Objective of assignment
Students had been silently discussing the strike for the last three weeks. This is because the administration had failed to respond to some of the issues that had been raised by the students during the last four months. Tension was high and things were running out of proportion. As a student leader I knew that I have responsibility to protect the institution by acting as a link between management and the students and at the same time fighting for the rights of students through ensuring that a good conducive environment for learning is enhanced. Imberman (2003) suggests that strikes are the only option when management becomes too difficult. University students are the worst nightmare to deal with since no one wants to hear about the effects of such actions to the general public and even the school administration. However, the process in itself was not illegal in any way since it recognized by the constitution of the United States and it is the only way for achieving a collective bargaining agreement with the administration. At the back of my mind I knew that this was the best opportunity to bring the administration to its knees and at the same time make a statement as one of the best student leaders that the university ever had. Nothing was going to stand and keep me away from achieving my dream since I had capitalized on the escalating tension that had been building up. Despite that, my biggest worry was not the success of the strike but rather any side effects that the strike may lead to. I was fully aware of campus crews that were violent and aggressive and could do anything to achieve their way. Such groups were the best prey to push things if the administration was reluctant but they could go beyond limits to using violence to achieve their limits.
I need to take you back to the genesis of this whole problem before we continue. For the past one year, students had been ding exams but results were not being released due to challenges in the academic division. Students had decided to be patient since through the union we had raised the same challenge to the administration and they promised to be given four months to sort out the mess and release the results. However, after four months the results had not been released forcing the union to write again to the academic division where they responded by releasing the results within two weeks. However, most students were having missing marks while others had results that were mixed or could not reflect consistency in the scores. Further, the administration came up with stern measures to deal with students who had such problems without giving room for students to justify their complaints. This issue raised tension amongst students since those who were going to graduate the following year could have problems in graduating. As a leader, I thought the best way to resolve this issues was to call for social action through rallying students not to attend any lectures for the whole week. However, since I could not propose the idea alone, I had to take it to the students’ council who agreed that the strategy was okay but a statement needs to be made before the administration can respond to the strike.
Detailed instructions
Barnett (2004) suggests that the strike had been cautiously planned to ensure that there is a crisis in the institution to make the administration to respond. Therefore, Monday was chosen as the best day where almost all the administrative staff will be in their office. The idea was to allow the administration to report and then seal them out from leaving the institution until an agreement has been reached. The strategy was to use little force since we were to barricade only designated areas and ensure that key persons are rounded up in one place. Rumor had also gone round that there will be a council meeting which will take place in the study room thus increasing the number of people who may be victims of the strike. The university board was the best prey since they could instill emergency measures to make the necessary people respond from the pressure. That Monday I ensured that every student leader has been assigned a strategic area of coverage and allowed to mobilize at least thirty male and female students who will take part in the process. The rest of the students were to lock out the main get and ensure that traffic was controlled in and out of the university.
All was going well and the strike was being successful since the designated areas had been locked and the targeted individuals were not allowed to leave their offices. Later, they were requested to join the council in the board room to ensure that they could reach an agreement better. As the day went on, students became impatient and started becoming violent attacking passersby and slowly causing commotion on the highway. Vehicles could not be allowed to pass. Thus the police had to be called in. I was therefore, moving between the other areas and trying to contain the students who seemed to enjoy engaging the police in side shows. Seeing that they were in a fix and could not leave the board room. The council requested that they meet with the student leadership to address the issues that had been raised by all students.
We had preplanned for the negotiations already and prepared the team thoroughly for the process. Nutter (2000) suggests that preplanning ignites social action fire that leads to the desired effect of any social action. Everybody in the student’s council new that if the bargaining agreement is not done well then the whole strike may backfire and the consequences of the whole strike will be on our shoulders. We could read the mood of the administration since they felt that they had been belittled by students and were not happy at all. Despite the fact that the problem was not for the whole institution, we knew that the best way to reach out to the academic division is to frustrate the administration wing who could easily respond by instituting measures to meet the needs of the students.
Answer
When the process began, the first step was union security that needed to be guaranteed that no action will be taken against any student leader or student due to the strike. Throughout my life, I had read so much about the collective bargaining process but I had not undergone the process in person. This gave me the process to go through the five step process. Since we had already prepared the objectives and demands for the process, we began by setting ground rules for the process and then presented our proposal to the administration (Silver, 2008). They were given time to go through the proposal and respond by presenting their ideas to use. We discussed the points in detail for almost six hours before the issues were agreed upon. After that we engaged in negotiations until an agreement was reached between the administration, the academic wing and the students. Before we could sign the agreement or agree to the terms we had to go back to the students and read the resolutions to them for clarification. Everything was agreed upon thus making it easier for use. Went back to the negotiation room to sign an agreement to seal the process and a time limit for the implementation set to ensure that the student’s queries are addressed to the fullest. As leaders we were tasked with the process of calling off the strike by assuring students that everything had been taken care off and the questions will be addressed within one month. We converged at the student’s center and read all the agreements to the students. The strike was eventually called off but the institution will have to bear the consequences of any destructions and vandalisms that may have been done by students. Since the union has signed a security agreement, then no student should be made liable for any inconvenience.
From the whole process, one notable concern is that management needs to develop strategies in addressing issues that affect stakeholders. Effective management of this group creates a positive relationships through meeting the expectations of each group. According to Bourne & Walker (2008) sstakeholder management theorists suggest that shareholders in this case students are the owners of the firm and their needs have to be put first. Every business must strive to develop good relationships between different entities that consist of the organization. Both external and internal needs in the environment have to be made to ensure organizational success (Post, 2002). Failure to this may lead to revolutionary changes like strikes which may have deeper consequences that could have been easily addressed. Sometimes organizational problems only require putting proper mechanisms in place to ensure efficiency in all system areas. If the university had ensured efficiency in the academic department, then the whole strike could have been unnecessary.
However, in management the question to be asked will be what is the role of management in monitoring functional units within the organization? Functional units are part of the whole system and play roles that lead to the overall performance of the organization (Stoner, 1995). This means that there was a leadership challenge in the university since management was not aware of functional challenges in the university. The departments were organized along functional activities that they perform but were to report to top management over any challenges that may be experienced.
One notable concern here is the weaknesses of a functional system in an organization. One such problem is lack of clear communication between one level of the organization and the other level. In this case, top management was aware of the problem but believed that the problem had been addressed since the students had been given results (Lim, Griffiths, & Sambrook, 2010). However, there were secondary problems that were attached to the same issue. Further, unit coordination is another challenge of such a structure where cooperation between units can be compromised and sometimes unwillingness to cooperate among groups is noted. Infighting between different units is highly reported in such systems since some may feel superior as compared to others (Hedberg, Dahlgren, Hansson, & Olve, 1999). For example, in most organizations the finance department feels superior to other units in the organization which makes it difficult to coordinate activities. Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy (2008) add that management needs to develop proper mechanisms for achieving system efficiency and harmony to reduce future organizational challenges. Further, all stakeholders need to be satisfied to reduce tension and any challenges that may describe the organization.
Further performance management may not have been addressed well thus leading to the witnessed crisis. The process is used to set targets for employees that are directly linked to the organizational goal (Nielsen, 2014). Individual goals translate to functional goals and then organizational goals. The department may have failed on the appraisal system, since the tool is also used to identify challenges in achieving objectives and putting mechanism’s in place to address them. Leaders in the department may have not been using the tools to appraise employees since the tool could have reported the reasons for ineffectiveness and then solutions developed to address the challenge. Organizations need to view performance management tools not as employee appraisal tools but rather strategic mechanisms for understanding the challenges that may inhibit employee performance (Gary Cokins, 2009). Therefore, leaders need to appraise the performance of employees to determine areas of improvement.
Therefore, management is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the organization runs well to avoid system challenges. Since the system works in coordination, when one element is paralyzed, the other parts are affected since there is no harmony. Managers need to ensure that they put proper mechanisms to meet every need of the stakeholder that they work with.
References
Barnett, L. C. (2004). Maintainin Order in the Post-Strike Workplace: Employee Expression and the Scop of Section 7. Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labour Law, 15(1), 87-105.
Bourne, L., & Walker, D. H. (2008). Project relationship management and the Stakeholder Circle. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 1(1), 120-133.
Gary Cokins. (2009). Performance Management – Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics. Chichester : John Wiley & Sons.
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2008). Management: People, Performance, Change. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hedberg, B., Dahlgren, G., Hansson, J., & Olve, N.-G. (1999). Virtual Organizations and Beyond: Discover Imaginary Systems. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Imberman, W. (2003, November). Who Strikes—and Why? Havard Business Review.
Lim, M., Griffiths, G., & Sambrook, S. (2010). Organizational structure for the twenty-first century. Annual meeting of The Institute for Operations Research and The Management Sciences. Austin.
Nielsen, P. (2014). Performance Management, Managerial Authority, and Public Service Performance. ournal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24(2), 431-458.
Nutter, K. B. (2000). The Necessity of Organization: Mary Kenney O’Sullivan and Trade Unionism or Women, 1892-1912. Taylor & Francis.
Post, J. (2002). Redefining the corporation : stakeholder management and organizational wealth. Carlifonia: Stanford Business Books.
Silver, B. (2008). Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization Since 1870. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stoner, J. (1995). Management . New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
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