GMS Review weeks 1-4 PDF

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Week 1: Management Today

What is Management? The process of dealing with or controlling things or people Working Today ➢ Talent ○ People and their talents - what they know, what they learn, and what they achieve - are the crucial foundations for organizational performance. ○ They represent what managers call intellectual capital, which is the combined brainpower and shared knowledge of an organization’s employees. ○ Intellectual capital is a strategic asset that organizations can use to transform human creativity, insight, and decision-making into performance. ○ Competency - represents our personal talents or job-related capabilities ○ Commitment - represents how hard you work to apply your talents and capabilities to important tasks. ○ Commitment x Competency = Intellectual Capital ➢ Technology ○ Technology has become a major player in today’s workplace and continuously tests our talents. ○ Hence, it is critical to build and maintain a high Tech IQ - the ability to use current technologies at work and in your personal life, combined with the commitment to keep yourself updated as technology continues to evolve ○ Whether you’re checking: inventory, making a sale, ordering supplies, sourcing customers, prioritizing accounts, handling payroll, recruiting new hires, or analyzing customer preferences, Tech IQ is indispensable. ➢ Globalization ○ Countries and people are interconnected through labour markets, employment patterns, and financial systems.

○ Are there consequences to globalization? ■ Yes, and it is known as Job Migration, which is the shifting of jobs from one country to another. While Canada has been the net loser to job migration, countries like China, India and the Philippines have been net gainers. ■ On the flip side Reshoring, which is the shift of manufacturing and jobs back home from overseas have been recently recurring over the years due to an increase in labour and transportation costs in China and many other countries ■ “A firm’s proximity to its customers is once again becoming a strategic asset and competitive advantage.” ➢ Ethics ○ Ethics - a code of moral principles that sets standards for conduct that is “good” and “right” as well as “bad” and “wrong” ➢ Diversity bias in the workplace ○ Prejudice - the display of negative, irrational opinions and attitudes regarding members of diverse populations. ○ Prejudice becomes active D  iscrimination when members of some groups are unfairly treated and denied the full benefits of organizational membership. ■ Ex. manager inventing reasons not to interview a visible minority candidate ○ Glass Ceiling Effect - an invisible barrier or ceiling that prevents women and visible minorities from rising to top jobs. ➢ Organizations ○ A collection of people working together to achieve a common purpose ○ (Broad Purpose of Organization) Organizations provide goods and services of value to customers and clients, and seek to serve society ○ A clear sense of purpose tied to “quality products and services,” “customer satisfaction,” and “social responsibility” can be an important source of organizational strength and performance advan- tage. ○ Organizations are o pen systems that interact with their environments. ○ Organization Performance ■ “Value creation” is a very important notion for organizations

■ Value is created when an organization’s operations add value to the original cost of resource inputs ■ When value creation occurs: ■ Businesses earn a profit ■ Nonprofit organizations add wealth to society ○ Productivity: An overall measure of the quantity and quality of work performance with resource utilization taken into account ○ Performance effectiveness: An output measure of task or goal accomplishment ○ Performance efficiency: An input measure of the resource costs associated with goal accomplishment

➢ Changing Nature of Organizations ○ Focus on valuing human capital: The premium is on high-involvement work settings that rally the knowledge, experience, and commitment of all members. ○ Demise of “command-and-control”: less traditional top down bosses more bosses who treat people with respect. ○ Emphasis on team work: organizations are becoming less hierarchical ○ Pre-eminence of technology: developments in computer and information tech keep changing the way organizations operate and how people work ○ Importance of networking; organizations and their members are networked for intense, real-time communications and coordination. ○ New workforce expectation: a new generation of workers is lees tolerant of hierarchy, attentive to performance merit, more informal, and concerned fir work-life balance. ○ Concern for Sustainability: Social values call for more attention on the preservation of natural resources for future generations and understanding how work affects human well-being. ➢ Manager ○ Directly supports, supervises, and helps activate the work efforts of others

The people who managers help are the ones whose contributions represent the real work of the organization ○ Levels of management: ○ Board of directors makes sure the organization is run well ○ Top managers are responsible for performance of an organization as a whole or for one of its major parts ■ Also referred to as part of the C-suite ■ Should pay special attention to the external environment and be alert to potential long-run problems and opportunities ○ Middle managers oversee large departments or divisions ■ Ex. Clinic directors in hospitals, deans in uni’s, plant managers etc… ■ Coordinating with peers, supporting lower-level team members ○ Team leaders supervise non-managerial workers ➢ Quality of work life (QWL) ○ An indicator of the overall quality of human experiences in the workplace ➢ QWL Indicators: ○ Respect ○ Fair pay ○ Safe working conditions ○ Opportunities to learn and use new skills ○ Room to grow and progress in a career ○ Protection of individual rights ➢ The organization as an upside-down pyramid ➢ A manager’s job is to support workers’ efforts ➢ The best managers are known for helping and supporting ➢ Customers at the top served by workers who are supported by managers ➢ Managers achieve high performance for their organizations by best utilizing its human and material resources ➢ All managers are responsible for the four functions ➢ The functions are carried on continually ○ Planning : The process of setting objectives and determining what actions should be taken to accomplish them ○

○ Organizing : The process of assigning tasks, allocating resources, and coordinating work activities ○ Leading :The process of arousing people’s enthusiasm and inspiring them to work hard to achieve goals ○ Controlling : The process of measuring work performance, comparing results, and taking corrective action ➢ Characteristics of managerial work ○ Long hours • ○ Intense pace ○ Fragmented and varied tasks ○ Many communication media ○ Filled with interpersonal relationships

Week 2: Information and Decision-Making ➢ Managers must have ○ Technological competency ■ Ability to understand new technologies and to use them to their best advantage ○ Information competency ■ Ability to locate, gather, organize, and display information for decision-making and problem solving ○ Analytical competency ■ Ability to evaluate and analyze information to make actual decisions and solve real problems ➢ Information drives management decision making What makes data useful: 1. Timely: the information is available when needed. It meets deadlines for decision-making and action. 2. High quality: the information is accurate, and it is reliable it can be used with confidence 3. Complete: the information is complete and sufficient for the task at hand it. It is current and up to date as possible. 4. Relevant: the information is appropriate for the task at hand. It is free from extraneous or irrelevant material.

5. Understandable: the information is clear and easily understood bu the user. Free of any unnecessary detail. ➢ Management Information System: Using the latest technologies to collect, organize, and distribute data What needs do information systems serve? ➢ Within organizations, people need vast amounts of internal information t o make decisions and solve problems in their daily work. ➢ Internal information flows downward in the form of goals, instructions, and feedback. ➢ It flows horizontally in ways that assist in cross-functional coordination and problem solving. ➢ it flows upward as performance reports, suggestions for improve- ment, and even policy and personnel disputes. ➢ At the organization’s boundaries, information in the external environment is accessed. Managers use this intelligence information t o deal with customers, competitors, and other stakeholders such as government agencies, creditors, suppliers, shareholders, and community members. ➢ Organizations also send vast amounts of public information t o stakeholders and the external environment.This often takes the form of advertising, public relation campaigns, social media posts, and financial reports that serve a variety of purposes, including image-building, product pro- motion, financial documentation, and damage control.

➢ Data Mining and Analytics ○ Data mining is the process of analyzing data to produce useful information for decision makers. ○ Big data exists in huge quantities and is difficult to process without sophisticated mathematical and analytical techniques. ■ Ex. UPS - In one big data program, some 250 million data points are run through an algorithm with over 1,000 pages of code to calculate optimum daily routes for drivers ○ Management analytics involves the systematic evaluation and analysis of data to make informed decisions.

➢ Business intelligence and Executive Dashboards ○ Business intelligence: Taps information systems to extract and report data in organized ways that are useful to decision makers ■ Ex. Amazon, team buys products from other retailers to check on their quality, speed and customer service. ○ Executive dashboards: Visually update and display key performance metrics and information on a real-time basis’ ➢ Problem Solving ○ The process of identifying a discrepancy between actual and desired performance and taking action to resolve it ○ Decision : A choice among possible alternative courses of action ○ Performance threat : Something is wrong or has the potential to go wrong ■ Actual performance is less than desired or is moving in a unfavourable direction. ○ Performance opportunity : Situation offers the chance for a better future if the right steps are taken. ➢ Problem-solving approaches or styles: ○ Problem avoiders : Inactive in information gathering and solving problems ○ Problem solvers :Reactive in gathering information and solving problems ○ Problem seekers : Proactive in anticipating problems and opportunities and taking appropriate action to gain an advantage. ■ Look for problems to solve before they occur SYSTEMATIC VS. INTUITIVE

➢ Multidimensional thinking applies both intuitive and systematic thinking: Effective multidimensional thinking requires skill at strategic opportunism ○ An ability to view many problems simultaneously, in relationship to one another and across both long and short time horizons

➢ Types of problems ○ Structured problems are ones that are familiar, straightforward, and clear with respect to information needs ○ Programmed decisions apply solutions that are readily available from past experiences to solve structured problems ○ Unstructured problems: are ones that are full of ambiguities and information deficiencies ○ Non-programmed decisions: apply a specific solution to meet the demands of a unique problem ■ Commonly faced by higher-level management ➢ Crisis Decision Making ○ A crisis involves an unexpected problem that can lead to disaster if not resolved quickly and appropriately Rules for Crisis Management ➢ Figure out what is going on ○ Take the time to understand what’s happening and the conditions under which the crisis must be resolved ➢ Remember that speed matters ○ Attack the crisis as quickly as possible, trying to catch it when it is as small as possible ➢ Remember that slow counts, too ○ Know when to back off and wait for a better opportunity to make progress the crisis ➢ Respect the danger of the unfamiliar ○ Understand the danger of all new territory where you and the others have never been before ➢ Value the skeptic ○ Don’t look for and get too comfortable with agreement; appreciate sceptics and let them help you see things differently ➢ Be ready to “fight fire with fire ” ○ When things are going wrong and no one seems to care, you may have to start a crisis to get their attention Types of Decision Environments

Certain Environments: offers complete information on possible action alternatives and their consequences ○ Study the alternatives and choose the best solution Risk Environment: lacks complete information but offers probabilities of the likely outcomes for possible action alternatives ➢ Uncertain Environment: lacks so much information that it is difficult to assign probabilities to the likely outcomes of alternatives

The Decision Making Process Step 1 - Identify and Define the Problem ➢ Focuses on information gathering, information processing, and deliberation ➢ Decision objectives should be established ○ The way a problem is defined can have a major impact on how it is resolved, and it is critical here to clarify exactly what a decision should accomplish. ➢ Common mistakes in defining problems: ○ Defining the problem too broadly or too narrowly ■ Managers should define problems in ways that give them the best possible range of problem-solving options ○ Focusing on symptoms instead of causes ■ Symptoms are indicators that problems may exist, but they shouldn't be mistaken for the problems themselves. ○ Choosing the wrong problem to deal with ■ Have to set priorities and deal with the most important problems first. Step 2 - Generate and Evaluate Alternative Courses of Action

➢ Potential solutions are formulated and more information is gathered, data are analyzed, the advantages and disadvantages of alternative solutions are identified ➢ The better the pool of alternatives and the more is known about them, the more likely it is that a good decision will be made. ➢ Approaches for evaluating alternatives: ○ Stakeholder analysis ■ Key stakeholders in the problem should be identified, and the effects of possible courses of action on each of these should be considered ○ Cost-benefit analysis ■ Compares what an alternative will cost in relation to what it will return in respect tp expected benefits ➢ Criteria for evaluating alternatives: ○ Benefits ○ Costs ○ Timeliness ○ Acceptability ○ Ethical soundness ➢ Common Mistake: ○ Abandoning the search for alternatives and evaluation of their consequences to quickly Step 3 - Choose a Preferred Course of Action ➢ Two different approaches ○ Behavioural model leads to satisficing decisions ■ Assumes that people act with only partial knowledge about the available action alternatives and their consequences. ■ As a consequence the first alternative that appears to offer a satisfactory resolution to the problem is likely to be chosen ○ Classical model leads to optimizing decisions ■ The assumption is that a rational choice of preferred course of action will be made by a decision maker who is fully informed about all possible alternatives.

Step 4 - Implement the Decision ➢ Involves taking action to make sure the solution decided upon becomes a reality ➢ Managers need to have willingness and ability to implement action plans ➢ Lack-of-participation error should be avoided ○ This is a failure to adequately involve in the process individuals whose support is necessary to put the decision into action. ○ Managers who use participation wisely will get the right people involved in problem solving from the beginning. Step 5 - Evaluate Results ➢ Involves comparing actual and desired results ➢ Positive and negative consequences of chosen course of action should be examined ➢ If actual results fall short of desired results, the manager returns to earlier steps in the decision-making process At All Steps - Checks Ethical Reasoning ➢ Each step in the decision-making process can and should be linked with ethical reasoning. ➢ Decisions should test positive on these four ethics criteria: 1. Utility - Does the decision satisfy all constituents or stakeholders? 2. Rights - Does the decision respect the rights and duties of everyone? 3. Justice - Is the decision consistent with the canons of justice? 4. Caring - Is the decision consistent with my responsibilities to care? Decision Errors and Traps ➢ Heuristics are strategies for simplifying decision making ➢ Availability Bias: occurs when people assess a current event or situation by using information that is “readily available” from memory. ○ Ex. deciding not to invest in a new product based on your recollection of a recent product failure. ➢ Representativeness Bias: occurs when people assess the likelihood of something happening based on ots similarity to a stereotyped set of occurrences. ➢ Anchoring and Adjustment Bias: Bases a decision on incremental adjustment from a prior decision point

○ Ex. manager who sets a new salary by a small percentage. Although the increase may appear reasonable to the manager, the decision actually undervalues the employee relative to the job market. ➢ Confirmation Error: means that we notice, accept, and even seek out only information that confirms or is consistent with a decision we have just made. ➢ Escalating Commitment: This occurs as a decision to increase effort and perhaps apply more resources to pursue a course of action that is not working. ➢ Framing Error: Trying to solve a problem in the context perceived, positive or negative ○ Ex. Suppose, data show that a particular product has a 40 percent market share. A negative frame views the product as deficient because it is missing 60 percent of the market. The likely discussion would focus on: “What are we doing wrong?” Alternatively, the frame could be a positive one, looking at the 40 percent share as a strong market foothold. Creative Decision making ➢ Creativity is the generation of a novel idea or unique approach that solves a problem or crafts an opportunity ○ Big-C creativity occurs when extraordinary things are done by exceptional people ■ Ex. iphone or ipad - Steve Job’s ○ Little-C creativity occurs when average people come up with unique ways to deal with daily events and situations

Week 3: Management Learning: Past to Present

Four guiding principles of scientific management (Frederick Taylor) 1. Develop a “science” that includes rules of motion, standardized work implements, and proper working conditions for every job. 2. Carefully select workers with the right abilities for the job. 3. Carefully train workers to do the job and give them incentives to cooperate with the job “science.” 4. Support workers by carefully planning their work and by smoothing the way as they do their work. ➢ Practical insights from scientific management: ○ Make results-based compensation a performance incentive ○ Carefully design jobs with efficient work method ○ Carefully select workers with the abilities to do these jobs ○ Train workers to perform jobs to the best of their abilities ○ Train supervisors to support workers so they can perform jobs to the best of their abilities ➢ Scientific management (the Gilbreths) ○ Motion study ■ Science of reducing a job or task to its basic physical motions ■ Eliminating wasted motions improves performance ■ Frank and Lillian Gilbrith pioneered the use of motion studies as a famous tool in management. They reduced the number of motions for bricklayers and found that it was three times more productive. Yay ➢ Practical insights from scientific management ○ Make results-based compensation a performance incentive ○ Carefully design jobs with efficient work methods ○ Carefully select workers with the abilities to do these jobs ○ Train workers to perform jobs to the best of their abilities ○ Train supervisors to support workers so they can perform jobs to the best of their abilities Administrative prin...