02 Jan The Same Old Principles

Week 1 discussion

Learning Activity #1

This week, students learn about organizational theory and the relationship to the role of 21st century manager. A manager is a person whose job it is to direct the implementation and achievement of a subset of organizational goals. Organizational theory is a field of study that has evolved in the last one hundred years to offer assistance to managers in the way they approach their job in an effort to accomplish the organization’s vision and mission. The 21st century manager is a person who organizes, executes, and plans the process and production of an organization. Traditionally, the role of the manager, as defined by organizational theory, has been the person who sets short term goals for the organization to execute and performs tasks that include the process, procedure, and production of the organization’s purpose or vision. The modern role of the manager still includes these tasks but has developed to include the role of facilitator in the way the manager accomplishes the organizational goals assigned to his or her control.

• With these ideas in mind, compare and contrast the role of management, as reflected by management theory, in the 20th century organization with the role of management in the 21st century. Include in your discussion the theoretical schools of thought(s) that speak to the manager’s role in the business environment as well as definition of the environment itself.

• How has the change in business purpose (i.e. manufacturing vs. service) and the business environment, worker attitudes, and behaviors affected the role of the manager in an organization and how has the theory evolved to cope? Discuss in detail. Be sure to use information from the organizational theory timeline in your answer.

Learning Activity #2

As we saw in theme one the role of the manager has changed from the 20th century to the 21st century, with the manager becoming more people-centric in the execution of their tasks.

• From this week’s material identify and discuss 5 skills that are unique to the successful manager of the 21st century. Consider in your answer workplace dynamics of new organizations such as the change in organizational structure (flat, horizontal, virtual etc.) and employee expectations for the workplace environment.

Week 2 discussion

Learning Activity 1

For businesses to succeed they must maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The key to doing this has changed over the last century as illustrated in our discussion in week one about the 21st century business environment and its challenges. In theme one, we take a closer look at the way managers create competitive edge in the 21st century organization.

You have been hired by Baltimore Spring Waters, Inc. (BSW) as a management consultant. The growing demand for bottled water in the face of worldwide supply shortages has management at BSW concerned about the future of the business. The company wants to remain competitive in price knowing that sourcing difficulties will make it harder to do.

The question posed to you is how can BSW’s managers help the company maintain their competitive edge? Using this week’s course material and the articles from last week on 21stcentury organizations, answer this question for BSW.

Learning Activity 2

A challenge for the manager in the 21st century is to merge the traditional functions of a manager with the new demands of workplace life. The change of value regarding human resources to the organization coupled with technology is shifting the design of organizations towards “boundaryless” and flat organizational structures. In this theme we examine Fayol’s five functions of management as well as the 14 lesser functions of management upon which most management models are based today and how they are bumping up against the constructs of 21st century management to create tension in the workplace.

Read the following articles on big business’ break with telecommuting and managing with technology at

Working from home alone is the real culprit

http://fortune.com/2013/03/19/working-from-home-alone-is-the-real-culprit/

Working from home: how Yahoo, Best Buy and HP are making moves

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/working-from-home-yahoo-best-buy-hp-moves

The role of informational technology in virtual management theory

http://www.muhlenberg.edu/depts/abe/business/miller/virorg.html

Examine the role of Fayol’s pillars of management and how they may conflict or conversely fit with contemporary organizations and management theories. Explain comprehensively why or how a manager might reconcile happily the two approaches to management.

Week 3 discussion

Learning Activity 1

The 21st century manager is the person tasked to implement the leader’s vision and mission for the organization. The manager does this with the help of Fayol’s theoretical framework known as the four pillars of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. This week, we begin our examination of the four pillars of management with the first function, planning.

The planning stage of management is considered by most to be the most important because of the advantages that planning has for achieving goals. Due to the complexity of the business landscape in the 21st century managers are faced with planning and the need for quick change. The agile organization attempts to address the advantages and disadvantages of planning.

Explore the Internet and retrieve articles that discuss the pros and cons to the planning function.

Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages to the planning function and explain how the manager in an agile organization may use both to their advantage.

Learning Activity 2

There are several elements that result from the planning stage but for our purposes we will focus on the development of long-term and short-term goals. Long-term goals are set by the owners, leaders or upper management depending on the structure, size or type of organization. Long-term goals reflect the big-picture goals and objectives are directly related to the purpose and vision that the leaders and owners develop. In today’s change-dominated business environment long-term goals are set to be accomplished in 2-3 years’ time as opposed to the previous century’s 5-10 years.

Long-term goals are often created through planning and strategizing. The process begins with the vision and mission of the business. To understand the concepts of vision and mission and their role in the process, you will take the role of the leader and formulate the vision and mission of an organization.

Create a vision and mission statement to fit the company described below:

Mohammed Abul and his family own the Long-lasting Boot (LLB) store. LLB is a specialty boot store located in the downtown area in a medium sized city Scottsdale, Arizona and sells a broad line of boots to all members of the family including a novelty pet line. The store sells boots for work and recreation as well as a line of expensive cowboy boots for the tourist trade. The business is twenty-five years old. It has a reputation for being the best place to get boots in the community because of the selection, quality, and customer service. LLB will even work with custom designed boots for people with unusually sized feet or medical problems. The boots in some instances, work boots in particular, are considered expensive by middle class buyers but the construction quality is so long-lasting that it makes the higher prices seem worthwhile. The store is successful but sales are very slow growing at the moment. The family is looking to boost sales by developing a competitive edge for the future.

Hint: Before you begin be sure that you clearly understand the difference between a vision and mission statement as well as the purpose they each serve.

Week 4 discussion

Learning Activity 1

As mentioned last week the planning process begins with an environmental scan of the business and its relationship to vision and mission statements. Read the following and complete the activities below:

Mohammed Abul and his family own the Long-lasting Boot (LLB) store. LLB is a specialty boot store located in the downtown area in a medium sized Scottsdale, Arizona and sells a broad line of boots to all members of the family including a novelty pet line. The store sells boots for work and recreation as well as a line of expensive cowboy boots for the tourist trade. The business is twenty-five years old. It has a reputation for being the best place to get boots in the community because of the selection, quality, and customer service. They will even work with custom designed boots for people with unusually sized feet or medical problems. The boots in some instances, work boots in particular, are considered expensive by middle class buyers but the construction quality is so long-lasting that it makes the higher prices seem worthwhile. Abul, who is 32 years old and just out of the military after 10 years of service, has returned to find the business at a crossroad.

The store is successful but sales are very slow growing at the moment. The family is looking to boost sales by developing a competitive edge for the future. Up until now the business has been successful because of the company’s ability to anticipate changing boot styles. In the past three years, sales have remained constant but growth has waned. Despite sales, the use of loyalty reward cards and staying open later in the evening, revenue has not grown. Yet, total sales in the Central City metropolitan area including the suburbs have grown substantially. Stores that sell in volumes like Wal-Mart and Payless have boot sales that pull in three times the sales of LLB.

Abul and his family are planning for the next three years and want to find ways to increase sales. They have come to you for advice. As their consultant, you want to cover the following ideas in your response:

Create a SWOT analysis;

Using the facts from the case study, discuss how you determined the various elements of the SWOT analysis

Learning Activity 2

In the planning phase, managers create a detailed action plan aimed at the organizational goals. Strategic management, or what you will learn as strategizing, is what an organization will do or not do to achieve the goals and objectives that lead to meeting the stated mission and vision. Using the vision, mission, and SWOT analysis from learning activity 1, complete the following:

Create three long term goals and objectives (3 each) for the business (2 years forward);

Create three medium term (operational) goals and objectives (3 each) for the business (usually accomplished within the year);

Create three short term (day, week, month) goals and objectives (3 each)for the business; and

Create at least three contingency goals in the event that the current strategy would fail.

Week 5 discussion

The organizing function is where management gathers and synchronizes the resources of the organization (people, capital, and physical) to complete the goals set out in the planning stage.

Learning Activity 1

One of the long-term goals set out by the LLB owners (from wee k4) is to increase sales in the cowboy boot line by 15%. The short term goal to accomplish this is to create a sales campaign that targets the tourist trade. This campaign includes:

Creation of an Internet website (this is part of a larger plan to instigate Internet sales in general)

Create a Boot blog

Exposure to local hotels and tourist eateries through pamphlets

Discount plans for hotel guests

Boot delivery service to hotels

Free shipping for purchases

The current budget for the cowboy/tourist portion of the marketing project is $40,000. Mohammed Abul is the marketing director. He wants to hire an assistant to oversee the cowboy/tourist boot line. The assistant will be in charge of the three current part-time sales associates, give purchasing direction to the purchasing department, run the boot blog, create new copy for the Internet website on a monthly basis, and execute all other duties related to the implementation of new boot tourist campaign. Salaries for the assistant and the associates are not included in this portion of the budget. Additional useful facts include:

Currently the structure of LLB has been adhoc in nature. The long-term decisions are made by the family, Joseph Abul (father, and his sons, Mohammed Abul (marketing) and Ali Abul (store manager). Fatima Abul (mother) oversees staff and AdoulAbul (brother of Joseph) does the purchasing. YaraAbul (daughter) handles the finances. There are two full-time sales associates and 8 part-time associates not including the new assistant and the cowboy boot associates. Store hours are M, T, W, F, S 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Thurs 10:00 am to 8:30 pm

Complete the following based on the information provided above:

Create a plan that organizes the physical and monetary needs to accomplish the goal of 15% sales plan. This plan would entail defining the physical and monetary requirements that must be used by the assistant to implement the goal.

Create an organizational structure for the business and the cowboy boot project.

Explain why you chose the structure as opposed to others that you did not choose and what the decision making flow and job tasks are for each person.

Illustrate the structure in an organizational chart

Learning Activity 2

Explain the type of culture that will enhance the organizational alignment of people in LLB;

Explain what organizational culture is and how it relates to the structure of the organization;

Explain why you chose the organizational culture as opposed to others that you did not.

Week 6 discussion

Learning Activity 1

This week, we look at leadership from the manager’s perspective and explore the differences from looking at leadership from a leader’s perspective. Managers focus on process, procedure, and implementation of the organization’s purpose. A manager’s perspective is about getting the job done and keeping stability. The leader’s mindset is about change and moving workers toward the organization’s vision. The area of overlap comes in terms of the need to use “soft or people skills” to get their job done. It is said that a manager motivates while a leader empowers.

In the following five quotes each leader is commenting on the perspective of a manager in an organization as opposed to a leader.

Define the difference between a manager’s mindset and a leader’s mindset.

Using the readings for the week, reflect and explain the meaning of each quote. and how each quote relates to a manager’s or leader’s mindset.

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

Peter Drucker

“Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives.”

Russell Honore

“When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

Warren Buffett

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”

Paul Hawken

“Management is nothing more than motivating other people.”

Lee Iacocca

Learning Activity 2

The manager must be able to solve problems, communicate, and lead teams toward the completion of a task.

You are the manager of the northern branch of the Laurel City Bowling Alleys. The owner, Jill Espy, has 4 other bowling alleys around town. The average employee assigned to the concession stand of all the Laurel City Bowling Alleys lasts approximately 3 years. However, in your branch, the average employee lasts only 8 months. Jill is concerned about the lack of retention of concession employees especially since training new employees is costly to the company and this high turnover is costing her money that could be better spent elsewhere.

You have talked with your current concession staff and have learned that pay and scheduling may have some effect on the turnover rate. Employees feel that the pay is low and the scheduling is erratic making it difficult to make plans outside of work. You know that employees do not benefit from pay raises because they tend to leave before being at the alleys for a year.

One worker indicated that many of the workers do not know how to handle difficult customers. It makes them not want to come to work. At the time, the focus seems to be on getting the job done rather on customer service.

Using the employee’s feedback and other facts from the case scenario, what ideas should you consider motivating or changing employee morale that would encourage employees to stay longer in the job?

Week 7 discussion

Learning Activity 1

In this article as well as your reading for this week the balanced scorecard is explained:

The Balanced Scorecard

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_concepts/the_balanced_scorecard.htm .

One of the best tools a manager has is a balanced scorecard. Remember, our bowling alley manager from week 6!

Address how the scorecard approach fits in to the control function of management.

Create a balanced scorecard and explain how the use of a balanced scorecard could help to measure and possibly improve the turnover of employees. The scorecard will include objectives, measures, and targets.

Just so you do not have to go back to week Six, here is the case scenario:

You are the manager of the northern branch of the Laurel City Bowling Alleys. The owner, Jill Espy, has 4 other bowling alleys around town. The average employee assigned to the concession stand of all the Laurel City Bowling Alleys lasts approximately 3 years. However, in your branch, the average employee lasts only 8 months. Jill is concerned about the lack of retention of concession employees especially since training new employees is costly to the company and this high turnover is costing her money that could be better spent elsewhere.

You have talked with your current concession staff and have learned that pay and scheduling may have some effect on the turnover rate. Employees feel that the pay is low and the scheduling is erratic making it difficult to make plans outside of work. You know that employees do not benefit from pay raises because they tend to leave before being at the alleys for a year.

One worker indicated that many of the workers do not know how to handle difficult customers. It makes them not want to come to work. At the time, the focus seems to be on getting the job done rather on customer service.

Learning Activity 2

Traditionally, theorists suggest that the managerial function of controlling should not be confused with control in the behavioral or the manipulative sense. This function does not imply that managers should attempt to control or to manipulate the personalities, values, attitudes, or emotions of their employees. Instead, this function of management concerns the manager’s role in taking necessary actions to ensure that the work-related activities of employees are consistent with and contribute toward the accomplishment of organizational and departmental objectives.

Research the concept of the virtual organization. Then, explain how can a manager measure work that is performed when the employee may be 5,000 miles away? Be sure to consider the virtual and global organizations and how a manager would control and measure work from afar.

Week 8 discussion

Learning Activity 1 – Theme 1

In 1988, Clark Material Handling Company sought to survive a competitive run on their business from the Japanese. They survived by using the systems thinking method.

Google Clark Material Handling Company;

Determine how they saved their company by using the systems thinking method.

Identify three to five major concepts of systems thinking and then explain how when applied they worked for Clark;

Evaluate the identified major concepts for success and explain why this approach was a better fit than the more conventional theories discussed in prior weeks.

The Same Old Principles in the New Manufacturing

Clark Manufacturing Company

Clark Manufacturing Company

CLARK MANUFACTURING CO.: Precision CNC Machining Services

Learning Activity 2- Theme 2

When we started the class we learned that the 21st century manager must be agile to survive the fluid and dynamic business environment of this century. However, we established that the foundation of management theory in most organizations today is the traditional Fayol functions. Reflect on the classwork and then address your comments to the articles from this week on agile managers to debate this question: “Agile management is not the answer to creating a facile and competitive business organization.”