My management philosophy - Term Paper Example

?Synthesis Paper: My management philosophy The following are assumptions made about the organization that I am running. It is a small, rapidly growing IT enterprise with about 50 employees. The organization develops and sells customized software solutions for various businesses and often there will be two or more projects being carried out simultaneously. The core business is therefore software development and maintenance. Everyone works within the same building which serves as the company headquarters. The company has employed personnel with varying years of experience from fresh graduates to persons with up to 10 years’ experience. Organizational structure My first order of business will be to identify and separate the core activities of the firm from the non-core activities. The software development industry is a very dynamic and competitive industry. My strategy would therefore be to keep the organization lean and nimble. As a small organization we shall be pursuing organizational growth through product development and market development. Product development require a strong software development team and core competencies in that given software category. On the other hand, market development seeks to increase our market share for those turnkey products that we have already deployed. Two effectively execute these two strategies our organization will have to be strong in three key functions: software development, marketing and customer service. Structure follows strategy (McShane & Travaglione, 2003). This means that our organizational structure will have to reflect this. The organizational structure selected is a hybrid of organic and project-based matrix structure. Four key attributes guide this choice of organizational structure, namely: strategy, organization size, technology and external environment. Two effectively execute both product development and market development requires high collaboration between the three functions: software development, marketing and customer service. Project-based matrix structure will make our staff accustomed to working with colleagues who have different skills as they work towards realizing the projects objectives. The flat hierarchies within the project-teams accommodates for lateral and verbal communication, face-to-face contact for coordination and ability to rapidly adapt to changes while executing the projects (McShane & Travaglione, 2003). On the other hand, the organic component of our organizational structure will give us the much needed flexibility to deal with the high rate of environmental and technological change and uncertainty. Motivation In pursuing product and market development and being in the software development industry our generic strategy is clearly a differentiation approach. This means that in order for the company to deepen its current advantage and/or build new competitive advantages, we will have to orient the way we deploy our resources to reflect this. This means our selection, promotion, rewards and so will be oriented towards hiring and rewarding the creative and innovative members of staff. To motivate staff the organization will ensure that entrepreneurs are rewarded and recognized, in both monetary and non-monetary terms. We will also consider giving employees ‘bootleg’ time to spend on projects of their own interest that may not be directly related to their day-to-day activities. This will keep our highly talented staff motivated as there potential will be exploited while the company benefits from increased competencies as well as increased potential of coming up with breakthrough products. Given that this is a software business, most of the staff are highly technical and educated which adds to difficulty in finding ways to motivate them. Such knowledge workers naturally would require high motivation which Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model identified as: meaningfulness of work, responsibility for outcomes and knowledge of how successful their work has been or not (YourCoach, 2010). Our hybrid organic-project-based matrix structure improves our ability to make the jobs motivating for our mostly highly technical and educated staff. The project-based matrix enables employees to get involved in varying work that exposes them to experience skill variety, allows them to be directly connected to customers of their work so that they may receive feedback for learning and also allows them to directly relate with the wholeness of the eventual software produced. Organizational culture As a growing software company, in a rapidly changing industry we would want to maintain a culture that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. We would like to encourage employees to openly communicate new ideas, voice their concerns and objections and interact “intimately” in order to propel the organization on a path of greater success. These desires should be embedded in both managerial style and the operational routines of the organization. One way of embedding this desired culture is through the use of organizational symbols (Johnson, 1992). Some of the symbols that I, as a manager, would look towards establishing are: informal interaction style to encourage lateral and verbal communication; open office except for senior management, however others may use these offices to meet clients; having non-designated parking spaces; weekly team lunches outside the office; and cards designating function and not rank for example software engineer, marketing executive and customer service. Corporate governance In line with our organizational culture that encourages openness, communication and entrepreneurship, I would adopt a corporate governance technique that embodies the same spirit. This means creating an environment where employees are empowered and offered maximum autonomy built on trust. Having such an environment would minimize the costs of monitoring and controlling employee behaviors. The model of corporate governance that closely matches this ideal is the stewardship theory. The stewardship theory postulates that managers act as stewards for the organization protecting and maximizing shareholders’ wealth through firm performance, because by so doing, the steward’s also maximize their utility functions (Davis, Schoorman, & Donaldson, 1997). The stewardship model is guided by shareholders first trusting then empowering managers. Knowing that they are trusted managers will be motivated to protect and maximize shareholder wealth, in order for them to be seen as, and to prove that, they are effective stewards. As a manager I will trickle down this philosophy to my subordinates by trusting and empowering them. This however does not imply that structures will not exist. There will be structures, however their purpose would be to empower and to offer maximum autonomy rather than to control and keep in check like proposed by the agency theory. Most importantly the organization will be guided by the some of the cliche business values: integrity, professionalism, team work and good business practice. Most businesses aspire to this core values. Marketing and advertising As stated earlier in the paper, marketing is part of our core activities because it plays a vital role in our dual strategy of product development and market development. Marketing is important because it enables the company to understand and respond to changes in competition, channel and regulators’ behaviors. Also, by handling the marketing function as a core function the organization would be able to create marketing tactics that fit together well and resonates with our customer offerings. Marketing also allows the organization to save its scarce resources where the organization follows the STP process. STP refers to the three activities segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Segmentation refers to the process of identifying similar groups of customers. Targeting refers to identifying which group of customer to aim for. Positioning refers to creating a concept that will appeals to the target market. Some of the key benefits of the STP process are: providing direction and focus for marketing strategies such as new product development, targeted advertising and brand differentiation; identifying growth opportunities in the market such as identification of new customers or new product uses; and more effective and efficient matching of company resources to targeted market segments (Baines, Fill, & Page, 2008). Finally, in conformity with our core values of integrity, professionalism, team work and good business practice we shall avoid engaging in unfair marketing practices for example false advertising. False advertising may give the organization short term gains but may severely dent the organization’s image. False advertising may lead to a huge loss of market share when customers discover they were cheated. It could also result in embarrassing and costly law suits. Most of all, even in the case where the organization somehow manages to recover from a false advertising scandal, it will costs he organization more to acquire new customers than it would have cost it to keep its old customers loyal. References Baines, P., Fill, C., & Page, K. (2008). Market Segmentation and positioning. Marketing (pp. 214–263). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davis, J. H., Schoorman, F. D., & Donaldson, L. (1997). Toward a Stewardship Theory of Management. Academy of Management Review, 22, 20–47. Johnson, G. (1992). Managing Strategic Change - Strategy, Culture and Action. Long Range Planning, 25(1), 28–36. McShane, S., & Travaglione, T. (2003). Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim. Sydney: McGraw-Hill. YourCoach. (2010). Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model. YourCoach Gent. Retrieved May 26, 2012, from http://www.yourcoach.be/en/employee-motivation-theories/hackman-oldham-job-characteristics-model.php  Read More