OxBowBusiness

Bad behaviour

Just lately I have been advertising at Daily Information for people who wish to share my house. There are several bedrooms currently available and I am seeking people to move in who will not upset the balance here. A house with 10 occupants needs to be treated carefully as one unruly/inconsiderate new member and disharmony results.

One of the people who telephoned works for OPP which until the person rang, I did not know even existed. I visited the site and found several interesting aspects that can be used in class. The site says: “With over 15 years experience, we help clients throughout Europe to optimise their effectiveness at individual, team and organisational levels.”

Clearly effectiveness at work is reduced if there is ‘bad behaviour’ by members of staff  -just as the house would be unsettled by ‘bad behaviour’ by tenants. Oddly, bad behaviour seems to be even encouraged in The Apprentice where surely Jo should have gone by now?

If we take the view that “give me the child at the age of seven and I will give you the man” (which is based on the writings of Francis Xavier ) then perhaps ‘bad behaviour’ is first exhibited at home, then school and then work. Clearly it would be difficult to identify all the factors causing bad behaviour at home (apart from a junk food diet ) so I was interested to read a thread in the Times Education Supplement forum where teachers posted the reasons for bad behaviour. The TES started by identifying ten reasons for bad behaviour:

“…..consumer culture; the increase in the number of working mothers; changes in the family structure; a lack of sleep; limited amount of outside play; a lack of communication between adults and children; poor diet; increased use of technology; the increasingly competitive ethos in education and the erosion of good manners.”

Teachers then added a lot more (my post is post 4).

Which brings me back to bad behaviour at work and low productivity etc. Maybe if some of the motivational techniques were applied at school as part of lessons on ‘business citizenship’ perhaps then 10 years later employees would behave better? Or is bad behaviour at work merely a symptom of society -  and should we look to society to improve and thus productivity at work?

I don’t know the answer but certainly there is scope for the application of business psychology techniques to be applied to school.

Chris Sivewright

posted by Duncan Williamson @ 10:26 AM