Principles of Management: Managers & Managing, Planning & Strategy, Organizational Control & Change

Principles of Management: Managers & Managing, Planning & Strategy, Organizational Control & Change

Page 1: Introduction

• Course: Principles of Management

• Topic: Managers & Managing

• Instructor: Dr. Nasar um Minullah, European Business School, EBS University, Germany

• Program: Bachelor in Business Studies, FT 2025

Page 2: Core Concepts

This section introduces fundamental questions in management:

• Who is a Manager?

• What are Organizations?

• What is Management?

Manager Defined

• Managers are the individuals responsible for supervising the use of an organization’s resources.

Page 3: The Manager's Role

• Definition: Managers are the people responsible for supervising the use of an organization’s resources to meet its goals.

Page 4: Key Managerial Skills

Managers require three essential managerial skills:

• Conceptual Skills

  • The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation.

  • The ability to distinguish between cause and effect.

• Human Skills

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

  • Includes skills to communicate, coordinate, and motivate people, molding individuals into a cohesive team.

  • This skill set often distinguishes effective from ineffective managers.

• Technical Skills

  • Job-specific skills necessary to perform a particular type of work or occupation at a high level.

  • The specific technical skills managers need vary depending on their position within the organization.

Page 5: Skill Distribution by Management Level

Different management levels necessitate varying concentrations of managerial skills:

• Top Managers

  • Require a high degree of Conceptual skills.

  • Require high Human skills.

  • Need relatively lower Technical skills.

• Middle Managers

  • Generally require a balanced mix of Conceptual, Human, and Technical skills.

• First-line Managers

  • Require a high degree of Technical skills.

  • Require high Human skills.

  • Need relatively lower Conceptual skills.

Page 6: Managerial Hierarchy

In traditionally structured organizations, managers are classified by their hierarchical level:

• First-Line Managers

  • Titles: Team Leader, Assistant Manager, Foreman, Shift Manager.

  • Responsibilities: Daily supervision of non-managerial employees.

• Middle Managers

  • Titles: Regional/Plant Managers.

  • Responsibilities: Supervising first-line managers; finding the best ways to utilize resources to achieve organizational goals.

• Top Managers

  • Titles: CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, VP.

  • Responsibilities: Establishing organizational goals; deciding how different departments interact; monitoring how well middle managers use resources to achieve goals; ultimately responsible for the performance of all departments.

Page 7: Organizational Performance

Organizational Performance

• A comprehensive measure of how efficiently and effectively managers utilize available resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals.

Key Metrics

• 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.

Manager's Goal

• To achieve high organizational performance.

Page 8: Efficiency and Effectiveness Scenarios

High-performing organizations are both efficient and effective. Here are scenarios illustrating different combinations:

• Low Efficiency + High Effectiveness

  • Description: Managers choose the right goals to pursue but perform poorly in using resources to achieve these goals.

  • Result: A product that customers want, but which is too expensive for them to buy.

• High Efficiency + High Effectiveness (Ideal)

  • Description: Managers choose the right goals to pursue and make good use of resources to achieve these goals.

  • Result: A product that customers want, offered at a quality and price they can afford.

• Low Efficiency + Low Effectiveness

  • Description: Managers choose inappropriate goals to pursue and make poor use of resources.

  • Result: A low-quality product that customers do not want.

• High Efficiency + Low Effectiveness

  • Description: Managers choose inappropriate goals but make good use of resources to pursue these goals.

  • Result: A high-quality product that customers do not want.

Source: Jones & George (2014)

Page 9: Mintzberg’s Typology of Managerial Roles

Henry Mintzberg identified 10 specific managerial roles by observing managers' day-to-day activities. These roles capture the dynamic nature of managerial work and are grouped into three primary categories:

• Decisional

• Interpersonal

• Informational

Page 10: Decisional Managerial Roles

These roles involve making choices and taking actions:

• Entrepreneur

  • Committing organizational resources to develop innovative goods and services.

  • Deciding to expand internationally to acquire new customers.

• Disturbance Handler

  • Moving swiftly to take corrective action for unexpected problems.

  • Addressing issues from the external environment (e.g., an oil spill crisis) or internal environment (e.g., producing faulty goods).

• Resource Allocator

  • Allocating organizational resources among different tasks and departments.

  • Setting budgets and salaries for middle and first-level managers.

• Negotiator

  • Working with suppliers, distributors, and labor unions to reach agreements on input quality, price, technical, and human resources.

  • Establishing agreements with other organizations to pool resources for joint projects.

Page 11: Interpersonal Managerial Roles

These roles involve interacting with people, both within and outside the organization:

• Figurehead

  • Outlining future organizational goals to employees at company meetings.

  • Officiating events, such as opening a new corporate headquarters building.

  • Stating the organization’s ethical guidelines and behavioral principles.

• Leader

  • Providing an example for employees to follow.

  • Giving direct commands and orders to subordinates.

  • Making decisions concerning the use of human and technical resources.

  • Mobilizing employee support for specific organizational goals.

• Liaison

  • Coordinating the work of managers in different departments.

  • Establishing alliances between different organizations to share resources for producing new goods and services.

Page 12: Informational Managerial Roles

These roles involve collecting, processing, and disseminating information:

• Monitor

  • Evaluating the performance of managers in different tasks and taking corrective action.

  • Watching for changes in the external and internal environments that may affect the organization.

• Disseminator

  • Informing employees about changes occurring in the external and internal environments that will affect them and the organization.

  • Communicating the organization’s vision and purpose to employees.

• Spokesperson

  • Launching national advertising campaigns to promote new goods and services.

  • Giving speeches to inform the local community about the organization’s future intentions.

Page 13: The Brain Thinking Model (Adapted from Herrmann, 1996)

Managers often require