Teamworking

A work group is a group that is formed by a number of people who are in contact with each other, are conscious of each other and consider themselves to be a group and can be formal, informal, permanent or temporary. A team is where they share a common sense of purpose and identity and support each other to achieve the goals, going well beyond a group. People often enjoy working in groups as it gives them a sense of belonging which meets their social needs, it makes them feel secure and safe, it also satisfies their need for status and affiliation, meeting Maslow’s security and esteem needs. It also gives them a sense of power.

 Theorists involved in teamworking include Belbin, Tuckman and Gersick. Belbin being the most widely used theorist. He said that a team amde of of similar people with similar personalities and characteristics would not work well and a team with a wide range of personalities and skills is more likely to succeed. He made a list of 9 roles to help determine which kind of worker each person is in order to achieve a good balance in a group. Tuckman looks at Forming, Norming, Storming and Performing and will be discussed further down in more detail. Gersick came up with the Punctuated Equilibrium model and is a timeline showing the stages when most work is completed. Stating that there will be a lot of work completed in the mid point and a rush at the end, whilst not much is completed at the beginning (as seen in the diagram on the right).


A time when I worked in a successful team was when I was at school was when I took part in the Duke of Edinburgh expedition. This required a lot of co-operation and team work. We were in a group of 4 and had to navigate across the countryside in Wales and pitch tents at different locations. We were given a map and compass to help us. We also had to carry all the camping gear, food for the weekend, cooking instruments, and other essential items. This team worked successfully as we all had different skills and were able to rely on another person to do their part right. One person in the group with the most experience was made the leader so that we had some direction, but everyone had equal say and were able to get their ideas across. The leader was good at reading maps so was essential to our trip and would be a Plant in Belbin's model as he was creative in solving problems. Other tasks were putting up a tent which required good team work and one person could not do it on their own. We also had a set cook, who made all the meals, this person would be a Specialist as this was their particular strength and did not contribute too much else. The rest of us were Teamworkers and contributed in lots of different areas. Being that we all had different strengths, and put them to good use, we were able to complete the task and pass the course.


Tuckman's theory related to Assignment 2
The stages of Tuckman's theory are forming, storming, norming and performing. These are:

• Forming: this is the bringing together of the group and assigning roles and responsibilities and considering the hierarchy of the group. In our group we decided upon a leader and assigned who would do which part of the essay. It was difficult at first with people not turning up to group meetings as we needed to seek out each person's strengths and weaknesses.
• Storming: now everyone is more comfortable with each other more ideas are put forward. Could result in conflict. However, there was not much conflict in our group as everyone was happy to get on with the work they had been assigned. The only conflict occured when members didn't show up to group meetings and progress check couldn't be evaluated.
• Norming: conflict is controlled and group member set out how each other want to behave and everyone establishes the need to co-operate to achieve the goals. Once members started coming to group meetings progress was made and everyone set about to do what they had to do.
• Performing: everyone concentrates on completing the task. It was finished and looked over by the whole group to make sure everyone was happy with the work that had been produced. Doing the work in this order meant that we were a success as a group and achieved a respectable mark.

Times Top 100 Companies to work for 2010

 Office Angels - Recruitment Consultancy
 This company gets the best results in the "My Team" category with an overall positive factor of 85%. Teamwork is encouraged by teams competing for holidays to Dubai, New York and Barbados. The article says "Employees feel a strong sense of family within their teams, giving 86%, the top positive score nationally, for this statement. They believe colleagues care about each other (87%), say working together gives them a buzz (82%) and that team-mates are fun (89%). " This means that they have retained most of their staff as they are happy in their job and the staff feel they can make a difference to the company. 

 Beaverbrooks - Jewellery retailer

They have teams across the 66 stores which employers visit regularly. Top performing teams get celebration nights and last year the company put forward £100 for each member to spend on celebration nights. "Beaverbooks people say they have fun with their colleagues (86%) and feel a strong sense of family in their team (80%). These are all good to motivate employees and keep them happy in their job and so the employees feel accepted and rewarded rightly. This will encourage them to work well as a team.

Conclusion

In conclusion, good teamwork is needed for a team or group to succeed. A group differs from a team as a team has a common sense on purpose and goals. Companies try to promote good teamwork to keep staff happy and motivated and meet their social needs. This will also help the company have a good output and ethic. There are many different theorists, but the easiest one to use is Belbin's model of team characteristics.

Bibliography

•   Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT 
• Tuckman, Bruce W. (1965) 'Developmental sequence in small groups',  Psychological Bulletin

• Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. The Academy of Management Journal

• Smith, M. K, (2005). Bruce W. Tuckman - forming, storming norming and performing in groups. Available: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/tuckman.htm. 2011
• http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/
• http://www.office-angels.com/Pages/default.aspx

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

It is vital that there is equality in the work place. Equality means that everyone is giving the same opportunity to to fulfil their potential no matter what race, age, gender, etc they are. New legislations came in to remove discrimination and create equality. These are Sexual Orientation (2003), Religion & Belief (2003), Disability (2004), Age (2006) and the Equality Act (2010).

Diversity is about acceptance and respect, and recognising that everyone is unique and understanding everyones differences. These differences can be explored in a safe environment and embrace the diversity of each individual.

The purpose of Equal Opportunities Legislation Act is to eliminate unjustified discrimination by making it illegal. This means that all workers get the same chance as everyone else and employers cannot favour someone based on the factors mentioned before. The employers can take positive action to create equal opportunites, this will help with motivation within the company, and could improve staff performance, whilst also creating a better working environment. It also provides a way for people who have been discriminated against to redress the problem.

Age legislation came into force in 2006, this would have had a big impact on employers as they could now not favour people of a preferred age. They would now have to allow people of certain ages to continue working if they wished as they could not make them redundant due to their age as it would break the law. Therefore there would be a much older workforce, they would not be able to favour someone when employing them due to their age. It could also work the other way as employers may not want to hire someone who is too young. Employers may hold stereotypes against older and younger people including (for younger people) that they're lazy and maybe selfish. The media does not portray young people in a good way and gives them a bad name, when they can be very positive and driven to succeed. Some stereotypes on old people is that they could be forgetful and set in their ways but that they are also experienced. There may also be a problem in the work place of employers not hiring women of a certain age, as they are likely to get pregnant and have to take maternaty leave and cost the business more money. With the new legislation this cannot happen now.


How Sainsbury's promote equal opportunities

 They launched a programme called "You Can" in 2008 which encourages a wide range of people to join, particularly for long-term unemployed people and disadvantaged people. It helps them develop skills needed. In 2006 they founded a scheme called WorkRight which was aimed at people with difficulties at work to help them overcome those disadvantages to enable to pursue their ambitions. In 2008 they set themselves a target of increasing the amount of female floor managers to 20% by 2011 and they have achieved this. Then give employees an annual feedback to help improve problems that ethnic minorities face ar work and make sure there is diversity within the organisation. They also planned to recruit 10,000 over 50's to their stores nationwide in a bid to reduce age discrimination and give elder people more chance of work.

Conclusion

In conclusion, equal opportunities are essential in a business, as it makes for a pleasant working environment and it can get the best out of each individual despite their differences. It helps people to feel accepted and enable to them to complete the job to the best of their ability. The Acts are put in place to make this happen and make the work place a discrimination free environment.

Bibliography

•  Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management & Organisational Behaviour, 9th edition, Essex, FT
• http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2005/05/18/29965/sainsburys-seeks-to-recruit-10000-50-somethings.html
• http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/sol/index.jsp
• What are Your Employment Rights?. Available: http://www.aboutequalopportunities.co.uk/employment-rights.html. Last accessed 2011

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