week 6 Power and conflict in Organisations

Conflict is apparent when at least one party percieves that it exists and where an interest or a concern is about to or has been compromised or frustated. (Brooks, 2006)

This means conflict can occur because of one person only if he/she thinks it so. Conflict occurs when people's ideas aren't praised or even mention which can lead to frustatration and conflict.



Many years ago the dauntseys school rugby squad went to swansee in wales for a week of rugby mixed with military training methods and equipment. One of the tasks assigned to a group of 6 boys was to build a raft. Initially they agreed on material and who was going to do each part of the raft, but they could not agree on the design and structure of the raft. Some member wanted a simple yet sturdy structure consisting of roping severat large planks together making a large base, the other members wanted to build a more modern boat base, a curved hull to make it float better. The conflit occured because party A (boys that wanted the basic design) felt that the curved hull would make the raft too unstable to use, and the other group where not taking their risks seriously. Finally after a few minutes for argumental discussions one of the boys from party B (boys that wanted curved hull)quietened everyone down and asked the other group why they thought it would not work, they explained and everyone listened. This lead to realisation in the other boys that the simple base design was best suited for the task even if it did not look so "cool".

During that task the main conflict was that the ideas of party A were not recognised by the other boys, they became frustrated because no one listened, the fact that the boy from the other party was willing to hear them out instantly caused a calming of the situation. This then finally lead to the conflict being managed because both partys agreed on a design and could then go ahead and build it together.


Power is the ability of one member of a party to influence another member to do something they would not otherwise do. Power can be used to resolve conflict but the missuse of power can cause conflict.
The five sources of power, as stated by French and Raven (1959), are;

• Coercive power
• Reward power
• Expert power
• Legitimate power
• Referent power

Coercive power
This "is the ability to obtain compliance through fear of punishment." (wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/213/218150/glossary.html, accessed on 5th may).
Coercive power is using negative influences to influence others. examples of this are demoting staff or reward withold. This means that the power is from using the desires for a reward or fear of having the reward witheld to gain obedience. This tends to be the least effective and most hated source of power as the people experience form resentment and may try to resist it.
An example of coercive power is an employer telling an employee to do an extra assignement or else have his/her bonus taken away.

Reward power
This is when the power wielder influences others by being able to offer, and offering, valuable tangeable and non-tangeable rewards i.e. holidays, days off, promotion, a raise or gifts. This source of power too can be misused, this is when the power wielder becomes pushy or wants to have everything done in unrealistic time constraints. An example of reward power is when a manager offers a worker a promotion if he does an extra piece of work.

Exper power
This is a highlz specialised power as it is only relevan to the wielder's specific expertise, the power is determined by the wielder's ability or skills in his area of expertise. i.e. an electronics specialist is called in and if he can fix the damage in a certain time frame he will be given a full time job there.

Legitimate power
This is the power of name and title, the power is from their position and responsibilities in the company. This may be seen as formal delegation. This is the most important kind of power and is also usually displayed by uniforms, offices ... An example of this is a tesco's floor managers gives a cashier an order to open/close their till.

Referent power
This is when the individual gains loyalty and trust from workers. Interpersonal skills and charisma largly determine the amount of power. The individual is admired by his peers and seen as a role model or idol because of a trait, which gives him/her power over them. Those under the power want to be seen as followers of the wielder and want to identify with their personal qualities. A good example of this is nationalism or patriotism because soldiers go into war to defend the honour and glory of their country.

Avoiding conflict at work
There are many things that can minimise conflict at work, some examples are;

• Equal pay and opportunities and other human resource management policies and procedures, this avoids favouritism.
• Making sure that decision making is well communicated and consulted and that there is high involvement.
• Make sure the goals are clear and that everyone knows what they need to do.
• Ensure there is a complaints area to try and eliminate the cause of the complaints.
• Make sure that everyone knows the codes and rules.

In "West Coast Customs", a tv series about a hot rod and customs garage there can be conflict at times buy is mainly managed well. In the series most conflicts occure because employees individualise their work more than their bosses want them to. Usually this conflict is evapourated by legitimate power of "Boyde" who is the boss of the garage and his work goes. This can sometimes lead to greater conflict if the worker resists. Most of the conflicts are resolved by the second in command who quiets down the situation by seperating the members of the conflict and listening to them individually this calms down the situation because the causes of conflict are seperated and then calmed down by a respected member of the garage.

Overall I think there are lots of opportunities for conflict at work however if handled right they can be eliminated or even prevented. Also any form of power should not be missused as this will not only by inefective it will also cause conflict to occure.

Week 5 Leadership

Leadership is an often misunderstood subject. People tend to become confused with the difference between leadership and management and think they are the same thing. They are not.

Forrest and Tolltree (1996), thought that managers and leaders are not the same.

They said that managers Plan, control, co-ordinate, implement policy, achieve results. This seems to mean that the managers are there for performance, they make sure that the job is done and that their workers work efficiently to achieve that goal.

They also said that leaders Motivate, generate ideas, enthuse and inspire. This implyes that leaders help managers because they motivate and inspire the workforce to be efficient, which is what the managers whant. The managers can have the perfect plan and come up with the best strategies to produce high productivity but the inspiration from the leaders are what will actually make those workers use those plans to become productive.

Kotter (1990) had a similar theory

This theory also places the leaders as the people that manage to enspire the workforce but the managers are the people with the plans of what the newly inspired workforce should do.

From these two examples it seems that a leader needs to be present to get the workers to do what the the manager plans to have them do. Yet at the same time a manager must be present to tell the workers what to do.

After this Mullins (2007) had a theory about the relationship that each the manager and leader had with the employees.

According to this model it becomes apparent that the manager is very distant to his employees. He only cares about the performance but not how it will affect the workers unless it stops them doing as he wishes.

In this theory the leader has a relationship with his workers, this would explain how he inspires and motivates them. He changes them into better workers and motivates them by comunication so that they respect him.

The Blake and Mouton Managerial grid is used to identify the different manegerial styles used. It is used because it is easier to place a manager on the grid than placing them into a specific label of manager.

It takes into consideration the concern for people and also the concern for production. It identifies the priorities of the manager i.e. a social manager tends to prefer to make sure the workers are happy than to make sure they work efficiently unlike the the authoritative manager who makes sure the workers work efficiently rather than making sure that they are happy.

The aim for every manager should be to strive to become a team manager because they then have the right amount of concern for people and production ensuring that their workers are happy but also performing sufficient work.

A former manager of mine was a great manager because he was a very social manager most of the time making sure we were happy. He seemed like a friend to us not only our manager, but when work needed to be done and his workers didn't work he would show a different side which due to the respect gained from his social role was respected and obeyed. So he was a team manager since he made sure we were happy but also made sure that we worked.

Warren Buffett "a born leader"

In september of 2007 Warren Buffett was ranked as the third richest man behind Bill gates (richest man) and Carlos Slim (second richest man)by Forbes Magazine. He had an estimated net worth of $52 billion.

Warren Buffett is a very social leader meaning that he tends to talk alot to his employees, this establishes a very good relationship which may lead to them wanting to work harder for their manager. He uses his social relationship with his employees so that they use his strategies, plans and set goals. On the Blake and Mouton managerial grid he would be placed as a team manager due to his ability to influence his workers by socialising so that they are very productive, this satisfies a high level of concern for people and a high concern for productivity.

There is also alot of discussion that suggests that Warren Buffett tends to lean more toward the social side of the managerial grid but due to his huge success there must be an equel if not greater concern to productivity.

Overall I believe that to be a good leader you need to have a compromise of concern for people and concern for productivity. A team manager seems to be the best build of managers to produce a successful workplace relations atmosphere.

http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/superior-leader-warren-buffet-377648.html

Gardener, J. (2007). Cognitive Behavior Theory. Retrieved December 26, 2007, from http://www.cognitivebehavior.com/theory/index.html

Harris, D. (2006, June 26,). Warren Buffett's Unprecedented Generosity. Retrieved December 31, 2007, from http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2118501

Kore Kalibre (2006, March-April 2006). Warren Buffett’s Innovation: Staying away from Rapid Product Innovation. Retrieved December 26, 2007, from http://www.korekalibre.com/index.php?option=com_magazine&task=show_magazine_article&magazine_id=26

Legg Mason Value Trust (2006, October 26). Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX) Letter to Shareholders. Retrieved December 26, 2007, from http://markets.kiplinger.com/kiplinger?GUID=323448&Page=MediaViewer&Ticker=LMVTX

Week 4 Organisation Culture

This weeks topic was Organisation Culture.

This is present in every company, it is what the company stand for and what they believe in. The culture of a country gives it its identity, just like the culture of a company gives it its identity.

Organisation culture is "the way we do things around here" (Deal & Kennedy, 1982).

It is "a body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and learned by people…." (Hofstede, 1984).

The organisation culture must be accepted by new employees, if they cannot do that they will leave. It is very hard to put into writting each company's individual culture but it influences the mentality and personality of the work force.

To talk about the visual and formal sides of organisation culture I will use French's and Bell's (1990) Organisational Iceberg model.

- This top layer of the iceberg, at which only about 10% of the iceberg is exposed, lies the visable and formal part of the iceberg.

- Here below the surface of the water lies the other part, this part consists fo 90% of the iceberg yet it is concealed from view.

The visable formal organisation consists of;
Goals
Strategy
Structure
Systems and Procedures
Products and Services
Financial Resources
Management

The idea that the visable aspect of organisation culture is different to the rest was also used by Shein (1992) with his layer principle.

Visual/formal culture

Goals - Mcdonalds had many adverts for "Happy meals" and "Student offers", this suggests their goals are to provide a value for money environment for children and young students. Also their staff were friendly and made sure the customer was satisfied therefor another goal my be to satisfy their customers.

Strategy - Due to the amount of deals and offers their strategy appears to be to sell groups of product for a reduced price rather than selling individual products for a higher profit. This provides the customer with a feeling that they food is less expensive, which it is, meaning they will go there more oftern and also buy more when they are there.

Structure - During the research visits Mcdonalds seemed to have one or two managers that overlooked the rest of the staff. One would look after the cashiers and the other made sure the cooks were working efficiently.

Systems and Procedures - There wasn't any visable evidence of systems or procedures.

Products and Services - As mentioned earlier there seemed to be a strong emphasis on the selling of products in a packages i.e. meals and offers. Also as mentioned earlier the service was good and it seemed as though the workforce were very concentrated on keeping the customer happy.

Financial Resources - The Mcdonalds used for this research was about average size, it was clean with sufficient staff to tackle customers and it also had sufficient seating and eating space. From this it seems that Mcdonalds has good financial resources and are not wasting them.

Management - This seemed sound as the employees were working well and efficiently and there were no long waits for food or orders. At one point there was a dissagreement between the manager and a worker, the manager wanted the worker to "Welcome" each customer and was very loud when the employee failed to do so, other than that it seemed like great management.

Uniform - Due to the uniform there was a clear indication of who did what job. The uniforms were split into cashiers, cleaners, cooks and the two managers.

In 1993 Handy introduced his idea of the four types of culture.

They consisted of Power culture

Role culture

Task culutre

Person culture

Power Culture

The power culture is common in small businesses. The main idea behind the power culture is very authoritarian, it basically suggests that there is one focal leader, this leader is given all power and he/she has the control over everything in the business.

Role Culture

This culture relies strongly on framework and hiearachy. The structure of this strongly resembles that of a Greek temple. Hierachy dominates this culture, instructions and orders are sent from the top of the pyramid to the bottom, the bottom sent information back up to the top.

This type of culture may be used in

Top Management

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Personel Production Finace Marketing

Task culture

Organisations with substantial amount of profect based operations tend to use this culture i.e. civil engineering or consultancy. It relies heavily on team work and linking between the whole organisation. Decision making is usually a group task in task culture.

Person culture

A typical organisation for this culture is a consultancy or a barrister's chambers. It is similar to the power culture because it involves one person to be the focal point but in person culture this role is changed for specific tasks so that there is a different person acting as the focal point for each task.

It is difficult to classify any business culture clearly into one of these types of culture because today more and more businesses adapt to what is required of them to survive. Many businesses use a mixture of three or all of these types of cultures which makes it difficult to decide which one is the predominant one. Also there may be several of these cultures active in one business for example a power culture may be used in one department and a person culture in another yet they are still in the same organisation.

Overall it is my opinion that culture plays a very strong part in an organisation but it is very difficult to classify which one is in use all the time because there are many organisations that use a multitude of these at once.

References

Martin, J. (1998), "Organizational Behaviour and Management", 3rd ed, London: Thomson