Michaela Quinn's Blog | Just another UBC Blogs site

Conflict 101

In the Gainesville Sun’s article Ways to Handle Unavoidable Workplace Conflict, they list off multiple tips on how to deal with conflict. In COMM 292 we learned about functional and dysfunctional conflict. Functional conflict benefits the company whereas dysfunctional conflict harms it, which is what this article is discussing. The most important solutions this article gives are … Be specific about the issue Deal with one issue at a time Schedule a time to discuss conflict I think number one is important because if you want to address and issue or something a coworker…read more

Selective Perception and Communication

Posted by Michaela Quinn in Organizational Behaviour

In Mia’s blog post, she emphasises the importance of communication and the relationship between emotions and effective communication. When talking about effective communication it is also important to look at how perception influences one’s communication. Communication is present in everything from having a conversation to being in the workplace. In COMM 292, it is taught that in order for a company to be successful, there must be strong communication within the company and between workers. A lack of communication or miscommunication can drastically effect relationships within the workplace and the…read more

2 Forms of Motivation

Chris Crouch discusses motivational strategies in his article. In COMM 292 we learned about all the motivational theories and the benefits and drawbacks of each method. Crouch analyzes these theories and discovers that they each fall into one of the two categories. The categories he introduces are controlling strategies and autonomy supportive strategies. Controlling strategies are motivation theories that encourage people through offering rewards or threatening punishment (Crouch 2017). These theories are best used on those who are extrinsically motivated. Also, they only produce short-term results for companies because in…read more

Gender Equality: Workplace Benefits

Why do we have such few women in high level positions and such few men who stay home to parent their children? Why is there such a divide in these roles? COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg’s TedTalk touches upon the hard truth that since 2002 the amount of women in these high level positions hasn’t increased. She accredits this to many things, but she believes the main reason is that many women don’t stay in the work force. As a mother herself, she knows having children has a huge impact on a…read more

Self-Efficacy and Gender

I was reading over Erin Zhu’s blog post on self-efficacy, the motivational theory that states an individual’s behaviour is influenced by their beliefs in their own abilities and it reminded me of a concept I had heard earlier in the day. In her blog post Erin asks the question ‘What is wrong with being confident?’ and it reminded me of when I was watching Sheryl Standberg’s TedTalk. Sheryl said that as a woman in a high level position, she has realized that there is a negative correlation between the success of women and…read more

Dealing with Generational Differences

While learning about individuals and their attitudes and values in COMM 292, we touched upon each of the generations. Some characteristics for each are listed below in the diagram, where you can compare them side by side. While talking about these different generations, we learned that these differences are very important for a manager to understand. They need to use this information to better understand their employees an adjust their motivational methods and rewards depending on the generation, for them to be most effective. This Forbes article by Victor Lipman, touches…read more

Transition to Teamwork

Today, teamwork has become more important than ever. Teamwork, as mentioned in the Harvard Business Review blog post, leads to increased productivity, innovation as well as job and customer satisfaction. This is particularly important because a large part of the work force today is comprised of millennials. As we learned in class 18, millennials are known for switching and searching for new jobs a lot more than their preceding generation. This causes many problems for their employers, because they are not fully engaged in their everyday work, if they are constantly looking for other…read more

Coca-Cola Deceives Customers

Coca-Cola recently launched a new product called Coca-Cola Life, in order to keep up with the current health trends. Ariel’s blog post talks about this new product and current consumer opinions. I agree with her when she says that this new drink is very misleading to unknowledgeable consumers. I understand Coca-Cola’s need to launch a healthy alternative to appeal to more markets, as pop sales have been constantly decreasing for the past decade. So, the constant decrease in sales plus the jump in health consciousness has caused Coke to reevaluate their approach and begin experimenting. It…read more

Beyonce’s New Endeavour: Ivy Park

Beyoncé seems to be good at just about anything and everything she does, whether it’s preforming, dancing, advocating for women, being a mother, acting or even being a business woman. Brand new this Fall though, she launched her very own athleisure clothing line, Ivy Park. As, Thao stated in her most recent blog post, Ivy Park has already lived up to and exceeded the public’s expectations. I believe the success of the line directly relates to how it differentiates itself from other popular brands. With the trend of athleisure growing, the demand increases,…read more

The Underdog of Marketing Channels: Snapchat

With all the forms of marketing out there today, a recent brand has come to the forefront of the marketing avenues. The company Snapchat, has released many new updates recently, that not only benefit the users, but also companies around the world. These new updates allow any company, any size, to market themselves in new, innovative and broad ways. Snapchat has become a go-to application for communicating with others around the world. With each update, they add new features that allow their users to better communicate with anyone, anywhere around…read more