What the 21st Century Managers Can Learn from the 20th Century Concepts and Theories - Coursework Example

What the 21st Century Managers Can Learn From the 20th Century Concepts and Theories Name Course Lecturer Date Management is vital for the success of every institution. It is therefore important that proper management skills are practiced so as to ensure that the company is successful. Important management skills include; good communication skills, leadership skills, the ability to work as a team, decisiveness, professionalism, tactfulness, effective listener, among other traits. Management is, however, a tedious task. Managers face various challenges. Every organization is set up with the aim of achieving certain goals. Whether the company’s aim is to perform a business process, developing a new product, getting new customers or supporting some other organization, the manager is faced with the challenge of how to use the resources available in the organization as well as the staff to achieve the objectives set. The manager is faced with the challenge of motivating the people; remove potential roadblocks from the path that would lead to the success of the organization while focusing on things that are most important for the organization. Another challenge faced by managers is the desire to bring out the best in their employee. Employees have bad days, but it is the duty of the manager to ensure that the employees get to have many good days. Having happy employees means that they will remain motivated. For employees to remain happy, it is important that they are treated with respect. Criticism should be done in private while praise should be done in front of other employees. Praise should be done more than criticism. The manager is also faced with the challenge of helping employees achieve their personal goals, keeping communication channels opens in order to know where problems lie and what can be done to improve the situations at the organization. Dealing with outstanding employees and underperforming employees can also pose a challenge to the manager. The manager has to work towards ensuring that the over performing employee is appreciated and gets special treatment. The manager may need to help the over performing employees get better positions in other organizations if their prowess is above the capacity of the organization. The manager might need to keep encouraging the employee so as to ensure they maintain their exceptional performance. Since not all employees do their best, the underperforming ones will eventually affect the company negatively since they will often underperform and lead to either a bad reputation for the company, or losses. Often, the underperformance might be as a result of personal issues and it extends to affect the company. The manager should be able to take the employee through counseling and to motivate them to improve on their performance. If the employee doesn’t improve on their performance, the manager might have to decide on whether to let them go since their incompetence might eventually affect the organization. Hiring the right people to work for the organization can be a challenge as well. Regardless of whether the organization keeps its staff happy, there will always be employee turnover. Conventional interviews, although important, do not bring out the true potential of the interviewees and the manager might be faced with the challenge of devising other ways to determine whether the interviewees are best suited to work for the organization. The manager might ask the interviewee’s current employer about their performance, or give them an opportunity to work with other members of the organization and see how the interviewee would fit in. hiring a new employee is one of the hardest tasks of a manager. Things will always go wrong at an organization, regardless of the planning that will be done in the organization. An employee might fall it at a critical time, a crime might be committed at the organization’s premises or within the organization. The manager should, therefore, be flexible enough to change plans to suit the situation that the company might be facing at that moment. When a crisis hits, the manager is faced with the challenge of dealing with it without being overwhelmed by stress. When all is said and done, whether the organization is performing well, there is always room for improvement. The manager should work towards ensuring that the organization is constantly improving. In cases where the manager has run out of ideas on ways to improve the organization, they should either seek service from external source or look for another job since there will always be a better way of doing things and the manager is constantly faced with the challenge of finding the ways to improve the organization. Many philosophers of the twentieth century came up with theories that worked then and whose concepts can be applied by managers in this century to help achieve the objectives set by the organization. Although all the concepts have their down side, they all have been observed to succeed. Niccolo Machiaveli came up with the management concept which supported the notion that the end justifies the mean. Machiaveli, during his time, used cruelty to try and unite the people. Cruelty by the manager can be used in order to keep people loyal. He insisted that it was safer to be feared than loved and that since the fear brought the results expected, the end justified the means. Although this management concept is considered both self-seeking and immoral, there are managers that have succeeded through the application of such methods in their management careers. The Machiaveli concept of management views management as a political career where a manager uses politics to enhance themselves. Often, these managers look at what is expected at the end, and then they do everything in their power to reach that end regardless of its ethical implications. Successful managers under the Machavelian concept of management spend most of their time engaging in the political act of networking. Networking often propels them through promotions to greater ranks in their places of employment. Effective leaders, on the other hand, are very good at their jobs and they spend little time in networking. They are often more concerned with ensuring that there is better communication and ethical people managing. Unfortunately, effective managers are often not rewarded with career advancement- at least not as often as successful managers that apply Machavelian’s concept in their management. The concept can still be applied in the 21st Century but managers that would love to enjoy faster career advancement regardless of its effect on the employees. Henri Fayol came up with the second concept of management that applies the basis of ‘command and control”. In this concept, the manager had five functions that were required of them and those were planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and controlling. Here, the managers were meant to issue instructions that were to be followed by the employees to the latter. It also dictates that the employees should know who is in charge and who does what. Hierarchical organization is very important under this concept and everyone is expected to know where they stand in the organization and what is expected of them. Clear lines of command are usually set and every person has the accountability to function effectively. This concept can be applied in the 21st Century when there’s the potential for confusion that might be brought about by group objectives and empowerment of the members of the organization. This concept also brought to light fourteen principles that were to be applied in management. These principles concentrated a lot on the need for teamwork among the members of the organization, as well as the need for unity for command and unity of direction. The principles also emphasize on the need for discipline, order, taking initiative and stability in the organization. An organization can only respond to a crisis fast enough in the 21st century if the person in charge is known and that can only be achieved if there is a well curved out chain of command. This shows the importance of having hierarchies, although they sometimes compromise proper communication in the organization. The third concept of management in the 20th Century was curved out by Frederick Taylor. Taylor brought about the concept of scientific management. Scientific management stated that the manager was the person responsible with making all the decisions in the company and the employees were only meant to implement what the manager had said without question. This concept stresses that the manager dictates the way the work should be done with precision and the workers are meant to follow the order that have been given to them without questioning. In this concept, the hands and the brain are separated. The employees are not meant to think but only act. The managers on the other hand are faced with the task of making the decisions that the workers were meant to follow. Although this concept was shunned even during the time of Taylor, it is seen in organization even presently since people still follow strict scripts that are written for them. This concept has positive impacts in the sense that the employees have self-discipline and are aware of what is expected of them. The managers are also able to exercise control over their employees ensuring that there is order in the organization. The flaw in this concept, however, is that it assumes that employees are only motivated by payment by results only, which is not the case. The concept by Taylor is seen especially in the McDonalds chain of companies, among others. Max Weber was another philosopher that brought about the concept of bureaucratic organization. The concept of bureaucracy is associated with Weber, although he too was very skeptical about the merits of bureaucracy and how an organization could end up as an instrument of domination. However, he acknowledged that an organization that had a bureaucratic system of management was able to endure the challenges of management and would still endure up to date. Bureaucracy has advantages that Weber approved of that includes leveling of social classes, plutocracy, as well as a greater degree of social equality. Technical competence was the main criterion for advancement hence the leveling of social classes. Mary Perker Follett was among the only few females that devised a concept of management in the 20th Century. Mary devised the concept that viewed management as an aspect built by the principles of democracy and cooperation. Her concept viewed an organization as a place where every member was motivated to work and participate regardless of their level of employment. The members of the organization were encouraged to carry out their own research and gather their own information. The members were also encouraged to define their own rules and shape their lives. Mary also pointed out the fact that organizations can only function optimally if they are based fundamentally on cooperation and coordination. Cooperation would be the single unifying principle that would hold the members of the organization together. Mary also advocated for power that was jointly developed as opposed to some members having power over others. The sharing of power was viewed as an important component in social progress and the success of the business. This concept is much more in tune with the recent management thinkers and fits more in this 21st century. The concept of motivation was brought up by Abraham Maslow. Maslow explains that human needs are fundamental in understanding what motivates them. For humans to be motivated, their needs must be met in a certain order. The needs of humans come in five main forms and those are psychological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and finally self-actualization. Maslow also pointed out that pay was not the ultimate motivation for employees but rather a hygiene factor that cause dissatisfaction. There was also the discovery that individuals will only be motivated if they believe that their performance is being rewarded desirably. The desire by an individual to satisfy a need is so important that the individual will make the effort worthwhile. Maslow also noted that highly motivated employees perform better. This concept can be applied in the 21st century by making sure that an individual’s effort is rewarded by either a promotion that will help propel them up the hierarchy of needs pyramid. Peter Drucker is the first philosopher that treated management as a discipline in its own right. He presented management as a practice and responsibility, as opposed to being a rank. This concept of management can be applied in this age through the application of these five principles of management that Peter derived; setting objectives for the organization, organizing, motivation and communication, establishing measurements of performance and developing individuals in the organization. Geert Hofstede brought forth the concept of cultural differences in management. Hofstede noted that people had a lot in common but came from different nationalities and would therefore have unique cultural traits to them depending on their country of origin. He noted the five main cultural classifications that the individuals fell in and those were either collective verses individualism, power distance, masculinity versed femininity, uncertainty avoid and long term verses short term orientation. Cultural differences also brought forth the fact that different countries view management differently. Henry Mitzberg also came along with the concept of reality management that made the reality of management clear. Mitzberg wrote about what managers actually do rather than what they say they do as well as what they should be doing. Managers in this age have also ended up doing things like they would like to do them and the concept by Mitzberg was meant to explain to them what they should be doing as managers, to create a better environment for their employees. The theories that were conceptualized in the 20th Century go a long way in curving out better management practices for organizations in the 21st century. It is therefore important that they are always considered before making any managerial decisions. Reference Drucker, P. F. (2007). Management challenges for the 21st century. Routledge. Read More