Chapter 29
Personal Effectiveness
Effectiveness at Work
Definition
Effectiveness – Achieving what is expected.
Effectiveness means achieving what is expected or achieving targets.
Personal effectiveness at work means that a jobholder should do the job that’s expected of them well.
For many people, doing a job involves a mixture of the expected – routine tasks and projects, and also dealing with unexpected things that arise.
An effective worker can handle all these things and get the work done without taking too long and meeting deadlines for completion.
Importance of Effective Collaboration
Generally, people don’t work in isolation, and effectiveness also means they collaborate positively with work colleagues to get what they need from their colleagues when needed – whether it is output, information, or assistance.
Employer Initiatives to Improve Effectiveness
Personal effectiveness and time management are closely associated with each other.
An employer can try to improve the technical competence of employees through training and can try to improve their management skills and other skills through development initiatives.
But training and development can improve an individual only so much: employees also need to use their time well.
Importance of Time Management
Time management is a crucial aspect of personal effectiveness.
A person can only work so many hours in a day. Some people may work long hours, although this can wear them down if it happens too often and can signify inefficiency. So being effective at work requires people to make the best and most effective use of their time.
Ineffectiveness at work is discussed in Section 2 later in this chapter.
Improving Time Management
There are various ways that workers can practice good time management.
Example
An illustrative example of employees and managers:
Role
Comments
Khadija
(employee)
Planning
I always plan which activities I need to carry out at work and the order in which I intend to do them.
I prioritise tasks and spend the appropriate amount of time on each one. I use a diary to help me keep organised.
Burton
Avoiding procrastination
I used to have a big problem with procrastination (doing less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent but less pleasant tasks) at work.
I have taken steps to avoid this. For example, I limit my internet browsing time to reduce work distractions.
I enjoy chatting informally with colleagues at work, but I ensure that these conversations are short when I should be working.
Imena
(manager)
Delegating
As a manager, I must maintain good time management by knowing when to delegate tasks to the workers on my team and when to carry out tasks myself.
I frequently have to attend meetings on the job, so I always ensure that meeting schedules are strictly adhered to.
Barriers to Effective Time Management
A significant problem causing ineffectiveness at work is poor time management. The main issues with time management are the failure to plan work and prioritise tasks.
Some barriers to effective time management are:
Put off tasks to be done later. The individual often does not do it at all or will produce a poor effort due to a lack of time to complete it correctly.
Employees often have several different things to do at once and wastes time being undecided about which tasks to do first.
Management can help alleviate this issue by establishing clear priorities for employees.
Employees often have attention taken away from work, for example, by listening to what other people in the office are saying or by talking socially to colleagues.
This issue can be alleviated by establishing focus periods to minimise interruptions.
Employees often respond immediately to emails and text messages (SMS) that are unimportant and not urgent. On the other hand, they may also be slow in responding to important notices.
Prioritising replies and having a fixed time to reply to emails will reduce this problem.
Failure to budget sufficient time may lead to insufficient time to complete tasks correctly. This may result in hurried work, poorly done, and missed deadlines.
Budgeting time for tasks on a calendar reduces this issue.
Employees may spend too much time on unimportant issues or routine work that is easy to deal with and put off the critical tasks
Managers may fail to delegate tasks to subordinates appropriately and, as a result, use their own time unnecessarily.
Inefficient filing of items in places where they can be found easily, either in office filing cabinets or within the digital workspace, results in time wasted looking for information and resources.
Employees may spend much time in meetings, discussing issues rather than dealing with them.
Meetings can be necessary, but they should adhere to a strict schedule and be held only when necessary.
There are many other reasons why individuals may be ineffective in their job. They may have been given too much work, so they do not have enough time for everything. Or they may not be given enough resources, such as a spending budget, to resource a task correctly.
Overcoming Barriers to Effective Time Management
The barriers to effective time management – and the measures that may be needed to improve personal effectiveness – are primarily a matter for individuals to resolve. However, if an employee is having difficulties in time management, their manager may be able to offer advice.
The first requirement for managing time efficiently is planning the work that needs to be done. These plans may change with events, so they must be kept up-to-date.
Personal Work Planning
Personal work planning should be done with a diary –a paper diary or an electronic diary – or something similar, such as a calendar on the individual’s computer (which can then be shared with other colleagues at work), their tablet, or even their mobile phone.
The diary should record meetings and other work events that the individual will attend. This acts as a reminder. It should also prompt the individual to prepare for the meeting in advance – instead of going into the meeting unprepared, which will waste time.
The diary should also record deadlines – dates by which work items must be completed. This is sometimes known as a task list.
The individual should keep checking and updating the diary in response to changing circumstances, inserting any new information related to work to be done and when it must be done. This is a simple task using an electronic calendar.
Prioritisation
A diary or calendar helps an individual monitor work that must be done, but more is needed for efficient time management. Individuals must also know how to prioritise their work to plan it effectively.
To prioritise work, it is necessary to decide which task is essential, which is less critical, which is urgent, and which is not.
Prioritisation aspect
Description
Importance
Some tasks are more critical than others.
Important work is more relevant to the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation than unimportant work.
For example, think about an employee in an IT company whose job is to write software. It may be more critical for the employee to write some new software for a customer than to spend time thinking about the design and layout of the office reception area.
Tasks can be ranked in order of importance or classified into ‘important’ and ‘less important’.
Urgency
Some tasks are more urgent than others.
Urgency refers to when the task must be completed.
Work is urgent if it must be completed soon and is less if the required completion date is at some time in the longer term.
Prioritisation by Importance and Urgency
Tasks can be prioritised by ranking them according to both importance and urgency.
Some work may be critical and urgent, and others may be less important and not urgent. However, some work may be necessary but not yet urgent, and some may be urgent but not very important.
Eisenhower Box
Using the Eisenhower Box, work can be ranked according to importance and urgency. It is a productivity tool involving thinking about urgency against importance.
Action
Comment
High
Prioritise
Tasks that are important and urgent should be given priority. The worker should plan to complete these tasks before any others.
Low
Allocate time to satisfy
Urgent tasks need to be done even if they are unimportant.
For example, it may be necessary for the worker to answer a phone call from a customer or a supplier or respond to a request from a manager to do a task ‘now’.
Some emails may need a prompt response.
Time spent on this type of work should be controlled and not be allowed to take up too much of the worker’s time.
Prioritise in planning
Work that is important but not urgent can be delayed, but the worker should try to plan when the job will get done.
Unless time is allocated to this work, it will eventually become urgent, becoming a toppriority task.
Planning the work and doing it in good time avoids the need for urgent action.
Ignore or delegate
Work that is less important and less urgent should be given the lowest priority, and the worker should only do the job if all other tasks have been completed.
Alternatively, a manager can delegate this work to someone else to do.
Improve Personal Effectiveness with Technology
Effective use of technology can help to improve personal effectiveness.
Sending and receiving emails can improve personal efficiency. It can speed up communication between individuals and avoids time wasted trying to contact individuals by phone or visiting them in their workplace. Emails from other people can also be dealt with at a time of the individual’s choosing, which should help prioritise work tasks.
Videoconferencing reduces the need for individuals to travel to meet with other people. In a videoconference, individuals in different locations can have a meeting where they can see and hear each other. Time spent travelling is often wasted time.
Laptop or tablet computers mean that individuals can work outside the office, for example, from home and when travelling.
The internet enables individuals to locate information that they need quickly. It also provides access to information that would otherwise be difficult. (Remember to be aware of the accuracy of unregulated information from the internet, which may be unreliable.)
An intranet is an internal computer network linking computers and other digital equipment in the same organisation through the internet.
Cloud-based services are organisational services hosted on remote servers run by third parties and accessed over the internet.
Employees can access the organisation’s files and data quickly and remotely.
Employees can connect to the company’s intranet or cloud services using a secure communication channel through the internet.
There are occasions when an employee’s time can be used more effectively if they are allowed to work from home, using time productively that would otherwise be wasted by travelling to and from work.
Computer systems make it possible to do work more quickly and to carry out more complex tasks that would not be easy to accomplish manually.
Examples are spreadsheets, databases and word-processing software.
Ineffectiveness at Work
The organisation may be negatively impacted by personal ineffectiveness due to poor time management or other reasons.
Failure to complete work on time and within deadlines can harm business operations.
For example, failure to deliver the end-of-period financial statements on time could delay decisions by the company’s directors and senior managers.
Failure to send a purchase order for a fresh supply of materials in good time could result in late deliveries, running out of inventory and a hold-up in production.
Failing to do a job properly, or forgetting to do it thoroughly, will affect colleagues or customers.
For example, making mistakes in drafting financial statements means that someone else will have to sort out the inaccuracies and redraft the accounts on which management colleagues rely to make business decisions.
When individuals are inefficient in their work, they fail to do what is expected of them within the time it should be done.
The organisation may need to employ more people than it would need to if employees were more efficient and effective.
Personal ineffectiveness, if widespread throughout the organisation, can add to labour costs.
Another aspect of personal ineffectiveness may be a failure to communicate with others, perhaps due to a lack of time or inability to prioritise work.
For example, the accountant cannot complete the financial statements if they do not receive the sales figures from colleagues. So sales colleagues need to know when they must supply their figures.
Dependencies
Dependency – An event or activity requiring the completion of an earlier event or activity.
When one person is late with essential and urgent work, it can affect other people further along the line (dependencies).
For example, in a car manufacturing plant, the production line depends on car components arriving on time to be available to employees working on making the cars.
If delivery of tyres or gearboxes is late, and there is no inventory, this will bring the production line to a halt – meaning the car plant will lose money because it hasn’t produced the cars it planned to.
Another example is if an accountant is late delivering a company’s financial statements required for a board meeting, the board will not have the information it needs to make crucial decisions and may miss out on business opportunities.
The above failures may contribute to overall reduction in the efficiency and effectiveness of the team the organisation is in, and the organisation as a whole.
Ineffective Teams
Teams may be ineffective, as well as individuals.
Teams are expected to complete a set task within a specified period.
An ineffective team fails to complete the task or finishes it late (possibly at a much higher cost than expected).
For example, each manufacturing line team will have a set number of vehicles to complete daily.
Failure to complete the task means the company will face a shortage of cars to sell and may not meet its sales targets.
Reasons for ineffective teams
A team may be ineffective because it fails to operate successfully.
The team may lack effective leadership, or members may not cooperate constructively.
There may be conflict within the team instead of collaboration.
For example, a team making cars on a production line must work closely to ensure that all the car assembly stages are completed effectively.
A team may be affected by the ineffectiveness of just one or two team members. If one team member does not work effectively, the entire team’s work suffers.
For example, suppose a team member installing the brakes in cars on a production line is not installing the brakes correctly. In that case, the vehicles will be faulty and unable to be sold to customers, which means the company will lose money – and possibly sales.
For commercial organisations, the overall impact might be a reduction in profitability and shareholder wealth.
For other organisations, it may be the failure to achieve the organisation’s objectives.
Definition of Competence
Competence – The ability to do something well.
Competence is the synergy of three personal attributes:
Competency aspect
Skills
Ability to do things.
Includes:
Technical or practical skills: to perform technical work or solve problems.
Interpersonal skills: ability to communicate effectively
Decision-making skills: to evaluate options and make decisions
Attitudes
Personal approach to the task.
Includes characteristics like:
Concern for ethics
Punctuality
Empathy
Attention to detail
Perseverance
Behaviour under pressure
Knowledge
The retention of facts and information necessary to perform the task competently.
The Competency Framework
Professional bodies, such as ACCA, require their members to demonstrate competence in their work. This means that they must be able to define what competence means for their members.
They do this by establishing a competence framework (or competency framework). A competence framework sets out all the areas of work where individuals are required to have demonstrated competence.
It aims to ensure that employees possess relevant and up-to-date skills which allow them to undertake their roles effectively and efficiently.
ACCA’s competence framework is now called the ACCA Career Navigator.
Components of the ACCA Career Navigator
The ACCA Career Navigator helps ACCA members and future members discover the diverse range of career destinations open to them, alongside the learning and skills required to secure their next role.
The ACCA member or future member selects one of three starting points to start exploring opportunities:
Proficient: an individual with a minimum of three years’ experience gained during their journey to qualification, and ideally some post-qualification experience.
Expert: an ACCA member/fellow with considerable post-qualification experience and will typically manage a team or function or be strongly progressing in a specialism.
Leader: an ACCA fellow with vast post-qualification experience who is likely to be a senior leader, perhaps in a C-suite level or entrepreneurial role.
A competence framework (or career navigator) needs to specify how members should demonstrate competence (or capabilities) at each level.
For example, how should individuals at the proficient level demonstrate the capability of digital? It should be possible to measure capability and check whether individuals are sufficiently capable for the relevant level of the career navigator.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
People who are members of a profession, and people who are training to become full members of a profession, are expected to demonstrate competence in two ways. While they are still preparing for qualification, individuals can demonstrate competence partly through success in the examinations of the professional body and partly through building up a record of relevant practical experience.
After they have qualified and become full members of the profession, individuals must demonstrate that they remain competent by undertaking continuing professional development (CPD.)
Members of the profession should also maintain a personal record of the CPD that they have undertaken, which the professional association or body can check if it wishes to do so.
Requirements of Professional Bodies
A professional body such as ACCA requires all active members to undertake continuing professional development or CPD.
This means undertaking at least a minimum amount of CPD each year to ensure they are kept up to date.
Active members of ACCA are fully qualified accountants who are still working.
CPD is essential in areas of work where the technical rules and regulations are constantly changing, such as taxation and financial reporting. Accountants working in areas where change occurs need to learn about those changes to do their work competently.
For example, a taxation accountant needs to be fully aware of the current tax rules to advise their clients or help their company pay the correct amount of tax.
CPD will always be relevant to the accountant’s ongoing career.
Types of CPD
CPD can be divided into two types:
Verifiable CPD is learning relevant to the individual’s career and that the individual can use in the workplace and has evidence of completion (badge or certificate stating they have attended a particular course or conference, etc.)
The training organisation would provide this evidence.
Non-verifiable CPD is relevant learning for which the person cannot produce evidence that it has been done.
This will consist mainly of general reading on relevant subjects, such as articles in professional journals or research on websites.
A professional body such as ACCA will often specify minimum amounts of verifiable and non-verifiable CPD that its members should undertake each year.
It will also ask its members each year to confirm that they undertook the required CPD in the previous year.
Members of the professional body who specialise in a particular area of work should be required to undertake a minimum proportion or amount of their CPD in learning related to their area of specialisation.
For example, accountants specialising in audit work should be required to do a minimum amount of CPD on audit or assurance-related topics.
Benefits of CPD
CPD Benefits for the Individual
CPD provides several benefits for the individual.
CPD enables an individual to keep their knowledge up-to-date in areas that are relevant to their work.
Unless the individual keeps up-to-date, the individual will no longer be competent – and may be unable to do an adequate job for their clients or employers.
By undertaking CPD every year, a professional should keep their standards up to a level comparable with others in the profession.
By keeping up-to-date and knowledgeable, a professional may be better positioned to develop their career and prepare them for a transfer to a different job or promotion.
CPD should help individuals to stay interested in their profession and professional work. Improving their knowledge may also make their views and opinions more attractive to others.
CPD Benefits for Other Stakeholders
CPD also benefits clients, employers, the profession and the public.
The obvious benefit for clients of accountancy practices is that they should receive a more competent service from their accountant if the accountant has kept their knowledge up-to-date through CPD.
Similarly, employers should have confidence that the competence of the accountants working for them is maintained or improved so that the accountants can be more effective in their work.
The profession’s reputation should be enhanced if clients and employers have confidence in their accountants. The global reputation of ACCA, for example, is mainly based on the reputation for the competence of its members.
It can be argued that the accountancy profession serves the public interest by ensuring that companies publish reliable financial statements in their annual report and accounts.
The accountancy profession serves the public interest in this way because the public has confidence in the profession and the competence of its members.
Coaching
Coaching and mentoring are processes to develop an individual’s knowledge and capabilities and are usually part of an individual’s development plan.
They might be helpful at various stages of an individual’s career – for example, a middle manager progressing to a senior level or a young manager with the potential to reach the top ranks.
Coaching – The process by which an individual helps another achieve a specific goal.
Coaching is a form of training or development given to a learner by an expert or an experienced person, the coach.
It is given to people individually or possibly in a small group. It has a specific purpose or goal, such as preparing for a new job or promotion or acquiring a new skill to perform a new role.
It also has a defined period and will come to an end. At the end of a coaching period, the learner should have gained knowledge and skills and improved their effectiveness in the planned subject area.
An example of coaching might be for a senior executive taking on their first role as a chief executive or a manager who needs to present to the public or the media, for example involving the community in an infrastructure project such as building a road.
Aspects Of Coaching At The Workplace
Coaching is commonly one-on-one, with just one coach and one learner, but a coach may teach a small group of individuals.
The coach may be someone who works in the organisation, such as a more senior manager, or in some cases, external specialist trainers may be brought in to provide the coaching.
In business, for example, employees may be given coaching in public speaking, dealing with the media, making formal presentations or chairing meetings.
Benefits of Coaching
The coach may show the learner how a job or task should be done. The coach may also observe the learner doing the work and give advice and instructions where necessary.
The result of coaching should be that the individual is more effective – competent – in their work.
One-on-one coaching should also enable the learner to acquire the necessary competence quickly. This is because they receive constant attention from the coach, who can advise the learner about mistakes and doing things correctly.
Mentoring
Mentoring – The process by which an individual helps another to achieve greater capability and personal growth.
Mentoring provides advice and guidance informally through meetings, phone calls, and emails when the person being mentored – the mentee -needs advice or guidance on something specific.
Mentoring has no particular goal or outcome – it’s an ongoing process, and no preplanned learning programme is involved.
It can be beneficial for individuals to develop suitability for senior management positions in the organisation because mentoring can help individuals develop into better managers.
Aspects of Mentoring
A mentor is an experienced or knowledgeable person who provides advice or guidance to an individual, who may be referred to as a mentee.
The advice and guidance may be provided in regular or ad-hoc meetings when the mentee sees a need for advice or guidance on a specific problem.
Mentoring is an arrangement that is intended to develop an individual and help them acquire a greater capability, typically in management and leadership skills.
Unlike coaching, mentoring does not have a specific objective. Its aim is more general – the development and improvement of the individual. The individual is not taught anything specific or pre-planned.
Mentoring should last for a reasonably long period – from a few months to a few years in some cases.
Its success depends on having a good interpersonal relationship between mentor and mentee; the mentor needs to get to know the mentee reasonably well.
This relationship takes time to build. Once established, it should be maintained for a reasonable period over which the mentee can be expected to develop and improve.
Benefits and Effectiveness of Mentoring
The benefits of mentoring are less easily defined or measured than the benefits of coaching.
Mentoring is likely to help with the individual’s long-term motivation and career success; however, given that its objectives are not as straightforward or immediate as coaching, success is difficult to measure.
Role Of The Mentor
The mentor is usually not the immediate manager of the mentee.
An individual and their manager have a functional working relationship. It is challenging to add mentoring to direct management since mentoring individuals and managing them are different roles. The mentor should be reasonably senior, someone who can be a ‘role model’ for the mentee.
Assessing Effectiveness Of Mentoring
It isn’t easy to assess the effectiveness of mentoring because, unlike coaching, mentoring does not have a specific result.
Mentoring success can be judged qualitatively over time as the mentee develops, and progress may be reviewed each year in the mentee’s performance appraisal.
Limited Use Of Mentoring
Mentoring can take up a considerable amount of valuable management time.
For this reason, mentoring may be restricted to ‘high-flying’ and talented young managers, who are expected to develop into senior managers in the company.
Key Point
To differentiate coaching and mentoring:
Coaching has a specific goal; mentoring does not.
Coaching has a specific period; mentoring does not.
Coaching may be more formal; mentoring is more informal.
Counselling
Counselling – The process by which an individual helps another help themselves overcome a personal or psychological problem.
Counselling is helping someone to resolve personal or psychological problems, initially by talking to them confidentially. The aim of counselling should be to find a solution to the issues of an employee who is individually unable to resolve the difficulties by themselves.
In small organisations, the counsellor may be an employee’s manager. In large organisations, specialist counsellors may be employed in the HR department. Counselling may begin with a request for help by the employee with the problem, or it may be suggested to the employee by their manager.
Benefits Of Counselling
Business organisations are not obligated to provide counselling to employees under stress. However, counselling is often preferable to taking disciplinary action against the employee for unsatisfactory performance or behaviour at work.
Reasons for providing counselling include:
The willingness of an employer to provide counselling to employees under stress helps shape the organisation’s culture.
Individuals often ask for or are offered counselling as a last resort.
Without counselling, the mental state of individuals may deteriorate further. Counselling can help people find a solution to their problems when the only other alternative might be dismissal.
For the employer, a benefit of counselling is that if it is successful and individuals can overcome or deal with their problems, their effectiveness at work will improve.
Activity 1
Determine if the activity is coaching, counselling, or mentoring.
Activity
Coaching, counselling, or mentoring
An employee has occasional one-to-one meetings with a senior manager, who acts as a role model or adviser and helps the individual to develop an understanding of their work and to improve their general management and leadership skills.
An employee speaks to his manager about his continuing problems with late attendance at work due to taking his children to school in the morning.
An employee shadows a senior manager over time and learns by observing and learning how to do what the manager does.
Personal Development Plans
An employer may encourage employees to produce and maintain a personal development plan for themselves.
A personal development plan is an action plan for an individual’s personal development at work. It should contain details of longer-term development targets for the individual and strategies for how those targets should be achieved through training or work experience.
A personal development plan is the individual’s responsibility to set out plans for the future and (subsequently) monitor progress towards targets in the program.
It differs from an employee’s training and development record, which the HR department holds as part of the employee’s record in the organisation’s employment file.
A personal development plan is a structured process that an individual uses to map their development and career progress. It should contain a self-assessment of the individual’s current skills and abilities, targets for improvement, action plans for achieving those targets, and a review of what has been completed.
The plan should be continually reviewed, re-assessed and updated.
Although the individual is responsible for preparing their development plan, the employer must provide support and be willing to assist individuals with their development.
For example, an individual’s manager can discuss action plans for providing more training or work experience, and personal development plans can be addressed in performance appraisal meetings.
Personal development planning should be a continual cycle of planning, implementation and review throughout the individual’s career.
Developing and Implementing Personal Development Plans
Interest and Ability Matrix
An individual’s current development state may be plotted on an interest/ability matrix to help guide the direction of personal development.
Ability
High (strength)
Low (weakness)
Interest
Likes and does well
Likes but does poorly
Dislikes but does well
Dislikes and does poorly
Having identified her current development state, the individual should ask some questions to guide personal development:
Should I improve areas I’m good at?
Should I improve on my weaknesses?
Should I develop areas I enjoy?
Should I develop areas that I have little interest in?
Setting Targets
After a personal development direction is set, goals should be established.
Goals should exhibit Doran’s criteria:
Taking Personal Development Action
Once action plans have been agreed upon, they should be implemented. The individual should have responsibility for ensuring that the measures in the action plan are taken.
At frequent intervals, the individual should monitor progress and compare what has been achieved with the original plans.
Individual or employerassisted actions
An individual may take action personally, in their own time.
For example, an individual preparing for accountancy exams may target to pass certain subjects in the next six or 12 months.
It is the individual’s responsibility to allocate sufficient study and learning time.
An employer may support the individual’s personal development by granting more training, providing time off work to study for professional examinations, or providing opportunities to gain relevant work experience.
Monitoring progress
The individual should continually monitor progress to ensure the action plans are implemented.
Sometimes the individual may need to recognise that they are doing less than is necessary to implement the action plans successfully and take corrective actions.
Reviewing progress
At regular intervals, possibly every year, the individual should review what has been achieved.
Self-review questions include:
To what extent were the action plans implemented?
To what extent have these succeeded in enabling the achievement of targets for personal development in the period?
Can any lessons be learned from the progress that has been made?
Update the plan
At the same time as reviewing progress, the individual should update the personal development plan, and the planning cycle should begin again.
Benefits of a PDP
Personal development plans enable individuals to fulfil their potential. Because individuals are involved in deciding their goals, they may feel more empowered at work. By developing employees, personal development plans may improve the organisation’s performance if employees remain working there.
This cycle of personal development should continue through an individual’s entire career. Even if someone changes jobs and moves to a different employer, they can continue the development plan.
Definition and Effects of Conflict
Conflict – Disagreement between individuals on opinions, interests, or points of view.
Conflict is a disagreement between people with different opinions or views about something. It can be positive – which can be healthy for the organisation and result in better solutions – if managed constructively. Alternatively, it may be harmful, reflecting dysfunctional behaviours and which may escalate to the point where the source of the conflict is lost.
Positive Effects of Conflict at Work
Conflict can help to generate more ideas and identify different ways of solving problems.
Conflict plays a part in defining the power relationships within an organisation.
For example, conflict and its resolution within a team can identify dominant personalities and those with natural abilities to diffuse situations.
It can provide a mechanism for developing skills in negotiation and influencing others and help identify future natural leaders within the organisation.
Conflict encourages creativity and, by challenging ideas, provides an effective testing mechanism.
Conflict can bring issues and emotions out into the open. This allows them to be dealt with instead of letting them fester and potentially create more harm.
Linked to this is the idea that conflict can provide a platform for releasing otherwise repressed hostile feelings.
Conflict can help to focus attention on the contributions of individuals.
Negative Effects of Conflict at Work
Some conflicts, such as between senior managers and heads of department, are likely to be more severe than conflicts between two members of the same work team and may severely affect team performance.
Conflicts result in time lost and wasted. Time may be spent in arguments or by refusing to cooperate. This reduces productivity.
When individuals or departments are in a serious dispute and cannot agree on what should be done, this causes distraction and delay. This will reduce the effectiveness of the organisation.
Unresolved disputes can create hostility within a department or an organisation. This could damage employees’ morale and motivation, including those not directly involved in the conflict.
Sources of Conflict
Conflicts can arise at work for several reasons. When conflict arises, there is an argument or a dispute. Conflicts are likely to contain an element of personal dislike, although they vary in how serious they are.
Source
Personal dislike
Although many conflicts contain an element of personal dislike, conflicts may occur for the reason that two or more individuals dislike each other and cannot work well and constructively together.
Shortage of resources
Disputes between managers or departments may arise when there is a shortage of resources – especially budget – and the managers cannot agree on who should receive the available resources.
Different goals or interests
Conflict may arise because individuals or departments with different goals or interests cannot agree on what they should try to do.
For example, two senior managers may disagree strongly about the measures their company should take to reduce the environmental pollution caused by its operations.
Different working methods or styles
Conflict may also arise because individuals or departments work in different ways and have different working styles, and they argue about how the work should be done.
Conflict Channels
It is essential to understand how conflict may arise between individuals or different departments or sections of a business organisation and what the consequences can be.
Colleagues in the same team or work group may regularly disagree about their work.
Conflicts may occur between departments. The managers of two departments may disagree vehemently about something they need to work together on.
Conflict may occur between management and employees, for example, over pay and working conditions (which may involve a trade union and possible strike action) or between individual managers and the people they manage.
Managing Conflict
Conflicts, when they occur, should be managed. The manager responsible for dealing with the conflict should usually be the individual who has authority within the organisation structure for all the individuals (or departments) involved in the dispute.
Managers can choose to deal with conflict in a variety of different ways. The method they use will depend partly on the nature of the conflict and their personality.
Method
Denial or avoidance
In a denial or avoidance scenario, the manager may refuse to recognise that a conflict exists between subordinates or himself and a subordinate to avoid having to do anything about it.
The conflict will not be resolved.
Applicable to minor insignificant conflicts that do not change the relationship between individuals.
Acceptance: smoothing over the problem
The manager recognises that conflict exists and tries to ‘smooth over’ the problem.
For example, the manager may tell two subordinates who are in conflict to ‘be sensible’ or to ‘sort things out’. The manager will then hope that the dispute will disappear because it is not severe or because it is short-term in nature.
Suppression: assertion
The manager uses his power and authority to deal with the dispute.
The individuals involved in the dispute may be ordered to stop arguing; otherwise, they will be formally disciplined for unacceptable business conduct.
The manager may decide how the dispute should be resolved and impose – or assert – their settlement.
This approach to managing conflict may provide a short-term solution. Still, it is unlikely to heal the ill feeling between the individuals in the dispute. Both individuals may be unhappy with the manager for imposing a solution with which they disagree.
Negotiation
The manager recognises and deals with a conflict by talking to both sides. This will require interpersonal skills.
The manager may need to discuss the dispute with each individual separately before bringing them together in direct discussions.
The aim should be to persuade both individuals in the dispute that their view may not be entirely correct and that the other individual may have some justification for their opinions.
A negotiated settlement may be reached if negotiations get the individuals to make concessions. A negotiated settlement may be a compromise, but it would benefit from helping to take the intensity out of the dispute.
The individuals may continue to disagree, but at least they will have found a way of settling their differences.
Pragmatism
A pragmatic approach would be to reduce the potential for conflict by moving one of the individuals involved in the dispute to a position in a different part of the organisation by transferring them to another job.
This may not provide a solution to the underlying problem, and this treatment may anger the transferred individual. Still, it separates the individuals so they can no longer argue.
Conflict Resolution
There are three outcomes to conflict resolution:
Outcome
Win-win
Both sides get what they want or as close as possible to what they want. This is the optimal outcome.
Win-lose
One side gets what they want, and the other does not.
Lose-lose
Neither side gets what they want.
A manager needs considerable interpersonal skills to be successful in negotiating a solution to a conflict.
Successful Conflict Resolution
With the possible exception of minor disputes that are likely to be short-lived and relatively unimportant, the most suitable approach to managing conflicts is through negotiation. In this way, everyone gets a solution they find acceptable.
The manager should ensure that communication is honest and open so that everyone involved understands what the others are saying. Negotiations can fail through a lack of communication and understanding.
The manager should not seek to blame either person in the dispute for what has gone wrong. Individuals should be encouraged to admit mistakes; this will not happen if they feel they will be criticised.
The individuals in the dispute should perceive the manager as an impartial referee or arbiter looking for a fair settlement.
Standard rules or procedures may help reach a negotiated solution. For example, there may be procedures for negotiations and settling if there is a dispute between an employer and a union.
The manager may need to be patient. Discussions could take considerable time before a negotiated solution is agreed upon.
The manager should take care when selecting a team so that it reflects a range of complementary skills and personality types and that roles are designed in such a way as to minimise the possibility of conflict.
Grievances
A conflict that cannot be resolved through negotiation may be referred to a formal process known as a grievance procedure.
Types of Grievances
An employee may make several types of formal grievances, including:
Disciplinary action has been taken against the employee, which the employee regards as unfair.
Employee is in dispute with a co-worker and wishes to complain because their manager has not taken adequate measures to deal with the problem.
Employee is a victim of discrimination or bullying.
The Grievance Process
There should be a formal procedure for handling grievances because it makes the process clear to everyone involved, and the employee is aware of the procedure and their rights.
In many countries, the requirement for and structure of a formal grievance procedure is a legal necessity.
Written notification of grievance is submitted by the employee intending to pursue a grievance, providing facts about the nature of the dispute. These facts should be investigated by the people who will deal with the case.
A meeting is held between the individual (who may be accompanied by a colleague or advisor) and the people dealing with the case. The grievance will be discussed, and a decision will be reached about settling the matter.
The decision that is made should be recorded. If the individual is still dissatisfied, they should have a right of appeal.
Depending on national law, there may be procedures for taking some disputes to an external arbitration process. For example, a country may have a judicial process for hearing claims of discrimination at work.
