managerial functions and roles

8/8/2019 Managerial Functions and Roles

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Name: Sharman Mohamed Shariff Student ID No.CGS00421017Center of Graduate Studies MPM Intake: May 2009

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

Case: New Harry Potter Park at UniversalSource: Certo, Samuel & Trevis (2009) Modern Management 10e, pp. 49

Question 1aDo you think it will be difficult for you to become a successful manager? Explain

Managers influence all phases of modern organization. In order to become a successful

manager, one must first have a complete understanding of what the management task

entails. Management expert, Peter Drucker stated that effective management is

probably the main resource of developed countries and the most needed resource of

developing ones.

Essentially, the role of managers is to guide organizations toward goal accomplishment.

Managers are the ones whom are responsible for combining and using organizational

resources to ensure that their organizations achieve their purposes. Because the

process of management emphasizes the achievement of goals, managers must keep

organizational goals in mind at all times.

On the road to becoming a successful manager, a full and complete comprehension of

the four basic management functions is essential. These are:

• Planning Planning involves choosing tasks that is essential to attain

organizational goals, outlining how the tasks would be performed, and indicating

when the tasks should be carried out. Planning activity focuses on attaining

goals. Through these plans, managers outlines ‘success blueprints’, that

organizations must adhere to in order to be successful. Planning is essential in

getting the ‘right’ things done. Planning is concerned with organizational success

in the near future (short term) as well as in the more distant future (long term).

• Organizing From planning, tasks are developed and assigned in an organize

way to various individuals or groups within the organization. Organizing then,

creates a mechanism to put plans into action. Organizing includes determining

tasks and groupings of work. Organizing should be flexible and adaptable.



• Influencing Influencing is also commonly referred to as motivating, leading,

directing , or actuating – is concerned primarily with people within organizations.

Influencing can be defined as guiding the activities of organization members in

appropriate directions. An appropriate direction is any direction that helps the

organization move toward goal attainment. The ultimate purpose of influencing is

to increase productivity.

• Controlling Controlling is the management function which managers:

1. Gather information that measures recent performance within the

organization.

2. Compare present performance to preestablished performance standards.

3. From this comparison, determine whether the organization should be

modified to meet preestablished standards.

Controlling is an ongoing process. Managers continually gather information,

make their comparisons, and then try to find new ways of improving production

through organizational modification.

Planning, organizing, influencing and controlling are integrally related and therefore

cannot be separated in practice. Managers use these activities solely for reaching

organizational goals.

To be effective, and thus, successful, a manager must understand how the four management functions are practiced, not simply how they are defined and related. In

their book In Search of Excellence, Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

suggest that planning, organizing, influencing and controlling should be characterized

by a bias for action; a closeness to the customer; autonomy and entrepreneurship;

productivity through people; a hands-on, value-driven orientation; ‘sticking to the

knitting’; a simple organizational form with a lean staff; and simultaneous loose-tight

properties.

Successful managers are not born – they are made. They learn what works and what

does not through trial and error, and it is these experiences that make them invaluable.

Is it difficult to achieve? Only with perseverance and knowledge would one succeed in

becoming a successful manager.




Question 1bWhat do you think you would like most about being a manager? What would you

like least?

Our society in general could neither exist nor improve without a steady stream of

managers to guide its organizations. All societies desperately need good managers.

Management is important to society as a whole as well as vital to many individuals who

earn their livings as managers. Many people who originally trained to be accountants,

teachers, financiers, or even writers eventually make their livelihoods as managers.

Although in the short term, the demand for managers varies somewhat, in the long term,

managerial position can yield high salaries, status, interesting work, personal growth,

and intense feelings of accomplishment.

An intense feeling of accomplishment would probably be the thing I would like most

about being a manager. It is a testament of one’s ability in being both effective as well

as efficient. Nothing can beat the feeling of knowing that you have fully utilize all of your

faculties and an undertaking or a project is a success due to your managerial skills and

intellect. A thorough understanding of technical issues, humans and concepts are the

skills that are most important for a successful management performance.

Another source of satisfaction for me, at least, by virtue of being a manager, I could

harness and channel people in my organization to realize their true potential. I believe

by leading by example, people I manage could strive for higher status in an organization

hierarchy. Again, by fully understanding human nature, one could motivate their

subordinate to give their very best to the organization.

And of course, monetary rewards would also be one of the reasons I would like most

about being a manager. A reward accorded to you base on merit and your excellent

performance is a way an organization is saying ‘thank you’ on a job well done.

Unfortunately, all these job satisfaction must come with a price. Long hours at work,

bringing work back to home, dealing with ‘difficult’ people and not having much time for

the family are some of the gripes I would have in being a manager. Having said that, if



and when you are already in a position of a manager, you will learn to manage your

time and be expected to act and conduct yourself in a professional manner.




Question 1cThe case indicates that Tom Williams, chairperson at Universal, will face the

challenge of building the new Harry Potter theme park. Assuming that you areWilliams, list and describe five activities that you think you will have to performas part of this job.

The term management can be, and often is, used in different ways. It can refer simply to

the process managers follow in order to accomplish organizational goals. It can also

refer to a body of knowledge; where in this context, management is a cumulative body

of information that furnishes insights on how to manage. The term management can

also refer to individuals who guide and direct organizations or to a career devoted to the

task of guiding and directing organizations.

Management is the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and

through people and other organizational resources where as the manager is the one

responsible to guide organizations toward goal accomplishment.

The five activities that a manager must partake would follow the ethos of management

functions, where the first four basic functions are:

• Planning – choosing tasks that must be performed; which comes first and which

comes later. Outlining of how a task should be undertaken and indicating the

time the task should be carried out. A planning activity focuses on achieving

goals.

• Organizing – organizing creates a mechanism of putting what has been planned

into action. Organizing however, should not be rigid, but adaptable and flexible to

meet challenges as circumstances change.

• Influencing – influencing involves leading and guiding organization members in

appropriate direction. An appropriate direction is any direction as long as

organization goals could be achieve. Ultimately, the purpose of influencing is to

maximize production.

• Controlling – managers practices control in order to know:

recent performance within the organization

to compare between recent performances with a pre-established baseline



to deduce whether any modification to pre-established baseline is

warranted base on the comparison done above

• Management of Organizational Resources

Management must always be aware of the status and use of organizational

resources. These resources are:

Human

Monetary

Raw materials

Capital

Organizational resources are combined, used and transformed into finished

products during the production process.

It is these combination and culmination of activities that are important for any manager

to kick-start his work. These would be the main activities he or she would have to

perform day in day out during the tenure of the project.

REFERENCE

1. Certo, S & Certo, T (2009) Modern Management 11e, Pearson Prentice Hall.

managerial functions and roles

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