Sustainable Growth:

Effective Management

Traditional Management Model

The command-and-control, rigid, mechanical model for simple mass-market businesses

Setting Objectives

An objective is a specific step, a milestone, which enables you to accomplish a goal. Setting objectives involves a continuous process of research and decision-making. Knowledge of yourself and your unit is a vital starting point in setting objectives... More

Organizing the Group

Unless the way in which your unit, or group, is organized is suitable for its purposes and the people in it, failure will result. Once you have set the objectives, analyzed the activities, decisions, relations needed, and classified the work, divide it into manageable activities and further divide the activities into manageable jobs. Group these units and jobs into an organization structure, select people for the management of these units and for the jobs to be done... More

Motivating and Communicating

Motivation depends on having clear objectives. Since motivation is personal, aim to align staff's individual drives with the company's purposes in general and your unit's in particular.

"Most companies are filled with people who have no clue of the big picture - what the organization is really trying to accomplish - and because they don't feel that they or their contributions are important, they do their job... and nothing more".⁵ To unleash the power of your organization and achieve exceptional results, you must empower employees and motivate them to follow through on your strategic focus... More

Measuring Performance

The basic purpose of any measurement system is to provide feedback, relative to your goals, that increases your chances of achieving these goals efficiently and effectively. Measurement gains true value when used as the basis for timely decisions.

The ultimate aim of implementing a performance measurement system is to improve the performance of the organization. If you can get your performance measurement right, the data you generate will tell you where you are, how you are doing, and where you are going... More

Developing People

Developing people is achieved by careful, planned and motivational delegation of responsibility and duty. Trust and know your colleagues. "Organizations are no longer built on force. They are built on trust." Rather than relying on your powers, provide a spur, use the powers within people.

Decentralization and Delegation

At a certain point, there are just too many facets to running a successful business to continue doing it alone. In an increasingly complex business environment, with all the trends affecting business today, such as globalization, the information technology explosion, strategic alliances, increased mergers and acquisitions, heightened competition, and higher expectations of nearly every customer, it just isn't possible to still be that one person in control of everything. One person alone can't do everything a growing business requires - at least not as quickly or as well as it needs to be done.

Building a team and bringing in others to manage is an absolute necessity for survival now.

The main principle of decentralization is telling people what is to be done, but letting them achieve it their own way. The leader should concentrate on his or her core competence areas and only do the tasks that nobody else can do. Other tasks should be delegated.

Delegation is the process that makes management possible, because management is the process of getting results accomplished through others. A manager should provide team members with the information they require to do a good job, communicating with them frequently, and giving them clear guidelines on the results that are expected. Further, managers must also take the "relationship responsibility" for those with whom they work... More

29 Obstacles To Innovation

• Micromanagement

• Innovation not part of the performance review process... More

Transition to the New Management Model

For a long time, the conventional wisdom in business was that managers was that managers should do little else but keep a close eye on what their subordinates were doing: monitor, supervise, control. Making sure that things below were proceeding properly - that's all that managers were supposed to do. "Not to inspire. Not to give junior managers the chance to do things on their own. Not to have direct contact with the men and women who actually produced the company's products."⁶

These old traditional ways of managing not longer work and will never work again. In the new knowledge-driven economy, people have become your firm's most precious and underutilized resource. They are your firm's repository of knowledge and they are central to your company's competitive advantage. Well coached, and highly motivated people are critical to the development and execution of strategies, especially in today's faster-paced, more perplexing world, where top management alone can no longer assure your firm's competitiveness. These new realities brought about a new management model.

 Case in Point  25 Lessons from Jack Welch

When Jack Welch became CEO of General Electric (GE) in 1981, the system of management in place, commonly referred to as "command and control" was the same system that large corporations had used for years. "Workers worked, managers managed, and everyone new their place. Forms and approvals and bureaucracy ruled the day."⁷ Welch's goal was to make GE "the world's most competitive enterprise." He knew that it would take nothing less than a "revolution" to transform that dream into a reality. This self-proclaimed revolution meant waging war on GE's old ways of doing things and reinventing the company from top to bottom.

In the company's 1993 Annual Report, Welch noted, "To be blunt, the two quickest ways to part company with GE are, one, to commit an integrity violation, or, two, to be controlling, turf-defending oppressive manager who can't change and who saps and squeezes people rather than excites and draws out their energy and creativity."

Today, GE with its unique learning culture and boundaryless organization is one the most admired company in the world. The techniques and ideas that Welch has employed to move GE forward are applicable to any size corporations, small, medium, or large.⁶