Managers and You in the Workplace Notes

Who Is a Manager?

  • Manager: Someone who coordinates and oversees the work of other people so that organizational goals can be accomplished.
    • Responsible for other people.
  • Non-managers: Responsible for no others but themselves.

Levels of Management

  • In traditionally structured organizations, managers can be classified as:
    • First-line managers
    • Middle managers
    • Top managers

Classifying Managers

  • First-Line Managers: Manage the work of non-managerial employees.
    • Examples: shift managers, district managers, department managers, or office managers.
  • Middle Managers: Manage the work of first-line managers.
    • Examples: District Manager, Division Manager.
  • Top Managers: Responsible for making organization-wide decisions and establishing plans and goals that affect the entire organization.
    • Examples: President, CEO, Vice president.

Where Do Managers Work?

  • Organization: A deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish some specific purpose.
    1. People
    2. Goals
    3. Structure

Characteristics of Organizations

  • Three common characteristics of organizations:
    • Distinct purpose
    • Deliberate structure
    • People

Why Are Managers Important?

  • Organizations need their managerial skills and abilities now more than ever.
  • Managers are critical to getting things done.
  • Managers do matter to organizations.

What Do Managers Do?

  • Management involves coordinating and overseeing the work activities of others so that their activities are completed efficiently and effectively.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

  • Efficiency: Doing things right – getting the most output from the least amount of input.
  • Effectiveness: Doing the right things – attaining organizational goals.

Efficiency and Effectiveness in Management

  • Efficiency is concerned with the means of getting things done, while effectiveness is concerned with the ends, or attainment of organizational goals.

Management Functions

  • Planning: Defining goals, establishing strategies to achieve goals, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
  • Organizing: Arranging and structuring work to accomplish organizational goals. (Arrange into different structures/divisions.)
  • Leading: Working with and through people to accomplish goals.
  • Controlling: Monitoring, comparing, and correcting work.

Four Functions of Management

  • The four functions used to describe a manager’s work: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles and a Contemporary Model of Managing

  • Roles: Specific actions or behaviors expected of and exhibited by a manager.
  • Mintzberg identified 10 roles grouped around interpersonal relationships, the transfer of information, and decision-making.

Types of Roles

  • Interpersonal
    • Figurehead: the big boss; tells people what to do.
    • Leader: representative to the public.
    • Liaison: connector (e.g., Middle Managers connect the Top and the First-line management).
  • Informational
    • Monitor: manager department chair: watch others.
    • Disseminator: informs others.
    • Spokesperson: represents the ideas of a department.
  • Decisional
    • Entrepreneur: introduce new things or new ways to do things.
    • Disturbance handler: fixes problems.
    • Resource allocator: distributes money, time, work, etc.
    • Negotiator: work with different people and negotiate.

Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles

  • The four functions used to describe a manager’s work: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Management Skills

  • Technical skills: Knowledge and proficiency in a specific field required to perform tasks.
  • Human (Interpersonal) skills: The ability to work well with other people.
  • Conceptual skills: The ability to think and conceptualize about abstract and complex situations concerning the organization.
  • Political skills: Used to build a power base and establish connections.

Skills Needed at Different Managerial Levels

  • The relationships of conceptual, human, and technical skills to managerial levels.

Important Managerial Skills

  • Other important managerial skills.

Changes Facing Managers

  • Some of the most important changes facing managers.

Focus on the Customer

  • Without customers, most organizations would cease to exist.
  • Managing customer relationships is the responsibility of all managers and employees.
  • Consistent, high-quality customer service is essential.

Focus on Technology

  • Managers must get employees on board with new technology.
  • Managers must oversee the social interactions and challenges involved in using collaborative technologies.

Focus on Social Media

  • Social media: Forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share ideas, information, personal messages, and other content.

Focus on Innovation

  • Innovation: Exploring new territory, taking risks, and doing things differently.

Focus on Sustainability

  • Sustainability: A company’s ability to achieve its business goals and increase long-term shareholder value by integrating economic, environmental, and social opportunities into its business strategies.

Focus on the Employee

  • Treating employees well is not only the right thing to do, it is also good business.

The Universality of Management

  • The reality that management is needed in all types and sizes of organizations, at all organizational levels, in all organizational areas, and in organizations no matter where located.

Universal Need for Management

  • Management is universally needed in all types of, and throughout all areas of, organizations.

The Reality of Work

  • When you begin your career, you will either manage or be managed.

Challenges of Being a Manager

  • Can be a thankless job.
  • May entail clerical type duties.
  • Managers also spend significant amounts of time in meetings and dealing with interruptions.
  • Managers often have to deal with a variety of personalities and have to do with limited resources.

Rewards of Being a Manager

  • Responsible for creating a productive work environment.
  • Recognition and status in your organization and in the community.
  • Attractive compensation in the form of salaries, bonuses, and stock options.

Rewards and Challenges of Being a Manager

Rewards
  • Create a work environment in which organizational members can work to the best of their ability
  • Have opportunities to think creatively and use imagination
  • Help others find meaning and fulfillment in work
  • Support, coach, and nurture others
  • Work with a variety of people
  • Receive recognition and status in community and organization
  • Blend knowledge, skills, ambitions, and experiences of diverse work group
  • Play a role in influencing organizational outcomes
  • Receive appropriate compensation in the form of salaries, bonuses, and stock options
  • Good mangers are needed by organizations
Challenges
  • Do hard work
  • May have duties that are more clerical than managerial
  • Have to deal with a variety of personalities
  • Often have to do with limited resources
  • Motivate workers in chaotic and uncertain situations
  • Success depends on others’ work performance

Review Learning Objective 1.1

  • Tell who managers are and where they work.
    • Managers coordinate and oversee the work of other people so that organizational goals can be accomplished.
    • Managers work in an organization, which is a deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish some specific purpose.

Review Learning Objective 1.2

  • Explain why managers are important to organizations.
    • Organizations need their managerial skills and abilities in challenging, uncertain, complex, and chaotic times.
    • Managers are critical to getting things done in organizations efficiently and effectively.
    • Managers contribute to employee productivity and loyalty.

Review Learning Objective 1.3

  • Describe the functions, roles, and skills of managers.
    • Management involves coordinating and overseeing the efficient and effective completion of others’ work activities.
    • The four functions of management include planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles

  • Interpersonal, involve people and other ceremonial/symbolic duties (figurehead, leader, and liaison)
  • Informational, collecting, receiving, and disseminating information (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson)
  • Decisional, making choices (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator)

Katz’s Managerial Skills

  • Technical (job-specific knowledge and techniques)
  • Human (ability to work well with people)
  • Conceptual (ability to think and express ideas)

Review Learning Objective 1.4

  • Describe the factors that are reshaping and redefining the manager’s job.
    • Managers must be concerned with:
      • Customer service because employee attitudes and behaviors play a big role in customer satisfaction
      • Technology as it impacts how things get done in organizations
      • Social media because these forms of communication are becoming important and valuable tools in managing
      • Innovation because it is important for organizations to be competitive
      • Sustainability as business goals are developed
      • Employees for them to be more productive

Review Learning Objective 1.5

  • Explain the value of studying management.
    • The universality of management—managers are needed in all types and sizes of organizations
    • The reality of work—you will manage or be managed
    • Significant rewards and challenges