Enterprise week

Bucks New University hosted an event over reading week called Enterprise Week in which it held speeches and talks about different business’s and ideas about business. It was extremely interesting and informative to the students who attended. Two of the events attended during the week included a talk by the owner of the baby food brand ‘Ella’s Kitchen’, and a man who built an empire in the world of radio and recording. Both had different views to how businesses should be set up and how it should work. Each event lasted no longer than two hours. The week helped a lot to see how others gained way into markets that already had strong competitors, and they helped open the students’ eyes into thinking they too could have a chance at being an entrepreneur as well known as the people that came to speak to them.

I attended two talks which were held in two separate places around the university grounds. ‘Ella’s Kitchen’ was very informative to me because it made me think that i two could come up with an amazing product that would make competitors know that i was a threat. I benefited from him because he told me and the other attendees that just being that bit more initiative and adapt to the market that bit quicker than the competitors you will grow as fast as his company did. This benefited me because it made me think that i could actually achieve my goals as he had done. The other was a man speaking about how he made his company grow from working with his competitors which benefited me because he told us about how he used his old employers to help achieve his goal in making his own company. He told us a lot about every detail of his company and i felt like i had really gotten to know about the business and that i too could build one from scratch just like how he had done.

Power and Conflict at Work

Conflict is when their is a disagreement either within a business, i.e. two managers not agreeing on the same path for the business, or externally, with competitiveness disagreement between two different businesses, i.e. a supermarket causing conflict between them and more local shops.


When i worked for a punting company in Cambridge, their was always a lot of conflict between other companies, such as vandalism to boats, and competitiveness over customers. strategies to end this conflict was to allow less people to work in areas to avoid the competitiveness, and often company's would form alliances to avoid the destruction towards the boats. although the industry is a very conflicting and competitive place, so these strategies don't completely stop the conflict but did help prevent it a little.



Power is the ability of one person influencing the behaviour and attitudes of others, meaning it isn't just leaders and managers who can use power.
Sources of power can be; Legitimate power, from a formal position. employees are influenced because they accept the authority of the position of the power holder.An example of this is managements power over the employees that work for them. This power is most common in any business. Reward power, is when an employee is influenced by power in order to be rewarded by the employer. An example of this may be when an employee is given an opportunity for a promotion and so works harder to achieve it. Coercive power, is when an employee is controlled to avoid punishment by the employer. Example could be is the worker is threatened by being fired and so tries to avoid it by working harder and reaching the expectation of the power holder. Expert power, is based on the persons skills and expertise in an area. An example could be an accountant informing management of recent transactions within the business, and sharing their knowledge to help management change certain targets.



Their are five main strategies for resolving conflict. The first one is Avoidance. this is sometimes the best strategy, often time will fix the problem, or trying to fix it yourself will make it worsen. although avoiding the problem can develop less trust in management. the second strategy is Accommodating, this is a strategy that rarely leads to the conflict being solved. although it can help solve the immediate problem, but the main issue still may remain. Next is Forcing, this is when the manager forces the other side of the conflict to accommodate. This can be a good long term solution, although it can be competitive and sometimes aggressive. the manager tries to force what they think is right onto the opposite group, but this can end in the problem worsening and cause more anger. Compromise is often the best way to help with conflict. although it leaves both sides feeling as though they lost if the manager decides the compromise.   Lastly, Problem Solving can be achieved in order for both parties to feel equal. they must agree on cooperation not competition, trust, status deferences can be minimized, and mutually acceptable solutions can be found. A mutual decision is often the best way to solve conflict as both groups will agree on it in order to work. however this can only work if both parties agree on the same interests.

Leadership

Management is a roll assigned to someone who is able and better trained than the people below him/her and is able to make decision and is more responsible than the workforce. Leadership isn't as official, someone in the workforce can feel as though they could take responsibility to help the group/team reach goals.

The Managerial Grid is based on two behavioural theories:

• Concern for People – This is in which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to complete a task.
• Concern for Production – This is in which a leader focuses on objectives, organisational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to complete a task.

Using the graph to plot leadership ‘concerns for production’ versus ‘concerns for people’, Blake and Mouton defined the following five leadership styles:

Source: http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/apple.html an archive of the Apple founders/inventors.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded apple in 1976 and since have been considered revolutionary in the in the computing industry. they are strong leaders with their approaches to dominate markets. they were able to run successful businesses through out their careers and became multimillionaires through their leadership skills. together they became two of the most influencial inventors and leaders of the home entertainment/computing industry. the article discusses how they were able to overcome many obstacles in order to maintain a reputation for their successes.


Leadership is extremely important within the business environment in order to run businesses smoothly and successfully high up people must be good leaders, knowing their customers and their products well in order to stay afloat in the competitive environment of running a business.

Organisation Culture

Culture is all about how a company can create an atmosphere using different management techniques to create a personality for a business. It is to do with how employees share values in the workplace. Such as punting in Cambridge, we use culture to make customers feel welcomed and happy, by trying to stay traditional to Cambridge and its history we make an atmosphere for people visiting the city wanting to see its architecture. If we were not enthusiastic about the job, the culture of the business would not attract customers.


Handy's view on culture is split into four main groups, which he explains to be how different a company can be using the different cultures.

A power culture in his theory is described as a 'web'. this culture is normally found in small familly business's, reflecting concentration of power in a family orientated operation. strict responsiblitys given to personalities rather than expertise creating the power structure, or 'web'. for example, a corner shop.

Role culture is sometimes stereotyped as portraying bureaucracy. the triangle at the top is when decision making takes place. the pillars represent the workers who put decisions into actions. the strength of the business will be shown in how strong the employees are in the pillar area of a company. Handy states that your job description will be more important than your skills and abilities in this culture type. performance past the job description is not needed. for example, a large enterprise.

This culture is seen a lot in research and development activities as they are much more dynamic. they are always changing and creating temporary task teams to keep future needs maintained. expertise and information is very important in this culture. their is close connections between each department shown by its 'net' like representation. this means that the organisation can see change occurring quickly and are able to adapt to these changes.

this culture isn't really used for business's, but more for self-help groups or communities, etc. it has rejected the idea of a managerial heirachy. organisations that use this culture collectively make decision together as a group. it is more for meeting needs of the members, and not for a 'getting the job done' culture.

it is difficult to suggest what type of culture an organisation may be using as all managerial roles may have completely different values, and ideas on how to get a business to flow.


In conclusion i think that these four cultures are a good outline of how a business can function and use values to work.

Improving Staff Performance

The different motivation theories are content, and process. The difference between them are the internal and external factors affecting how well workers do their jobs. Content theories look at the surroundings of the staff and what motivates them and keeps them happy. Process looks more at what staff can do for themselves, and how HRM can assure the workers are self motivated.

I chose to look at the John Lewis organisation because they seem to be able to motivate staff strongly. primary research shows that they treat staff really well, by giving them good breaks and lunches. a friend of mine work for them, and they seem to really enjoy working their, which means they are well motivated. John Lewis is a partnership company which means they give their staff the shares in the business. this means the general public can not buy shares into the company, and means the staff earn bonuses through shareholding.

John Lewis motivate their staff by including them in decision making to give them a sense of responsibility in the business. They also receive a bonus throughout their year, this is because John Lewis considers all staff shareholders, and so gives back some profits to its staff in the form of a bonus. This keeps staff motivated because these bonuses are increased on different aspects.

The first thing that is made clear is their views on motivation and happiness of the staff:

(taken from the JLP Jobs website)

The website also states that the company is unique in its Human Resources approach, and i couldn’t agree more.

John Lewis also uses Goal Setting as a way of motivating people, first used by Locke and Latham.  By setting targets and goals for the staff they feel like they have something to work towards to keep them motivated. Such as in John Lewis, their goals may to be to earn a certain amount each day. And if staff are able to reach the goals (which should be a challenge yet reachable) they will see their work more important to the company and be well motivated.

I found that if staff are well motivated more work will get done, and i think process and content theories have a good range of ways to do so. I found it interesting reading about them in my books, because i think i could use them myself in real life to keep myself motivated.