Management Functions, Levels, and Control Methods
Management Functions
Functions of Management:
- Planning: Prepared for the future.
- Organizing: Everything in its place and time.
- Leading: Guide a group to achieve an objective.
- Controlling: To be sure everything is right and well.
Levels of Management
- Top: CEO, board of directors.
- Middle: Area or department manager.
- Low Level: Team leader, supervisor, chiefs.
- Non-Manager: Employees – workers.
Types of Managers
- General: Responsible for all the company’s complex units.
- Functional: Responsible for a unit.
Types of Plans
- Strategic: (Think) Pictured of the desired future and the long-term goals. SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.
- Tactical: (To do) Supports strategic plans by translating them into specific tasks.
Managerial Competencies
- Strategic action
- Multicultural awareness
- Communication
- Planning and administrating
- Teamwork
- Self-management
What is Management?
Management: Is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources to obtain a goal in a company.
Control Processes
Control: A systematic process through which managers ensure that behaviors and decisions conform to organizational standards and legal requirements.
Steps of Feedback Control
- Establish standards of performance.
- Measure actual performance.
- Compare performance to standards.
- Take corrective action.
Financial Analysis: Interpreting Numbers
Managers need to evaluate financial reports, comparing performance with other data and industry standards. Financial Analysis includes:
- Reliability of financial reporting
- Review (profits, assets, sales, and inventory)
- Compliance with applicable laws and regulations
Types of Control
- Corrective: Mechanisms intended to reduce or eliminate unwanted behaviors. Examples: Direct supervision and feedback, disciplinary action, procedures for reporting misconduct, monthly or even daily financial reports.
- Preventive: Mechanisms intended to reduce the likelihood of an unwanted event. Examples: Rules & Regulations, Standards, Recruitment and selection procedures, Training & Development.
The Creative Process
- Preparation: Searching for and collecting facts and ideas.
- Concentration: Focusing energy and resources on identifying and solving an issue; implement a solution (brainstorming).
- Incubation: Stop consciously thinking; break the concentration.
- Illumination: Moments when connections automatically, subconsciously collide and then reach the threshold of consciousness.
Quality
Quality: A product or service free of deficiencies and that satisfies customer needs.
The Internal Perspective: Controlling Quality
Excellence
- Advantages: Clear organizational vision; being the best motivates employees.
- Disadvantages: Gives little practical guidance for managers; “Excellence” is ambiguous (What is it? What defines it?).
Value
- Advantages: Appeals to customers who “know excellence when they see it.” Customers recognize differences in value. Easier to compare with other products in value.
- Disadvantages: Difficult to measure and control. Can be difficult to determine what gives a product value. Controlling balance between excellence and cost is difficult.
Conformance to Specifications
- Advantages: Specifications can be written and it is measurable. Leads to increased efficiency. Promotes quality consistency.
- Disadvantages: Can’t be easily evaluated. Promotes standardization which hurts performance when adapting to changes.
Process: Suppliers → Input → Process → Output → Happy Customer 🙂
Control Methods
Mechanistic/Bureaucratic
- Detailed rules and procedures 24/7
- Top-down authority → positional power
- Activity-based jobs that describe day-to-day behaviors
- Extrinsic rewards (wages, pensions, status symbols)
- Distrust of teams
Organic/Decentralized
- Rules and procedures only when necessary
- Flexible authority
- Results-based jobs emphasizing on goals
- Extrinsic AND intrinsic rewards (meaningful work, satisfaction)
- Use of teams