COPING WITH MANAGEMENT Managees are someone who is managed. May be a replacement for employee (as managers are also employed by firms), worker, subordinate (possibly to demeaning), and associate (too condescending or implying a false equality). The overall goal will be show how managers and those being managed fit into the overall organization. One of the first steps in understanding the roll of management is to realize that management is to realize that management is a separate career. Even though someone was made a manager from, say, electrical engineer (E. E), the person is adding a new profession. This should involve as much training as if the E. E decided to become a nurse.
Management has four functions: Planning, Controlling, organizing, Directing, Leadership, and Motivating. Planning is considered the most basic management function. Planning involves establishing both the destination and the route for the business. Controlling entails supervising, disciplining, evaluating, and managing the change of the four managerial resources. Controlling activities include evaluating the performance of equipment and people, analyzing the usefulness of information, measuring the performance of financial and people, analyzing the usefulness of information, and changing resources that are not working well. Organizing function of management involves the grouping of the four resources. Organization also involves coordinating departmental operations, grouping human resources on a permanent and daily basis, and staffing the organization. On a smaller scale, organizing entails the scheduling of work shifts, work hours, and breaks.
Directing consists of two difficult tasks: leading and motivating. Leadership entails providing a vision for obtaining the organization??™s goals and showing people the path or direction for realizing that vision. Motivating involves giving people reason to work. Management also has four resources with which to carry out the four functions. They are Human resources, financial resources, Material resources, and Informational resources. The human resources often receive the most attention and are typically the most difficult to manage.
Humans are by far the most complex and often the least predictable resources. Financial resources are money and things that act like or can be converted into money. Money can be invested and its performance evaluated using accounting and financial skills. Material resources are all the items needed for the production of goods and services. Informational resources is the firm??™s collection of knowledge, facts, data, or intelligence, are becoming ever more important and abundant. More and better information can lead to greater customer satisfaction and better decision making. The external management environment comprises the entities in direct contact with the company, combined with the major forces of the population and society. Managers must take these forces and trends into accounts as they oversee operations in the internal environment.
The internal management environment consists of the company or organization itself. The manager must consider effects on the social and political relations among those above, below, and at the same level as his or her position. DECISION MAKINGDecision making is one of the main functions of managers.
Rational decisions are decisions based on reason and following a logical system. There are types of ways that managers should be making when making decisions. Political decisions are decisions where someone tries to gain an advantage. A politically popular decision is made to satisfy the majority of those involved.
A personal political decision is a decision that benefits the decision maker or the decision maker??™s career. Superior??™s political decision is a decision made mainly to benefit the decision maker??™s boss or bosses, rather than the decision maker directly. Politically rewarding decision is a decision made to repay a favor.
Like when you do something for someone they always want you to repay the favor back to them in some kind of way. Politically punishing decision a decision made to exact revenge or to inflict a penalty. A temporal decision is a decision in which time plays a major role. Emergency temporal decision is a decision made during a crisis. Everyone use this method when they have to make a decision about a love one that may need surgery. Quick temporal decision is a decision made in a short amount of time, but not during a crisis.
A delayed decision is when a decision is taking longer than normal. Barrier decisions taking a long amount of time because of the conditions, often in the hope the problem or person will go away. A nondecision is never actually making a decision: saying no by saying nothing.
Emotional decision is when a based subjective feeling can be divided into two types; those arising from anger and those arising from affective responses. An anger emotional decision is often obvious to any witnesses but difficult to detect when you are not present at the time the decision is made. Whatever the cause, anger creates a poor decision-making environment. An affective emotional decision is based on sentiment, instinct, gut- reaction, or some other subjective criterion.
Economic decisions are decisions based solely on a concern for money or cost. This decision to spend less may not be popular or even wise, but it is hard to argue against less spending, especially in lean times. A risk-based decision is a decision involving a noticeable or high chance of loss or injury. Sometimes decision makers are willing to make decisions as long as there is little chance of failure or if failure would not be highly visible to superiors or those outside the department. Low-risk decisions are decisions involving little chance of visible failure or loss. These are the only kind of decisions some people are willing to make. Decision makers willing to make high-risk decisions are often decisive, but a few will back up their decisions with a scapegoat.
Conflict-based decisions are decisions based on whether they cause or avoid conflicts. Some managers believe that a certain amount of conflict keeps subordinates more alert. Buck-passing decisions are decisions passed along for someone else to make. To pass a decision to another when it concerns your area is passing the buck, especially when it is an unpleasant, unpopular, or risky decision. Playing it by the numbers is when you go by the rules no matter what. Escapism is an ancient response to danger in which an organism runs away from the threat. Requesting a transfer or quitting is actions that also send message, but they eliminate any reason for changing the decision that caused the action. Amnesia allows people to forget decisions they do not like or agree with.
Passive amnesia occurs when people have so little concern for the decision they unconsciously stop thinking about it. Anger is when you become mad because of a decision. Consider the importance of the decision that you are trying to cope with and ask yourself if it is worth getting upset over. MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES The authority principles say that managers have the right to direct people toward the accomplishment of the organizations goals.
Although managers are given the right to direct others, they also have the responsibility for getting the tasks accomplished. The unity of command principle states that each person should have only one boss. When learning of this principle, some people insist that they have two bosses. Many people have supervisor, and the supervisor has a manager, and sometimes they give conflicting orders. The unity of direction principle states that similar tasks should be grouped together and that tasks working toward the same organizational goal should be grouped together. Organization is accomplished by using the authority, hierarchy, unity of command, and unity of direction principles to create a chain of command that gives each person only one manger, gives the managers authority to direct the resources, and groups similar tasks together.
FROM CLASSICAL TO BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT Command systems are designed as hierarchies with narrow spans of control and with an emphasis on downward communication and strict adherence to rules. Three people are generally credited with being the first to write about management theory although the many unnamed managers that came before them certainly deserve some credit. Frederick Taylor in the United States, Henri Fayol in France, and Max Weber in Germany each synthesized the body of management knowledge into principles and theories that others could learn and use. One of the prime goals of classical management is to improve productivity. Taylor found that workers got more done with fewer injuries when lifting with the legs. The attitude that all workers are to use the management??™s way is indicative of the autocratic nature of classical management. This assumption encourages tight controls supervision.
The assumption that people do not want to work also affected classical motivation theories. Classical mangers motivate through two main mechanisms??” fear and money. To make more money, work faster, and to do what management says, or lose your job. New managers and those uneducated in management theory and technique are especially susceptible to believing that fear is the way to control people and get the most work out of them. Behavioral management, which recognizes the human, social needs in the workplace, developed from classical management in an effort to address the human side of the working environment. The Hawthorne studies took place in the assembly room of the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois, and were supposed to test the effect of several changes in the working environment on productivity.
When the lighting was increased in the experimental room, productivity increased. The productivity in the control group, where nothing changed, also increased. Elton Mayo an Australian professor at Harvard University led a team that investigated the Hawthorn studies. The team concluded that something other than environmental factors was influencing the workers. First, the workers were initially in a large assembly room but were placed into smaller rooms so that the environmental factors could be controlled.
Second, there were so many people in the main assembly room that the individual workers did not really identify themselves as being part of a unit. Third, the workers knew they were being observed and measured. Fourth, the environmental factors changed, which the original study designers thought was the only thing being changed. The Hawthorne experiments seemed to prove that people did want to become involved with work. Behavioral managers are more likely to listen to and act on subordinate concerns. Communication and participation receive emphasis. THE WORKER??™S ROLE Frontline workers are people who perform the technical tasks of one??™s profession with no people to manage.
Frontline worker??™s duty is to perform tasks to the best of this or her abilities and at an acceptable level, using the least amount of resources. TQM is an ongoing process, one that requires everyone in an organization to be motivated toward the goal of continuous improvement and to be oriented toward meeting the needs of customers. A supportive organizational levels and must include everyone down to the lowest levels. To provide quality, customer quality standards must be determined, but competitor quality standards must also be known. Strategies for attaining the standards and training programs must be developed. It is important to develop quality standards that help close any gaps between what current quality levels are and what they should be. Training the TQM concepts, team building problem solving and statistical methods is then needed to execute this strategy.
As TQM is an ongoing process, continuity of the effort is needed. Establishing continuous improvement teams (CITs) an outgrowth of quality circles, and measuring and monitoring performance are ways to maintain continuity. Team members meet on a regular basis and are empowered with responsibility for identifying, analyzing, and establishing objectives for solving current quality and productivity problems. Statistical process control (SPC) is often used in measuring the progress of the TQM effort. SPC involves the use of statistical techniques that aid in analyzing a process and its output and in determining the activities necessary for improvement.
COPING WITH MANAGEMENT When managers are good, no coping is needed. Some coping may be necessary with average managers, while a large amount may be needed with poor managers. Incompetent managers are those unable to fulfill their duties owing to a lack of ability or to psychological deficiency. Malicious managers are those who cause emotional or psychological suffering.
The difference between these two is similar to the difference between being passive and being active. Warning signs that a manager may be psychologically impaired incompetent: Denial is an insisting that there are no problems. Playing it by the numbers is doing only what the rules allow. Buck passing is when you pass the problem along to the other person. Abdication is passing authority to the other. Obfuscation is clouding and confusing the issues.
Delaying tactics is a maneuver that postpone. Escaping is running away from or avoiding the situations. Malicious managers are actively cause harm or distress to people. Clueless managers are those who display outdated behavior. Split-personality managers are those who display two contrasting personalities. Grumps are managers who are pessimistic or constantly in a bad mood. Hoarders are managers who believe that people are plotting to take their power or territory. Spineless managers are managers who avoid decisions so that they avoid being held accountable later.
Because of their insecurities, the spineless will not commit to things and will not direct people in what to do. Workaholic managers are the first in, last out workaholics who expect equal dedication from others. My husband is an example of this kind of manager. He is always working and he wants the same from his team. Players of mind games are managers who take pleasure in psychologically aggravating people. The mind games may involve twists of logic and reason designed to confound and confuse others. Perfectionists are managers who think that all work must be completed without defect or error to an unreasonable degree. One perfectionist who sometimes screams at people with veins popping out of his head and fists banging on the desk until they leave in tears has a sign on wall saying, ??? Be realistic.
Demand the impossible.??? Intimidators are managers who bully. Intimidators are not jut intelligent or tough; they can be either or both, and they want to display their power and position When using the coping strategies you should first response to the specific types of presented, followed by some general strategies.
When a clueless manger steps out of the Stone Age with an out of line remark or action, you must establish the limits of this behavior that you will tolerate. The paranoid hoarder types might need to be dealt with in two stages. First stage you question the boss and address basic trust.
Go to the HR is your second choice however directly confronting any person you have conflict with is almost always the best choice. You must also take control, when dealing with spineless boss. When faced with a workaholic, you must set limits. Mind games, perfectionists, and intimidators are all handled in a similar fashion. This chapter was very interesting because it tell you the ways of handling a situation that you may have with a manager or your boss. To use the method that they are talking about you must first learn what they mean. In this chapter it explains how to go about understanding management in the environment, it also tells you what type of manager to look out for.
If we read this chapter well we will understand who and what kind of boss or manager that we have and how they are and what to do if things get out of hand that you will have to quite a job or move to another organization.
