Management Practices

1. Management Practices Lecture-19

2. Recap • Personality Traits • The Big Five Traits • Traits and Managers • Values • Moods

3. Today’s Lecture • Career Development • Career Stages • Career Management • Stress & Performance • Managing Conflict

4. Career Development • Career: sum total of the work-related experiences through a person’s life. • Linear career: person moves through a sequence of jobs of higher levels. • Can build different experience in different positions. • Steady State career: worker chooses to keep the same kind of job over much of a career. • Become highly skilled in a given area. • Spiral Career: worker holds fundamentally different jobs that still build on each other. • Worker gains wide experience yet skills continue to build.

5. Career Stages Preparation for Work Organization Entry Early Mid- career Mid- career Late Career

6. Career Stages • Preparation for Work:decide on kind of career, determine qualifications needed. • Organizational entry:find a “first” job. • Managers usually start in a functional area first. • Early career:establishes person in the firm and begins achievement. • Worker learns firm’s values and duties. • Also begins to achieve noteworthy results in the job. • Worker tries to stand out as a good performer. • Mentors (experienced manager who shows you the ropes) are valuable during this stage.

7. Stages, cont. • Mid-career:usually have been in workforce 20-35 years. • Usually provides major accomplishments. • Career plateaus can occur as chances for further promotion dwindle. • Plateau managers can still enjoy a fruitful career. • Late career:continues as long as the manager works and is active. • Many managers choose to stay active well past normal retirement.

8. Career Management Managers need to consider both personal career management as well as the careers of other workers in the firm. • Ethical practice: managers need to ensure worker promotions are based on outcomes, not friendships. • This means all workers are treated equally. • Accommodation of other demands: Workers have many things in their lives besides work. Managers need to consider these issues as well. • The dual career couple is the norm. • Workers have family commitments.

9. Stress Results when people face important opportunity or threats they are uncertain can be handled. • Managers almost always face stress. • Physiological issues: stress can result in sleep problems, headaches, and other issues. • Long-term levels of stress can result in heart attack, and high blood pressure. • Different people experience stress differently. • Psychological issues: stress can result in bad moods, anger, nervousness. • Can result in lower work output and frustration. • Behavioral issues: stress can actually enhance job performance as well as impair it.

10. High Level of Performance Low Low High Positive Stress Negative Stress Level of Stress Stress & Performance

11. Sources of Stress Role Conflict:results from conflict between managerial roles. • Conflict can result when managers want to present a problem with the firm but still want to present firm in best possible light. • Role Overload:managers have too many duties and activities. • Most managers have several roles but they can become over-powering.

12. Coping with stress • Problem-focused: actions taken to directly deal with stress. • Emotion-focused: actions taken to deal with stressful feelings. Time Management:allows people to accomplish more with less wasted time. Mentoring:mentor shows how to deal with stress. Exercise:can reduce stressful feelings. Meditation:puts current cares aside. Social support:can come from family or other workers.

13. Organizational Conflict • Organizational Conflict • The discord that arises when goals, interests or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible and those people block or thwart each other’s efforts to achieve their objectives.

14. The Effect of Conflict on Organizational Performance

15. Types of Conflict

16. Sources of Conflict

17. Top 4 Causes of Conflict in the Workplace • Conflict has a bad reputation. Most often, conflict is associated with raised voices, heated debates, and high frustration. • Personality Differences • The workplace brings together a wide array of personalities.  In the myriad of different backgrounds, genders, cultures, political and religious beliefs, there are countless opportunities for ruffled feathers.  • The best cure is communication.  Whether the issue involves an offense to core values or simply the irritation of pet peeves, it is important to establish boundaries immediately. • Too often, people avoid difficult conversations in hopes that a problem will just go away, which of course it rarely does.  By addressing an issue promptly, it improves the chances for a peaceful resolution and common understanding. But if it’s put on the back burner, emotions may surface when anger levels are high, and increase the chances of an unproductive, high volume blowout. 

18. Top 4 Causes of Conflict in the Workplace 2. Non-Compliance with Rules and Policies Whether you are pestered by another’s disregard for company policy, or are rebelling against a rule yourself, non-compliance is a common gateway to office conflict.  Rules are usually in place for a reason; so whichever side of a policy dispute you may find yourself, you should be clear about why a rule is in place, and what the consequences are for slip-ups.  If agreement cannot be reached between differing parties or the rules themselves, it may be a good idea to look for a helpful mediator to resolve the issue. Just remember to keep the focus on the issue, not the person. 

19. Top 4 Causes of Conflict in the Workplace 3. Misunderstandings Botched communication is one of the top reasons for conflict in and out of the office.  A great way to proactively decrease the potential for crossed wires is to employ effective listening techniques: give full attention, be genuinely interested, catch non-verbal messages, paraphrase, and collaborate. Keeping thorough records of communications can be a safety net when dealing with frequent mis-communicators. 

20. Top 4 Causes of Conflict in the Workplace 4. Competition Sometimes quotas and incentives can make it easy to forget the big picture. We stop seeing others as team members and start to see them as competitors. Healthy competition is a good motivator, but sometimes it inspires anti-productive behavior and unsavory results.  The best defense in a highly competitive environment is managing your own emotions.  Accept what emotions arise and deal with them positively.  Tired of always coming in second or third? Start focusing on competing with yourself rather than others.  Remember that one person’s success is good for the team on a whole

21. Summary Career Development Career Stages Career Management Stress & Performance Managing Conflict

22. Next Lecture Conflict Management Strategies Negotiation Political Strategies for Increasing Power