what do managers really do.pdf
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What do managers do? 1
WHAT DO MANAGERSREALLY DO?
Most books deal with whatmanagers should do
Ways to describe managerial work:• calculated chaos• controlled disorder• celebrating intuition
Eastern mind vs Western mind
What do managers do? 2
Textbooks on managerial work:• planning• organizing• coordinating• controlling
DISCUSSION:
WHAT DO YOU DO AS AMANAGER?
What do managers do? 3
FOLKLORE AND FACTSAbout Managerial Work
1. Folklore:The manager is a reflective,systematic planner
Fact:Mangers work at an unrelentingpace. Their activities arecharacterized by brevity, variety,and discontinuity. They arestrongly oriented towards actionand dislike reflective activities
What do managers do? 4
Evidence: findingsa. CEOs: 50% of activities lasted
longer than 5 minutes; 10%exceeded 1 hourSteady stream of callers andmail
b. Foremen: 583 activities per 8-hour work shift
c. British CEOs: worked a half-hour or more withoutinterruption only about onceevery 2 days
What do managers do? 5
d. Verbal contacts: 93%arranged on ad hoc basisOne of 368 verbal contactsrelated to general planning
Explanation:
a. Manager simply responding tothe pressures of the job
b. Managers wanted toencourage the flow of currentinformation
c. When the manager must plan,it is done so implicitly in thecontext of daily actions, not
What do managers do? 6
some abstract processreserved for 2 weeks at theorg’s retreat
d. Plans of CEOs exist only intheir heads – as flexible, butoften specific, intentions
e. The managerial job does notbreed reflective planners; themanager is a real-timeresponder to stimuli,conditioned by the job toprefer live to delayed action
What do managers do? 7
2. Folklore:The effective manager has noregular duties to perform
FW: Managers told to spendmore time planning anddelegating, less time seeingcustomers and engaging innegotiations. These are not truetasks of the manager.Manager = good conductor,orchestrating everything inadvance; in absolute control
What do managers do? 8
Fact:In addition to handlingexceptions, managerial workinvolves performing a number ofregular duties, including ritualand ceremony, negotiations, andprocessing of soft informationthat links the org with itsenvironment
Evidence: findings
a. Small companies: No staffspecialists -- CEO does it all
What do managers do? 9
b. CEOs – natural part of job tosee important customers
c. Ceremonial duties – presidingover special dinners, etc arean intrinsic part of the job
d. Managers play a key role insecuring “soft” external infoand in passing it along to theirsubordinates
What do managers do? 10
3. Folklore:The senior manager needsaggregated information, which aformal management system bestprovides
Manager sits at apex of pyramidwith giant MIS
Managers have commands 6media: documents, phone calls,scheduled and unscheduledmeetings, observation tours, ande-mails
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Fact:Managers strongly favor the oralmedia – namely phone calls andmeetings
Evidence: findings
a. Brits: managers average 66%- 80% of their time in oralcommunicationUSA: 78%
b. Mail is a burden: “get rid of allthis stuff” sessions onweekends
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c. Skim over routine reports andperiodicals, ritualistically
Explanation:
a. Mail analysis: only 13% wasof specific and immediateuse; not much of mail providelive and current info
b. Managers cherish “soft” info,esp gossip, hearsay, andspeculation.
What do managers do? 13
WHY? The reason is itstimeliness; today’s gossip istomorrow’s fact
c. Oral info is stored in people’sbrains – the strategic databank of the org is not in thememory of its computers somuch as in the minds of themanagers
d. Managers extensive use ofthe oral media helps toexplain why they are reluctantto delegate tasks.
What do managers do? 14
Time consuming to “dumpmemory” – to tell thatsomeone all they know aboutthe subject
Manager is damned byhis/her own info system to a“dilemma of delegation” – todo too much him/herself or todelegate to subordinates withinadequate briefing
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4. Folklore:Management is, or at least isquickly becoming, a science anda profession
Science? Systematic,analytically determinedprocedures
Profession? Cannot even specifywhat managers are to learn
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Fact:The manager’s programs – toschedule time,, process info,make decisions, and so on –remain locked deep inside theirbrains
To describe those programs, werely on words like judgement andintuition, which are labelsreflecting our ignorance
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Observations:
Managerial actions today do notdiffer from those of a hundredyears ago.
Info – still much oral, with newhelp from electronic media
Managerial work is enormouslycomplicated and difficult:
• burdened with obligations• cannot easily delegate tasks• driven to overwork• forced to do many taskssuperficially
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Characteristics of managerialwork:• brevity• fragmentation• oral communication
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BASIC OVERVIEW OFMANAGERIAL WORK
Manager: person in charge of anorganization or one of itssubunits
All are vested with formalauthority over an org unit
From formal authority comesstatus which leads to variousinterpersonal relations
From status comes access toinfo
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Info enables the manager tomake decisions and strategiesfor his/her unit
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INTERPERSONAL ROLES
1. FIGUREHEAD ROLE-- statusCeremonial nature of worka. 12% of timeb. 17% of incoming mailc. routine, little serious
communication, no importantd-m.
d. important for smoothfunctioning of an org; cannotbe ignored
What do managers do? 22
2. LEADER ROLEFormal authority vests themanager with great potentialpower
Leadership determines howmuch of it he/she will in fact use
Responsible for the work of thepeople in that unita. hire and train own staffb. motivate and encouragec. reconcile indiv and org needs
What do managers do? 23
3. LIAISON ROLEMakes contacts outside his/hervertical chain of command
Spends as much time with peersand other people as withsubordinates
CEOs’ contacts:Clients, business associates andsuppliers; managers of similarorgs, govt or trade org officials,fellow directors in outsideboards; etc – between 25 and 50
WHY?
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Cultivates contacts largely to findinfo
In fact, building his/her ownexternal info system – informal,private, oral but neverthelesseffective
What do managers do? 25
INFORMATIONAL ROLESCommunications is his/her work
Manager emerges as the nervecenter of his/her org unit – thecenter of the info flow
May not know everything, buttypically knows more than anyone of his/her subordinates
Info from other managers ofequal status who are also nervecenters in their orgs
Dev powerful info data bases
What do managers do? 26
4. MONITOR ROLEPerpetually scans theenvironment for info,interrogates contacts andsubordinates, and receivesunsolicited info via network ofpersonal contacts he/she hasdeveloped
Good part of info comes in oralform – gossips, hearsay,speculation
Natural advantage in collectingsoft info for his/her org
What do managers do? 27
5. DISSEMINATOR ROLEManager shares and distributesmuch of this info withsubordinates who wouldotherwise have no access to it
Manager also passes info fromone subordinate to another
What do managers do? 28
6. SPOKESPERSON ROLEManagers send some of theirinfo to people outside their units– speeches, lobbying efforts
Must inform and satisfy theinfluential people who controlhis/her org unit
Deal with influential outsiders –directors, shareholders, financialanalysts regarding theperformance of the org
What do managers do? 29
DECISIONAL ROLES
Info is not an end in itself; it is thebasic input to decision-making
The manager plays an importantrole in the d-m system, committingthe unit to important new courses ofaction
As the nerve center, the managerhas the full and current info tomake the set of decisions thatdetermines the unit’s strategy
What do managers do? 30
7. ENTREPRENEUR ROLE
Seeks to improve unit byadapting it to changingconditions in the environment
Development projects at CEOa. projects do not involve single
decisions or even unifiedclusters of decisions.Emerge as a series of smalldecisions and actionssequenced over time
b. multitasking – CEO maintainsa kind of inventory of the dev
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projects at various stages ofdevJuggler – all in the air; onecomes down and is given aburst of energy and sent backinto orbit; some comeonstream, others discarded
What do managers do? 32
8. DISTURBANCE HANDLERROLE
Managers respond to highpressure dissturbances andchanges (looming strike, energyshortage) beyond their control
Reality:Poor managers ignore situationsuntil they reach crisis proportions
Good managers cannotanticipate all the consequencesof the actions they take
What do managers do? 33
9. RESOURCE ALLOCATORROLE
Decides who will get what when
Allocates his/her own time
Designs the unit’s structure, thatpattern of relationships thatdetermines how work is to bedivided and coordinated
Authorizes the importantdecisions before they areimplemented – to fragment thispower is to encourage
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discontinuous d-m and disjointedstrategy
Need to consider the impact ofeach decision on other decisionsand on the org’s strategy. Thedecision would be acceptable tothose who influenced the org aswell as ensure that resourceswould not be overextended
Key is timing
What do managers do? 35
10. NEGOTIATOR ROLEConsiderable time innegotiation. To commit orgresources in “real time”
What do managers do? 36
GESTALT: INTEGRATING THEROLES
Holistic approachE.g. a manager without liaisoncontacts lacks external informationcrucial to the orgResult: can neither disseminate infosubordinates need nor makedecisions that adequately reflectexternal conditions
Herein lies the problem of teammanagementDifficult to divide up the ten rolesand reintegrating them
What do managers do? 37
Most difficulty is with theinformational roles. Without fullsharing of managerial info(primarily oral) team managementbreaks down
Gestalt does not mean equalattention to each role:
Observations:
• sales managers:more attention to interpersonalroles, reflecting the extrovertednature of marketing activities
What do managers do? 38
• production managers:more attention to the decisionalroles, reflecting their concernwith efficient work flow
• staff managers;more time in the informationalroles, since they are experts whomanage depts that advise otherparts of the org
Yet interpersonal, informational,and decisional roles remaininseparable
What do managers do? 39
TOWARD MORE EFFECTIVEMANAGEMENT
The manager’s effectiveness issignificantly influenced by theirinsight into their own work
Major managerial logjamsstemming from the oral nature ofthe manager’s information:
• dliemma of delegation• the data base centralized in one
brain• problems of working with the
management scientist
What do managers do? 40
1. The manager is challenged tofind systematic ways to sharehis/her privileged information
• regular debriefing with keysubordinates• weekly memory dump on thedictating machine/PC• maintain a diary of importantinfo for limited circulation
Trade-off:Efficiency in disseminating infoVs the question of confidentiality
What do managers do? 41
Reality: job pressures drivemanager to be superficial inhis/her actions –- overloaded with work,- encourage interruption, -- respond quickly to every
stimuli,- seek the tangible and avoid the
abstract, and- make decisions in small
increments, and- do everything abruptly
What do managers do? 42
2. Dealing with pressures ofsuperficiality:- give serious attention to the
issues that require it,- step back from tangible bits of
info in order to see the bigpicture, and
- make use of analytical inputs
Danger:Responding to every issueequally – need to prioritize
Solution:Work closely with planning staffor those with experience in
What do managers do? 43
planning – when little timeavailable in addressing complexissues
The “planning dilemma”:Managers have info andauthorityAnalysts have time andtechnology
What do managers do? 44
3. Gain control of his/her own time:Turn obligations into advantageand those which he/she wishesto do into obligations
Lots of demands for obligatorytime:
Turn a speech into a lobbying fora cause or a promotion of theorg
A meeting is a chance to re-organize a weak dept
A visit to an important customeris a chance to extract trade info
What do managers do? 45
Do things that are important –turn them into obligations
Free time is made, not found;forced into schedule
Wants to innovate?Initiate a project and obligateothers to report back
Need certain external info?Establish channel that willautomatically keep him/herinformed
Need to tour facilities?Publicly commit to doing so
What do managers do? 46