Friday, May 25, 2012

Week 11: Emotion processes

Let's compare figure out what emotions each superstar are portraying 
Did you got it right? 


This lecture talks about the many emotions that needs to be handled by one person his or her workplace. Generation who are in the workforce these days are no longer just interested in work-related content while working. There is an increasing interest in emotional side of organisational life whether it is rationality, logical choice in decision making or emotionality, emotional rules and intelligence. However, there is a need to understand on the emotional rules and emotional intelligence as it is important to display a certain appropriate emotion on different situation to cope with the conditions. Organisations are attempting to transform emotion into a marketable product that will enhance organisational profit. 


Stress may results from workload, role conflict, role ambiguity or even stressful life events. Stress usually will lead to negative outcomes such as physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, lack of personal accomplishment and depersonalisation. For organisation, employees will experience loss of work satisfaction, lack of commitment and bring high turnover effects on the company. Coping with stress can be done in three ways, one is to deal directly with the problem of the stress, two, is to focus on changing the way one thinks about the stressful situation and three is to deal with the negative affective outcomes of stress. Organisation can help employees in coping with stress by providing assistance such as social support, emotional, information or even instrumental support. 

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Week 10: Leadership processes and organisational change


This week’s lecture covers two parts of leadership and change. For leadership, it is important to understand the organisational context as leaders play a central role in the management of organisational symbolism. It is a process for guiding individuals and groups or even the entire organisations in establishing goals and sustaining action to support goals. Leadership communication provides vision of organisation that directs and redirects all organisational activities; it is a process of influence where leaders attempt to convince followers to attain specific goals or outcomes. Leaders are required to know how to say the right things and have a strong commitment to stakeholders. They are also needed to pay attention on the way message is being delivered as leaders should be able to frame their language during interaction; it is a way to manage meaning. These are the few things that are required in order to become an effective leader.


Organisation change is often natural whether it is planned or unplanned. Individual behaviour, organisational processes and strategic direction would be the few types of change. Typical problems identified in organisational change process would be lack of management support, top manages forcing change, inconsistent action by key managers, unrealistic expectations, lack of meaningful participation, poor communication, unclear purpose of the program and responsibility for change was not properly identified. There are some employees react negatively towards change in organisation such as resistance where behaviours intended to prevent the implementation or even ignorance of the change initiative and uncertainty where stress and heightened anxiety among employees. Some of the strategies to communicate change are spray and pray, tell and sell, underscore and explore, identify and reply and withhold and uphold. Unplanned changes usually happen upon crisis such as natural disasters, ethical violation and etc. It is something unpredictable with major threat that can have a negative effect on the organisation, industry or stakeholders if it is not handled properly. 



Sunday, May 13, 2012

Week 9: Conflict management processes



Conflict is the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aims and values, and who see the other party as potentially interfering with the realisation of these goals. There are positive and negative effects of conflicts, negative would be bringing disruption in organisation, destruction of relationships, may lead to anger, frustration and resentment, and also physical illness resulting from stress. While the positive effects are the increased stimulation amongst workers, better generation of ideas, recognition of flaws in a system, cohesiveness amongst conflict partners and adjustment of balance of power. The three ‘I’s of Incompatibility, interdependence and interaction describe the essential condition for conflict. Levels of conflict are segregated to interpersonal, inter-group and inter-organisational. Organisations have to be prepared to manage these conflicts and one ways is through the management grid approach by Thomas K.W (1976) where choices such as avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise and collaboration are ways to resolve conflict. Another way of managing conflict is through the 5A model by Borisoff and Victor (1989) assessment, acknowledgement, attitude, action and analysis are the 5A that needed to be understood. Bargaining is a unique form for negotiating mutually shared rules. Outsiders often represent parties in conflict and this strategy is used to settle inter-group and inter-organisational conflict. The main rule of this method of negotiation is to have mutual concession whether it is distributive or integrative bargaining. 

Friday, May 4, 2012

Week 8: Decision making processes



Decision making is a daily activity for any human being. There is no exception about that. When it comes to business organizations, decision making is a habit and a process as well. Effective and successful decisions make profit to the company and unsuccessful ones make losses. Therefore, corporate decision making process is the most critical process in any organization. In the decision making process, we choose one course of action from a few possible alternatives. In the process of decision making, we may use many tools, techniques, and perceptions. In addition, we may make our own private decision or may prefer a collective decision. Usually, decision-making is hard. Majority of corporate decisions involve some level of dissatisfaction or conflict with another party.
Who makes the decision? Below is a chart on the participatory rate of employees in decision making.



Participation in decision making (PDM) brings great attitudinal effects such as job satisfaction, job involvement and organisational commitment as well as brings positive effects to enhance the use of info and greater employee understanding of decision and organisation.

In lecture for this week, we had a fun time playing a game with marshmallows and spaghetti sticks. The goal was to build the tallest standing tower with those main material accompanied by few other materials such as tape, string and a scissors. This activity requires team work and leadership skills, thus, ultimately to test our decision making and leadership skills. For my team, I would say that we spent too much time in planning on the stability of the base and ended up with a strong base but short in tower. Our team leader lead by starting with an idea, then as the momentum keeps up, the leader listened to everyone’s ideas on enhancing the tower structure. The final decision was made by the team leader and agrees by the others.