When a person has a conflict with someone, it’s usually not a good thing for the most part. It hinders progress in getting a project done all because of a petty argument on whose opinion is right. During conflicts, various techniques are used to try to win the argument. However, both parties often neglect the goal of discussions or arguments, which is to improve on each other’s ideas and even relationship among themselves.

In Michael Mama’s article, he brought up an idea that mutual understanding and respect could resolve conflict itself. I was fascinated by his explanation of the impact having good relationships with others can bear in overcoming differences in opinions. His article reminded me of the topic “conflict-handling strategies” and how problem-solving was the best way to resolve a conflict while also maintaining a good relationship with each other. This is because when people have good relationships with each other, they are more willing to work through their points and come to an understanding with each other. Both parties are willing to keep an open mind for reflection, and over time, both parties would come to appreciate each other’s perspective. Going back to the conflict-handling strategies, I realized that they are not all based on maintaining good relationships. Most of the strategies used, such as forcing, avoiding, yielding and compromising, involve the other party “losing” in a sense. This is especially true for the compromising strategy. Though it might sound fair for both parties to give up on part of their arguments, the end result is that the problem would still not be addressed sufficiently and the relationship between both parties are compromised. There are tons of examples out there about partnerships dissolving, businesses crumbling due to conflicts, and this is all because of certain individuals who are incapable of pulling themselves out of the situation and taking a look at the big picture.

In conclusion, although it does not feel good to lose or to give up own points in a conflict, if we change our perception towards the conflict and focus on the relationship with one another, dealing with such conflicts would be much easier. Michael Mamas conveyed this message in a very concise, beautiful way and said, “This is called the art of communication. To communicate is to commune. And to commune is all about the relationship.”

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/282860

1. Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 316

Every time before a meal, a rhythm and series of claps come into mind: “Up clap clap, down clap clap, left clap clap, right clap clap…etc.” This was a pre-meal ritual that I learned in the Singapore elite training camp back when I was in high school. This ritual is so memorable because of my leader, Dominic, was such an influential and inspirational person that he transformed a group of young teens into leaders that kids can look up to today.
In the five days of training, we were being introduced to the personality types, leadership styles, speaking styles, problem-solving skills, the spirit of teamwork, etc. We were grouped into teams to overcome different challenges such as building a boat with limited resources, treasure hunting with our eyes covered, creating the best protection for the egg with newspapers, tapes, and strings, etc.
Thinking back to how he accompanied us through all the challenges and gave us endless support, I feel the “four I’s” of the transformational leadership matches his leadership style. Although training camp only lasted five days, and frankly, we did not expect much from the camp at first, his first impression did change our minds and filled us with high expectations and excitement. Starting from the first “I”, idealized influence, he gave us a clear vision on how we were going to change and what we were going to achieve. His nicely trimmed hairstyle, and the powerful tone that he used to bring out the message immediately caught our attention and gained our respect and trust. For the second “I” which is inspirational motivation, he emphasized the big changes that he expected to see from each of us and he never delivered boring messages that made us lose interest in the game. He uses hand gestures to indicate “keep quiet and listen up” instead of raising his voice like a boss. Going into the third “I”, intellectual stimulation, he demonstrated some ways to tackle the challenges and suggested that we use different perspectives to look at the problem. His action not only broadened the team’s horizons but also gave us insights towards the steps of problem-solving. Entering the fourth “I”, individualized consideration, he truthfully cared about each one of us and spent the time to council each team. When he sees a problem in a team that wasn’t being addressed, he would immediately offer some help and talk to the person or team in a respectful way.

Being able to think about my training camp experience with the different leadership styles in mind is very fascinating because now I realize how much more impactful a good leader is. I used to think that a leader was someone who has charisma and could solve complicated tasks, but now I realize that there are so many more elements and traits that an effective leader should possess in order to inspire his followers.

1. Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 392

This is another ted talk held by Julian Treasure, a sound consultant who investigate the influence of sound in leadership and business. I was attracted by the topic because I think that being able to speak with charisma and power so that people get to listen to you is a very important skill in the business world.

In the video, he pointed out seven common mistakes that people constantly do when they speak without noticing them. They are Gossiping, Judging, Negativity, Complaining, Excuses, Lying, and Dogmatism. They would highly affect the listener’s willingness to accept the speaker’s words because they create negativity and our brain would interpret those as noise and bad acoustics without us even noticing it. I think managers and leaders should pay attention to this because communication is a big part of their role. Being able to gain respect and attention when they speak is very important because they are one of the critical aspects of managing and motivating employees.

Julian also gave out four tips for the speakers to improve their connection with the listeners, they are Honesty, Authenticity, Integrity, and Love. While these four components can help the speaker to deliver the message in a more effective way, I realized that these can also be applied to working in a team. As we learned in class about different roles in a group and the importance of increasing cohesiveness, these components are actually applicable in creating harmony and improving the relationship with others. I would say that they are the elements of effective communication because when we speak, our message should be clear and straight (Honesty), the idea should be able to reflect our own thoughts (Authenticity), we are committed to our own words (Integrity), and we are speaking from an aspect of wishing others well (Love). Combining these four which created positivity, the audiences are more likely to listen to the speaker.

https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_how_to_speak_so_that_people_want_to_listen

1. Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 229

I watched a Ted talk of Dan Ariely, a well-known behavioral economist that teaches at Duke University. He talked about his point of view of the motivation theory of workers, and he showed the audience the importance of how the workers view their work, and the results have shown that whether the work is meaningful has created a large impact on motivation. People are willing to work with less payment if they think their work is meaningful, versus people are not willing to work with a higher payment if they perceived their work as meaningless.

Towards the end of the video, he concluded his presentation by this formula:
Motivation = Payment + Meaning + Creation + Challenge + Ownership + Identity + Pride, etc

The theory behind triggered me to reflect on student’s learning motivation, and I found that the motivation between studying and working are actually compatible. We’ve been learning how extrinsic and intrinsic motivation has to work together to achieve the greatest level of motivation. And that works the same in the education system. Let’s just talk from a student’s perspective, the extrinsic rewards in the education world would be the grades that every student is looking for. Why do students care about their grades so much? If there is no such a thing called “ranking,” “graduation with honor,” or the general society perspective about smarter people gets a higher grade, will the students still be so concerned about their grades and try to get into top universities? I think that recognizing student’s hard work by ranking them, differentiating college levels, etc are just like the recognition program in the workplace. They certainly help to create motivation to students to get higher grades because the intrinsic reward is adding meaning to the extrinsic reward to let it be more powerful.

Going back to the equation, the components are highly related to each other because those that follow behind are the effects of recognition. I can easily take out an example of myself that I experienced the increase of motivation after getting into UBC. Not only because it is a Univeristy with a good reputation, but also the challenges, pride, identity, etc that comes along. I feel that I am part of the school and honored to be one of the students in here. I am sure if I did not come here, I would be much less motivated to study, even though it might be easier to get good grades in other less competitive school. And this is what Professor Ariely was talking about earlier; people would be less motivated to get a higher payment if their work is meaningless to them.

Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 174

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work?language=en#t-1194827

I was reading an article about Candian’s job satisfaction and the percentage are just not as optimistic as I thought it would be. There are 47% of Canadian employees weren’t happy with their jobs and the main reason is that they don’t feel like they fit in the working environment, which to the extent, means that they are having trouble to merge in the work culture.

This makes me question about the hiring process and the management system in the workplace because I think the company has the most responsibility to provide their employees a comfortable working environment. It is understandable how a newly hired worker might feel uncomfortable and need time to adjust their working style, behavior, etc. However, the high percentage is telling us that there are some improvements need to be done on the organization aspects.

What comes to my mind immediately is the motivation theories and the ways to improve job satisfaction. Besides talking about theory X and Y which most of the people would prefer using Y, I suggest the company focus more on satisfying as much as the needs of their employees based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This leads to the main issue of increasing employees job satisfaction. Actions can be done by evaluating the MPS (Motivating Potential Score) and to improve that by increasing job rotation and job enrichment, and also by using the right motivators to the employees depending on their personalities. For example, a very introvert person might not feel comfortable to work with groups or to work in a position where he or she needs to communicate with many people face to face.

Generally, the main idea is to focus on the employees because they are the key component of a company and the key to a company’s success.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/05/03/canada-job-happiness_n_9833376.html

1. Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 93-94

Why is Google the best place to work?

I am always interested in topics about motivating employees or job satisfaction because I think it is one of the most important issues that drives a company to succeed. A lot of companies are too focused on the numbers in profit and neglected the importance of getting satisfied employees.

So what makes Google rank the number one place to work for the seventh time in 10 years?

I summarized the article and concluded to one answer, which is the idea of motivating employees.

Not surprisingly, there are 86% of Google employees commented to be either extremely satisfied or daily satisfied with their job. Their employees also think that their work makes the world a better place which means that they agree with their company’s goal and think that working for Google is meaningful.

The company even allows the employees to have 20% free time of their work time and they can do whatever they want. I was surprised by the fact that there are a lot of innovative Google application being invented during this crucial 20% free time. I think Google is the best example of showing the importance of caring their employees and make them happy to work for the company. A lot of companies are afraid to increase the flexibility because they assumed that their employees would be laid back if there are fewer rules. However, Google gave out a new dimension of increasing productivity by increasing flexibility in work. And the key idea behind is because they make their employees love to work in the company. They trust and care for the employees and value each of their satisfaction in work. This build a close relationship between the company and workers and that motivate them to do their best at work!

Google PGH office

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-the-best-company-to-work-for-in-america-2016-4/#more-than-one-quarter-of-googlers-telecommute-at-least-some-of-the-time-4

1. Langton, Robbins, Judge, Organizational Behaviour, 7th edition, p. 130