Managing Change and Conflict

In todays business world, it is very easy to find cross-cultural settings in many companies; people from all types of countries sitting together at a meeting or discussing the future of the company, but what happens when cultures collide and people find themselves trapped in a conflict situation?

On this blog, I will try to give some examples of other alternatives that might be effective when dealing with conflict situation, different from talking or the use of visual aids.

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• Simply Listen: as we have seen in many courses and probably in our personal lives (including work experiences), I think that the majority of the conflicts that arise in a company are because the manager, the CEOs or the people in charge dont even take the time to listen to their employees; they arent aware if they are sick, if they are having personal problems, if there family is ok, and son, they only see their employees (most of the time) as any other asset that has to make money for the company. As a personal experience, I had the chance to work in a cake factory, where the CEO was an uneducated man who had a lucky shot in life. He every single day entered the office and gave the "good morning" to everyone, but he never took the time to ask his employees (and their were only 20 employees by the way) how they felt or what was going on in  their lifes. As a consequence, many of them quitted claiming mistreatment and the others work because they really need the money; was does this translate for the owners? a sad employee is a nonproducent employee (as we have seen, employees who are happy and motivated with their jobs tend to do better perfomance). So whats the message for the CEOs of a company: TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES, THIS WILL PROBABLY ATTACK A CONFLICT AT ITS ROOTS.

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• Avoidance: some times, conflicts arise for stupid reasons or no reasons at all; inproper comments, a bad look, envy, jealousy, and so on can be the triggers to launch a conflict. In this case, it would be proper to keep an open mind and analyze everything before reacting (COGITO ERGO SUM, Descartes), that way, conflicts can be avoided at all costs. How can a CEO or a manager intervene in this? probably by turning fellow employees into FRIENDS, that way, they can integrate more and avoid resentment towards others.
• Measure Emotion Properly: even before thinking of involving some type of emotion into a work area, try to analyze and forecast what could be the probable results that can come from that. Sometimes conflict can arise because one party sees the other one as to cold or to mellow, so things start to escalate.

As a final conclusion, I think that talking can solve it all; maybe it can sometimes be a mistake and things could get resolved better by using other means, but solutions can also be obtained by simply discussing things out. It doesnt mean that we have to talk just to do it, we have to thnik hard what is the proper thing to say.

Bibliography

• Tourims Curriculum Framework, 2002. Deal with conflict situations. Accessed on 29/03/2011. http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/tourismb2003/THHGCS03B.pdf

• Bellafiore, Donna. Interpersonal conflict and effective comunication. DRB Alternatives, inc. Accessed on 30/03/2011. http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html 

• Burton, Charlotte. Difficult relationships at work - dealing with workplace conflict. Conflict911. Accessed on 30/03/2011. http://conflict911.com/guestconflict/diff-relationships-work.htm

• McKee, John 2009. 10 tips and tactics for dealing with conflict. TechRepublic. Accessed on 30/03/2011. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-tips-and-tactics-for-dealing-with-conflict/995

Images

1. Accessed on 29/03/2011. http://mm89.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/different-cultures.jpg
2. Accessed on 30/03/2011. http://thepeoplegroupllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/unhappy-employee-2-199x300.jpg
3. Accessed on 30/03/2011. http://bestuff.com/images/images_of_stuff/210x600/cogito-ergo-sum-50505.jpg?1176161768

Organizational Learning

Our teacher let this blog entry pass for some of us who assited to class on march 14...it was a reward for responsibility!!!

Leadership

Manager to assistant: “assistant, please make up false numbers for the quarterly report we have to present to the shareholders”.

Manager to assistant: “assistant, please jump off a 50 story building”.

How should followers react when they do not agree with their manager’s directions?

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In today’s topic, I would like to talk about how employees should confront their manager’s decisions when they don’t agree. If many of you have seen or had a job, sometimes you disagree with the decisions imposed from your superiors, but why? Because you can consider it harmful for some other person, because you think there is a better solution, because it is the wrong thing to do, or simply because you just don’t agree. So the question that comes to mind is: how should I react to the order I was given? Should I express my opinion? Should I execute the order? WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO?

Depending on the cultural aspects of each country, people may work and face low power distance or high power distance (Hofstede). When facing low power distance cultures, it may be very easy for followers to react to managers decisions because the latter are more open to hearing out its subordinates. These employees have the chance to react almost in any way possible (of course, being positively and without any kind of violence) without facing any type of negative reaction from their boss; they can express freely their desires, their needs, their problems, their troubles, and of course, their opinions on managerial decisions. In my opinion, these type of cultures have a small advantage from high powered distanced ones because not only are employees more free of saying what they want to say without fearing the worst, but also, managers are open minded and are always receiving feedback from employees, finally to make a better decision, or improve the one already made.

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  On the other hand, people facing high power distance cultures have more trouble reacting and confronting their bosses; they fear a negative reaction such as yelling, humiliation and even getting fired. In my personal labor experience, I have found myself caught in this situation: I face a very cranky and mean boss, who ALWAYS reacts negatively to any feedback given from any employee. But for me, it was a learning experience. I found that the problem was merely a communication one; when confronted personally, he did not like to hear anything, but when confronted via email, he would respond in a polite manner and would later talk to you correctly. People facing these types of boss should look for a solution that doesn’t compromise their integrity. For example, seek out more people that feel the same way you feel; to try to talk to another person that has a same level as your boss, but is more open minded; look to see if your boss is more a telephone person than an upfront person; and so on. It is not impossible to communicate with them; it’s just a bit harder.

As a conclusion, I think each person lives a different experience with their boss and the only way to find out on how to react according to what he says is by empirical analysis; the analysis made on Hofstedes studies according to power distance are merely a macro analysis on the cultural patterns that might govern a company.

Bibliography

1. Nollaig 2010. Embracing your workplace resistors. Heffernan Consultancy Ltd. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.heffernanconsultancy.com/?cat=1

2. Leadership styles. www.nwlink.com. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html

3. King, Scott 2011. What great leaders do to get devoted followers. Manager cheat sheet. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://managercheatsheet.com/2011/01/08/what-great-leaders-do-to-get-devoted-followers/

Pictures:

1. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://reviews.in.88db.com/images/how-to-manage-your-boss.jpg

2. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.careerrocketeer.com/wp-content/uploads/Managing-Your-Boss.jpg

Decision Making and Ethical Behaviour in an International Context

In today’s blog, I am going to change a little bit the methodology; I am going to focus on answering the following 5 questions based on the article:

The republic on a banana peel from The Hindu Newspaper. Published: December 3, 2010 by P. Sainath.

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1.    What does the statement “all capitalism is crony capitalism” refer to? First, we have to define crony capitalism: it makes reference to the relationship between the success of corporations and their (when we say their, we refer to CEOs, management, or even shareholders) ties to governments (banks, the media, and other actors could be included). When the author says that “all capitalism is crony capitalism”, it means that every single corporation has in one way or another, some tie, some connection to a governmental official that can, in some way, help that company succeed. 1
Do you agree with this statement or not? Give an example. I totally agree with this statement, not only because of what we learn in college, but of what we see in the news, and what we experience in our personal professional lives. I think that every corporation has some access to benefit from crony capitalism; what we don’t know is to what extent some use it in an ethical manner and some don’t. It is hard to define this in a moral sense.
We can find hundreds, if not thousands of examples of crony capitalism:

·         Chaebols in Korea are huge business conglomerates that take advantage of this type of capitalism. 2

·         The famous scandal about Creekstone Farms with the mad cows is probably one of the greatest examples in crony capitalism. 3

2.    What is a banana republic? It is, according to Christopher Hitchens, “overweening state and certain favored monopolistic concerns, whereby the profits can be privatized and the debts conveniently socialized”. 4

Why is the author comparing India with a banana republic? Because, as he shows us, cronyism in that state is leading corporations to be guilty of many bad things that are later blamed on a few innocent people; because companies get away with anything, taking advantage of political ties they have, but at the end of the day, someone has to pay for the broken dishes; because corporations are in charge of making a few people wealthy and making sure they are safe, while those in charge of making them wealthy are paying all the damage caused.

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3.    Why is it problematic that in the business world “The Media” becomes a corporation?
It is simple. A corporation’s ultimate goal is to make its shareholders wealthy by eventually reducing costs and selling more. If a media becomes a corporation it will DEFINITELY have the same goal. How will it achieve it? By posting, saying and/or stating whatever, that is, of course, according to who pays more for it? 

4.    In this situation, what behaviors are considered unethical for corporations, journalist and the state?
Corporations: for them, taking advantage of family ties, friend ties, and so on, with political officers, for their personal interests. Some examples could be begging for lesser taxes, tax evasion, privileged information, etc.
Journalism: taking advantage of the capability of broadcasting public information, that is, according to what they analyze. They could defect easily if offered a great deal of money, twisting delicate information into what the sponsor wants them to say.
State: lacking transparency and equality to everyone and every corporation; by levering some corporations, others are being left behind, and it eventually damages the entire system.

5.    What can The Media, Corporations and the States do in order to behave ethically and in the benefit of the people and not their own interest. Give at least 5 good ideas.

·         Increase democracy in the states. By making decision making more segmented, the chances that corruption will arise are less. This will eventually avoid crony capitalism because more people would have to be convinced (this would work based upon that at least one person in that group plays as an ethical character).

·         To not concentrate the media in only a few people; if diversification exists in media, controversy could avoid false and misleading statements.

·         Companies that are transparent are more honest; making a company transparent to society (that is, in certain ranges. Not everything can be transparent) makes it harder for them to do bad things. By showing society what they are doing, they will create a barrier for themselves to not use crony capitalism.

·         Making a company based on low power distance creates participation and democracy: if many levels of the company can participate, decisions could be narrower and much more ethical, given that people will have to decide on a collective and legal goal.

·         More power should be given to a Medias stakeholders (that is, all society); a transparent media is a clean media.

Bibliography 

           1. Sanger, David 2002. The world; the global cost of crony capitalism. The New York Times. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/21/weekinreview/21SANG.html?todaysheadlines  

2.      2003. Unfinished business. The Economist. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.economist.com/node/1697767?story_id=1697767

3.      2006. Mad cow watch goes blind. USA Today. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-03-our-view_x.htm

4.                   4.  Hitchens, Christopher 2008. America the banana republic. Vanityfair. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/10/hitchens200810

      Pictures

      1. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.hermes-press.com/enron_ken.jpg

      2. Accessed 06/03/2011. http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Corporate-News.jpg