Management question

Group 1

THE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS Group 3

Introduction

The role of the manager is viewed as supervisory; However, this view is an illusion. At the basic level, management is a concept that consists of four major functions, namely, planning, leading, organizing, and controlling. The four concepts are part of the body of practice and the theoretical approach of a successful manager. The understanding of this concept allows the managers to focus on the efforts and tasks that help to gain results. In this case, the study aims a Forbes News article “How Soft Skills of Leaders Like Tim Cook Help Staff Cope with Tech Change.” In this analysis, the study will go beyond the four main steps of the management and analyze the real definition of management exhaustedly. Management includes the four management concepts, activities, and decisions taken by the leaders that affect corporation management.

The organization CEOs play a significant role in shaping the organization's management as well as leadership styles. In his leadership, Steve Jobs defined Apple's leadership that focused on product and market promotion. When he died, there were critics from customers and stakeholders that his successor stood little chance of fitting in his shoes. However, instead of failure, Tim Cook lead Apple to a greater height and earned credit for his leadership approach. His management approach was characterized by thoughtful leadership, listening to other employees, and respect for transparency (Davis, 2019). In the tech industry, understanding the technology is not all that is required to drive changes as soft skills are also essential to drive in the industry. According to Cook, “the most efficient ingredient in the formulae of success is knowing how to get along with people.” Tim's leadership approach helps to reshape the management concept in Apple; he turned apple from autocratic leadership to transformation leadership and management practices.

The management concepts

The organization management concepts include the strategic management plan that is put in place by the CEO or the Board of Directors and are aimed at improving the performance of the Corporation in the future. In this part, the study will focus on four management concepts lens – strategy, organization culture, employee engagement, and organization structure in apple to illustrate how Time has influence changes in Apple Inc. this analysis will apply the P-O-L-C management framework to discuss these concepts.

Apple management strategy

Planning

Planning in the management role involves the entire process of choosing the right actions and goas to pursue the organization's objectives. Apple Inc. has experience changes in management practice, especially in planning since Steve Job exit in the CEO position (Davis, 2019). Tim seems to adopt a new approach that incorporates the employee's views and position in the planning. Despite the executive support, Tim seeks out the approval and support from those people who will implement the underlying development programs in the organization.

Organizing

Tim's leadership approach promoted worker relationships and how they relate with the managers and employers. Apple's strategic plan encourages employees to work together and communicate effectively in the group while working on a project; thus, this allows the employees to contribute toward the completion of the project.

Leading

Apple's new CEO, Tim, has his unique approach to strategy implementation in the development of Apple Inc. products. Tim involves all the concerned teams in all steps of the strategic implementation. As opposed to the previous leadership styles of Steve Jobs, where the organization executive made policies and strategies in the organization and directed the employee to follow, Tim involves all the concerned stakeholders in the planning and implementation of the strategic plan. This leadership approach plays a significant role in making employees feel they are part of the organization's management.

Controlling

Strategic management involves managing the resources to achieve the desired objectives. On the other side, controlling refers to the process of evaluating strategic management to achieve the specified goals. The organization includes the control measures in the strategic management to measure success (Hill, 20919). In the Apple Inc., under the leadership of Tim, the control measures are focused on measuring the employee welfare and customer satisfaction.

Apple organization culture

The organization's culture is defined as the organization's experiences, expectations, philosophers, and core values that guide the operation, behavior, and decision-making in the organization. The organization culture is a strong concept in the management concepts as it defines the management practices that are not captured in the organization management policies. The organization culture heavily relies on the leadership approach that the organization top manager applies in organization management. To analyze how Tim Cook has influenced Apple's organization culture, let focus on the four management concepts.

Planning

Through the Apple infrastructure, Tim enables learning and communication programs that aimed at improving managers' and employees' skills as well as sharing of ideas. This program included an intensive and regular training program that facilitated an increase in skills. Thus, lead the company to create a superior customer experience rather than focusing on increasing the market shares. On the side of the employees, he spends most of the time to improve the welfare of the management teams.

Organizing

The management practices refer to the process of establishing the worker's relationship, worker-management relationship, and firm-customer relationship in the organization. One of the basic principles that Tim has adopted to improve management practices in Apple is the introduction of listening management concepts. Tim understands that in the tech industry, the concept of "one knows all" all cannot apply since it involves a high level of innovation, which can be an advocate by anyone in the organization. Listening improves performance; when the manager listens to the stakeholders, they feel they are part of the organization's success, and hence they work harder to achieve better results.

Leading

leading another key management concept that influences the organization's management. Leading in the management practices is used to refer to the functions and approaches the leaders to use to articulate the organization's vision, inspire and motivate the worker using visual, persuasion, and effective communication. Leading involves getting to makes the employees do what they want exactly to be done. In management, it is not possible to make the team do something that you cannot do. Thus, Tim realized that the best way to improve performance is by developing personate.

Controlling

Tim Cook has influenced the Apple organization culture to change from the valuing of the product to valuing the maker and user of the product. These management concepts have enabled Tim to achieve some of the most successful results. Different from Steve, whose main focus was directed on the product and market promoting, Tim's focus is directed on improving employee satisfaction as well as customer engagement (Sonnenfeld, 2013). Tim Cook is focused on building incredible products that the customer loves. Thus, currently, Apple's organization culture is shifting from placing its main focus on the quality of the product, market size, and profits, to improving the employee's welfare and customers.

Employee engagement

Employee engagement is the process of involving, listening, and communicating to an employee while making changes and in the implementation of the new project. Employee engagement doesn't necessarily mean seeking the employee's approval but informing the employee on new changes to makes them prepared. Employee engagement also plans to listen to employee needs and addressing the in good time.

Planning

Organizing

Tim applied the management concept to improve employee’s engagement in Apple. Inc. The organization is a group of people, and people are not ready for changes mainly due to fear doubt or even uncertainty. Thus, leaders should look for ways to incentivize changes in the organization to ensure effective management.

Leading

Tim Cook has a strong persuasive character that helps to convince the team that changes in need; thus, this helps them to get prepared for the new changes. During the Steve Job era, the changes were implemented by the organization management, and then the team was directed to follow. Tim's era has a different leadership approach; the organization leaders and employees work together to initiate the new changes (Perry, 2016). The employee that engage and drive changes, thus this encourage who fight change or do nothing to impact changes in the organization.

Controlling

Employee engagement can help assess the performance against goals and plans to help corrects the deviations from standards. In the organization, when you engage employees, it becomes easy to identify where the plan is not effectively implemented. Therefore, control enables the accomplishment of plans as performance is ensured not to deviate from standards.

Apple organization structure

The organization structure refers to the organization arrangement that facilitates the execution of duties. Healthy organization culture allows the workers to focus on producing high-quality products and services as well as facilitation of effective management. an Organization with an effective structure provides employees with opportunities of developing new skills.

Planning

Organizational structure allows the firm to plan its operation, thus maintaining consistency in its operations. The advantage of an effective organization structure includes: facilitating specialization, easy resource control, communication enhancement, and performance improvement (Rothaermel, 2016). The form of the organization structure affects organization planning and development.

Organizing

The organization structure involves the management information system (MIS) in human resources. MIS refers to the collection of experts, tools, procedures, and technology that is applied to perform the firm task. The different organization has separate MIS departments which perform various information tasks such as report generation, performance transactions, as well as the consolidation of important information (Wheelen, 2010). at the management level, the management information system (MIS) has three basic levels top, middle and operational management. in this case, the information is passed from top to bottom and from bottom to top.

Leading

Tim Cook's leadership approach impacted changes in how the information is managed in the organization. During the Steve Job era, the information mainly flew from top to bottom; Steve's leadership allow information to flow from bottom to top. In this era, the decisions were made by the organization's top managers and implemented as they were with no room for discussion. Tim's leadership enables the employees at the operational levels to give their view on the decision; thus, this made information flow from bottom to top.

Controlling

Apple executive team is structured in the hierarchy form orders are executed from top to down, however there some positions with powers to makes decisions. Apple is currently led by CEO Tim Cook, who is the head of the board of directors. Apple CEO is deputed by the president and vice president, who leads various departments. The president and the vice presidents form the Apple board of directors. The Apple board of directors is responsible for selecting the director, who represents the shareholder and protecting their interest. The board of directors is the obligation to approve the CEO's decision that may impact the long-run performance of the firm. Thus, this means that Apple is managed by the board of management.

Discussions

The analysis of these articles helps to improve our understanding of the management concept. This analysis involved group discussion of five members; thus, we were able to discuss our findings based on our knowledge and opinions. The analysis was based on Forbes's new article, "How Soft Skills of Leaders Like Tim Cook Help Staff Cope with Tech Change.” This article discusses the Tim Cook leadership styles and how they affected management practice in Apple. The article findings challenge the concepts that the management practice and leadership styles define the organization operation practice and changing it might affect organization performance; however, this challenged, improved performance under Tim's leadership styles. The findings of these articles are not enough to facilitate change course materials, more findings. More findings are required support changes in the leadership.

References

Rothaermel, F. T. (2016). Strategic management: concepts (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education.

Sonnenfeld, J. A. (2013). Steve Jobs’ Immortal Quest and the Heroic Persona. Journal of Business and Management, 19(1), 59-68.

Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2010). Strategic management and business policy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.