What is Management?

• The process of deciding how best to use a business’s resources to produce good or provide services

– Employees

– Equipment

– Money

The Management Process

• Three ways to examine how management works:

– Tasks performed

• Planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling

– Roles played (set of behaviors associated with a particular job)

• Interpersonal, information-based, decision-making

– Skills needed

• Conceptual, human relations, technical

The Management Process

• Planning

– Decides company goals and the actions to meet them

– CEO sets a goal of increasing sales by 10% in the next year by developing a new software program

The Management Process

• Organizing

– Groups related activities together and assigns employees to perform them

– A manager sets up a team of employees to restock an aisle in a supermarket

The Management Process

• Staffing

– Decides how many and what kind of people a business needs to meet its goals and then recruits, selects, and trains the right people

– A restaurant manager interviews and trains servers

The Management Process

• Leading

– Provides guidance employees need to perform their tasks

– Keeping the lines of communication open• Holding regular staff

meetings

The Management Process

• Controlling

– Measures how the business performs to ensure that financial goals are being met

– Analyzing accounting records

– Make changes if financial standards not being met

Management Roles

• Managers have authority within organizations

– Managers take on different roles to best use their authority

• Interpersonal roles

• Information-related roles

• Decision-making roles

Management Roles

• Interpersonal roles

– A manager’s relationships with people

• Providing leadership with the company

• Interacting with others outside the organization

• Senior managers spend much of their time on interpersonal roles– Represent the company in its relations with people outside

the company, interacting with those people, and providing guidance and leadership to the organization

– Determine a company’s culture

» Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Management Roles

• Information-related roles

– Provide knowledge, news or advice to employees• Holding meetings

• Finding ways of letting employees know about important business activities

• Decision-making roles

– Makes changes in policies, resolves conflicts, decides how to best use resources• Middle and supervisory managers spend more time resolving

conflicts than senior managers

Management Skills

• Conceptual skills

– Skills that help managers understand how different parts of a business relate to one another and to the business as a whole

– Decision making, planning, and organizing

Management Skills

• Human relations skills

– Skills managers need to understand and work well with people

– Interviewing job applicants, forming partnerships with other businesses, resolving conflicts

Management Skills

• Technical skills

– The specific abilities that people use to perform their jobs

– Operating a word processing program, designing a brochure, training people to use a new budgeting system

Management Skills

• All levels of management require a combination of conceptual, human relations, and technical skills

– Conceptual skills most important at senior management level

– Technical skills most important at lower levels

– Human relations skills important at all levels