Tasks of Effective Management E-Book

Fredmund Malik

• Herausgeber: Campus Verlag
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Die Malik ManagementSysteme
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 164

Beschreibung

This Malik eReading application comprises the complete Malik Management Systems: Essentials every manager needs to know, from the essence of the craft to strategy, corporate governance and leadership.

Leseprobe

Fredmund Malik

Tasks of Effective Management

www.campus.de

Outline

Management is no matter of ideology, nor is it a question of fashion. Management is a craft – the universal and most important discipline of the 21st century. Fredmund Malik, the leading expert in the field of general management, provides you with the knowledge it takes to be a successful executive and manager, in any position, within any organisation.

Fredmund Malik draws a clear distinction between job-related tasks and management task. The latter being the key tasks, their fulfilment largely determines the success of any organisation. Fredmund Malik shows the knowledge and abilities that are vital for the fulfilment of these management tasks. However, while factual and special knowledge generally varies according to the purpose and activity of an organization, and the managers role in it, the key management tasks are universally the same.

Fredmund Malik’s theory is system-oriented and can thus be applied regardless of time or place. It is designed to work in all areas and industries of any society, irrespective of changing trends or national and cultural differences. Taking as his point of departure the consistent traits displayed by complex systems – phenomena that executives and managers are likely to address on a daily basis – Malik sets the standard for sound management in a knowledge-based economy.

Read more about the Malik Management Systems:

Management Is a Craft

Principles of Effective Management

Tools of Effective Management

The Malik Management System and Its Users

Information about the author

Prof. Dr. Fredmund Malik is a university-level professor of corporate management, an internationally renowned management expert and the chairman of Malik Management, the leading knowledge organization for wholistic cybernetic management systems, based in St. Gallen, Switzerland. With approximately 300 employees, a number of international branch offices and partner networks for cybernetics and bionics, Malik Management is the largest knowledge organization, offering truly effective solutions for all types of organizations and their complex management issues. Thousands of executives are trained and advised about wholistic general management systems. Fredmund Malik is the awardwinning and best-selling author of more than ten books, including the classic Managing Performing Living. He is also a regular columnist for opinion-leading newspapers and magazines and one of the most prominent thought leaders in the management arena. Among numerous other awards, he has received the Cross of Honor for Science and Art from the Republic of Austria (2009) and the Heinz von Foerster Award for Organizational Cybernetics from the German Society for Cybernetics (2010).

Copyright notice

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner.

Copyright © 2011 Campus Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main.

Cover design: Campus Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main

Konvertierung Koch, Neff & Volckmar GmbH,

KN digital – die digitale Verlagsauslieferung, Stuttgart

ISBN 978-3-593-41270-4

www.campus.de

|9|Preliminary Remarks

Principles are the first element of effective management. The second are the tasks carried out by managers. They are the subject of the following section.

What we are discussing here is not managers’ activities as such. Hence, I am pursuing a totally different objective from the Canadian management writer, Henry Mintzberg, who attracted attention several years ago with his assertion that managers’ actual activities have little or nothing at all to do with what they are said to be in certain management literature, such as that by Peter Drucker. On one hand, he is right; on the other hand, this completely misses the main issue.

This section of the book will not deal with what managers actually do for the entire day, but what they should or must do if they wish to be effective as managers. The daily routine of managers includes, and in this I am in agreement with Mintzberg, much that has little to do with management or its effectiveness. Among other things, this routine includes commitments related to carrying out, or sometimes even supposedly carrying out, job-related tasks such as dealing with correspondence, negotiations, business meals, covering for others, reading the newspapers, etc.

A distinction must be made between job-related and management tasks. In the following five chapters, I will cover those tasks that I believe essentially determine the effectiveness of management, and they do so in such a crucial way that they must occupy center stage in our discussion of effectiveness: managing objectives, organizing, decisionmaking, supervising people, and developing people. Without adopting a craftsmanlike, professional approach to carrying out these key tasks it will not be possible to achieve results in any organization.

|10|What is important with relation to principles of effective management is also applicable to these tasks and the tools that will be discussed later: The what of management is the same everywhere; the how can and must occasionally be very different. If this is overlooked, there will be confusion about the content and also its inherent logic.

Due to their very nature, carrying out management tasks requires not only a knowledge of management, but also factual and special knowledge. While management tasks are the same everywhere, the factual knowledge required to carry them out is very different. What factual knowledge depends on a number of factors, for example: the purpose and activity of an organization; the industry; the geographical area in which a person is working; the size of an institution; and, last but not least, the manager’s level in the organization. All this should be obvious, but it is frequently overlooked in treatises on management, and in the general understanding of management.

For the sake of clarity here are a few examples. The first of the management tasks to be discussed is “managing objectives”. This task must be carried out in every organization. However, the substance of the objectives in a company dealing with aluminum differs from those ina pharmaceutical company; the administrative body of the Ministry of the Interior has different objectives from those of the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a non-profit organization that helps young people to beat drug addiction has objectives that differ from one that looks after old people in need of care.

The same applies to the different organizational levels. It is obvious that at the top level of a company, for example, which deals with strategic issues and therefore also has strategic objectives, different factors have to be taken into consideration and, consequently, the factual knowledge required at this level differs from that required at the level of a foreman in the same company who deals with very different issues.

Another question is whether the management tasks suggested and dealt with here are sufficient in principle. I would like to leave this issue open for now and discuss it at the end. For most social institutions and typical cases, the answer is yes. However, the intention here is not to create something new. Strictly speaking, the tasks that are necessary |11|and sufficient for management are well known. The efforts of certain writers to constantly invent something new are not amusing, they are annoying. The emphasis must be on a clear and precise understanding of the elements of each management task and not the creation of an endless string of new, meaningless words.

This is particularly important for the growing number of organizations that have information and knowledge as their most important resources. Even though their employees, compared to more traditional industries, have different and new types of professional tasks to carry out that also require different knowledge relating to their methods and content, the management tasks are basically the same. A change that is almost universally underestimated or ignored has taken place: In information and knowledge organizations management must be mastered as a virtuoso. What is required is not a different management buta more precise, almost perfect management. Traditional industrial and commercial organizations were, to a great extent, impervious to management mistakes; however, the new types of organization are very sensitive and only in the rarest of cases are management mistakes forgiven.

Basic knowledge of a manager’s tasks and a certain amount of experience are required to understand the following section. For each individual task there are only a few aspects that really matter. I am tempted to talk about “secrets”. However, if I am to remain true to my principles, I will have to refrain from doing so. There are no secrets. Nevertheless, this knowledge is not generally known either. The contents of this section are those practices that can be learnt from effective people – who carry out the same tasks as others, but their methods of carrying them out are different.

|12|First Task: Managing Objectives

The first task of effective management is managing objectives. Immediately, an almost ideological question arises, which I do not want to answer just yet, namely whether objectives are to be stipulated or agreed upon. This question is by no means as important as is generally assumed to be. The management task is to ensure that there are objectives. The way in which they are set must be subordinate to the task itself.

Management by objectives was one of the first management tasks to be recognized and written about. As far back as 1955, Drucker’s first book on management referred to it to a limited extent1; the idea had appeared even earlier in papers on military leadership. The basic principle of “Management by Objectives” is, by and large, not disputed. In numerous companies, particularly very decentralized ones, it is the only way to manage. Nevertheless, Management by Objectives (MbO) actually functions rather poorly in practice. Why is this?

There are several reasons. The first reason is that Management by Objectives is often considered to be a method of managing a company or an institution as a whole (which, of course, is part of it) and less as the task of each individual manager. The general objectives relating to the whole are, of course, necessary but they are useless if the organization does not operate according to the same principle at the level of each individual manager.

The second, probably more important reason, though banal, is that carrying out this task involves a lot of work if it is taken seriously. Management by Objectives is not really difficult to understand in principle. Neither is it normally particularly difficult to devise sensible objectives in the intellectual sense. It is, above all, labor-intensive to consider, |13|work out, discuss, and to make those objectives so precise that they are really practical and can fulfill their function.

Perhaps an analogy to music will help to illustrate this. If a company’s mission and strategy is equated with the theme of a symphony, working out objectives can be compared to writing notes on paper. The theme may require genius, but writing the score is very mundane and, above all, laborious. However, even the greatest of geniuses have to go through this drudgery, and they have to do it themselves. No one can give someone else the task of writing down what he has in his mind and what he may not be able to explain in detail. Managers, too, must do this themselves. Certain things cannot be delegated.

The third reason why Management by Objectives does not usually function well is the subject matter of this chapter: There are a few practices that, though not widely known, have a crucial impact on the effectiveness of Management by Objectives.

No Systems Bureaucracy

One mistake, which explains much of the ineffectiveness so often observed, is to make a complicated, bureaucratic program or system out of a sensible and very simple principle. This means a time commitment and a paper war for the manager. Far worse, it usually results in form replacing content, with the system counting for more than the substance. What is required are the right objectives; an MbO program or MbO system can be dispensed with.

Therefore, what should be demanded of managers, especially line supervisors, is that they follow the principle of Management by Objectives. Incidentally, I am using the word “demand” deliberately. There are some things that are not open to discussion and in which people are not cooperative. Furthermore, the staff and systems experts must be prevented from turning it into a bureaucracy which may be well meaning but has damaging effects.

|14|Personal Annual Objectives

Organizations, especially companies, have several widely differing types of objectives. They differ in the period of their effect (long, medium or short-term), their content (strategic objectives, operational objectives), their area of application (general objectives, departmental objectives, personal objectives, etc.), and how specific they are (broad objectives, concrete objectives).

Therefore, when we talk about “Management by Objectives” the phrase must be clearly understood in every organization. My suggestion is that “Management by Objectives” should be understood to mean management by personal annual objectives. Thus, I restrict the use of this phrase “MbO” to a particular type of objective. This is a decision taken for the sake of precision. This chapter primarily refers to Management by Objectives in this sense. In a figurative sense, however, it also applies to other types of objectives.

The General Direction

We frequently neglect to adequately inform the employees who are to be managed by objectives about the basic intentions, the “general heading” in principle, for the next period. We can hardly expect people to set themselves good objectives or assist in their implementation if they are not informed.

Therefore, key employees must be informed briefly and succinctly about the basic direction in which the enterprise, organization, division, profit center, etc. is to proceed. Doing so verbally has its advantages but it can also, as in large companies, be done in writing. In any case, after receiving the instructions verbally the employees should also be given them in writing. The verbal method is more effective and motivational; the written is more precise, not only at that point in time but also later, because it can be reconstructed and is thus less susceptible to arbitrary interpretations.

|15|Basic Rules for Management by Objectives

Irrespective of how objectives are set in individual cases, I suggest that particular note be taken of the following.

Few Objectives – not Many

We almost always take on too many things that are also very different in nature. Setting objectives is one of the most important applications of the principle of concentration, one of the six principles of effective management.

Objectives, particularly the personal annual objectives referred to here, are, along with the task to be carried out, the most important means of making people in an organization, beginning with ourselves, concentrate, focus on something; or to put it very simply: of managing them.

Anyone who is interested in effectiveness and wants to see results at the end of the year must do the exact opposite of what the majority of managers do with regard to objectives. Instead of “loading the car” with more and more, ensure that people take on few objectives. This question should always be asked. Is this really important? What happens if we do not do it?

I would like to touch on priorities in this context. Contrary to what we always hear, setting priorities is not particularly difficult, unless we have no experience to speak of. Anyone, who is familiar with an organization and has some practical experience, can usually specify quite accurately what is really important. On the other hand, what is difficult and is usually ignored is preventing the opposite of priorities – we could call them posteriorities or simply non-priorities – from throwing a spanner in the works. By posteriorities I mean all those things that only appear to be important and take up a lot of space on our desks or computers. These must be brought under control and kept under control.

It is appropriate here to remember what the past master in this field, |16|Peter Drucker, said. “Effective executives do first things first and second things –?” Not “second” as most people reply when asked to complete the sentence, an exercise I have tried out many a time. Not “second”, but “not at all!”.

According to my personal experience as a manager and leader of hundreds of seminars which I have held on this topic, and where this question is discussed time and again, this is perhaps the “bite of the apple of (management) wisdom” which is most difficult to digest. Managers find it quite unpalatable. I myself had to chew on it fora long time; nevertheless, it is the most important.

We must accept this without reservations, I am tempted to say with childlike faith, otherwise we will always experience difficulty in being effective. Too much, too different, all fleetingly touched upon, nothing really completed, nothing but compromises and half measures – this will be our situation at the end of a year. Why is it so difficult? Perhaps because it goes against the prevailing work ethic in some countries. People still believe that a lot is good. This is wrong. What is good is doing the right thing and doing it right should be the maxim. However, the more important reason, of course, lies in the everyday situation in organizations with their frenetic pace, which is mistaken for dynamism, with their bustling activity, which is confused with effectiveness, and with their rituals, which are taken for substance.

There is yet another, a third reason. Of course, we have to deal with many things that have little or nothing to do with the really important objectives and which, in reality, stand in their way. All of this, the posteriorities, the daily odds and ends, must somehow be disposed of. Effective people are, of course, not exempt from these tasks. However, they get rid of these things as quickly as possible and with a minimum of effort and time; they spend the first two or last two hours in the office doing this or do it over lunchtime so that they can then devote themselves to the really important priorities. They do not assess themselves – remember the first principle, which is focusing on results – according to the work they have done but rather according to what they have achieved, and these achievements are not related to day-to-day activities but to one, two or three important objectives.

|17|Few but Big Objectives

Taking on less does not necessarily mean, as is occasionally assumed, working less, being lazy and “hanging around”. The maxim is: Few but big objectives – ones that are significant and count for something when they are achieved.

As I shall explain in a subsequent chapter, people develop by carrying out the big tasks. These are the ones that motivate them and stretch them to their limits. This principle should not remain abstract but rather should be reflected in the objectives every year. Where, if not here, will this ever be effective?

Most people have too many small tasks. This is detrimental for them; they become stunted, they dissipate their energies, and while they may indeed have a lot of work they have no results to show for it. Therefore, they do not experience any success, which is why they need to be “motivated”. This vicious circle must be broken, not through sophistic “development programs” but through big objectives. The task, the job, the objective should guide the people, not the boss. The objective should be the source of authority, direction and supervision, not a superior.

What Is no Longer Relevant?

Even this third point, like the previous two, is inconsistent with prevailing opinion. Usually, we determine our objectives with the question: What should I, must I do, or do I want to do? However, effective people turn the question around and ask: What should I stop doing, and what do I no longer want to do?