The Decision-Making by the Managers - Essay Example

? Managing conflict Thesis Management of conflicts, power, and politics focuses majorly on the interpersonal processes the affect the decision-making by the managers. It may also entail the organizational way of change and adaptation of their immediate environment. It includes the capacity to influence the behavior of others in a relationship involving two parties like groups, organization, or even countries. Organizational politics is the process of one person exerting more influence over another in the relationship acted on daily forum of an organization. Conflict management is a common phenomenon in organizations (Rainey, 2009). Managing conflict aims at lessening the interdependent between the conflicting groups. It can involve physical separation of the conflicting parties. Physical separation buffers the creation of the inventory between the units of workflow making it less independent and reduces conflict. Generally, conflict is unending in any society where people live together. Introduction Many people and organization wish to compete peacefully with their market competitors, family members, and organizational departments. However, conflicts are inseparable from persons they form part of our daily living. Conflicts are the long live Methuselah and were present even in the beginning between the two brothers that is Cain and Abel. The term conflict has no definite meaning but scholars who are interested in studying it have created different accounts over the same. In an institutional setting conflict is a breakdown in the standard mechanism of the decision making bringing difficulty in the management of the organization. Conflict is a dynamic process underlies the organizational behavior (Rainey, 2009). When people work together, there must be tension and conflict among the individuals from time to time. Conflict is the natural and the immediate outcome of disagreement and results individuals who differ in terms of thought and likes. Sources of organization conflict National organizational groups’ conflicts source from the individuals persons who from the organization (Jones, 2010). Conflicts at work place, according to the university of Colorado faculty, stems from issues from the employees and the management or among the employees. One cause of conflict in an organization is differing values among the organization’s persons. The work place consists of individuals who have different perspective towards the daily issue that emerge in the company and life generally. Some strongly believe to them but are unwilling to comply with the standards. These beliefs are the main cause of conflicts to these institutions (McConnell and Leibler, 2011). For example some workers strongly belief in the diversity to the business, however they may not accept the different views from others or accept opposition over their belief. Another cause of conflict in an organization is the opposing interest of interest of the workers. This may come about if a worker decides to pursue his own goal without considering the goals of the business or the well being of other workers. It may result to result to strife among the workers hence a conflict. This situation occurs when some employees focus on achieving their own objectives without regarding their effect to the company’s operation. In the first instance, the victim may forget that she is a member of the institution’s team from which they are supposed to work to achieve a certain goal (Miller, 2008). The sole worker may work according to her own schedule in a manner that builds resentment to the whole organization. Personal conflict is another cause of conflict in an organization. Two or more people in an organization are prone to clash since no person is exactly like the other. One employee may possess a reversed personality while another may be an outgoing. When these two personalities clash, the immediate expectation is a conflict in the institution. Poor communication can also lead to strife among the employees ion an organization. For example, the manager forgets to relay some important information to the organization hence the employees end up committing grievous mistakes in the organization the may cause wrangles. Conveying wrong or exaggerated information may result to the employees being subject to blame a situation that may result to wrangles in the organization. Personal problems can also cause problems to the organization (Cowan, 2003). An employee could have problems outside the workplace like in family issues that she may take to the work place. Due to withdrawal effects, the worker may fail to coordinate with other workers. Some ignorant workers may assume that she has issue with them an event that can cause misunderstanding among the workers. Conflict between stakeholders and subunits The stakeholders are the owners of the company whereas the subunits entail all other parties that make production and management effective. A conflict may come in between the stakeholders and subunits of an organization (Jones, 2010). The main cause for these wrangles is mismanagement of funds. The stakeholders may fail to give other subunit their amount due and plough the money to them. The management may decide to funds of the organization at the expense of the workers. The stakeholders also may fail to give dividends to the workers or bonus as agreed causing them to strife. The stakeholders may also indulge onto conflicts with suppliers of, say raw materials, if they fail to make the payments on time (Rainey, 2009). A smart company management will simply call the subunits to discussion the matter then they give bonuses or enter in to another covenant. Stakeholders conflict with one another more often. Different promoters of as company may prefer different ideologies be driven in the organization which may not favor or impress others. For example, the manager might want to maximize the total output of the company, while the CFO ay want to practice real-time view in the factory invention. Since every individual wants their opinion considered, wrangles may erupt leading to practice of power hence organizational conflict. Mechanisms of Organizational control and power acquisition Control is not power-oriented as many may perceive it, but it is the effective flow of information. It can also be the creating of control monitor policies through the hierarchical authority specified in the business act. Large companies hold meeting on either annual basis or so and elect new members of board. Each member has an equal power to influence the persons to take the leadership positions. The business can employ different mechanisms to identify the best persons who can possibly take various positions. The identified body now lays standard policies that help to safeguard the organization’s financial information and the rights of all the subunits of the organization (Miller, 2008). The power of an organization needs balance in order for its multiple departments to work effectively under their mandate. The division of the responsibilities among various persons and departments ensures that an individual cannot overextend the organizational resources towards a certain department. The power of any organization is very important for the effective running of the organization. Therefore the efforts of the stakeholders should be recognized and they be given bonuses as a compensation mode for their dire efforts. Influence of power in decision-making Decision-making is a very crucial component of a business management. The obvious question that revolves around the major organization is how good a decision made is. The governing body, however, in any organization does decision-making, in a hierarchical manner. The head manager is the most influential person in the organization. In many organizations, decision-making centralizes to the powers of the makers. Power is a much-contested concept in the outcomes of the organization (McConnell and Leibler, 2011). The power influences greatly the decision making of any organization. Being in a position of power makes an individual have a higher influence in the decision-making. Power affects the conscious of an individual in the context of decision-making. For example persons who can file a problem away and think about it consciously have great focus on the details of the content and thus they must have power in the organization hence are influential in decision making. The new research on business explains that power increases confidence to an individual hence has the ability to make informed decisions. The employees as well tend to be attentive and abide to the decision of the powerful players in an organizational setting. In addition, the most powerful persons in an organization are associated with help to the major problems facing the organization. Therefore, they address the tricky situations facing the organization. How the individuals and subunits obtain power that influence change Most of the decision makers in an organization have turned to be selfish as they influence decision making in an organization in their favor. Some individuals and subunits in a society justify their contribution in an organization by maximizing the expectation towards disadvantaging the customers and shareholders. The shareholders in the organization have little value in such kind of an organization. The shareholders should get a good return but instead these benefits are channeled to the customers, communities, and the subunits. This selfish behavior of some members in an organization is due to greed. Some members wish to get a share that does not genuinely belong to them. Involvement of the organization or subunits to Organizational politics Organizations politics occurs where an individual exerts more influence over another on the relationship enacted on the daily forum of the organization. They influence the power and relation between the two parties that involved. More of ten than not the organizations and the sub units engage in politics to enhance their control power in the decision making of an organization. Organizational; politics are very rational in persuasion, appeal and persuasion. Therefore assuming the organizational politics can be a source for pressure to integrate the most effective strategies that influence the whole system of the organization. Organizational politics enables a person to obtain power that may allow him to influence the change of the institutional management in the favor of the person in question. An individual with political power uses different tactics to achieve his goal. For example, the subordinate might use ingratiation as well as personal appeal if he has the power to make decision. Effective political influence is a tactic that can be learned and therefore is expected to vary among the various managers of an organization. It is healthy to be involved in organizational politics as they keep one aloof to the game of politics as well being effective in the task performance. However, organizational politics occurs with or without organizational member involvement. Refusal of the organizational politics by a manager makes him unaware of the current waves and vulnerable to incompetency. An organizational politician is able to lunch together the different forces of an organization with a view of coalescing different works together (Rainey, 2009). According to John Gardener, power is the basic energy to initiate and sustain action or the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Power is also the base for influence for the leaders who want an opportunity to build oneself in a direction of dire success. A business is prone to credibility by the way it executes its approaches to the organizational life. Te way the managers of a business make decision whether in a rationalistic way or not have a great influence to the performance of the participants. Engagement of organizations in politics may be malicious or not according to the intention of the victim. More often than the stakeholders enter into political in order to acquire more power and control as well as influence over the junior hence benefit more from them (Miller, 2008). Organizations provide power for the individuals in a pure economic standpoint. They meet the needs the marketplace. Managers use the organizational politics to develop their political career as well s individual interests and motives. Organizational development of careers in the high managerial and professional levels is evident in the organizations. Therefore, the managers of the various organizations have utilized politics to accumulate power that will steer their political career over other persons. Importance of managing power Power management refers to how the energy of consumption effectively optimizes energy consumption in the system of component. People in an organization draw power to influence and conduct activities in an organizational structure through expertise of knowledge and skills, interpersonal skills, and ability to control resources. Power is as well very important to any organization (McConnell and Leibler, 2011). The different personnel constituted in the organization need to channeling in a particular way in order to achieve certain objective. Therefore, in order to achieve this, the managers must exercise most of their power to direct and coordinate activities in the organization. The other members of the organization may also exercise power over their peers in order to achieve personal objectives. These personal objectives may however contradict those of the organization therefore; powers of the individuals must have control. The managers of the various organizations cannot work alone therefore, power delegation is very important in the course of executing duties in the organization. Delegation simply is the trusting of a certain individual with a certain responsibility that seems performs effectively the task. In the process of duty delegation, one should look for a person who can effectively use and allocate the organization resources and supervise job effectively in order to achieve the objective of the organization. People with authority should know its bounds and not use it to misuse the subjects or those who are below them in authority (Miller, 2008). Authority always flows from top to the lowest rank in the organization. Authority must have an accompaniment of responsibility. The person delegated the duty must be responsible. Responsibility means execution of a given task within a stipulated span of time. The person given the responsibility must complete the task within the stipulated time, failure to do so he must be held accountable of the failure. Responsibility without sufficient power leads to discontent and dissatisfaction among those responsible (Jones, 2010). The person responsible over a job is answerable to it. The person delegated a duty must be accountable. This means he can give a clear explanation for the variance in the actual performance of the job delegated. Accountability simply means being answerable to the end-result of an event. Accountability is very essential and inescapable because it results from responsibility. Organizational inertia is a property virtue through which am organization remains at peace with all its subunits and other players. Every organization tries to find stability of their produce in the market share and brand leadership. The real paradox is when this stability or consistency in an organization is achieved. It is practically hard if not impossible for an organization to state its stabilization point in its growth process because of the negligence that takes place along with complacency (Rainey, 2009). Things can be steered to the desired direction in speed due to the processes and strategies laid by the organization, hence setting in the monotony of inertia in the organization. The best example of a business that has maintained inertia is the Toyota Company. The good performance of the Toyota Company is due to quality management especially in the human resource department. Processes of the company are at par in terms of development and maintain the inertia mood set into it by the management. Organizational changes due to power . Power and politics are detrimental objects applied in the changing process of a business. Power is an inevitable resource used to bring constant changes in an organization. Power can influence changes to business either through peaceful means in a forceful way. In order for an organization to attain its intended goal, strict observance of the laid down policies is necessary. An organization may for example decide to improve produce by a certain percentage within a specified period. The company must then lay down objectives to achieve their target. Strict observance of the objectives is necessary to achieve the set goal. However, some of the set policies may not favor some workers (McConnell and Leibler, 2011). Power application in this situation is very essential to ensure the desired goals come to be. Power therefore has a great influence in bringing chances to an organization. Conclusion Managing conflict, power, and politics is one of an organization’s major priorities because these factors determine which decisions the organization make and therefore, ultimately, its survival. Power, politics, and conflict are three basic essentials of an organization. These three factors focus on the social and interpersonal nature of the organization and are very influential to the decision making in the organization. The co-ordination of the three processes in an organization brings an effect to the entire environment and a business mood. Any organization should give first priority to the power and political influence to the organization (Cowan, 2003). Any organization should lay down strategies that help solve conflicts as they emerge. For a business to succeed in its operation, it should exercise power over the workers and demand their effectiveness in executing duties. Organizational politics should have limit so as not to interfere with the organizations programs. References Cowan, D. (2003). Taking Charge of Organizational Conflict: A Guide to Managing Anger and Confrontation. Mississippi: Personhood Press. Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change. (6 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. McConnell, C and Leibler, J. (2011). Management Principles for Health Professionals. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Miller, K. (2008). Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes. New York: Cengage Learning. Rahim, M. (2010). Managing Conflict in Organizations. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Rainey, H. (2009). Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Saxena, R. (2005). Marketing Management. Shanghai: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Read More