An Introduction to Management: Managing and The Managers's Job [Definition of Management-Features of Management-Principles of Management-Managerial Skills-Types of Managers-Functions of Management-Organization Vs Management-Administration and Management-Management is a Science or Art. ]

Part-1: An Introduction to Management.

Chapter-1: Managing and the Manager’s Job

Ø Definition of Management:

·       Management is a broad and exciting subject.

·       Experts define management from many different points of views.

·       Management is getting things done with and through others.

·       It is getting thing done through other by coordinating the activities of other people to accomplish organizational goal.

·       Management is a process of creating and maintaining a congenial environment where people with different background work together to attain organizational goals effectively and efficiently.

This definition has some features:

·       It is a process involving five functions. These are planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling.

·       It applies to all kinds of organizations. Examples are business organization, school, colleges, and family.

·       It applies at three levels, namely, top, middle and bottom.

·       The aim of management at all levels is to create a surplus.

·       Management must be effective and efficient. Effective means doing the right thing. It is making the right decision and successfully implementing them.

·       Efficiency means doing things right. Using resources wisely and in a cost-effective manner.

·       Management is the effective and efficient use of limited resources.

·       Management is the coordination of efforts of many people towards a common goal.

·       Management is a process involving five functions like planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling.

·       Management is a set of functions directed at the efficient and effective utilization of resources in the pursuit of organizational goal.

Ø Features of Management:

·       Management is goal oriented.

·       It applies to managers engaged at all levels of organization.

·       It is action oriented.

·       Management is intangible.

·       It coordinates the efforts of many people.

·       Management is not a person; it is the activity done by manager.

·       Management is a process or group of activities.

·       It is a social process.

·       Management is a separate branch of knowledge.

·       Manager has authority and responsibility.

·       Management is universal.

·       Management applies to any type of organization.

·       Management is both science and art.

·       Management has to render social responsibilities.

Ø Who is a Manager?

Manager is a person who gets things done with and through others by coordinating their work activities in order to accomplish organizational goals.

Ø Principles of Management:

·       Division of work.

·       Balancing authority and responsibility. Authority is the right to give orders and power to exact obedience. It is the right to make decisions, direct others and give orders.

·       Discipline.

·       Unity of command. Employee should receive orders from one superior only.

·       Unity of direction. Activities aimed at the same objective should be organized so that there is one plan and one person in charge.

·       Subordination of individual interest to general interest.

·       Order. Materials should be kept in well chosen place that facilitates activities. Right person should be in the right place.

·       Remuneration. It should be fair and justifiable.

·       Centralization.

·       Scalar chain. Authority extends from top to bottom of an organization and define the communication path.

·       Equity.

·       Stability.

·       Initiative.

·       Esprite de corps

Ø Importance of Management:

·       Proper utilization of resources.

·       Vehicle of objective accomplishment.

·       Increasing efficiency.

·       Reduction of wastage.

·       Developing human relations.

·       Developing working environment.

·       Creation of employment opportunity.

·       Raising living standard

Ø Types of Managers:

·       Top managers: They establish overall goal, strategy and policy of the organization. They manage the overall organization. Examples: president, managing director, CEO.

·       Middle managers: They are mainly responsible for implementing the policies and plans developed by top managers and for controlling and coordinating the activities of lowest level managers. Examples are plant manager, division head.

·       First-line managers: They supervise and coordinate the activities of operating employees. Titles include first line manager, foreman, supervisor and office manager. They report to the middle managers.

Ø Administration VS Management:

Administration	Management
•           Establish goal, objective and policy of the organization. •           Top level management is called administration. •           Administration directs management. •           Administration more powerful.	•           Management performs functions like planning, organizing, controlling in order to implement policy and goal set by administration. •           Management is concerned with middle and bottom level.

Ø Administration and Management:

Administration	Management
Administration is liable to board of directors.	Management is liable to administration.
Numbers of executives are less.	Numbers of managers are more in an organization.

Ø Managerial skills:

Skill is the ability to use knowledge and aptitudes to do a certain task. The most fundamental management skills are -

      i.    Technical skill: It is the skill required to perform a given task. This skill is especially important for first line managers.

    ii.    Diagnostic skill: Skills that enable a manager to visualize the most appropriate response to a situation.

  iii.    Time management skill: A manager's ability to prioritize work, to work efficiently and to delegate appropriately.

  iv.    Human relations skill: It is the ability gets things done with and through others. It is the ability to understand and motivate both individuals and groups.

    v.    Conceptual skills:

- It is the ability to visualize the enterprise as a whole, to see a big picture to envision all the functions involved in a given situation.

- It is the ability to think in the abstract.

- It is the mental capacity to understand the overall workings of the organization and its environment.

  vi.    Communication skills: It is the ability to convey ideas and information to others and to receive ideas and information from others.

Ø Roles of managers:

·       Prof. Henry Mintzberg identified ten different roles of a manager and divided these roles into three broad groups. These are as follows:

·       Interpersonal roles: Figurehead, leader, and liaison role.

·       Informational roles: Recipient role, disseminator, and spokesperson.

·       Decisional roles: Entrepreneurial, disturbance handler, resource- allocator, and negotiator.

Ø Functions of management:

·       Planning and decision making: Setting an organization’s goals and deciding how best to achieve them. It sets goals and standards. Decision-making, a part of planning process, involves selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives. Planning and decision making provide guides for future activities.

·       Organizing: It is grouping activities and resources so that plans can be carried out successfully. It involves determining how activities and resources are to be grouped. It is grouping activities in a logical manner such a function, time, product and process. It is giving each subordinate a specific task, establishing departments. Delegating authority to subordinates, establishing channels of authority and communication and coordinating the work of subordinates.

·       Leading: Leading is the process of influencing others so that they will contribute to organization and group goals. It is getting others to get the job done, maintaining morale and motivating subordinates.

·       Staffing: It is a process of hiring, selecting, training, appraising and compensating employees. It is the human resource aspect of management. It is the effective and efficient deployment of manpower across the organization.

·       Controlling: Controlling is monitoring organizational progress toward its goal. It involves setting standards, measuring performance against goals and plans and helping correct deviations from standards.

Ø Science and art of management:

Debate whether management is a science or an art. In fact, effective management is a blend of both science and art.

Science or art

Ø Science and art:

Science is the organized and systematic body of knowledge. It explains cause and effect relationship between two or more variables. Many management problems and issue can be approached in ways that are rational, logical and objective and systematic. Managers can use quantitative models and decision making techniques to arrive at correct decisions.

Ø Science or art:

Art is know-how. It is the application of organized knowledge to solve a practical problem. Management is an art. It is know-how. It is doing things in the light of the realities of a situation. Managers make decisions and solve problems on the basis of intuition, experience, instinct, and personal insights. Solving unusual and non-routine problems requires an element of intuition and personal insight. Managing as a practice is an art; the organized knowledge underlying the practice may be referred to as science.

Ø Productivity:

·       A manager must be productive. Surplus is created through productive operations.

·       Productivity is the output-input ratio within a time period with due consideration for quality.

·       P= outputs/ inputs.

·       Inputs are labor, materials, and capital.

·       Outputs are products, services, profit, and satisfaction.

·       There are three ways to improve productivity.

·       By increasing outputs with the same inputs,

·       By decreasing inputs but maintaining the same outputs.

·       By increasing output and decreasing inputs.

·       Productivity implies effectiveness and efficiency in individual and organizational performance.

Ø Characteristics of Excellent Companies:

·       A bias for action,

·       Staying close to customers,

·       promoting autonomy and entrepreneurship

·       productivity through people,

·       Driven by a company philosophy based on the values of their company leaders.

·       Focus on business they know best,

·       Using a simple form and a lean staff

·       Centralized as well decentralized depending on appropriateness.

Ø How can one learn to be an effective manager:

·       Consensus is that it takes a combination of education and experience to be an effective manager.

·       Formal education and training in preparing managers.

·       Experience is a major factor in learning to be an effective manager. Doing different jobs. Doing jobs in different organizations.

Ø Reasons for executive derailment:

·       Insensitive to others.

·       Unable to staff effectively.

·       Cold, aloof and arrogant.

·       Betrayal to trust.

·       Overly ambitious, and playing politics,

·       Over-managing: unable to delegate or build a team.

·       Unable to think strategically.

·       Unable to adapt to boss with different styles.

·       Over-dependent on mentor.

Ø Problems of Management in Bangladesh:

·       Lack of competitive business environment.

·       Lack of professional managers.

·       Lack of job security.

·       Lack of efficient managers.

·       Lack of training facilities.

·       Communication and information problem.

·       Poor labor-management relations

·       Political instability.

·       Lack of proper incentive.

·       Non-cooperation by government.

Ø Solution to Management problems:

·       Professionalism of management. Develop management as a profession.

·       Improving training facilities.

·       Increasing facilities for managers.

·       Application of modern management approach

·       Use of modern techniques.

·       Recognition of merits and efficiencies.

·       Prevention of undue intervention.

·       Ensuring political stability.

·       Improving congenial labor-management relations.

Ø Organization VS Management:

Organization	Management
The function of organization is to pull resources of an enterprise together. It is the collection, preservation and coordination of the elements of an enterprise in an integrated manner.	Management is primarily entrusted with the responsibility of executing the plans and policies set by the administration for achieving predetermined goals an objective.

•        Authority is the right to give orders.

•        It is the power to exact obedience.

•        It is the right in a position to exercise discussion in making discretion affecting others. It is the right to make decisions directs other’s work and gives orders.

•        Line versus staff authority. Line manager is a manager who is authorized to direct the work of subordinates and responsible for accomplishing the organization’s goals.

•        Staff manager is one who assists and advices line managers.

•        Power is the ability to do something.

•        It is the ability to influence the beliefs and actions of other persons or groups.

•        A manager may have authority but he may lack the power to do it.

•        Responsibility it is an obligation to carry out certain tasks.

•        It is the obligation of a subordinate to perform his duty as required by his superior.

•        Responsibility flows upward while authority flows downward.

Responsibility cannot be delegated but authority can be del