Week 6 Conflict

 Identify any group you have been a part of (work, social, voluntary, educational etc) that has not been able to achieve its purpose. What were the conflicts within the group and what strategies were used to deal with the conflict.

Conflict is a group of people or ideas that disagreement and cause frustrated. Conflict can be found in everyday life so we have to find away to make it to our best advantages (Brookes 2006).


During my college career I have been in groups that has lots of disagreement
and this has led us to compromising our task. But at the end we always
completed the tasks we were given.
The task we were given was based on marketing research where we were put into a team of five. Two people in my team wanted to be the team leader and to solve this problem we decided to a share leadership and at the end it worked. Then we split the tasks between us but someone in our group wanted the same task so we asked them to share it. Once we all decided on the tasks we made a meeting time. But some of the team members were not free on that day so we had to use our break time to do the meeting. During that meeting some team members were late and one did not show up so we had to call him. Our team leader asked him how much work has he completed. The answer was half he completed of the task that was allocated. This meant we had extra work load. Also other team members were not coping well with each other so there were conflicts. The last task was to present our finding to our tutor and we managed to pull it off.

In my opinion I always aim for a win-win situation because in this way there will be no hard feelings.

 Describe different ‘sources of power’ and illustrate each one with an example


French and Raven (1959) have identified five different sources of power which are: coercive power, reward power, expert power, legitimate power and referent power.
These powers can affect the organisation’s performances, for example, staff relationship with the managers (leadership) and may course conflicts.

Coercive power – is based on the authority to punish someone who does not follow their manager, leader demands, ideas and their power is based on fear. For example, a head chef that always makes staff to do what he or she wants and the head chef does not care about the staff feelings. This type of power can easily backfire and staff will just leave the job.

Reward power – is based on offering benefits to staff, for example pay rise, promotion and a day off with full pay.
This type of power can be used in an organisation that is doing very well in their field because it can boost their motivation.

Expert power – is based on having the abilities, skills, special knowledge and expertise in their field. For example motor engineer will know how the cars operate and have the knowledge to fix it. This type of power indicates that the customers trust them to fix the car and it is safe to drive.


Legitimate power – is based on influence because they have the authority power, for example, doctor.
This type of power is often seen as one of the weakest, for example, doctors asking people to quit smoking and people may ignore his or her advice because the influences is not strong enough.


Referent power – is based on admiring someone and wanting to be like them. For example, a chief executive operator of a multi-million pound company and people who are climbing the career ladder will use him or her as a role model.


 What 5 strategies can organisations use to overcome conflict at work?

There are several strategies that organisations can use to solve conflict at work.

1. Providing feedback to all staff can help them improve their skills and ability and it can give them a clear view on what areas they need to improve on.

2. Communication is one of the main ways for a company to be successful because it can solve conflict just by talking about it and understanding each other.

3. One of the most important departments of any company is human resources because they understand the company policies and procedures, for example discrimination, contract employment and they can provides advices to all staff.

4. By making sure that all the staff is clear and aware of the disciplinary procedures.

5. By having clear aims and objectives can minimise conflicts because every will staff knows what they are expected to do.


 Think about a conflict situation you have witnessed (could be group exercise used in today’s lecture or one seen in a video or TV programme) and the strategy used to resolve the conflict. Was it effective and what other strategies would you suggest could have been used?

In one of the episodes of Top Gear, where the presenters were racing each other by using car against public transports.
Richard Hammond and James May was travelling by public transport, they used bus, train and boat everything were going well until the boat has broken down. I would had suggested using bikes because its lots faster than walking and they can squeeze through traffic.
Also James May would not run on public TV and they were in a rush to catch the train. If I was there I would told him we are in a completion and we need to catch that train or we will have to wait for another one.


In conclusion there will be conflict and power, where ever you go and this can help anyone to improve, for example, recognising different types of conflicts and power.


Bibliography and References

French, J. R. P. & Raven, B. (1959) The bases of social power. New York: Harper & Row.

Mullins,L.J.(2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8th edition . Harlow:Prentice Hall