7. The management of time
In any business it is important that managers should be effective. They must be able to achieve their objectives and to get things done. But it is easier said than done –the problem is that there are many pressures on managers, reducing their efficiency. Their work is fragmented and most days they are doing a number of tasks, some fairly trivial, other highly important. Than managers find that they do not have enough time to devote to the really important jobs and sometimes they forget which jobs are important.
Managers also find that other people take up a lot of their time, so he has little time on his own. He must constantly respond to the demands that other make on his time. The higher he goes, the more demands will be made upon his time.
Because of the nature of the manager’s work, it is not easy for manager to be effective. He will have difficulty distinguishing between important and less important tasks. He will often feel that he has too many demands on his precious time and at times will find it quite difficult to turn people away. There will always be someone or something to divert him from what he should really be doing.
Effective manager learn how to manage their time. They cut out unproductive activities and never forget that time cannot be replaced.
The usual / common method for manager to find out how he is actually using his time, is to log the tasks he performs. Manager should not rely on memory when logging time. Manager should note down all the activities and indicate how long they took. The logging of time should be done once or twice a year. It shows how the executive actually spends his time at work, not how he thinks he spends it.
Once the manager has an accurate picture of how he uses time, he can analyze the time log. This will help him to re-think and re-plan his work schedule. He can find out some of the wasteful activities and cut them out.
As a result of his analysis the effective manager will start getting rid of unproductive, time wasting activities. Manager will learn to say ‘No’ more often to people demanding his time. He will also get rid of some activities which can be done just a well by someone else. Knowing how to delegate is an essential skill of a manager. He will, in short, be more discriminating in using time.
Having recorded and analysed time, the manager can now re-shape his schedule: he can set aside certain times for important tasks; create more time so that he can attend to essential activities. He can also earmark certain days of the week for particular activities, management meetings, staff appraisals etc. The manager works out all the jobs he must do and lists the tasks in order of priority. Manager also set deadlines for carrying out the most important functions.
Peter Drucker believes that effective manager work systematically to manage time. He must acquire this ‘habit of mind’, this ability to use time efficiently.
8. Motivation
The work of managers is to ensure that staff work efficiently in an organization. To achieve this, it is clear that managers must know what motivates people. By understanding the factors influencing motivation, they can create the conditions in which employees will perform to their maximum potential.
One of the best known theories of motivation was put forward by an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist. In his theory, he presents a hierarchy of needs. He identified certain basic human needs and classified them in an ascending order of importance. Basic needs were at the bottom of the hierarchy, higher needs at the top. His classification is shown below:
1. Physiological needs: These were things required to sustain life like food, water, air, sleep etc. Until these needs are satisfied, Maslow believed, other needs will not motivate people.
2. Security needs: They are the needs to be free from danger, physical pain and loss of a job. They include the need for clothing and shelter.
3. Social needs: A human being needs to belong to a group, to be liked and loved, to feel accepted by others and to develop affiliations.
4. Esteem needs: After people have satisfied their social needs, they want to have self–respect and to be esteemed by others. They have a need for power, status, respect and self–confidence.
5. Self–actualization needs: These are the highest needs, according to Maslow. They are the desire to develop, to maximize potential and to achieve one's goals.
Maslow said that people satisfied their needs in a systematic way. When a need had been met, it stopped being a motivating factor. Research into Maslow's theory has not been very conclusive. Studies have tended to show that needs vary greatly among individuals.
Another theory of motivation, which has been very popular with managers, is Frederick Herzberg's 'two–factor' theory. Herzberg conducted a number of studies and concluded that at work there are certain factors which cause job satisfaction while others lead to dissatisfaction.
The group of factors bringing about satisfaction were called 'motivators'. They include things like a challenging job, responsibility, advancement, recognition, achievement, career prospects etc. These factors give rise to positive satisfaction.
Herzberg called the other group of factors 'hygiene' or 'maintenance' factors. These include company policy and administration, salary and fringe benefits, job security, quality of supervision, relationship with colleagues, job security, work conditions, status and personal life. These factors are considered to be only 'dissatisfiers', not motivators. If they do not exist, they cause dissatisfaction. If they do exist in quality and quantity, they do not, however, give increased satisfaction. Hygiene factors are essential if workers are to be motivated.
Hygiene factors refer to the context of the job – the conditions of work – while the motivators refer to job content.
If Herzberg's theory is true, it means that managers must pay great attention to job content (motivating factors). They must find ways of making jobs more challenging and interesting. The idea of such programmes is to give the worker a sense of achievement.
There are various methods of making work more interesting. These include job enlargement and job enrichment. With job enlargement, the worker is given additional tasks to perform. Job enrichment involves giving extra responsibilities to workers such as production planning, quality control and technical development of equipment.
9. Performance Appraisal
Most organizations have some form of performance appraisal of their employees. The appraisals are usually carried out once a year. The manager makes an evaluation of the performance of the subordinate. This involves filling out a form or writing a report on the person concerned. After this, there is a meeting at which the two parties discuss the appraisal. A performance appraisal is, then, a judgment on how well a person is doing his/her work.
Appraisals help organizations to reward staff properly. They are useful when decisions have to be made about salary increases and bonuses. They are needed when managers are considering transferring or promoting staff. In these situations, they provide up-to-date information about an individual's performance, skills and career objectives.
An important purpose of appraisals is to give the subordinate feedback on how he/she is performing. The manager can talk to the subordinate about the strengths and weaknesses of his/her performance. Не/She can also discuss how the subordinate can learn to work more effectively. At appraisal interviews, subordinates can not only talk about their future, but also seek guidance from the manager. The interview may help them to think more realistically about their goals.
There are many methods of evaluating a person's performance at work.
A traditional method has been to give a 'rating'. The subordinate's evaluation is based on traits — qualities - that he/she shows in his/her work. Subordinates are judged on such things as knowledge of the job, reliability, cooperation, punctuality, initiative and sense of responsibility. The manager rates the subordinate by marking a letter or figure on a scale.
However, the most popular form of appraisal, in Britain and the United States, is Management by Objectives. This appraisal is based on a person's performance, and how well he/she is achieving his/her goals. The manager and the subordinate agree on a certain number of objectives, which should be achieved in a given period of time. The focus is on results, not personality traits.
Another appraisal method is worth mentioning too. This is the Critical Incident Method. With this system, the manager keeps a record of good and unsatisfactory examples (incidents) of a person's work. These are kept in a file and reviewed with the manager when the interview takes place. An advantage of the system is that the manager has to think about the subordinate's performance throughout the year.
In spite of the need for performance appraisals, people do not like them. Many managers see appraisals as their most unpleasant duty and those who are appraised rarely have a good word to say for the system used by their organization. One problem is that the manager is expected to criticize the subordinate and to give guidance at the same time. Many people are naturally suspicious of appraisals. They think managers are trying to find out their weaknesses, so they are on the defensive. Moreover, managers are often unwilling to say that a subordinate's performance has been 'outstanding' or 'bad'. So, the individual is described as being 'just above average'. This means that high fliers in the organization do not get a good enough evaluation while the work of poor performers may be over-valued. Finally, many managers do not like to criticize, in writing, a subordinate with whom they are working closely, day-by-day.
Appraisal can be a valuable process. At the interview, the manager should act as a guide to the subordinate, not as a judge. The purpose of the interview should be to discuss how the individual can 'grow' in the organization, and make an effective contribution. The situation allows both parties to review the work of the individual and fix realistic targets.
10. Centralization & Decentralization
Alfred Sloan (1874-1966) was an outstanding figure in the business world of America. He worked for forty-five years in the General Motors Corporation (GM). Sloan published an account of his career with the organization. In it he described some of the managerial problems he had had, and how he had dealt with them.
According to Sloan, every large enterprise has to face one major problem. It must decide how much it wishes to centralize or decentralize its business. The terms refer to the degree of authority that is given to various levels of management and to the divisions of an organization. When we talk about centralized and decentralized businesses, we mean the extent / degree to which authority has been passed down – delegated – to lower levels or divisions of an organization.
When an organization is centralized, a limited amount of authority is delegated. If it is decentralized, a greater degree of authority is given to staff and divisions. In a decentralized company, the divisions will have wider responsibilities and authority and more important decisions can be made at lower levels. There are fewer controls from Head Office.
To sum up, a centralized business has a 'tight' structure, whereas a decentralized business has a 'looser' structure.
No enterprise chooses complete centralization or decentralization. In practice, it tries to find a balance between the two forms. Fox instance, Head Office can control things like cash, capital expenditure and stock control. The divisions will have a great deal of autonomy, being responsible for designing, making and marketing.
Nowadays, decentralization is the fashion, the 'buzz' word. Believers in decentralization say that it helps to 'develop people' because staff get more responsibility, make more decisions, and so gain experience for later managerial positions. Decentralization allows top managers to delegate jobs, so these managers will have more time to work on setting goals,planning corporate strategy and working out policies. If an organization is too centralized, people become robots – which is demotivating. The strongest argument foe decentralization is that, in competitive conditions, the ‘looser’ companies will be more flexible, better able to make quick decisions and to adapt to change.
It is normal for people to like independence, to dislike control. The more educated staff is, the more they will want to make decisions, to have authority. However, it is not easy to have more decentralization if the right staff is not available. It is one thing to prescribe diversity, decentralization and differentiation, and it is another to manage it.
11. Communication
It is already known that communications in excellent companies are different from those in other companies. Excellent companies have a 'vast network of informal, open communications'. People working in them keep in contact with each other regularly and have many unscheduled meetings.
In the best-run businesses, few barriers exist to prevent people talking to each other. The companies do everything possible to ensure that staff meet easily and frequently. There are numerous examples of companies who believe in 'keeping in touch': firms like IBM, Walt Disney Productions and so on.
One problem with communication is that people think they have got their message across when in fact they have not. We do not, in fact, communicate as effectively as we think we do. This finding is important for managers. It suggests that, when giving instructions, managers must make sure that those instructions have been understood and interpreted correctly.
A breakdown in communication is quite likely to happen if there is some kind of 'social distance' between people. In organizations, people may have difficulty communicating if they are different in status, or if one person has a much higher position than the other. For this reason, staff often ‘filter' information. They deliberately alter the facts, telling the boss what he wants to hear. They do not want to give bad news, so they give their superior too good an impression of the situation, thus, the info becomes unreliable.
One way of reducing social distance - and improving communications - is to cut down on status symbols. It is possible, for example, to have a common dining-room for all staff or to wear uniforms.
Physical surroundings and physical distance limit or encourage communication. Studies show that the further away a person is, the less he/she communicates.
The physical layout of an office must be carefully planned. Open-plan offices are designed to make communication easier and quicker. However, it is interesting to note that employees in such offices will often move furniture and other objects to create mini-offices.
Another important barrier to communication is selective perception. This means that people perceive things in different ways. The world of the sender is not the same as the world of the receiver. Because their knowledge and experience is different, sender and receiver are always on slightly different wavelengths.
Communication problems will arise, from time to time, in the best-run companies. However, to minimize such problems, managers must remember one thing. Communication should, be a two-way process. Managers should encourage staff to ask questions and to react to what the managers are saying. Feedback is essential. The most useful question a manager can ask is ‘Did you understand that?’
12. Leadership
Leadership is needed at all levels in an organization. It is difficult to define leadership satisfactorily.
A typical definition is that the leader 'provides direction and influences others to achieve common goals'.
Leader has to create ‘a sense of excitement’ in the organization and convince staff that he knows where the business is going. In add., he must be a focus for their aspirations.