Unit 3: Chapter 2- Managers and Managing

→What is Management?
➢ Organization- Collection of people who work together and coordinate actions to achieve a variety
of goals or desired future outcomes.
➢ Management- The planning, organizing, leading and control of human and other resources to
achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively.
Achieving High Performance- A Managers Goal:
o Organizational performance- a measure of how efficiently and effectively managers use
available resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals.

o Efficiency ~A measure of how well or how productively resources are used to achieve a
goal.
~Doing things right.
~Organizations are efficient when managers minimize the amount of input resources
(labor, raw materials, component parts) or the amount of time needed to produce a
given output of goods or services.
o Effectiveness ~A measure of the appropriateness of the goals an organization is pursuing
and the
degree to which they achieve it.
~Doing the right things.
~Organizations are effective when managers choose appropriate goals and then
achieve them.
→Essential Managerial Tasks

Planning:

✓ Identifying and selecting appropriate goals.

✓ Three steps involved in planning:
1. Deciding which goals, the organization will pursue.
2. Deciding what strategies to adopt to attain those goals.
3. Deciding how to allocate organizational resources to pursue the strategies that attain those
goals
Organizing:
▪ Structuring work relationships in a way that that allows organizational members work together to
achieve organizational goals.
▪ The outcome of organizing is an organizational structure; a formal system of task and reporting
relationships that coordinates and motivates members so they work together to achieve
organizational goals.
Leading:
❖ Articulating a clear vision and energizing and enabling organizational members so they understand
the part they play in achieving organizational goals.
❖ Organization vision- a short, succinct and inspiring statement of what the organization intends to
become and the goals it’s seeking to achieve- it’s desired future state.
Controlling:

• Evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and taking action to maintain or improve
performance.
• The outcome of control process is the ability to measure performance accurately and regulate
organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Performing Managerial Tasks- Mintzberg’s typology:

Interpersonal Roles:
1. The Figurehead: performs ceremonial duties. Examples: greeting visiting dignitaries, attending an
employee’s wedding, taking an important customer to lunch.

2. The Leader: responsibility for the work of subordinates, motivating and encouraging employees,
exercising their formal authority.

3. The Liaison: making contacts outside the vertical chain of command including peers in other
companies or departments, and government and trade organization representatives.
Informational Roles:

4. The Monitor: scans the environment for new information to collect.

5. The Disseminator: Passing on privileged information directly to subordinates.

6. The Spokesperson: Sharing information with people outside their organization. Examples: a speech
to a lobby or suggesting product modifications to suppliers.
Decisional Roles:
7. The Entrepreneur: Seeks to improve the unit by initiating projects.

8. The Disturbance Handler: Responds involuntarily to pressures too severe to be ignored. Examples: a
looming strike, a major customer gone bankrupt, or a supplier reneging on a contract.

9. The Resource Allocator: Decides who gets what.

10. The Negotiator: Committing organizational resources in “real-time” with the broad information
available from their informational roles.
→Levels and Skills of Managers
✓ A department- A group of people who work together and processes similar skills or use the same
knowledge, tools or techniques to perform their jobs.
✓ Examples: manufacturing, accounting, engineering or sales department.
Levels of Management:

▪ First-line Managers:
~A manager who is responsible for daily supervision of non-managerial employees.
~Called supervisors.
~Work in all departments or functions.
~Example: Head nurse in a specific department of a hospital.

▪ Middle Managers:
»A manager who supervises first-line managers and is responsible for finding the best way to
use resources to achieve organizational goals.

▪ Top Managers:
-A manager who establish organizational goals, decides how departments should interact, and
monitors the performance of middle managers.
-Responsible for the performance of all departments.

▪ CEO:
*Chief Executive Officer
*A companies most senior and important manager, the one all top managers report to.
*COO-Chief operating officer (Top Managers)
*The CEO must create a smoothly functioning top management team; a group composed of the
CEO and directors and managers most responsible for achieving organizational goals.
Relative Amount of Time That Managers Spend on the Four Managerial Functions:

Managerial Skills:
1. Conceptual skills: The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and to distinguish between cause
and effect. About seeing the bigger picture.
2. Human skills: The ability to understand, alter, lead and control the behavior of other individuals and
groups.
3. Technical skills: The job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational
role.
→Recent Changes in Managerial Practices
• Restructuring- Downsizing and organization by eliminating the jobs in the organization on all levels.
• Outsourcing- Contracting with another company, usually abroad, to have it perform an activity the
organization previously performed itself.
• Empowerment- The expansion of employees’ knowledge, tasks and decision-making
responsibilities.
• Self-managed teams- A group of employees who assume responsibility for organizing, controlling
and supervising their own activities and monitoring the quality of goods and services they provide.

→Challenges for Management in a Global Environment

1. Building a Competitive Advantage:
❖ Competitive advantage- The ability of one organization to outperform other organizations
because it produces desired goods and services more efficiently and effectively.

❖ Organizations increases their efficiency when they reduce the quantity of resources, they
use to produce goods or services.
❖ Pressure from global organizations has increased the pressure on companies to increase the
quality of their goods and services.
❖ Innovation is the process of creating new or improved goods and services that customers
want or developing better ways to produce or provide goods and services.
❖ Organizations compete for customers with their products and services, so training
employees to be responsive to customers needs is vital for all organizations, but particularly
for service organizations.

2. Maintaining Ethical and Socially Responsible Standards:

✓ There is a high level of pressure to perform.
✓ Too much pressure can be harmful, it may induce managers to behave unethically.
3. Managing a Diverse Workforce:
o There must be opportunities available to every employee.
o Managers must recognize the performance-enhancing possibilities of a diverse workforce,
such as the ability to take advantage of the skills and experiences of different kinds of
people.

4. Utilizing Technology and E-Commence:

➢ Managers must continually utilize efficient and effective new technology that can link and
enable managers and employees to perform their jobs better.
➢ Increasing new kinds of technology enable not just individual employees but also self-
managed teams by giving them important information and allowing virtual interactions
around the globe using the internet.

5. Practicing Global Crisis Management:

▪ Natural causes: Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes
▪ Human causes: Industrial pollution, Inattention to employee safety, destruction of natural
habitat or environment.