Lecture 1.

Introduction to Management

1. Management: Theoretical Scope.

2. Basic Functions and Levels of Management.
3. Functional Management and General Management.
4. Managerial Roles in Organization.
5. Managerial Skills.

Management is the act of engaging with an organization's human talent and its
resources to accomplish desired goals and objectives.

Managing is coordinating work activities so that they are completed efficiently

and effectively with and through other people.

Efficiency: getting the most output from the least input.

Effectiveness: completing activities so that the organization’s goals are attained.

Management comprises planning, organizing, leading/motivating

and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or
entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.

One of the most important duties for a manager is effectively using an

organization's resources. This duty involves deploying and manipulating human
resources (or human capital), as well as efficiently allocating the organization's
financial, technological, and natural resources.

Since organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as

human action, such as product design, that enables the system to produce useful
outcomes. This view suggests that we must manage ourselves as a prerequisite to
attempting to manage others.

1. Management: Theoretical Scope

At first, management may be considered as a type of function, one which measures

financial metrics, adjusts strategic plans, and meets organizational goals. This applies
even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Henri
Fayol (1841–1925) considered management to consist of six functions: forecasting,
planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. He was one of the
most influential contributors to modern concepts of management.

In another way of thinking, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) defined management

as "the art of getting things done through people." She described management as
philosophy. Some people, however, find this definition useful but 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.
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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Another perspective regards management as equivalent to "business

administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, for
example in charities and in the public sector. More realistically, however, every
organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. to maximize
effectiveness and accomplish its goals.
Several historical shifts in management have occurred throughout the ages.
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 the management
information systems)

2. Basic Functions and Levels of Management

Management operates through various functions, such as planning, organizing,

leading/motivating and controlling/monitoring.

 Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next

week, next month, next year, over the next five years, etc.) and
generating plans for action.
 Organizing: Implementing a pattern of relationships among workers and
making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful
carrying out of plans.
 Leading: Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting
people to do it.
 Controlling/monitoring: Checking current outcomes against forecast
plans and making adjustments when necessary so that goals are achieved.
 Motivating: Motivation is a basic function of management because
without motivation, employees may feel disconnected from their work
and the organization, which can lead to ineffective performance. If
managers do not motivate their employees, they may not feel their work
is contributing to the overall goals of the organization (which are usually
set by top-level management).

Defining Top-Level Management

Top-level managers include boards of directors, presidents, vice-presidents, CEOs,

general managers, and senior managers, etc.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Top-level managers are responsible for controlling and overseeing the entire
organization. Rather than direct the day-to-day activities of the firm, they develop goals,
strategic plans, and company policies, as well as make decisions about the direction of
the business.
In addition, top-level managers play a major role in the mobilization of outside
resources. They are accountable to the shareholders and general public, and they are
also responsible for framing policies for the business. Significant business decisions are
made at this level. In general, this level of management is concerned with administrative
functions that affect all aspects of the organization.

Critical job skills of today's managers include the ability to work under pressure, to
lead people, to manage conflict, to solve crises, to motivate people, and to intuit
answers. Many people work under top-level managers' supervision and look to them for
guidance, so these are the skills which are needed to perform the various operations of
the business.

According to Lawrence S. Kleiman, to operate successfully at the top managerial

level, managers should have a broad understanding of how competition, world
economies, politics, and social trends affect organizational effectiveness.

Managerial skills include conceptual skills, interpersonal skills, and technical

skills. These three managerial skills are used by different managers to various degrees.
Successful top-level managers usually display more conceptual than technical skill.
They have to think continuously about the company's goals and objectives and how they
can be effectively communicated to employees.

Defining Middle Management

Most organizations have three management levels: first-level, middle-level, and

top-level managers. These managers are classified according to a hierarchy of authority
and perform different tasks. In many organizations, the number of managers in each
level gives the organization a pyramid structure.

Middle management is the intermediate leadership level of a hierarchical

organization, being subordinate to the senior management but above the lowest levels of
operational staff. For example, operational supervisors may be considered middle
management; they may also be categorized as non-management staff, depending upon
the policy of the particular organization.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Figure 1. Four-level pyramid. This figure illustrates the hierarchy of management within an IT
department. Notice that middle management is tasked with both technical skills and
communication of the system efficacy upwards while delegating downwards.

Middle-Management Roles

Middle-level managers can include general managers, branch managers, and

department managers. They are accountable to the top-level management for their
department's function, and they devote more time to organizational and directional
functions than upper management.

A middle manager's role may emphasize:

 Executing organizational plans in conformance with the company's policies

and the objectives of the top management;
 Defining and discussing information and policies from top management to
lower management;
 Most importantly, inspiring and providing guidance to lower-level managers
to assist them in performance improvement and accomplishment of business
objectives.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Middle managers may also communicate upward by offering suggestions and

feedback to top managers. Because middle managers are more involved in the day-to-
day workings of a company, they can provide valuable information to top managers that
will help them improve the organization's performance using a broader, more strategic
view.

Middle-Management Functions
Middle managers' roles may include several tasks depending on their department.
Some of their functions are as follows:

 Designing and implementing effective group work and information systems

 Defining and monitoring group-level performance indicators
 Diagnosing and resolving problems within and among work groups
 Designing and implementing reward systems
 Supporting cooperative behavior
 Reporting performance statistics up the chain of command and, when
applicable, recommending strategic changes

Because middle managers work with both top-level managers and first-level
managers, middle managers tend to have excellent interpersonal skills relating to
communication, motivation, and mentoring. Leadership skills are also important in
delegating tasks to first-level managers.

Middle management may be reduced in organizations as a result of reorganization.

Such changes include downsizing, 'delayering' (reducing the number of management
levels), and outsourcing. The changes may occur in an effort to reduce costs (as middle
management is commonly paid more than junior staff) or to make the organization
flatter, which empowers employees, leaving the organization more innovative and
flexible.

Responsibilities of Frontline Management

Most organizations have three management levels: first-level, middle-level, and
top-level managers. These managers are classified according to a hierarchy of authority
and perform different tasks. Frontline managers belong to the first level of management.

Frontline managers are managers who are responsible for a work group to a higher
level of management. They are normally in the lower layers of the management
hierarchy, and the employees who report to them do not themselves have any
managerial or supervisory responsibility. Frontline management is the level of
management that oversees a company's primary production activities.
Frontline managers provide critical value to a company's success because they
must motivate employees who perform essential production duties. They also must
generate efficient productivity and control to minimize costs. Frontline managers are
most often involved in operations (as opposed to marketing, accounting, finance, etc.).
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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Roles in Frontline Management

Frontline managers consist of supervisors, section leads, foremen, and so on. They
focus on controlling and directing. They usually perform the following functions:

 assign employees' tasks

 guide and supervise employees on day-to-day activities
 ensure quality and quantity production
 make recommendations
 channel or redirect employee problems
 provide technical expertise
 monitor work processes
 deal with customers and clients
 measure operational performance

Frontline managers also serve as role models for employees in providing basic
supervision, motivation, career planning, and performance feedback.

Managers have to deal with problems which require special skills to solve.
Frontline managers who are responsible for dealing directly with the operating
personnel need very high interpersonal skills to motivate, supervise, and guide their
subordinates, as well as communicate with managers of higher levels. Frontline
managers also need technical skills since they are dealing with job-related tasks that
help achieve the goals and objectives of the organization.

3. Functional Management and General Management

Functional management and general management represent two differing

responsibility sets with an organization. Functional managers are most common in
larger organizations with many moving parts, where different business functions are led
by managers within those respective fields (i.e. marketing, finance, etc.). General
management is more common in smaller, more versatile, environments where the
general manager can actively engage in every facet of the business

Functional Management
Besides the heads of a firm's product and/or geographic units, the company's top
management team typically consists of several functional heads (such as the chief
financial officer, the chief operating officer, and the chief strategy officer). A functional
manager is a person who has management authority over an organizational unit—such
as a department—within a business, company, or other organization. Functional
managers have ongoing responsibilities and are not usually directly affiliated with
project teams, other than ensuring that goals and objectives are aligned with the
organization's overall strategy and vision.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Figure 2. Functional vs. general management

In the chart, the director is the general manager. The heads of three division programs are
functional managers.

General Management
General management focuses on the entire business as a whole. General
management duties and responsibilities include formulating policies, managing daily
operations, and planning the use of materials and human resources. However, general
managers are too diverse and broad in scope to be classified in any one functional area
of management or administration such as personnel, purchasing, or administrative
services.

General managers include owners and managers who head small-business

establishments with duties that are primarily managerial. Most commonly, the term
general manager refers to any executive who has overall responsibility for managing
both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement. This means that a
general manager usually oversees most or all of the firm's marketing and sales
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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

functions, as well as the day-to-day operations of the business. Frequently, the general
manager is responsible for effective planning, delegating, coordinating, staffing,
organizing, and decision making to attain profitable results for an organization.

While both general and functional management involve similar skills

(interpersonal skills, communication, multitasking, etc.), the critical difference is that a
functional manager often "zooms in" to one particular aspect of a broader operational
paradigm. The general manager must be more of a jack-of-all-trades, understanding
enough about various different gears in the machine to ensure it is running properly.

4. Managerial Roles in Organization

Management is incorporated into every aspect of an organization and involves
different roles and responsibilities. Henry Mintzberg (1973), the Cleghorn Professor of
Management Studies at McGill University, defined ten management roles within three
categories: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.

Each of the three categories embraces the different roles.

Interpersonal:
 Figurehead: symbolic head; performs a number of routine duties of a legal or
social nature.
 Leader: motivates and activates subordinates; performs staffing, training,
and associated duties.
 Liaison: maintains a self-developed network of outside contacts and
informers who provide favors and information.

Informational:
 Mentor: seeks and receives a wide variety of special information (much of it
current) to develop a thorough understanding of the organization and
environment; emerges as the nerve center of internal and external
information for the organization.
 Disseminator: transmits information received from outsiders or from other
subordinates to members of the organization. Some information is factual;
some involves interpretation and integration of diverse value positions of
organizational influences. Disseminating what is of value, and how, is a
critical informational role.
 Spokesman: transmits information (plans, policies, results, etc.) within and
outside of the organization; serves as an expert on the organization's
industry.

Decisional:
 Entrepreneur: searches the organization and its environment and initiates
improvement projects to bring about change; supervises design of certain
projects as well.
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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

 Disturbance Handler: takes corrective action when the organization faces

important, unexpected disturbances.
 Resource Allocator: allocates the organization's resources; makes or
approves of all significant organizational decisions.
 Negotiator: represents the organization at major negotiations.

A manager's job is never static; it is always dynamic. At any given time, a manager
may carry out some combination of these roles to varying degrees, from none of the
time to 100 percent of the time. Throughout an individual's working life, a person may
hold various management positions that call upon different roles.

No one person can be all things to all people. While these ten roles are highly
useful in framing organizational leadership, to expect one person to fill each role in a
large organization is impractical. Instead, astute hiring managers will hire people with
one or two specific roles in mind, thereby creating a team of managers capable of
handling the wide variety of challenges in the business world today.

5. Managerial Skills

Robert Katz identifies three critical skill sets for successful management
professionals: technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills. While these three
broad skill categories encompass a wide spectrum of capabilities, each category
represents a useful bucket for these skills to fall into and describes the way in which
these skills interact with management at various levels.

Of the three skill sets identified by Katz, technical skills are the broadest, most
easily defined category. A technical skill is defined as a learned capacity in just about
any given field of work, study, or even play. For example, the quarterback of a football
team
must know how to plant his feet and how to position his arm for accuracy and
distance – both technical skills. A mechanic, meanwhile, needs to be able to deconstruct
and reconstruct an engine, to employ various machinery (lifts, computer scanning
equipment, etc.), and to install a muffler.

Front-Line Managers' Technical Skills

Managers also need a broad range of technical know-how. All industries need
management, and management must exist at various organizational levels. Front-line
managers represent a substantial part of management who must use their technical skills
daily. Front-line managers must communicate up the chain of command while still
speaking the language of the workers who are executing the hands-on components of
the industry. A technical skill for a front-line manager might include a working
understanding of a piece of equipment: the manager must be able to coach the employee

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

on its operation, as well as communicate to upper managers the basic functions of the
machinery.
Technical Skills in Upper Management
In addition to front-line managers, managers in other corporate roles and at higher
levels require critical technical skills. These can include office-based competencies such
as typing, programming, website maintenance, writing, giving presentations, and using
software such as Microsoft Office or Adobe. Office environments require a complex set
of communicative, technological, and data-organization skills in order to optimize
managerial performance.

Successful managers in an organization must therefore learn to use the

technological assets at their disposal, collecting critical information and data to
communicate upward for strategic planning. An example of information management is
a mid-level manager in the automotive industry that is responsible for recognizing
global marketing potential. This individual must be capable of realizing the legal,
demographic, social, technological, and economic considerations of entering a market;
the manager will use effective research and delegation skills and also consolidate the
information into a useful presentation using technological and communicative skills.

Katz postulates that the higher up in the organization an individual rises, the more
conceptual skills (and fewer technical skills) are necessary. Senior managers need fewer
technical skills because strategic decision-making is inherently more conceptual; mid-
and lower-level skills such as data collection, assessment, and discussion are all more
technical. Even so, all disciplines of management require a broad range of skill sets for
effective business processes to occur.

Example: A technical skill for a front-line manager might include a working

understanding of a piece of equipment: the manager must be able to coach the
employee on its operation, as well as communicate to upper managers the basic
functions of the machinery.

Conceptual skills revolve around generating ideas through creative intuitions and a
comprehensive understanding of a given context.
Conceptual skills of management represent one of the three skill sets identified by
Robert Katz as critical to managerial success in an organization; the other two include
technical skills and human skills.

Conceptual thinking is difficult to define but could generally be considered as the

ability to formulate ideas or mental abstractions in the mind.
While all levels of management benefit from conceptual thinking, upper
management spends the most time within this frame of mind.
Conceptual skills include the ability to forecast, think innovatively, and combine
seemingly disparate information; they also include the communicative capacity to
discuss and debate in pursuit of a good strategy.
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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Conceptual skills are important in empowering managers in all levels of an

organization to observe the operations of an organization and frame them conceptually
as an aspect of that organization's strategy, objectives, or policies.

Defining Conceptual Thinking

Conceptual skills represent one of the three skill sets identified by Robert Katz as
critical to managerial success in an organization; the other two include technical skills
and human skills. While each skill set is useful in different circumstances, conceptual
skills tend to be most relevant in upper-level thinking and broad strategic situations (as
opposed to lower-level and line management). As a result, conceptual skills are often
viewed as critical success factors for upper managerial functions.

Conceptual thinking is difficult to define but could generally be considered as the

ability to formulate ideas or mental abstractions in the mind. Conceptual skills primarily
revolve around generating ideas, utilizing a combination of creative intuitions and a
comprehensive understanding of a given context (i.e., incumbent's industry,
organizational mission and objectives, competitive dynamics, etc.). When combined
with a variety of information, as well as a degree of creativity, conceptual thinking can
result in new ideas, unique strategies, and differentiation.

Conceptual Skills in Upper Management

While all levels of management benefit from conceptual thinking, upper

management spends the most time within this frame of mind (as opposed to thinking
more technically – looking at and working with the detailed elements of a given
operation or business process). Upper management is largely tasked with identifying
and drafting a strategy for the broader operational and competitive approach of an
organization.

This strategic planning includes generating organizational values, policies, mission

statements, ethics, procedures, and objectives. Creating this complex mix of concepts to
use as an organizational foundation requires a great number of conceptual skills –
formulating concepts and predicting their effects in an organizational setting.

Conceptual Skills in Lower and Middle Management

While upper management may use the conceptual skill set most, middle managers
and lower managers must also both understand and participate in the generation of
company objectives and values. Of particular importance are the ability to communicate
these critical concepts to subordinates and the ability to gather useful information to
convey to upper management so that the concepts can evolve.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Figure 3. Conceptual model. The model offers an example of how conceptual thinking
functions in an organizational setting. Conceptual models are generated and discussed based
upon the collection of various data and stimuli, leading to a tangible, executable model. This is
an ongoing process at all times.

Collecting the results of conceptual thinking represent a feedback loop. Conceptual

skills are important in empowering managers in all levels of an organization to observe
the operations of an organization and frame them conceptually as an aspect of that
organization's strategy, objectives, and policies. Conceptual thinking allows for accurate
and timely feedback and organizational adaptability.

According to management theorist Robert Katz, management comprises three

critical skill sets: technical, human, and conceptual. The development of human skills –
which could be perceived as a combination of social, interpersonal, and leadership skills
– is central to the success of a manager.

Leadership

Over the years, the common definition of management has become less specific, as
managerial functions can include staffing, directing, and reporting. Modern companies
have fewer layers of management, as these companies instead rely on the delegation of
responsibilities and authority to achieve goals. As a result, businesses often speak of
"leading," or guiding, people rather than giving instructions for every action. Leading
people represents a central component of human skills.

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Lecture 1. Introduction to Management

Under this definition of management, leadership is actually a subcategory of

management. Management characterizes the process of leading and directing all or part
of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of
resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible).

Human skills differentiate a manager from a leader. A manager is simply

manipulating resources to achieve a given objective, while a leader appeals to the
human side of employees to generate creativity and motivation.

These concepts of "manager" and "leader" can be distinguished within a team

setting. A team leader who is unconcerned with team members' needs or who has a
personal agenda that is perceived to be more important than the team's goals may be
considered more of a manager than a leader, with the possible outcome of being
estranged from team members. Conversely, team leaders who are admired and loyally
followed are those who show concern for the team members as individuals with real
needs and who place their team above their own personal agendas.

Communication
Realistically, most organizations need leaders who can view their teams
analytically and objectively, evaluating inefficiencies and making unpopular choices.
However, it is misleading to think that a manager has to be distant from or disliked by
subordinates to execute these responsibilities. Creating a healthy environment
conducive to development, criticism, and higher degrees of achievement simply
requires strong human skills, particularly in the realm of communication.
Interpersonal skills and communication skills lie at the center of human-based
managerial considerations. Good managers understand not only what they are trying to
say but also the broader context and implications of saying it. Empathy, self-reflection,
situational awareness, and charisma all play integral roles in communicating effectively
and positively.

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