Chapter 1: The Exceptional Manager: What You Do, How You Do It

Managing for Competitive Advantage

1. Being responsive to customers 2. Innovation 3. Quality 4. Efficiency

Developing Career Readiness

1. Build self-awareness 2. Learn from educational activities 3. Model others possessing the targeted competencies 4. Learn from on-the-job activities 5. Seek experience from student groups and organizations 6. Experiment

Seven Challenges to Being an Exceptional Manager

1. Managing for competitive advantage 2. Managing for diversity 3. Managing for globalization 4. Managing for information technology 5. Managing for ethical standards 6. Managing for sustainability 7. Managing for your own happiness and life goals

3 suggestions for building meaning into your life

1. identify activities you love doing 2. find a way to build your natural strengths into your personal and work life 3. go out and help someone

Which of the following defines an organization?

A group of people who work together to achieve some specific purpose

Organization

A group of people who work together to achieve some specific purpose. A system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more people

Process

A series of actions or steps followed to bring about a desired result

Soft skills

Ability to motivate, to inspire trust, and to communicate with others

Mentor

An experienced person who provided guidance to someone new in the work world

Organizing

Arranging tasks, human resources, and other resources to accomplish the necessary work

Which employee is the best example of a functional manager?

Brett, who is the manager of the company's accounting department.

Core competencies

Competencies that are vital across jobs, occupations, and industries

Databases

Computerized collections of interrelated files

The company president meets with senior managers to determine what is causing a problem with the company's best-selling computer microchip. They discuss whether the cause might be a modification that was made in the manufacturing process. Which management function is the group performing?

Controlling

entrepreneur role

Decisional: a good manager is expected to be an entrepreneur, to initiate and encourage change and innovation

resource allocator role

Decisional: because you'll never have enough time, money, and so on, you'll need to be a resource allocator, setting priorities about use of resources

negotiator role

Decisional: to be a manager is to be a continual negotiator, working with others inside and outside the organization to accomplish your goals

disturbance handler role

Decisional: unforseen problems - from product defects to international currency crises - require you to be a disturbance handler, fixing problems

Which are elements of successful teams? (Choose every correct answer.)

Direction Structure Support

Sanjay is a manager at Ridgeway Appliance Corp. and is responsible for helping the company reach its goal of purchasing a manufacturing facility. He created a plan to guide the company in the purchasing process and the company successfully carried it out and bought the new facility. Which aspect of management did Sanjay demonstrate?

Effectiveness

As the sales manager at Audio Equipment Corp., Simone makes the best use of the limited resources available to her in order to achieve her company's sales goals. Which aspect of management is Simon practicing?

Efficiency

E-commerce

Electronic commerce—the buying and selling of goods or services over computer networks

Team leaders

Facilitate team members' activities to help teams achieve their goals

Sustainable development

Focuses on meeting present needs while simultaneously ensuring that future generations will be able to meet their needs

Mutual-Benefit Organizations

For aiding members

For-Profit Organization

For making money

Nonprofit Organization

For offering services

Resilience

Generally defined as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity

Knowledge management

Implementation of systems and practices to increase the sharing of knowledge and information throughout an organization

disseminator role

Informational: workers complain they never know what's going on? that probably means their supervisor failed in the role of disseminator. Managers need to constantly disseminate important information to employees, as via e-mail and meetings

spokesperson role

Informational: you are expected, of course, to be a diplomat, to put the best face on the activities of your work unit or organization to people outside it

monitor role

Informational: you should be constantly alert for useful information, whether gathered from newspaper stories about the competition or gathered from snippets of conversation with subordinates you meet in the hallway

leadership role

Interpersonal: you are responsible for the actions of your subordinates, as their sucesses and failures reflect on you. Your leadership is expressed in your decisions about training, motivating, and disciplining people

liaison role

Interpersonal: you must act like a politician, working with other people outside your work unit an organization to develop alliances that will help you achieve your organization's goals

figurehead role

Interpersonal: you showed visitors around your company, attend employee birthday parties, and present ethical guidelines to your subordinates. In other words, you perform symbolic tasks that represent your organization

Innovation

Introduction of something new or better, as in goods or services See also Organizational change

Meaningfulness

Is characterized by a sense of being part of something you believe is bigger than yourself

In his annual convention speech, the founder of a medical research organization reminded all the employees of the importance of their work in finding a cure for pediatric diabetes. He praised them for their dedication and urged them to continue their work. Which management function did the founder perform in his speech?"

Leading

Attitudes

Learned predisposition toward a given object

What are the duties of first-line managers? (Choose every correct answer.)

Making short-term decisions Directing non-management workers

Functional manager

Manager who is responsible for just one organizational activity

General manager

Manager who is responsible for several organizational activities

informational roles

Managers as monitors, disseminators, and spokespersons

decisional roles

Managers use information to make decisions to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities. The four decision-making roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator

Top managers

Managers who determine what the organization's long-term goals should be for the next 1-5 years with the resources they expect to have available

Which of the following managers demonstrates the management function of planning (in contrast to organizing, controlling, or leading)?

Maribeth, who determines that her sales staff needs to contact twenty new customers each month to meet department goals Reason: Planning involves setting goals and deciding how to achieve them.

Controlling

Monitoring performance against goals and taking corrective action as needed

Leading

Motivating, directing, and influencing others to achieve organizational goals

interpersonal roles

Of the three types of managerial roles, the roles in which managers interact with people inside and outside their work units. The three interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader, and liaison activities

Middle managers

One of four managerial levels; they implement the policies and plans of the top managers above them and supervise and coordinate the activities of the first-line managers below them

First-line managers

One of four managerial levels; they make short-term operating decisions, directing the daily tasks of nonmanagerial personnel

Refer to Figure 1.1. Which of the four functions in the management process is dedicated to arranging tasks, people, and other resources to accomplish the work?

Organizing

Project management software

Programs for planning and scheduling the people, costs, and resources to complete a project on time

Career readiness

Represents the extent to which you possess the knowledge, skills, and attributes desired by employers

Planning

Setting goals and deciding how to achieve them; also, coping with uncertainty by formulating future courses of action to achieve specified results See also Decision making; Strategic management; Strategic planning

Conceptual skills

Skills that consist of the ability to think analytically, to visualize an organization as a whole and understand how the parts work together

Human skills

Skills that consist of the ability to work well in cooperation with other people to get things done

Technical skills

Skills that consist of the job-specific knowledge needed to perform well in a specialized field

Big data

Stores of data so vast that conventional database management systems cannot handle them

Who are the managers that help teams achieve their goals?

Team leaders

Artificial intelligence (AI)

The ability of a computer system to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence

Competitive advantage

The ability of an organization to produce goods or services more effectively than competitors do, thereby outperforming them

Proactive learning orientation

The desire to learn and improve your knowledge, soft skills, and other characteristics in pursuit of personal development

Information technology application skills

The extent to which you can effectively use information technology and learn new applications on an ongoing basis

Four management functions

The management process that "gets things done": planning, organizing, leading, and controlling

Management

The pursuit of organizational goals efficiently and effectively by integrating the work of people through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the organization's resources

Cloud computing

The storing of software and data on gigantic collections of computers located away from a company's principal site

Nonmanagerial employees

Those who either work alone on tasks or with others on a variety of teams

Effectiveness

To achieve results, to make the right decisions, and to successfully carry them out so that they achieve the organization's goals (the ends)

Efficiency

To use resources-people, money raw materials, and the like-wisely and cost effectively (the means)

Telecommute

To work from home or remote locations using a variety of information technologies

True or false: Nonmanagerial employees do not formally supervise other employees.

True

Collaborative computing

Using state-of-the-art computer software and hardware, to help people work better together

E-business

Using the Internet to facilitate every aspect of running a business

Videoconferencing

Using video and audio links along with computers to let people in different locations see, hear, and talk with one another

A company's management team demonstrates efficiency when it uses resources to

be cost-effective.

The managerial function of ______ involves monitoring performance, comparing it to goals, and taking corrective action when needed.

controlling

Middle managers are said to have "high-touch" jobs because they _____.

deal directly with people

To be _____ in management means to achieve results, to make the right decisions, and to successfully carry them out in order to achieve the organization's goals.

effective

Salvador supervises ten sales associates at a large retail store. What is Salvador's management level?

first-line

A ______ organization's purpose is to make money by offering products or services.

for-profit

Gerard is responsible for only one activity in his organization—the management of the human resources department. He would be classified as a

functional manager.

Managers who are responsible for several organizational activities rather than just one are called ______ managers.

general

Tyler, a top manager at his company, is in charge of finance and human resources. Since he is responsible for several activities in the organization, he is an example of what type of manager?

general

Mindfulness

is the state of being fully aware of what is happening in the present moment without reacting or applying judgment

Motivating, directing, and otherwise influencing people to work hard to achieve the organization's goals is the definition of which management function?

leading

It is Micah's role at the company to plan, organize, and control the functions within the human resource department. Based on this, you can tell that Micah is in a _____ role at this company.

management

Those who implement the policies and plans of top management above them and supervise and coordinate the activities of the first-line managers below them are called _______.

middle managers

In her role as a grocery store general manager, Shara is able to make changes that affect customers, store employees, and individual department managers.This is an example of the _____ effect.

multiplier

The concept that a manager's influence extends far beyond the results that can be achieved by an individual acting alone is called the _____ effect.

multiplier

The majority of a company's workforce is made up of _____.

nonmanagerial employees

In business, a group of people who work together in an attempt to achieve some specific purpose is known as a(n) _____.

organization

In the new department she is setting up, Shondra decides that top managers will report to her and that everyone else will report to the head of human resources. Which of the management functions is Shondra performing when she makes this decision?

organizing

The organizing function of management consists of arranging tasks, ______, and other resources needed to accomplish work. Multiple choice question. people

people

Setting goals and figuring out how to achieve them describes the _____ function of the management process.

planning

Which of the following are management activities? (Choose every correct answer.)

pursing organizational goals controlling the organization's resources integrating the work of people

What are examples of commonweal organizations? (Choose every correct answer.)

the U.S. Postal Service the military a local fire department

Individuals in management who make long-term decisions about the overall direction of the organization and establish the objectives, policies, and strategies are called _______ managers.

top

Kurt is responsible for establishing organization-wide policies and strategies, and making long-term decisions that affect the organization as a whole. Kurt would be characterized as a _______ manager.

top

multiplier effect

your influence on the organization is multiplied far beyond the results that can be achieved by just one person acting alone