Reflection

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Chapter 6 Managing for Business Success

Noteworthy Management

Consider this scenario. You’re about halfway through the semester and ready for your first round of

midterms. You open up your class notes and declare them “pathetic.” You regret scribbling everything

so carelessly (and skipping class so many times). You wish you had better notes. That’s when it hits

you: What if there was a note-taking service on campus? When you were ready to study for a big test,

you could buy complete (and completely legible) class notes. You’ve heard that there are class-notes

services at some larger schools, but there’s no such thing on your campus. So you ask yourself, why

don’t I start a note-taking business? My upcoming set of exams may not be salvageable, but after that,

I’d always have great notes. And while I was at it, I could learn how to manage a business (isn’t that

what majoring in business is all about?).

So you sit down to work on your great business idea. First, you’ll hire a bunch of students to take class

notes and type them out. Then the notetakers will e-mail the notes to your assistant, who’ll get them

copied (on a special type of blue paper that can’t be duplicated). The last step will be assembling

packages of notes and, of course, selling them. You decide to name your company “Notes-4-You.”

It sounds like a great idea, but you’re troubled by one question: Why does this business need you? Do

the notetakers need a boss? Couldn’t they just sell the notes themselves? This process could work, but

it would probably work a lot better if there was someone to oversee the operations: a manager—

someone like you—to make sure that the operations involved in preparing and selling notes were

performed in both an effective and an efficient manner. You’d make the process effective by ensuring

that the right things got done and that they all contributed to the success of the enterprise. You’d

make the process efficient by ensuring that activities were performed in the right way and used the

fewest possible resources. That’s the job that you perform as a manager: making a group of people

more effective and efficient with you than they would be without you.

Managerial Efficiency and Effectiveness

6.1 What Do Managers Do?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Identify the four interrelated functions of management: planning, organizing, directing, and

controlling.

You’ll accomplish this task through management: the process of planning, organizing, directing,

and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A plan enables you to take your business concept

beyond the idea stage. It does not, however, get the work done. You have to organize things if you

want your plan to become a reality. You have to put people and other resources in place to make

things happen. And because your note-taking venture is supposed to be better off with you in charge,

you need to be a leader who can motivate your people to do well. Finally, to know whether things are

in fact going well, you’ll have to control your operations—that is, measure the results and compare

them with the results that you laid out in your plan. Figure 6.1 "The Role of Planning" gives you a

good idea of the interrelationship between planning and the other functions that managers perform.

Figure 6.1  The Role of Planning

Functions of Management

If you visit any small or large company, not-for-profit organization, or government agency, you’ll find

managers doing the same things you’d be doing to run your note-taking business—planning,

organizing, directing, and controlling. In the rest of the chapter, we’ll look at these four interrelated

functions in detail.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Managers plan, organize, direct, and control resources to achieve specific goals.

In planning, they set goals and determine the best way to achieve them.

Organizing means allocating resources (people, equipment, and money) to carry out the

company’s plans.

Directing is the process of providing focus for employees and motivating them to achieve

organizational goals.

Controlling involves comparing actual to expected performance and taking corrective

action when necessary.

EXERCISE

(AACSB) Analysis

Consider the things that the principal of your old high school had to do to ensure that the

school met the needs of its students. Identify these activities and group them by the four

functions of management: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.

6.2 Planning

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Understand the process by which a company develops and implements a strategic plan.

Without a plan, it’s hard to succeed at anything. The reason is simple: if you don’t know where you’re

going, you can’t really move forward. Successful managers decide where they want to be and then

figure out how to get there. In planning, managers set goals and determine the best way to achieve

them. As a result of the planning process, everyone in the organization knows what should be done,

who should do it, and how it should be done.

Developing a Strategic Plan

Coming up with an idea—say, starting a note-taking business—is a good start, but it’s only a start.

Planning for it is a step forward. Planning begins at the highest level and works its way down through

the organization. Step one is usually called strategic planning, which is the process of establishing

an overall course of action. To begin this process, you should ask yourself a couple of very basic

questions: Why, for example, does the organization exist? What value does it create? Sam Walton

posed these questions in the process of founding Wal-Mart: his new chain of stores would exist to

offer customers the lowest prices with the best possible service.Lee Scott, “Three Basic Beliefs,” About

Wal­Mart, http://www.walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=252 (accessed

May 3, 2006).

After you’ve identified the purpose of your company, you’re ready to take the remaining steps in the

strategic-planning process:

Write a mission statement that tells customers, employees, and others why your organization

exists.

Identify core values or beliefs that will guide the behavior of members of the organization.

Assess the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Establish goals and objectives, or performance targets, to direct all the activities that you’ll

perform to achieve your mission.

Develop and implement tactical and operational plans to achieve goals and objectives.

In the next few sections, we’ll examine these components of the strategic-planning process.

Mission Statement

As we saw in an earlier chapter, the mission statement describes the purpose of your organization—

the reason for its existence. It tells the reader what the organization is committed to doing. It can be

very concise, like the one from Mary Kay Inc. (the cosmetics company): “To enrich the lives of women

around the world.”Mary Kay Inc. Web site, Employment at Mary Kay section,

http://www.marykay.com/company/jobsatmarykay/default.aspx (accessed September 21, 2011). Or

it can be as detailed as the one from Harley-Davidson: “We fulfill dreams inspired by the many roads

of the world by providing extraordinary motorcycles and customer experiences. We fuel the passion

for freedom in our customers to express their own individuality.”Harley-Davidson Web site,

Company/Student Center section, http://www.harley-

davidson.com/en_GB/Content/Pages/Company/company.html?locale=en_GB&bmLocale=enGB

(accessed September 21, 2011).

What about Notes-4-You? What should your mission statement say? A simple, concise mission

statement for your enterprise could be the following: “To provide high-quality class notes to college

students.” On the other hand, you could prepare a more detailed statement that explains what the

company is committed to doing, who its customers are, what its focus is, what goods or services it

provides, and how it serves its customers. In that case, your mission statement might be the

following:

“Notes-4-You is committed to earning the loyalty of college students through its focus on customer

service. It provides high-quality, dependable, competitively priced class notes that help college

students master complex academic subjects.”

Core Values

Having defined your mission, your next step is to ask, what does this organization stand for? What

values will define it? What principles should guide our actions as we build and operate the business?

In Chapter 2 "Business Ethics and Social Responsibility", we explained that the small set of guiding

principles that you identify as crucial to your company are known as core values—fundamental beliefs

about what’s important and what is and isn’t appropriate in conducting company activities. Core

values affect the overall planning processes and operations. At Volvo, for example, three core values—

safety, quality, and environmental care—define the firm’s “approach to product development, design

and production.”Volvo Group Global, http://www.volvogroup.com/group/global/en-

gb/volvo%20group/our_brand/volvo/Pages/volvo.aspx (accessed September 21, 2011). Core values

should also guide the behavior of every individual in the organization. Coca-Cola, for instance, reports

that its stated core values—leadership, collaboration, integrity, accountability, passion, diversity and

quality—tell employees exactly what behaviors are acceptable.The Coca-Cola Company, “Code of

Business Conduct,” http://www.thecoca-

colacompany.com/ourcompany/mission_vision_values.html (accessed September 21, 2011). How do

companies communicate core values to employees and hold them accountable for putting those

values into practice? They link core values to performance evaluations and compensation.

In choosing core values for Notes-4-You, you’re determined not to fall back on some list of the world’s

most popular core values: ethics/integrity, accountability, respect for others, and open

communication.“Most Executives Say Ethics, Integrity Are Among Core Corporate Values,”

allBusiness, http://www.allbusiness.com/reports-reviews-sections/polls-surveys/11427605-1.html

(accessed October 9, 2011). You want yours to be unique to Notes-4-You. After some thought, you

settle on teamwork, trust, and dependability. Why these three? As you plan your business, you

realize that it will need a workforce that functions as a team, trusts each other, and can be depended

on to satisfy customers. In building your workforce, you’ll seek employees who’ll embrace these

values.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis

The next step in the strategic-planning process is to assess your company’s fit with its environment. A

common approach to environmental analysis is matching the strengths of your business with the

opportunities available to it. It’s called SWOT analysis because it calls for analyzing an

organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It begins with an examination of

external factors that could influence the company in either a positive or a negative way. These could

include economic conditions, competition, emerging technologies, laws and regulations, and

customers’ expectations.

One purpose of assessing the external environment is to identify both opportunities that could benefit

the company and threats to its success. For example, a company that manufactures children’s bicycle

helmets would view a change in federal law requiring all children to wear helmets as an opportunity.

The news that two large sports-equipment companies were coming out with bicycle helmets would be

a threat.

The next step is to evaluate the company’s strengths and weaknesses. Strengths might include a

motivated workforce, state-of-the-art technology, impressive managerial talent, or a desirable

location. The opposite of any of these strengths (poor workforce, obsolete technology, incompetent

management, or poor location) could signal a potential weakness. Armed with a good idea of external

opportunities and threats, as well as internal strengths and weaknesses, managers want to capitalize

on opportunities by taking advantage of organizational strengths. Likewise, they want to protect the

organization from both external threats and internal weaknesses.

Let’s start with our strengths. Now that we know what they are, how do we match them with our

available opportunities (while also protecting ourselves from our threats and overcoming our

weaknesses)? Here’s a possibility: By providing excellent service and price while we’re still small (with

few customers and low costs), we can solidify our position on campus. When the market grows (as it

will, because of the increase in the number of classes—especially those at 8:00 a.m.—and increases in

student enrollment), we’ll have built a strong reputation and will put ourselves in a position to grow.

So even if a competitor comes to campus (a threat), we’ll be the preferred supplier of class notes. This

strategy will work only if we make sure that our notetakers are dependable and that we don’t alienate

the faculty or administration.

Set Goals and Objectives

Your mission statement affirms what your organization is generally committed to doing, but it

doesn’t tell you how to do it. So the next step in the strategic-planning process is establishing goals

and objectives. Goals are major accomplishments that the company wants to achieve over a long

period (say, five years). Objectives are shorter-term performance targets that direct the activities of

the organization toward the attainment of a goal. They should be clearly stated, attainable, and

measurable: they should give target dates for the completion of tasks and stipulate who’s responsible

for taking necessary actions.Scott Safranski and Ik-Whan Kwon, “Strategic Planning for the Growing

Business” (1991), U.S. Small Business Administration,

http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_pubs_eb_pdf_e

b6.pdf (accessed October 9, 2011).

An organization will have a number of goals and related objectives. Some will focus on financial

measures, such as profit maximization and sales growth. Others will target operational efficiency or

quality control. Still others will govern the company’s relationships with its employees, its

community, its environment, or all three.

Finally, goals and objectives change over time. As a firm reassesses its place in its business

environment, it rethinks not only its mission but also its approach to fulfilling it. The reality of change

was a major theme when the late McDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo explained his goal to revitalize the

company:

“The world has changed. Our customers have changed. We have to change too. Growth comes from

being better, not just expanding to have more restaurants. The new McDonald’s is focused on

building sales at existing restaurants rather than on adding new restaurants. We are introducing a

new level of discipline and efficiency to all aspects of the business and are setting a new bar for

performance.”McDonald’s Corp., “McDonald’s Announces Plans to Revitalize Its Worldwide Business

and Sets New Financial Targets,” Franchise Bison,

http://www.bison.com/press_mcdonalds_04072003 (accessed October 8, 2011).

This change in focus was accompanied by specific performance objectives—annual sales growth of 3

to 5 percent and income growth of 6 to 7 percent at existing restaurants, plus a five-point

improvement (based on customer surveys) in speed of service, friendliness, and food quality.

In setting strategic goals and performance objectives for Notes-4-You, you should keep things simple.

Because you know you need to make money to stay in business, you could include a financial goal

(and related objectives). Your mission statement promises “high-quality, dependable, competitively

priced class notes,” so you could focus on the quality of the class notes that you’ll be taking and

distributing. Finally, because your mission is to serve students, one goal could be customer oriented.

When all’s said and done, your list of goals and objectives might look like this:

Goal 1: Achieve a 10 percent return on profits in your first five years.

Objective: Sales of $20,000 and profit of $2,000 for the first twelve months of operations.

Goal 2: Produce a high-quality product.

Objective: First-year satisfaction scores of 90 percent or higher on quality of notes (based on

survey responses to three measures—understandability, readability, and completeness).

Goal 3: Attain 98 percent customer satisfaction by the end of your fifth year.

Objective: Making notes available within two days after class, 95 percent of the time.

Develop Tactical and Operational Plans

The planning process begins at the top of the organization, where upper-level managers create a

strategic plan, but it doesn’t end there. The execution of the strategic plan involves managers at all

levels.

Tactical Plans

The overall plan is broken down into more manageable, shorter-term components called tactical

plans. These plans specify the activities and allocation of resources (people, equipment, money)

needed to implement the overall strategic plan over a given period. Often, a long-range strategic plan

is divided into several tactical plans; a five-year strategic plan, for instance, might be implemented as

five one-year tactical plans.

Operational Plans

The tactical plan is then broken down into various operational plans that provide detailed action

steps to be taken by individuals or groups to implement the tactical plan and, consequently, the

strategic plan. Operational plans cover only a brief period—say, a week or a month. At Notes-4-You,

for example, notetakers might be instructed to turn in typed class notes five hours earlier than normal

on the last day of the semester (an operational guideline). The goal is to improve the customer-

satisfaction score on dependability (a tactical goal) and, as a result, to earn the loyalty of students

through attention to customer service (a strategic goal).

Plan for Contingencies and Crises

Even with great planning, things don’t always turn out the way they’re supposed to. Perhaps your

plans were flawed, or maybe you had great plans but something in the environment shifted

unexpectedly. Successful managers anticipate and plan for the unexpected. Dealing with uncertainty

requires contingency planning and crisis management.

Contingency Planning

With contingency planning, managers identify those aspects of the business that are most likely to

be adversely affected by change. Then, they develop alternative courses of action in case an

anticipated change does occur. You probably do your own contingency planning: for example, if

you’re planning to take in a sure-fire hit movie on its release date, you may decide on an alternative

movie in case you can’t get tickets to your first choice.

Crisis Management

Organizations also face the risk of encountering crises that require immediate attention. Rather than

waiting until such a crisis occurs and then scrambling to figure out what to do, many firms practice

crisis management. Some, for instance, set up teams trained to deal with emergencies. Members

gather information quickly and respond to the crisis while everyone else carries out his or her normal

duties. The team also keeps the public, the employees, the press, and government officials informed

about the situation and the company’s response to it.Brian Perkins, “Defining Crisis Management,”

Wharton Alumni Magazine, Summer 2000, http://whartonmagazine.com/issues/summer-

2000/reunion-2000/ (accessed October 8, 2011).

An example of how to handle crisis management involves Wendy’s. After learning that a woman

claimed she found a fingertip in a bowl of chili she bought at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose,

California, the company’s public relations team responded quickly. Within a few days, the company

announced that the finger didn’t come from an employee or a supplier. Soon after, the police arrested

the woman and charged her with attempted grand larceny for lying about how the finger got in her

bowl of chili and trying to extort $2.5 million from the company. But the crisis wasn’t over for

Wendy’s. The incident was plastered all over the news as a grossed-out public sought an answer to the

question, “Whose finger is (or was) it?” A $100,000 reward was offered by Wendy’s to anyone with

information that would help the police answer this question. The challenge Wendy’s faced was how to

entice customers to return to its fifty San Francisco–area restaurants (where sales had plummeted)

while keeping a low profile nationally. It accomplished this by giving out free milkshakes and discount

coupons to customers in the affected regions and, to avoid calling attention to the missing finger, by

making no changes in its national advertising. The crisis-management strategy worked and the story

died down (though it flared up temporarily when the police arrested the woman’s husband, who

allegedly bought the finger from a coworker who had severed it in an accident months earlier).Stewart

Elliott, “Wendy’s Gets a Break, but Still Has Work Ahead of It,” The New York Times, April 29, 2005,

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/business/media/29adco.html?

ei=5088&en=bb0e017145269f5e& (accessed October 8, 2011).

Video Clip

(click to see video)

The response to the BP oil spill by its former CEO, Tony Hayward, is an example of poor crisis

management.

Even with crisis-management plans in place, however, it’s unlikely that most companies will emerge

from a damaging or potentially damaging episode as unscathed as Wendy’s did. For one thing, the

culprits in the Wendy’s case were caught, and the public is willing to forgive an organization it views

as a victim. Given the current public distrust of corporate behavior, however, companies whose

reputations have suffered due to questionable corporate judgment don’t fare as well. These companies

include the international oil company, BP, whose CEO, Tony Hayward, did a disastrous job handling

the crisis created when a BP controlled oil rig exploded in the Gulf Coast killing eleven workers and

creating the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Hayward’s lack of sensitivity will be remembered forever;

particularly his response to a reporter’s question on what he would tell those whose livelihoods were

ruined: “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this

over more than I do. I would like my life back.” His comment was obviously upsetting to the families

of the eleven men who lost their lives on the rig and had no way to get their lives back.“Embattled BP

Chief: I Want My Life Back,” The Times of London, May 31, 2010.

Then, there are the companies at which executives have crossed the line between the unethical to the

downright illegal—Arthur Andersen, Enron, and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, to name

just a few. Given the high risk associated with a crisis, it should come as no surprise that

contemporary managers spend more time anticipating crises and practicing their crisis-management

responses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Successful managers decide where they want the organization to go and then determine

how to get there.

Planning for a business starts at the top and works its way down.

It begins with strategic planning—the process of establishing an overall course of action.

Step one is identifying the purpose of the organization.

Then, management is ready to take the remaining steps in the strategic planning

process:

1. Prepare a mission statement that describes the purpose of the organization

and tells customers, employees, and others what it’s committed to doing.

2. Select the core values that will guide the behavior of members of the

organization by letting them know what is and isn’t appropriate and important in

conducting company activities.

3. Use SWOT analysis to assess the company’s strengths and weaknesses and

its fit with the external environment.

4. Set goals and objectives, or performance targets, to direct all the activities

needed to achieve the organization’s mission.

5. Develop tactical plans and operational plans to implement objectives.

EXERCISES

1. (AACSB) Reflective Skills

Without a plan, it’s hard to succeed. Successful managers set goals and determine

the best ways to reach them. Successful students do the same thing. Develop a

strategic plan for succeeding in this course that includes the following steps:

1. Assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they relate

to this course.

2. Establish goals and objectives, or performance targets, to direct all the

activities that you’ll perform to earn a high grade in this course.

3. Describe tactical and operational plans for achieving your stated goals and

objectives.

2. (AACSB) Analysis

If you were the CEO of a large organization, what core values would you want to

guide the behavior of your employees? First, assume that you oversee a large

company that manufactures and sells medical devices, such as pacemakers,

defibrillators, and insulin pumps. Your company was a pioneer in bringing these

products to the market. Identify six core values that you would want to guide the

behavior of your employees. For each core value, be sure to do the following:

Indicate why it’s important to the functioning of the organization.

Explain how you’ll communicate it to your employees and encourage them to

embrace it.

Outline the approaches that you’ll take in holding employees accountable for

embracing it.

Now, repeat the process. This time, however, assume that you’re the CEO of a

company that rents movies and games at more than eight thousand outlets across

the country.

6.3 Organizing

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Discuss various options for organizing a business, and create an organization chart.

Now that you’ve developed a strategic plan for Notes-4-You, you need to organize your company so

that it can implement your plan. A manager engaged in organizing allocates resources (people,

equipment, and money) to achieve a company’s plans. Successful managers make sure that all the

activities identified in the planning process are assigned to some person, department, or team and

that everyone has the resources needed to perform assigned activities.

Levels of Management: How Managers Are Organized

A typical organization has several layers of management. Think of these layers as forming a pyramid

like the one in Figure 6.3 "Levels of Management", with top managers occupying the narrow space at

the peak, first-line managers the broad base, and middle-managers the levels in between. As you

move up the pyramid, management positions get more demanding, but they carry more authority and

responsibility (along with more power, prestige, and pay). Top managers spend most of their time in

planning and decision making, while first-line managers focus on day-to-day operations. For obvious

reasons, there are far more people with positions at the base of the pyramid than there are with jobs

at the other two levels (as you get to the top, there are only a few positions). Let’s look at each

management level in more detail.

Figure 6.3  Levels of Management

Top Managers

Top managers are responsible for the health and performance of the organization. They set the

objectives, or performance targets, designed to direct all the activities that must be performed if the

company is going to fulfill its mission. Top-level executives routinely scan the external environment

for opportunities and threats, and they redirect company efforts when needed. They spend a

considerable portion of their time planning and making major decisions. They represent the company

in important dealings with other businesses and government agencies, and they promote it to the

public. Job titles at this level typically include chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer

(CFO), chief operating officer (COO), president, and vice president.

Middle Managers

As the name implies, middle managers are in the “middle” of the management hierarchy: They

report to top management and oversee the activities of first-line managers. They’re responsible for

developing and implementing activities and allocating the resources needed to achieve the objectives

set by top management. Common job titles include operations manager, division manager, plant

manager, and branch manager.

First­Line Managers

First­line managers supervise employees and coordinate their activities to make sure that the work

performed throughout the company is consistent with the plans of both top and middle management.

They’re less involved in planning than higher-level managers and more involved in day-to-day

operations. It’s at this level that most people acquire their first managerial experience. The job titles

vary considerably but include such designations as department head, group leader, office manager,

foreman, and supervisor.

Let’s take a quick survey of the management hierarchy at Notes-4-You. As president, you are, of

course, a member of top management, and you’re responsible for the overall performance of your

company. You spend much of your time setting objectives, or performance targets, to ensure that the

company meets the goals you’ve set for it—increased sales, higher-quality notes, and timely

distribution.

Several middle managers report to you, including your operations manager. As a middle manager,

this individual focuses on implementing two of your objectives: producing high-quality notes and

distributing them to customers in a timely manner. To accomplish this task, the operations manager

oversees the work of two first­line managers—the note-taking supervisor and the copying supervisor.

Each first-line manager supervises several non-managerial employees to make sure that their work is

consistent with the plans devised by top and middle management.

Organizational Structure: How Companies Get the Job Done

The organizing process raises some important questions: What jobs need to be done? Who does

what? Who reports to whom? What are the formal relationships among people in the organization?

You provide answers to these questions by developing an organizational structure: an

arrangement of positions that’s most appropriate for your company at a specific point in time.

Remember, given the rapidly changing environment in which businesses operate, a structure that

works today might be outdated tomorrow. That’s why you hear so often about companies

restructuring—altering existing organizational structures to become more competitive under

conditions that have changed. In building an organizational structure, you engage in two activities:

job specialization (dividing tasks into jobs) and departmentalization (grouping jobs into units). We’ll

now see how these two processes are accomplished.

Specialization

The first step in designing an organizational structure is twofold:

1. Identifying the activities that need to be performed in order to achieve organizational goals.

2. Breaking down these activities into tasks that can be performed by individuals or groups of

employees.

This twofold process of organizing activities into clusters of related tasks that can be handled by

certain individuals or groups is called specialization. Its purpose is to improve efficiency.

Would specialization make Notes-4-You more efficient? You could have each employee perform all

tasks entailed by taking and selling notes. Each employee could take notes in an assigned class, type

them up, get them copied, and sell them outside the classroom at the start of the next class meeting.

The same person would keep track of all sales and copying costs and give any profit—sales minus

copying costs minus compensation—to you. The process seems simple, but is it really efficient? Will

you earn the maximum amount of profit? Probably not. Even a company as small as Notes-4-You can

benefit from specialization. It would function more efficiently if some employees specialized in taking

notes, others in copying and packaging them, and still others in selling them. Higher-level employees

could focus on advertising, accounting, finance, and human resources.

Obviously, specialization has advantages. In addition to increasing efficiency, for example, it results in

jobs that are easier to learn. But it has disadvantages, too. Doing the same thing over and over bores

people and will eventually leave employees dissatisfied with their jobs. Before long, you’ll notice

decreased performance and increased absenteeism and turnover.

Departmentalization

The next step in designing an organizational structure is departmentalization—grouping

specialized jobs into meaningful units. Depending on the organization and the size of the work units,

they may be called divisions, departments, or just plain groups. Traditional groupings of jobs result

in different organizational structures, and for the sake of simplicity, we’ll focus on two types—

functional and divisional organizations.

Functional Organization

A functional organization groups together people who have comparable skills and perform similar

tasks. This form of organization is fairly typical for small to medium-size companies, which group

their people by business functions: accountants are grouped together, as are people in finance,

marketing and sales, human resources, production, and research and development. Each unit is

headed by an individual with expertise in the unit’s particular function. The head of an accounting

department, for example, will be a senior accountant; the head of a hospital nursing unit will

obviously be an experienced nurse. This structure is also appropriate for nonprofits. Think about your

school, for instance: mathematics teachers are in the math department, history teachers are in the

history department, those who run athletic programs are in the athletic department, and librarians

work at the library.

If Notes-4-You adopted a functional approach to departmentalization, jobs might be grouped into

four clusters:

Human resources (hiring, training, and evaluating employees)

Operations (overseeing notetakers and copiers)

Marketing (arranging for advertising, sales, and distribution)

Accounting (handling cash collection and disbursement)

There are a number of advantages to the functional approach. The structure is simple to understand

and enables the staff to specialize in particular areas; everyone in the marketing group would

probably have similar interests and expertise. But homogeneity also has drawbacks: it can hinder

communication and decision making between units and even promote interdepartmental conflict.

The marketing department, for example, might butt heads with the accounting department because

marketers want to spend as much as possible on advertising, while accountants want to control costs.

Marketers might feel that accountants are too tight with funds, and accountants might regard

marketers as spendthrifts.

Divisional Organization

Large companies often find it unruly to operate as one large unit under a functional organizational

structure. Sheer size makes it difficult for managers to oversee operations and serve customers. To

rectify this problem, most large companies are structured as divisional organizations made up of

several smaller, self-contained units, or divisions, which are accountable for their own performance.

Each division functions autonomously because it contains all the functional expertise (production,

marketing, accounting, finance, human resources) needed to meet its objectives. The challenge is to

find the most appropriate way of structuring operations to achieve overall company goals. Toward

this end, divisions can be formed according to products, customers, processes, or geography.

Product Division

Product division means that a company is structured according to its product lines. General

Motors, for example, has four product-based divisions: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and

GMC.Associated Press, “General Motors Rebuilds with 4 Divisions,” The Augusta Chronicle, October

7, 2010, http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/autos/2010-10-07/general-motors-rebuilds-4-divisions

(accessed October 8, 2011). Each division has its own research and development group, its own

manufacturing operations, and its own marketing team. This allows individuals in the division to

focus all their efforts on the products produced by their division. A downside is that it results in

higher costs as corporate support services (such as accounting and human resources) are duplicated

in each of the four divisions.

Customer Division

Some companies prefer a customer division structure because it enables them to better serve their

various categories of customers. Thus, Johnson & Johnson’s two hundred or so operating companies

are grouped into three customer-based business segments: consumer business (personal-care and

hygiene products sold to the general public), pharmaceuticals (prescription drugs sold to

pharmacists), and professional business (medical devices and diagnostics products used by

physicians, optometrists, hospitals, laboratories, and clinics).Johnson & Johnson Services, “Business

Segments,” http://www.jnj.com/connect/about-jnj/company-structure (accessed October 8, 2011).

Process Division

If goods move through several steps during production, a company might opt for a process division

structure. This form works well at Bowater Thunder Bay, a Canadian company that harvests trees and

processes wood into newsprint and pulp. The first step in the production process is harvesting and

stripping trees. Then, large logs are sold to lumber mills and smaller logs chopped up and sent to

Bowater’s mills. At the mill, wood chips are chemically converted into pulp. About 90 percent is sold

to other manufacturers (as raw material for home and office products), and the remaining 10 percent

is further processed into newspaper print. Bowater, then, has three divisions: tree cutting, chemical

processing, and finishing (which makes newsprint).Northwest Forest Industry, Pulp and Paper

Manufacturing, “From the Forest to the Office and Home: Bowater—A Case Study in Newsprint and

Kraft Pulp Production,” Borealforest.org, http://www.borealforest.org/paper/index.htm (accessed

October 8, 2011).

Geographical Division

Geographical division enables companies that operate in several locations to be responsive to

customers at a local level. McDonald’s, for example, is organized according to the regions of the world

in which it operates. In the United States, the national unit is further subdivided into three

geographic operating divisions: east, west and central.“Franchising,” McDonald’s Corp.,

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/franchising/us_franchising/franchise_contacts.html

(accessed October 8, 2011). (This approach might be appealing to Notes-4-You if it expands to serve

schools around the country.)

There are pluses and minuses associated with divisional organization. On the one hand, divisional

structure usually enhances the ability to respond to changes in a firm’s environment. If, on the other

hand, services must be duplicated across units, costs will be higher. In addition, some companies have

found that units tend to focus on their own needs and goals at the expense of the organization as a

whole.

The Organization Chart

Once an organization has set its structure, it can represent that structure in an organization chart:

a diagram delineating the interrelationships of positions within the organization. Having decided that

Notes-4-You will adopt a functional structure, you might create the organization chart shown in

Figure 6.5 "Organization Chart for Notes-4-You".

Figure 6.5  Organization Chart for Notes­4­You

Begin by putting yourself at the top of the chart, as the company’s president. Then fill in the level

directly below your name with the names and positions of the people who work directly for you—your

accounting, marketing, operations, and human resources managers. The next level identifies the

people who work for these managers. Because you’ve started out small, neither your accounting

manager nor your human resources manager will be currently managing anyone directly. Your

marketing manager, however, will oversee one person in advertising and a sales supervisor (who, in

turn, oversees the sales staff). Your operations manager will oversee two individuals—one to supervise

notetakers and one to supervise the people responsible for making copies.

Reporting Relationships

With these relationships in mind, you can now draw lines to denote reporting relationships, or

patterns of formal communication. Because four managers report to you, you’ll be connected to four

positions; that is, you’ll have four direct “reports.” Your marketing and operations managers will each

be connected to two positions and their supervisors to one position each. The organization chart

shows that if a member of the sales staff has a problem, he or she will report it to the sales supervisor.

If the sales supervisor believes that the problem should be addressed at a higher level, then he or she

will report it to the marketing manager.

Theoretically, you will communicate only with your four direct reports, but this isn’t the way things

normally work. Behind every formal communication network there lies a network of informal

communications—unofficial relationships among members of an organization. You might find that

over time, you receive communications directly from members of the sales staff; in fact, you might

encourage this line of communication.

Now let’s look at the chart of an organization that relies on a divisional structure based on goods or

services produced—say, a theme park. The top layers of this company’s organization chart might look

like the one in Figure 6.6 "Organization Charts for Divisional Structures"(a). We see that the

president has two direct reports—a vice president in charge of rides and a vice president in charge of

concessions. What about a bank that’s structured according to its customer base? The bank’s

organization chart would begin like the one in Figure 6.6 "Organization Charts for Divisional

Structures"(b). Once again, the company’s top manager has two direct reports, in this case a VP of

retail-customer accounts and a VP of commercial-customer accounts.

Figure 6.6  Organization Charts for Divisional Structures

Over time, companies revise their organizational structures to accommodate growth and changes in

the external environment. It’s not uncommon, for example, for a firm to adopt a functional structure

in its early years. Then, as it becomes bigger and more complex, it might move to a divisional

structure—perhaps to accommodate new products or to become more responsive to certain customers

or geographical areas. Some companies might ultimately rely on a combination of functional and

divisional structures. This could be a good approach for a credit card company that issues cards in

both the United States and Europe. A skeleton of this firm’s organization chart might look like the one

in Figure 6.7 "Organization Chart: Combination Divisional and Functional Structures".

Figure 6.7  Organization Chart: Combination Divisional and Functional Structures

Lines of Authority

You can learn a lot about a firm’s reporting and authority relationships by looking at its organization

chart. To whom does a particular person report? Does each person report to one or more supervisors?

How many people does a manager supervise? How many layers are there, for example, between the

top managerial position and the lowest managerial level?

Chain of Command

The vertical connecting lines in the organization chart show the firm’s chain of command: the

authority relationships among people working at different levels of the organization. That is to say,

they show who reports to whom. When you’re examining an organization chart, you’ll probably want

to know whether each person reports to one or more supervisors: to what extent, in other words, is

there unity of command? To understand why unity of command is an important organizational

feature, think about it from a personal standpoint. Would you want to report to more than one boss?

What happens if you get conflicting directions? Whose directions would you follow?

There are, however, conditions under which an organization and its employees can benefit by

violating the unity-of-command principle. Under a matrix structure, for example, employees from

various functional areas (product design, manufacturing, finance, marketing, human resources, etc.)

form teams to combine their skills in working on a specific project or product. This matrix

organization chart might look like the one in the following figure.

Figure 6.8  Organization Chart: Matrix Structure

Nike sometimes uses this type of arrangement. To design new products, the company may create

product teams made up of designers, marketers, and other specialists with expertise in particular

sports categories—say, running shoes or basketball shoes. Each team member would be evaluated by

both the team manager and the head of his or her functional department.

Span of Control

Another thing to notice about a firm’s chain of command is the number of layers between the top

managerial position and the lowest managerial level. As a rule, new organizations (such as Notes-4-

You) have only a few layers of management—an organizational structure that’s often called flat. Let’s

say, for instance, that a member of the Notes-4-You sales staff wanted to express concern about slow

sales among a certain group of students. That person’s message would have to filter upward through

only two management layers—the sales supervisor and the marketing manager—before reaching the

president.

As a company grows, however, it tends to add more layers between the top and the bottom; that is, it

gets taller. Added layers of management can slow down communication and decision making, causing

the organization to become less efficient and productive. That’s one reason why many of today’s

organizations are restructuring to become flatter.

There are trade-offs between the advantages and disadvantages of flat and tall organizations.

Companies determine which trade-offs to make according to a principle called span of control,

which measures the number of people reporting to a particular manager. If, for example, you remove

layers of management to make your organization flatter, you end up increasing the number of

positions reporting to a particular supervisor. If you refer back to the organization chart in Figure 6.5

"Organization Chart for Notes-4-You", you’ll recall that, under your present structure, four managers

report to you as the president of Notes-4-You: the heads of accounting, marketing, operations, and

human resources. In turn, two of these managers have positions reporting to them: the advertising

manager and sales supervisor report to the marketing manager, while the notetaker’s supervisor and

the copier’s supervisor report to the operations manager. Let’s say that you remove a layer of

management by getting rid of the marketing and operations managers. Your organization would be

flatter, but what would happen to your workload? As president, you’d now have six direct reports

rather than four: accounting manager, advertising manager, sales manager, notetaker supervisor,

copier supervisor, and human resources manager.

What’s better—a narrow span of control (with few direct reports) or a wide span of control (with

many direct reports)? The answer to this question depends on a number of factors, including

frequency and type of interaction, proximity of subordinates, competence of both supervisor and

subordinates, and the nature of the work being supervised. For example, you’d expect a much wider

span of control at a nonprofit call center than in a hospital emergency room.

Delegating Authority

Given the tendency toward flatter organizations and wider spans of control, how do managers handle

increased workloads? They must learn how to handle delegation—the process of entrusting work to

subordinates. Unfortunately, many managers are reluctant to delegate. As a result, they not only

overburden themselves with tasks that could be handled by others, but they also deny subordinates

the opportunity to learn and develop new skills.

Responsibility and Authority

As owner of Notes-4-You, you’ll probably want to control every aspect of your business, especially

during the start-up stage. But as the organization grows, you’ll have to assign responsibility for

performing certain tasks to other people. You’ll also have to accept the fact that responsibility alone—

the duty to perform a task—won’t be enough to get the job done. You’ll need to grant subordinates the

authority they require to complete a task—that is, the power to make the necessary decisions. (And

they’ll also need sufficient resources.) Ultimately, you’ll also hold your subordinates accountable for

their performance.

Centralization and Decentralization

If and when your company expands (say, by offering note-taking services at other schools), you’ll have

to decide whether most decisions should still be made by individuals at the top or delegated to lower-

level employees. The first option, in which most decision making is concentrated at the top, is called

centralization. The second option, which spreads decision making throughout the organization, is

called decentralization.

Let’s say that you favor decentralizing Notes-4-You some four or five years down the road, when the

company has expanded. Naturally, there are some decisions—such as strategic planning—that you

won’t delegate to lower-level employees, but you could certainly delegate the management of copy-

center operations. In fact, putting someone in charge of this function would probably improve

customer satisfaction, because copy-center customers would be dealing directly with the manager. It

would also give the manager valuable decision-making experience, and while he or she is busy making

daily decisions about the copy center, you’ll have more time to work on higher-level tasks. The more

you think about the possibility of decentralizing your company, the more you like the idea. First,

though, you have to see it through its difficult start-up years.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Managers coordinate the activities identified in the planning process among individuals,

departments, or other units and allocate the resources needed to perform them.

Typically, there are three levels of management: top managers, who are responsible for

overall performance; middle managers, who report to top managers and oversee lower­

level managers; and first­line managers, who supervise employees to make sure that

work is performed correctly and on time.

Management must develop an organizational structure, or arrangement of people within

the organization, that will best achieve company goals.

The process begins with specialization—dividing necessary tasks into jobs; the principle

of grouping jobs into units is called departmentalization.

Units are then grouped into an appropriate organizational structure. Functional

organization groups people with comparable skills and tasks; divisional organization

creates a structure composed of self­contained units based on product, customer,

process, or geographical division. Forms of organizational division are often combined.

An organization’s structure is represented in an organization chart—a diagram showing

the interrelationships of its positions.

This chart highlights the chain of command, or authority relationships among people

working at different levels.

It also shows the number of layers between the top and lowest managerial levels. An

organization with few layers has a wide span of control, with each manager overseeing a

large number of subordinates; with a narrow span of control, only a limited number of

subordinates reports to each manager.

EXERCISES

1. (AACSB) Analysis

Define organizational structure and identify five different forms that it can take. For

each form, identify a type of company that might use it and explain why it would be

appropriate for the company. Use examples other than those mentioned in the

chapter.

2. (AACSB) Analysis

How would you like to work at the “Sweetest Place on Earth”? Then, consider a

career at Hershey Foods, the chocolate and candy maker. Your career path at

Hershey Foods might follow a typical path: When you finish college, you may enter

the business world as a first­line manager. After about ten years, you will probably

have advanced to the middle­management level. Perhaps you’ll keep moving up

and eventually find yourself in a top­level management position with a big salary.

Examining job opportunities may be an opportunity to start identifying the kinds of

positions that interest you. Go to http://www.hersheys.com to link to the Hershey

Foods Web site, click on “careers” at the bottom of the home page, and check out

available positions. Then, take the following steps:

Find an interesting entry­level management position. Describe the duties of the

job and explain why you’d classify it as a first­line management position.

Pick a middle­level position to which you might advance after ten years with the

company. Describe the duties of the job and explain why you’d classify it as a

middle­level management position.

Finally, identify a top­level management position that you’d like to attain later in

your career. To find these positions, you’ll have to click on “Investors,”

“Corporate Governance,” and “Management Team.” Because Hershey Foods

doesn’t describe its management­team positions, you’ll have to fill in a few

blanks. Start by listing what you imagine to be the duties of a given position;

then, explain why these duties qualify it as a top­level management position.

6.4 Directing

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Explain how managers direct others and motivate them to achieve company goals.

The third management function is directing—providing focus and direction to others and motivating

them to achieve organizational goals. As owner and president of Notes-4-You, you might think of

yourself as an orchestra leader. You have given your musicians (employees) their sheet music (plans).

You’ve placed them in sections (departments) and arranged the sections (organizational structure) so

the music will sound as good as possible. Now your job is to tap your baton and lead the orchestra so

that its members make beautiful music together.F. John Reh, “Management 101,” About

Management, http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Management101.htm

(accessed October 8, 2011).

Leadership Styles

Actually, it’s fairly easy to pick up a baton, cue each section, and strike up the band. But it doesn’t

follow that the music will sound good. What if your cues are ignored or misinterpreted or ambiguous?

Maybe your musicians don’t like your approach to making music and will just walk away. On top of

everything else, you don’t simply want to make music: you want to inspire your musicians to make

great music. How do you accomplish this goal? How do you become an effective leader? What style,

or approach, should you use to motivate others to achieve organizational goals?

Unfortunately, there are no definitive answers to questions like these. Over time, every manager

refines his or her own leadership style, or way of interacting with and influencing others. Despite a

vast range of personal differences, leadership styles tend to reflect one of the following approaches to

directing and motivating people: the autocratic, the democratic, or the laissez­faire. Let’s see how

managerial styles reflect each of them in a work situation.

Autocratic style. Managers who have developed an autocratic leadership style tend to make

decisions without soliciting input from subordinates. They exercise authority and expect

subordinates to take responsibility for performing the required tasks without undue explanation.

Democratic style. Managers who favor a democratic leadership style generally seek input

from subordinates while retaining the authority to make the final decisions. They’re also more

likely to keep subordinates informed about things that affect their work.

Laissez­faire style. In practicing a laissez­faire leadership style, managers adopt a “hands-

off” approach and provide relatively little direction to subordinates. They may advise employees

but usually give them considerable freedom to solve problems and make decisions on their own.

At first glance, you’d probably not want to work for an autocratic leader. After all, you certainly don’t

want to be told what to do without having any input. You probably like the idea of working for a

democratic leader; it’s flattering to be asked for your input. Though working in a laissez-faire

environment might seem a little unsettling at first, the opportunity to make your own decisions is

appealing.

In general, your assessments of the three leadership styles would be accurate. Employees generally

dislike working for autocratic leaders; they like working for democratic leaders, and they find working

for laissez-faire leaders rewarding (as long as they feel they can handle the job). But there are

situations when these generalities don’t hold.

To learn what these situations are, let’s turn things around and pretend you’re the leader. To make it

applicable to your current life, we’ll say that you’re leading a group of fellow students in a team

project for your class. Are there times when it would be best for you to use an autocratic leadership

style? What if your team was newly formed, unfamiliar with what needs to be done, under a tight

deadline, and looking to you for direction? In this situation, you might find it appropriate to follow an

autocratic leadership style (on a temporary basis) and assign tasks to each member of the group.

Now let’s look at the leadership style you probably prefer—the democratic leadership style. Can you

think of a situation where this style would not work for your team? What if the members of your team

are unmotivated, don’t seem interested in providing input, and aren’t getting along? It might make

sense to move away from a democratic style of leadership (temporarily) and delegate specific tasks to

each member of the group that they can do on their own.

How about laissez-faire leadership? Will this always work with your group? Not always. It will work if

your team members are willing and able to work independently and welcome the chance to make

decisions. Otherwise, it could cause the team to miss deadlines or do poorly on the project.

The point being made here is that no one leadership style is effective all the time for all people. While

the democratic style is viewed as the most appropriate (as is the laissez-faire style, to a lesser extent),

there are times when following an autocratic style is better. Good leaders learn how to adjust their

styles to fit both the situation and the individuals being directed.

Transformational Leadership

Theories on what constitutes effective leadership evolve over time. One theory that has received a lot

of attention in the last decade contrasts two leadership styles: transactional and transformational.

So-called transactional leaders exercise authority based on their rank in the organization. They let

subordinates know what’s expected of them and what they will receive if they meet stated objectives.

They focus their attention on identifying mistakes and disciplining employees for poor performance.

By contrast, transformational leaders mentor and develop subordinates, providing them with

challenging opportunities, working one-on-one to help them meet their professional and personal

needs, and encouraging people to approach problems from new perspectives. They stimulate

employees to look beyond personal interests to those of the group.

So, which leadership style is more effective? You probably won’t be surprised by the opinion of most

experts. In today’s organizations, in which team building and information sharing are important and

projects are often collaborative in nature, transformational leadership has proven to be more

effective. Modern organizations look for managers who can develop positive relationships with

subordinates and motivate employees to focus on the interests of the organization.See Karen Collins,

Accountants’ Management Styles and Effectiveness (American Woman’s Society of Certified Public

Accountants, 1997).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A manager’s leadership style varies depending on the manager, the situation, and the

people being directed. There are three common styles.

Using an autocratic style, a manager tends to make decisions without soliciting input and

expects subordinates to follow instructions without undue explanation.

Managers who prefer a democratic style seek input into decisions.

Exercising a laissez­faire style, the manager provides no more guidance than necessary

and lets subordinates make decisions and solve problems.

One current leadership theory focuses on two contrasting leadership styles: transactional

and transformational.

Managers adopting a transactional style exercise authority according to their rank in the

organization, let subordinates know what’s expected of them, and step in when mistakes

are made.

Practicing a transformational style, managers mentor and develop subordinates and

motivate them to achieve organizational rather than merely personal goals.

Transformational leadership is effective in organizations that value team building and

information sharing.

EXERCISE

(AACSB) Analysis

Compare and contrast three forms of leadership—democratic, autocratic, and laissez­faire.

Which style would you prefer to use yourself? Which would you prefer your boss to use?

Explain your answers in both cases. Next, compare and contrast the transactional­leadership

style with the transformational­leadership style? Which style would you adopt as a manager,

and why?

6.5 Controlling

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Describe the process by which a manager monitors operations and assesses

performance.

Let’s pause for a minute and reflect on the management functions that we’ve discussed so far—

planning, organizing, and directing. As founder of Notes-4-You, you began by establishing plans for

your new company. You defined its mission and set objectives, or performance targets, which you

needed to meet in order to achieve your mission. Then, you organized your company by allocating the

people and resources required to carry out your plans. Finally, you provided focus and direction to

your employees and motivated them to achieve organizational objectives. Is your job finished? Can

you take a well-earned vacation? Unfortunately, the answer is no: your work has just begun. Now that

things are rolling along, you need to monitor your operations to see whether everything is going

according to plan. If it’s not, you’ll need to take corrective action. This process of comparing actual to

planned performance and taking necessary corrective action is called controlling.

A Five­Step Control Process

You can think of the control function as the five-step process outlined in Figure 6.10 "Five-Step

Control Process".

Figure 6.10  Five­Step Control Process

Let’s see how this process might work at Notes-4-You. Let’s assume that, after evaluating class

enrollments, you estimate that you can sell one hundred notes packages per month to students taking

the sophomore-level geology course popularly known as “Rocks for Jocks.” So you set your standard

at a hundred units. At the end of the month, however, you look over your records and find that you

sold only eighty. Comparing your actual performance with your planned performance, you realize that

you came up twenty packages short. In talking with your salespeople, you learn why: it turns out that

the copy machine broke down so often that packages frequently weren’t ready on time. You

immediately take corrective action by increasing maintenance on the copy machine.

Now, let’s try a slightly different scenario. Let’s say that you still have the same standard (one

hundred packages) and that actual sales are still eighty packages. In investigating the reason for the

shortfall, you find that you overestimated the number of students taking “Rocks for Jocks.”

Calculating a more accurate number of students, you see that your original standard—estimated sales

—was too high by twenty packages. In this case, you should adjust your standards to reflect expected

sales of eighty packages.

In both situations, your control process has been helpful. In the first instance, you were alerted to a

problem that cut into your sales. Correcting this problem would undoubtedly increase sales and,

therefore, profits. In the second case, you encountered a defect in your planning and learned a good

managerial lesson: plan more carefully.

KEY TAKEAWAY

The process of comparing actual to planned performance and taking corrective action is called

controlling. The control function can be viewed as a five­step process: (1) establish

standards, (2) measure performance, (3) compare actual performance with standards and

identify any deviations, (4) determine the reason for deviations, and (5) take corrective action

if needed.

EXERCISE

(AACSB) Analysis

Have you ever gone to an ice cream stand and noticed that the “double dipper” ice cream

cone the customer beside you bought has a lot more ice cream than does your “double

dipper?” If you were the supervisor of the ice cream stand, how would you ensure that all

cones received the same amount of ice cream? What if, instead of being the supervisor of the

ice cream stand, you are the manager of a professional baseball team? How would you apply

the five­step control process to your job as manager?

6.6 Managerial Skills

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

1. Describe the skills needed to be a successful manager.

To be a successful manager, you’ll have to master a number of skills. To get an entry-level position,

you’ll have to be technically competent at the tasks you’re asked to perform. To advance, you’ll need

to develop strong interpersonal and conceptual skills. The relative importance of different skills varies

from job to job and organization to organization, but to some extent, you’ll need them all to forge a

managerial career. Throughout your career, you’ll also be expected to communicate ideas clearly, use

your time efficiently, and reach sound decisions.

Technical Skills

You’ll probably be hired for your first job based on your technical skills—the ones you need to

perform specific tasks—and you’ll use them extensively during your early career. If your college major

is accounting, you’ll use what you’ve learned to prepare financial statements. If you have a marketing

degree and you join an ad agency, you’ll use what you know about promotion to prepare ad

campaigns. Technical skills will come in handy when you move up to a first-line managerial job and

oversee the task performance of subordinates. Technical skills, though developed through job training

and work experience, are generally acquired during the course of your formal education.

Interpersonal Skills

As you move up the corporate ladder, you’ll find that you can’t do everything yourself: you’ll have to

rely on other people to help you achieve the goals for which you’re responsible. That’s why

interpersonal skills—the ability to get along with and motivate other people—are critical for

managers in mid-level positions. These managers play a pivotal role because they report to top-level

managers while overseeing the activities of first-line managers. Thus, they need strong working

relationships with individuals at all levels and in all areas. More than most other managers, they must

use “people skills” to foster teamwork, build trust, manage conflict, and encourage

improvement.Brian Perkins, “Defining Crisis Management,” Wharton Alumni Magazine, Summer

2000, http://whartonmagazine.com/issues/summer-2000/reunion-2000/ (accessed October 8,

2011).

Conceptual Skills

Managers at the top, who are responsible for deciding what’s good for the organization from the

broadest perspective, rely on conceptual skills—the ability to reason abstractly and analyze

complex situations. Senior executives are often called on to “think outside the box”—to arrive at

creative solutions to complex, sometimes ambiguous problems. They need both strong analytical

abilities and strong creative talents.

Communication Skills

Effective communication skills are crucial to just about everyone. At all levels of an organization,

you’ll often be judged on your ability to communicate, both orally and in writing. Whether you’re

talking informally or making a formal presentation, you must express yourself clearly and concisely.

Talking too loudly, rambling, and using poor grammar reduce your ability to influence others, as does

poor written communication. Confusing and error-riddled documents (including e-mails) don’t do

your message any good, and they will reflect poorly on you.Brian L. Davis et al., Successful Manager’s

Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers (Minneapolis: Personnel Decisions Inc.,

1992), 189.

Time­Management Skills

Managers face multiple demands on their time, and their days are usually filled with interruptions.

Ironically, some technologies that were supposed to save time, such as voicemail and e-mail, have

actually increased workloads. Unless you develop certain time­management skills, you risk

reaching the end of the day feeling that you’ve worked a lot but accomplished little. What can

managers do to ease the burden? Here are a few common-sense suggestions:

Prioritize tasks, focusing on the most important things first.

Set aside a certain time each day to return phone calls and answer e-mail.

Delegate routine tasks.

Don’t procrastinate.

Insist that meetings start and end on time, and stick to an agenda.

Eliminate unnecessary paperwork.Brian L. Davis et al., Successful Manager’s Handbook:

Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers (Minneapolis: Personnel Decisions Inc., 1992),

189.

Decision­Making Skills

Every manager is expected to make decisions, whether alone or as part of a team. Drawing on your

decision­making skills is often a process in which you must define a problem, analyze possible

solutions, and select the best outcome. As luck would have it, because the same process is good for

making personal decisions, we’ll use a personal example to demonstrate the process approach to

decision making. Consider the following scenario: You’re upset because your midterm grades are

much lower than you’d hoped. To make matters worse, not only are you in trouble academically, but

also the other members of your business-project team are annoyed because you’re not pulling your

weight. Your lacrosse coach is very upset because you’ve missed too many practices, and members of

the mountain-biking club of which you’re supposed to be president are talking about impeaching you

if you don’t show up at the next meeting. And your girlfriend says you’re ignoring her. (You can

substitute “boyfriend” here, of course; we’re just trying to keep our exposition as simple as possible.)

A Six­Step Approach to Problem Solving

Assuming that your top priority is salvaging your GPA, let’s tackle your problem by using a six-step

approach to solving problems that don’t have simple solutions. We’ve summarized this model in

Figure 6.12 "How to Solve a Problem".Shari Caudron, “Six Steps in Creative Problem Solving,”

Controller Magazine, April 1998, 38. Caudron describes a systematic approach developed by Roger L.

Firestien, president of Innovation Systems Group, Williamsville, NY.

Figure 6.12  How to Solve a Problem

1. Identify the problem you want to work on. Step one is getting to know your problem, which you

can formulate by asking yourself a basic question: How can I improve my grades?

2. Gather relevant data. Step two is gathering information that will shed light on the problem. Let’s

rehash some of the relevant information that you’ve already identified: (a) you did poorly on your

finals because you didn’t spend enough time studying; (b) you didn’t study because you went to

see your girlfriend (who lives about three hours from campus) over the weekend before your

exams (and on most other weekends, as a matter of fact); (c) what little studying you got in came

at the expense of your team project and lacrosse practice; and (d) while you were away for the

weekend, you forgot to tell members of the mountain-biking club that you had to cancel the

planned meeting.

3. Clarify the problem. Once you review all the given facts, you should see that your problem is

bigger than simply getting your grades up; your life is pretty much out of control. You can’t

handle everything to which you’ve committed yourself. Something has to give. You clarify the

problem by summing it up with another basic question: What can I do to get my life back in

order?

4. Generate possible solutions. If you thought defining the problem was tough, wait until you’ve

moved on to this stage. Let’s say that you’ve come up with the following possible solutions to your

problem: (a) quit the lacrosse team, (b) step down as president of the mountain-biking club, (c)

let team members do your share of work on the business project, and (d) stop visiting your

girlfriend so frequently. The solution to your main problem—how to get your life back in order—

will probably require multiple actions.

5. Select the best option. This is clearly the toughest part of the process. Working your way through

your various options, you arrive at the following conclusions: (a) you can’t quit the lacrosse team

because you’d lose your scholarship; (b) you can resign your post in the mountain-biking club, but

that won’t free up much time; (c) you can’t let your business-project team down (and besides,

you’d just get a low grade); and (d) she wouldn’t like the idea, but you could visit your girlfriend,

say, once a month rather than once a week. So what’s the most feasible (if not necessarily perfect)

solution? Probably visiting your girlfriend once a month and giving up the presidency of the

mountain-biking club.

6. Implement your decision and monitor your choice. When you call your girlfriend, you’re

pleasantly surprised to find that she understands. The vice president is happy to take over the

mountain-biking club. After the first week, you’re able to attend lacrosse practice, get caught up

on your team business project, and catch up in all your other classes. The real test of your solution

will be the results of the semester’s finals.

Applying Your Skills at Notes­4­You

So, what types of skills will managers at Notes-4-You need? To oversee note-taking and copying

operations, first-line managers will require technical skills, probably in operations and perhaps in

accounting. Middle managers will need strong interpersonal skills to maintain positive working

relationships with subordinates and to motivate them. As president, because you have to solve

problems and come up with creative ways to keep the business growing, you’ll need conceptual skills.

And everyone will have to communicate effectively: after all, because you’re in the business of selling

written notes, it would look pretty bad if your employees wrote poorly. Finally, everyone will have to

use time efficiently and call on problem-solving skills to handle the day-to-day crises that seem to

plague every new company.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The skills needed by managers vary according to level.

Top managers need strong conceptual skills, while those at midlevels need good

interpersonal skills and those at lower levels need technical skills.

All managers need strong communication, decision­making, and time­management

skills.

EXERCISES

1.  (AACSB) Communication

If you were to ask a job recruiter what skills he or she looks for in a candidate, one

of the first things you’ll hear is “communication skills.” Strong communication skills

not only will help you get a good job but also will help you move up the ladder. How

can you strengthen your written and oral communication skills while you’re still a

college student? Here are a few steps you can take:

Look for courses (or course components) designed to strengthen

communication skills, such as writing (or composition) or speech classes.

Find out whether your college has a writing program.

Check into nonacademic programs designed to strengthen communication

skills, such as courses on interview techniques offered by the career services

office.

Find out how you can do some writing for the school newspaper or, if you’re a

little more outgoing, how you can appear in theatrical productions.

By following these suggestions, you should get a very good idea of what your

college can do to help you develop both written and oral communication skills.

Write a brief report detailing your findings.

2.  (AACSB) Reflective Skills

Do you ever reach the end of the day and wonder what you’ve accomplished? To

succeed in management, you need to learn how to manage your time. The Internet

is an interesting place to start. For many college students, surfing the Net takes up

a lot of time that could be put to better use. How much time do you spend online,

instant­messaging, shopping, playing games, blogging, or indulging in some other

enjoyable but time­consuming activity? One approach to solving the problem of

wasted online time is to apply the six­step, problem­solving procedure that we

outlined in the chapter. Write a brief report detailing each of the steps that you take

to solve the problem and implement a solution.

6.7 Cases and Problems

LEARNING ON THE WEB (AACSB)

Mission “Improvisable”

A mission statement tells customers, employees, and stakeholders why the organization

exists—its purpose. It can be concise, like the one from Mary Kay Cosmetics—“To enrich the

lives of women around the world”—or it can be more detailed, such as the following from

FedEx:

FedEx Corporation will produce superior financial returns for its shareowners by providing high

value­added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating

companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to

each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships

with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all

operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional

standards.

Mission statements are typically constructed to communicate several pieces of information:

what the company strives to accomplish, what it’s known for, and how it serves its customers.

Here are a few examples:

The Hershey Company: Bringing sweet moments of Hershey happiness to the world every

day.

Microsoft: Our Mission At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout

the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this

mission and the values that make it possible.

Google: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally

accessible and useful.

Assignment

Create hypothetical mission statements for each of these four companies: Outback

Steakhouse, Tesoro, Got Junk?, and Staples. To find descriptions of all four, go to the Web

site for each of the companies: http://www.outbacksteakhouse.com,

http://www.tesorocorp.com, http://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en, http://www.staples.com.

In composing your four mission statements, follow the format suggested previously: each

statement should be about two or three sentences long and should provide several pieces of

information—what the company strives to accomplish, what it’s known for, and how it serves

its customers (and perhaps its employees and shareholders, too).

One last thing: your statements should be originals, not duplicates of the companies’ official

statements.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

To Manage or Not to Manage?

Are you interested in a career that pays well and offers power, prestige, and a feeling of

accomplishment? A career in management may be for you, but be forewarned that there’s a

downside: you have to make tough decisions, other people will be after your job, and it can be

lonely at the top. To find out more about the pros and cons of a management career, go to

http://management.about.com/cs/yourself/a/ManagementForMe.htm to link to the About.com

Web site and read the article “Is Management for Me?” Then, answer the following questions,

being sure to provide an explanation for each of your answers:

Which of the pros of being a manager are important to you? Which are not?

Which of the cons might discourage you from pursuing a management career? Which

might not?

Considering balance, does a career in management appeal to you? Why, or why not?

ETHICS ANGLE (AACSB)

Sugarcoating the News at Krispy Kreme

According to Krispy Kreme’s “Code of Ethics for Chief Executive and Senior Financial

Officers,” the company’s top executives are expected to practice and promote honest, ethical

conduct. They’re also responsible for the health and overall performance of the company.

Recently, however, things have gone wrong in the top echelons of the doughnut­shop chain.

First, a little background. Founded as one small doughnut shop in Winston­Salem, North

Carolina, in 1937, the brand became increasingly popular over the next six decades, taking off

in the 1980s and 1990s. By 2003, Krispy Kreme (which went public in 2000) was selling more

than a billion doughnuts a year. That’s when things started to go stale. (For more details on

the company’s ups and downs, go to http://jacksonville.com/tu­

online/apnews/stories/012205/D87OTSIG0.shtml and read the article “Krispy Kreme: The

Rise, Fall, Rise and Fall of a Southern Icon.”)

When sales first started to decline in the fall of 2003, CEO Scott Livengood offered a variety of

creative explanations, mostly for the benefit of anxious investors: high gas prices discouraged

people from driving to doughnut shops; supermarket sales were down because grocery stores

were losing business to Wal­Mart; people were cutting back on carbohydrates because of the

popular Atkins diet. Unfortunately, other (more plausible) explanations were beginning to

surface. To complete this exercise, you’ll need to find out what they were. Go to both

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/05_02/B39150502manager.htm and

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2005­08­10­krispy­kreme_x.htm?

POE=MONISVA to link to the BusinessWeek and USA Today Web sites, and then read these

articles: “The Best and Worst Managers of the Year” and “Krispy Kreme Must Restate

Earnings by $25.6M.” Once you have a good grasp of the company’s problems and you’ve

read about the people who are responsible, answer the following questions, being sure to

provide explanations for your responses:

1. What factors contributed to the problems at Krispy Kreme? What happened to the

company? Who was hurt?

2. Should the firm’s problems be attributed to poor management, unethical behavior on the

part of the executive team, or both?

3. Judging from the lessons of the Krispy Kreme case, how important do you think it is for a

firm to have strong top­down leadership?

4. If you’d been the CEO of Krispy Kreme, what things would you have done differently?

TEAM­BUILDING SKILLS (AACSB)

Assessing Your School’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

How can you and other members of your team help your college or university assess its fit

with its environment? For one thing, you could apply SWOT analysis.

Begin by picking a member of the team to write down ideas generated by the group using

brainstorming (a technique used to generate ideas that have no right or wrong answers and

are accepted by the group without criticism). Pick a different member of the team to complete

the SWOT analysis in the format listed subsequently. Then follow these steps:

1. Using brainstorming, identify internal factors, either positive or negative, that are unique to

your school. List all items suggested by group members on a large sheet of paper or a

blackboard.

2. Based on your analysis of the items listed (in step 1), the team should select at least five

factors that are strengths and five that are weaknesses.

3. List the selected strengths and weaknesses in the SWOT analysis form.

4. Using brainstorming, identify external factors that could influence your school in either a

positive or a negative way. Include all items suggested by group members. List the ideas

on a large sheet of paper or a blackboard.

5. Based on your analysis of the items listed (in step 4), select at least five opportunities that

could benefit your school and five threats to its success.

6. List the selected opportunities and threats in the SWOT analysis form.

7. Analyze the selected opportunities and strengths (which have been listed on the SWOT

analysis form) and identify several ways in which your school can take advantage of

opportunities by making the most of its strengths. Record your suggestions on the SWOT

analysis form.

8.  Analyze the selected threats and weaknesses (which have been listed on the

SWOT analysis form) and identify several ways in which your school can protect

itself from threats and overcome its weaknesses. Record your suggestions on the

SWOT analysis form.

Team Members

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Ways in which your school can take advantage of opportunities by making the

most of its strengths

Ways in which your school can protect itself from threats and overcome its

weaknesses

THE GLOBAL VIEW (AACSB)

The Art and Science of Organizational Evolution

A company’s organizational structure defines the formal relationships among the people in it. It

also reflects an arrangement of positions that’s most appropriate for the company at a specific

point in time. As the business expands or changes directions, its organizational structure

should also change.

With these principles in mind, let’s trace the evolution of a hypothetical company called High­

Tech Cases, which manufactures and sells DVD cases made out of a special high­tech

material.

Stage 1

When the company was founded, it operated under a functional organizational structure, with

the following key positions and reporting relationships:

Position Reports to

CEO No one

VP of Sales and Marketing CEO

Position Reports to

VP of Production CEO

VP of Finance CEO

Director of Sales VP Sales/Marketing

Director of Advertising VP Sales/Marketing

Director of Operations VP Production

Director of Engineering VP Production

Treasurer VP Finance

Controller VP Finance

In addition, two salespeople reported to the director of sales. The directors of advertising,

operations, and engineering each had two assistants, as did the treasurer and the controller.

Stage 2

About three years after the company’s founding, the management team decided to expand

sales into Asia. The director of sales retained responsibility for the United States, while a new

director was added for Asia. The two salespeople who had been with the company since its

beginning focused on U.S. sales, and two new salespeople were hired to handle Asia. No

other position changed, and for the next two years, all personnel worked out of the U.S.

headquarters.

Stage 3

By the beginning of the fifth year of operations, Asian and U.S. sales were about the same. At

this point, management decided to set up two separate operations—one in the United States

and the other in China. A senior VP was hired to head each operation—senior VP of U.S.

operations and senior VP of Asian operations. Both would report to the CEO. Each operational

unit would run its own production facilities, arrange its own financing, and be in charge of its

sales and marketing activities. As a result, High­Tech Cases almost doubled in size, but

management believed that the restructuring was appropriate and would increase profits in the

long run.

Assignment

Create three organization charts—one for each stage in High­Tech’s development. Ideally, you

should make your charts with some type of organization­chart software. To use the tool

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available in Microsoft Word, go to the Standard Toolbar in Microsoft Word, click on “Help,” and

type in organization chart. Then select “create a chart.”

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