An Overview of the Activities of Managers

Purpose of class Present definitions related to management Understand the activities that comprise management Understand the needed managerial skills First case

Managers get things done through people (in an organization). Key word organization.

Organization. Consciously coordinated unit composed of 2 or more people that functions on a continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Managers do the coordination and guide other people to achieve organization goals. Most managers represent the interests of other people (commonly the business owner(s)).

The central Managerial Challenge Getting employees to achieve the organizational goals. Has the appearance of being simple. You are the boss. People do as you tell them if not they get fired. This is may be truer in HK than the US, but still most managers will find this difficult to do. Assignment #1.

On the other hand relationships in Hong Kong make it more difficult to put strong demands on your “networks”.

From expectations in general Management is different from leadership.. Management is concerned with planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Leadership is but one aspect of this. Leadership is most inferred when do something new and you have followers.

Planning Setting performance objectives. Which way do we go.

Organizing Assigning tasks, resources, and activities

Leading Arousing (motivating people) and directing human resources toward goals

Controlling Measuring performance (goals) and taking action to ensure desired results

Managerial roles Gather and give information (informational roles) To make decisions (decisional roles) That provide the means to influence others to achieve organizational goals (Interpersonal). Emphasis on interpersonal activities..

Managerial skills Technical—those related to the functional area/job responsibilities of subordinates. Human relations—those related to working with other people effectively Conceptual—abilities to think through complex and ambiguous problems/issues. Make decisions.

Hint You may find this useful in Assignment #1. What does a manager do—what roles does he say (s)he engage in. See table 1-1.

Case #1 Purpose of this case is to understand what a manager does. Begin to focus on cases in general. How to analyze a case.

Case: But it worked before

Learning Goals What does a manager do? What makes a manager’s job so difficult. Case analysis Use this case in other parts of the course. You will be tested on this. Case will appear on the mid term.

Side track What does a manager do? Ted is a manager. What types of things does he do in this case?

Are these more Roles or Functional responsibilities?

Did he Plan? Organize? Lead? Control? Where was the break down?

Did he Gather good information? Give information? What decision roles did he execute/not execute. Entrepreneur, Disturbance handler, resource allocator, Negotiator. Leadership role? (liaison role and figurehead are not relevant here).

Which Framework is more useful in this case? Solution based on your analysis. One could argue many things. Leadership, planning/decision making (negotiator). Which is most important? Information gathering (it worked before). Controlling (Managers estimated to spend 50% of their time dealing with consequences from poor decision making (implementation). In this case heavy handed controlling. Note differences between leading and controlling difficult to discern.

Why is Ted’s job so difficult. He is the boss. People should do as he tells them to do things.

Was Ted an Effective Manager What types of things did he do well. What types of things did he do poorly. From this, what skills are important to be an effective manager. Which is most important, technical skills (discipline), human skills, conceptual skills?

In analyzing the case need to separate facts and opinions. Three minutes. Break into groups Listen to everyone facts Generate a list of facts. Highlight most relevant. Report back.

Facts are events most pertinent to the case. Ted had excellent track record in the US Ted did not understand Cantonese Ted’s wife had given up her executive position in LA.

Opinions Why did things happen? Or ideas based on incomplete information. Why did supervisors bombard Ted with questions? What was the reward system in this organization? Were supervisors trained or not trained?

Clear that symptoms that something is wrong. Customer service not working Absenteeism up Turnover up. Profit down. Why did this change effort fail?

The trick is how to define (frame) the problem Poor problem definition. Ted needs to speak Cantonese. (too narrow) Ted needs management development (too broad). Profit problem (symptom). What is causing the symptoms? Keep in mind this is an OPINION.

Some reasonable ones. What ways could customer service have been improved? How could empowerment have been implemented more effectively? Either of these would have lead to an improved situation. Hard to know which is best until after you have executed your plan.

Another side Note Empowerment is the wave of the future. Need to develop decision making abilities. Hong Kong behind the US. Does increase competitiveness. Emerging in Hong Kong. Even in the Government. Hong Kong Post, Youth programs.

Back to the case Estimates as a manager 50% of your time is spent addressing poor decisions they made. Why do managers make poor decisions? First incomplete information. Time Need for action (often from higher managers).

Decisions prove to poor based on the consequences.

What would you do?

I am going to give you two acceptable responses. Other ways to improve customer service. Develop a customer service center where discretion can be used. Have one person located at check in. One person per 10 gates. One person at baggage claim. First class and Business class customers have priority. Problems with this are mostly cost. The empowerment program would be less expensive. Also bottlenecks in service. However, culturally more appropriate.

Supervisors seemed to be the real resistors to the change. Motivations are loss of jobs, loss of face, loss of power. Educational process needed to be initiated. All employees. Clarify. Start small. Gradual transitions. Give gate attendants the right to deal with overbookings. Work with baggage claims in particular. One supervisor. Pick the supervisor who is most open to new management style.

There are some problems with this. Educational costs are high. There will still be problems. Supervisors will still experience loss of face and power. Change what you can change, when you can change it. This is likely to work because company had been doing OK. Trying to make improvements. Never be the same as in America.

What did you learn today?

Summary We generated examples of activities Is management easy or difficult? Why? Case applied issues.