MGT 201 CH. 7
What are 4 benefits of MBO?
1. Focuses manager and employee efforts on activities that will lead to goal attainment 2. Can improve employee performance on all levels 3. Improves employee motivation 4. Aligns individual and departmental goals with company goals
What are 5 characteristics of effective goals?
1. Linked to rewards 2. Specific and measurable 3. Have a defined time period 4. Challenging BUT realistic! 5. Cover key result areas
What are the 2 stages of crisis planning?
1. Prevention 2. Preparation
What are the steps to take in crisis preparation?
1. designating a crisis management team and spokesperson, 2. creating a detailed crisis management plan, and 3. setting up an effective communications system.
Under operational planning, what 3 things do managers commonly use in their planning approaches?
1. management-by-objectives (MBO) 2. Single-use plans 3. standing plans
What is a plan?
A blueprint specifying the resource allocations, schedules, and other actions necessary for attaining goals. (todays means)
What are strategic (official) goals?
A broad statement of where an organization wants to be in the future. Pertains to the organization as a whole rather than to specific divisions or departments.
What is a mission statement?
A broadly stated definition of the organization's basic business scope and operations that distinguishes it from similar types of organizations.
What is an intelligence team?
A cross-functional group of people who work together to gain a deep understanding of a specific competitive issue and offer insight and recommendations for planning.
What is a goal?
A desired future state that the organization wants to realize. (a future end)
What is management by objectives (MBO) (under operational goals/planning)
A method whereby managers and employees define goals for every department, project, and person and use them to monitor subsequent performance.
What are single use plans?
A plan that is developed to achieve a set of goals that is unlikely to be repeated in the future. Typically include both programs and projects
What are stretch goals?
A reasonable yet highly ambitious and compelling goal that energizes people and inspires excellence.
What is a strategy map?
A visual representation of the key drivers of an organization's success, showing the cause-and-effect relationship among goals and plans. It is an increasingly popular technique for aligning goals into a hierarchy.
What are strategic plans?
Action steps by which an organization intends to attain strategic goals. This plan is the blueprint that defines the organizational activities and resource allocations—in the form of cash, personnel, space, and facilities—required for meeting these targets. This planning tends to be long term and may define organizational action steps from two to five years in the future. The purpose of this is to turn organizational goals into realities within that time period. (e.g. Managers at Trader Joe's (TJ's) created a strategic goal of becoming a "nationwide chain of neighborhood specialty grocery stores.")
What is management by means (MBM)?
An approach that focuses people on the methods and processes used to attain results, rather than on the results themselves.
What is scenario building?
An approach where managers look at trends and discontinuities and imagine possible alternative futures to build a framework within which unexpected future events can be managed. Rather than looking only at history and thinking about what has been, managers think about what could be
What is decentralized planning?
An approach where top executives or planning experts work with managers in major divisions or departments to develop their own goals and plans. (A fresh approach to planning is to involve everyone in the organization, and sometimes outside stakeholders as well, in the planning process.)
What are standing plans?
An ongoing plan used to provide guidance for tasks that occur repeatedly in the organization. Organizational policies, rules, and procedures. They generally pertain to matters such as employee illness, absences, smoking, discipline, hiring, and dismissal.
What is a mission?
An organization's purpose or reason for existence.
What are business performance dashboards?
Can help managers oversee plans and measure progress toward goals.
What are tactical plans?
Designed to help execute major strategic plans and to accomplish a specific part of a company's strategy. (e.g. Trader Joe's location scouting division might be to identify three new locations a year that fit TJ's target market of educated, adventurous consumers and could support a TJ's store.)
What are contingency plans?
Identifies important factors in the environment and defines a range of alternative responses to be taken in the case of emergencies, setbacks, or unexpected conditions. (e.g. possible economic downturns, declining markets, increases in cost of supplies, new technological developments, or safety accidents)
Front line managers and supervisors are typically responsible for establishing what kinds of plans that focus on specific tasks and processes and that help meet tactical and strategic goals?
Operational plans identify the specific procedures or processes needed at lower levels of the organization, such as individual departments and employees.
What are the drawbacks of MBO?
People can cut corners to try to reach their goals, they may feel too pressured or be lead by management that encourages cut cornering.
What is the most fundamental of the four management functions?
Planning
What are operational plans?
Specifies the action steps toward achieving operational goals and supports tactical activities.
Top managers are typically responsible for establishing what kinds of goals and plans?
Strategic goals and plans that reflect both a commitment to organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Middle managers are typically responsible for establishing what kinds of goals and plans?
Tactical goals and plans. These managers are heads of major division or functional units. A division manager will formulate tactical plans that focus on the major actions the division must take to fulfill its part in the strategic plan set by top management.
What is planning?
The management function concerned with defining goals for future performance and how to attain them.
Explain the organizational planning process
The overall planning process, illustrated in Exhibit 7.2, prevents managers from thinking merely in terms of day-to-day activities. The process begins when managers develop the overall plan for the organization by clearly defining mission and strategic (company-level) goals. Second, they translate the plan into action, which includes defining tactical objectives and plans, developing a strategy map to align goals, formulating contingency and scenario plans, and identifying intelligence teams to analyze major competitive issues. Third, managers lay out the operational factors needed to achieve goals. This involves devising operational goals and plans, selecting the measures and targets that will be used to determine if things are on track, and identifying stretch goals and crisis plans that might need to be put into action. Tools for executing the plan include management by objectives, performance dashboards, single-use plans, and decentralized responsibility. Finally, managers periodically review plans to learn from results and shift plans as needed, starting a new planning cycle.
What are operational goals?
The results expected from departments, work groups, and individuals. They are precise and measurable. (e.g. "Process 150 sales applications each week," "Achieve 90 percent of deliveries on time," "Reduce overtime by 10 percent next month," and "Develop two new online courses in accounting")
What is crisis planning?
any firms also engage in this planning enables them to cope with unexpected events that are so sudden and devastating that they have the potential to destroy the organization if managers aren't prepared with a quick and appropriate response.
What are three approaches that help brace the organization for unexpected—even unimaginable—events?
contingency planning, building scenarios, and crisis planning.
What is coalition management?
involves building an alliance of people who support a manager's goals and can influence other people to accept and work toward them
Benefits of plan and goal setting?
serving as a source of motivation, determining resource allocation, providing a guide to action, and setting a standard for performance measurement.
Limitations of plan and goal setting?
the potential to create a false sense of certainty, create rigidity that hinders response to a turbulent environment, and get in the way of creativity and intuition.
What are tactical goals?
the results that major divisions and departments within the organization intend to achieve.
Goals are socially constructed. What does this mean?
they are defined by an individual or group.
