An Introduction to Management

MAN101: Principles of Management Class 1

 Why study management?
 Modern management is complex and multi-faceted. The best managers
need to have a strong foundation of relevant vocational education which is
based in both theory and practice (no different to a doctor, lawyer, or
other high-level professional pursuit).
 The “study” of management used to be largely based on managerial
anecdotes and stories, rather than hard scientific evidence.
 But now, the study of management has become an increasingly
scientifically rich and sophisticated area of scholarly enquiry and research.
 Academic disciplines such as Organisational Behaviour and Organisational
Psychology (as well as newer fields such as Organisational Neuroscience)
have contributed to a growing literature and evidence base for our
understanding of management.
 The Modern Manager
 Management can be defined as a way of achieving goals that add the most
value. It’s about being sufficiently organized to identify the right goals for
an organisation and the best means for achieving them.
 But management is much more than what managers simply do to get work
done through employees. Today, we can manage ourselves, our time and
many other activities that don’t require us to have a formal managerial role
or even to manage people.
 Management is a process of allocating resources to obtain the best return,
even if those resources are just your own time, knowledge and experience.
 But as organisations evolve to meet new demands on these resources,
management must be re-invented and re-defined accordingly.
Traditional vs Modern Management
Traditional Manager Modern Manager

Thinks about themselves Thinks about their team

Micro-manages Delegates responsibility and promotes autonomy

Solves problems Helps others solve their own problems

Focuses on performance and knowledge Focuses on growth and learning

“Designs the sandcastle” “Builds the sandbox”

Runs on autopilot Acts with intentionality and empathy

Invests in their career Invests in themselves

Does their job Does what’s needed

 Decision Making:
Time, Information, Energy
 TIME: Time is always present and is a prominent
dimension in all decision making actions: “How
much time do I have to make the decision?”;
"When do I make the decision?"
 INFORMATION: Information is used to put the
decision in context, generate possible alternatives,
and then make the choice of the best alternative.
 ENERGY: Energy is the resource our brain needs to make decisions. When our
brains have low access to energy, our perceptions of information and our
assessments of time will be inaccurate, and we will make worse decisions.
 How to Increase Decision-Making Energy
and Prevent Decision Fatigue

 Try to make important decisions earlier in the day.

 Allocate time in your schedule for decision-making.
 Reduce distractions during decision-making.
 Don’t “re-hash” decisions or repeat them over and over in your mind (make a decision
and move on).
 Eat healthy, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and reduce stress.
 Rationality and Intuition
 Rational Decision Making
 Based on accurately defining a problem and decision criteria, evaluating different alternatives,
and selecting the best alternative.
 Relies on a number of assumptions about the decision-maker: (1) They have complete
information; (2) They can identify all the relevant options in an unbiased manner; and (3)
They will choose the best option.
 Completely unrealistic (also think about time and energy).

 Bounded Rationality
 Constructing simplified decision criteria that identify the essential features of problems and
possible solutions without capturing all their complexity or assuming the best available option.
 Recognizes that complete information and decision-making that is free of bias are not realistic,
and that the best option often simply means “the best option available or understandable.”
 “Satisficing” and other “fast and frugal” approaches to rationality are usually a smarter use of
time, information, and energy.
 Rationality and Intuition
 Intuitive Decision Making
 An unconscious, non-analytical process of
using experience and emotion to make
decisions.
 Intuition is not “magical” and is not the
“opposite” of rational analysis.
 A highly complex and highly developed form
of reasoning that is based on years of
experience and learning, and which
compliments rational analysis rather than
contradicts it.
 Fast and easily available to the brain.
 Imprecise; prone to perception errors; prone
to effects of time and energy imbalances.
 Evidence-Based Management
 The demands for decisions are relentless,
information is incomplete, and even the very best
managers make many mistakes and undergo
constant criticism and second-guessing from
people inside and outside their companies.
 Evidence-based management is a way of seeing
the world and thinking about the craft of
management which proceeds from the premise
that using better, deeper logic and employing the
best scientific research permits leaders to do their
jobs more effectively.
 Evidence-based management features a
willingness to put aside beliefs and conventional
wisdom and replace these with an unrelenting
commitment to gather the necessary facts to
make more informed and intelligent decisions.
Rationality and Intuition
 The External Environment
There is no universal success formula for all organisations.

The driving variable which dictates the strategy required for the success of an organisation
is the level of turbulence in its environment.

An organisation’s success cannot be optimised unless management strategy is aligned with
the turbulence in its environment.

An organisation’s success cannot be optimised unless management capability is also aligned
with the environment.

The key capability variables which jointly determine an organisation’s success are: cognitive,
psychological, sociological, political, and anthropological.
The External Environment: PESTLE Analysis
 What is Organisational Culture?

Textbook:
“The shared values, principles, traditions, and ways of doing things that influence the way organisational
members act and that distinguish the organisation from other organisations.”
American Psychological Association:
“A distinctive pattern of thought and behaviour shared by members of the same organisation and reflected
in their language, values, attitudes, beliefs, and customs.”
 7 Characteristics of Organisational Culture
 Innovation and risk taking: The degree to which employees are encouraged to
be innovative and take risks.
 Attention to detail: The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit
precision, analysis, and attention to detail.
 Outcome orientation: The degree to which management focuses on results or
outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve them.
 People orientation: The degree to which management decisions take into
consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organisation.
 Team orientation: The degree to which work activities are organized around
teams rather than individuals.
 Aggressiveness: The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive
rather than easygoing.
 Stability: The degree to which organisational activities emphasize maintaining the
status quo in contrast to growth.
 Strong vs. Weak Organisational Cultures
 Strong culture: The organisation’s core
values are both intensely held and widely
shared.
 The more members who accept the core values
and the greater their commitment, the stronger
the culture and the greater its influence on
member behaviour, because the high degree of
sharedness and intensity creates a climate of
high behavioural control (needs less
formalization).
 Weak culture: The organisation's core
values are not very strong and are not
accepted by all employees.
 Weak culture results in instability, lack of
innovation, low customer focus and high attrition.
It is usually a result of flawed policies, poor
decision making, and a lack of communication.
 The Potential Liabilities of Culture
 Institutionalization: When an organisation is considered
valuable in and of itself, and not for the goods or services it
actually produces.
 Barriers to change: When the shared values don’t agree
with those that further the organisation’s effectiveness.
 Barriers to diversity: When strong cultures eliminate the
advantages of individual diversity by assimilating people and
eliminating their unique differences.
 Barriers to acquisitions and mergers: Organisational-
cultural incompatibilities between two existing organisations.
 Creating and Sustaining a Culture

 Culture Creation
 Hiring and retaining employees who think and feel the same way the organisation's founders do.
 Indoctrinating and socializing these employees to their way of thinking and feeling.
 Encourages employees to identify with and internalize these beliefs, values, and assumptions.

 Cultural Maintenance
 Selection: Identifies how well the candidates will fit into the organisation, and identifies people
whose values are essentially consistent with the organisation’s values.
 Top management: Senior management establishes norms that filter through the organisation.
 Socialization: The process by which employees adapt to the prevailing organisational culture.
 How Employees Learn Culture
 Stories: Narratives which anchor the present in the past and
legitimate current practices, using reference to the organisation’s
founders, history, coping, and employee relations.
 Rituals: Repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce
the key values of the organisation.
 Material symbols: Symbols which convey to employees who is
important and the kinds of behaviour that are appropriate in the
organisation.
 Language: Unique terms which describe equipment, officers, key
individuals, suppliers, customers, or products that relate to the
business.
 Creating an Ethical Culture
 Be a visible role model: Employees will look to the actions of top management as a
benchmark for appropriate behaviour. Send a positive message.
 Communicate ethical expectations: Minimize ethical ambiguities by sharing an
organisational code of ethics that states the organisation’s primary values and ethical
rules employees must follow.
 Provide ethical training: Set up seminars, workshops, and training programs to
reinforce the organisation’s standards of conduct, clarify what practices are permissible,
and address potential ethical dilemmas.
 Visibly reward ethical acts and punish unethical ones: Appraise managers on
how their decisions measure up against the organisation’s code of ethics. Review the
means as well as the ends. Visibly reward those who act ethically and conspicuously
punish those who don’t.
 Provide protective mechanisms: Provide formal mechanisms so employees can
discuss ethical dilemmas and report unethical behaviour without fear of reprimand.
These might include ethical counselors, ombudsmen, or ethical officers.
 Creating a Positive Culture

 Building on employee strengths: Identifying the strengths of a team, empowering

employees to discover and develop their unique strengths, and then positioning them in roles
where they can excel.
 Rewarding more than punishing: Focusing on praising and encouraging employees, rather
than prioritizing the disincentivization of bad behaviour.
 Emphasizing vitality and growth: Working with employees to encourage personal and
professional development, and make them feel like more than a “cog in the machine.”
Creating an Innovative Culture
 Ground creative people in accountability for the
organisation’s objectives, key focus areas, core
capabilities, and commitments to stakeholders.
Then give them broad discretion to conduct
their work in service of those parameters.

 Allow innovators to bypass barriers and

hierarchies that often destroy creativity.

 Encourage the unconventional (if not the

unreasonable and impractical).

 Cultivate external relationships beyond the

boundaries of the organisation. These are
invaluable to acquiring and distributing
knowledge.
 Creating a Spiritual Organisation

 Benevolence. Spiritual organisations value showing kindness toward others and promoting the
happiness of employees and other organisational stakeholders.
 Strong sense of purpose. Spiritual organisations build their cultures around a meaningful
purpose. Although profits may be important, they’re not the primary value of the organisation.
 Trust and respect. Spiritual organisations are characterized by mutual trust, honesty, and
openness. Employees are treated with esteem and value, consistent with the dignity of each
individual.
 Open-mindedness. Spiritual organisations value flexible thinking and creativity among employees.
Descriptive work Critical/analytical work

States what happened Identifies the significance

States what something is like Evaluates (judges the value of) strengths and weaknesses

Gives the story so far Weighs one piece of information against another

States the order in which things happened Makes reasoned judgements

Says how to do something Argues a case according to evidence

Explains what a theory says Shows why something is relevant or suitable

Explains how something works Indicates why something will work (best)

Notes the method used Indicates whether something is appropriate or suitable

Says when something occurred Identifies why the timing is important

States the different components Weighs up the importance of component parts

States options Gives reason for the selection of each option

Lists details Evaluates the relative significance of details

Lists in any order Structures information in order (e.g. of importance)

States links between items Shows the relevance of links between pieces of information (“connect the dots”)

Gives information Draws conclusions

(Adapted from Cottrell, 1999)