Great management is vital to success in any business enterprise. In the past years since I have been a consultant, I came to recognize that good management was a critical ingredient in the success of most of the companies that I consulted for. Management is a lot about doing things right, which is synonymous to good leadership; which is doing things right. Most management structures today are invested in complex organizational methods more than in the actual art of solutions formulation. This causes companies to depend on rules that are expected to reach certain results instead of devising strategic methods that are in place to appreciate every business crisis for the problem that they are. Companies should invest in making business problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone involved wants to get to work and deal with them, rather than refer to a set of precedent manuals that usually proof to be outdated for each new problem. The business world is ever evolving and so are the problems that management teams face. A solutions based culture is my recommendation for every management department in the 21st century company environment.
Many management departments believe that pragmatism is the best approach to a company’s business challenges. Hence, most managers are stuck within a world of timeframes that are dictated by the very problems that they are facing. I found more managers struggling with the time it took to achieve results than the actual result itself. Time management is an oxymoron. Managing time is beyond our control and business development continues no matter what any management team constructs as a solution to a problem at any given time. Priority management on the other hand in my experience has proven to be more beneficial to a manager as it allows the manager to maximize the time available to solve problems in any given business development environment. Managers must address necessary things first and then relevant things all day. To do this effectively, companies should allow managers the flexibility of developing work patterns that allow management to engage solution givers directly; such as employees, and also allow management to consider the priority of a solution versus the general output expectation of the company. Developing dynamic and diverse solutions based packages for the problems companies face in business development is vital. This process can only be successful if management is functionally tied to the human resources of a company. It is a known truth that employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person are typically more productive, more satisfied with their employment, and more fulfilled as professionals. Satisfied employees translate to satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.
As much as most corporate leadership will like to remain more executive and less functional, it is important to note that these two areas are usually in a structural synonymy. Effective leadership is putting first things first, and efficient management is discipline, carrying it out. The most successful business managers have found this to be true which is why thriving companies in the 21st century business environment seek to utilize managers who usually have a hands-on quality to their business approach. The kind of management I describe is one that sees challenging environments as a place where goals must be set with a clear premeditated vision on how to arrive at those goals. After that, good management would have designed an environment in which the appropriate tools with which to work with the objectives that they’ve outlined for themselves are possible. From then on, it will be dependent on management to arrange, rearrange, prioritize, reprioritize, and all the while recording the progresses made. It is also a vital quality in such an environment for there to be a good working relationship between all the essential structures of the company as this will promote a nurturing leadership that has the ability to enhance and diversify the inputs and outputs of management and human resources combined.
Many managers tend to fall in the category of the “conductor of an orchestra”. It is an old management myth that demands nothing more of the executive but just directives. Corporations are notorious for placing managers on an unchallengeable pedestal where like an orchestra’s conductor, all you need to do is wave your baton and things get done. This sort of environment assumes that all the players are at the top of their game and that the objective is singular. Yet good management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong. To arrive at the point where things can simply work in synergy; such as the accounting department chiming with the marketing department efficiently, managers have to have done the work of constructing the environment for such synergy to work in the first place. Therefore, good management must invest a great deal in planning when approaching business challenges that are and those that are anticipated. When managers face business challenges it is usually because the resources at hand are dysfunctional, degraded, poorly coordinated, or ill applied. Take for example an un-integrated corporate structure where marketing, accounting, and human resources departments are all doing their own thing with their own objectives and with their own budgets. What a manager will start to see is a poor general output for the company as all these departments are competing for the same general resource; corporate finance. The only way to avoid this sort of scenario will be to pre-insulate the company’s business process approach with a sustainable management strategy that promotes an equitable distribution of resources. Where there is no room for outperforming your complementing department since the objective as a whole is profitability for the company. This kind of management will eliminate the conductor phenomenon that is typical of most business management.
In summary, 21st century managers should strive at developing executive platforms that are keen on firstly respecting the rules and regulations of the playing field. The business environment I mean; where the ethics associated with the industry in question are a priority in the application of management methods. Second, management should consider a “at par” standard with the rest of the production team. This will allow for the full productivity of entire organizations and guarantee that all inputs are valued in the event of a successful output. Finally, even when organizations must be lead, good leadership must include in depth involvement. Managers should become more involved in the solutions giving rather than remain on the pedestal of solutions design.
Edmond A. Arrey©