Module 1: Management Today

D. Managing a Diverse Workforce

1. Age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, and socioeconomic composition of the workforce present new challenges for managers. 2. Managers must establish human resource management (HRM) procedures and practices that are legal and fair and do not discriminate against any organizational members. 3. Managers must recognize the performance-enhancing possibilities of a diverse workforce, and the skills and experiences that they can bring to an organization. 4. More and more organizations are realizing that people are their most important resource and that developing and protecting human resources is a crucial challenge for managers in a global environment.

B. Managerial Skills

1. Education and experience enable managers to recognize and develop the personal skills they need to put organizational resources to their best use. 2. Education and experience help managers develop three types of skills: conceptual, human, and technical. 3. Core Competency 4. Effective managers need all three kinds of skills—conceptual, human, and technical—to help their organizations perform efficiently and effectively. 5. The absence of one type of managerial skill can often times lead to failure.

Strategy

A cluster of decisions about what goals to pursue, what actions to take, and how to use resources to achieve goals.

Top Manager

A manager who establishes organizational goals, decides how departments should interact, and monitors the performance of middle managers.

What is Management?

A. Organizations B. Managers C. Management D. Organizational Performance

IV. Recent Changes in Management Practices

A. Restructuring and Outsourcing B. Empowerment and Self-Managed Teams

Planning

Identifying and selecting appropriate goals; one of the four principal tasks of management.

Organizing

Structuring working relationships in a way that allows organizational members to work together to achieve organizational goals; one of the four principal tasks of management.

A. Four Essential Managerial Tasks

planning, organizing, leading, and controlling

C. Management

1. Management is the planning, organizing, leading and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively.

A. Organizations

1. Organizations are collections of people who work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals or desired outcomes.

Middle Manager

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

Organizational Performance

A measure of how efficiently and effectively a manager uses resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals.

II. Essential Managerial Tasks

A. Four Essential Managerial Tasks B. Planning C. Organizing D. Leading E.. Controlling F. Manager or Leader

V. Challenges for Management in a Global Environment

A. Global Organizations B. Building a Competitive Advantage C. Maintaining Ethical and Socially Responsible Standards D. Managing a Diverse Workforce E. Utilizing IT and E-Commerce

III. Levels and Skills of Managers

A. Levels of Management B. Managerial Skills

Manager

An individual who plans, organizes, directs, and controls the work of others in an organization.

Leading

The action by which work is executed. It involves instructing, guiding, energizing, and supervising the performance of employees to accomplish organizational goals. Also referred to as directing.

Turnaround Management

The creation of a new vision for a struggling company based on a new approach to planning and organizing to make better use of a company's resources and allow it to survive and prosper.

A. Global Organizations

1. Global organizations are organizations that operate to compete in more than one country. 2. Four challenges managers of global organizations face: i. Building a competitive advantage, ii. Maintaining ethical standards, iii. Managing a diverse workforce, iv. Utilizing new information systems and technologies.

Efficiency

A measure of how well or how productively resources are used to achieve a goal.

Effectiveness

A measure of the appropriateness of the goals an organization is pursuing and the degree to which the organization achieves those goals.

Organizations

Collections of people who work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals or desired future outcomes.

Outsourcing

Contracting with another company, usually abroad, to have it perform an activity the organization previously performed itself.

Restrcturing

Downsizing an organization by eliminating the jobs of large numbers of top, middle, and first-line managers and nonmanagerial employees.

Competitive Advantage

The ability of one organization to outperform other organizations because it produces desired goods and services more efficiently and effectively than they do.

Management

The planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively.

Innovation

The process of creating new or improved goods and services or developing better ways to produce or provide them.

Top Management Team

The senior managers of an organization traditionally consisting of the CEO and other "Chief" titles or departmental vice presidents.

Core Competency

The specific set of departmental skills, knowledge, and experience that allows one organization to outperform another

i. Conceptual Skills

a. Conceptual skills are the ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and to distinguish between cause and effect. b. Top managers require the best conceptual skills because their primary responsibilities are planning and organizing. c. Formal education and training are important in helping managers develop conceptual skills.

ii. Human Skills

a. Human skills are the ability to understand, alter, lead, and control the behavior of other individuals and groups. b. Human skills can be learned through education and training but also developed through experience. c. Thorough and direct feedback allows managers to develop their human skills.

A. Levels of Management

first-line managers, middle managers, top managers, and executives.

2. First-line Managers

i. A first-line manager who is responsible for the daily supervision of nonmanagerial employees.

3. Core Competency

i. Core competency refers to the specific set of departmental skills, knowledge, and the experience that allows one organization to outperform another. ii. Departmental skills that create a core competency give an organization a competitive advantage.

There are three steps involved in planning.

i. Deciding which goals an organization will pursue, ii. Deciding what strategies to adopt to attain those goals, iii. Deciding how to allocate organizational resources to pursue the strategies that attain those goals.

B. Building a Competitive Advantage

i. Efficiency ii. Quality iii. Innovation iv. Responsiveness to Customers v. Failing at Obtaining a Competitive Advantage

Controlling

Evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and taking action to maintain or improve performance; one of the four principal tasks of management.

E. Controlling

1. Controlling is the process of evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and then taking action to maintain or improve performance. 2. Managers monitor the performance of individuals, departments, and the organization as a whole during the controlling process. 3. The outcome of the control process is the ability to measure performance accurately and regulate organizational efficiency and effectiveness. 4. The controlling process also helps a manager evaluate themselves, and how well they are performing the other three tasks of management.

E. Utilizing IT and E-Commerce

1. IT is an important challenge for managers as it poses opportunities for employees and managers to be more efficient and effective at their daily tasks. 2. New IT advancements enable individual employees and selfmanaged teams by giving them important information and allowing virtual interactions around the globe using the Internet. 3. Increased global coordination helps improve quality and increases the pace of innovation.

D. Leading

1. Leading, also referred to as directing, is the action by which work is executed. It involves instructing, guiding, energizing, and supervising the performance of employees to accomplish organizational goals. 2. Leading turns planning an organizing into performance. 3. Leading is often confused with leadership, but they are not the same thing. i. Leadership provides the vision, inspiration and influence to innovate and make changes. ii. Leading is a management function that provides guidance to execute and fulfill the vision.

B. Managers

1. Managers are people responsible for supervising and making the most of an organization's human and other resources to achieve its goals.

C. Organizing

1. Organizing is structuring working relationships in a way that allows organizational members to work together to achieve organizational goals. 2. Managers must decide how best to organize resources, particularly human resources. 3. The outcome of organizing is the creation of an organizational structure. i. An organizational structure is a formal system of task and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so that they work together to achieve organizational goals. ii. Organizational structure determines how an organization's resources can be best used to create goods and services.

B. Planning

1. Planning involves identifying and selecting appropriate goals and courses of action. 2. There are three steps involved in planning. i. Deciding which goals an organization will pursue, ii. Deciding what strategies to adopt to attain those goals, iii. Deciding how to allocate organizational resources to pursue the strategies that attain those goals. 3. How well managers plan and develop strategies determines how effective and efficient the organization is. 4. Planning is complex and difficult, because planning is done under uncertainty when results are unknown, which means either success or failure is a possible outcome of the planning process.

C. Maintaining Ethical and Socially Responsible Standards

1. Pressure on managers to increase performance, while sometimes good, can also lead to managers behaving unethically or illegally. 2. Social responsibility centers on deciding what obligations a company has toward the people and groups affected by its activities. 3. Some companies have strong views about social responsibility and their managers believe they should protect the interests of others.

F. Manager or Leader

1. There are several distinct differences between a manager and a leader. a. Leaders have the ability to rally employees around a vision and are willing to take risks to transform or effect change. b. Managers understand how a vision aligns with organizational goals and directs employees to execute the vision in a systematic and risk-adverse way. c. Leaders lead people, while managers manage work.

D. Organizational Performance

1. measure of how efficiently and effectively managers use available resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals. 2. Efficiency ii. Organizations are efficient when managers minimize the amount of input resources or the amount of time needed to produce a given output of goods or services. 3. Effectiveness ii. Organizations are effective when managers choose appropriate goals and then achieve them. 4. Effective managers are those who choose the right organizational goals to pursue and have the skills to utilize resources efficiently.

Organizational Structure

A formal system of task and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so that they work together to achieve organizational goals.

Self-Managed Team

A group of employees who assume responsibility for organizing, controlling, and supervising their own activities and monitoring the quality of the goods and services they provide.

First-line Manager

A manager who is responsible for the daily supervision of nonmanagerial employees.

Leader

An individual who creates a vision and impassions employees to work together to achieve that vision.

Global Organizations

Organizations that operate and compete in more than one country.

Conceptual skills

The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and to distinguish between cause and effect.

Human Skills

The ability to understand, alter, lead, and control the behavior of other individuals and groups.

Empowerment

The expansion of employees' knowledge, tasks, and decisionmaking responsibilities.

Technical Skills

The job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role.

iii. Innovation

a. Innovation is the process of creating new or improved goods and services or developing better ways to produce or provide them. b. It is a managers' responsibility to create an organizational setting in which people are encouraged to innovate or be innovative.

i. Efficiency

a. Organizations increase their efficiency when they reduce the quantity of resources they use to produce goods or services. b. Managers must constantly be looking for ways to improve efficiency to ensure that their organization can compete with companies in other countries where employees are paid lower wages.

v. Failing at Obtaining a Competitive Advantage

a. Sometimes companies are not successful at obtaining a competitive advantage, which causes an organization to suffer financially leading often times to bankruptcy. b. Failing companies often turn to turnaround management which is responsible for creating a new vision based on a new approach to planning and organizing to make better use of a company's resources.

iii. Technical Skills

a. Technical skills are the job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role. b. Managers need a range of technical skills to be effective, and the type of skills needed depends on their position in the organization. c. Managers and employees who have the same kinds of technical skills typically become members of a specific department, such as marketing, manufacturing, human resources, etc.

ii. Quality

a. The challenge from global organizations has placed a premium on consumers' expectations of quality in terms of products and service. b. Companies often times struggle with providing high quality product at an affordable price. It's a managers responsibility to determine methods to utilize resources effectively to ensure that the organization produces a product of quality.

iv. Responsiveness to Customers

a. Training employees to be responsible to customers' needs is vital for all organizations competing for a competitive advantage. b. Many organizations empower their customer service employees and give them authority to take the lead in providing high-quality customer service.

1. Empowerment

i. Empowerment is the expansion of employees' knowledge, tasks, and decision-making responsibilities. ii. Empowering employees can often times lead to considerable performance gains for an organization.

5. Executives

i. Executives make up the top of the management hierarchy. Executives are the most senior corporate officer or administrator in charge of managing a for-profit or nonprofit organization. ii. Executives are responsible for the smooth functioning of the top management team, which are the senior managers of an organization.

3. Middle Managers

i. Middle managers are managers who supervise first-line managers and are responsible for finding the best way to use resources to achieve organizational goals. ii. A major part of the middle manager's job is developing and fine-tuning skills and know-how.

2. Outsourcing

i. Outsourcing is contracting with another company, usually abroad, to have it perform an activity the organization previously performed itself. ii. Outsourcing increases efficiency because it lowers operating cost, freeing up money and resources that can be used in more effective ways.

1. Restructuring

i. Restructuring is the downsizing of an organization by eliminating jobs of large numbers, top, middle, and first-line managers, as well as nonmanagerial employees. ii. Restructuring often times produces negative outcomes, as it reduces employee morale, as other employees fear for their jobs.

2. Self-Managed Teams

i. Self-managed teams are a group of employees who assume responsibility for organizing, controlling, and supervising their own activities and monitoring the quality of the goods and services they provide. ii. Self-managed teams assume many tasks and responsibilities previously performed by first-line managers, so a company can better utilize its workforce. iii. First-line managers act as coaches or mentors to selfmanaged teams, by providing advice and guidance.

4. Top Managers

i. Top managers are managers who establish organizational goals, decides how departments should interact, and monitors the performance of middle managers. ii. Top managers are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of an organization.