The Dreaded 'Witch' and 'What' Exercise

Yesterday's Persuasive Communications lecture started with all of the students forming a circle, the "Head of Communications" was selected from the circle and given two pens; one green and one orange. The green pen (representing 'What') was passed around one way of the circle, while the orange (representing 'Witch') was passed around the other side of the circle. Each time the pens were passed to a member of the circle, each person would have to say "This is a Witch /What (depending on the pen they received). The person receiving the pen would then have to say "It's a what?" and this message would have to be passed back through the circle members to the Head of Comms who would then have to say "It's a Witch/ What". This message was then passed back along the circle, allowing the message to move forward on to the next member... (I hope I haven't confused you too much!)

So like the little conformists we are we started the game without questioning what would happen the pens met. Up until this point the game was going quite well (despite the Head of Comms being a little confused) then... the "crisis" struck. The person who received both pens was suddenly bombarded with different messages, leaving her feeling very confused, hardly surprising since the other circle members started shouting orders at her as to what she should do!

Our lecturer left us to battle it out for a bit and finally caved in.

"Did anybody not anticipate what would happen and think about intervening before this crisis happened?" our lecturer asked. Suddenly the class realised that this exercise was never going to work and really she was hoping that someone would step forward, intervene and re-structure the circle formation, allowing us to effectively complete the task.

It showed us that in many cases, it is important to empower the employees to say that it was a 'Witch' or a 'What' rather than constantly checking back with the manager; which as we learned, only results in confusion let alone time-wasting. It also occurred to us of the need to step in and voice our concerns when we can see that something is going to go wrong.

Following this exercise we looked at Conflict and the Four Frames of Reference.

1. Unitarist: Harmony is a positive force in organisations whereas conflict is a negative force. 
2. Pluralist: Conflict is inevitable, it's not harmful.
3. Interactionist: Conflict is positive and a necessary force for effective business performance.
4. Radical: Conflict is an inevitable outcome of capitalism.

As someone who studied A Level Sociology I was eager to find out more about the Radical (Marxist) Conflict Theory. This perspective refers to "the basic inequalities and power differentials characterising industrial capitalist society and relates work conflicts back to these structural patterns" (Watson, p.279).

For more pragmatic distinctions of conflict we can look at:

• Functional Conflict: Sharpens understanding of goals, prevents premature resolution problems, stimulates a sense of urgency and enhances understanding between groups of employees.
• Dysfunctional Conflict: Blocks an organisation from reaching its goals, lacks innovation and the generation of new ideas, creates tension and anxiety and may lead to "group think".

When writing cover letters in the past I have often written the phrase 'eager to work with like-minded people' (or something along those lines). But come to think of it, this would be my worst nightmare! When I leave university I want to work for an innovative organisation that encourages a healthy level of conflict. I now understand that conflict is important since it's allows people to bring new ideas to the table. If we all thought the same way and did not question people's ideas, "conformed to the norms" if you like, than how boring would that be? Conflict allows for all ideas to not be stamped on but praised and developed in order to boost organisational success.