Business Concepts: Exploring Careers in Business

Understand what managers do to help organizations achieve top performance

Managers are in constant action. Virtually every study of managers in action has found that thsey switch frequently from task to task, changing their focus of attention to respond to issues as they arise, and engaging in a large volume of tasks of short duration.

Observations of CEO's noted they averaged 36 written and 16 verbal contacts per day, almost every one of them dealing with a distinct or different issue. Most of these activities were brief, lasting less than nine minutes.

Successful general managers studied over a five-year period:

•  spend most of their time (70-90%) with others, including subordinates, their bosses, and numerous people from outside the organization
  • short, disjointed conversations
  • discussions of a single question or issue rarely last more than ten minutes
  • not  unusual for a general manager to cover ten unrelated topics in a five-minute conversation
  • engaged in 58 different activities with an average duration of just nine minutes
• average manager spent just 25% of his time working alone
  • largely at home, on airplanes, or commuting.
• breadth of topics in discussions with others was extremely wide
  • unimportant issues taking time alongside important business matter 
  • managers rarely make “big decisions” during these conversations 
  • rarely give orders in a traditional sense 
• react to others’ initiatives and spend substantial amounts of time in unplanned activities not on their calendars
•  isinterruptions also appear to be a natural part of the job.
  • ex: on average a manager works uninterrupted for half an hour only nine times during a four week study Managers, in fact,
• interacting with others —both inside and outside the organization -- the key work of a manager
  • casual interactions in hallways
  • phone conversations
  • one-on-one meetings
  • larger group meetings
  • managers spend about two thirds of their time with other people.⁹ As Mintzberg has pointed out, “Unlike other workers, the manager does not leave the telephone or the meeting to get back to work. Rather,

When managers are in action, they are talking and listening. Studies on the nature of managerial work indicate that managers spend about two-thirds to three-quarters of their time in verbal activity. This is what the manager’s daily practice is all about. “Through other forms of talk, such as speeches and presentations managers establish definitions and meanings for their own actions and give others a sense of what the organization is about, where it is at, and what it is up to.

These verbal conversations are the means by which managers:

• gather information
• stay on top of things
• identify problems 
• negotiate shared meanings
• develop plans
• put things in motion 
• give orders
• assert authority
• develop relationships
• spread gossip

Concept Check

What do managers do to help organizations achieve top performance?

Exhibit 2a.2.The Roles Managers Play (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)

The Roles Managers Play

• Informational
  • Monitor - seek and receive information from a variety of sources (web, industry journals, reports, individuals)
  • Disseminator - shares information through the. organizations via, memos, emails, phone calls, meetings, presentations
  • Spokesperson - transmits information to people outside the organizations via speeches, interviews, and written communication
• Interpersonal
  • Figurehead - perform formal duties like greeting visitors, signing contracts, and other legal duites
  • Leader - motivate, train, counsel, communicate, and direct employees
  • Liaison - manage and maintain information links inside and outside the organization
• Decisional
  • Entrepreneur -  initiate projects that lead to improvements, delegate idea-generation responsibilities to others then identify the best ideas to act on
  • Disturbance handler - take corrective action during conflicts and crises; resolve disputes among employees
  • Resource allocator - decide who receives resources, manages schedules and budgets, sets priorities
  • Negotiator - represents a team, department, or organization regarding contracts, union negotiations, etc.

What are the characteristics that effective managers display?

Efficiency is a core skill. With less time than they need, with time fragmented into increasingly smaller units during the workday, with the workplace following many managers out the door and even on vacation, and with many more responsibilities loaded onto managers in downsized, flatter organizations, efficiency has become the core management skill of the twenty-first century.

Managers must increasingly be aware of threats and opportunities in their environment. Threats include technological breakthroughs on the part of competitors, obsolescence in a manager’s organization, and dramatically shortened product cycles. Opportunities might include product or service niches that are underserved, out-of-cycle hiring opportunities, mergers, purchases, or upgrades in equipment, space, or other assets. Managers who are carefully attuned to the marketplace and competitive environment will look for opportunities to gain an advantage.

The leader role gaining importance. Managers must be more sophisticated as strategists and mentors. A manager’s job involves much more than simple caretaking in a division of a large organization. Unless organizations are able to attract, train, motivate, retain, and promote good people, they cannot possibly hope to gain advantage over the competition. Thus, as leaders, managers must constantly act as mentors to those in the organization with promise and potential. 

Each manager may have a diverse set of responsibilities. The amount of time spent on each activity and the importance of that activity will vary considerably. The two most salient perceptions of a manager are

1. the manager’s level in the organizational hierarchy 
2. the type of department or function for which he is responsible. Let us briefly consider each of these.

 Levels in the Management Hierarchy 

Exhibit 2a.2. shows differences in managerial activities by hierarchical level. Senior executives will devote more of their time to conceptual issues, while front-line managers will concentrate their efforts on technical issues. For example, top managers rate high on such activities as long-range planning, monitoring business indicators, coordinating, and internal consulting. Lower-level managers, by contrast, rate high on supervising

Three types of managerial skills:

1. Technical skills. Managers must have the ability to use the tools, procedures, and techniques of their special areas. An accountant must have expertise in accounting principles, whereas a production manager must know operations management. These skills are the mechanics of the job.
2. Human relations skills. Human relations skills involve the ability to work with people and understand employee motivation and group processes. These skills allow the manager to become involved with and lead his group.
3. Conceptual skills. These skills represent a manager’s ability to organize and analyze information in order to improve organizational performance. They include the ability to see the organization as a whole and to understand how various parts fit together to work as an integrated unit. These skills are required to coordinate the departments and divisions successfully so that the entire organization can pull together.

As shown in Exhibit 2a.3., different levels of these skills are required at different stages of the managerial hierarchy

• executive positions require far more conceptual skill and fewer technical skills in most (but not all) situations
• first-line managers generally require more technical skills and fewer conceptual skills. Note, however,
• all three levels require people skills

Exhibit 2a.3. Difference in Skills Required for Successful Management According to Level in the Hierarchy (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)

Management by Department or Function

Managerial responsibilities also differ with respect to the type of department or function. There are differences for managers in 

• quality assurance
  • planning, coordinating, and establishing quality standards for the company
• manufacturing 
  • concentrate their efforts on products and services, controlling, and supervising
• marketing
  • focus on customer relations and external contacts
• accounting and finance  
  • long-range planning
  • monitoring performance indicators
• human resource management
  • long-range planning
  • consulting expertise, coordination, and external contacts

As with your choice of any career be sure to understand the ins and outs to ensure the job is a good fit for you. If you choose to become a manager understand that  the emphasis on and intensity of managerial activities varies considerably by the department the manager is assigned to. Also, know that the mix of conceptual, human, and technical skills changes over time.  Knowing the different mix of management activities by functional area can facilitate your selection of an area or areas that best match your skills and interests.

In many firms managers are rotated through departments as they move up in the hierarchy. In this way they obtain a well-rounded perspective on the responsibilities of the various departments. In their day-to-day tasks they must emphasize the right activities for their departments and their managerial levels. Knowing what types of activity to emphasize is the core of the manager’s job.