Enterprise Week

Enterprise Week took place on the week beginning 15th November at the university. I attended an event that took place in the Gateway Lecture Theatre on Tuesday 16th November. The event was titled “If it all goes wrong I’ll get a proper job” and was presented by guest speaker Robbie Weston talking about his life and how he got into business.  He explained how he took a risk back in the 80’s to ditch his job and start an advertising recording studio. This talk lasted over an hour and was followed by questions from the audience. There were no activities to partake in during the event, but only to sit and listen to what the speaker had to say. Questions could be asked at the end to incorporate audience involvement. In the talk, Weston told the audience how he managed to fund his advertising recording studio by taking out loans and explained the key points to succeeding in business, including how to choose a partner wisely and taking on the correct staff. This was a beneficial talk as it helped motivate me to keep trying to achieve what you want and that if you put enough effort into it you will get your rewards. He explained how he didn’t even need the qualifications he got from university for his future and that you can make something of yourself whether you have the qualifications or not. I don't think that the talk influenced my career aspirations greatly, but it made me realise that if you keep trying with something that you are passionate about then eventually it can pay off.

Personality

Personality is what makes someone who they are, how they differ from other people as an indivdual due to behaviour and characteristics. It is thought that personality can come about from two ways. That it is inherited or that it is developed from a certain environment. In other words, Nature or Nurture.

Nomothetic Approach

Measurable and specific approach that looks at personality as a collection of characteristics. Environmental and social influences are seen as minimal and personality is consistent and inherited and resists change. It believes that personality can be measured and predict how a person would react in certain situations. Because of this it is used by managers in the selection and training process. 

Idiographic Approach

Understanding the uniqueness of the individual. Personality is a development process and is liable to change. People respond to the environment and others around them and that these interactions play a crucial part in shaping an individuals personality. Personality cannot me measured and cannot be compared to another as each person is individual.

I think that personality can be a combination of both nature and nurture. I think that we inherit some personality from our parents, but we are definately affected by the environment we're in, our friends, etc. There is the experiment with splitting up twins at birth and then reuniting them years later to find out that they both have the same interests, which would suggest that nature is the stronger influence on personality.

I took the BBC personality test and here's my results:

• This trait is sometimes known as ‘Openness to experience’. People with scores like yours tend to have a less broad range of interests. They usually stick to what they know rather than being overly enthusiastic about trying new things.
  You may find that generating lots of imaginitive ideas is not your biggest strength.
  It has been suggested that Openness is related to a person's likelihood to hold unusual beliefs. People with low-to-medium Openness may therefore be less likely to believe in things like conspiracy theories.
• Conscientiousness describes how dependable, organised and hard-working a person is likely to be. This may be the reason why, of all the personality traits, Conscientiousness is the most consistent indicator of job success. People with scores like yours can appear disorganised, but tend to be spontaneous and have a good sense of fun.
  People with low Conscientiousness may be well-suited to investigative or artistic careers.
  Some studies have shown the more Conscientious an individual is, the more disciplined they are likely to be about exercise and diet.  
  Extroversion is characterised by positive emotions and the tendency to seek out pleasure-stimulating or risk-taking activities. People with scores like your are likely to enjoy their time away from lots of people. Social activities may well leave you feeling drained rather than energised, and your quiet time is probably where you recharge your batteries.
  Agreeableness measures how sympathetic and considerate a person is likely to be. People with scores like yours are likely to show concern for the feelings of others and will be inclined to help those in need.
  You probably find it easy to get along with most people, but you won't be averse to speaking your mind.
  In the context of the Big Five personality traits, the term 'Neuroticism' relates to a person’s response to threatening or stressful situations. People with scores like yours are often seen as being calm and even-tempered. They cope well with stressful situations and may seem tranquil despite adverse circumstances.
   

 I agree with most of the findings. Maybe I would have put myself lower on agreeableness. The results also suggested I have a high life satisfaction, medium relationship satisfaction, high job satisfaction, good health and my life goal is Hedonism - having fun and excitement.

Bibliography

•  Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT
• Personality Traits: Idiographic vs. Nomothetic. (2004) Available: http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.html. Last accessed 2011. 
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/
• Nomothetic Idiographic Debate. Available: http://www.simplypsychology.org/nomothetic-idiographic.html. Last accessed 2011. 
• http://mkm4eva.blogspot.com/2010/04/introduction-to-psychology-of.html

Perception and Communication

Perception is the process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. (Robbins et al, 2010)

Individualality is important to consider in the process of perception as we all see things in different ways. We all analyse and judge everything we see and think some information is significant whilst dismissing others. It is influence by our expectations of seeing what we expect to see and hearing what we expect to hear. For example, when hearing someone speak for the first time after seeing them, and you don't expect their voice to sound like that. Or seeing someone after hearing them speak (such as a commentator) and them not looking at all how you expected. There are internal and external factors affecting perception. Internal factors relate to the individual. They include the sensory limits of a person as we are able to train our senses to recognise small differences between stimuli, so we are also able to discriminate. We can adapt and cope with unnatural environments. Psycological factors also affect what is perceived. Personality, learning and motives will affect how we perceive certain stimuli and make us respond in certain ways. This is called a Perceptual Set. External factors are how the environment effects our perception and refer to the characteristics of the stimuli. Usually more attention is giving to things that are bright, large, moving, loud, etc. This is shown in design and advertising as a way of grabbing people's attention.

A situation that I have experienced where my initial perception on someone has been incorrect is when I started a new class at college. There was a boy wholooked like a idiot, really scruffy, looked like he was stoned. We had a test and I assumed that he would do terrible judging by the way he was dressed and the way he acted. He didn't seem to put much effort in. Turns out he got the top mark in the class. So the moral of this story is you shouldn't judge someone on the way they look. From now on I will give everyone an equal chance when I see them and not judge someone's intellegence before you get to know them. The reason I probably made that perception is because I am used to seeing people like that and they aren't very intelligent.

Communication is Child's Play

Goals of British airways explained to 12 year olds:
 
Environment:-  

• No rubbish can be put in a landfill
• Make aircrafts less noisey
• Recycle more
• Reduce Pollution 

Community:- 

• Raise a lot of money for charity
• Help teach at schools

Marketplace:-

• Help people cause less pollution to the environment when they go travelling
• Make sure suppliers are being kind to the environment

Workplace:-

• Help people do work for charities
• Use less energy in the work place to be able to save it for when it is needed
• Make sure all staff are working by the rules and respecting the environment

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/csr-overview-goals/public/en_gb 

Conclusion
In conclusion, everyone is different and is trained by their senses to perceive things in different ways. Judgement is always made as soon as something is seen. This can act as a disadvantage when perceptions are incorrect. They can be affected by a person's personality and psycological factors or by the environment.

Bibliography

•  Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT
• http://www.britishairways.com

Conflict

Conflict is present where there is an incompatibility of goals arising from opposing behaviours at the individual, group or organisational level. Particularly, conflict is behaviour intended to obstruct the achievement of someone else's goals.  (Mullins 2010)

An experience that I have been involved in when conflict occured was when I was playing football for my old school team, two of my teammates fell out during the game as one was not passing to the other. This was affecting the teams morale and caused them to play worse. It was resolved by the coach substituting both players and the team could get back to normal. The players were punished by being taken off and made to talk out their disagreement. This was using coercive and legitimate power from the coach.

Sources of Power

Coercive Power:- this is having power by using punishment. They have this power through their ability to reprimand, fire and demote employees. 

Reward Power:- having the power to control rewards that are valued by employees, such as pay and promotion.


Legitimate Power:- having the power to control people in a certain position based on the leader's position. It is based on authority and having the right to affect influence on someone in a lesser posotion.


Expert Power:- having power by having greater knowledge and experience than someone else. They therefore have more credibility in the area and can exert more power than those with lesser experience.


Referent Power:- having power due to people liking and respecting the leader, being charismatic and popular. It is based on personal characteristics, as is Expert Power.




Managing Conflict

Conflict is bound to come about in any organisation but manager can put some exercises into practice to stop these conflicts becoming unmanageable.

• Clarification of goals - avoids misunderstandings, make sure that everyone agrees with the goals and works equally hard to ahcieve them.
• Resource distribution - make sure that there is enough resources available, gain more flexibility on transfer funds and raise more money. Lack of resources can cause arguement between employees.
• HRM policies - careful attention to HRm procedures such as job analysis and reward systems. Making sure everything is equal and fair.
• Non-monetry rewards - if financial funds are limited, managers can use non-monetry rewards such as promotion, greater responsibility and more challenging work, more flexible working hours.
• Development of group process skills - to help get a better understanding of peoples' behaviour and listen to other person's point of view. Leads to better communication and solves problems. Conflict should be addressed early.
• Leadership and management - a leadership style with more participation and support will gain more respect and trust from employees to create a more co-operative working environment.

In conclusion, conflict occurs in most organisations but if it is dealt with properly can also have a positive effect. It can be constructive to the business and help it evolve. It can produce better ideas from discussing problems and resolving them by involving all staff. Long-standing problems maybe resolved and its a chance for employees to be challenged and be more creative. Employers will want to avoid negative effects such as employees feeling demeaned and an increase in distance between them. They would not want mistrust to develop and employees start concentrating on their own narrow interests rather than the bigger picture. It could lead to an increase in high employee turnover.


Bibliography

•  Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT
• 8 Tips on Handling Conflict. Available: http://www.boston.com/jobs/galleries/workplaceconflict/. Last accessed 2011.  
• Better Ways to Handle Business Conflict. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/feb2011/sb2011024_744270.htm. Last accessed 2011. 
• http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/a/conflict_solue.htm

Leadership

Leadership is a relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people.

Management is the process through which efforts of members of the organisation are co-ordinated, directed and guided towards the achievement of organisatinal goals.

(Mullins 2010)

Managers control staff and plan and co-ordinate in order to achieve results. They usually have an impersonal and passive attitude towards achieving objectives. A manager needs to constantly co-ordinate and balance to compromise conflicting values within an organisation, whereas a leader gives choices and makes work exciting. Managers have little emotional involvement with employees, but leaders have empathy and give attention to others. Managers try to encourage order and predictability within the organisation and leaders motivate staff to change.

Blake & Mouton Managerial Grid

One way of evaluating different styles of management is the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid. First published in 1964 as the Managerial Grid, then republished in 1991 as the Leadership Grid. The grid compares managerial styles based on concern for production and concern for people.

Concern for production is how much emphasis the manager puts on completing the task, achieving high results and profit. It is represented along the horizontal exis on the grid.

Concern for people is how much emphasis the manager gives to employees and colleagues as individuals and to their needs. This is represented on the vertical axis of the grid.

 

 The grid can be used to locate where a certain manager would be situated on it, this can help to see where a manager can improve to become better leaders instead of just managers. There are a number of different styles of leader on the grid. These are:

1,1 The Impoverished Manager:- laissez-faire managers who don't have much concern for either people or productivity. They do not take sides and avoid conflict doing just enough to keep group membership.

9,1 The Authority-compliance Manager:- have a high concern for production but little concern for people. People are seen as tools for production and the manager takes tight control over them. Human resources and creativity are deemed unnecessary.

5,5 The Middle of the Road Manager:- medium concern for people and production. They do not tend to take risks and rely on tried and tested methods. They deal with conflict by avoiding extremes and compromise rather than resolution.

1.9 The Country Club Manager:- high concern for people and little concern for production. They avoid conflict and just want to be liked, at the expense of production. The task is not as important as interpersonal relations and they just want to keep people happy.

9.9 The Team Manager:- high concern for people and production. They motivated employees to reach their full potential to achieve high levels of production. They try out different ways of doing things by taking risks. They can be flexible and respond well to change. This is considered the ideal style.

In my experience I have worked under an Authority-compliance manager (9,1) as they were very concerned with achieving best results for the company and the employees were seen as just numbers. If employees turn up late they would be sent home or made to catch up on the working hours another time or moved to another position, which is harder work. They were a very controlling manager with strict rules on uniform and punctuality. So therefore production was seen as more important than people.

A Great Leader?

The first person to spring to mind when thinking about great leaders is Winston Churchill. He stood up against Germany and bought about Hitler's demise, and parts of the world owe him that they are now free. He cared about his country and his people and stood up for what he believed in. He was vastly experienced and developed his skills over the years he spent in numerous occupations. He made brave decisions and even though some critisized him he carried on and proved that it was the right decisions, which makes him a strong leader.

In Conclusion, there are many different styles of management and leadership. But what makes a great leader is caring for people and standing up for your beliefs. A leader may not be born great, but can develop the skills over time to gain experience. Good leaders have respect of the people, in the Mouton-Blake model a Team Manager is the ultimate type of leader as they care about people whilst also achieving their objectives. They do this by motivating staff instead of controlling them.


Bibliography

•  Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT
• Leadership & Management. Available: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/leadership-basics.html. Last accessed 2011.
• Blake and Mouton Leadership Grid . Available: http://www.leadership-and-motivation-training.com/blake-and-mouton.html. Last accessed 2011.  
•  http://cgmlca.wikispaces.com/conflict 

Culture

Organisational culture describes the attitudes, psychology, values and beliefs of an organisation. These control the way the organisation interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organisation. The culture provides a sense of identity for the company and shows what they believe in, it can be good for morale to keep employees close together as they share the same beliefs.

‘a body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and learned by people...’ (Hofstede, 1984)

A good example of a company with a strong culture is the food outlet Nando's. They value their employees highly and believe that by treating them well the customers will be satisfied with the service. They try to make it a fun environment to work, for example they change the names of certain positions to jokes, (ie. HR Director = Mother Hen and Transport Manager = Poultry in motion). They also use 'stories' to tell employees of the history of the managing way. Nando's do not tolerate bullying in any form among staff and treat them all equally, and accept staff from all different backgrounds. They regard people higher than money. So really the main culture in Nando's is about having fun and respecting one another, and this shows through from their employees which will then make customers satisfied. 


"Nando's believes in a set of values that is central to everything that we do - Pride, Passion, Courage, Integrity and Family. We believe and appreciate that our continued success is down to our people with happy and committed staff key to the Nando's Experience." Nando's Management

Organisational Culture can be classified into four types according to Charles Handy (1996). They are Power, Role, Task and Person.

Power Culture - has a central source of power that comes from a central figure in the organisation. There are few rules and procedures and little bureaucracy with fast decisions. Usually found in small, entrepreneurial organisations and relies on personal communications.

Role Culture - a bureaucracy that works by logic and rationality. The organisation is split into a hierarchy using specialists, such as finance. Work is controlled by procedures and rules, monitored by a small amount of senior managers. The role is more important than the individual doing it, with the position being the main source of power.

Task Culture - a job/project based company which focuses on team working. The task is the most important thing, rather than the rules or the individuals. It brings together the right combination of resources and people. There is more freedom and flexibility and influence can be spread based on expert knowledge.

Person Culture - the idividual is the central focus and any structure serves the individual. Such as barristers, doctors or architects. Found in only a few organisations and there is no hierarchy. The individuals have nearly complete autonomy.


One problem with trying to classify culture into one of the four types is that some businesses can be a mix of cultures with parts of each aspect running through the business. It would therefore be hard to label one of the cultures to the business. Another problem could be that some people are different to the cultures that they have been put in and they may not fit into that certain culture, which may demotivate them and cause them to not work hard or leave.


In conclusion, culture is important to give the business an identity and make it unique. But different people who work there may have different attitudes so within the company there is a mix of different cultures. They can be grouped into four types, but large businesses tend to have a mix of all four within the company.

Bibliography

• Mullins, L. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9^th edition, Essex, FT 

• Sherwin, L. (2009). Culture - Handy. Available: http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy.htm. Last accessed 2011. 
• http://www.nandos.co.uk/index.cfm
• Corporate and organisational culture. Available: http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--corporate-organisational-culture--322.php. Last accessed 2011.

Improving Staff Performance

The content theories focus on what motivates an individual and assume that they have a set of needs which they persue whereas the process theories concentrate on how they are motivated and how they achieve their goals by a process of calculation. The process theories are Vroom's Expectancy Theory, Locke's Goal Theory, and Adams' Equity Theory.

Expectancy Theory

The expectancy theory suggests that employees will be motivated to work when they think that the reward is worth putting effort into the task. The reward needs to be directly related to the task and has to be wanted and deserved by the employee. Vroom derived this model based on three variables; Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy.

Valence: is the attractiveness and preference for a specific outcome of one individual. It is the anticipated satisfaction of the outcome, which differs from value which is the actual satisfaction of the outcome. So it is whether the employee believes that completing the task will benefit them or cause detriment. 

Instrumentality can be divided in to first-level outcomes and second-level outcomes. First-level outcomes are performance related and second-level outcomes are need related which are gained through the achieving high performance. These are dependent on the actual outcome of the performance rather than just the effort put in. 

Expectancy is when an individual chooses whether to put effort into a task based on preference for a particular outcome and also for the probability that the outcome will be achieved. People have a perception of the amount of probability that the choice of an action will actually lead to the desired outcome. This is expectancy.

Goal Theory

A theory derived by Edwin Locke which suggests that peoples' goals have an important effect on behaviour. The difficulty of the goal and the individual's commitment determines how much effort is put in. Difficult goals normally lead to a higher performance than easier goals as the employee is more challenged, but this only applies is the individual works towards them. Specific goals also lead to higher performance, rather than vague "do the best you can" goals. For the individual to fully achieve the goal and to feel motivated, feedback from management or the goal setter is crucial. So they can find out where they go wrong and work on it, instead of getting demotivated. The individuals commitment to the task is key, they cannot just abandon it. 

Equity Theory

Equity theory focuses on people's feelings of how fairly they have been treated in comparison to their peers. It is mostly associated with the work of Adams. People in work have a perceived outcome of the reward they should be getting for putting in a high performance and they often compare this to what other employees are receiving. When there is an unequal comparison of ratios the individual experiences inequity. This feeling can cause tension, which is not wanted. Therefore the person would be motivated to remove this feeling of tension. Adams states six types of possible behaviour as a result of inequity.

Changes in inputs; a person may increase/decrease their level of input, such as quality and quantity of work.

Changes in outcomes; may attempt to change outcomes such as pay, working conditions, status, etc, without changes to inputs.

Cognitive distortion of inputs and outcomes; psycological distortion of their inputs and outcomes to achieve the same results.

Leaving the field; may try and find a new situation with more favourable balance by resigning or requesting a transfer.

Acting on others; may try to change another persons input, or cognitively distort the inputs and outcomes of others.

Changing the object of comparison; changing the reference group with whom the comparison is made. 

How Innocent Drinks motivated its employees

 

One of the ways Innocent motivate their staff is by rewarding high performance by increased capacity to earn. By using this strategy they are following Locke’s goal theory because they are working towards making a profit for the company in return for them to earn more themselves. Innocent also used profit related pay, which relates to the expectancy theory as employees will expect higher earnings if they are improving the business’s earnings. Another way Innocent motivate their employees is by using the “Nest Egg” scheme. This is a scheme which allows high performers to purchase shares in the company at a discounted rate each year. The higher the performance rating, the more they add to your investment with free shares. By setting up the Nest Egg scheme, Innocent are following the expectancy theory, the reason being that they are motivating employees by making them believe that the reward they will get is worth putting the effort in for. This encourages higher performance from employees who want to earn more money.

In conclusion, these findings show that companies try to use different process theories to motivate their employees which shows that they value their staff highly, whilst also making a profit for the company. 

Bibliography

• Mullins, L.J. (2010). Management & Organisational Behaviour. Essex: Pearson Education Ltd 
• http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/ 
• Expectancy Theory of Motivation. Available: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/expectancy-theory-motivation.htm. Last accessed 2011.  
• Reed, R. (2007), “Innocent Drinks”, growingbusiness.co.uk, 2011  
• Newton, S. (2009), “Innocent Smoothies show others how to employ”, Genyguide.com, 2011 
•  Mindtools (2010), “Locke’s goal setting theory, Mindtools.com, 2011

Motivation

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

There are four content theories of motivation. They are Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Herzberg's two factor theory Alderfer's modified need hierarchy model and McClelland's achievement motivation theory.. Abraham Maslow's theory is about how people want things and what they want is based on what they already have and that they will always want more once they have something. He arranged this into a pyramid called the "hierarchy of needs" with the simpler needs at the bottom and the more complex needs at the top. The pyramid has 5 stages, starting with physiological needs, then safety needs, then social needs, then esteem needs and finally self-actualisation at the top. 

 

·        

Physiological needs are the basic requirements for human survival such as need for food, water, oxygen.

Safety needs are the needs for security and regularity and consistency such as steady employment, safe environment and job security.

Love/social needs are the needs for belonging and affection from friendships and families.

Esteem needs include the needs for self respect and the esteem from others. Self respect involves being confident and independent, whereas esteem from others involves recognition, reputation and status.

Self actualisation needs are the realisation of the individual’s full potential and “becoming everything that one is capable of becoming” according to Maslow.

Herezberg interviewed 200 accountants and engineers to find out when they felt good and bad in their previous jobs and why. This showed him that there were two different factors affecting motivation - hygiene and motivator factors. Hygiene factors are extrinsic and to do with the job environment, the need to avoid unpleasantness at work. Motivator factors are related to the job itself and serve to make the individual want to improve performance for job satisfaction. This can be related to Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the hygiene factors are the lower stages and the motivator factors are the higher stages. Hygiene factors are needed to make sure and employee is not dissatisfied whilst motivator factors are needed to motivate an employee to a better performance.

There are a number of reasons motivating me to start university. The main reason I want to get a degree is so that I can have qualifications in order to get a job when I come out. At the moment, due to the recession it is very hard to get a job for anyone, let alone an unqualified teenager. So therefore one reason for coming to university for a few years is in the hope that when I come out with a degree I may find it easier to get a good job that I enjoy. This meets my basic needs of living and safety needs as I am in a secure environment. Another reason for coming to university is the freedom of living away from home and being responsible for myself and making my own decisions. This relates to my social needs from living with peers and also my self actualisation of feeling responsible for myself in becoming an adult. I find the subject that I am studying interesting so this will keep me motivated for the 3 years to come. As I am only concentrating on one subject rather than juggling four, like at A Level, and having to do subjects which I didn't particularly like for found too hard, I should not get demotivated. But the work will also be challenging to keep me interested, relating to Herzberg's motivator factors.

A time when I felt demotivated was at secondary school. This was for numerous reasons. I felt throughout the school years that hard work was going unrewarded by not being marked properly, and being in a very competitive school where expectations were so high it was demotivating to see other students get exceptional marks that I could not compete with. Therefore my esteem needs were not being met, even though my social and safety needs were. I was also having to do subjects that I didn't enjoy and found too difficult as they didn't offer a wide variety of subjects. To change this, I left the school and started a college which offered a wider range of subjects and with students who were of similar acedemic ability. I was now more motivated to work as I had found subjects that I enjoyed and was good at without being overshadowed by the majority of other students.

In conclusion, Maslow's theory is a useful tool to be able to locate which position on the pyramid a person is. And the Herzberg theory is useful to know if the employees are satisfied with their working conditions and what they can do to improve and become more motivated.
 
Bibliography 

• Cherry, K., “Hierarchy of Needs”, About.com
• McCrimmon, M. (2008), “Herzberg and employee motivation”, Suite101.comMotivation and Personality, Third Edition, Harper and Row Publishers
• Mullins, L. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9^th edition, Essex, FT
• Norwood, G. (2009), “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, Deepermind.com
• Reed, R. (2007), “Innocent Drinks”, growingbusiness.co.uk
• Worman, D., “20 ways to motivate employees”, Biztrain.com