Download Class 3 - University at Albany

The Nature of Managerial Work
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After studying this chapter, you should be able to
understand:

The different roles and activities commonly
required for managers.

How managerial roles and activities are
affected by aspects of the situation.

How managers cope with demands,
constraints, and choices confronting them.
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The importance of external activities and networking
for managers.
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How managers solve problems and make decisions.
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How managers can make effective use of their time.
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To advance the objectives of the
organization through the effective use of
available resources
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Leadership In Organizations
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Superiors
Peers
Colleagues
Regulators
Stakeholders
Customers
Vendors
Subordinates
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
Hectic work pace – Continuous requests for
information, assistance, direction, and authorization

Varied and fragmented work content – Interruptions
occur frequently, conversations are disjointed,
important activities are interspersed with trivial ones
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
Many reactive activities –
- Problems occur in a mostly random order;
- Managers choose to react to some problems when they
become aware of them, others are postponed or ignored;
- There are more problems that a manager can handle at
any given time;
- Managers are more likely to respond to a problem when
there is immediate pressure for action due to a crisis,
deadline, or the demands of the boss.
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
Peer and outsider interaction (Ivory Tower Syndrome)
- Managers typically spend considerable time with
persons other than their subordinates or their bosses
- Managers spend considerable time with outsiders
such as customers, clients, suppliers, subcontractors,
government officials, civic leaders and other business
leaders.
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These elements frequently lead to:
Disorderly and political decision processes
Informal and adaptive planning
Involving emotions and intuition
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Emotions and intuition are often involved
Frequently characterized by confusion and emotions
rather than by rationality
Information is often distorted or suppressed to serve
preconceptions and biases about the best course(s) of
action
BEWARE: Group Think
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Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs
within a group of people in which the desire for harmony
or conformity in the group results in an irrational or
dysfunctional decision-making outcome.
Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a
consensus decision without critical evaluation of
alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting
viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside
influences.
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
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Avoids discussing controversial issues or alternative
solutions;
Produces the illusion of invulnerability
Concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a
cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic
appraisal of alternative courses of action.
When five people are in agreement without critical
thinking, four of them become unnecessary
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Important decisions are disorderly and political
Different people involved in making a decision often
disagree about the true nature of a problem or the best
course of action for the solution.
E.G.:
Hire more people vs. pay for overtime
Sales vs. production
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The Problem: Sales of your primary source of revenue
are falling badly. How would the following people view
this problem:
Sales
Production
Human Resources
Suppliers
Engineering
Marketing
Finance
Customers
Shareholders
R&D
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Pearl Harbor (1941)
Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)
Vietnam (1964)
Challenger explosion (1986)
US Presidential Election (2016)
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Routine decisions
Solving operational problems
Short term goals
Work schedules
Work assignments
Allocation of resources
There is usually are ready-made and low risk decisions
Therefore, they can possibly be delegated or digitized
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Most planning is informal and adaptive
Short-term planning (1-30 days) are usually quite
specific and detailed
Long term (1-10 years) are generally vague,
incomplete and loosely connected.
Much of the important strategies decisions
were made outside of the formal process in an
incremental, flexible and intuitive manner.
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Please make a list of roles that a manager must be able to
play in order to be effective:
1
2
3
4
5
6
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Born: 2 September 1939
Professor of Management Studies at McGill University, Montreal,
“Companies are communities. There's a spirit of working together.
Communities are not a place where a few people allow
themselves to be singled out as solely responsible for success.”
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
Leader
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Spokesperson
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Liaison
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Entrepreneur
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Figurehead
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Disturbance Handler
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Monitor
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Resource Allocator
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Disseminator
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Negotiator
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Coding the content of activities observed in a study of executives:
Expected Rolls of a Manager
Leader – responsible for making their organizational sub-unit
function as an integrated whole in the pursuit of its basic purpose;
Liaison – Intended to establish and maintain a web of relationships
with individuals and groups outside of a manager’s organizational
unit
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Figurehead – Leaders are expected to perform symbolic duties of a
legal and social nature
Monitor – Managers continually seek information from a variety of
sources to keep up to date on the changing nature of the business
– and to perform SWOT analyses from time to time;
Disseminator – Leaders have special access to information not
available to subordinates
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Spokesperson – Leaders are expected to transmit information and
express value statements to people outside of their organization
Entrepreneur – The leader acts as an initiator or designer of
controlled change to exploit opportunities for improving the
existing situation
Disturbance Handler – The leader deals with student crises that
cannot be ignored
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Resource Allocator – Leaders exercise their authority to
allocate resources such as money, personnel, material,
equipment, facilities, and services
Negotiator – Leaders have the authority to impact
negotiations requiring a substantial commitment of resources
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•
Emotions and intuition are often involved
•
Important decisions are disorderly and political
•
Routine decisions often involve problems for which ready made
and low risk solutions are available
•
Most planning is informal and adaptive
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Contrary to images of an orderly rational process, decision-making
is often characterized by:
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
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Disorderly processes
Incomplete or biased information
Incomplete analyses
Reliance on past solutions
Difficulty reaching agreement
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Demands and constraints and choices define the job of a manager and
strongly influence the behavior of the manager
Demands – the required duties, activities and responsibilities
Constraints – Characteristics of the organization and the external
environment, e.g. rules, policies, regulations, laws, availability of
resources, physical locations, etc.
Choices – e.g.
Required vs. optional
Establishing priorities
Proper delegation of responsibilities
Demands and constraints are situational influences on the leader and
affect the scope of the leader’s choice of actions
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Management level – Executive, senior, mid, 1st line supervisors
Strategy related
High level managers have more responsibility for making
important decisions, establishing objectives, & planning
strategies
Tactical or operations related
Lower level managers have less discretion and freedom of
action and must operate within the constraints imposed by
formalized rules and policy decisions
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Organizational unit size
– Span of control, multi-site, conglomerate, global, etc.
As span of control increases upper-level managers make more
autocratic decisions, but use more delegation
As the size of a work unit increases, so does the administrative
workload
Managers of large work units have less opportunity for interacting
with individual subordinates and maintaining interpersonal
relationships with them,.
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External dependencies
Other units must do their job before we can do our job
As interdependence increases with other sub-units,
coordination with them becomes more important and
there is more need for mutual adjustments in plans,
schedules and activities
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Leadership In Organizations
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Crisis situations
Terrorist attack, natural disasters, extreme weather, labor
strife, bankruptcy of principle supplier
In many crisis situations, officers were more directive,
autocratic, and goal-oriented
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Understand the reasons for demands and constraints
Expand the range of choices – Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, etc.
Determine what you want to accomplish
Plan your time smartly
Prioritize your must-do, should-do, & want to-do lists
Limit unnecessary activities
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Identify important problems that can be or must be solved
Look for connections among problems
Experiment with innovative solutions – (If five managers agree
on a business solution, four of them are unnecessary)
Take decisive action to deal with crises
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Homework Assignment
a. Re-read Chapter 2
b. Read and be prepared to discuss Chapter 3
c. During class 5, team 1 will lead the discussion on the
material covered in Chapter 2.
d. Team 2 will analyze the Case Study that is printed at the
end of Chapter 2.
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