Organizational Characteristics and Management Essentials

Chapter 1

Three Characteristics of Organizations

• Organizations have distinct purposes (goals).
• Goals can only be achieved through people. An organization’s people make decisions and engage in work activities to make the goals a reality.
• Organizations develop a systematic structure that defines and limits the behavior of its members, e.g., rules and regulations, job descriptions, work teams.

Organizations are collections of people who work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals and desired future outcomes.

Goal of organizations: Profit, survival, interest. Different interest groups in the organization may have different goals.

Organizations exist because they reduce transaction costs (search costs, negotiation costs, etc.).

In its simplest definition, management is the art of getting things done through people.

Managers are the people responsible for supervising and making the most of an organization's human and other resources to achieve its goals.

The universality of management applies to all sizes of organizations, all organizational areas, all types of organizations, and all organizational levels.

Improving Interactions and Relationships

Better interaction with co-workers: It is important to understand how our group mates may think about work attitudes, job structure, organizational culture, and all other important aspects of work life in an organization.

Better relationships with your supervisors: Understanding "Why bosses do what they do, and say what they say?"

It is important to understand the company’s strategic management and leader power and leadership behavior. As an employee, you need to understand what your boss and company expects of you.

Managerial Skills for Success

Managerial skills for success in an organization:

Technical Skills

• The ability to perform specific jobs.
• Consist of job-specific knowledge needed to perform well in a specialized field. The ability to perform a specific job.
• Specialized knowledge (including when and how to use the skills).

Human Skills

• The ability to interact well with people.
• Consist of the ability to work well in cooperation with people to get things done. Soft skills such as the ability to motivate and communicate are necessary for all managers.
• Sensitivity, persuasiveness, empathy.

Conceptual Skills

• The ability to think analytically.
• Consist of the ability to visualize an organization as a whole and understand how the parts work together.
• Logical reasoning, judgment, analytical ability.

Top Management: Conceptual - Interpersonal - Technical

Middle Management: Interpersonal - Conceptual - Technical

Front-Line Management: Technical - Interpersonal - Conceptual

How to manage different people: Pay attention to their needs.

Management as Science and Art

Management is a science: research, data, and theories; specific frameworks to solve specific problems; specific management language/terminologies; show logical thinking.

Management is an art: Managers are to solve problems, using relevant specific management theories and concepts.