Foundations of Business: Chapter 7
What business used to be
-Autocratic -Employees paid to work, not to think
Leadership Styles
-Autocratic Style -Democratic Style -Free-Rein Style
Leaders Must...
-Communicate a vision and rally others around that vision -Establish corporate values -Promote corporate ethics -Embrace change -Stress accountability and responsibilities -Set environment for work environment!
The Management Process
-Management -Plan -Organize -Leader -Control
Middle Managers
-Need strong interpersonal skills to maintain positive working relationships with subordinates and to motivate them
Purpose of Assessing the External Environment is to identify:
-OPPORTUNITIES that could benefit the company -THREATS to success
Top Managers
-President -Solve problems and come up with creative ways to keep the business growing -Need conceptual skills
First-Line Managers
-Require Technical Skills -Probably in operations or maybe accounting
What followers want in a leader
-Respect -Acknowledgement/ Recognition -Purpose -Ability to do their best -Know they are safe -One that cares
Managerial Skills
-Technical Skills -Interpersonal Skills -Conceptual Skills -Communication Skills
Servant Leadership
-Turns the organizational chart upside down -Focus on giving their employees everything they need to win (Resources, time, discipline, guidance, or inspiration) -Ex: coach
Remaining Steps in Strategic Planning Process
-Write a mission statement that tells the customers, employees, and others why your organization exists -Assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats -Establish goals and objectives, or performance targets, to direct all the activities that you'll perform to achieve your mission -Develop and implement tactical and operational plans to achieve goals and objectives
6-Step Approach to Decision Making
1) Identify the problem you want to work on 2) Gather relevant data 3) Clarify the problem 4) Generate possible solutions 5) Select the best opinion 6) Implement your decision and monitor your choice
Control Function (5 step process)
1. Set the standards by which performance will be measured 2. Measure performance 3. Compare actual performance with the standard and identify ant deviations from the standard 4. Determine the reasons for the deviation 5. Take corre
SWOT Analysis
Analyzing an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats -Assess your company's fit with its environment -Matching strengths of your business with the opportunities available to it
Time Management Skills
Common sense suggestions -Prioritize tasks, focusing on the most important things first -Set aside a certain time each day to return phone calls/answer emails -Delegate Routine Tasks -Don't procrastinate -Stick on agenda -Eliminate unnecessary paperwork
Benchmarking
Considered as a specialized kind of control activity -Aims to improve a firm's overall performance -Involves comparisons to other organizations' practices and processes with the objective of learning and improvement in both efficiency and effectiveness
Operational Plans
Cover only a brief period (say, a month or 2) Provide detailed action steps to be taken by individuals or groups to implement the tactical and strategic plans
Communication Skills
Crucial to just about everyone -Judged on ability to communicate: orally and in writing
Mission Statement
Describes the purpose of your organization - the reason for existence Outlines the organization's fundamental purposes. Why the organization exists -Overall purpose! -Tells reader what organization is committed to doing -Some companies no longer use these, preferring to communicate their reason fro being in other manners Examples: disney - to make people happy, walmart - to help people save money so they can live better
Nonsupervisory
Employees
Plan
Enables you to take your business concept beyond the idea stage this alone does not get the job done, need to organize
Efficient
Ensuring that activities were performed in the right way and used the fewest possible resources
Effective
Ensuring that the right things got done and that they all contributed to the success of the enterprise
Transformational Leadership
Exercise authority based on the rank in the organization -Let subordinates know what's expected of them and what they will receive if they meet stated objectives -Mentor and develop subordinated, providing them with challenging opportunities, working one-on-one to help them meet their professional and personal needs, and encouraging people to approach problems from a new perspectives
Democratic Style
Favor democratic leadership style, generally seek input from subordinates while retaining the authority to make the final decisions Keep subordinates informed about things that affect their work -Managers and employees work together to make decisions
Core Values
Fundamental beliefs about what's important and what is/isn't appropriate in conducting company activities -Affect overall planning process and operations -Guides behavior of every individual in an organization
Crisis Management
In place of waiting until such a crisis occurs and then scrambling to figure out what to do
Goals
Major accomplishments that the company wants to achieve over a long period
Free-Rein Style
Managers adopt a "hands off" approach and provide relatively little direction to subordinates May advise, but give considerable freedom to solve problems and make decisions alone -Managers set objectives and employees are free to do whatever is appropriate to accomplish those objectives
Contingency Planning
Managers identify those aspects of the business that are most likely to be adversely affected by change Engage in this when developing backup/fallback plan
Strengths of a Company
Motivated workforce, state-of-the-art technology, desirable location, etc
Leader
Motivates your people to do well Someone that others WANT to follow
Tactical Plans
Overall plan is broken down into more manageable, short-term components Specify the activities and allocation of resources (people, equipment, money) needed to implement the strategic plan over a given period
External Factors
Part of SWOT Analysis -- Examination of ________ _________ that could influence the company in either positive/negative way (economic condition, competition, emerging technologies, laws & regulations, customers' expectations)
Weaknesses of a Company
Poor workforce, incomplete management, poor location, etc
Leading
Providing focus and direction to others and motivating them to achieve organizational goals
Organize
Put people and other resources in place to make things happen
Objectives
Short-Term performance targets that direct the activities of the organization toward the attainment goal Should be clearly stated, achievable, and measurable
Internal Factors
Strengths and weaknesses of the company
Autocratic Style
Tend to make decisions without soliciting input from subordinates Exercise authority and expect subordinates to take responsibility of performing the required tasks without undue explanations -Making managerial decisions without consulting others
Interpersonal Skills (relational skills)
The ability to get along with and motivate other people
Conceptual Skills
The ability to reason abstractly and analyze complex situations -Senior executives often called on to "think outside the box"
Strategic Planning
The process of establishing an overall course of action -Defining the mission -Sharing the vision -identify purpose of the company -mission statement
Management
The process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals
Technical Skills
The skills you need to perform specific tasks -Probably what you'll get your first job based on
Control
To know whether things are in fact going well -Measure the results and compare them with the results that you laid out in your plan
Today's Managers
Younger and more progressive -Growing numbers of women -Fewer from elite universities Emphasis on teams and team building Managers need to be skilled communicators and team players
Vision
where the organization is trying to go. What does it want to become?
