Management of conflict & its Transition Thoughts

Social life of human beings is interplay between cooperation and conflict; social groups are formed when individuals coming together have some common goals. The relationship between two or more individuals may depend on how they approach the goal. If the goal is perceived as unshareable, and can be attained only by one of them; they may conflict (fight) for the goal attainment. This may be one source of conflict. All zero-sum games are situations of such kind. A football match is an example of such a situation. The two teams playing the match are related to each other around the unshareable goal of winning the match; one must win, and the other must lost, unless even after repeated attempts the match is drawn. However, if the goal is seen as shareable, the individual or teams work together to achieve the goal and share it. There may be a situation when the goal is perceived as common to all involved, it may be perceived as achievable with one’s effort and without the other(s) coming in the of its achievement of the goal. Striving to get a first division in the examination is an example of such a situation. Several students can get first divisions and yet they do not work jointly for attainment of this goal.

The dynamic of these strategies of working for the achievement of goals sharing (cooperating with others), fighting (competing or conflicting with others) or striving individually for the goal (competing with a standard of excellence) have important social implications.
The term conflict may mean different things to different persons. It may be regarded as the disagreement or hostility between individuals or groups in the organization. It may even mean rivalry or competition. It can also be viewed as the perception of disagreement in the individuals. Conflict in some form and degree is part and parcel of virtually every part of human life, and hence organizations are not free of it.

A simple definition of conflict is that “it is any tension that is experienced when one perceives that one’s needs are or are likely to be thwarted or frustrated”.

Chung and Meggison describe conflict on the struggle between incompatible or opposing needs, wishes, ideas, interests or people. According to them, conflict arises when individuals one groups encounter goals that both parties cannot obtain satisfactorily.

According to Stephen Robbins “conflict is the process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected or is about to negatively affect something that the first party cares about”.

Transitions in conflict thought:
It is entirely correct to say that there has been “conflict” over the rate of conflict in groups and organizations. There have been three different views of conflict which have been emerged with time and these are:
1.    Traditional View
The early approach to conflict assumed that all conflict was bad and that it was to be avoided at all costs. Conflict was viewed negatively and it was used synonymously with such terms as violence, destruction etc. The traditional view of conflict was consistent with the attitudes that prevailed about group behavior in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflict was viewed as a dysfunctional outcome resulting from poor communications, a lack of openness and trust between people and the failure of managers to be responsive to the needs and aspirations of their employees.

2.    Modern View
a.    Human relations view:
The human relations position argued that conflict was a natural occurrence in all groups and organizations. This school of though advocated acceptance of conflict cannot be eliminated and there are even times when conflict may benefit a group’s performance.

b.    Interactionist view
While the human relations approach accepted conflict, the interactionist approach encourages conflict. They contend that cooperative group is prone to become static, apathetic and non-responsive to needs for change and innovation. The major contribution of the interactionist approach, therefore, is encouraging group leaders to maintain an ongoing minimum level of conflict enough to keep the group viable, self critical and creative. These views are summed up in the following table:

                    View about Conflict

Traditional View	Modern View
Conflict arises because of personality dimensions	Conflict is built in every system
Conflict is bad and should be avoided	Conflict is not always bad. Constructive conflict should be encouraged
Conflict damages the interpersonal relations	Constructive conflicts improve the inter personal relations
Conflict is avoidable	Conflict is inevitable
Conflict is cause by trouble makers, boat rockers	Some conflict is absolutely necessary for a group to perform effectively
Scapegoats are accepted as inevitable	Conflict is integral to the nature of change
	A minimal level of conflict is good

Write short note on Organizational Resistance to change

The resistance to change from the organization comes because of the
a)    Structure of the organization
Some organizational structures have inbuilt mechanism for resistance to change. For instance, consider typically bureaucratic structure where jobs are narrowly defined, lines of authority are clearly spelled out, the flow of information is stressed from top to bottom. In such organizations the channels of communication make the new idea difficult to travel and eventually it increases the probability that the new innovation will be screened out because it is not suitable for the structure of the organization.

b)    Resource constraints
Organizations, many a times, operate under some resource constraints. If the resources with which to operate are available in abundance, there will be no problem of introducing change. But the necessary finance, material and human resources may not be available to the Organization to make the necessary changes.

c)    Sunk costs
The light of some companies is such that the heavy capital is blocked in the fixed or permanent assets. Even though the management in such organizations is convinced of the necessity of change, they may face resource constraints because of the money already suck in the purchase of block capital assets arises because of these sunk costs. Sunk costs are not restricted to physical things alone. They can be expressed in terms of people also overcoming resistance to change.

d)    Force field analysis
For every change there are certain forces in favor of the change and certain against the change. A manager should analyze the strength of each of these and reduce the strength of the restraining forces and increase the strength of driving forces. This he can do by proper communication and convincing the people of the necessity of change.

e)    Communication
It is always desirable that the manager takes people, especially those who are likely to be affected by the change in confidence before the change is set up. A communication intended to overcome the resistance should have the following characteristics; i.e. should be at an appropriate time; and should be addressed to those who are likely to be affected by the change. If, however, for any reason it is not possible to communicate to all at the people who have influence over the employees should be communicated; That the communication should be honest. It should state:
a.    what change;
b.    why change;
c.    how change;
d.    how the change will benefit the organization;
e.    how the change will benefit the employees;
f.    how the change will affect the organization;
g.    what organization proposes to do to reduce the rigors of change on employees;
h.    an appeal to all employees to cooperate in setting up the change
i.    Deciding what management style to use.

Write short note on Leadership & its styles

Leadership is practiced by leadership style, which is the total pattern of leaders’ actions in relation to followers. It represents their philosophy, skills, and attitudes. The styles that are discussed hereunder are used in combination, not separately; but they are discussed separately to clarify differences among them.

Negative leadership gets acceptable performance in many situations, but it has high human costs. Negative leaders act domineering and superior with people. To get work done, they hold over their personnel such penalties as loss of job, reprimand in the presence of others, etc. They display authority in the false belief that it frightens everyone into productivity. They are bosses more than leaders.

Even the most competent leaders will at time have to fall back upon negative leadership. Perfection can never be achieved, but the historical trend is that managers need more and more positive leadership skills in order to be rated “satisfactory”. Better employee education, greater independence, and other factors have made satisfactory employee motivation more dependent on positive leadership.

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.
•    Authoritarian or autocratic
•    Participative or democratic
•    Delegative or Free Reign
Although good leaders use all styles, with one of them normally dominant, bad leaders tend to stick with one style.

Authoritarian (autocratic):
I want both of you to. . .
This style is used when leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it accomplished, without getting the advice of their followers. Some of the appropriate conditions to use it are when you have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated.

Some people tend to think of this style as a vehicle for yelling, using demeaning language, and leading by threats and abusing their power. This is not the authoritarian style, rather it is an abusive, unprofessional style called bossing people around. It has no place in a leader's repertoire.

The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions. If you have the time and want to gain more commitment and motivation from your employees, then you should use the participative style.

Participative (democratic):
Let's work together to solve this. . .
This style involves the leader including one or more employees in the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect.

This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your employees have other parts. Note that a leader is not expected to know everything -- this is why you employ knowledgeable and skillful employees. Using this style is of mutual benefit -- it allows them to become part of the team and allows you to make better decisions.

Delegative (free reign):
You two take care of the problem while I go. . .
In this style, the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it. You cannot do everything! You must set priorities and delegate certain tasks.

This is not a style to use so that you can blame others when things go wrong, rather this is a style to be used when you fully trust and confidence in the people below you. Do not be afraid to use it, however, use it wisely!

Managerial Grid Styles:
One very popular approach is to identify leadership styles of practicing managers is Blake and Mouton’s managerial grid. The following figure shows that the two dimensions of the grid are concern for people along the vertical axis and concern for production among the horizontal axis.

The model is represented as a grid with concern for production as the X-axis and concern for people as the Y-axis; each axis ranges from 1 (Low) to 9 (High). The five resulting leadership styles are as follows:

    * The impoverished style (1,1): in this style, managers have low concern for both people and production. Managers use this style to preserve job and job seniority, protecting themselves by avoiding getting into trouble. The main concern for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which results in less innovative decisions.

    * The country club style (1,9): this style has a high concern for people and a low concern for production. Managers using this style pay much attention to the security and comfort of the employees, in hopes that this would increase -performance. The resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily that productive.

    * The produce or perish style (9,1): with a high concern for production, and a low concern for people, managers using this style find employee needs unimportant; they provide their employees with money and expect performance back. Managers using this style also pressure their employees through rules and punishments to achieve the company goals. This dictatorial style is based on Theory X of Douglas McGregor, and is commonly applied by companies on the edge of real or perceived failure. This is used in case of crisis management.

    * The middle-of-the-road style (5,5): Managers using this style try to balance between company goals and workers' needs. By giving some concern to both people and production, managers who use this style hope to achieve suitable performance but doing so gives away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are met.

    * The team style (9,9): in this style, high concern is paid both to people and production. As suggested by the propositions of Theory Y, managers choosing to use this style encourage teamwork and commitment among employees. This method relies heavily on making employees feel as a constructive part of the company.

Write short note on perception

Perceptual process is of utmost significance in understanding human behavior. It is a unique interpretation instead of a precise recording of the situation. The individual while perceiving the world sees a picture which expresses his own individual view of reality. This picture is quite unique and may largely differ from the reality.

The study of divergence, between the perceptual world and the real world is of great significance for human relations and organizational behavior. As it is frequently observed, managers assume that subordinates are always keen for promotions even though factually subordinates may really feel psychologically compelled to accept their promotions. The perceptual worlds of the managers and of the subordinates may differ remarkably from each other as well as both of them diverge substantially from reality. To get the desired results from promotion, the management should have the proper assessment of the perceptual world of its subordinates.

In an interview for the selection of the candidate, the interviewer’s judgment about the suitability of the candidate depends on candidate’s behavior perceived by the interviewers. A rejected applicant might feel that he was wronged by the interviewer though he deserved selection. But the fact is that interviewers generally form an early impression that becomes quickly entrenched. If the inadequacies of the candidate are exposed early, they weigh against him in the final selection.
Performance appraisal is another area where perception is significant. Assessment of an employee’s performance depends on the perception of the person who evaluates. Evaluation is objective in salesman’s job whereas many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are easier to implement, they provide managers with greater discretion, and many jobs do not readily lend themselves to objective measures. Subjective measures are, by definition, judgmental. To the extent the evaluator depends on subjective measures for assessing an employee’s performance.

Another important judgment that the managers make about the employee is whether or not he is loyal to the organization. The issue is not whether organizations are right in demanding an employee’s loyalty is irrelevant here, but the fact is that many employers do, and the assessment of loyalty or commitment is highly personal. What is perceived as loyalty by one decision-maker may be seen as excessive conformity by another. An employee who questions a top management decision may be seen as disloyal by some, yet caring and concerned by others. When evaluating a person’s attitude, as in loyalty assessment, we must recognize that we are again involved with person perception.

This necessitates that the management understands the basic perceptual process involved in organizational settings and recognize its significance. As a great deal of the industrial conflict stem from the divergence between the perceptual worlds of the parties involved, attempts can be made to minimize the magnitude of such conflicts by properly assessing perceptions of various aspects in the work settings. This implies that a better understanding of the perceptual process should be developed. Direct applications and techniques aimed at the solution of the problem would automatically follow the proper understanding.


Perception is much more complex and much broader than sensation. The perpetual process can be defined as a complicated interaction of selection, organization, and interpretation of stimuli. Although perception depends largely upon the senses for raw data, the cognitive process may filter, modify or completely change the data. A simple illustration may be seen by looking at one side of a stationary object. By slowly turning the eyes to the other side of the object, the person probably senses that the object is moving. Yet the person perceives the object as stationary. The perceptual process overcomes the sensual process and the person “sees” the object as stationary. In other words, the perceptual process adds to, and subtracts from, the “real” sensory world.

A few definitions of perception are given below:
[1]    “It is the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting, checking, and reacting to sensory stimuli or data”.
[2] “It is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environments”.
[3] “It includes all those processes by which an individual receives information about his environment – seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling”.
Kolasa defines Perception as the “selection and organization of material which stems from the outside environment at one time or the other to provide the meaningful entity we experience”.

There are two basic elements in this definition:-
(1)    perception is a process of selecting or screening which prevents us from processing irrelevant or disruptive information; and
(2)    There is an organization of stimuli implying that the information that is processed has to be ordered and classified in some logical manner which permits us to assign meaning to the stimuli situations. The individual tends to recognize the information, assemble it as well as compare it with earlier experience. This involves the entire history of events, which have taken place with him over his life span. It is the organization of inputs through a dynamic inner process, which shapes what comes in from the outside environment.

Despite the fact that it relies upon the senses for obtaining raw data, the process of perception tends to amalgamate, improve and entirely change this data because of its complexity of interaction. It adds as well as deducts from the sensory world.

Perception involves five sub processes. They are stimulus, registration, interpretation, feedback and consequence.

Perception initiates with the presence of a stimulus situation. Registration involves the physiological mechanism including both sensory and neural. Interpretation is a highly crucial sub process. Other physiological processes assist in perceptual interpretation. Feedback is important for interpreting the perceptual event data. Perception ends in reaction or response, which may be in the overt or covert form.

Define morale, it is said, the “higher the morale the higher is the productivity”. However, it may not be true in all cases. Illustrate this through a graph.

According to Keith Davis Morale means “the attitude of employees and group towards their work environment and toward voluntary cooperation to the full extent of their ability in the best interests of the organization.”

According to Morris Viteles “Morale refers to the condition of a group where there are clear and fixed group goals that are felt to be important and integrated with individual goals where there is confidence in the attainment of these goals and the confidence in the means of attainment in the leader, associates and finally in one self.”

Morale indicates the happiness of the employees with the organizational environment. It also refers to the preparedness of the group of the employees to subordinate the individual and the group goals to the goals of the organization.

Morale essentially is akin to job satisfaction. It represents the integration of an individual with the team and the organization itself. Generally it can be said that morale has a positive relationship with productivity. The higher the morale the higher is the productivity. However, this need not always is so, as can be seen from the following graph

In the above graph

    Curve-A represents high morale; low productivity;
    Curve-B represents high morale and high productivity; and
    Curve-C represents high productivity;

High productivity involves a combination of ability, training, work habits, performance goals etc. Curve ‘A’ above where morale is high but productivity is low indicates the management’s failure in the proper discharge of management function: - chiefly the planning function.

Productivity can be high in spite of morale being low because of the rigid systems and controls imposed by the management.

The situations where productivity is higher in spite of morale being low or productivity being lower in spite of morale being high do not last long. In the first situation productivity is high because of the strict management controls and close supervision. It also happens in an atmosphere where the people are treated as machines. In this situation the management is apparently creating discontent in the organization which may blow up in its face. When this happens the productivity also dips.

In the second situation when morale is high but productivity is low, slowly people distance themselves from Organization because of the disillusionment about the management abilities. In this situation after sometime the morale might start coming down. Thus in both these situations ultimately morale as well as productivity are at their nadir.

Every manager is always interested in curve ‘B’ indicating high morale as well as productivity. But morale is not a static phenomenon. Today the morale is high but something may go wrong and the morale might start coming down.

Enumerate Herzberg’s two factors theory of motivation including principle of job enrichment.

Two Factor Theory (also known as Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory) was developed by Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who found that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction acted independently of each other. Two Factor Theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction.

Attitudes and their connection with industrial mental health are related to Maslow's theory of motivation. His findings have had a considerable theoretical, as well as a practical, influence on attitudes toward administration. According to Herzberg, individuals are not content with the satisfaction of lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions. Rather, individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs having to do with achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. So far, this appears to parallel Maslow's theory of a need hierarchy. However, Herzberg added a new dimension to this theory by proposing a two-factor model of motivation, based on the notion that the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to dissatisfaction at work. Thus, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one increasing as the other diminishes, but are independent phenomena. This theory suggests that to improve job attitudes and productivity, administrators must recognize and attend to both sets of characteristics and not assume that an increase in satisfaction leads to a decrease in unpleasurable dissatisfaction.

The two-factor, or motivation-hygiene theory, developed from data collected by Herzberg from interviews with a large number of engineers and accountants in the Pittsburgh area. From analyzing these interviews, he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does — that is, to the nature of the work she performs — apparently have the capacity to gratify such needs as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, thus making her happy and satisfied. However, the absence of such gratifying job characteristics does not appear to lead to unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company policies, supervision, technical problems, salary, interpersonal relations on the job, and working conditions. Thus, if management wishes to increase satisfaction on the job, it should be concerned with the nature of the work itself — the opportunities it presents for gaining status, assuming responsibility, and for achieving self-realization. If, on the other hand, management wishes to reduce dissatisfaction, then it must focus on the job environment— policies, procedures, supervision, and working conditions. If the management is equally concerned about both (as is usually the case), then managers must pay attention to both sets of the job factors.

The theory was based around interviews with 203 American accountants & engineers in Pittsburgh, chosen because of their professions' growing importance in the business world. The subjects were asked to relate times when they felt exceptionally good or bad about their present job or any previous job, and to provide reasons, and a description of the sequence of events giving rise to that positive or negative feeling.

The following are the hygiene factors and motivators:

tors:

	Hygiene Factors i.e. dis-satisfaction	Motivators i.e. satisfaction
1	Company Policies and administration;	Achievement;
2	Technical Supervision;	Recognition;
3	Interpersonal relations with superiors;	Advancement;
4	Interpersonal relations with peers;	Work itself;
5	Interpersonal relations with subordinates;	Possibility of Growth;
6	Salary;	Responsibility.
7	Job Security;
8	Personal Life;
9	Working Conditions;
10	Status.

Two Factor Theory distinguishes between:

* Motivators (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself, such as recognition, achievement, or personal growth. They are those factors, which by their absence do not inhibit performance, but any addition in them increases efficiency. These are the job content factors that make the job itself a tool of motivation and are also called ‘Satisfiers’.

* Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) which do not give positive satisfaction, although dissatisfaction results from their absence. These are extrinsic to the work itself, and include aspects such as company policies, supervisory practices, or wages/salary. They are those factors that by their absence inhibit performance but any addition in them does not increase efficiency or productivity. These are the job context factors that occur at the time of doing the job. Thus they are extrinsic to the job. These factors are also called dis-satisfiers.

Essentially, hygiene factors are needed to ensure an employee is not dissatisfied. Motivation factors are needed in order to motivate an employee to higher performance, Herzberg also further classified our actions and how and why we do them, for example, if you perform a work related action because you have to then that is classed as movement, but if you perform a work related action because you want to then that is classed as motivation. By their very nature hygiene factors are necessary for the performance but what is required of the manager is to provide these factors to the required level and focus his attention to provide more and more on the motivators. Motivators cater to the higher order needs of the human being and, therefore, they are more important. In order to build these factors into the job design a manager should load the job with motivators. This is the theory of job loading which can be done either by horizontally loading or by vertically loading the job.

The Horizontal job loading is known as “job enlargement” while vertical job loading is known as “job enrichment”.

Job Enlargement:
    The following are the principles of job enlargement:
1.    Challenging the employees by increasing the amount of production expected of him;
2.    Adding other tasks to the job;
3.    Removing the more difficult parts of the assignment in order to free the worker;
4.    Rotating the assignments.


Job Enrichment
    Principles of Job Enrichment according to Herzberg, are as under:

	Principle	Motivators Involved
1	Removing some control while retaining accountability;	Responsibility and Personal Achievement;
2	Increasing Accountability for individual’s own work;	Responsibility and Recognition;
3	Giving a person a complete natural unit of work [Module, area etc.];	Responsibility and Recognition;
4	Granting additional authority to an employee in his activity;	Responsibility and Recognition;
5	Making periodic reports directly available to the worker himself;	Internal Recognition;
6	Introducing new and more difficult tasks not handled previously;	Growth and Learning;
7	Assigning individuals specific or specialized tasks, enabling them to become experts.	Responsibility Growth and Advancement;