Key Concepts in Management and Team Dynamics
Strategic Management
Manager: Directly supports, activates, and is responsible for the work of others. The people managers help are the ones whose tasks represent the real work of the organization.
Types of Managers:
- Line Managers: Directly affect organizational output.
- Staff Managers: Use technical expertise to advise and support line workers.
- Functional Managers: Responsible for a single area of activity.
- General Managers: Responsible for complex units with multiple functional areas.
- Administrators: Work in public and nonprofit organizations.
Quality of Work Life (QoWL): Fair pay, safe work conditions, opportunities to learn and use new skills, room to grow and progress, protection of rights, and pride in the work itself.
Functions of Management
Planning: Setting objectives and determining what actions should be taken to accomplish them.
Organizing: Assigning tasks, allocating resources, and coordinating work activities.
Leading: Arousing people’s enthusiasm to work hard and directing their efforts to achieve goals.
Controlling: Measuring work performance and taking action to ensure desired results.
Mintzberg’s 10 Managerial Roles
Interpersonal Roles:
- Figurehead
- Leader
- Liaison
Informational Roles:
- Monitor
- Disseminator
- Spokesperson
Decisional Roles:
- Entrepreneur
- Disturbance Handler
- Resource Allocator
- Negotiator
Managerial Agendas and Networking
Agenda Setting: Involves developing action priorities for accomplishing goals and plans.
Networking: The process of creating positive relationships with people who can help advance agendas.
Social Capital: The capacity to get things done with help from others.
Katz’s Managerial Skills
Conceptual Skills: Ability to think analytically and achieve integrative problem-solving.
Human Skills: Ability to work well in cooperation with other persons; emotional intelligence.
Technical Skills: Ability to apply expertise and perform a special task with proficiency.
Ethical Behavior
Ethical Frameworks:
- Utilitarian: Greatest good for the most people.
- Individualism: Focus on long-term self-interests.
- Moral Rights: Respecting the fundamental rights of all human beings.
- Justice: Fair and impartial treatment.
Ethical Dilemmas: Discrimination, sexual harassment, conflicts of interest, product safety, misuse of organizational resources.
Maintaining Ethical Standards: Ethics training, codes of ethical conduct, whistleblower protection.
Social Responsibility: Sustainability, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management, corporate governance.
Planning
Benefits of Planning:
- Improves focus and flexibility.
- Enhances action orientation.
- Improves coordination and control.
- Enhances time management.
Types of Plans:
- Long-Term Plans: Look three or more years into the future.
- Short-Term Plans: Typically cover one year or less.
- Strategic Plans: Set broad, comprehensive, and longer-term action directions for the entire organization.
- Tactical Plans: Help implement all or parts of the strategic plan.
- Operational Plans: Identify short-term activities to implement strategic plans.
- Policies: Standing plans that communicate guidelines for decisions.
- Procedures: Rules that describe actions to be taken in specific situations.
- Budgets: Plans that commit resources to projects or activities.
- Zero-Based Budgets: Allocate resources as if each budget were brand new.
Planning Tools and Techniques
- Forecasting: Attempts to predict the future using qualitative (expert opinions) and quantitative (mathematical models and statistical analysis) methods.
- Contingency Planning: Identifying alternative courses of action to take when things go wrong.
- Scenario Planning: A long-term version of contingency planning that identifies alternative future scenarios and plans for each.
- Benchmarking: Using external and internal comparisons to plan for future improvements and adopting best practices.
- Use of Staff Planners: Assist in all steps of the planning process.
Implementing Plans to Achieve Results
- Goal Setting: Establishing clear, measurable, and achievable goals.
- Goal Alignment: Ensuring that goals at different levels of the organization are aligned and support each other.
- Participation and Involvement: Engaging team members in the planning process to enhance commitment and motivation.
- Management by Objectives (MBO): A structured process of regular communication where supervisors and team members jointly set performance objectives and review results.
Strategic Management
Corporate Strategy: Sets long-term direction for the entire enterprise.
Business Strategy: Determines how a division or strategic business unit will compete in its product or service domain.
Functional Strategy: Guides activities within one specific area of operations.
Strategic Analysis
Mission, Values, and Objectives: Analyzing the organization’s mission, core values, and operating objectives.
SWOT Analysis: Examining internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats.
Five Forces Analysis: Assessing industry attractiveness based on competitive rivalry, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and bargaining power of customers.
Strategy Implementation
Management Systems and Practices: Ensuring management functions support implementation.
Strategic Control and Governance: Ensuring effective control and governance of the strategy.
Strategic Leadership: Ensuring strong and effective leadership throughout the implementation process.
Methods of Resisting Change
Change Types:
- Top-down
- Bottom-up
- Incremental
- Transformational
Change Strategies:
- Force-Coercion: Uses the power bases of legitimacy, rewards, and punishments.
- Rational Persuasion: Persuasion backed by knowledge and rational argument.
- Shared Power: Collaborative process to identify goals and values.
Reasons for Resistance: Fear of the unknown, loss of control or confidence, poor timing, lack of purpose.
Dealing with Resistance: Education, communication, support, agreement, negotiation, co-optation, facilitation.
Leadership Styles
Autocratic: Focuses on the task over people.
- Pros: Quick decision-making.
- Cons: Low morale and motivation.
Democratic: Focuses on both task and people.
- Pros: Higher job satisfaction, creativity, and commitment.
- Cons: Slower decision-making.
Hersey-Blanchard (H-B) Situational Leadership Model:
- Telling: High task, low relationship (provide instructions and closely supervise). Best for low-readiness situations where followers are unwilling.
- Selling: High task, high relationship (provide direction and support, explain and encourage). Best for moderate-readiness situations where followers lack ability.
- Delegating: Low task, low relationship (provide minimal direction and support). Best for high-readiness situations where followers are willing.
- Participating: Low task, high relationship (support, encourage, involve them in decision-making). Best for moderate-high readiness situations where followers are unwilling or lack confidence.
Motivation
Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow):
- Lower-order Needs: Physiological, safety, social.
- Higher-order Needs: Esteem, self-actualization.
Workplace Applications:
- Physiological: Fair wages, good working conditions.
- Safety: Job security, benefits.
- Social: Positive work culture, teamwork, sense of belonging.
- Esteem: Opportunities for advancement, recognition of achievements.
- Self-Actualization: Opportunities for personal growth, creativity, and career development.
When a need is satisfied, it no longer motivates behavior, and individuals move to the next level of need.
Team Development Stages
- Forming: Team members come together, establish initial relationships, and are characterized by orientation, testing, and dependence on the leader for guidance. Members are polite and avoid conflict.
- Storming: Team members begin to push against boundaries, resulting in conflict, competition, and struggle for power. Members may challenge the leader and show disagreement.
- Norming: Conflicts are resolved, norms and standards for behavior are established, and the team becomes more cohesive. Members accept their roles and responsibilities and become more organized.
- Performing: The team becomes fully functional, working towards achieving its goals with high motivation, efficiency, and autonomy. The team operates smoothly with little supervision.
- Adjourning: The team completes its tasks, and the project ends. Members experience a sense of loss as they disband, reflecting on achievements with both satisfaction and sadness.