People and Organisational Management: Conflict, Innovation Essay

This essay examines the role of conflict in organizational management, highlighting its potential for both disruption and innovation. It discusses strategies for fostering a collaborative work environment by addressing biases and communication styles within teams. The essay emphasizes the importance of balancing core business activities with innovative exploration, particularly the role of leadership in managing tensions between these priorities. Drawing on articles from the Harvard Business Review, the analysis underscores the need for ambidextrous leadership to navigate conflicting agendas and promote both stability and growth within the organization. Desklib offers this essay as a study resource for students.

Running Head: People and Organisational Management
People and Organisational Management
Essay
System04104
8/5/2018

People and Organisational Management
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1. Handling Conflict
Conflict can be both beneficial and harmful for the organisation. A good conflict can produce
innovative and productive results for the organisation where the bad conflict can create
problems for the organisation (Rahim, 2017). The good conflicts often inspire for the best
results in the organisation. To establish a collaborative work environment in the organisation,
the supervisor should take a break from others and let other team members talk with each
other. This can help to build the trust among the team members that is essential for
collaborative work. It is essential to involve every person in the organisation when plotting
conflict conversation. There are different types of people in the team having different nature.
Some people hesitate to say something at the first time, but as a facilitator, it is the
responsibility of the senior person to encourage others and helps them to feel comfortable in
share their ideas and views (Toegel & Barsoux, 2016). The five things should be considered
in the mind during the conversation:
a. Look: People often make a perception about a person after just a look. Therefore, it is
essential to weed out these biases so that people do not develop any wrong impression
of each other.
b. Act: Behavioural norms differ from person to person, such as personal space. This
often conflicts with one another and create tension among people.
c. Speak: The communication style of a person differ from one another, some have
aggressive intent in speaking about any matter where some have soft intent.
d. Think: This is the biggest cause of conflicts amongst members of a team who thinks
differently about the work they are doing. This is a tough challenge for a conflict
handler.
e. Feel: Too many ideas of people get too many reactions and too much enthusiasm of a
person can cause sceptical of ideas for another person.
Having an early talk with team members by considering these pinpoints of their behaviour
helps in preventing future conflicts and drives the organisation towards the collaborative
work environment.

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2. Conflict and innovation
To get the organisational success it is essential for a team leader to focus on adapt changes
and innovate, which requires exploring and experimenting. To get success and to manage the
collaborative environment in the organisation it is essential to handle the situation by both
“exploit” and “explore” techniques which also helpful in resolving the tensions among team
members (Carter, Hoffman, and Wiedenheft, 2017). The core business is a part of the
organisation that brings revenue to the business where innovation needs an exploration of
new activities. Often core prioritizes over innovation. But the only person who favours
innovation is the CEO. The leadership principle mainly focuses on three things:
a. Engage the senior team for strategic aspiration.
b. Hold the tension at the top level by considering the demand of innovations and core
business.
c. Maintain conflicts between employees and also manage the conflicting strategic
agendas.
Many CEOs take a backseat over the resource utilisation and giving more power to the
middle-level manager, that causes failure of the company in long-term. Therefore, it is
essential for the smooth run of business operation that the CEO leads the organisation
ambidextrously when they stand in a state of constant to handle the conflict between the old
and the new (Tushman, Smith, & Binns, 2011). A successful CEO always focuses on to first
develop a forward-looking strategic aspiration that sets ambitious targets for both core and
innovative business growth. Then the CEO tries to manage the tension at the top level of
management and balance the demand of innovative unit and core business (Saeed, Almas,
Anis-ul-Haq, and Niazi, 2014). And at the end, they hold inconsistency and allowing
themselves liberty to tackle conflicting agendas that occurs regularly in the business.

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References
Carter, J., Hoffman, C. and Wiedenheft, B. (2017) The interfaces of genetic conflict are hot
spots for innovation. Cell, 168(1), pp. 9-11.
Rahim, M.A. (2017) Managing conflict in organizations. London, UK: Routledge.
Saeed, T., Almas, S., Anis-ul-Haq, M. and Niazi, G.S.K. (2014) Leadership styles:
relationship with conflict management styles. International Journal of Conflict
Management, 25(3), pp. 214-225.
Toegel, G. & Barsoux, J. (2016) How to preempt team conflict. Harvard Business Review,
94(6), pp. 78–83.
Tushman, M.L., Smith, W.K., & Binns, A. (2011) The ambidextrous CEO. Harvard Business
Review, 89(6), pp. 74–80.