A huge sigh of relief came from about 100 throats today in Tel Aviv (and probably hundreds more around the world) when the March 2010 Organisational Behaviour exam came to an end.
I have written this before, but I'll write it again: this course required its students to remember a prodigious amount of material. Almost everyone in the class was complaining about the amount and most people were almost frantic in their revision.
For the past few days, I have been alternately reading the course book and practicing multiple choice questions. When walking the dog, I would recite all the material that I had learnt, checking to see that I could remember it and noting where there were areas which I wasn't too clear about. Of course, I could only recite what I knew, not what I did not know, and of course what I didn't know is what I needed to learn.
Our practice sessions indicated that modules 4, 8 and 9 in the course book were the most likely to appear in the exam, so of course I devoted extra effort to these - while trying not to neglect the other modules.
The exam was held in the Tel Aviv exhibition grounds, although in a different building to the one where the previous exam was held. The hall was poorly lit and the toilets were in a separate building, maybe 50 yards away. The rules said that only one person could go to the toilet at a time, and then that person was accompanied by one of the supervising staff in order to ensure that no cheating occurred. As I have started taking medicine for my high blood pressure which is also a diuretic, I was concerned in advance that I would need the toilet frequently, so I spoke to the supervisor and received permission to use the toilet as often as necessary. Fortunately I only needed to use them twice during the 3 hour exam.
While we were waiting for the exam to start, I was chatting with the people near me; we were joking about stress (module 2) and how it was affecting us. One of the people said that the model of stress that we were taught was proposed by Cooper, and I said that I could never remember all of the names; hopefully it's not that important.
The exam itself consisted of two parts: 30 multiple choice questions and 3 essays. All the multiple choice questions together carry the same mark as one essay (60 marks), so the total number of marks available is 240, and one needs 120 to pass. Theoretically one should devote 45 minutes to each section; as it's easier to get the first marks in a question than the last marks, good tactics dictate that one leave each question when its time is up. Our lecturer advised us to leave the multiple choice questions to the end, but I decided to start with them in order to warm up.
As I have been revising the multiple choice questions quite heavily, I was pleased to recognise many of the questions. To my surprise, I finished this section in less than 20 minutes, meaning that I had more time for the essays.
The first essay was about turning an organisation into a "responsive organisation". This is a subject which is covered in module 8 so I was prepared. I wrote a little about what differentiates the responsive organisation from a regular one (fortunately this cropped up in the class's final meeting last week), then wrote about organisational design (also module 8) and finally about planned change (module 9). I think that I answered this question well.
The second question, to my surprise, was about stress, and in fact was almost a complete copy of a question that had appeared in an exam a few years ago. So I was prepared to display Cooper's theory of stress (thank you neighbour for reminding me of his name; maybe I'll get an extra mark for this) without difficulty. I rambled on about personal characteristics, extending the material on locus of control to write about Martin Seligman and learned helplessness. I wrote about cortisol, adrenaline and the amygdalae, and basically brought in much extra curricular material which I hope will garner extra marks. I wrote about the different causes of stress and about the different outcomes, and in the end even answered the question about how I would handle the stress of one of my subordinates. I threw in loans, day care centres and counseling, and believe that I answered this question well also.
The third question, however, was about a subject in which I was not well versed: self directed teams. I know a little about this but not very much. I thought for at least five minutes what I could write as an answer and started with the definition of a self-managed team. After that, I wrote down anything that I could think of about teams (how they should be rewarded, goal setting, cost saving, profit sharing, groupthink) and even mentioned that as the managerial load is lower for those responsible for the teams, their span of control should enlarge, meaning that managerial costs will decrease. It should be obvious to the marker that I don't know very much about self managed teams, but as one is not penalised for writing irrelevant material, I hope that my "kitchen sink" approach will work and that some of what I wrote will get marks.
I am hoping that I got 40 out of 60 marks in the multiple choice questions, and similarly 40 out of 60 for the first two essays. As I need 120 marks to pass, I think that I achieved my goal and passed the exam, however few marks I get for the third essay. Unfortunately (as I have written before), I'll only get the results in two months time, in which time I will probably have forgotten most of the material (or maybe not).
The one subject which we had been advised to learn well - Management By Objective (MBO) - didn't come up at all! I mentioned it obliquely in the third question but didn't go into detail as MBO is meant for individuals and not for teams. I had also learnt assiduously Vroom's theory of expectancy, writing it out on the kitchen table at 6:30 this morning, and that too did not appear anywhere.
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