AG

Comprehensive Management Notes: Roles, Skills, Planning, Strategy, and Environment

The Role of Management

  • Guide organizations to achieve goals by combining and using resources.
  • Identify tasks, assign them, and focus individual activities on organizational goals.
  • Managers stay focused on goal accomplishment, acting as a boundary/decision filter.

Planning

  • Setting goals
  • Choosing tasks to attain goals
  • Outlining how and when tasks are performed.
  • Focus: Getting the "right" things done; steering toward goals.

Organizing

  • Assigning tasks (identified in planning) to human resources.
  • Puts plans into action; groups tasks into departments.
  • Example: Budget process (who does what, managing expenses).

Influencing (Leadership)

  • Also called motivating, leading, directing, actuating.
  • Focus on people: Guiding members to achieve tasks; increasing productivity.
  • Human-oriented workplaces often lead to higher long-term production.

Controlling

  • Gathering performance information.
  • Using KPIs to compare actual vs. planned results.
  • Emphasizes learning from mistakes, implementing corrective actions.
  • Considers employee incentives (WIIFM).

Management Process and Organizational Resources

Organizational Resources
  • Human: people, skills, knowledge
  • Monetary: money for goods/services
  • Raw materials: ingredients
  • Capital: machines
Managerial Effectiveness vs. Managerial Efficiency
  • Effectiveness: Achieving goals with resources (degree to which goals are achieved).
  • Efficiency: Resources contribute to productivity (proportion of resources contributing to productivity).
    • Higher proportion = more efficient manager.

Management Skill: A Classical View

  • 3 Types of Skills:
    • Technical: expertise for work-related procedures.
    • Human: building team cooperation (important at ALL levels).
    • Conceptual: seeing the organization as a whole.
  • Skill Importance by Level:
    • Top Management: High Conceptual, High Human, Low Technical.
    • Middle Management: Balanced (mid-level importance for all).
    • Supervisory/Operational Management: High Technical, High Human, Low Conceptual.
  • Key takeaway: People are the common denominator at all levels.

Career Stages, Life Stages, and Performance

  • Performance expectations generally increase over time.
  • Careers are cumulative; management positions are stepping stones.
  • Stages: Establishment, Growth, Maintenance, Advancement, Stagnation, Decline.

Types of Plans

  • Standing Plans: Routine, used repeatedly.
    • Policies: Broad guidelines (e.g., weapons policy).
    • Procedures: Series of related actions, more specific (e.g., process steps).
    • Rules: Specific required actions, no deviation (e.g., no smoking).
  • Single-Use Plans: Used for non-routine situations.
    • Programs, Budgets.

Strategic Planning and Strategy

  • Long-range planning for the organization as a whole (3–5 years).
  • Focus on strategic goals and long-term attainment.
  • Guiding principle: Commitment principle (funds for planning only if return is anticipated).

Strategic Management Process

  1. Environmental Analysis:
    • General, Operating, Internal environments.
  2. Establishing Organizational Direction:
    • Mission, Objectives.
  3. Strategy Formulation.
  4. Strategy Implementation.
  5. Strategic Control.

General Environment

  • External factors influencing strategic choices:
    • Economic: resource distribution, wages, taxes.
    • Social: demographics, values.
    • Political: government policy, incentives.
    • Legal: regulations (e.g., Clean Air Act).
    • Technology: automation, efficiency.
    • International: global economics.

Industry Environment / Operating Environment – Porter’s Five Forces Model

  • Determines industry competitiveness and profitability:
    1. Threat of new entrants.
    2. Bargaining power of suppliers.
    3. Bargaining power of buyers.
    4. Threat of substitutes.
    5. Rivalry among existing competitors.

Strategy Formulation Types

  • Differentiation: Make products unique from competitors.
  • Cost Leadership: Make products cheaper than competitors.
  • Focus: Target a specific customer segment for advantage.