates in order to make  sure that the enterprise objectives and plans desired to  obtain them as being accomplished”. Therefore controlling  has following steps                                 Establishment of standard performance. Measurement of actual performance. Comparison of actual performance with the standards and finding out deviation if any. Corrective action It includes verifying the actual execution against the plans to ensure that execution is being done in accordance with the plans. It measures actual performance against the plans. It sets standards or norms of performance. It measures the effective and efficiency of execution against these standards and the plans. It periodically reviews, evaluates and monitors the performance. If the gaps are found between execution levels and the plans, controlling function involves suitable corrective actions to expedite the execution to match up with the plans or in certain circumstances deciding to make modifications in the plans.

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DEFINITION OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Actions and attitudes of individuals and groups toward one another and toward the organization as a whole, and its effect on the organization's functioning and performance.

-          Organizational behaviour is the study of the many factors that have an impact on how individuals and groups respond to and act in organizations and how organizations manage their environments.

-          OB provides the knowledge base for understanding behaviour within organisations.

-          A field of study that specifically focuses on the impact that people have on organisational effectiveness and efficiency.

-          Organizational Behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

-          It does this by taking a system approach à it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the four levels – the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system

Organizational Behavior is the key aspect to maintain and enhance interaction levels amongst employees in the company. Other attributes like leadership, openness to discuss problems, challenge-initiative are all tied in to this base concept of Organizational Behavior to help the business achieve its strategic and in some cases business objectives. The proper definition of organizational behavior with its understanding and management has resulted in development of few key offshoots to the concept of Organizational Behavior.

What concepts make up the definition of Organization Behavior?

Organization Design - This is the simple framework of creating roles and formal reporting relationships for employees in an organization. An effective organization design is reflected in the joining letter which is handed over to a new employee. The joining letter would talk about his role, his immediate line manager and the processes which he would need to adhere to.

Organization Development - Every organization has a mission statement and the time when the organization formalizes the mission statement it may not have the resources or the expertise to execute the mission effectively. Organization Development involves the combined, planned effort of all the resources of the company to ensure that the company carries its mission forward. As defined by Richard Beckhard, organization development would involve a site-wide, planned effort from all the employees, with the top management intervening in the organization purposes.

Organizational empowerment - This is one of the buzzwords of organizational behavior principles in most of the companies which are evolving today. Organizational empowerment means the level of responsibility that an organization places on its employees at all levels so that decisions can be taken without any manager interference. The key is here though many organizations advocate this approach in text, most of them have a certain element of mentoring and guidance to their employees at all times.

Organizational engineering - This is a typical advancement of Organization development with the only difference that it takes a completely mathematical approach to organization development. The mathematical equations of the company's business model is studied and different people are inserted into the model based on formulas, and better still the outcomes are predicted from the people's roles. This is done to ensure that company's efficiency is increased and it gets more effective with its communication.

It is most important to understand that any definition of organization behavior would be incomplete without studying the change management curve of the employees. If you are a company planning to introduce some OB initiatives, you would need to ensure that the OB initiatives are transitioned out smoothly to the employees. This needs to be done very carefully because this may lead to a lot of disgruntled employees if enough care is not taken to transitioning the processes. If one had to define organizational behavior, it will be a set of principles followed by employees at all levels to ensure that the company meets its strategic objectives.

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