Organizational Behavior Report: Law Firm Issues and Solutions

This report analyzes organizational behavior within a law firm, addressing issues such as employee resistance to an open-plan office approach, communication barriers, and the sources and impact of power held by partners. The report explores the reasons behind employee resistance to change, including concerns about privacy, comfort, and cost. It identifies communication barriers like gaps, miscommunication, perceptions, filtering, jargon, and information overload, and suggests solutions such as clarity, prohibitions on inappropriate language, and consistent messaging. The report also examines the sources of power (expert, reward, positional, personal, and coercive) of the partners and their impact on employees, as well as the influence tactics used by both partners and employees to navigate workplace dynamics, including pressure, assertiveness, upward appeals, and legitimating.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
The report helps in understanding about the different issues that are faced in a law
firm by the employees as well as the employers of the organization. There are different kinds
of issues wherein the employees in the different organizations resist change. In this report, the
problems that are faced by the employees and the employer of the law firm are discussed in
the next sections.
The main aim of the report is to analyze the different reasons for resisting the change
of different employees to open plan office approach. It is essential to analyze and identify the
different techniques that can be used and applied by the two partners of the law firm to
minimize such issues and minimizing the resistance of the employees at the workplace as
well. The different barriers of communication in the law firm have to be analyzed properly
that exists in the law firm as well along with analyzing the different techniques to overcome
such issues from the workplace. The purpose of the report is to analyze the sources of power
of the different partners and impact of such powers on the employees as well.
The structure of the assignment will include three different questions that are related
to the different issues faced by employees and the partners of the organization in order to
make the system more effective. The different techniques have to be applied and identified as
well in order to analyze the issues faced by the employees and the two partners .
Answer 1
a)
The different reasons for employees resisting to the change in the open-plan office
approach are as follows:

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Resistance to change is the different actions that have been taken by the different
employees of the firm when they are feeling that the different changes that has been made by
the higher officials of the firm are not favorable to them and this can be a threat to them as
well (Hogg and Terry 2014).
The different reasons wherein the employees of the law firm are resistance to change
to the open plan office approach in their firm are due to:
 There were many lawyers who have complained about the open plan office approach
as there were many important and private calls from their different clients and they
had to speak private matters with their clients that is not possible for them to perform
in the open office rooms
 Secondly, the employees of the law firm complained that there were issues in the
open plan office approach as the employees felt that the rooms that have been
allocated to them was not comfortable for them and they cannot perform their tasks
with full concentration as well (Jones and George 2015).
 There were few other employees in the company who complained that they did not
like the open plan office approach as they felt it is more expensive in nature as the
cafes are far from the office space that has been taken
These were the reasons for the resistance to change of the employees in the law firm
and this has huge impact on the morale of the employees as well. The employees of the law
firm felt that there were no opinions taken from the employees of the firm and this had made
them leave the company as well. According to the employees of the organization, they felt it
was a bad management decision that has been inappropriate kind of behavior for the
employees as well.
b)

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The steps taken by the partners of the law firm in order to minimize the resistance of
the employees in the organization are as follows:
The partners of the law firm could have consulted with the other employees of the
firm as this would have been easier for the members of the firm to understand the entire
situation that the partners of the firm has implemented in the organization.
The partners of the firm have taken the entire decision with their own decisions and
they did not consult with any of the employees of the organization about the acceptance to the
changes in the organization as well.
2.
a)
Barriers to communication that exist in the law firm
There was communication gap and misunderstanding in the communication process in
the law firm (DiPaola and Tschannen-Moran 2014). There was an incident that helped in
understanding that there was a communication gap between the employees of the
organization wherein confidential information was revealed to a brother of an employee in
the law firm but there was a communication gap between the two employees. The
confidential information that was provided by one of the employees of the organization to
brother was a client of the organization as well (Pinder 2014).
Another case of communication gap or the miscommunication that has taken place in
the organization are relating to the different comments that has been passed by employees of
the organization on the higher authorities was various issues in the office place as well.
Lastly, there was noise in the organization that was due to the talking on phones of the

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employees with their different clients and it created issues for the other employees in the
organization as well (Yousef 2017).
Perceptions
From the case study, it can be analyzed that there are different perceptions that has
been made by the individuals in the law firm wherein wrong and different perceptions were
made by the employees of the firm about the higher officials of the organization (Drucker
2017). For example- There were different rumors on the relationship of the partners of the
respective law firm and it may or may not be true. This is one of the gaps of communication
that was faced by the employees in the law firm (Northouse 2015).
Filtering
From the case study, it can be analyzed that there was filtering of the different
information of the law firm. There was much confidential information that was passed on to
the outsiders who seems to be the client of the law firm as well. There were filtering of the
different messages and this had created miscommunication among the employees in the
organization as well (Czaplewski, Key and Van Scotter 2016).
Language
 Jargon is defined as the special kind of language that is used by the individuals in the
law firm. It had negative impacts on the environment of the law firm as well. Those
words (sexy, affair) are prohibited to be used in the workplace as well.
 Ambiguity was present in the communication of the individuals in the organization as
the thoughts of the individuals were not clear in nature and this had huge impact on
the performance of the firm as well (DuBrin 2013).
Information overload

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This kind of information was also present in the law firm that was used by the
different employees of the firm. There were employees in the firm who represented the entire
information in a different manner and this had huge trouble for the entire organization as well
(Fujimori et al. 2014).
2.
b)
Proper ways to overcome the barrier in the law firm
 Proper clarity in the thoughts of the individuals is essential in nature as this will help
in understanding the objectives clearly as well
 There should be strict prohibitions on different kinds of languages that are not
permissible in the office premises as well
 There should not be any kind of overloading of different knowledge in the
organization as this will lead to the conversation to be boring in nature as well
 Proper feedback is required and it is essential in nature as well as this will help in
overcoming the entire barrier of the communication process
 Proper continuity is essential in the communication process as this will help in
making the communication efficient and effective in nature
 Proper tone, language as well as clarity is essential in the process of communication
as this will help in making the messages more adequate and simple in nature while the
individuals are speaking about a certain topic in the organization (Luthans, Youssef-
Morgan and Avolio 2015)
 Proper retention of consistency in the message is essential as well as this will help in
conjuring the organizational goals as well as the objectives

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 Proper usage of the body language will help in making the communication much
easier in nature (Andersson, Jackson and Russell 2013)
 Lastly, the chain of communication has to be short in nature as this will help in
communicating the entire message to the concerned person within a short span of time
(Haslam et al. 2014)
3.
a)
Sources of the different power of the partners as well as others and their impact on
other employees
Power is the force of influence as well as authority in the organizations. There are
different sources of power of the leaders that are from distinctively different sources such as:
 Expert Power wherein the leader of the law firm will be having proper knowledge
regarding the different skills and domain knowledge as well
 Reward Power is evident in nature wherein the leaders of the firm can properly
influence the behavior of the subordinates in the organization
 Positional Power is applied wherein leader of the organization can hold the position
legitimately
 Personal Power wherein the influence is gained from the persuasion of the employees
and this will be another source that can be used by the employers of the organization
to the employees of the organization to perform the task easily in the future as well
 Coercive Power is the feeling of the leaders of the organization that can be due to
perception of different threats (Hystad, Bartone and Eid 2014). The leaders of the law
firm has to properly analyze the issues in the organization by initiating proper actions

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against the employees when the tasks are not performed in the same way they were
supposed to be (Wagner III and Hollenbeck 2014).
These are the different sources of the power of the leaders in the entire law firm. These have
huge impact on the other employees of the entire organization as well. The expert power of
both the leaders will have huge impact on the performance of the employees in the entire
organization as well. The leaders of the organization will help in understanding the
subordinates of the organization as well as influence the subordinates of the organization as
well. Similarly, the other powers such as positional as well as reward power can have huge
influence on the behavior of the subordinates of the organization and this will help the
followers of the organization to understand the different perceptions of the leaders and try to
perform the tasks in the same manner wherein the individuals can gain proper prosperity in
the entire organization (Morgeson et al. 2013).
Lastly, the coercive power of the leaders in the law firm can affect the employees of
the organization by implementation of proper threats when the different tasks are not
performed by them with the required knowledge that was required to complete the entire task
within stipulated time frame as well (Miner 2015).
b)
Influence tactics used by partners and employees and their effectiveness
 Pressure is one of the tactics that is used by the management in order to understand
the different issues that has to be properly solved by the employees of the
organization.

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 Assertiveness is essential and it is an important tactics as well as this will help the
leaders of the organization to make the employees finish the different tasks within a
stipulated time frame with repeated requests being made to them
 Upward Appeals wherein seeking the influence is done through different arguments
that are logical in nature and this requires the employees of the organization to
perform the tasks within a specified deadline with proper usage of technologies
 Legitimating is another essential tactics that is applied by the leaders of the
organization and is effective in nature as well as the employees of the law firm has to
comply with the different rules and regulations of the firm. The employees have to be
requested to perform the tasks effectively and they have to comply with the different
rules and regulations of the firm as well.
These are the different tactics that have huge influence on the employees of the
organization as there are different issues that can be raised in the organization due to the
different communication barriers as well as gaps in the process of communication as well.
The process has to be properly implemented by the company as this will help in making the
process efficient and completing the different tasks within stipulated time frame a well.

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