Enterprise Week

For enterprise week we had to attend at least two events in order to be able to complete this report. I attended two different events during this week.

The first even that took place that I attended was a workshop called Little Kicker where a Graduate from Buckinghamshire New University cam to the university and talked about herself and how she open up the franchise as Partnership. This event took place on Tuesday 9^th November 2010 at 11am and lasted for at least an hour. Little kickers is a young children’s sports centre where they allow children from the age of two to seven to participate and learn to play sport. These included children to learn to play football, rugby and also taught them swimming. It was located in the Owen Harris building lecture room 1.

The second event that I attended to was a dance club called So We Know You Can Dance. This event took place on Friday 12^th November 2010 at 12pm to 1pm. This took place only for an hour however; we learnt a few things within the hour. So We Know You Can Dance was a dance club that taught different types of dancing such as Salsa, Tango, street dancing and many more for all ages. This event was held in Buckinghamshire New University in the Old Board Room.

First event Little kickers, which took place in the Owen Harris building Lecture room 1 with the Sports Management lecture. Both Business Management and Sports Management attended this event and learnt about start up an own business. In this event we learnt how a Graduate student started up her own franchise with a bit of help with her partner in the business. She looked into the industry and wanted to open a workshop for children to join so they can learn and be taught all different kind of sports.

In this event, we was also told how they import and export equipments for the children. Equipment is export from warehouse where the Little Kicker’s get supplied the good equipment needed in order to learn and for the children to become fond of what they are being taught. They try to supply the best performance and equipment for their children so they are more determined to stay and stay as a member. Little Kicker’s employ fully trained and certified employees and with plenty of experience. They must be reliable and trustable and also be full of energy in order to bond with the children. The employees working hours do depend on themselves.

In the second event, So We Know You Can Dance, we also learnt how the organisation works and how they motivate and attract more people to join. This organisation was created to teach people how to dace, whether they are a beginner or and a professional. To become members of the dance industry, you need to be fully motivated to practice and attend sessions as told. This business started of small but has now created their own recognition and is spreading themselves around the UK and maybe outside if they fill as they will be able to keep up the business reputation. They are thinking about creating their own website so people who are not member’s can read about it and participate.

Out of the two event, the one that benefit me the most is Little kicker’s. This is because I also want to own my own business for little children where they can spend at least 4-5 hours a day playing, learning and participating in small charity events such as Red Nose Day. From this event I that if I want to start up my own business, I would have to invest and research in the idea more in order to get it started.

In my opinion, the activity that I believe was most successful is Little Kicker’s. I say this because they have a sports centre expanding in the UK, such as London, Liverpool and Henly. They are also growing as a business and managing to make profits and also are being able to grow as an industry. There are more recommendations for Little Kicker’s to franchise themselves more around the world as their are many parents who want their children to be able to get the best in these activities.

                          

I believe that if both of the businesses want to do better than they already are, they should open their businesses more locally and not have one centre after every20-30miles with the radius. I say this because I believe the more centre’s being opened locally will catch people attention and will be easier for them to attend. It will also be less time consuming and less hassle to travel for example in the snow or rain.

Organisation Conflict

Conflict can be described as a disagreement between two individual or parties. Different things can cause conflict between individuals or an organisation, these include issues such as difference in perception, and how people see things, individual conflict such as personality clashes. This can cause conflict because difference in opinions and ways to dealing with thing. Another thing that can cause conflict is environmental change, such as increased competition and new technology. This is because big changes become really hard to get use to therefore adjusting can lead to conflict.

In 6^th form, I participated in young enterprise were my role was as a marketing manager. In my group, we had individuals with big personalities that clashed quite a few times. For example, for valentine’s day, we had a task to open up a fair trade in Uxbridge town centre and we had to plan and decide how we was going to plan it, who was going to do what and what ideas are going to be used. While making these decisions, members from my team got into different arguments with each other because some people wanted to do themed fair trade where as others wanted it to be unique and not themed or related to Valentine’s Day. To sort this out, we had to do get votes from each member of the team and whoever had the most votes would get to use their idea for the fair trade. This was really hectic however, everyone compromised and overcome this.

Organisations can use five different strategies to overcome conflict at work. These strategies are:

Ø  Clarification of goals and objectives

Ø  Resource distribution

Ø  Human resource management policies and procedures

Ø  Non-monetary rewards

Ø  Development of interpersonal/group process skills

Ø  Group activities

Ø  Leadership and management

Ø  Organisational process

Ø  Socio-technical approach

Organisations can use clarification of goals and objectives to overcome conflict at work as this will help avoid misunderstanding and confusion. Organisations use human resource management policies and procedures to reduce conflict as this helps them decide punishments, responsible work, flexible hours and grievance and disciplinary procedure and this will keep employees on a warning and they will be aware of their actions. Leadership and management can be used to avoid conflict in an organisation this shows respect, encourages personal development and creates a friendly working environment for employees to get along.

French and Raven have identified that there are different “source of power” within an organization. These sources are explained below:

Reward Power:

Reward power means having the ability to give rewards through things such as promotion, favors, recognition and other resources. An example of reward power would T mobile and offering upgrades to their customers. They reward the customer or customers by offering them a better deal as they committed to that company for a certain period of time and show their appreciation by rewarding them with a better deal.

Coercive Power:

Coercive power means where the company can punish the employees or customers through dismissals, demotions and reprimands. Also the removal of privileges can also be put into coercive power. Example of this can be customers being removed from Fitness First gym for breaking the rules or regulations of the gym and therefore the authority of that organisation can apply coercive power through dismissal or demotion from their gym.

Legitimate Power:

Legitimate power is having the authority to exert power over others. An example of this can be the manager of a retail shop firing or hiring employers. The manager of Morrison’s would have the power to fire an employee if it is for a legitimate reason.

Referent Power:

Referent power means having influence over others and this can be acquired from being well liked or gaining respect. An example of this could be a sale assistant in Topman working hard to be like the manager due to the manager gaining the respect of his worker and having a major influence to his job role.

Expert Power:

Expert power means having the ability to influence someone in making a decision or course of action through experience or having the specific knowledge. Also a person may be given the power to make decisions for others due to their expertise in that specific field. Example of exert power could be a Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United,  influencing a young player to play in a certain way due to his superior knowledge of the game and experience. The manager would also have the power to make decisions for the players in terms of tactics and field play as he is the expert in this regard. 

Information Power:

Information power means someone who has the required information or can get access to information that it important to them or the company in a certain situation or time. An example of this could be the manager of river island having the information on a delivery that will come through that know one else knows about or if the manager does not know himself he will have the ability to get hold of the information.

Connection Power:

Connection power means having good sources and connections with influential and important people to help them. An example of this would be Tesco organising a charity event. Due to their stature and renowned brand they would have plenty of connections to help them organise this event.   

In conclusion, this section of conflict shows that organisations use all different types of techniques to maintain their organisation and to keep them up to good standards and also have a good reputation. Organisation need to be able to avoid conflict because this can effect the growth of the business and could end up having a really bad reputation.

Reference:

• Mullins, L J. ( 2007) Management And Organisational Behaviour. 8th Ed. Pearsons Education Limited: Essex

Leadership

The difference between management and leadership is that management controls and directs people to do something to complete an objective and this relates to people working in an organised organisation with set role, where as leadership is when a person motivates and influences behaviour of other people.

The “Managerial grid” was first published in 1964 by Blake and Mouton. This grid was based on two behavioural dimension which were:

Ø  Concerns for people: when leaders consider the needs of the team members, personal development and their interest

Ø  Concerns for production: this is when leaders look at main objectives, organisational effectiveness and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish a task

Blake and Mouton’s managerial grid identified five basic combination of degree of concerns for people versus concerns for production. These five leadership styles were:

In Conclusion, the main thing that I found out from this topic was that leadership and management have different meaning even though they have some similarities. I have also learnt what the managerial grid and how its used to describe the workplace behaviour and relationships with employees. After looking at leadership, I have come to a conclusion that if a leader decides to aim high then they can motivate their staffs and employees to aim high as they have aimed. However the leaders act towards and treat their employee that is how they will respond. This section shows there are different ways and stages that leaders use and follow to work in an organisation.

Reference:

·         Blake, R. R, AND Mouton, J. S. The Managerial Grid III, Gulf Publishing Company (1985)

Ø  Impoverished manager: this comes right at the bottom as they have low concerns for production and people as this leader has lack of commitment, they don’t have high regard and completing a job or creating a good work atmosphere which leads to disorganisation and dissatisfaction

Ø  Authoritative manager: they have high concern for production but low concern for people so this leader has strict work rules as they want to get the job done at any cost and they judge accomplishment from the results. They also direct and control people who are told what to do.

Ø  Social manager: these leader’s very high concerns for people but low concerns for production as these mangers believe satisfied staff will do well and achieve reasonable results so as long as employees are happy they will work hard. They avoid conflict and believe an agreement is more important than the quality of the work

Ø  Middle of the road manager: these mangers have equal amount of corners for people and production. This is balanced and these leader’s aim for compromise, with some, but not too much loss in quality of work. They also avoid issues as they want good atmosphere.

Ø  Team manager: they have high concern for people and high concern for production. These leaders believe working really hard is really effective and helps you become successful.

Here is an example Blake and Mouton’s “Managerial Grid”:

Organisation Culture

Many organisations have a culture that they follow to help them run and maintain their business. A theorist called Charles Handy (1972) developed four different types of organisational culture that was used within an organisation. These were:

·         Power culture

·         Role culture

·         Task culture

·         Person culture

Power culture:

Handy described power culture to be the centre power source and is dependent on trust, have an understanding and have personal communication for it to be effective. Power culture also means that a key individual can control decision making and other rules and procedures that should be followed in the organisation.

Role culture:

Role culture was described as employees within the organisation to work to the job description, for example in Tesco, a sales assistant’s job is to help customers, stock products and product pricing and this is written in their job description there for it is their role in the company and must follow this. Also, the role of an individual is decided by looking at the rules and regulations, for example, a temporary worker is not allowed to be behind the till.

Task culture:

This culture is related to team work and how the task is completed by each individual.  Task culture also offers some benefits to their employees as they feel motivated because they are empowered to make decisions within their team and they also feel valued as they have been selected and given responsibility to complete the task. For example, Barclays allow their employees to participate in different tasks and certain people get given a task to help their customers with different needs.

Person culture:

This final culture that Handy has identified is person culture and this is when an individuals influence other in an organisation. For example, in many organisations, managers and other leaders influence their employees doing what they do. If their manger tells them this is wrong, they will believe it is and will not take the wrong step.

Reference:

·          Handy, C. B. Understanding Organisations, fourth edition, Penguin (1993)

·         French, W. L. And Bell, C. H. Organisation Development: Behavioural Science Interventions for Organisation Improvement, Sixth edition, Prentice-Hall (1999), pp. 25-6.

Improving Staff Performance

The difference between content theory and process theory is that content theory focuses on individual factors and emphasis on what motivates individuals, such as future goals, strength and personal needs, whereas process theory emphasis on how to motivate and individual.

Content theory shows the theories that organisations and individuals use to motivate themselves and their staffs and this includes the following theorists:

Ø  Maslow hierarchy of needs

Ø  Herzberg two-factor theory

Ø  Alderfer’s ERG theory

Ø  McClelland’s achievement theory

Process theory includes the follow theories that individuals and organisations use to motivate themselves and their staffs:

Ø  Goal theory

Ø  Equality theory

Ø  Expectancy theory

Ø  Attribution theory

The organisation I have chosen to identify in how they motivate their employees is Tesco. Tesco is the world’s 3^rd largest supermarket and they have over 2,200 stores. To help their stores grow, they need employees that are motivated, flexible and well trained and in order to do that they have recognised that employee motivation is highly important.

One way Tesco motivates their employees is by increasing their knowledge, skills and job satisfaction by providing recognition and training and development. Tesco believes motivating staff include:

Ø  Appreciation of hard work

Ø  A sense of achievement

Ø  Responsibility and empowerment

Ø  Opportunity for advancement

Ø  A sense of challenge and enjoyment

Tesco also supports their staff with rewards through flexible working, health benefits, staff discount and competitive salaries. Another way that Tesco has discovered to motivate their staff is to gain the trust and respect between the employers and employees and respecting and providing realistic goals to their staff has increased employees motivation. From the Tesco’s website, I have found out that motivated staffs “works in partnership with others to achieve individual and team objective”. This quote means that staff mainly focuses on customers and treat individuals fairly to receive good feedback.

Tesco follows and relates their company to few theorists’ theory to motivate their staffs by using Maslow theory.

 

Tesco use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory in order to motivate their staff. Here is a model of Tesco’s hierarchy of needs:

This model shows that Tesco cover all five stages of the hierarchy of needs theory. The model shows that staff are being provided place to work, salary and basic facilities. This shows that they cover Maslow’s physiological needs. Tesco also provide their staff security as well as scheme to ensure health and safety. This covers the second stage of the hierarchy which is safety needs. The third stage is social needs and Tesco allows their staff to do team work in order to communicate and get along with other staffs. Tesco also covers self-esteem needs as they respect their staff and give praises to their staff for working hard and final stage of the pyramid, self actualization, Tesco offers programs to develop their staffs careers and position in the company and to get their recognition and status, they advise their staff to joining at least one program. This is how Tesco uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid to motivate their staff to work hard and increase their performance to achieve higher.

From this use of theory, I have understood that in order for Tesco to have motivated staff, they need to provide them with their personal staisfaction. This relates to their health and safety, their future and their development in the company.

Tesco also uses a process theory to motivate their employees. The process theory that is used in practice is Expectancy theory. This theory of motivation is when an individual’s behaviour is influenced by their personal needs and want and also influenced by the expected results of their performance. Tesco uses this theory to relate to their staff as their staffs expect to gain these rewards after being really motivated and increasing their work performance. Tesco provide their staff the following benefits that they expect from working there.

To conclude this section, individuals and organisation such as Tesco use different theorist to motivate their employees. Different theories are used for different employees and individuals as their have different needs and wants and according to the needs, individuals decide which motivation techniques to use. To summaries this blog, different people have different needs and their also have different reasons to be motivated to work hard and give it their all.

Reference:

·         Maslow, A. H. “A theory of human motivation”, Psychological Review, 50, July 1943, pp. 370-96 and Maslow, A. H. Motivation and Personality,  Third edition, Harper and Row (1987)

·         Locke, E. A. “Towards a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives”, Organisational Behaviour and Human Performance, vol. 3, 1968, pp. 157-89

Motivation

In motivation, there are four main content theories which emphases what motivates individuals. These are:

Ø  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Ø  Alderfer’s modified the hierarchy model

Ø  Herzberg two factor theory

Ø  McClelland’s achievement motivation theory

Out of the four, the one that is most relevant to me is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This theory identifies essential needs of an individual such as food, safety and achievement. This model had 5 main levels of needs which were published as a form of a pyramid, as shown below, starting from the lowest level to the highest.

The hierarchy includes the following:

Ø  Physiological needs: The physiological need is the lowest level of the hierarchy of needs and this includes the basic needs of every requirements of human survival. This includes homoeostasis such as hunger, thirst and oxygen. This also includes sexual desire and maternal behaviour. 

Ø  Safety needs: The safety of needs of the hierarchy model includes the safety and security of an individual for example, personal security, financial security and health and safety.

Ø  Social needs: Maslow considered the social needs to be less basic than physiological and safety needs. The social needs often relate to emotional based relationships such as affection, friendship and giving and receiving love.

Ø  Esteem needs: Esteem needs becomes increasingly important after the first three needs have been satisfied. This reflects on self respect, self esteem, recognition and status. Self respect is when an individual gains confidence and independence where as self esteem, Maslow quoted “There are two versions of esteem, higher and lower”. Mullins, L.J (2002) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 6^th Edition. Italy [S.N], higher esteem includes self respect, needs for strength and independence where as lower esteem comes under recognition and status.

Ø  Self-actualization: This is the highest level of the hierarchy of needs model. Self actualization includes the development and realisation of an individual’s potential. Maslow also quoted “what humans can be, they must be” or “becoming everything that one is capable of becoming”. Mullins, L.J (2002) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 6^th Edition. Italy [S.N].

This content theory relates to me as I believe in order to receive a reward or achieve something, you need to be motivated and in order to do that, you need guidance and help to achieve that. I believe I have achieved Maslow’s physiological needs as I got the basic needs to get on with life such as shelter provided by my parents as I live with them and food which they provide too.

The second stage of the hierarchy of needs is safety needs. I believe I have reached this stage as am safe at home and have no worries about being in danger as my parents provide full security with room locks and etc. Even in university, I have no fear of safety as there are plenty of security cameras that are provided, security staff and also have my friends who are always around me and taking care of me. When travelling to university and back, I always feel safe as my friends always pick me up and drop me home so I don’t have to worry.

The third stage of the hierarchy of needs, social needs, also relates back to me as I have loving friends and family. They have plenty of affection to me and show that they care and always be there for me as I would too. I believe I have travelled up the bottom 3 stages of the hierarchy of needs and just about reaching to the forth level, self esteem. I don’t think I’m fully confident in myself when it comes to university. I still think I need time to get use to the course and achieve good grades for my assignment. Also, I am quiet independent as I do my own thing such as study alone however, I am very dependent on my parents when it comes to money as I do not work so they provide me with money for food and other use such as clothes, therefore I haven’t fully reached the fourth stage of the hierarchy pyramid. I believe in order to reach the top of the hierarchy pyramid; I will have to get to my 3^rd year of my course to realise my potential and whether I can reach to the top of the hierarchy of needs.

 

My motivation for starting my degree was to get a good, well paid job at the end of it. Also, I have always wanted to open up my own hair and beauty salon and I realised getting into Business Management will help me understand how to run my own business. My other main motivation was to make something of myself. I want to be able to look back and say that I have gone far in life ad was able to achieve something good and got a good future for my potential family. I also want to make my parent proud as I’m the oldest child, I want them to be able to say my daughter as gone far in life and be able to say that by being really proud. Their happiness is really important to me and this is a huge motivation for me. Choosing Business Management as a degree was my choice as I have studied this subject since year 10 for my GCSE’s and for my A levels. I have gained quite a bit of knowledge in this subject and I have become really interested in this subject. After I complete this degree, I would like to have a decent job where there is good pay so I can save up for my own house, car and family. After achieving that, I would like to get married and have enough money to be able to provide for my family. In order to achieve this ambition, I would have to study hard and concentrate for the next 3 years and at the end of it I want to leave university with a high degree. The next 3 years I will definitely be motivated to concentrate and do really well. My personal motivation relates to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as I already have achieved 3 of the stages and to get to the top I have to think about my ambition and push myself to achieve it.

In conclusion, my main motivation in life is my family and being able to provide to them. In order to do this I need to be able to get a good job and to do this I need to complete my degree. Being motivated will help me in life and help me achieve higher.

 

Reference:

·         Mullins, L.J (2002) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 6^th Edition. Italy [S.N].

·         Maslow, A. H. “A theory of human motivation”, Psychological Review, 50, July 1943, pp. 370-96 and Maslow, A. H. Motivation and Personality,  Third edition, Harper and Row (1987)