Basic Management

Amjad Ghafoor

Brief History
Management has always been there in the history of mankind. Great wall of China, Pyramids of Egypt are the classical examples of management. After the industrial revolution a term called specialized labor emerged. Things became more complicated, and the needs of customers rose. Big organization came into being and to run them efficiently and effectively specialized Management people were needed. The science of management grew ever since.

Classical Contributions
There are quite a few names in the history of Management who have contributed a lot in the development of Management sciences. Michelangelo is mostly praised as a renaissance artist, a genius; what about a Manager? Painting of Sistine Chapel ceiling, carving of marbles in the Medici Chapel in Florentine, and Laurentian Library in Florence are his master pieces. He ran a medium size business and personally selected his workers, trained them, and assigned them to one or more teams. He recorded days worked, wages of every employee. He did all those things a modern manager does.

Classical Contributions
Our modern day Management stems from a series of practitioners and writers, who sought to formulate rational principals that makes an organization more efficient. These principals have two categories, scientific management and general administration. Scientific management theorists looked at this art with the perspective of increasing output of the operative personal. The other were concerned with the overall organization and how to make it more effective.

Emphasis on Technology
Technology includes any equipment, tools, or operating method that are designed to make work more efficient. In the past the work was done manually, but now with help of technology we have all sorts of machines. A successful manager always keeps himself updated with the new technologies.

Social Responsibilities
They idea of social responsibilities of an organization emerged in 1960s. Before that issues like health hazards, pollution, resource conservation, and recycling etc. did not exist. Now environment pollution is a bigger concern to organizations than to maximizing profits. So a management responsibility goes beyond making profits to include protecting and improving societys welfare.

Organization
An organization is a group of people that are brought together to achieve a specific goal or a set of goals, under a given set of guidelines and boundaries (structure). There a two categories of people in every organization; Managers and Operatives. Managers are the ones who oversee the process and the operatives perform them.

Management
The term management means, the process of getting things done through and with others. All organizational management processes share a lot of commonalities, amongst those are process, efficiency and effectiveness.
Process: primary activities managers perform. Efficiency: ratio between input and output. Effectiveness: doing the right task.

Management (cont)
Managers are assumed to be effective and efficient. Efficiency means the degree of correctness in doing something. Its the ratio between input and output, e.g. if an output of a process increases, it means efficiency is increased. (minimize cost) Effectiveness means doing the right tasks in order to achieve the set goals.

Management (cont)
Management process stands for the ways for getting things done. There are four activities that mangers do is called management. 1. Planning.
Defining goals, establish strategy, and developing sub plans to coordinate activities.

Management (cont)
2. Organizing.
Determine what needs to be done, how it will be done, and who is to do it.

3. Leading.
Directing and motivating all involved parties and resolving conflicts.

4. Controlling.
Monitoring activities to ensure that they are accomplished as planned.

Levels of Management
The level determine the hierarchy of the managers. Top level managers do more planning and less overseeing directly into the operations, First level management involves of less planning and more overseeing, and Middle level are in between. (floor supervisor, vice president, divisional
manager, all are the examples of different levels.)

Tips to Become Successful Manager.

1. Don't try to be someone you are not. 2. Share your department's objectives with your staff and then ask them how they can help you to achieve them. 3. Hold regular team reviews to ensure everyone is clear about what is expected of them. 4. Motivation- Acknowledge the expertise of your staff.

Tips to Become Successful Manager.

5. Give feedback openly. If wrong-tell how to correct. 6. Encourage creativity in your team. 7. Be Open with team- to get feedback to avoid and tell to avoid the mistakes. 8. Carry on developing yourself.

Managers Skills.
To become a successful manager one needs to develop managerial skills. Four General skills determine the degree of effectiveness of a manager. Conceptual skills. Technical skills. Interpersonal skills. Political skills.

Managers Skills.
Research shows six sets of behaviors that explains more than 50% of a managers effectiveness. Controlling the organizations environment and its resources. Organizing and coordinating. Handling information. Providing for growth and development. Motivating employees and handling conflicts. Strategic problems solving.