Innovative discoveries are resultant of conflicting ideas. History has proved to us that those who defied superstitious belief with contradicting / conflicting ideas, were ridiculed and even put down heavily by peers only to be accepted as eminent scientists years later. Scientific community of his times bitterly opposed C. J. Doppler, who postulated optical Doppler Effect theory. His fellow scientists considered Galileo to have bewitched his telescope to show the world evidence that supported Copernicus heliocentric theory. Sir Arthur Eddington and Lev Landau viciously attacked their contemporary Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for this calculation on black hole theory using Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity (Author.A.N, Black Hole, 2010). Scientific American Magazine called Orville and Wilbur Wright, commonly known as Wright brothers, “The Lying Brothers” for years before they became a sensation in Europe (Beaty, 2002). Though initially ridiculed by research fraternity for his radical views on cellular energitics, Peter D. Mitchell received his Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “Vectorial Metabolism” in 1978 (Saier. Jr., 2007).
In all the above incidents in history, individuals related these discoveries to their acquired knowledge and commonly held beliefs & values, forming perceptions which reflected in their undesirable action. I will not enunciate that every individual with conflicting ideas, in organizations, as a potential eminent scientist of the future. However, what we need to understand is that not all individuals with conflicting ideas, who defy proven principles, are troublemakers. There can be very strong reasons behind their stand, which could be from their understanding of the situation when they viewed it due to their differentiated background. Perceptions are based the individual’s learning from experience on the key elements – comfort and security – that define life (Clawson, 2001). One has to note that any individual’s perceptions of the key elements form the basis of motivation of that individual to react to a situation in his own way (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009, pp. 194-195). Organizations are made of individuals capable of drawing their individual conclusions to situations. It is obvious that the conclusions, based on their perceptions, of no two individuals are collinear. The reading and thus the conclusion drawn, will be considered as innovative idea by the person who concludes, while is it considered as lunatic ideas by others.
Conflicts arise due these differentiated perceptions to situation. While it is evident from numerous researches that conflicts are unavoidable as we deal with humans with varied values, beliefs and perceptions, if not handled effectively can become stressful and dangerous situation (Hose, 2009). Unhealthy conflicts can turn congenial workplaces to unproductive environments when substantiated reasoning is interpreted as personal attack, frustration due indecision or due to anxiety when complicated choices have to be considered (Eisenhardt, Jean, & Bourgeois III, 1997). In certain situations it becomes difficult to manage conflicts as individual personalities and values gets intertwined with issues, thus making individuals find difficulty acknowledging their emotional and irrational behavior.
Conflicts need adept handling on the part of leaders in an organization to minimize its affects in order to bring a congenial environment in the work place. It is a greatest challenge for leaders to manage conflicts by keeping them constructive and avoiding it from degenerating into dysfunctional interpersonal conflicts. Leaders need to look for the early signs of conflicts, which will be evident from individual’s body language, disagreements regarding strategic decision making, surprise with bad news, declaring conflicting values, expressing desire for power, increasing lack of respect towards organization’s leadership, failure in reporting etc (Author.A.N, 2007).
Regardless of the cause of a conflict, it is essential for leader to understand that a conflict need to be attended immediately and a most effective solution is put in place to resolve it. Below are few common strategies that can help resolve conflict.
Take stock of the situation: Conflict managers need to get to ground zero and identify the root cause of a conflict. Setting aside personal perception, managers will have to determine the variations in individual perceptions of the conflicting parties and ascertain if the conflict is worth mediating or fighting – if the conflict is between the manager and a team member.
Make them understand: Listening to the individual’s perceptions will help managers narrow down to the core value, which formed the basis of the conflict. If managers try to increase their stakes in support of their points, it will only escalate the conflict (Hose, 2009).
Make way for personal space: It is likely that individuals, out of shear frustration, walk out of conflicts. Make way for such reactions; they will come around when their blood pressure eases down.
Avoid contradicting statements / body language: Managers have to make sure that they avoid certain words that contradicts initial acceptance to conflicting individual’s ideas and views. Words like “but” and “however” negate the effects of tolerance that was initially enacted.
Tune your vocal cords: Ensure that the tune in which the ideas and conflicting statements are floored have a lowered pitch. High-pitched statement only intensifies the conflict, as it can be perceived as damaging the self-respect of individuals.
Winning is not as important as resolution: Allow the other party to sink in your viewpoints and present his for your consideration. Avoid repetition – this will lead to continuous arguments. Do not try to win the conflict; it will leave the other party high and dry.
Bibliography
•Author.A.N. (2010). Black Hole. Retrieved September 1, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
•Author.A.N. (2007). Dealing with Conflict. Retrieved September 1, 2010, from National School Boards Association: http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/Conflict.html
•Beaty, W. (2002). Weird Science vs Revolutionary Science. Retrieved September 01, 2010, from Ridiculed Discoveres, Vindicated Mavericks: http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html
•Clawson, J. G. (2001). A Leader's Guide to Why People Behave the Way They Do.
•Eisenhardt, K. M., Jean, K. L., & Bourgeois III, L. J. (1997, July - August). How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight. Retrieved September 1, 2010, from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/1997/07/how-management-teams-can-have-a-good-fight/ar/1
•Hose, C. (2009, September 10). Ways of Dealing With Conflict. Retrieved September 1, 2010, from eHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/way_5348025_ways-dealing-conflict.html
•Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Sanghi, S. (2009). Organizational Behavior (13 ed.). Delhi, India: Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.
•Saier. Jr., M. H. (2007). Ridiculed at first, Mitchell’s ideas about proton motive force. ASM News , 63 (1), pp. 13-21.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
The concept of Downsizing – boon for organizations, bane for employees
Technological innovation, market conditions, business downturns, competition and economic slowdowns warrants even large organizations to conduct restructuring or downsizing. It represents a shift in management ideology from emphasizing on growth to that of focusing on productivity as a means of enhancing financial performance (Kee & Turpin, 1994), enabling business to focus their resources towards achieving competitive advantage. However, few organizations use this as a solution to their deteriorating financial performance (Kee & Turpin, 1994).
In September 1995, AT&T Bell Labs announced restructuring of core business which meant close to 8500 jobs deleted from its work force. Shortly thereafter, on January 1996, AT&T’s management announced a further downsizing in workforce to the tune of 48,500 employees over the next 3 years. However, the effect of such large downsizing activity had its effect on nearly 78,000 employees. This case presents the current industrial trend adopted by organizations in the face of global or regional recession. It is only when organizations notice a large shift in market conditions or business downturns or recessions that they start to focus on underutilized resources and the immediate reaction to cut of these resources from being carried on as liabilities. Human Resource is one such easily identifiable resource, which suddenly becomes a great liability to organizations that was otherwise termed as assets.
Will it be possible to avoid the process of downsizing or restructuring? The answer to this question is again based on group perception. From the employer’s perception, cutting variable cost will be essential to maintain that competitive edge to survive in the changing times. If competition had been determined as a reason for downsizing then it is inevitable for this variable cost to be reduced as the primary source to enhance the competitive edge. An employee may argue that a reduction in fixed assets which add relatively less value, may be cut down to bring about the same financial revival or competitive edge that is required.
Economic reports on US markets had not reported any major crisis in 1995. On the contrary, the S&P market indices showed a 37.43% rise. (Roberts, 2006). Then why a successful monopolistic company AT&T had to undertake the condemnable act of downsizing? AT&T was enjoying huge profits riding on its market position, however, the management started to see the change in external factors that could lead to downfall in near future, if corrective measures were not in place. Likely new market legislations, probable competition from new firms and rapid changes in information technology sector couple with the laggard performance by its employees when compared to competitors, lack of innovative products and major decline in motivation levels were sending clear signals to AT&T’s management on fast approaching collapse.
As part of restructuring AT&T identified 3 core businesses that needed objective based focus which lead to the formation of 3 separate publicly held companies which meant a loss of 8,500 jobs. However, “tacit admission” by management that the purchase of NCR was a mistake and introducing further massive layoff in January 1996 indicates adoption of poor communication and leadership styles. From an AT&T employee viewpoint this surely indicates that in September 1995 itself the top management of AT&T was well aware that the restructuring would result in more layoffs than it announced, earlier. AT&T’s management had made a gross mistake in not announcing the 40,000 job cuts in September itself. This shows the ineffective communication on the part of AT&T management. Moreover, the management has turned out to be insensitive to employee’s emotions by announcing a major layoff immediately after the December, 1995 vacations.
Handling the situation differently:
Every action in an organization should be backed by a thorough analysis and strong planning on the sequence of operations (Sommer, 2003). AT&T should have placed importance to planning, considering a thorough analysis had already been undertaken, when they decided for reorganizing the core business into 3 separate profit centers. It is not possible that the management had viewed the requirement of 40,000 – employee layoff after the initial announcement of restructuring in September 1995. Alternatively, if the layoff announced in January 1996 was the result of intuitive thinking post September 1995 announcement –the management had largely failed on its thorough analysis of their revised business plan.
Ineffective communication and bad timing had lead to AT&T facing negative reactions from all the stakeholders in the organization (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). As goes the public relations adage “Tell the truth, tell it all and tell it fast” (Sommer, 2003), AT&T in September, 1995 should have not only announced the restructuring but also should have clearly stated the downsizing program clarifying all apprehensions from every section of stakeholders. The detailed communication would have created an environment for each of the stakeholder to ponder over various possibilities and be prepared when the actual termination notices are served, thus delivering value to its corporate social responsibility towards its employees (Marken, 2001).
Communicating the right Vs right decision:
Communicating the right Vs right decision:
Downsizing is a boon to organizations with hard negative connotations from other stake holders. A decision of downsizing / layoff should be arrived at after a thorough analysis of all underutilized resources had been completed. There are many ways of conducting this exercise. Robert Kee and Rick Turpin in their research have identified, defined and elaborated on the use of Linear Programming, an operations research tool, in identifying the underutilized resources (Kee & Turpin, 1994). If layoffs are inevitable, then the management has be understanding and be sensitive to employee’s emotions, requirement and dignity. The management should set procedures in implementation of restructuring and downsizing program.
- Make a thorough analysis of underutilized resources. Effective use of office space can also reduce fixed cost, avoiding the necessity for employee layoffs (
- Identify different venues for re-organizing the human resource – remember, human resource is very scarce under pressing circumstances. When market takes an upward turn, these experienced employees should be available. Employees carry the scar of ill treatment or poor treatment. Infosys, an Indian IT major, offer its employees to volunteer for philanthropic activities while being eligible to draw 50% of their salaries during lean period in business.
- If re-organizing of human resource is not possible, start will identifying the jobs to eliminate – based on job performance levels, work remaining etc.
- Prepare a thorough rationale behind the requirement of downsizing which should be used as part of the announcement.
- Downsizing to be planned across the levels in the organizations. It should not be concentrated on lower levels alone.
- Refine the list of employees to be terminated and have it wetted by a legal counsel working on employment laws.
- Choose the proper part of the year, day and time of the day.
- Make the announcement (either public or internal) loud, clear and in full. No part of the downsizing program should be left behind. Be prepared for some tough questions.
- Have the managers trained in the process of downsizing.
- HR personnel have a critical role to play in this entire exercise. HR personnel to plan for physical security, arrange for security of company property, intellectual property and other company security requirements.
- Start downsizing activity from top and move towards the bottom of the organization.
- Start the downsizing activities in all the locations/department on the same day and at the same time.
- Create a congenial atmosphere for exiting employees to sink in the damaging news.
- Make the meetings one-on-one if numbers are small or subdivide into small groups if the numbers are large.
- Allow employees to take sufficient time to clear their belonging.
- Make sure the management is available to every employee (exiting or staying) for answering any queries with regards to layoff.
Conclusion:
Tang and Fuller conclude that effective human resource planning and staffing program can avoid organizations from getting into the muck of downsizing program, thus doing more with as less as possible. However, in globally liberalized economies, competition plays a major role in identifying the core business activities in the face of a downturn in businesses. Building on the strengths and relieving of underutilized or underperforming liabilities is essential for business to sustain and survive in global markets. In the wake of this restructuring, downsizing, layoff, reduction – in – force and demassing are techniques used by organizations in bringing down the cost and focusing on productivity thus enhancing its financial performance. Hence, if layoffs are inevitable the employer has to create a congenial environment for the process by recognizing the employee’s needs in post termination employment support.
Tang and Fuller conclude that effective human resource planning and staffing program can avoid organizations from getting into the muck of downsizing program, thus doing more with as less as possible. However, in globally liberalized economies, competition plays a major role in identifying the core business activities in the face of a downturn in businesses. Building on the strengths and relieving of underutilized or underperforming liabilities is essential for business to sustain and survive in global markets. In the wake of this restructuring, downsizing, layoff, reduction – in – force and demassing are techniques used by organizations in bringing down the cost and focusing on productivity thus enhancing its financial performance. Hence, if layoffs are inevitable the employer has to create a congenial environment for the process by recognizing the employee’s needs in post termination employment support.
Bibliography
- Marken, G. A. (2001). Corporate Communications: It's All About Delivering Value. Public Relations Quarterly, 46 (1), 39.
- Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Sanghi, S. (2009). Organizational Behavior (13 ed.).
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Discrimination - A lot lies in the ambiguity between persception and reality
With the advent of civil rights for all sections of communities, any action that is perceived as inhibiting career growth or prohibiting acceptance of individuals in an organization or society, in general, may be termed as discrimination. The various forms of media, through which people are able to assimilate information, is playing major role in adding fuel to the perception rather than reality.
It is true that “with limited resources and large populations there will always be conflicts but there is no need for these conflicts to be drawn out on racial grounds” (Guerin, 2005). An individual’s perception of an action, by the other party, creates the basis of a conflict (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). The remarks or actions by an individual may not be intended to abash or abhor a particular race or any other parameter on which discrimination can be called for.
A study on Denny’s restaurant (Powell, Berry, Chrosniak, Inselbuch, Moore, & Smokevitch, 1996) brings to light the ambiguity in identifying the root cause of racial discrimination charges and how organizations have to be prepared to curb unfavorable incidents or counter allegations that are based on individual perception. In present day circumstances, organizations are caught in the cross fire between civil rights requirements and discrimination allegations. While on one side, laws are set for providing equal opportunities and rights for all in organizations and society, misuse of these laws by individuals cannot be easily determined in any particular case. Even if the organizations are fully aware that incidents in question have little to do with discrimination of individuals, they end up shelling out large sums of money as compensation.
In this study, take the San Jose incident. If I were in the position of store manager, who has encountered a large number of cases where African-Americans customers resorted to “dine and ditch” policy, I will be forced to adopt the cover charge and prepay for meals strategy to avoid loses in my branch, even if I were to belong to the same race. Christina Ridgeway, my due respects to her, sure is one of those individuals who carry their self respect and identify themselves by their abilities, hence she did get offended. However, had she taken a bit of time to understand the plight of the store manager, the small store issue could not have aggravated into national issue. Though this does not mean Denny’s store manager can ignore his responsibilities towards the society. It’s the lack of proper communication between the store manager and Christina Ridgeway that caused the incident to become a national issue, based on which people who otherwise formed positive perceptions, started to take advantage of the law.
Take another example as stated by Ongori and Agolla (2007) saying “organizations that dismiss women from their jobs once they fall pregnant but men who impregnate women keep their jobs” as discriminatory organizations. My views in this accept may be viewed as discriminatory by women here as well.
Let us not look at this example from broader perspective alone. Having worked under, alongside and later supervised women workforce, I personally acknowledge the fact that women have better abilities in performing their duties towards their work, than what was perceived of them. However, during pregnancy women experience excessive tiredness and fatigue (Pregnancy, 2010), and generally these periods are up to 40 weeks. It is arguable that women have the ability to either perform effectively in their usual work or be provided with work other their normal duties, which require minimal effort, or may be provided with maternity leave during this period. In each of these solutions, there is a pitfall for certain small organizations. While providing a 40 week maternity leave, will mean transferring this woman employee’s responsibilities on to other employees in the organization, which may in turn be considered as discrimination by the other group, health and safety norms will be violated when allowing the woman employee to perform their normal duties. From this viewpoint, when a manager is forced to recommend suspension of services of the woman employee for the larger benefit of the organization, how then this can be termed as discrimination?
In the case of Denny’s restaurant (Powell, Berry, Chrosniak, Inselbuch, Moore, & Smokevitch, 1996), Jerry Richardson formed crisis team comprising top management officials to manage the crisis. As the objective of the team will be to expedite legal proceeding and put all allegations to rest (as mentioned in the case study), they formed the consent agreement with Justice Department and Fair Share Agreement with NAACP. These actions were more intended to accede to government requirements as per anti-discriminatory laws – Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Civil Rights Act, 1964, 2010), Fair Employment Act, 1941.
In both the cases, the organizations need to identify the diversity in workforce and manage the diversity to maximize the effectiveness of the organization towards society and country. By merely including the diverse workforce in order to accept equal opportunity norms, set by lawmakers, cannot turn the negotiation tables. While organizations have acknowledged that they cannot survive with homogenous work groups, thus including diversity in workforce, companies need to be more open and explicit in discussions of how difference can be used as sources of individual and organizational effectiveness, thereby carrying it to the society (Thomas & Ely, 1996). A large number of company leaders have started to adopt a new organizational culture that understands the different perspectives and approaches, recognizes learning opportunities and challenges, stimulating personal development, preaching through a well articulated mission statement and inculcating the need of egalitarian structure (Thomas & Ely, 1996) setting the right platform for introduction and smooth functioning of diverse workforce.
In the various articles that I happen to read over the past few days on racial discrimination, I find that societies across the world, be it the most developed nation (United States of America) or a 3rd world country (African nations like – Ghana, Botswana etc.) (Henry & Evans, 2007), have faced discrimination issues throughout their history, including the present times (Hurst, 2010). While discrimination is not limited to race alone, the most common forms of discrimination has been discussed in most of these articles – that of gender, age, color, physical ability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, values, education, language, lifestyle, beliefs etc – the most prevalent method of discrimination within an ethnic group, in India, is that of caste divide.
Discrimination in any form is termed illegal by most of countries in the world, but how far this law has percolated down socio-economic groups and organizations, is of serious concern. Lawmakers and organizations can form policies against discrimination as a part of their system, but if these policies – their purpose of creating an effective and congenial atmosphere for growth – are not preached by management or understood by the workforce, discrimination is bound to exist and stay.
Reference:
1. Badaracco Jr., J. L. (1998). The Discipline of Building Character. Harward Business Review.
2. Brett, J., Behfar, K., & Kern, M. C. (2006). Managing Multicultural Teams. Harward Business Review.
3. Civil Rights Act, 1964. (2010, August 4). Retrieved August 3, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
4. Guerin, B. (2005). Combating Everyday Racial Discrimination without Assuming Racists or Racism: New Intervention Ideas for a Contextual Analysis. Behavior and Social Values , 14 (1), 46.
5. Henry, O., & Evans, A. J. (2007). Critical review of literature on workforce diversity. African Journal of Business Management , 072-076.
6. Hurst, S. R. (2010, August 2). Racism a distraction for Obama. Muscat Daily , p. 10.
7. Pregnancy. (2010, August 3). Retrieved August 5, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy
8. Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Sanghi, S. (2009). Conflicts and Negotiations. In Organizational Behavior (13 ed., pp. 528-557). New Delhi, India: Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.
9. Rodriguez, A. M. (2004). A Diversified Workforce Fosters a Climate of Innovation. Severna Park, Maryland, US: Sophia Associates.
10. Thomas, D. A., & Ely, R. J. (1996). Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity. Harward Business Review.
11. Powell, E. A., Berry, J., Chrosniak, J., Inselbuch, J., Moore, J., & Smokevitch, J. (1996). Denny's Restaurant (A). Daren Business Publishing . Virgina, US: University of Virginia.
It is true that “with limited resources and large populations there will always be conflicts but there is no need for these conflicts to be drawn out on racial grounds” (Guerin, 2005). An individual’s perception of an action, by the other party, creates the basis of a conflict (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). The remarks or actions by an individual may not be intended to abash or abhor a particular race or any other parameter on which discrimination can be called for.
A study on Denny’s restaurant (Powell, Berry, Chrosniak, Inselbuch, Moore, & Smokevitch, 1996) brings to light the ambiguity in identifying the root cause of racial discrimination charges and how organizations have to be prepared to curb unfavorable incidents or counter allegations that are based on individual perception. In present day circumstances, organizations are caught in the cross fire between civil rights requirements and discrimination allegations. While on one side, laws are set for providing equal opportunities and rights for all in organizations and society, misuse of these laws by individuals cannot be easily determined in any particular case. Even if the organizations are fully aware that incidents in question have little to do with discrimination of individuals, they end up shelling out large sums of money as compensation.
In this study, take the San Jose incident. If I were in the position of store manager, who has encountered a large number of cases where African-Americans customers resorted to “dine and ditch” policy, I will be forced to adopt the cover charge and prepay for meals strategy to avoid loses in my branch, even if I were to belong to the same race. Christina Ridgeway, my due respects to her, sure is one of those individuals who carry their self respect and identify themselves by their abilities, hence she did get offended. However, had she taken a bit of time to understand the plight of the store manager, the small store issue could not have aggravated into national issue. Though this does not mean Denny’s store manager can ignore his responsibilities towards the society. It’s the lack of proper communication between the store manager and Christina Ridgeway that caused the incident to become a national issue, based on which people who otherwise formed positive perceptions, started to take advantage of the law.
Take another example as stated by Ongori and Agolla (2007) saying “organizations that dismiss women from their jobs once they fall pregnant but men who impregnate women keep their jobs” as discriminatory organizations. My views in this accept may be viewed as discriminatory by women here as well.
Let us not look at this example from broader perspective alone. Having worked under, alongside and later supervised women workforce, I personally acknowledge the fact that women have better abilities in performing their duties towards their work, than what was perceived of them. However, during pregnancy women experience excessive tiredness and fatigue (Pregnancy, 2010), and generally these periods are up to 40 weeks. It is arguable that women have the ability to either perform effectively in their usual work or be provided with work other their normal duties, which require minimal effort, or may be provided with maternity leave during this period. In each of these solutions, there is a pitfall for certain small organizations. While providing a 40 week maternity leave, will mean transferring this woman employee’s responsibilities on to other employees in the organization, which may in turn be considered as discrimination by the other group, health and safety norms will be violated when allowing the woman employee to perform their normal duties. From this viewpoint, when a manager is forced to recommend suspension of services of the woman employee for the larger benefit of the organization, how then this can be termed as discrimination?
In the case of Denny’s restaurant (Powell, Berry, Chrosniak, Inselbuch, Moore, & Smokevitch, 1996), Jerry Richardson formed crisis team comprising top management officials to manage the crisis. As the objective of the team will be to expedite legal proceeding and put all allegations to rest (as mentioned in the case study), they formed the consent agreement with Justice Department and Fair Share Agreement with NAACP. These actions were more intended to accede to government requirements as per anti-discriminatory laws – Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Civil Rights Act, 1964, 2010), Fair Employment Act, 1941.
In both the cases, the organizations need to identify the diversity in workforce and manage the diversity to maximize the effectiveness of the organization towards society and country. By merely including the diverse workforce in order to accept equal opportunity norms, set by lawmakers, cannot turn the negotiation tables. While organizations have acknowledged that they cannot survive with homogenous work groups, thus including diversity in workforce, companies need to be more open and explicit in discussions of how difference can be used as sources of individual and organizational effectiveness, thereby carrying it to the society (Thomas & Ely, 1996). A large number of company leaders have started to adopt a new organizational culture that understands the different perspectives and approaches, recognizes learning opportunities and challenges, stimulating personal development, preaching through a well articulated mission statement and inculcating the need of egalitarian structure (Thomas & Ely, 1996) setting the right platform for introduction and smooth functioning of diverse workforce.
In the various articles that I happen to read over the past few days on racial discrimination, I find that societies across the world, be it the most developed nation (United States of America) or a 3rd world country (African nations like – Ghana, Botswana etc.) (Henry & Evans, 2007), have faced discrimination issues throughout their history, including the present times (Hurst, 2010). While discrimination is not limited to race alone, the most common forms of discrimination has been discussed in most of these articles – that of gender, age, color, physical ability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, values, education, language, lifestyle, beliefs etc – the most prevalent method of discrimination within an ethnic group, in India, is that of caste divide.
Discrimination in any form is termed illegal by most of countries in the world, but how far this law has percolated down socio-economic groups and organizations, is of serious concern. Lawmakers and organizations can form policies against discrimination as a part of their system, but if these policies – their purpose of creating an effective and congenial atmosphere for growth – are not preached by management or understood by the workforce, discrimination is bound to exist and stay.
Reference:
1. Badaracco Jr., J. L. (1998). The Discipline of Building Character. Harward Business Review.
2. Brett, J., Behfar, K., & Kern, M. C. (2006). Managing Multicultural Teams. Harward Business Review.
3. Civil Rights Act, 1964. (2010, August 4). Retrieved August 3, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
4. Guerin, B. (2005). Combating Everyday Racial Discrimination without Assuming Racists or Racism: New Intervention Ideas for a Contextual Analysis. Behavior and Social Values , 14 (1), 46.
5. Henry, O., & Evans, A. J. (2007). Critical review of literature on workforce diversity. African Journal of Business Management , 072-076.
6. Hurst, S. R. (2010, August 2). Racism a distraction for Obama. Muscat Daily , p. 10.
7. Pregnancy. (2010, August 3). Retrieved August 5, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy
8. Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Sanghi, S. (2009). Conflicts and Negotiations. In Organizational Behavior (13 ed., pp. 528-557). New Delhi, India: Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.
9. Rodriguez, A. M. (2004). A Diversified Workforce Fosters a Climate of Innovation. Severna Park, Maryland, US: Sophia Associates.
10. Thomas, D. A., & Ely, R. J. (1996). Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity. Harward Business Review.
11. Powell, E. A., Berry, J., Chrosniak, J., Inselbuch, J., Moore, J., & Smokevitch, J. (1996). Denny's Restaurant (A). Daren Business Publishing . Virgina, US: University of Virginia.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Motivation Vs Manipulation
Motivation and manipulation may have a lot of similarities in the way it affects the behavior of an individual - energized activity - but how far that activity is goal oriented or otherwise determine the cause.
Motivation is all about preparing an individual or preparing oneself to perform a set of activities, which are identified as tools to achieve the desired physical, mental or social status (e.g., healthy living, moving up the corporate ladder) that will enhance the individual's self esteem and confidence. Even though motivation can bud from few words or statements from others, the motivational speaker will have no or at the best coerced effect if the individual is not able to identify the goals to be achieved in order to satisfy the vision of his/her very existence. However, having identified the goals, no amount of negative persuasion can derail the spirit of achieving.
Manipulation - in context to speeches - are statements which, in general, produce the same effect on an individual - "change a perception or behavior" - through underhand, deceptive or even abusive methods (Wikipedia, 2010:6). Manipulated speech can provide food for individual to perform a set of activities but not achieving goals that had been identified by the individual. The goals in this case, are set by the manipulator and reinforced by repetitive statements that produce frenetic activity among the listeners.
Motivation comes from selfless speech, wherein the interests of the to-be motivated person is placed before the interests of the motivator. For example, motivating an average performing employee by associating learning curves to performance, will encourage the employee to learn and benefit from the learning, which will create a sense of satisfaction thereby enhancing performance. Motivation has positive effects on the individual (being motivated) resulting in improved performance in tasks or activities that lead to achievement of goal(s).
On the contrary, manipulative statements are used by individuals to produce results that the manipulator expects from others, the results that are in the best interests of the manipulator. Manipulation can be identified if the true intention of the statement or activity, by the manipulator, is hidden.
By coping with manipulations, manipulators are further encouraged to manipulate (Real Life Spirituality, 2008 : April, 25). It is essential to dodge manipulations to perform task that lead to achievements of self identified goals. Akemi Gaines (2008: 1) adds 'know your action'. She puts 'actions towards one's aspirations' as an antidote to manipulations.
(Points of discussion referred from
Wikipedia (2010) 'Psychological Manipulation' Manipulation as underhand influence.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation [accessed 27 June 2010]
Akemi Gaines (2008), 'Dodging the many forms of psychological manipulations' Real life spirituality. http://reallifespirituality.com/psychological-manipulation-techniques/ [accessed 27 June 2010])
Motivation is all about preparing an individual or preparing oneself to perform a set of activities, which are identified as tools to achieve the desired physical, mental or social status (e.g., healthy living, moving up the corporate ladder) that will enhance the individual's self esteem and confidence. Even though motivation can bud from few words or statements from others, the motivational speaker will have no or at the best coerced effect if the individual is not able to identify the goals to be achieved in order to satisfy the vision of his/her very existence. However, having identified the goals, no amount of negative persuasion can derail the spirit of achieving.
Manipulation - in context to speeches - are statements which, in general, produce the same effect on an individual - "change a perception or behavior" - through underhand, deceptive or even abusive methods (Wikipedia, 2010:6). Manipulated speech can provide food for individual to perform a set of activities but not achieving goals that had been identified by the individual. The goals in this case, are set by the manipulator and reinforced by repetitive statements that produce frenetic activity among the listeners.
Motivation comes from selfless speech, wherein the interests of the to-be motivated person is placed before the interests of the motivator. For example, motivating an average performing employee by associating learning curves to performance, will encourage the employee to learn and benefit from the learning, which will create a sense of satisfaction thereby enhancing performance. Motivation has positive effects on the individual (being motivated) resulting in improved performance in tasks or activities that lead to achievement of goal(s).
On the contrary, manipulative statements are used by individuals to produce results that the manipulator expects from others, the results that are in the best interests of the manipulator. Manipulation can be identified if the true intention of the statement or activity, by the manipulator, is hidden.
By coping with manipulations, manipulators are further encouraged to manipulate (Real Life Spirituality, 2008 : April, 25). It is essential to dodge manipulations to perform task that lead to achievements of self identified goals. Akemi Gaines (2008: 1) adds 'know your action'. She puts 'actions towards one's aspirations' as an antidote to manipulations.
(Points of discussion referred from
Wikipedia (2010) 'Psychological Manipulation' Manipulation as underhand influence.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation [accessed 27 June 2010]
Akemi Gaines (2008), 'Dodging the many forms of psychological manipulations' Real life spirituality. http://reallifespirituality.com/psychological-manipulation-techniques/ [accessed 27 June 2010])
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