Conflict Management in Public Management or Public Administration - Research Paper Example

 ‘Making logical sense of arguments offering managerial advice is a difficult and ultimately futile exercise.’ Introduction This essay is based on the discussion that is derived from the statement: ‘Making logical sense of arguments offering managerial advice is a difficult and ultimately futile exercise.’ Before moving towards the discussion associated with this statement, it is critical to analyze and understand the statement itself. In literal terms, this statement is stating a justifiable fact that it is difficult to make logical sense of the arguments that are aimed at offering managerial advice and at the end, only to be realized that it was a useless exercise. In the meanings beyond dictionary itself, the statement has a much deeper meaning, and this deeper meaning shall be discussed during the course of this essay. Background of the Topic This topic is related to conflict management in the area of public management or public administration. It is often a strong underlying assumption in conflicts that argument leads to nowhere, which is often found to be very true; unless the concerned parties in the conflict sit together and discuss the issue and/or involve a third person for resolving the issue, it goes nowhere. It is critical for issue resolution to be a good listener, rather than having only hearing skills, because listening is a step ahead of hearing since it involves understanding and comprehension of what is being said. Conflict management is an art, and when dealing with public issues, this becomes a major challenge. In the broad context of defining conflict management with the tag of public issues, the scope moves beyond the office set-up, and can involve, for example, union-management issues, public-counsel issues, etc. Analysis & Discussion of the Statement A close and deep analysis of the topic leads to the conclusion that there are some key terms that are utilized in the composition of the topic, and these are: Logical Sense Arguments Managerial Advice Difficult Ultimately Futile Exercise Seemingly, these words are fairly common terms used in English language, but the gurus of the language speak themselves that at times, the most common terms are the most difficult ones to describe. Following the same, it is essential to describe these key terms with reference to the given topic. Logical sense generally implies, understanding a certain issue in a manner that it makes sense via the route of logic i.e. the explanation contains logic and has substances, and makes sense. For example, raising salaries can deteriorate profits makes perfect logical sense, but the solution is not not-raising-salaries, but rather a good way out can be introducing performance based bonuses because salaries are fixed and bonuses vary with relation to the profits. Arguments are the cross-charge statements whereby one entity disagrees to the view point of the other and presents its statement of disagreement. Managerial advice is simply put the advice placed to the management, and likewise any other entity getting an advice, the management also needs to comprehend and analyze various factors including the outcome of the application/implementation of the advice. The three terms described by far can be combined together to comprehend that the arguments, when presented to the management should make logical sense for the application. However, in line with the given statement for discussion, it is difficult to make logical sense out of the arguments presented to the management. And as the key words speak, its difficult and ultimately, it’s a useless exercise – the exercise hereby implies the conflict management or resolution mechanism that has been deployed. Why are the advices assumed to have no logical sense? In recent researches, conflict has been identified as a state of human behavior rather than an event, as previously stated. Previously, conflict was identified as an event whereby there is contradiction in acts or thoughts of individuals or group of individuals. Today, the advance research considers conflict as a state of human behavior whereby the individual or groups of individuals close all doors of thought processes and assume their opinion to be solely true. Once the doors are open, the state changes to the conflict resolution mode. Thus, it can be derived that once an individual (or a group) has closed all doors of thought process, there is no chance for it to even listen, let alone understand, what the other opinion states. This is a rather irrational state of mind whereby rationality cannot be much expected. Thus, the reason is simple and clear on why the advices, no matter who is making it and no matter who is the receiver, the advice seems all with no logic. Understandably, the individual seems to assume them to be the only one on the right track. Subsequently, advices do not seem to make any logical sense. However, the question that arises is, that are all the advices senseless? Are all advices senseless? As reflective from the previous section that the entities involved do not wish to listen, let alone understanding the view point; if adopted, this is, in essence, the best resource for conflict resolution. However, if open mindedness is retained and view points are listened to, there are bright chances of reaching a conclusion. No theory states that in a conflict, all advices placed forwards to the management, or otherwise, are senseless, but no theory states otherwise too. Subsequently, no rule of thumb can be placed which can define all advices to be useless or senseless from the managerial perspective or even for the issue otherwise. Listening is the only solution in this regard, thereby understanding which advices make sense. It can also be analyzed that the whole advice may not be completely valid, but part of it, may be meaningful enough to be deployed. The application of this phenomenon and various other mechanisms for issue resolution are discussed in the next section of this essay. Types of conflict Conflicts are the difference between what should have been and what is. There are various kinds of conflicts that are going on within an organization. There are personality conflicts between various people can trigger the resistance of change. Professional affiliations are also a factor. Alvesson states, “Even if one should downplay conflicts between organizational and professional commitment, it is nevertheless likely that a person who sees herself primarily as a professional—broadly defined—develops weaker ties to the company as such” (p. 1109). To counteract these problems, Alversson suggests increasing “communitarian-based” loyalty by strengthening relationships between employees and thereby indirectly enhancing loyalty to the company (p. 1112). Managing loyalty, Alversson claims, is a strategy for managing turnover. Then, there are conflicts between two managers. Two people, who have been given the same authority and the same level in the hierarchy, if there is a conflict between them, then how can it be handled by further managerial advice. How to apply Conflict Management techniques? There are various conflict management techniques defined by gurus of the subject and can be applied to this instance for ensuring that the conflict is resolved, ideas are listened, the feasible ones are adopted and things move on smoothly. The prime pre-requisite of this is that both the entities involved should be open for a solution, because creating a win-win situation is the ultimate aim, and in such a scenario, all the involved entities need to take a step forward. The prime and most widely applied and accepted mechanism hereby is to have all participants present their issues. Once the issues are placed, then the view point of each entity should be taken on the issue. The key word here is ‘view point’, not ‘argument’ because arguments will not lead to anywhere, and if a decision is achieved, it will not be as satisfactory for the involved entities. Communication, validation and negotiation are essential aspect of this process. Compromising is another critical aspect. More often than not, it is essential to detach from the situation in order to cool the anger. What is leadership? Leadership is the process by which one individual influences others to accomplish desired goals. Within the business organization, the leadership process takes to form of a manager who influences subordinates to accomplish goals defined by top management. There may be two different kinds of leadership in any organization: formal leaders and informal leaders. The two are not the same, yet both may exercise leadership behavior in influencing others. A formal leader is someone officially vested with organizational authority and power, and is generally given the title of supervisor, manager or executive. The amount of power is theoretically determined by the position occupied with the organization. An informal leader will not have a formal leadership title, but will exercise a leadership function. Without organizational authority, assignment of power, position or even responsibility, an informal leader (by virtue of a personal attribute or superior performance) may influence others and act in leadership capacity. Now that the concept of different leader types has been presented, it is now necessary to understand the nature of power within an organization, for effective use of individual power is the basis of leadership. The Role of Leadership or a Manager The role of a leader or a manager is critical in conflict resolution, particularly, since the topic relates to the argument form of advices that managers receive. Managing people is a difficult task altogether. (Robert, 1982) Often in many situations crisis occurs between the management and the employees. This is when the Organizational Development wing of the Human Resource Department steps in. To understand the function of the organizational development wing, its definition needs to be stated: it is the application of behavioural science techniques to improve on organization's health and effectiveness through its ability to cope with environmental changes, improve internal relationships, and increase problem solving capabilities. Conflict and crisis management is a very crucial job of the OD wing. Conflicts are a normal part of any healthy organization but their effective management is what makes a company stands out in the long run. It is one of the primary tasks of the Human Resource Department to maintain employees amongst other factors such as attracting and developing them. While maintaining employees, it is important to take care of labour relations that are what agreements are being made with the labour unions. Are they beneficial for the employees and is it keeping the employees interest at heart. The employees need to feel that the organization cares for them and this should be proven in the type of negotiations that are held while making labour union contracts and the type of contract that is ultimately made. (Buchanan, 2007) Organizational Power entrusted with Leaders Leaders have been given various types of powers, courtesy their level in their hierarchy. They can use any of these powers to manage conflict. Power is the ability to influence subordinates and/or peers by controlling resources. A successful leader effectively uses power to influence others (Bielous 1995, Pearse 2000). It is important for a leader to understand the sources and uses of power to enhance their leadership ability. The types of organizational power are: Legitimate Power; Reward Power; Coercive Power; Expert Power; Referent Power; and Information Power (Bielous 1995). Legitimate power is the power inherent within the organizational structure itself (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). This power is assigned to an individual who occupies a specific position within the organization. Should the individual leave the position, the power remains with the position and does not follow the individual. This power is made legitimate within the organization, and the individual is vested with the power. This assumption of power is generally signified by an official title like Manager, Vice President, Director or Supervisor. It is important to understand that a position higher in the organizational hierarchy will have more power vested in it than found in a lower position. And, that this higher lever position will be able to exercise more power than someone in a lower level position. When it comes to resolving conflicts through this power, and offering managerial advice with the usage of this power, it can be said that the advice carries with itself a lot of authority and weight. If the Vice President of the company will start giving managerial advice on the solution of conflict to the parties of conflict, the effect is surely going to be there. Reward power is also inherent within the organizational structure in that managers are typically given administrative authority over a variety of rewards (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). Since employees desire rewards, they can be influenced by the chance of receiving them as a result of work performance. Organizational rewards may be the obvious (pay and promotions), or they may be more subtle (praise, status and attention). This gives managers a wide range of rewards to motivate work performance. A manager will possess reward power over an employee to the point that there is managerial control over the reward potential, and that the employee will value the available rewards. The reward power of the manager is greatly diminished if a manager cannot deliver a desired reward, or if the available reward is not desired. The reward provided should be suitable to motivate the desired work performance. Management’s task with rewards is to make effective use of organizational resources to motivate genuine performance. When a manager possessing reward power will give managerial advice on conflicts, the parties of conflict might listen to him more because of the nature of power he has. Employees here want to be rewarded as much as possible. With such power, the whole task of giving managerial advice might not ultimately prove to be a futile exercise. Coercive power is based upon the manager’s ability to punish an employee (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). Punishment options range from a mild warning to suspension to termination. A range of punishments is needed because management requires some degree of flexibility so that the punishment applied is suitable to the offense that gives rise to it. A major consideration to keep in mind with this type of managerial power is that punishment or threat of punishment will not promote desired employee performance, it will only discourage undesired actions. Even though punishment does not promote desired behavior, in serving to discourage undesired behavior it is a powerful managerial tool that can have severe repercussions. In coercive power, the manager might use this power to make sure that conflicts are resolved and the managerial advice-giving process does not become a futile exercise. He can give punishments to the parties of conflict through his coercive power. Expert power comes from the expertise possessed by the manger, and the value and need of this expertise within the organization (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). This expertise is a result of the manager’s special skills, knowledge, abilities and/or previous experience. Expert power, derived from special knowledge or advanced education, is typically unrelated to age and job seniority since it often depends upon educational achievement and not necessarily time on the job. A key benefit of this form of power is that it allows someone who is relatively young or new to the work force to gain influence within the organization. It is important to remember that the value placed upon a specific expertise within the organization is temporary. This means that as times change so does what is needed and valued by the organization. This kind of power is usually useless when it comes to giving managerial advice on conflict resolution. The manager possessing expert power will more or less have more knowledge about practical and technical stuff that his degree has taught him. Such a manager will not be that good in handling interpersonal situations and problems. If such managers are asked to give managerial advice, then this might become a futile exercise in the end. Referent power is the ability of one individual to influence another by force of character, also known as charisma (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). A manager may be admired because of a specific personal trait, and this admiration creates the opening for interpersonal influence. A manger that is talented, or even just plain likable, may be described by employees as inspiring and motivating. This manager has charisma, and this will give him or her great power and influence within the organization. An interesting thing about referent power is that it can be gained by association. In this case, an individual’s power may derive not from their personality, but from that of the person with whom they are associated. The titles of assistant or deputy are often used to signify those associated with individuals who possess great organizational power. Even though these assistants may not have great power, they are often perceived as acting in place of those who do. Thus, in addition to being charismatic, referent power is also associative. This power is the most important in conflict resolution and providing managerial advice. The charisma of such leaders is so much that the parties to conflict get influenced very easily. In such a case, even if the managers are losing the battle, they can use their charisma to turn the tables and present a win-win situation to the employees, thus saving the process from becoming a futile exercise. Information power comes from the possession of key information at a critical time when such information is necessary to the functioning of the organization (Bielous 1995, Salzwedel 2002). The possession of information may be completely unrelated to a manager’s position or given power. Someone who is simply “in the know” has information power. The opposite of this is also true. If someone’s information is old news, their organizational power may decline. Such power is important when the conflict is of a specific nature. For instance, when a conflict can only be resolved if some specific information will be provided to the parties of conflict, then this power is very vital. Such leaders can then present the required information and influence conflict positively. Conclusion In the case of conflicts, ‘making logical sense of arguments offering managerial advice is a difficult and ultimately futile exercise.’ This can be rightly said, in the light of the above discussion. The conflict management process is difficult because the entities which are at fault are making strong assumptions about ways and things. Their minds are closed as to see the difference between right and wrong. And thus, the managerial advice often ultimately ends in a futile exercise. The management needs to very articulately use various kinds of power and especially the OD wing of HR department to manage these conflicts and save it from ending in a futile exercise. References 1. Hood, Christopher (2005), “Public Management: The Word, The Movement, The Science,” The Oxford Handbook of Public Management, ed. Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. and Christopher Pollitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 2. Moore, Mark (1995), Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), introduction and chapter 1. 3. Hales, Colin (1999), “Why Do Managers Do What They Do? Reconciling Evidence and Theory in Accounts of Managerial Work,” British Journal of Management 10 (4): 335–350. 4. Stokes, Randall, and John P. Hewitt (1976), “Aligning Actions,” American Sociological Review 41 (5): 838-849. 5. 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