POWER AND CONFLICT AT WORK

Conflict is a disagreement between things for example War World II because people could not leave their normal life, people were killed when they could leave happy with their families and enjoy life. Conflict can be also when two or more people have different point of view and they cannot find a solution to their problem.

For the Assignment 1 for people and Organisations subject we needed to get into groups of 4 and work together as a team. Working in groups is very difficult because of people’s different personalities. It is very hard to achieve something when all the individuals getting together and nobody want to take any responsibilities. Some of the team members will not do any work, some of them will work hard. On beginning there was no problem because I took a team leader responsibility and I tried control and motivate team. We could not achieve and finish our assignment and pass a subject because team members did not work effectively. Some of them did not attend to the meetings, others did not reply to the phone calls. Actually nobody cared about anything. We could not agree with things. I started to deal with a conflict and I took all the tasks back and finish what others started but without a good result, because there was no enough time. As part of the team member I can say now that we should take to the consideration how people work and what is theirs ability and skills to finish tasks. Very often we getting into groups with someone we do not know very well and we are not sure if we could achieve our goals. It is very important for all team members to work hard individually and also as part of the team.

There is a different source of power for example:

· Coercive power- comes from the person’s authority to punish for example mother can punish a child(Blackboard,2010)

· Reward power-someone who control the dispensing of reward and benefit for example Manager can reward a Line Manager

· Expert power-ability to influence someone regarding a course of actions(knowledge, experience) good example is when a person is willing to listen to other person and inspire him/her to take actions to get something done

· Legitimate power-is formal authority delegated to the holder of the position. Is usually accompanied by various attributes of power such as uniforms

· Referent power-is individual power based on a high level of identification with, admiration of, or respect of power holder (Wikipedia,2010)

To avoid conflict at work organisations should give responsibility to Managers, so they could deal with problems in first line. Very important is to provide employees with written policy and regulations which should be respected. There should be also HR employed because the conflicts can be solved trough professionals.

I read on the internet about a drugs problem in Czech Republic. Their government was facing a voting which should decide if there will be an allowance to have legal amount of drugs in a pocket. Many people did like that idea so they started to demonstrate on the streets and speak out loud that they leave in democratic country and that the alcohol is damaging people’s life more than weed smoking. The crowd was heard and new legislation was out soon and politicians decided about how much of the drug they are allowed to have.(Novinky. Cz, 2010)

People have different view and opinion and it is very hard to make them think in the same way, that is why we all are facing conflicts. Conflict may arise and is in a workplace Managers responsibility to resolve them but conflicts should be avoided and people should always think about best solutions otherwise conflict can turn into war and this is the worst thing to happen.

References:

· Blackboard ,2010 New Bucks University , People and Organisations, Power point slides, Power and Conflicts in Organisations –online source

Available from

http://blackboard.bucks.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_186341_1%26url%3D

(Accessed 25 April 2010)

· Novinky.CZ, 2010,Hlavni Stranka,Domaci,Vlada ucila, jak velke je male mnoznstvi drogy-online source

Available from

http://www.novinky.cz/domaci/186927-vlada-urcila-jak-velke-je-male-mnozstvi-drogy.html

(Accessed 25 April 2010)

· Wikipedia, 2010 The Free Encyclopedia, Referent Power- online source

Available from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referent_power

(Accessed 25 April 2010)