The Role of the Manager in the Prevailing Globalised World - Essay Example

?Managing for result Table of Contents Introduction 3 Theory associated with managers and their attitude 4 Role of a manager in the organisation 5 Appendix 12 Reference 14 Bibliography 15 Introduction With changing business environment, it is quite essential that management update his/her managing style to perform all the required activities in best possible manner. Those old days are over when managers were confined only to the task of man management. In the contemporary organisational culture, a manager has to perform several tasks. Apart from managing the subordinates, they should also perform strategic activities so that the organisation can achieve its desired goal. The present day mangers believe in acting as a guide cum leader for the employees; they not just assist the subordinates to perform their task but also help them to move ahead in the career. Therefore, the managers must keep themselves updated with the activities taking place within the organisation. Apart from the internal factors, they also have to understand the external environment that is the economic condition, the government policies in the local as well as in other nations, changes taking place in customer’s behaviour and technology. The growing competition in the business sector demands high degree of efficiency from the managers; thus the company also motivates the mangers to update themselves by participating in different trainings sessions (seminars, conferences and off-job training). In the given project at first role of the manager in the prevailing globalised world will be discussed. Later on, different approaches will be discussed that needs to be followed by the managers in achieving the organisational goal. Some real life examples will also be drawn to further explain different approaches followed by the managers in their organisations. Once the discussion about approaches followed by the managers is discussed, finally the learning while conducting this project will be evaluated with help of Kolb’s learning cycle. Theory associated with managers and their attitude There are several theories that talks about the management style followed by different leaders. Among them one of the most commonly known is the managerial grid. It was developed by Blake & Mouton. Figure: The Managerial Grid by Blake & Mouton Source: Egner, 2009, p.10 According to Blake & Mouton, the manager’s attitude can be measured on basis of two distinct factors. These are concern for people and concern for production. Generally, the functional mangers (floor managers) are more concerned about the production; whereas the top level managers who have to manage group of highly efficient and self sufficient subordinates are more concerned about the people. The managers who are neither concerned about the people nor about the productions are considered as the inefficient one. Similarly, the one who is high in both the factors is the most effective one. Such a manager maintain close association with the subordinates and assist them to develop themselves (Miller, 2008, p.46-47). The attitude followed by the manager is influences by several factors. These can be summarised as the organisational culture, the leadership style of the top management, the nature of the subordinates, the social norms of the society were the organisation is operating and finally the personality of the manager. Therefore, all these factors should be taken into consideration by the manager to modify his or her attitude so that organisational goal can be achieved. Role of a manager in the organisation In general, the role of a manger comprises of planning, organising, scheduling, and assisting the employees to accompany their task and evaluating the operations (Rothwell, 2001, p.7). All of these functions are quite essential and managers have to be careful while conducting them. The process of management starts with planning. At first the manager has to analyse the external as well as internal environment and then a plan should be developed that will guide the subordinates in achieving the target. Planning being the first step towards management, it is of great importance. Managers develop plan to have a better control on the activities. When things are conducted in a controlled manner, the chances of failure minimises. Some time the managers ask their subordinated to assist in the planning process. As compared to the managers, the ground level employees are more knowledgeable about the processes. Therefore, the managers should motivate them to participate in the planning activities (Bass & Bass, 2008, p.316). The development in the IT sector has assisted managers in the planning activities. There are several decision making tools that can be used by the managers in analysing the prevailing condition and to make decision. For example, factor analysis matrix assist in making an impartial decision after considering essential elements (musts) and desired elements (wants). This technique assist in arranging all the available choices in a tabular form (matrix) and after comparing different characteristics, managers can make the decision. Another tool is decision tree that depicts the possible direction resulting from specific action. The management considers all possible actions and the associated outcome that represents a tree like diagram called decision tree. While identifying the possible outcome, management asks “what then” question and then find out all possible outcomes. Operations research is also useful in guiding the management for decision making process. This technique is used for formulation of the problem, construction of mathematical/conceptual model and manipulation of variable for assess alternative outcomes. Simulation, queuing theory and game theory are some of the commonly used tools while making decision (Liebler & McConnell, 2004, p.153-158). No doubt these techniques are quite cumbersome are required a lot of calculation but with help of a computer these calculation can be done within fraction of minutes. Therefore, these decision making tools are gaining popularity day by day. The next step followed by planning is organising where the management has to organise resources and processes to implement the plan for achieving the goal. Marshall (1992) gave a process based on five organisational principals; these are unity of command, span of control, delegation of authority, homogeneous assignment and flexibility (Swanson, 2005, p.118). This mean the manager must identify the major activities to be conducted, how these activities can be further broken down in smaller parts and who should be assign to perform these activities. Managers must use time management technique for conducting different managerial functions in a more organised manner. A manager must determine beforehand the time to be allocated for different activities. Such planning should be done for a longer term as well as for the short term prospective. For example, manager must plan for the activities to be conducted within a time frame of a year. These should be broken down for each month and finally for each day. Therefore, for each and every day there must be some predetermined task to be done. This process of setting goals should be based on SMART targets. The term, SMART mean specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. Specific indicates that the goal to be achieved should be very clear to everyone. Measurable indicates that the end result must be quantified that means it can be measured. Attainable means, though the target may be challenging but it must be possible to achieve it by the subordinates. Relevant goal is the one that is in line with the direction provided by the senior managers and the business strategy. Time bound nature of a goal explains that it must be achieved within a particular time period. It can be within a week, a month or a year (Parker & Kropp, p.67). Staffing is also a part of effective organisational activity conducted by the managers. Once the manager is over with segregation of task, the next step is assigning job responsibility to the appropriate persons who are capable of fulfilling job responsibilities. Initially, staffing is the task mainly to be handled by the human resource management, but the managers from other functional areas should also assist HR department in conducting job responsibility analysis and job designing. As the mangers have better understanding of the job to be done by the staff member; hence their involvement will help in selection of appropriate person. The managers should also play an active role in scheduling, shift options and staffing policies (Marquis & Huston, 20089, p.397). Just planning and organisation are not the sole responsibility of a manager; he or she must also pay attention towards controlling the processes. The term control means evaluating the processes to verify whether activities are being performed as per the plan. Such control can be maintained by introducing some contemporary management tools. In the traditional management style, managers were more concerned with the financial matters (Hakansson & Johanson, 2001, p.230). However, in the present world mere financial analysis to control revenue, cost and profitability is not enough. Considering the growing importance of non-financial matters, Kaplan and Norton introduced Balance Scorecard (BSC). It take into account both financial as well as non-financial indicators to control the performance of the organisation, division and even department. Figure 1: Balance Scorecard (Source: Hubbard, 2004, p.127) There are several contemporary multinational companies that motivate its management to use Balance Scorecard in controlling the functional units. The parameters on which BSC is based are called the perspective, these are as follows: Financial perspective: A company is basically responsible for increasing shareholder’s wealth; therefore it is quite essential that it should maintain a healthy profitability. Manager should identify the financial indicators to be monitored. Some of the commonly used financial indicators are ROI, net profit margin, operational profit margin, growth in revenue, ROCE, ROA and so on. For each of these financial indicators some benchmark should be assign and on periodic basis the manager should verify whether revenue and cost are within pre-set limits or not. If the indicators reflect some major deviation, the manager should conduct in-depth analysis to find out the major cause behind this. Customer perspective: The customers are considered as the king in a business and it is quite essential to keep them satisfied. These employees can be either internal (the subordinates and ground level employees) or external (the end users). Manager should identify the factors that can be used to measure the degree of satisfaction among the customers and for each of the indicators some benchmark should be assigned. Internal business process perspective: It is essential for a company or the department to retain its core competency. Therefore, the manager should find out the core competency of the respective unit. Later on the required processes essential to improve the efficiency should be segregated and for them key performance indicators should be assign. By monitoring the key performance indicators, a manger can keep a watch on performance of the essential activities. Learning and growth perspective: An organisation should be a learning organisation to gain competency in the market. Therefore, it is quite essential to update the knowledge base and skills of the employees. The manager should take the responsibility of evaluating performance of the employee base working under his or her supervision. Considering the performance and the loopholes, manager should design training programmes for the subordinates. These programmes can be either on-job or off-job. While developing the training session, respective manager should work hand in hand with the human recourse department. A well trained workforce will have high productivity and thus the revenue and market image of the company will improve. A satisfied human resource has high motivation level and the turnover rate minimises (Welz, 2007, p.9-14). Apart from the BSC, there are some other management control tools that can be used by the managers to retain required approach in achieving the organisational goal. Appendix Reflective report The main aim of conducting this project was to gather information regarding the attitude to be maintained by a manager in achieving the organisational goal. To evaluate my learning, I would like to use Kolb’s learning cycle. This model was developed by David Kolb and it represents learning cycle based on one’s experience (Illeris, 2009, p.84). This model explained that learning is in a form of a cycle and the components of this cycle are: “formation of abstract concepts and generalisation, testing implications of concepts in new situations, concrete experience and observation and reflection” (Illeris, 2009, p.84). Initially an individual gathers some concrete experience and then he or she uses this to derive the conclusion in form of reflective observation. From the experience the individual formulates concepts and later on in the real life he or she conduct experiments to verify the learning (Illeris, 2008, p.54). While developing the project, it got a chance to go through several books that takes about the attitude followed by different mangers and its impact on their subordinates. I also gained knowledge about the factors that directly or indirectly influences manager’s attitude in the organisation. This literature review explained different models and theories provided by scholars to assist managers in understanding their own managerial style and introducing required changes in it. Apart from the theory, I also analysed books, articles and journals about the role of a manager. While going through these study matter I realised how crucial is the role of a manager for the respective unit/organisation. Considering the knowledge gathered from the research, I identified the techniques and managerial tools to be used by the mangers to develop the required approach in the organisation. Finally I concluded that role of a manager is quite essential for proper functioning of the organisation, and thus managers should go on analysing and updating their management techniques. This whole project was a learning experience for me and in my future life when I will be a manager, this knowledge will assist me to maintain a correct attitude for attaining the organisational goal. Reference Bass, B. M. & Bass, R. 2008. The Bass handbook of leadership: theory, research, and managerial applications. Simon and Schuster. Egner, T. 2009. Behavioral Leadership - The Managerial Grid. GRIN Verlag. Hakansson, H. & Johanson, J. 2001. Business network learning. Illeris, K. 2008. How we learn: learning and non-learning in school and beyond. Taylor & Francis. Illeris, K. 2009. Contemporary theories of learning: learning theorists ... in their own words. Taylor & Francis. Liebler, J. G. & McConnell, C. R. 2004. Management principles for health professionals. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Marquis, B. L. & Huston, C. J. Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Miller, K. 2008. Organizational communication: approaches and processes. Cengage Learning. Parker, G. & Kropp, P. R. 2000. Team Workout. Human Resource Development. Swanson, b. 2005. Improving Agricultural Extension: A Reference Manual/Fao. Rothwell, W. J. 2001. The manager and the change leader. American Society for Training and Development. Welz, S. 2007. Balanced Scorecard and Sales Organisation - Chances and Risks. GRIN Verlag. Bibliography Adam, F. & Sammon, D. 2004. The enterprise resource planning decade: lessons learned and issues for the future. Idea Group Inc (IGI). Anthony, R. N., Dearden, & Vancil, R. F. 2008. Management control systems: text, cases and readings. 4th ed. McGraw. Flamholtz, E. 1996. Effective management control: theory and practice. Springer. Read More