Creativity Module... (Contd)

I am taking in this way that I want to create a firm that will be providing software solutions to the general public and main focus of the company is the professional firm especially the softwares used in teaching for students.

For the first step, I’ll go for hiring the talented and especially young people/fresh graduates for my firm. The pre-requisite for efficient selection for me is the systematic defining of requirements of each task. Because without a talent staff it is impossible to achieve the higher aims.

My focus areas would be college and university students who can work for my firm part time and full time as well. The reason to focus on students and fresh graduates is as you need a talented and enthusiastic staff for your firm to grow.

If not, then the other areas would be, for hiring employees would be through references, or will go for technical journal search to see how the writers especially the young writers are coming up with new ideas and then will try to have a contact with them. If still not then will go for newspapers advertisement.

The first three steps that I would like to take in order to have an exercise relating to determination of personal requirements and designing the initial organizational structure.

Starting with an activity analysis which will let me to decide about the overall activities that I would follow and that will be required and helpful in successfully obtaining the overall objective of the firm (which is of course not only to maximize the financial benefits but also to get the loyalty from customers).

Then second most important factor is just to categorize the activities according to the workforce capabilities and according to the team and managerial aims and objectives. I will first of all make focus on the HR department as without a strong HR no company can flourish. Then categorization of technical experts and a hierarchy to follow like technicians and those having a wide experience of the field.

The final step will be department inter-relations. I would like to have a system that mutual coordination between the departments will stay and people from each will think themselves as the part of other department too.

For better output from the staff there are few behaviors, individual and common both, that must be in the firm which must direct the firm in order to get the main objective(s).

1. SELF BEHAVIOR (as a head)
As a head of the firm it is my own duty to first analyze my own behavior that is it supporting with the employees and as others tend to emulate the actions of the boss so every meeting between head and subordinate presents a teaching learning situation. And if as a head I support them morally then for sure they tend to become positively inclined to learn. Therefore, as a head the my own behavior should exhibit a tendency towards learning and training, so that it will increase the intent in the employees to work creativily.

2. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
As talented employees are the key assets of the company, plus it is a human desire that they want to get themselves recognize. I will use PA for defecting and correcting errors. First to gather information about each employee’s performance, effectiveness and communicates the same to employee. Things to be include in it are
a Standards' establishment
b Performance record
c Reviewing of Performance in accordance with Standards
d Taking Corrective Action

To increase the creativity, if I still feel after that much of intensive selection and development process that there is something lacking in employees, then I’ll do process of Training and Development. Because, after this kind of selection I think that if the selection was good and employees started well in start but in later stages there happened something bad or their efficiency gone down then T&D is the best solution.

For me the best method to train an employee, is job rotation. It is true that one who is acting now as technical head must have a knowledge of the workforce management and for this the best idea is to send him/her to perform some tasks and train him/her in HR department so that he must have a better understanding that this is how the things work and this is the best way to organize and use the workforce for better output.

If this kind of method doesn’t work then another bit complex method can be used which is train the people from whole organization in one place i.e., arranging group meetings. The advantage for group meeting will be that in that the people from HR, Marketing, Technical will come and sit together and then will discuss if any common problem faced by all of them or any particular problem and then will use their experience and expertise to solve for the overall benefit of the firm.

MANAGING CONFLICTS IN A FIRM

Conflict according to Flanagan is “any situation in which people have incompatible interests, goals, principles, or feelings.” Whenever and wherever there is a group of people, especially when the firm grows and when the desire for more collaborative approaches to leadership increaser it is inevitable that conflicts will arise. As a consequence of them, they can threat the relationships among the employees which result in weakness of internal structure for the firm and ultimately can cause the damage the overall objectives of the firm.

Entrepreneurs must also have to act as a leader, after all they are human beings and those working for the firm as well. All differ in their social, moral and psychological needs and sometimes even this need can become the base of conflict in the organization.

Mostly entrepreneurs cannot give proper attention to the conflict when it is in its starting juncture and when it matured; again the time had passed to covenant with that. Thus, it result in poor management for that conflict. Poorly managed conflict creates enormous costs in the form of wasted management time, higher turnover, lawsuits, and the like. It can also lower productivity. When people are engaged in destructive conflict, they begin to pull back, stop sharing information, and take fewer risks. When the employee feel that his/her effort is not rewarded, or he/she is involved in any kind of conflict, particularly with the management, it will result in declining of his/her spirits and confidence. Lowered morale and strained working relationships can cause stress and sap employees’ energy to focus on being creative and productive.

To handle them during the whole of business is also a big task for an entrepreneur to accomplish. He/she must have personal traits to understand the conflict, he must know him/herself that if he/she competent enough to deal with the nature of conflict, then doing actions to manage or reduce conflicts and finally building and developing such an environment based on experience that can put a barrier for future conflicts to arise.

It is one of the duty of an entrepreneur beside rising and growing the organization that he/she must also take this factor in account to create a conflict free and competent organization.