Conflict

What is conflict?

 Conflict is a disagreement between two individuals or parties about a certain thing, it can happen for many reasons. It could be that they view an opinion differently or that there objectives are dissimilar. It can simply be just because of peoples personalities. Hughes (2007) defines conflict as individuals that want to shape the vision and the operations in one way, whilst others may have different ideas. An organisation will want to minimise conflict as much as possible, this is because the environment will have to be friendly in order to produce the best work possible. A way to do this would be procedures such as equal pay. If there is conflict at work, stress and other affects may become a problem. An example of conflict is a time where firemens had a strike because they though pay was too low. This caused disturbance in most parts of London.

Conflicts in my group and strategies to deal with them

Playing badminton with my friends for a local team brought up many conflicts. This is because of many reasons. These were reasons such as the commitment of playing in the matches and the standard of play. The match consists of four players in each team; however, three of us questioned the commitment of one player. It seemed that the person was not interested which led to a loss of results for the club. This frustrated us which also led to conflict on the court. There were a few arguments on the court. After speaking to the coach the player was dropped for the next match. This is a good example of coercive power in the theory 'sources of power' as the coach was able to punish the player for his performance. It can also be an example of the expert power. This is because the coach has the skills and experience to know what is right to for the team and so he had the responsibility of taking action against the player. There was also conflict at one time where choosing the captain was a problem. Three of us felt that the captain should be the best player on the team, and the person who is the most commanding. However, the captain was picked due to their time spent at the club. Results may not have gone our way because the person did not seem to be a natural leader and take control of situations.

French and Raven’s different ‘sources of power’

 French and raven said that there were five sources of power. Coercive power is the belief that a person such as a manager who has authority, has the capability of punishment if someone does not fulfil a certain target. Singh (2010) describes coercive power as leaders being able to take charge of punishment. For example, an employee may not meet the deadline for a piece of work set. Therefore the manager has authority to apply punishment. The punishment can vary, they could be suspended without pay or even demoted. Another example would be in a football team, where a player may disobey the orders of there manager. Consequently they may be suspended for there next match.  

Reward power is based on managers giving rewards to employees for different reasons such as accomplishing a target. . Benoliel (2011) points out that reward power is derived from a persons capability to reward people in a variety of different resources such as money or promotion.  Some rewards may be holidays, promotions and bonuses. An organisational example of reward power is John Lewis. Where they can provide their employees with promotion and pay rise. Their most notable reward is there where they reward staff with bonuses if the company has a good financial year and do their job well.

Expert power is based on experience and knowledge that an individual possesses, and therefore can influence others with their expertise. When you demonstrate expertise, people tend to trust you and respect what you say. As a subject matter expert, your ideas will have more value, and others will look to you for leadership in that area.  An example is Marks and Spencer. This organisation has managerial training schemes for people. Managers are used to share there experience and knowledge to help influence a trainee manager.

The next power is legitimate power. This power is based on the person with authority, such as the manager. This person will have the authority to apply orders in which the person with lower power has to follow. Mullins (2008) says that legitimate power is based on the leader with the most influence and control.  For example, if a manager sets a task for an employee to do, it is there job to complete the task. An example that follows this power is in the military. A soldier of senior rank, has more power than others and therefore has absolute control over the soldiers under his order.

The final power used to French and Ravens theory is referent power. This power is based on the attractiveness of someone's characteristics. They may be very likeable and so people respect that person and so they can influence others. People may be able to regard them as a role model and therefore want to follow them. Robbins (2003) claims that referent power is based on identification with a person who has desirable resources of personal traits. An example of referent power is celebrities. Celebrities have referent power, this is because they are famous and therefore, people want to be a replica of them, so they have a lot of influence on others.

An article from recent news stories on work related stress

 Work related stress is the unpleasant reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them. There are many problems that work related stress can cause. Some of them are that Stress reduces employee well being and excessive/sustained work pressure can lead to stress and that Stress is one of the most important reasons for sickness from work and stress related absence is rising.

The article I read is from the guardian, it tells us that work related stress can be a dangerous threat to many public sector workers, and that it is a common cause of absence and sickness. The main cause of this is because the amount of work people have to accomplish, and the pressure to meet targets. Hicks (2012) explains the effects of work related stress that people can get tired because of burn out. The article also gives us some statistics from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, and it shows ‘Public sector workers take an average 9.1 days sick leave a year compared to 5.7 days in the private sector.’ However, according to this article, their are ways in which line managers can support employees that are stressed. One way to do this for teenagers, is to guide them at an early age, this can make them more experienced later on in the job role. If line managers can see that an employee is suffering from emotional demands, but can not do anything about it, they need to help others find support for them. Such as an "occupational health or an employee assistance programme." It also advises more training for line managers if they can not spot emotional distress easily.

This links to the lecture because they both indicate that work related stress is a major threat to employees and others. They both show that is a very important issue with statistics to prove it. The lecture notes say that "One in five workers report feeling extremely stressed at work, this equates to 5 million in the UK." Both article and lecture notes also talk about key effects of work related stress, with the lecture notes talking about stress affecting home life.

In this blog and lecture, I have learnt and experienced many new ideas about conflict. Firstly, I knew what conflict was, but did not know so many harmful effects conflict caused. In my opinion, conflict is a major problem to people, it can change results and productivity, as my badminton team has shown. Conflict is very important in society and I believe it should be minimised as much as possible; learning about French and Ravens sources of power has also been interesting as I can link it back to my own experiences.

Bibliography

Benoliel, M. (2011) Negotiation Excellence: Successful Deal Making. London: World Scientific Publishing Co Ltd.

Hicks, B. (2012) What public managers can do to support stressed staff [online]. theguardian. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2012/mar/15/support-stressed-public-sector-staff [Accessed: 15 March 2012].

Mullins, L.J. (2008) Essentials of Organisational Behaviour. 2nd ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Philip Hughes, Black, A and Kaldor, P. (2007) Building Stronger Communities. Sydney : University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Robbins, S. (2003) Organisational Behaviour: Global and Southern African Perspectives. 9th ed. Cape Town: Pearson Education South Africa.

Singh, K. (2010) Organizational Behaviour: Text And Cases. London: Pearson Education Limited.

Warren, R.W.a.S. (n.d.) Conflict 101 [online]. directionservice. Available from: http://www.directionservice.org/cadre/section2.cfm.