Project Organisation and Behavior

Introduction

For any project to thrive and attain its intended purpose, the manager should integrate both managerial and leadership qualities. The manager cannot achieve high quality and sustainable results/ end product if he capitalizes only on administering, trying to take control of the workers, base his policy on short term focus or even imitate what others have done. These are some of the characteristics managers have. Instead he should integrate the mentioned characteristics with innovativeness inspiring and motivating the workers, base his policy on long term focus, come with realistic and original ideas and develop the ideas into achievable entities.

However this may not be easily achieved as there are conflicts and disagreements which may occur as he tries to combine both managerial and leadership ideas in the attempt to achieve or see the end results of his assignments. Conflicts may occur as a result of poor communication between all the involved parties i.e. the management/ administration and the workers; when one needs to rise to a position of power; though this one is usually from the worker’s fraternity.

A worker may be cheated by the administration that he will be rewarded with a position of power hence turn against his colleagues especially when they want to seek for better remunerations or conducive working environment conflicts can also occur when there is dissatisfaction with the management style. A group of management staff may feel unsatisfied with the way fellow staff members are handling some issues hence lead to a conflict. Another cause conflict in a workplace which can affect the quality of the end product is lack of openness at the place of work. All the team players need to know what is their contribution benchmarks so as to achieve the intended results.

Change of leadership can also be a cause of conflict in workplace. The workers fraternity may have been conditioned to a kind of leadership hence feeling at ease when working but a change of this may bring some friction cum conflict when a change occurs as they try to adjust to the new leadership.

When conflicts occur at a place of work the manager should come up with proper methods of resolving interpersonal conflict through effective interpersonal negotiation skills. According to’ David G. Myers (2005)’ can apply some methods such as appropriate communication within and from all the parties involved in a workplace, cultivating trust among all the individuals, proper decision making and developing procedures for routine tasks through inclusion of the employees’ input. Through that the manager will be able to prove to be a transformational leader who can propel the project to achieve the intended quality.

The standard transactional model of organization structure which may be used to ensure the project maintains its clear focus on quality.

Structural model

This model capitalizes on psychological functions of human mind. Human beings tend to deliver or perform duties/ work in accordance to what their mind tells them. William Garrison (1986)” noted that much of human beings’ hard work and dedication to work is usually triggered by his line of thought in attachment to ones mind. If a human being sympathizes with a bad situation then he feels duty bound to improve the situation and make it better. To this case, sympathy is psychological and it acts as a driving force to improve or complete a stalled project.

The original prophet of structural model; Sigmund Freud, noted that the mind has three functions other than the many parts of the brain. These functions are:

1. The ID
2. The ego
3. The super ego

In my cross-sectional analysis of the three functions I will explain how a manger of stalled project would borrow from the function and I am start the project and make it flourish in quality and shine.

The Id

It is argued that this function comprises of ones unorganized part of the personality and in most cases the function contains the basic drives. if Id is not compelled by reality it seeks immediate enjoyment since it works on the pleasure principle. in most cases the Id is focused on selfishness and instant self gratification. it is worth noting that Id explicit the uncoordinated and instinctual trends which in most cases are inherited. These traits are in most cases seen to prevail in what another psychologist called a normal person who need to be coerced in order to work.

In our case the project manager can take advantage of this function of this function of his workers mind by ensuring that he informs them or the fact that once the stalled project is completed in time and to the require standards and quality, then they would all enjoy its benefits. He should have made it clear that for one to enjoy something to the full end, he should be identifying himself with and feel as a part of it. This would have been quite possible since thus function i.e. the Id function can easily be conditioned to reason in a certain way. Moreover, the Id contains inherited traits and definitely one inherits some strength which the manager could have assisted his workers to identify and make use of.

In the application of the Id as a function of mind in a place of work, one cannot fail to note that cases of laxity will be noted especially if the manager is not present. This is purely on the fact that this function seeks for immediate enjoyment hence workers will take advantage of any situation which offer rest even if it means sneaking out of work.

The manager need put more resources in place so as to motivate the workers as they are not intrinsically motivated. Most of traits in this function are therefore, one carries even the undesirable traits with which hinder him from making proper delivery at the place of work.

The ego

The ego acts according to the reality principle in the sense that it seeks to give the id drives a sense of viewing things from a realistic point of view. It suppresses and tries to extinguish Id drives which can bring disappointment and grief. Surprisingly enough, it is not wholly separated from the Id since they have to work in harmony so as to improve the personality structures of an individual.

According [Freud” the ego and the Id, (1923)] one can deduce that the ego comprises of what may be called reason and common sense in contrast to Id, which contains the instinctual passions. Moreover, one could not fail to note that the ego acts as a mediator among the Id the superego and the external world (the last two will be discussed later in the topic).

A modern psychologist should be able to note that ego can be described to mean

1. One’s self esteem,
2. Sense of self worth or even oneself.

The function ego can be applied at a work station of workplace by ensuring that workers do not only dwell much on the instinctual Id which dictates that one should be compelled to work or sweet talked so as to perform a task. This is possible as the ego suppresses the Id.

the fact that the Ego works on basis of self-esteem is a clear go ahead that workers need not forced to work as they can set their own goals and work to achieve moreover, this function works on the reality principle. This had to make work easier for the manager as the workers and even he would note that the project needs to be completed within the stipulated time.

The Ego strives to improve personality and quality. Therefore, the workers works with extra care to ensure their principle of having a desired quality is achieved. Notably ego works on the basis of common sense and therefore, the manager was to less time make the workers understand that the project needed to be completed and high quality maintained.

Despite Ego having the traits which most managers would admire in their workers it cannot fall to have some disadvantages. To begin with, the workers may fail to see the sense/ reason of inheriting a 255 complete project and do the remaining work. It is common sense as the project must have encountered some problems hence they may be reluctant to work. since this function works to achieve one self esteem, then this may vary among the workers hence lack of harmony in the work; some may be more motivated that others.

Super ego

This aims for perfection and it comprises of the part of ones mind which is organized and which looks for perfection and absolute high quality of standards in whatever one does. It can be thought to be that type which punishes misbehavior with feeling of guilt. Research has shown that it ensures and compels one to act socially upright.

Super-ego can act as the perfection gear which compels workers to give quality results since super-ego punishes misbehavior and cushions morality and social standard of life, one cannot fail to note that misbehavior and excess of social life which lead time wasting could not find way in the project.

The super-ego is deemed with the responsibility of giving the finest quality ever the manager could think of however it may not be possible since this function acts on the principle that even the external factors should be perfect and in alignment with the worker’s esteem. The working environment may not be conducive for the workers. Such ears can also involve the weather and climatic conditions which man has no control over them.

Conflict management

Despite applying the transactional model or organization structure, it must be admitted no one project whether inherited or initiated can be without conflicts. However, these should not deter one or the management from achieving its goals. This is usually dealt with through conflicts managements; this is a process of planning to avoid conflict where possible and organizing to resolve conflict here it does happen. In other words it can be described as resolving interpersonal conflict through effective interpersonal negotiation skills. One can employ several measures to resolve conflicts. This includes: Appropriate communication among all the players in a particular project. Instituting proper leadership and cultivating trust among all the players. Proper decision making and delegation of duties is used as one of the areas of desire.

By understanding and applying the conflict management theory, the manager should be able to have his workers work harmoniously and achieve the end results.

Moving from the transactional structure to a more transformational structure

In a transactional structure the leader is given power to perform certain tasks and rewards or punish the team’s performance. He is vested with all the power to manipulate the workers hence if not careful he may be branded a slave driver. This makes the workers to feel as not part of the system. Power is given to him to evaluate correct and train subordinates, when productivity is not up to the desired level.

In a transformational structure the leader is charged with the responsibility to motivate his team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group on the final desired goal.

In this case the leader is highly motivated and uses a chain of command to get the job done hence he is not branded a slave drive or the brain child or the whole project. Instead every member in the organization feels identified with the project.

The structural model of organization structure to a transformational structure since it advocates and borrows from the theory which explains the functions of the human mind. Earlier on it was noted that the woman mind has three functions i.e. the Id, the Ego and the super-ego. It was further noted that the Ego operates as the mediator between the Id and the super-ego.

Therefore, for the structural model to be transformed from a transactional model to a transformed from a transactional model to a transformational model, the three functions must be evoked in a hierarchy. One should use the strengths in id such as the fact that this function can work and combine it with Ego’s common sense to achieve the super-ego’s perfection.

Through this, one will be able to implement whatever system is introduced to his organization and have a fast response to occurrence of problems.

References

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