CHAPTER 01

SUPERVISION

MANAGEMENT The process of achieving the organization’s aims through the activities of planning, orga-nizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.

Management is the process of coordinating and administering the firm’s activities to reach its goals. It is the art of getting things done by the people.

In the achievement of these objectives, businesses classify their managers by level according to whether they are top management, middle management, lower man-agement, or first line management. This forms the management pyramid of the organization. We will discuss these in the following chapters.

Another terminology we will be coming across frequently will be organization.

Organization is a group of people who come and work together for the realization of a common goal. If we look around us; the university where we are is an organiza-tion, supermarkets, charity organizations like Society for Protection of Children, gas stations, football clubs, hospitals such as Bayındır Hospital, are all organizations that consist of specific common characteristics.

Formal organization is a body that has a clearly set goal, divisions of labor among specialists, a rational design, and a hierarchy of authority and accountability.

Informal organization is developed by the employees themselves through friendly relations, and work to undertake the task of the organization.

Before we go further in our subject course, let us take some time to review the impor-tant terms we will be using most throughout this semester.

Supervisor is a first-line manager who is responsible for the welfare, behavior, and performance of the operative or non-management employees – workers. What makes them unique is that they oversee the work of operative employees

In our studies in this course, subordinates or the employees who are under the su-pervisor will be referred to as workers, team members, associates and subordinates.

Supervisor is a person under the higher-level of managers and above the workers. In today’s efforts to be more close to the customers, to save time and effort in the over-all operation, decision making, planning the subordinate’s work, making decisions and exerting control at all levels is no longer practiced. Instead, supervisors tend to coach, counsel their people acting as a consultant and trying to meet their needs and group’s needs.

This brings us to two new terms: Team Leader and Team facilitator.

Team Leader is a supervisor who is working in a team and who is responsible for the members of the team.

Team Facilitator is a supervisor who is in charge of the team but who is working outside the team.

In most organizations supervisors are being transformed into team leaders and team facilitators. As stated above, team leaders serve and lead a team of employees. Team facilitators take care of one or more teams of their subordinates.

MANAGEMENT SKILLSFirst of all let us try to define what is skill. Skill is the ability to display a system and series of behavior that is functionally related to attaining (reaching) a performance goal. As an example let us look at the work done by a butcher in preparing the meat. People who are trained to do this work know the anatomy of the animal and know where to start, what type of meat is prepared from what part of the body, how each piece is treated. They usually follow a certain pattern. Each of the final produced el-ements might not require a skill, but on the whole skill is a system of behavior that can be applied to the situation or work, as a whole.1/1

We have discussed these management skills in the Introduction to Business course. These are basic skills that are necessary at all levels of management. The most important of these, which are more intended for the supervisors, are interper-sonal skills, technical skills, and conceptual skills.

Interpersonal Skills are human, or people, skills. This underlines the manager’s ability to understand his subordinates, work in harmony with the team, and built sup-portive effort within his group. This skill also enables the manager to coordinate the interaction between his group and other groups that they have business relations with.

Supervisors who have developed these skills know themselves well. They are toler-ant and understanding of the viewpoints, attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs of others and they are skillful communicators.

Technical skill involves specialized knowledge, analytical ability within that spe-cialty, and facility in the use of the tools and techniques of the specific discipline. Su-pervisors with technical skills understand and are proficient in specific kinds of activ-ity. Technical skills are much more important for the supervisors than the middle and upper level managers. They must thoroughly understand the work they supervise and they must be able to train others to do it.

1/1 Supervision Today, Robbins, Decenzo, 4th Edition, 2004.

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Conceptual skills give the managers the ability to see their organization as a whole with many parts that are interrelated and interdependent. Supervisors must be able to perceive themselves and their associates, teams, and sections as part of and, contributors to, other sections and the entire organization.

Acquiring (obtaining) a conceptual point of view becomes more important as the manager climbs higher on the management steps. Keeping in touch with other su-pervisors, e-mails official memos reports, reading the official correspondence, meet-ings, workshops will help him to be part of the team and help him to be up-to-date on all developments.

THE SUPERVISORS RESPONSIBILITIESRelations with SubordinatesIt is important that supervisors get to know their subordinates as individuals to create a good communication with them. This way a supervisor can tailor his approach to each subordinate individual working in his team. Subordinates will appreciate this at-titude and they would enjoy working much better if they know that the supervisor cares about them. A very good sign that the supervisor cares for his people, as a common courtesy, is by using a person’s first name.

Some of the major responsibilities of the supervisor towards his/her subordinates can be listed as follows:

Getting to know them as individuals Giving them the respect and trust they deserve Valuing their uniqueness and individuality Assigning subordinates work that fits their abilities Listening to their concerns Treating them as they want to be treated Providing them with adequate instruction and training Enabling them to do and give their best Encouraging them to be lifelong learners Handling their complaints and problems in a fair and just way Safeguarding their health and welfare while they are on the job Praising and providing constructive criticism Providing examples of proper conduct at work

Among these the most important is the last one. A team leader must “walk the talk” – make their action match their words.1/2

Relation with PeersPeer is a person with the same level of authority and status as another. A supervi-sor’s peers are all the other supervisors within the whole company. Each supervi-

1/2 Supervision Diversity and Teams in the workplace, Greer and Plunkett, “10th edition, 2003.

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sor’s peers normally are the bulk of their friends and associates at the work. They represent enormous pool of talent and experience that can be obtained and contrib-ute to the work if relations are kept at friendly levels.

A supervisor’s responsibility towards his peers would include:

Getting to know them individually Valuing their uniqueness and individuality Giving them the respect and trust they deserve Treating them as they would want to be treated Fostering a spirit of cooperation and teamwork

Relations with SuperiorsSupervisors normally report to the middle managers. Middle manager is a manager of other managers or supervisors, who reports to the top management. Just like a supervisor the manager must develop and keep a sound working relationship with his/her subordinates, peers, and superiors. The responsibilities of supervisors to-wards their superiors would be as follows:

Valuing their uniqueness and individuality Giving them their best effort and support they require Passing on information about problems, together with recommenda-

tions for solving them Operating within company policies Striving for constant improvement Seeking their council and using them Using the organization’s resources effectively Keeping them informed about the unit’s status

Being Effective and EfficientRegardless the level of the manager, they are expected to do their job effectively and efficiently. Managers who reach the determined goals plan their work carefully, and keep up with their plans.

A manager’s effectiveness would be reaching his goal in the shortest possible time and effort. If he has a certain job on his hands to be completed his efficiency would be how long it would take to finish it with least amount of effort.

Efficiency, therefore, is performing the work in minimum amount of time, with mini-mum funds, and other resources.

SUPERVISORY ROLESIn many instances a supervisor can be looked upon as an actor. Just like actors, a supervisor must learn and act specific roles in fulfilling his duties. The exact role of each supervisor depends on his understanding of the job, as well as on the pressure, rewards, penalties (punishment), and guidelines brought to bear on them from inside and outside the organization. Role Prescription is collection of expectations and demands from supervisors, sub-ordinates, and others that share a manager’s job description and perception (view) of his/her job. The supervisor’s employees, peers, superior’s friends, family, and sur-rounding shapes up these roles that the supervisor plays.

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Role Conflict is a condition that takes place when contradictory (clashing) or oppos-ing demands are made from a supervisor. How they would handle this conflict and what action they would take to handle these situations depends on their own knowl-edge, and perception (insight) and on the situation at that particular time. Role Ambiguity is uncertainty about a role the supervisor is expected to play. This will happen when there are contradictory demands made. When this happens a su-pervisor may do things they should not do, or may fail to do things he/she is expected to do. They may find it rather difficult to determine where one manager’s job begins and the other’s ends.

Role Performance. In a well operating organization everyone is expected to play his or her role properly. This will affect how well a firm is managed and reflects the har-mony among the employees. In most private sector companies the employee’s do all kinds of work, regardless of their status in the management, in fulfilling their job.

CURRENT TRENDS AFFECTING SUPERVISORS

Supervisors are facing a much more challenging work environment today than in the past. Their job is increasing in its complexity. With the changes that are taking place in the company’s work force, and global competition, new problems and opportunities arise for the supervisors.

Information and technology Quality and productivity improvement

Productivity Quality Reengineering

Education Foreign ownership of businesses Valuing diversity Work schedules

Flextime Compressed work week Job sharing Permanent part-time workers Temporary workers Telecommuting

Utilization of teams

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DISCUSSION

1. What is Management? Please give a definition.

2. Explain what you understand from Formal organization. What is the differ-ence with Informal organization?

3. What are Conceptual skills?

4. What are some of the important responsibilities of the supervisor towards his/her subordinates?

KEY WORDS

Conceptual SkillsFormal organizationInformal organizationEffectivenessEfficiencyInterpersonal SkillsOrganization Role AmbiguityRole ConflictRole prescriptionSupervisorTeam facilitatorTechnical SkillsTeam leaderTechnical Skills

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CHAPTER 01Review Questions

A) Fill-in-the-blanks in the following statements:

1. ______________________ is a group of people who come and work together for the re-alization of a common goal.

2. __________________ ________________________ is a body that has a clearly set goal, di-visions of labor among specialists, a rational design, and a hierarchy of authority and ac-countability.

3. A manager’s __________________________ would be reaching his goal in the shortest possible time and effort.

4. _______________________________ serve and lead a team of employees from within that group, whereas ______________________________ look after one or more teams made up of their subordinates.

B) Place a circle (O) around the correct answer in the following statements:

1. All of the following are elements of planning, EXCEPT:a) developing specific objectives. b) developing a course of action.c) developing and training new employees.d) developing forecasts.

2. Acquiring a __________________ point of view becomes more important as the man-ager climbs higher on the management steps.

a) humanb) interpersonalc) technicald) conceptuale) managerial

3. A manager’s ____________________ would be reaching his goal in the shortest possi-ble time and effort.

a) efficiencyb) effectivenessc) supervisiond) abilitye) capability

4. ______________________________ is the composition of the workfroce to include men, women, whites, blacks, Christians, Moslems, the disables, exconvicts, and similar people.

a) Formal organizationb) Informal organizationc) Workforce diversityd) Global workforcee) Multinational workforce

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5. The collection of expectations and demands from supervisors, subordinates, and others that share a manager’s job description and perception (view) of his/her job, is referred to as;

a) role prescription.b) role playing.c) role ambiguity.d) role conflict.e) role performance.

C) Explain what you understand from formal organization? What is the difference of formal and informal organization?

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CHAPTER 02

SUPERVISION IN THE 21st CENTURY

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESSAfter the Second World War companies in the United States started opening to the world market because there was almost no competition. They eventually ended up buying or merging with developing European firms to strengthen their hold in this part of the world. In the recent years we have seen Ford growing stronger by buying Volvo, Chrysler by merging with Daimler Benz.2/1

In the same manner, most world leading companies started opening plants or selling their products in the United States. This led the US market to call upon the Ameri-cans to “buy national”. This also happened in the other countries. In Turkey people were asked to buy “Turkish products”. But what is “national product”? Is Sony televi-sion made in the US, or Spain, American or Japanese? What about Honda made in Adapazarı, Renault in Bursa? Or Arcelik that sells Samsung refrigerators under their own brand name. What about BMW. Is it a German or English car?

How does Globalization Affect Supervisors?With the developing of international and multinational companies supervisors started facing new challenges. Each supervisor now has to learn and change their view on how they see the people in the foreign lands and also learn about the cultures of these countries. It is very hard to change the view of a normal American because they have a parochial view of the rest of the world. Parochialism is seeing things solely through one’s own eyes and within one’s own perspective and believes that their way is the best. Supervisors who have been abroad and who have worked in other countries get to know that there are different cultures in each country. Those that understand these cultures have a better chance of supervising their diverse work force.

TECHNOLOGY ENHANCEMENTSWhat is Technology?

Technology is any high-tech equipment, tools, or operating methods designed to make work more efficient. Opel plant in Antwerp, Belgium, depends highly on robots in its production. Banks that employed enormous numbers of accounts in the past now rely on computers that do the job much faster. Travel agencies where people were employed to assist travelers in routing their trips and purchasing tickets are now closing down because people now use computers to do their own planning and tick-eting faster and cheaper. Super Market cashiers who had to memorize the prices of all commodities or each one had to be separately priced, now use the bar code read-ing cash registers, which not only saves time but also minimizes errors.

2/1 SUPERVISION Today, Stephen P. Robbins and David A. DeCenzop, Tenth Edition, 2001.

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How Does Technology Change the Supervisor’s Job?There are very few areas that have not been affected with the developments in tech-nology. Whether it’s the use of robots in production, computers in engineering and office management, automated systems in banking, the supervisor’s tasks are being changed in the positive sense. Computer aided control of the overall operation, inter-net connections and, most recently, telecommuting capabilities have made it possible to keep track of the employees located anywhere the work needs them to be.

WORKING IN A DIVERSE ORGANIZATIONIn the 1950’s workers, and their needs were very much alike. The working group in a certain location was mostly men who lived in the same location, had the same back-ground, and had wives who stayed home looking after the family chores and taking care of the children. Today the workforce is much more diverse and this will continue to increase.

What is Workforce Diversity?Workforce diversity is the composition of the workforce to include men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, native countrymen, the disabled, ex-convicts, ho-mosexuals, heterosexuals, the elderly and similar people. If we look at Turkey and the business’ in Istanbul area, we see people from all parts of Turkey, plus Greek Or-thodox, Jews, Japanese, French, Moldavian, Bulgarian, and so on. With the devel-opment of the European Union and investment of foreign capital into the country, there will be many even more nationalities in each country.

Researchers and statistics show that there will be important changes in the future work force:

More female workers will enter the market. More working mothers with preschool children. More single parent families rather than man and wife living together. More dual-career couples where wives will categorize their career

on the same level as their husbands. More individuals from rural areas will enter the workforce. More elderly people will be in the organizations due to the change in the re-

tirement procedures.

How Does Diversity Affect Supervisors?These changes and difficulties in the workforce make life more difficult and challeng-ing. Supervisors must first understand these different groups of people and then re-structure their organizations to accommodate these different life styles, family needs and beliefs, and work styles. They must be flexible to accept and understand these people who are different in certain ways.

CHANGING HOW BUSINESS OPERATESWhy Are Organizations Doing More with Less?Started with American companies, companies around the world are becoming “lean and mean” organizations. As a result of change in regulations (airline companies), competition (foreign and local), national economic crisis’, mergers, acquisitions be-tween companies, organizations have been downsizing by cutting the number of their personnel.

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Companies downsize for two reasons; to create greater efficiency and to reduce cost. Sometimes giving work to an outside company proves to be more cost effective.

However, there were also adverse effects on the morals of the remaining personnel and also with the market due to fall in service and distrust for third-party goods.

SCHWEPPES TERMINATES 5,500 EMPLOYEES

CADBURY Schweppes (CS) has announced that they will reduce the 55,000 employees by 10 percent.

World’s third largest beverage and Candy Company CS announced closing down 26 of their 133 plants, and will reach a saving of 575 million Euros in 2007 through the savings plan they about to put into action. CS took this decision on 4-year savings and growth plan after realizing that profitability is not possible under the present situation.

Hürriyet; October 28, 2003

Why the Emphasis on Total Quality Management?Today the public wants quality above all. This leads the companies to revolutionize their operations to meet this quality demand, better described as “Total Quality Management”.

Total quality management was mostly emphasized by W. Edwards Deming. But in the early 1950’s very few people cared for quality. Competition was based on how cheap the product could be marketed. However, in the United States companies started facing people rejecting their goods. Especially after the Second World War there was a lot of surplus goods in the market produced from low grade raw material remaining from the war.

Deming traveled to Europe to find interest for his ideas on quality. During his quest he even came to Turkey to assist the newly developing industry in this country. His last stop was Japan where he found the interest and enthusiasm for his ideas.

In 1980’s the American car industry started facing high cost of rejects and returns, re-pairing unfit work, product recalls, expensive control to identify problem areas. This was costly and the Japanese showed through their productions that it was possible to produce high-quality goods at lower prices.

(Study W. Edwards Deming’s Total Quality Management program)

How Does Reengineering Differ from TQM?Reengineering occurs when most of the work being done in an organization is eval-uated and altered. It requires organizational members to rethink;

What work should be done, How it is to be done, How to best implement these decisions.

Total Quality Management is very important for a firm but its products need to keep-up with the improvements and developments in the market. The example given in the textbook is a very good indication of the need for reengineering. If we take an-other example, say a tape recorder, keeping with the TQM the manufacturer will con-tinuously produce very high quality products, but somewhat similar to the famous

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Grundig TK 19’s. However, by reengineering, on the other hand, and keeping with the developments, we now have very small walkman and, later developed diskman and further the new MP3 players.

What are the Supervisors Implications of Downsizing TQM and Reengineering?

Downsizing and SupervisorsDownsizing is reducing of the work force. This will have some undesired effects on the people; both those terminated and those who remain in the organization. Al-though the downsizing decision comes from the top, the supervisor is the one who has to implement the decision. Those who leave are upset because they have lost their job and the remaining people are mad because they have to do the work of the others too. This might also lead to longer work hours, need for overtime, which might be a problem since this will lead to conflicts with the workers social and personal life.

TQM and SupervisorsDepending on the line of activity each supervisor must clearly define to his/her peo-ple what quality is and what it means in their department. Any deviation from quality might create problems with the other departments and even loss of business by un-satisfied customers.

Reengineering and SupervisorsWe have discussed reengineering above and stated that it is radical changes that take place when most of the work being run in the company is evaluated, and then altered (changed). Although a lot of people have their doubts about reengineering and its effects on the work force, it give a new opportunity to learn new tactics new skills. New products, with new developments will open new horizons for the supervi-sors, which might lead to better pay.

THRIVING ON CHAOSTom Peters, expert write and lecturer on management, wrote in one of his books, “Today’s supervisors must be able to thrive on change and uncertainty”2/2

Today business life is full of uncertainties and the new supervisors must make use of this in order to make use of the changes taking place at an exceptional rate. What was good enough for my father is no longer good enough for me. Or it shouldn’t be. A supervisor must be ready to make use of the situations even when everything ap-pears pointless. Supervisors must be able to turn disasters into opportunities. The most recent crisis in the Middle East with the invasion of Iraq by Us forces ruined the business of companies dealing with this country but created a new challenge and op-portunity to make money. Is it safe and profitable? Who knows? That is what the supervisor should determine and take the risk.

2/2 Handbook of Management Revolution, Tom Peters, Knopf, 1987.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATIONEducation is the main path that leads to better pay and more job security. In the past high school graduates could find easy access to jobs especially if they had language proficiency. Today even a bachelor’s degree is inadequate for an individual to find a proper paying job. Language is another important requirement. With the ever-in-creasing global contacts and exchange of information more and more organizations are looking for people with two or three or even more languages.

Vocational schools are becoming more important in the occupational life where espe-cially technical knowledge is required. More managers believe that the graduates of these schools are more capable on the work floor.

As selection of individuals tighten, looking for better schooling and higher perfor-mance level through higher grade point average is becoming important factors in re-cruitment of employees especially for supervisory and higher level positions.

THE GOOD AND PROFITABLE ORGANIZATIONWhat is a Socially Responsible Organization?Social responsibility is an obligation that organizations have to the society in which they exist.

Social obligation is the foundation of a business’s social involvement. A business ful-fills its social obligation by meeting its economic and legal responsibilities. It does the minimum that the law requires. Social responsibility and Social responsiveness, on the other hand, go much beyond just meeting basic economic and legal stan-dards. Social responsiveness adds a moral obligation to do those things that make society better and not to do those that could make it worse. Social responsiveness, in other words, requires business to determine what is right and what is wrong and, thus, seeks fundamental truths.

How Do We Act Responsible?In the last few years many people believe that our society is suffering a moral crisis. Behaviors that were once thought to be in the wrong – like lying cheating, misrepre-senting, covering up mistakes – have in many peoples eyes become common busi-ness practices. Products that are harmful to the body are on the shelves in the mar-ket. Sexual harassment has become a normal practice

In the business entities, more specifically on the job, the supervisors are face to face with these issues. In the very recent months even, in some organizations the own-ers, even the top management, is going about free where the supervisors are jailed to answer for the corruption.

Supervisors face many problems. They have to show to their people what is right and what is wrong. They represent the top management. If a supervisor takes office stationary home, over charges on the expense report, charges overtime when out of the office, what the employees think. Many companies like IBM, American Express, Chevron-Texaco, General Dynamics have code of conduct that guides the supervi-sors as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable practice. It is up to the su-pervisor to set the example to his people on what is right and what is wrong.

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What Is Ethics?Ethics is a discipline dealing with the rightness and wrongness of human conduct in society.

It is difficult to discuss ethics in a business and organizational context without talking about values. As both are the central themes in the book, it is necessary to distin-guish one from the other.

The broad distinction we wish to make is that ethics is a branch of philosophy and is therefore concerned with formal academic reasoning about right and wrong, but val-ues are commonsense, often taken-for-granted, beliefs about right and wrong that guide us in our daily lives.

Imagine a situation at work where you have to decide whether to take action against a manager who you know to be fiddling their expenses. Ethics provides principles and arguments, drawn from ethical theory, for thinking about the issue. The emo-tional force of your values in contrast would lead you to an intuitive feel for the right thing to do. Of course how much weight you give to your analysis and your emotion is another value.2/3

2/3 Business Ethics and Values, Colin Fisher and Alan Lovell, Prentice Hall 2003.

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DISCUSSION

1. Explain how globalization affects supervisors?

2. Explain why companies need to downsize. Give examples from downsizing in Turkey.

3. In your own opinion, what are the problems a supervisor faces in case of downsizing?

KEY WORDS

code of ethicscultural environmentdownsizingethicsindividualismmature workersparochialismquality of lifereengineeringsocial responsibilitysocial responsivenesstechnologytelecommutingtotal quality managementworkforce diversity

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CHAPTER 02Review Questions

A) Fill-in-the-blanks in the following statements:

1. ________________________ is any high-tech equipment, tools, or operating methods designed to make work more efficient.

2. __________________ __________________ is the composition of the workforce to in-clude men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, native countrymen, the disabled, ex-convicts, homosexuals, heterosexuals, the elderly and similar people.

3. _____________ is reducing of the work force due to economic, administrative or business reasons.

4. ______________ ____________________ is an obligation that organizations have to the society in which they exist.

5. ________________ is a discipline dealing with the rightness and wrongness of human conduct in society.

B) In your opinion, what are the problems a supervisor faces in case of downsizing?

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CHAPTER 03

MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

In the first chapter we stated that in the achievement of the managerial objectives, businesses classify their managers by level according to whether they are top man-agement, middle management and lower-level management, or first line man-agement. This forms the management pyramid of the organization. We will dis-cuss these in the following chapters.

THE MANAGEMENT PYRAMID

President TOP MANAGEMENT Executive Vice-President

Vice-Presidents

Department HeadsMIDDLE MANAGEMENT Plant Manager

Plant Superintendent

LOWER MANAGEMENT SupervisorsForemen

WORKERS

The management pyramid illustrates the level of management in an organization and reflects the fact that there are fewer managers at each successive level in an organi-zation.

Top management is the uppermost part of the management hierarchy, containing the positions of the chief executive and immediate subordinates. The top managers spend most of their time in planning for the organization and setting company objec-tives. It is the top management’s job to determine what products (goods and ser-vices) to provide the market with, how to market these and how to compete in its field. So we can say that the top managements main duty is to set up strategic busi -ness decisions. The officials that make up the top management consist of;

a) President, or Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This is the uppermost person who is responsible and authorised for running the company.

b) Chairperson is the head of the Board of Directors. He/she provides the communication between the Board of Directors and the shareholders of the company.

c) Chief Operating Officer (COO) is the person who is responsible from the daily operations in the company’s activities.

d) Vice-President(s). These officers are the top management personnel who are responsible for the company’s major activities. These activities

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are usually divided and assigned to each of the vice-presidents, such as vice-president of marketing, vice-president of finance, so on.

e) Executive Vice-president. The above-mentioned Vice-presidents usu-ally report to the Executive Vice-president. If this post does not exist, that is, if there is no Executive Vice-president they report directly to the Presi-dent or Chief Executive Officer. Both the Executive Vice-president and all the Vice-presidents are also responsible for the strategic planning and business decision-making.

Middle managers, on the other hand, handle a wide range of managerial tasks. First of all they provide the communication between the top management and the first-line managers. They take the objectives set about by the top management and translate them into specific projects and first-line supervisors (Lower Management) then spend most of their time actually directing and controlling the employees who work on these projects.

First Line Managers, or Lower Level Managers. These people direct and control the works of the operating employees who are actually producing and selling the company goods and/or services.

MANAGEMENT PROCESSThe management process consists of the basic functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling.

PLANNING is the process of setting goals and deciding on the methods of achiev-ing them. Individuals and organizations both need to plan. Whether we plan for the weekend, a summer vacation, and a move in our ca-reer, or a new marketing program, planning is the basic process we refer to, to pinpoint our goals and determine how to achieve them.

Planning is every manager’s job. Before managers can organize, lead, or control, they must make the plans that give purpose and direction to the organization; decid-ing on; what needs to be done, when, where, and how it should it be done, who is to do it, what will it cost, and how long will it take.

The need for planning exists at all levels of management and especially at higher lev-els, where it has the greatest potential impact on organization’s success. Upper-level managers generally devote most of their planning to well into future and the strate-gies of the entire organization. Managers at lower levels plan mainly for their own units and for shorter periods.

Plans have many functions in a firm. They provide the objectives to be met by plans at lower level; they provide the means for achieving the objectives set in the plans of the next higher level; they serve as means for communication among organisational members.

There are two main types of plans. Strategic plans are designed to meet the broad objectives of the firm, to implement the mission that provides the unique reasons for the firm’s existence. Operational plans provide details as to how the strategic plans will be accomplished.

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STRATEGIC PLANNING Strategy can be defined from two different perspective’s: from the perspective of what a firm intends to do, and also from the perspective of what a firm eventually does, whether or not its actions were originally intended.

Most firms now recognise the importance of strategic planning to their long-range growth and health. Managers have found that by specifically defining the missions of their firms, they are better able to give them direction and focus their activities. Con-sequently, firms function better as a result and become more responsive to a chang-ing environment. It is one of the main duties of top management to prepare the strategic plan of the firm.

Strategic planning is the process of developing a broad plan for how a business is going to compete in its industry, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to achieve these goals. It focuses on questions such as: “How diversified should our firm be?” and “How should we distinguish ourselves from our competi-tors?” The middle management is involved in both preparations of the strategic and the operational (tactical) plan, spending some of their time to provide the top man-agement with data they need to set the strategic plan and the operational plan.

OPERATIONAL PLANNING (or tactical planning) is the process of formulating short-term plans for implementing the firm's overall strategic plan. Operational plan is usually made for a term of one year to fulfil the objective set forth by the manage-ment.

Setting goals or objectives is the heart of the planning process. An objective is the specific achievement to be attained at some future date.

SCENARIO PLANNING is the process of making several plans based on alternative possible cases that may be needed when it will be applied. This is mostly the case in times of uncertainty and crisis, such as eco crisis, earthquake, war, etc., when there is a need for quick and efficient action.

Management by objectives (MBO) is a technique that encourages the superiors to jointly set the subordinates’ goals and periodically assess progress towards these goals. The MBO process consists of 5 steps:

1) Set the firm's goals – review firm’s strategic and operational plan.

2) Set departmental goals – together with department heads and superiors.

3) Discuss departmental goals – with the subordinates to develop their own goals.

4) Set individual goals – of the subordinate and assign a timetable for its ac-complishment.

5) Feedback – have periodic meetings to review, monitor and analyse progress in subordinate’s goals.

ORGANIZING is the process of arranging the resources of the firm in such a way that its activities systematically contribute to the firm's goals.

STAFFING is the process of recruiting, selecting, training, appraising and developing employees.

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DIRECTING is the process of providing the motivation and leadership that is necessary for ensuring that the firm’s employees do their jobs and accomplish their goals.

CONTROLLING is the task of ensuring that activities are providing the planned results.

However, not all deviations from the standard are brought to the attention of the man-agement. Management by exception is the principle that only significant devia-tions, or exceptions, from standards should be brought to the manager’s attention.

DECISION MAKINGDecision-making is the most important function of, espe-cially, the top management. This is the process of choosing the best possible route to take among the alternative cour-ses of action.

There are two basic types of decisions:

Routine decision is a decision that is faced with frequently, over and over again. When to pay the corporate tax, where to pur-chase the stationary for the firm, how to process the leaves of the employees, are few examples.

Non-routine decision is one that doesn’t occur often and cannot be planned in advance. Sudden and unexpected natural disaster as witnessed last august, economic crisis which came about in February of 2001 in Turkey, new tax being im-posed by the government, competitors starting a new campaign, etc.

Managers are expected to set up policies to handle the routine decisions. A policy is a rule that shows the employee how to act when a particular situation arises.

The DECISION MAKING PROCESS has seven basic steps that is followed through to make a decision:

1. Recognising a problem or opportunity – The problem, or opportunity, has to be recognised a before any action can be taken, to tackle it. First the problem (or opportunity) should be defined and then decided whether something will be done about it.

2. Gathering information – Discussing the matter with the company personnel and outsiders who might have views on the subject. Previously collected company data and other sources such as government files and will also be helpful.

3. Developing and listing alternative courses of action – Find ways of looking at the opportunity or solving the problem. There must be more than one way of do-ing things. Every alternative, regardless how important or how small should be overlooked.

4. Evaluate alternatives – Analysing the alternatives; the advantages and disad-vantages of each, to reach the best course for our business. Questions like:

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What will it cost? How long will it take to put into action? What is the most favor -able outcome that can be expected from this?

5. Choosing the best alternative – Following an evaluation of all alternatives,

choose the most beneficial alternative. This will depend on the accuracy of the in-formation, the supervisor’s objectivity, biasness, creativity in developing the alter-natives and how much risk he is willing to take.

6. Implementing the decision – Put the decision into action. Although this might look simple, it is ver important how the decision is to be put into action. A wrong move may ruin the whole deal. Important factors are; how the selected alterna-tive will be passed to those to be affected and get their commitment to do it, as-signment of responsibilities, allocation of necessary resources and timing of the job.

7. Evaluate and follow up the decision – Follow-up the activities to see if the deci-sion made is working out as we have foreseen it.

Last, but not least, implement changes to be ready for the next time. We, as the decision-maker, must put into force any changes and amendments we think are nec-essary, for the decision to be beneficial to our activity.

The new era represents great challenges to the managers which leads them to be able to make fast business decisions. Competition is getting fiercer every day, and to get a piece of the business is becoming a challenge. If a manager takes time to think things over he will loose the business to someone else. A good manager is one that makes good decisions and keeps his mind open to developments, evaluating the ad-vantages and disadvantages of an action very carefully.

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DISCUSSION

1. The managers have to have certain skills in order to do their jobs. In your opin-ion, why is interpersonal skills of big importance to the managers?

2. Assume you are a Banquet Manager in a hotel. You are asked to prepare a wedding ceremony for a well-known family in two days. What leadership style would best help you, and your staff, to motivate them and complete the work in this short time?

3. You are the manager of a holiday village in Marmaris. You have invited the President of Turkey to your establishment at a conference, thinking he will not come anyway. But, his aids call you a month later and tell you that he is com-ing in three days, with a group of people, for one week, and they will need six of your best, well established houses. You look at your books and all those houses are full and booked for the coming weeks also. What are you going to do???

KEY WORDS

administrative skillconceptual skillcontingency leadershipcrisis managementfirst-line managersforecastinginterpersonal skillsmanagementoperational plansorganizational cultureorganizingpolicystrategic planstrategytactical plantechnical skillstotal quality managementtransformational leadervision (company)

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A Top Management Success Story

In 1987, Lee IACOCCO, Chairman of Chrysler Corporation earned $ 17,896,000

Same year Paul FIREMAN, Chairman of Footwear Company Reebok International earned 15,424,000,

Lawrence G. RAWL, Chairman of Exxon, earned 5,464,000 1

When Iacocco was called and elected to assist Chrysler as the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer on September 20, 1979, he took over a company that was at the verge of bankruptcy. Chrysler had lost over $200 million the previous year (1978). The world had lived through one oil crisis already and with the over-throwing of the Shah of Iran early 1979, fear of another oil crisis and prices roaring upwards caused the public to think twice before deciding on buying large cars, which is what Chrysler was most known for. Not being flexible enough to shift its produc-tion to small cars, Chrysler applied to the federal government for a loan, which was rejected.

Soon as Iacocco came into the scene in September of that year and took control of the company he first maneuvered the 1.5 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees. He next obtained an almost equal amount in loans from banks that were already in a risk depending on Chrysler’s existence. One last move was to convince the United Auto Workers to grant Chrysler sizable major contract concessions, which would al-low him to avoid laying off thousands of workers, or cut salaries or delay pay in-creases.2

In accepting this position and a very challenging job that could ruin him for life, Ia-cocco accepted a starting salary of $1 per year, until the company was back on its feet.

In 10 years Chrysler had paid its loan guarantee, bought Lamborghini, American Mo-tor Corporation, and an interest in Masseratti. In a short period of 7 years Iacocco took a company ready to collapse in bankruptcy and turned into a giant corporation with a bright future. Its stock in the exchange had risen from $3 to over $39.

1 Bussiness Week, May 4, 1987, pp. 53, “Who Made the Most – and Why”2 Introduction to Business, a contemporary view, 6th Edition, Reinecke, Dessler, Schoel, pp 142

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CHAPTER 03

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Review Questions

A) Fill-in-the-blanks in the following statements:

5. The __________________ _______________ is the process of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling.

6. An illustration of the levels of management (top, middle, lower) in a firm is the _________________ ____________________ .

7. The president or Chief executive officer is an example of ____________ _______________.

8. __________________ ___________________ do not have managers for subordinates.

9. The ability to understand and use techniques, methods, equipment and procedures is ________________ ___________ .

10. Conceptual skills, interpersonal skills, and technical skills are ________________ ________ .

11. _________________ ____ _________________ conserves the manager’s time by en-suring that the subordinate need to address only important matters

12. The term that is used to describe choosing among alternative courses of action is ______________ ______________ .

13. Recognizing the problem, gathering information and analyzing alternatives are the first three steps in the ______________________ _______________.

14. The process of making several plans based on alternative possible versions of the future is ______________ _______________ .

B) Place a circle (O) around the correct answer in the following statements:

5. All of the following are elements of planning, EXCEPT:a) developing specific objectives. b) developing a course of action.c) developing and training new employees.d) developing forecasts.

6. Conceptual skill is:a) the ability to interact with people at work in a healthy way.b) the ability to see the firm as a whole.c) the ability to understand and use techniques, methods, equipment and proce-

dures.d) the ability to understand the most important department in the firm.

7. What type of managers have middle managers as subordinates?a) lower-level managersb) top managersc) new managersd) super managers

8. The process of developing a broad plan for how a business is going to compete in its in-dustry is:

a) strategic planning.

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b) operational planning.c) scenario planning.d) disfunctional planning.

9. A routine decision is:a) choosing among alternative course of action.b) a decision that is nonrecurring and so cannot be completely planned for in ad-

vance.c) a decision that must be made over and over.d) not a decision.

10. The process of providing the motivation and leadership needed to ensure that the firm’s employees do their job is:

a) staffing.b) directing.c) organizing.d) controlling.

11. Management by objective is:a) a technique in which a manager and subordinate jointly set the subordinate’s

goals and periodically assess progress towards these goals.b) the rule that tells employees how to act if a particular situation arises.c) the principle that only significant deviations, or exceptions, from standards should

be brought to the managers’ attention.d) a technique used in a day-to-day planning.

12. The elements in the management process are all of the following EXCEPT;a) controllingb) staffingc) organizingd) forecasting

13. Giving more authority to employees to make decisions themselves, without checking first with higher levels of management is:

a) policy.b) empowermentc) directing.d) controlling.

14. Organizing is:a) the process of arranging the human resources of the firm so that their activities

contribute to the firm’s goals.b) the process of developing a broad plan for how a business is going to compete in

its industry.c) the process of making several plans based on alternative versions of the future.d) the process of allowing every employee in the firm to carry out any plan they

choose.

C) Business skill exercise

What are some reasons why some managers are reluctant to delegate (do not like to give) authority?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 04

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ORGANIZATION

Organizing is arranging and grouping jobs, allocating resources, and assigning work in a department so that activities can be accomplished as planned by the manage-ment. The top management sets how the company should be organized.

ORGANIZATION CHARTS

PRESIDENT

- - - - - - - Secretary

ACCOUNTING - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PERSONNEL ________________________________

VP VP VP

PRODUCTION ADMIN MARKETING _________________ 1 2 3 4

_____________________

A B C D E

An organization chart is a graphic representation of the organization structure. It shows the title of each manager's position and, by means of connecting lines, shows who is accountable to whom and who is in charge of what department. This chart is an active element of the management. It can change at any time there is a need or there is a change in the operation of the firm. An organization chart is never stable!

The organization chart also shows the chain of command. The chain of command (scalar chain or line of authority) is the line through which authority flows from the president to the employees at the bottom of the organization chart.

Work specialization is having the work broken down, each part to be completed by a separate individual, rather than assigning the whole task to one person. I other words, employees specialize to handle part of a work rather that the whole work.

PRINCIPLES of ORGANIZATIONSCALAR PRINCIPLEThe scalar principle states that there should be a clear chain

of command from the highest to the lowest position in an orga-nization, and everyone should know where he or she stands in this organization.

UNITY of COMMAND

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PRINCIPLE The unity of command principle states that each person in an organization should report to only one supervisor. Each el-ement of an organization should be under one supervisor.

SPAN of CONTROLA manager's Span of Control (or Span of Management) is the number of subordi-nates reporting directly to the manager. Ideal span of control for someone depends on the work situation. A banquet manager might have ten employees under him whereas a Human Resource Manager will only need a secretary to fulfill his duties.

In general, first-line supervisors have a wide span of control, whereas top-level man-agers tend to have a narrow span because they spend considerable time supervising Vice-Presidents, each of whom has a complex jobFactors that affect the span of control are: - Manager’s personal traits

- Employee's motives- Technology and computerization- Requirement of the work

AUTHORITY in ORGANIZATIONSAUTHORITY is the right to take action, the right to make decisions, the right to direct the work of others, and the right to give orders. It is the crucial factor in organizing, since managers and employees must be authorized to carry out jobs assigned to them.

DELEGATION (tayin, yetki devri) is the process of assigning responsibility, granting authority and establishing accountability.

AUTHORITY(POWER)

DELEGATION(Transfer of POWER)

RESPONSIBILITY (Obligation to perform a certain task)

ACCOUNTABILITY(Act of holding subordinate liable)

RESPONSIBILITY (sorumluluk) is the obligation of a subordinate to perform an as-signed task. In delegating a task, the superior assigns a responsibility to the subordi-nate and subordinate accepts the responsibility. If a bartender is given the task of making cocktails, then he is assigned the responsibility of keeping drinks within his reach.ACCOUNTABILITY (mesuliyet) is the philosophy of holding subordinates liable for performing their tasks and reporting the result to their bosses. If we look at the same

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example above, the same bartender is accountable to his supervisor for selling a cer-tain amount of cocktails during his shift at the bar. And if he doesn’t, he has to an-swer why.

DECENTRALIZATION versus CENTRALIZATIONDecentralization and Centralization refers to the extent to which authority has been passed down to lower levels or retained at the top.

Decentralization is delegating authority to subordinates while maintaining control over company wide matters.

Centralization, on the other hand, is when decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of a few people at the top of the firm.

EMPOWERING EMPLOYEESGiving employees more authority is very popular in today’s business. Empower-ment means giving more authority to employees to make decisions themselves, with-out first checking with higher levels of management. However, employees should not be given more authority than they need. Actually the authority given should be equal to cover the responsibility they are under.

TYPES of AUTHORITY

LINE AUTHORITY The authority to issue orders to subordinates down the chain of command. Managers and Supervisors who are line people have full au-thority in their own capacity to issue orders, give instructions and have the work completed as foreseen by the management.

STAFF AUTHORITY The authority only to assist and advice line managers. The Human Resource Manager, Technical Service Manager, Legal Advisor are all staff people and they do not have any au-thority to issue orders and instructions. They only help the General Management and give their advice when necessary.

FUNCTIONAL AUTHORITY The authority of staff managers to exercise au-thority over line people in a specific, narrow area. For instance, the Human Resource Man-ager is usually a staff person, but when asked to recruit new employees or terminate, promote or reward existing personnel, he/she has au-thority to carry out those tasks.

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Organization Chart

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LINE and STAFF ORGANIZATIONSA LINE ORGANIZATION is an organizational structure in which each manager is di-rectly responsible for a crucial activity required accomplishing the organization’s goals.

LINE-STAFF ORGANIZATION is an organizational structure that has both lines and staffs departments.

PRESIDENT

- - - - - - - - Secretary

Comptroller - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Personnel _____________________________________

Vice-President Vice -President Vice-President

DEPARTMENTALIZATIONDepartmentalization is the process through which a firm's activities are grouped to-gether and assigned to managers.

There are 5 main ways to organize departments. They include organizing depart-ments around:

1. Functions: Grouping activities around essential functions and basic processes (production, marketing, finance).

2. Products Grouping activities around products or product line (milk, cheese, and ice cream in a dairy firm).

3. Customers Grouping activities around the needs of particular customers (private, government, foreign).

4. Territories Grouping activities around geographical areas in which the firm does business.

5. Matrix Grouping activities around a functional set of departments but with specialist from each department working together on spe-cific project

FITTING THE ORGANIZATION TO THE SITUATION

What determines how a company should be organized? How do you know which way to select? Should you have a wide span or narrow span? Centralized or decentralized decision-making?

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Organizational Theory is the body of knowledge concerned with understanding, ex-plaining, and predicting how best to structure an organization to fulfill its goal.

The two types of organizations that illustrate the different approaches to organizing are the bureaucracy and the adhocracy.

BUREAUCRACY is an approach to organizing that is characterized by:

A well-defined chain of command, A division of work between departments A system of rules covering the rights and duties of all

employees, A system of procedures for dealing with routine decisions, A selection process for employment and promotion based

on technical competence, An impersonality of relationships in which everyone is rewarded and punished on the basis of the same set of rules.

ADHOCRACY An approach to organizing in which there is a deliberate at-tempt to avoid pigeonholing employees into specialized jobs and to forbid blind adherence to chain of command.

A CONTINGENCY APPROACH to ORGANIZINGAbove discussions of bureaucracy and adhocracy show that different organizational structures are suitable for different tasks. The managers must, therefore, take a con-tingency (beklenmedik olay) approach to organizing.

ORGANIZING TODAYADHOCRACY! type of organizations is becoming more popular than ever. The main reason for this movement is the increased need for responsiveness many firms’ face.

ORGANIZING for CHAOS (Düzensizlik)According to Tom Peters, to be organized for chaos the managers should try and make their organization more flexible and, to be able to do this first of all they must simplify their organization charts by reducing the layers of management.

Next step would be to remove the staff people from reporting to the president and placing them in the same level as first line managers. Front-line managers should have more people reporting to them. Then managers should eliminate bureaucratic rules. Peters suggests that policy manuals should be cut by half removing some of the factors that tend to slow down work.

Finally, horizontal style of management should be installed where interdepartmen-tal cooperation is encouraged to get the work done faster, and more efficiently.CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Cultural diversity (çeşitlilik), the existence of two or more cultural groups within an or-ganization. Japanese love for smallness has led them to create and organise their firms under the “small-team approach”.

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Small (Business) is beautifulToday the world is realizing what the Japanese tried to do for such a long time in re-ducing the size of their organizations, and many firms today are setting up mini firms within their organizations. One way the firms try to manage this is through in-trepreneurship. Intrepreneur is a company employee who is allowed and encour-aged to act entrepreneurial within the firm.

Firms are now encouraging intrapreneurs to create, push, and implement new ways and produce new goods and services.

ETHICS and REORGANIZINGDownsizing - reducing cost by dismissing employees and reassigning their duties to the employees who remain in the organization. In recent years downsizing, or reor-ganizing to cut various layers in management and personnel, to lower the costs as a responsibility towards their shareholders. Yet is it ethical to terminate thousands of people, as was the case with the automotive industry in Bursa when reorganization in these companies was inevitable. Early retirement schemes applied by companies like Texaco was another way of reducing the number of its employees.

THE GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONHOW GLOBAL FIRMS REORGANIZE

Multinational Structure - An organization structure in which the firm sets up foreign subsidiaries that are basically miniature, independent replicas of the parent firm.

International Structure - where the firm’s foreign subsidiaries are not as autono-mous (özerk) or as self sufficient as those in the multinational structure.

Global Structure - An organizational structure in which the firm is highly centralized and foreign subsidiaries are closely controlled from the head office.

TOMORROW’S TRANSNATIONAL STRUCTURETransnational structure is an organizational structure that looks much like the matrix structure on paper but encourages employees around the world to share a single vi-sion of what their company stands for.

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DISCUSSION

1. Why is having an organizational structure important in a firm?

2. Grapevine and rumors are unavoidable in any organization. In your opinion, Should these be stopped or can the management use it beneficially for their own purpose

3. Is informal organization important in a firm? Or should it be stopped?

KEY WORDS

accountabilityadhocracyauthoritybeaurocracycentralizationdecentralizationdelegationdepartmentalizationflat organizationglobal structuregrapevineinformal organizationinternational structureline organizationline-staff organizationmultinational structureorganizational chartresponsibilityspan of management

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CHAPTER 04

Review Questions

A) Fill-in-the-blanks in the following questions:

1. The _______________ ____________________ is the philosophy that there should be a clear chain of command from the highest to the lowest position in a firm.

2. The number of subordinates a manager controls is referred to as a manager’s _________ ____ ___________________ .

3. ____________________ __________________ is the authority exercised by a staff manager over line people in a specific, narrow area.

4. The process through which a Firm’s activities are grouped together and assigned to managers is called ___________________________ .

5. _________________ ________________________ is grouping activities around essen-tial functions or basic processes.

6. ______________ ________________________ is grouping activities around products or product lines.

7. _______________ ________________________ is grouping activities around the needs of particular customers.

8. An ________________________ is a company employee who is allowed and encour-aged to act entrepreneurial within the firm.

9. An ________________ ______________________ is the informal contacts, communi-cations and ways of doing things that employee develop.

10. _________________ ______________________ is the communication that does not follow the formal organization chart.

B) Place a circle (O) around the correct answer in the following statements:

1. An organization chart shows:a) employee income.b) a graphic representation of the organization structure.c) the formal and informal organizational structure.d) the address of regional offices.

2. The scalar principle states that:a) primary firm goals should be reached before secondary firm goals.b) rapid technological charges will not affect line authority.c) there should be a clear chain of command from the highest to the lowest position

in a firm.d) corporate objectives are more important that functional objectives.

3. According to the unity of command principle;a) the span of management should never exceed 25 subordinates.b) each person in a firm should report to only one supervisor.c) a good manager has an open door policy.d) organizational objectives should be minimized.

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4. ________________ is the act of holding subordinates liable.a) Authorityb) Responsibilityc) Decentralizationd) Accountability

5. Line authority is:

a) only operational in organizations that are decentralized.b) the authority to issue orders to subordinates down the chain of command.c) the authority to assist and advise staff managers.d) determined by strength of the informal group leadership.

6. The Internal Revenue Service of Turkey has offices in various regions of Turkey. The Internal Revenue Office is organized into departments by:

a) products.b) customers.c) territories.d) functions.

7. Which of the following does NOT characterize a bureaucracy?a) A line-staff organizationb) A system of procedure for dealing with routine decisionsc) A division of work between departmentsd) A system of rules covering the rights and duties of all employees

8. Which of the following characteristics describes adhocracy?a) Decision making is decentralized.b) Blind adherence to chain of command is required.c) Employees are pigeonholed into specialized jobs.d) Adherence to the rules is stressed.

9. Most global firms organize on the basis of each of the following ways EXCEPT:a) multinationally.b) internationally.c) globally.d) multilaterally.

10. The entire network of informal contacts in a firm is called the:a) cluster chain.b) communication chain.c) grapevine.d) informal underground.

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CHAPTER 05

COMMUNICATION

Communication is the process in which a person, or a group, transmits some type of information or ideas to another person or group of persons. Information can be de-fined as; facts, figures, and/or words.

This information, which we refer to as message, is transmitted from the sender to the receiver through some sort of media. If we study the following diagram, the message is first coded in some sort of way into a symbolic form such as sound, writing, draw-ing, then it is passed through a channel which is the media and then it is translated, or decoded by the receiver. Coding and decoding is limited by the skills, attitude, knowledge, education, and socio-cultural level of the parties.

In daily life supervisors communicate with their subordinates passing information re-lated to their work. This would be considered formal communication. This would be in the form of speech, written document, electronic media, and nonverbal attitude.

Formal communication used in the organization may be directed to various levels in the firm. Those that are directed downward to the subordinates of a supervisor, or upward to the superiors in the management would be considered vertical communi-cation. Transmission of information between departments and peers would be hori-zontal communication, as the sender and receiver in this case are at the same level in the organization.

Communication, which overrides levels of authority, intends to quicken work accomplishments is informal communication.

Another type of informal communication at an organization is the grapevine. Although this has adverse affects, it is fact that most employees learn about anything in the organization through grapevine. Grapevine is actually rumors that start and go in all di-rections, growing like a snowball. Sometimes the management it-self, for various reasons, starts these rumors.

TYPES of COMMUNICATIONSCommunication can be in the form of:

a) Oral communication,b) Written communication,c) Electronic communication,d) Non-verbal communication,e) Information communication.

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Oral communication is the most widely used in a work place. The benefit lies in the quickness and use of nonverbal components such as tone, mood, gestures and facial expressions (mimics).

Written communication would be preferred if the information is intended to be more official, if it’s going to be a long-term use and if it is somewhat complex.

The drastic developments in the cellular technology and computers have increased the importance and use of electronic communication. Electronic communication is becoming more widely used with every development in this field. Today supervisors use e-mail, even voice mail messages that they can forward 24 hours of the day.

Nonverbal communications are things like sirens of an ambulance, flashing red light at a railway intersection, man-at-work signs at road construction sites. Also ges-tures like body language, facial impressions, intonations during speech are consid-ered nonverbal communication.

COMMUNICATION PROCESSAs discussed in the beginning of this chapter, here are six important elements of a communication process.

Sender encoding Channel decoding Receiver message message message message

Feedback

1. Sender (Transmitter). This is the person, or group of persons, that are sending the message.

2. Message. Ideas, information, intend and feelings that are communicated to the receiver.

3. Direction. As discussed above, the flow or path a message takes in order to reach a receiver is its direction. A message from a supervisor will in most cases go upward, to the higher management, or downward, to the team (sub-ordinates).

4. Medium. This will be dictated by who the receiver is. If the message is go-ing upward, written communication is more appropriate. If the receiver is the team oral conversation will be adequate.

5. Receiver. This, again, is important in selecting the message and the media in a communication. In some cases private discussion will be more in place. It would be vise to understand the receiver before the message is planned.

6. Feedback. This is a process to answer the fact, did you get my message well. Asking the receiver to reply to the message with a short report on what is required or very simply to repeat the message can do it. In the class we

38

have quizzes, homework’s, exams to determine whether the information passed on during the classes have been received properly.

Planning Communication3

No matter whom or why you feel the need to communicate your ideas, planning must precede the act of communication. The following checklist will serve you as a squential list of questions to answer as you prepare to communicate:

1. What are the objectives I wish to achieve by communicating? Do I want action? Understanding? Acceptance?

2. What are the essential facts? Do I know them, and am I able to express them properly?

3. Are my thoughts outlined? Whether your outline is mental or written, keep it brief and to the point.

4. Have I concidered my receivers? What are their needs, and how can I sell my message to them? Do I know their backgrounds and frames of reference for this message?

5. Have I chosen the right symbols? Whether words, pictures, or some other symbols, are they correct for this communication? (Remember that words take on meaning both from the context in which they appear and in the minds of the people involved in the communication process.)

6. How should I communicate this message? Face to face? In writing? If in writing, should I use a memo? A letter? Is there time for formal channels, or should I go directly to my intended receivers?

7. When should I communicate? How receptive are my receivers? When will the environment be most free of anticipated disturbance?

8. Have I allowed for questions? Will I be able to judge my receiver’ reactions, and will they be able to seek further information from me? How will I be sure my message has been received and properly interpreted?

COMMUNICATION BARRIERSIf any one of the six elements discussed above is not operating properly and is defec-tive, clarity of the message will be disturbed, its meaning lost and understanding will be diminished. Here are some barriers that will affect proper transmission of a message.

LanguageListening Habits

Lack of FeedbackPerception

Role RequirementsInformation Medium

Lack of HonestyEmotions

Language plays a very big role in the transmission of a message. In different coun-tries a word has different meanings. While “Hey” would be used to call someone, to-

3 Supervision, Diversity and Teams in the Workplace, Greer, Plunkett, Prentice Hall, 10th edition.

39

day it is mostly used in the United States to mean “Hello”. Similarly, although grass means the plant in the gardens, today it means the drug used for narcotics.

Listening is another area message is lost or distorted. People hear what is being said but listening is understanding the information transmitted. The gender will also play a role in understanding a message. It is a fact that men and women take the meaning of certain information in different ways.

Is it understood? The message has been given but did the receiver understand what was being said. If the receiving party is asked to write a brief report on their action, this would serve as a feedback and help in understanding how much was under-stood.

The education, up-bringing, interests, experience will assist in seeing and under-standing the surrounding. Two people looking at the same thing will perceive it dif-ferently.

Role requirement comes from the behavior pattern that corresponds to the position each individual holds in the organization. Managers tend to be defensive in the com-pany. While sales staff tries to sell everything to whoever comes across in order to complete their quota, managers would rather prefer sales to be made to parties where money can be received with no problem.

The medium that transmits the information plays a role in the amount. Clarity and richness of information is much higher when message is conveyed face to face. However, to convey a meeting arrangement, or agenda for a staff meeting could eas-ily be done with a memo.

Honesty in communication is another important issue. To praise the boss just to please him following a speech he makes, when actually it was rather nonsense would mislead that person. In most organizations this takes place a lot. Should the boss be told the truth knowing it might hurt his feelings? YES! This way that person will not make the same mistake in the future.A message received by a person who is under stress and has had a row with the boss will not the understood the same way as receiving the same message when that person is in a happy mood. Emotions of the receiving party at the time of trans-mission will effect how it is interpreted.

How Can Communication Effectiveness be improved?

■ Think before you speak.■ Hold back your emotions■ Learn to listen■ Structure message to the receiver■ Match words and actions■ Use feedback■ Encourage assertive training

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

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In some cases it is vital to collect information in the shortest time to handle a problem and for accurately finding and evaluating alternatives. The answer to this would be to effectively use the management information system of the organization.

A Management Information System (MIS) is a mechanism to provide the manage-ment with needed accurate information on a regular and timely basis. It is a formal organizational effort to provide information of the right quality to all decision makers. An organization’s MIS should provide usable and needed information to the right people, at the right time, in the right amount, and at the right place. Recently more and more organizations are basing their MIS on computer-supported applications to have correct information as early as possible.

Major organizations today are like well-stocked libraries of data that are organized in a meaningful way and can access the information in a reasonable amount of time. Data are raw, an analyzed facts such as names, numbers, or quantities.

As just data, these facts are relatively useless and, maybe, have no meaning but when they are analyzed and processed, they become information. An MIS collects data at all times and turns them into relevant information for use by the employee as at all levels.

In recent years management information systems have become decentralized; that is, decision and control systems have been pushed down to the users. With decen-tralization has come a major change – supervisors can now take the responsibility for information control. They have become end users. End users are users responsi-ble for decision and control of systems. They can access the data they need and an-alyze them on their personal computers. As a result of this, today’s supervisors need to be knowledgeable about their information needs and accept responsibility for their systems’ operations.

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DISCUSSION

1. List the major goals of communication.

2. What are the major barriers to successful communication?

3. List four major goals one seeks to reach through communication.

4. Explain what is electronic communication and how it helps the supervisors in their job.

5. Explain what is Management Information System (MIS) and how it affects the work of a supervisor?

KEY WORDS

body languageelectronic communicationemotionsend userfeedbackformal communicationgrapevineinformal communicationintonationshorizontal communicationmediumoral communicationtransmitterverbal communicationvertical communication

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30 MINUTES BEFORE A PRESENTATION

This paper will give you some clues on presentation techniques and will give you some hints on how to give a proper presentation.

Respect Your Audience Learn who your audiance is and design your talk for them, Arrive early, start on time, and keep to time guidelines (keep a watch in front

of you), Dress appropriately.

Be Prepared and Plan AheadIt is very important that you are well prepared before you give a presentation. Knowing what you are going to say and how you deliver the presentation, is essential.

Write down what you want to say (like a script), It’s best not to read straight from a script, so break it down and write short para-

graphs on small cards (these are called prompt cards), Don’t try to memorise big chunks if you don’t think you will remember these.

There is nothing worse than forgetting your lines, If you are using slides, these are ususlly good for prompting you memory, How you deliver a presentation depends on your own preferance, here is a list of

options: Slides for use over an overhead, Using a computer package interactively which is projected onto a screen

(PowerPoint is generally used for this), Prompt cards with no visual aid, From memory with no visual aid (not recommended),

It is not necessary to use any of the above; you can, if you like, just do it off the top of your head. But be warned the audience need to be kept amused, if they are just looking at your face, they might get bored! However, because you will have a poster, or transparency to talk about, it would be sufficient just to have prompt cards.

Know your Information Be able to summarize in 2 or 3 sentences, Learn correct pronunciations, Make statements that are accurate, complete, and easy to understand.

So, in summary, know what you are going to say and choose an appropriate presentation technique.

Format the PresentationThe way you deliver the information must be done in such a way that people will under-stand it. This step concentrates on the format of the presentation.

First and foremost, introduce yourself,

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Give the audience the amount of time your presentation will take. Present what your title indicates, Give an introduction (tell the audience what you are going to talk about), Next talk about what you want to say, Communicate clearly, Avoid jargons, Explain abbreviations, Be coherent (consistent), Develop ideas in logical sequence, Explain value of the information and significance to other studies (areas), Reveal information, Lead your audience – perhaps ask questions, Distinguish speculation from evidence, Include quotes, statistics, etc., Credit sources, Once you have talked about your subject you should conclude and provide

a perspective, Try to leave a lasting impression, Thank the audience for opportunity to speak, Volunteer to answer questions.

In summary, you should say what you are going to say, say it and then say what you have said. This makes it a structured talk and, therefore, your discussion will be clear to the au-dience listening.

Enhance Your Presentation Use illustrations that are large, legible and labelled, and necessary, If you distribute handouts, work with them.

Using SlidesIf you use slides (either on PowerPoint or overhead projector), you will need to do the following:

Use bullet points and/or short sentences instead of long para-graphs, Don’t put too much information on one slide, Make sure writing is large enough for back seat audience to see, Conversely don’t include anything too small, Don’t get your slides mixed up – have them in the order you want to present them.

Presentation DeliveryAttitude Relax, Don’t hurry, Practice opening statements, Get audience attention, identify topic, Use notes, don’t memorise, don’t read, Be enthusiastic, Be dramatic.

Voice Speak loudly enough, Articulate words, Place emphasis on end of sentence, Avoid monotony,

Mannerism and Body Languageo Look at your audience, maintain eye contact,o Good posture, Move,o Use gestures and body language.

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The way you actually give the presentation is the most important factor. Someone who doesn’t use visual aids, has nothing to hand out to the audience and just stands at the front talking, may give a better talk than someone who has got lots of visual aids.

It depends on how you deliver the talk – here are some do’s and don’ts:

DON’T- Mumble (after all that preparation and no one can understand you)- Fidget (the audience won’t concentrate on your talk if you sway from side to side)- Look ant one person (it will distract the rest of the audience)- Make silly jokes (the audience might not laugh)

DO- Speak clearly,- Keep still,- Look around the room,

Answering Questions Perhaps repeat question, Be brief and focused, If you don’t know, say so.

The best advise is that if you mess up – DON’T PANIC! No one knows what you are going to say, so you can sometimes bluff!!!

Finally, remember everyone is going to be in the same boat, so however you feel, everyone else will be feeling it too and will be on your side.

GOOD LUCK!

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CHAPTER 05

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Review Questions

A) Fill-in-the-blanks in the following questions:

1. ____________________ is the process in which a person, or a group, transmits some kind of information, ideas to another person or group.

2. Communication which overrides levels of authority, intends to quicken work ac-complishments is ___________________ ____________________ .

3. The ____________________ is the entire network of informal communications in an organization.

4. A __________________ _____________________ ______________ is a formal organizational effort to make information of the right quality available to all deci-sion-makers.

5. Following are the occasions when written communication is important EXCEPT:a) Written communication permits immediate feedback.b) Written communication aids in systematic thinking.c) Written communication provides an official document for the organiza-

tion.d) Written communication provides a reference for later use.e) Written communication can be disseminated to many members of the or-

ganization at the same time

6. When a subordinate (worker) is told to do something by his/her supervisor, the subordinate is a:

a) receiver d) lateral communicationb) director e) decoderc) transmitter

7. Feedback;a) is the responsibility of both sender and receiver.b) Helps to promote a common understandingc) Causes a receiver to become a sender.d) None of the above

8. Which of the following is/are barriers to communication?a) uncommon symbols. d) all of the above.b) Improper attitudes. e) none of the above.c) background disturbance.

9. ___________________ between takes place based on lines of authority set up in an organization chart.

a) Formal communicationb) Informal organizationc) Trainingd) Traineee) Matrix organization

10.Role _________________ results from not being certain as to what is required or what role is to be played.

a) Conflict d) Modelb) Sanction e) Structurec) Ambiguity

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