Management Totally Explained

Everything about Management totally explained

Management in simple terms means the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals. Management comprises planning, organizing, resourcing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.

Overview

The verb manage comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle — especially a horse), which in turn derives from the Latin manus (hand). The French word mesnagement (later ménagement) influenced the development in meaning of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Theoretical scope

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century, defined management as "the art of getting things done through people". One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning doesn't take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol considers management to consist of five functions:

Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.
One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More realistically, however, every organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order to maximize its effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach management as "business schools." Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term "management."
Speakers of English may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term was often contrasted with the term "Labor" referring to those being managed.

Nature of managerial work

In for-profit work, management has as its primary function the satisfaction of a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers), and providing rewarding employment opportunities (for employees). In nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of management/governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board then hires senior management. Some organizations have experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of selecting or reviewing managers; but this occurs only very rarely.
In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United States political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor. Some 2500 people serve at the pleasure of the United States Chief Executive, including all of the top US government executives.
Public, private, and voluntary sectors place different demands on managers, but all must retain the faith of those who select them (if they wish to retain their jobs), retain the faith of those people that fund the organization, and retain the faith of those who work for the organization. If they fail to convince employees of the advantages of staying rather than leaving, they may tip the organization into a downward spiral of hiring, training, firing, and recruiting. Management also has the task of innovating and of improving the functioning of organizations.

Historical development

Difficulties arise in tracing the history of management. Some see it (by definition) as a late modern (in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it can't have a pre-modern history, only harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like activities in the pre-modern past. Some writers trace the development of management-thought back to Sumerian traders and to the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems of exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises, given their small scale, didn't feel compelled to face the issues of management systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.
Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with growing size and complexity of organizations, the split between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties or groups of shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.

Early writing

While management has been present for millennia, several writers have created a background of works that assisted in modern management theories.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War

Written by Chinese general Sun Tzu in the 6th century BCE, The Art of War is a military strategy book that, for managerial purposes, recommends being aware of and acting on strengths and weaknesses of both a manager's organization and a foe's. Machiavelli recommended that leaders use fear—but not hatred—to maintain control.

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

Written in 1776 by Adam Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher, The Wealth of Nations aims for efficient organization of work through division of labor. Smith described how changes in processes could boost productivity in the manufacture of pins. While individuals could produce 200 pins per day, Smith analyzed the steps involved in manufacture and, with 10 specialists, enabled production of 48,000 pins per day.

19th century

Some argue that modern management as a discipline began as an off-shoot of economics in the 19th century. Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) and John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) provided a theoretical background to resource-allocation, production, and pricing issues. About the same time, innovators like Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825), James Watt (1736 - 1819), and Matthew Boulton (1728 - 1809) developed elements of technical production such as standardization, quality-control procedures, cost-accounting, interchangeability of parts, and work-planning. Many of these aspects of management existed in the pre-1861 slave-based sector of the US economy. That environment saw 4 million people, as the contemporary usages had it, "managed" in profitable quasi-mass production.
By the late 19th century, marginal economists Alfred Marshall (1842 - 1924) and Léon Walras (1834 - 1910) and others introduced a new layer of complexity to the theoretical underpinnings of management. Joseph Wharton offered the first tertiary-level course in management in 1881.

20th century

By about 1900 one finds managers trying to place their theories on what they regarded as a thoroughly scientific basis (see scientism for perceived limitations of this belief). Examples include Henry R. Towne's Science of management in the 1890s, Frederick Winslow Taylor's Scientific management (1911), Frank and Lillian Gilbreth's Applied motion study (1917), and Henry L. Gantt's charts (1910s). J. Duncan wrote the first college management textbook in 1911. In 1912 Yoichi Ueno introduced Taylorism to Japan and became first management consultant of the "Japanese-management style". His son Ichiro Ueno pioneered Japanese quality-assurance.
   The first comprehensive theories of management appeared around 1920. The Harvard Business School invented the Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) in 1921. People like Henri Fayol (1841 - 1925) and Alexander Church described the various branches of management and their inter-relationships. In the early 20th century, people like Ordway Tead (1891 - 1973), Walter Scott and J. Mooney applied the principles of psychology to management, while other writers, such as Elton Mayo (1880 - 1949), Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933), Chester Barnard (1886 - 1961), Max Weber (1864 - 1920), Rensis Likert (1903 - 1981), and Chris Argyris (1923 - ) approached the phenomenon of management from a sociological perspective. Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) wrote one of the earliest books on applied management: Concept of the Corporation (published in 1946). It resulted from Alfred Sloan (chairman of General Motors until 1956) commissioning a study of the organisation. Drucker went on to write 39 books, many in the same vein.
   H. Dodge, Ronald Fisher (1890 - 1962), and Thornton C. Fry introduced statistical techniques into management-studies. In the 1940s, Patrick Blackett combined these statistical theories with microeconomic theory and gave birth to the science of operations research. Operations research, sometimes known as "management science" (but distinct from Taylor's scientific management), attempts to take a scientific approach to solving management problems, particularly in the areas of logistics and operations.
   Some of the more recent developments include the Theory of Constraints, management by objectives, reengineering, Six Sigma and various information-technology-driven theories such as agile software development, as well as group management theories such as Cog's Ladder.
   As the general recognition of managers as a class solidified during the 20th century and gave perceived practitioners of the art/science of management a certain amount of prestige, so the way opened for popularised systems of management ideas to peddle their wares. In this context many management fads may have had more to do with pop psychology than with scientific theories of management.
   Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches, namely:

Human resource management

Operations management or production management

Strategic management

Marketing management

Financial management

Information technology management responsible for management information systems

21st century

In the 21st century observers find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, one tends to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management.
   Branches of management theory also exist relating to nonprofits and to government: such as public administration, public management, and educational management. Further, management programs related to civil-society organizations have also spawned programs in nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship.
   Note that many of the assumptions made by management have come under attack from business ethics viewpoints, critical management studies, and anti-corporate activism.
   As one consequence, workplace democracy has become both more common, and more advocated, in some places distributing all management functions among the workers, each of whom takes on a portion of the work. However, these models predate any current political issue, and may occur more naturally than does a command hierarchy. All management to some degree embraces democratic principles in that in the long term workers must give majority support to management; otherwise they leave to find other work, or go on strike. Hence management has started to become less based on the conceptualisation of classical military command-and-control, and more about facilitation and support of collaborative activity, utilizing principles such as those of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human interaction. Indeed, the concept of Ubiquitous command-and-control posits such a transformation for 21st century military management.

Management topics

Basic functions of management

Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, leading/motivating and controlling.

Planning: deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action.

Organizing: making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.

Leading/Motivating: exhibiting skills in these areas for getting others to play an effective part in achieving plans.

Controlling: monitoring -- checking progress against plans, which may need modification based on feedback.

Formation of the business policy

The mission of the business is its most obvious purpose -- which may be, for example, to make soap.

The vision of the business reflects its aspirations and specifies its intended direction or future destination.

The objectives of the business refers to the ends or activity at which a certain task is aimed.

The business's policy is a guide that stipulates rules, regulations and objectives, and may be used in the managers' decision-making. It must be flexible and easily interpreted and understood by all employees.

The business's strategy refers to the coordinated plan of action that it's going to take, as well as the resources that it'll use, to realize its vision and long-term objectives. It is a guideline to managers, stipulating how they ought to allocate and utilize the factors of production to the business's advantage. Initially, it could help the managers decide on what type of business they want to form.

How to implement policies and strategies

All policies and strategies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff.

Managers must understand where and how they can implement their policies and strategies.

A plan of action must be devised for each department.

Policies and strategies must be reviewed regularly.

Contingency plans must be devised in case the environment changes.

Assessments of progress ought to be carried out regularly by top-level managers.

A good environment is required within the business.

The development of policies and strategies

The missions, objectives, strengths and weaknesses of each department must be analysed to determine their roles in achieving the business's mission.

The forecasting method develops a reliable picture of the business's future environment.

A planning unit must be created to ensure that all plans are consistent and that policies and strategies are aimed at achieving the same mission and objectives.

Contingency plans must be developed, just in case. All policies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff that's required in the execution of any departmental policy.

Where policies and strategies fit into the planning process

They give mid- and lower-level managers a good idea of the future plans for each department.

A framework is created whereby plans and decisions are made.

Mid- and lower-level management may add their own plans to the business's strategic ones.

Managerial levels and hierarchy

The management of a large organization may have three levels:

Senior management (or "top management" or "upper management")

Middle management

Low-level management, such as supervisors or team-leaders

Foreman

Rank and File

Top-level management

require an extensive knowledge of management roles and skills.

They have to be very aware of external factors such as markets.

Their decisions are generally of a long-term nature

Their decision are made using analytic, directive, conceptual and/or behavioral/participative processes

They are responsible for strategic decisions.

They have to chalk out the plan and see that plan may be effective in the future.

They are executive in nature.

Middle management

Mid-level managers have a specialized understanding of certain managerial tasks.

They are responsible for carrying out the decisions made by top-level management.

Lower management

This level of management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the other two are carried out.

Lower-level managers' decisions are generally short-term ones

Foreman

They are men who have direct supervision over the working force in office factory, sales field or other areas of activity of the concern.

Rank and File

The responsibilities of the persons belonging to this group are even more restricted and more specific than those of the foreman.

Areas and categories and implementations of management

Accounting management

Agile management

Association management

Capability Management

Change management

Communication management

Constraint management

Cost management

Crisis management

Critical management studies

Customer relationship management

Decision making styles

Design management

Disaster management

Earned value management

Educational management

Enterprise management

Environmental management

Facility management

Financial management

Forecasting

Human resources management

Hospital management

Information technology management

Innovation management

Leadership management

Operations management

Organization development

Perception management

Performance management

Product management

Public administration

Social entrepreneurship

Supply chain management

Systems management

Talent management

Time management

Visual management Further Information

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