The Person-Organization Fit As previously noted, attention in recent
years has expanded to include matching people to organizations as well as jobs.
To the degree that an organization faces a dynamic and changing environment
and requires employees who are able to readily change tasks and move fluidly
between teams, it's probably more important that employees' personalities fit
with the overall organization's culture than with the characteristics of any spe-
cific job.
The person-organization fit essentially argues thatpeople leave jobs that
are not compatible with their personalities.42 Using the Big Five terminology,
for instance, we could expect that people high on extraversion fit better with
aggressive and team-oriented cultures; people high on agreeableness will
match up better with a supportive organizational climate than one that fo-
cuses on aggressiveness; and that people high on openness to experience fit
better into organizations that emphasize innovation rather than standardiza-
tion.43 Following these guidelines at the time of hiring should lead to
selecting new employees who fit better with the organization's culture,
which, in turn, should result in higher employee satisfaction and re-
duced turnover.
Emotions
On one recent Friday, a 37-year-old U.S. postal worker in Milwaukee
walked into his place of work. He pulled out a gun and shot and killed a
co-worker with whom he had argued, wounded a supervisor who had
scolded him, and injured another worker. He then killed himself.44 For
this worker, anger had led to violence.
Going on a shooting rampage at work is an extreme example but it
does dramatically illustrate the theme of this section: Emotions are a crit-
ical factor in employee behavior.
Given the obvious role that emotions play in our everyday life, it
might surprise you to learn that, until very recently, the topic of emo-
tions had been given little or no attention within the field of OB. How
could this be? We can offer two possible explanations. The first is the
myth of rationality.45 Since the late nineteenth century and the rise of sci-
entific management, organizations have been specifically designed with the ob-
jective of trying to control emotions. A well-run organization was one that suc-
cessfully eliminated frustration, fear, anger, love, hate, joy, grief, and similar
feelings. Such emotions were the antithesis of rationality. So while researchers
and managers knew that emotions were an inseparable part of everyday life, they
tried to create organizations that were emotion free. That, of course, was not
possible. The second factor that acted to keep emotions out of OB was the belief
that emotions of any kind were disruptive.46 When emotions were considered, the
discussion focused on strong negative emotions-especially anger-that inter-
fered with an employee's ability to do his or her job effectively. Emotions were
rarely viewed as being constructive or able to stimulate performance-enhancing
behaviors.
Certainly some emotions, particularly when exhibited at the wrong time,
can reduce employee performance. But this doesn't change the reality that em-
ployees bring an emotional component with them to work every day and that no
study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in
workplace behavior.
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"People work hard, but they have a
good time. We are allowed to let
our personalities show," says Mary
Ann Adams, project director at
Southwest Airlines. Southwest uses
the person-organization fit during
its selective hiring process. During
interviews, applicants must prove
that they have a sense of humor.
It's a job requirement because it
fits with the airline's fun-loving cul-
ture. During her job interview at
Southwest, Adams recounted a
practical joke she pulled when she
turned an unflattering photo of a
former boss into a computer
screensaver for her department.
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