Management (Robbins and Coulter) - Ch.1

Of my many reading initiatives recently post my Ph.D., I've come across this book - Management by Stephen Robbins and Mary Coulter. Intrigued, I started reading it and subsequently I have decided to write my reflections here in the form of a blog. As I read every chapter, I hope to write down my reflections/learnings or just summaries of each chapter just so that I can keep improving my writing (without having to rely on ChatGPT) and also get into the habit of reading a diverse range of topics.

The first chapter, as anyone could rightly guess, is a brief introduction to 'Management and Organizations'. This book reads more like a textbook with inbuilt list of questions for discussion. Maybe sometime down the line I could pick up some topics from this list and choose to write about them. But for now coming back to our Chapter 1 - Management and Organizations.

An organization as defined in the book is a deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish a specific purpose. And subsequently managers are people/employees who co-ordinate and oversee the work of people so that organizational goals can be achieved.

Thus managers are important because they have the managerial skills and abilities that an organization needs especially in times of crisis, chaos and uncertainty. Additionally, managers also provide critical support in getting things done at organizations. And most importantly, managers are crucial in developing relationship with employees that work with them or under their direct supervision. good managers, create a good working atmosphere, which in turn improves the productivity of an organization crucial for its growth and bad managers often tend to push away deserving employees. This is proven by the fact that The Gallup organization, which polled million of employees and thousands of managers, found that the single most important variable that impacted productivity, and loyalty among employees was the relationship between employees and their direct supervisors.

That being said, managers have a generic classification. First-line managers often work with non-managerial employees, who are typically involved with production or servicing the customer base depending on the organization. Middle level managers typically supervise first-line managers and they are often designated as project manager, store manager, project leader, division manager, etc. Top managers are employees of the organization who take decisions that impact the organization. typically this includes the president, vice president, chief executive officers and so on.

The managerial functions are broadly categorized into four functions: planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Planning: this function typically deals with defining of goals, establishing strategies for achieving these goals, and developing plans to integrate and co-ordinate activities.

Organizing: typically under this function, managers determine the tasks to be done, assignment of tasks to employees, the supervisory structure, and grouping of various tasks and so on

Leading: this function typically involves motivation, conflict resolution, recognition of achievements and contributions, developing effective communication channels and so on.

Controlling: this involves performance evaluation, monitoring of efforts to achieve the goals.

While the efforts of managers are always aimed at improving Efficiency and Effectiveness, there is a distinction between these two performance metrics. Efficiency is getting most output from least amount of input, while effectiveness is "doing the right things" that is performing activities that lead to achieving goals of the organization.

In contemporary management studies, Mintzberg defined managerial roles as interpersonal, informational and decisional depending on the specific behavior and actions expected of and exhibited by managers.

As per Mintzberg, interpersonal roles include figure head, liaison, and leader. Similarly, informational roles are monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. Finally, decisional roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.

Skills that are usually considered as management skills include technical skills (job specific), human skills (ability to work with other people) and conceptual skills (understanding the functioning of an organization).

Progressively managers face challenges to adapt to changing technology, increased competitiveness, emergence of new and changing security threats and increasing emphasis on organizational and managerial ethics.

Bottomline is that management is needed in all organization types be it a non-profit, a small scale industry, a manufacturing company or a multi-national firm.