Management Improving Tools - Research Paper Example

? Management Improving Tools Management Improving Tools Management can be describes as the process of coordinating organizational activities and efforts in order to accomplish specific objectives and goals using the available resources effectively and efficiently. Organizational management involves activities such as planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling an organization’s efforts on order to accomplish certain desired goals and objectives (Mejia, David Robert, 2013). Another important aspect of management is resourcing. This involves channeling and manipulating resources of an organization such as natural, human, technological and financial resources to help the organization meet its desired goals. According to Fredmund management refers to the transformation or organizational resources in to items of utility. Management can also be defined as human action that includes design in order to facilitate the production of important outcomes from a working system. As a discipline, management includes various interlocking functions such as formulating corporate policies and directing all the resources of a firm to help the organization meet its policy objectives (Mejia David & Robert, 2013). Management is therefore an important part of an organization. Managers provide leadership needed in an organization and the necessary coordination required to steer the organization to greater heights. Company managers and directors therefore need to have the authority and responsibility needed to help them make appropriate decisions as they guide an organization or business enterprise towards realizing its goals (Mejia, David & Robert, 2013). The size of the management team varies from one organization to the other and depends on the size, type and objectives of the specific organization. Large organizations for instance have boards of directors that formulate goals and policies for the organization, which are given to the managers of chief executive officers for implementation. This essay aims at studying the concept of management and evaluating the various tools available to improve the quality of management of an organization, examining the merits and demerits of each tool in order to see how each management enhancement tool can assist an organization to meet its objectives. In order to effectively study the various management improving tools, it is important to understand the nature of managerial work. The primary function of managers in for profit organizations is to satisfy the various stakeholders in the organization including the shareholders and investors (Mejia, David & Robert, 2013). This mainly involves helping the company make profits, creating rewarding employment opportunities, and producing valuable goods and services at reasonable costs. Management responsibilities in non profit management mainly involve maintaining the faith of various donors. Managers of an organization are appointed by a board of directors, which is given the authority by the shareholders (Joseph. Juran & Blanton 1999). The managers then become responsible for hiring other employees to work along with them to help the company met its objectives. In the public sector, the electorate elects political leaders who then appoint managers to be in charge of government offices. The basic functions of management include decisional, informational and interpersonal roles. Decisional roles involve making decisions on various issues to move the organization forward towards achieving its goals (Thomas & Paul, 2003). Informational roles of management involve sharing, handling and analyzing available information for the benefit of the organization. Interpersonal responsibilities of management on the other hand involve coordinating and interacting with employees, clients, partners, shareholders and other stakeholders in the organization in order to mobilize resources that will help the organization accomplish its goals (Thomas & Paul, 2003). A successful management team must portray a wide range of skills including conceptual, diagnostic, technical, interpersonal and political skills. Conceptual skills are important in analyzing certain complex situations, diagnostic skills help managers to visualize appropriate responses to various situations, political skills enable managers to create an environment where they can establish powerful connections, while technical skills require one to use their expertise in their areas of specialization in order to help the organization to meet its objectives (Thomas & Paul, 2003). The quality of management refers to the ability of the management team to help the company to accomplish its goals and objectives using the available resources in the best way possible and in the shortest time possible. There are various management tools that can be used to improve the quality of management. These include the total quality management, quality control and Organizational Excellence (OE) management tools (Thomas & Paul, 2003). These management improving tools can be describes as below; Total Quality Management (TQM) Total quality management refers to efforts of an organization to create a conducive environment where it can continuously improve and enhance its ability to produce products and services of high quality to customers (Hoyle, 2007). It is a system of continuous improvement of an organization that involves all employees in the organization from top level managers to production line employees. The main objective of TQM is to improve the quality of customer service and reduce waste in the company (Hoyle, 2007). The quality improvement teams using TQM often make use of problem solving techniques to identify and remove any weaknesses in the company that can lead to poor customer service. As a tool for management improvement, TQM has been in operation since the 1980s and is still common among some organizations. TQM is a change initiative employed by an organization to improve in various aspects including customer satisfaction. TQM, like many organizational change initiatives, comes with a lot of merits and demerits. Some advantages of TQM include the fact that it boosts the morale and knowledge of employees as well as lowering the costs associated with defective products and customer dissatisfaction. The disadvantages include high costs of implementation, resistance from employees as well as the fact that it takes time to start enjoying the benefits of the initiative (Hoyle, David, 2007). The merits and demerits of TQM can be described in detail as below; TQM leads to lower production costs. Implementing TQM will lead to significant reduction in wasted products, defective goods and reduce cases of customer dissatisfaction. Weaknesses in the organizations production process can easily be identified, lead time reduced and redundancies eradicated in a move that will see less costs put in production of goods and services with increased profits for the organization in the long run. The other advantage of TQM is employee participation. After training, the employees will know what is required of them and will join hands in the whole process to see the organization reap the benefits of TQM. The morale of the employees will be boosted through the knowledge gained from training and they will be willing to work together in teams for the benefit of the organization with the understanding that they will also benefit from the new working system. The management can use this opportunity to make necessary changes in the production process in order to reduce any weaknesses and redundancies that can deter the whole process from achieving its objectives (Joseph, Juran & Blanton , 1999). One disadvantage of TQM is production disruption (Hoyle, 2007). Implementation of TQM requires a lot of efforts and time invested in employee training in order to empower them with the appropriate skills and knowledge to be able to provide quality goods and service to customers. Employee training in TQM involves problem solving techniques as well as statistical processes such as analyzing situations, Pareto diagrams and brainstorming techniques. These training sessions will require constant meetings from time to time in order to get an update on the progress. Such meetings destruct employees and managers from their day to day activities which in turn affects their productivity during the training period. These initial stages of implementing TQM can easily lead to huge losses to the organization if not managed properly. Another disadvantage of TQM is employee resistance (Hoyle, 2007). Employees are likely to resist this new change because it will require them to change their attitudes, mindsets, and methods of working different from the way they are used to performing their tasks. Like any other form of change, resistance is likely to occur from employees who would want to maintain the status quo, more so if they feel that the new system will require them to put in more efforts. Workers may become fearful, especially if the new change is not communicated to them effectively and may develop resistance and make it hard for the management to implement TQM. The employees can lose morale thereby leading to poor performance and low productivity in the long run. The new system may not therefore lead to the desired results. This challenge can however be resolved through effective communication between the management and the employees regarding the change (Hoyle, 2007). Quality Control (QC) Quality Control in management refers to the process of reviewing the quality of the various factors of production in order to improve the production process and produce products of high quality within the shortest time period possible (Pfeifer, 2002). In Quality Control, emphasis is placed on three main aspects of production namely; competence, control and personnel. Controls element seeks to improve the quality of job management to ensure tasks are well defined and given to the individuals with the right qualities to handle them. This will also involve identifying an integrity and performance criterion that will be used to determine the quality of performance of those tasks. The competence element on the other hand deals with improving the knowledge, experience, qualifications and skills needed to improve the overall production process. The last element deals with the personnel and soft elements such as integrity of employees, their motivation, confidence, team spirit and the general organizational culture to determine if it encourages quality production of goods and services. The controls involve product inspections to determine if the products are of the desired quality. This entails visual examination of the products in detail before the product is released to the market for consumption by the consumers. The inspection process seeks to identify any defects such as surface blemishes or cracks in the product as well as determining if the correct procedures were used in preparing the product (Pfeifer, 2002). Quality control also lays a lot of emphasis on product testing to determine if there are defects in the product that may make it unfit for consumption by unsuspecting consumers. The quality control process is a management function and it is the managers who make the final decision as to whether the product is of the desired quality and whether it should be released to the market. Quality Control has many advantages; first, it helps to stabilize the production process (Pfeifer, 2002). QC ensures that the production of goods and services meets certain predetermined standards before the product is released to the consumers. This ensures the workers involved in the production process give their all to avoid defective products that are likely to increase the costs of production. The company will also have reduced production costs since most of the costs associated with defected goods, and rejection from customers will be brought under control. The production team will be more vigilant so as to avoid any cases of defective goods as it would result in more time spend on production to correct the defects. Inspectors will ensure that there are very few, if any products with defects (Pfeifer, 2002). The other advantage of Quality Control is that it helps to increase the trust of customers in the company and its products. If the quality of goods and services produced by a firm to the consumers is of the desired quality, the customers are more likely to be loyal to the company. This will in the long run result in higher profitability for the company as well as a good reputation among its target consumers. A disadvantage for Quality Control is the fact that it is very expensive to maintain and manage. An organization has to hire inspectors to assess the products before they are finally release to the market. This introduces an added production cost to the company. Organizational Excellence (OE) Organizational excellence can be defined as the delivery of sustainable superior organizational performance, which either meets or exceeds expectations of stakeholder in the organization. This requires the organization to mobilize and utilize the available resources effectively (Kotter & Dan, 2002). Specifically, the organization needs to focus on five main elements in order to achieve organizational excellence. These are change management, process management, knowledge management, project management and resource management. All these elements must be managed simultaneously in order to achieve and sustain organizational excellence. It is the responsibility of the management team to ensure all the elements are properly managed as concentrating only on one or two of them will not lead to delivery of excellent services to employees, customers, shareholders and other stakeholders. Organizational excellence is very important in ensuring and marinating quality in an organization. It requires a lot of preparation and dedication on the part of the management team as well as the employees in order to achieve expected excellence (Kotter & Dan, 2002). There are various merits and demerits of organizational excellence as a tool of improving an organization’s management. One advantage of O/E is that it ensures the organization achieves its full potential by mobilizing all the resources available at its disposal. Organizational excellence ensures all the resources of the organization are mobilized to ensure the objectives and goals of the company y are met. These include human resources, technology, and financial resources. The other advantage of O/E is that it ensures profitability of the organization in the long run. This is because when the organization delivers excellent service to its customers, they are likely to become loyal to the firm and even attract more to work with the company (Kotter & Dan, 2002). The organization will reap from its increased customer base in the long run. Like any other form of organizational change however, organizational excellence has its disadvantages too. The first among them is resistance from employees. With O/E, employees may be required to put in more effort that they are putting in the production process in order to help the organization achieve its goals. This may involve the employees moving out of their comfort zones in order to work in the desired manner. Most of them are likely to object to the new methods and will be largely demoralized in the process and this may be reflected in their performance that is likely to lead to reduced productivity. 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