ENTERPRISE WEEK

Everyone had a chance to attend events organised by the university as part of the enterprise week. Various events were held over the two week period where successful businessmen and other speakers came to discuss their lifetime experiences and whether they had been successful in starting up their own businesses. The two events which appealed to me the most were ‘Ella’s Kitchen’ and ‘If it all goes wrong, I will get a proper job’. As an Accounting and Finance student, my future ambition is to start my own business and build a successful firm, hence why I chose to attend the events mentioned above. The spokesmen were going to discuss the motivation behind starting up their own business and also offer advice on what to do and what not to do when setting up a firm. The event that will be outlined in this blog is ‘Ella’s Kitchen’, simply because it appealed to me more than ‘If it all goes wrong, I will get a proper job’.

Paul Lindley (Ella’s Dad), the founder of Ella’s Kitchen, discussed the company, all the sacrifices he had to make and gave us advice on starting up a business. Paul’s business is about making healthy and unique blend of foods for children. He got this idea of creating such products from his daughter, Ella, who disliked eating fruits and vegetables as they did not appeal to her. He believes that Ella and her generation should have the opportunity to eat better food and also to discover that eating healthy food can be fun, cool and tasty.

The target market for this business was children between the ages 6 months and 6 years and Paul’s focus was to approach things from a child’s point of view when creating their products; their packaging is colourful and fun, which attracts kids. In addition, they connect with kids via flavours, colours, textures and even names that will appeal to all of their senses. Paul set the company up as a sole trader. He invested £20,000 interested in getting all the samples done and conducting market research. He remortgaged his house once companies started demanding products. Ella’s kitchen has been trading for 5 years and achieved plenty of success. Below are few of the successes the company has achieved:

·         Food and Drink brand of the year

·         £30,000,000 Sales last year

·         10% of the baby food market in 5 years of trading

·         9^th fastest growing company

In addition, Ella’s Kitchen have expanded and now trade in 6 countries (UK, Ireland, USA and 3 Scandinavian countries); they retail 46 different baby food products. Paul brought success to Ella’s Kitchen in various ways. Firstly, he has had previous experience when it comes to working with children; he used to work for Nickelodeon before he started Ella’s Kitchen. Finally, his expertise in financial aspects in a business has benefited him largely to gain further knowledge on this sector of his business.

What benefited me was the advice he provided after he had spoken about his company. He went on to describe the steps and key things that needed to be considered when deciding to start up your own business. The key point he made was having the passion and drive in order to make the business work. Paul took the risk in order to earn the reward in the near future. Moreover, he used Greiners model of organisational lifecycle; looking at age and size. He described a graph on his presentation in relation to kids. This was beneficial as it showed he meant business and had conducted thorough research and not just rushed into making meaningless decisions in order to grow.

As mentioned in the introduction, my future ambition is to start my own business and build a successful firm.  After having listened to the presentation from Paul, in order to become successful owner of a business, there are various things needed to take into consideration; my aspirations for the future have not changed as I still want to achieve my future ambition. However, following the speech, I now have a better idea of how to go about starting a business and getting through a range of obstacles that may be present on my way to success. 

CONFLICT

Conflict is simply a dispute; disagreement about something important. Conflict arises when there is an incompatibility of goals arising from opposing behaviours whether in a group or at an organisational level. Above all, it can obstruct achievement of someone’s goals.

EXPERIENCE OF CONFLICT

During my time at high school, we had to carry out a group presentation as part of our assessment. Everyone had to work in groups of four (chosen by the teacher) and gather ideas as well as complete the presentation, which was to be presented in class after a couple of weeks. When I found out the members I was working with, I was not satisfied with having to work with one of the members. The reason behind this is that that individual hardly turned up to lessons and never used to listen in the class. Nevertheless, I did not complain and decided to give it a go. Initially, we had to elect a group leader, who would prioritise the tasks between each group member and what each of us would have to carry out. To save any arguments from taking place, we decided to vote on who best fits as a group leader. However, having casted the votes and gathered the results, we found out that everyone’s opinions were different. Some issues were raised and arguments broke out; this did not help as we had not elected a group leader as well as thought of any ideas of how we were going to go about carrying out the project. In the end, we decided to ask our teacher to choose a group leader as we had no other ways to choose a leader without inflicting conflict. Once the leader was chosen, we decided to carry out research individually and bring together the research we had gathered. When we met up, three of us had managed to carry out the research thoroughly whereas the fourth member had made no effort in getting it done. He was the one that I initially had doubts about. This led to further conflict as we argued about why he hadn’t managed to carry out the work. In the end, he managed to get his act together and get the work done as he realised this assessment would affect everyone’s final grade.

SOURCES OF POWER

The most common description of power is French and Raven (1960). This divides power into five different forms. They are as follows:

·         Reward power- it is the ability to give other people what they want and getting them to carry out something in return. Employees wish to maximise job satisfaction and by receiving a reward, this can be achieved. Having rewarded an employee for hard work, there will be no negative outcomes arising. An example of when reward power can take place in a working environment is when a manager presents an employee with commission for having made fair share of sales.

·         Coercive power- this is similar to reward power, except it relies on the use of threats and other punishments to achieve objectives. An example of when employers take advantage of coercive power is when an owner of a football team presents the team coach with an ultimatum. For example, the manager may get told to win certain amount of games or else face the risk of getting sacked.

·         Expert power- this is where one person has the most prowess compared to the rest of the team. This power is based on creditability and clear evidence of knowledge or expertise. For example, in a football team, a captain may be given the power to make decisions for others because he is an expert at the sport.

·         Legitimate power- this concerns the hierarchical structure in an organisation. This power is based on authority and related to a person’s position within an organisation. In other words, people higher up in the organisation tend to have power over those below them in the hierarchical structure. For example, in the army, a soldier of senior rank, who is a commanding officer, literally has absolute control over the soldiers under his command. This is a consequence of legitimate power that he possesses due to his rank in the chain of command.

·         Referent power- this is the power of fame and charisma. Employees in a workplace look up to someone in an organisation and wish to follow their footsteps. They admire the quality someone possesses and hope to acquire the qualities themselves. An example of this could be a young individual wanting to follow in the footsteps of a hero or someone they get an inspiration from.

STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME CONFLICT

Every organisation must try and overcome any conflict that may arise in the workplace. Conflict is one of the reasons which can lead to firms losing their reputation. Although conflict may be inevitable, there are various ways in which a firm can avoid what follows the conflict. Some of these are:

·         Clarification of goals and objectives- One of the ways in which conflict can be overcome is to make sure the employees are aware of what the business expects from them and what the company aims are. If they are clear on goals and objectives, there will be no issues or mix-ups taking place. Making those in conflict working together to achieve the targets may help diffuse unfriendliness and lead to more supportive behaviour.

·         Non monetary rewards- Job satisfaction is vital for workers and when financial resources are limited, non monetary rewards help employees to perform better at work and gain satisfaction. Some examples of non monetary rewards are: flexible working hours, unofficial perks and more interesting and challenging work.

·         Human resource management policies and procedures- Policies can be put in place to make sure the employees are treated with respect and everyone has equal opportunity to contribute at work. The policies can be set by HRM to help reduce conflict. One of the main policies is the grievance policy, which allows employees to have their say on any issues that may have taken place. By being able to raise the issue as soon as it comes about, the conflict will not stretch for longer periods; it will be solved fairly quickly.

·         Involvement in decision making- Employers can get advice on plans and other ideas from the employees and together they reach on an agreement. This makes the employees feel that they are a fundamental part of the organisation; they feel that their analyses are valued by the business.

·        Group activities- by carrying out group activities, the employees will bond together as a team, which improves their communication skills. Such activities help build morale, hence reducing conflict.

CONCLUSION

The idea of conflict is foreseeable as it is something that will always be present whether in an organisation, school or at home. Conflict is one of the main reasons why employees sometime become unsatisfied at work. In the modern world, there is more competition for roles within a business and those with the best jobs tend to have growing reputation within that organisation. Everyone would want to be that one person who has glowing presence and is seen as a leader in the organisation, hence having to compete to get to the top. This leads to confrontation and personality clashes, which could hamper their chances of being recognised as one of the superior employees. It is vital for the employees to raise any issues they have so that the organisation can solve them instantly. If the issues are not raised, they will carry on to create conflict within members of the organisation thus having negative impact. Having various procedures in place to deal with conflict allows the organisation to carry on normally without much hesitation. However, the employees must also be able to confident enough to speak up and let the manager of the conflict that may have taken place as well as own up if it is their fault why the clash started off  in the first place.

REFERENCES

Mullins, L. (2010) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 9^th ed. England: Prentice Hall

M.Simpson (2010) PowerPoint presentation.

ChangingMinds (2010). Sources of Power [online]. Available from: http://changingminds.org/explanations/power/french_and_raven.htm

LEADERSHIP

Management vs. Leadership

“An effective leader doesn’t have to be a manager. Likewise a manager doesn’t necessarily have to be a leader. Yet the most effective managers generally have some leadership traits” (James Clausen)

Managers focus attention and energy on how things get done and their role in events that take place. In addition, they make decisions based on true facts; they do things by the book and think inside the box. They have the authority to direct work and behaviour. On the other hand, leaders are more concerned with ideas (consider big picture) and take into consideration what events and decision mean to people. In addition, a leader does what is right. Leaders have influence through example, persuading, motivating and teaching.

A good leader will generate an atmosphere of teamwork. Managers need to ensure their subordinates reach their goals either separately or collectively. Conversely, leaders have the ability to ensure the subordinates perform the tasks up to the standard required. They do this via inspiration or encouragement. 

Explanation of the managerial grid developed by Blake and Mouton (1964)

M.Simpson (2010)

The grid above was developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in the early 1960s. Known as the Managerial Grid, it plots the level of ‘concern for people’ against the ‘concern for production’ and classifies five combinations as diverse leadership styles.  ‘Concern for people’ is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team members and their interests when deciding how to best complete a task. Alternatively, ‘concern for production’ is the level to which a leader emphasises existing objectives, high output and organisational efficiency when deciding how best to complete a task.

The five leadership styles are described as follows:

·         Social- This style of leadership is mainly concerned about members within an organisation rather than the outcome. These people operate under the belief that as long as team members are happy and content then they will continue to work hard and remain motivated. The downside to this is that production suffers due to lack of direction and management.

·         Team- This is the ideal style as both production concerns and people concerns are equally taken into consideration. The belief is that members of staff are involved in understanding the needs for organisational production. Employees’ needs and production are equivalent when they are dedicated to their work and can recognise the company’s achievement. This leads to a top notch team environment, which then leads to high contentment and motivation and consequently, high production.

·         Middle-of-the-Road- This is where the manager balances the concerns equally. They avoid taking untested risks by relying on tried and trusted technique. As the concerns for both people and production are average, the performance will remain of a satisfactory standard rather than top quality.

·         Impoverished- This type of style is poor management style as the concerns, for productivity along with working atmosphere that is motivating, are low. Objectives are not met due to lack of motivation and a disorganised workplace.

·        Authoritative- managers in this category have great concern for production and little concern for people. As a result, they impose strict rules and procedures in order to achieve productive efficiency. Employees carry out the work and meet the objectives set, but remain dissatisfied. 

I carried out work experience at Halifax Plc for a couple of weeks. In the two weeks I was there, the manager ensured each member of staff remained motivated in getting the job done. In addition, he regularly checked up on the staff to see how they were getting on and whether they were achieving the objectives set. The type of style which relates to him the most is ‘middle-of-the-road’ management style. This is because he made sure the employees were satisfied at work as well as making sure the work was done to a satisfactory level.

A STRONG LEADER

Martin Luther King is probably the most famous person associated with civil rights movement. To many, Martin Luther King typified what the civil rights campaign was all about and he brought substantial international cover to the movement. He was able to convince thousands into believing what he believed in. People gained trust in him and that's one vital thing you need as a good leader: trust from followers. His determination and self-belief is what made him a courageous leader who dove right into the conflict and made people love him for his courage to stand up. He was a leader because he called for a change (justice for African Americans). In doing so, his main leadership trait was courage; the readiness to stand up and having to face the possibility of threats.

EVALUATION

Having thoroughly studied leadership as a topic, I fully understand the main differences between a manager and a leader. Every organisation needs a manager, but the most effective type of manager is someone who manages through leadership. Both managers and leaders have different traits enabling us to distinguish between the two. The Blake and Mouton Managerial grid helped me understand the distinct styles of management.

REFERENCES

Mindtools (2010). Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid [online]. available from: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm

Mullins, L. (2010) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 9^th ed. England: Prentice Hall

M.Simpson (2010) PowerPoint presentation.

Leadersdirect (2010). Martin Luther King Leadership [online]. Available from: http://leadersdirect.com/LeadersDirectBlog/?p=15