Strategic View - Role of Management in Building a Successful Business

Introduction: Management is the process of guiding the development, maintenance, and allocation of resources to attain organizational goals. The five primary functions of managers are planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling. Mintzberg (management guru) published his ten management roles in his book, "Mintzberg on Management: Inside our Strange World of Organizations," in 1990. Let’s have a look what he had to say on management roles.

Mintzberg divided his ten managerial roles into three main categories, as follows:

1. Interpersonal

Figurehead: As a manager, you have social, ceremonial and legal responsibilities. You're expected to be a source of inspiration. People look up to you as a person with authority, and as a figurehead.

Leader: This is where you provide leadership for your team, your department or perhaps your entire organization; and it's where you manage the performance and responsibilities of everyone in the group.

 Liaison: Managers must communicate with internal and external contacts. You need to be able to network effectively on behalf of your organization. 

2. Informational

Monitor: In this role, you regularly seek out information related to your organization and industry, looking for relevant changes in the environment. You also monitor your team, in terms of both their productivity, and their well-being.

Disseminator: This is where you communicate potentially useful information to your colleagues and your team.

Spokesperson: Managers represent and speak for their organization. In this role, you're responsible for transmitting information about your organization and its goals to the people outside it.

3. Decisional

Entrepreneur: As a manager, you create and control change within the organization. This means solving problems, generating new ideas, and implementing them.

 Disturbance Handler: When an organization or team hits an unexpected roadblock, it's the manager who must take charge. You also need to help mediate disputes within it.

 Resource Allocator: You'll also need to determine where organizational resources are best applied. This involves allocating funding, as well as assigning staff and other organizational resources.

 Negotiator: You may be needed to take part in, and direct, important negotiations within your team, department, or organization.

Nobody has been able to explain role of manager better than Mintzberg. He laid down foundation for the future as far as role of managers are concerned but one need’s to understand what are the tiers of management so that functions of management could be well understood.

There are three main tiers of management i.e. top , middle & front line management. All three are managers and all comes with the same roles / characteristics explained by Mintzberg. These are the three main categories and their main tasks are:

• Top Level of Management.
• Middle Level of Management.
• Lower Level of Management or Supervisory, Operative

Strategic Planning: Top Management: Strategic planning involves deciding and developing strategic plans to achieve strategic objectives (or goals). Top management typically develops the strategic plans. These decisions or plans are normally long term decisions, which are having implications for the next five years and above.

Tactical Planning: Middle Management: Tactical planning is done at middle management level, which mainly involves the resource acquisitions and utilizations to achieve the organizational goals. Tactical plans cover shorter time frames and are associated with less uncertainty and hence lower risk as compared to strategic planning.

Operational Planning: Lower Level of Management: The operational planning decisions are taken at the bottom level of management and these are routine decisions. These plans are prepared to establish actions necessary for achieving operational goals. These cover shorter time frame i.e. within a year

Let’s discuss top level management main responsibilities:

Setting Corporate Goals & Culture: If you want to succeed in your business, you need to set clear goals. Without goals your business lack focus and direction. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your business & also it give life's direction; it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Present studies suggest goals must be SMART. What this SMART means:

1.  Specific.

2. Measurable.

3. Attainable.

4. Relevant.

5. Time Bound.

Communicating Company Goals: It is very important that you communicate clearly what your goals are so that everybody is on board. Goals must be in written form with clarity, post your goals in visible places to remind yourself every day of what it is you intend to do. Put them on your walls, desk, computer monitor, bathroom mirror or refrigerator as a constant reminder.

Understanding Financial Aspects of Business: Financial planning is the task of determining how your business will afford to achieve its strategic goals and objectives. The Financial Plan describes each of the activities, resources, equipment and materials that are needed to achieve these objectives, as well as the timeframes involved. Here are main steps to financial planning success:

• Defining and agreeing your financial objectives and goals.
• Gathering your financial and personal information.
• Analyzing your financial and personal information.
• Development and presentation of the financial plan.
• Implementation and review of the financial plan regularly. 

Ensuring Management Involvement: You need to make sure all within management tier are involved in strategy planning have understood essence and implantation is constantly monitored.

Offering Guidance or Assistance: As a top manager guidance and assistance to all involved is key because creating goals, vision and strategy is role of top management but if all this is not understood by middle or front line mangers then results could be catastrophic or dangerous. Guidance on every step is key to success.

Motivation: Employee motivation is defined as the enthusiasm, energy level, commitment and the amount of creativity that an employee brings to the organization on a daily basis. Motivation is derived from the Latin word, “movere” which literally means movement. Lets see what is essential for employee motivation.

 Maslow's hierarchy of needs- Figure

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A theory of Human Motivation" in the journal Psychological Review. No body has explained better motivation model yet, his model caters for all aspects of human needs required for motivation of humans.

Leadership by example: This means you're guiding others through your behavior and inspiring them to do the same as you. When you lead by example, you provide a path to direct others down so that everyone is working toward a common goal with the same purpose. At the time of crisis / need everyone requires a leader who can lead by example.

Performance Management (PM): This is applicable on organization and employees both. It can be defined as the process of ensuring that a set of activities and outputs meets an organization's goals in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management must focus on the performance of your organization, a department or an employee. Vigorous processes must be in place to manage employee performance because on the basis of this mechanism a system of reward or reprimand can be presented to all employees. Clear and transparent system would encourage good competition and productivity.  

Resolving Employee Disputes: When human interactions takes place there are always conflicts and grievances against each other. Professional organizations always cater for proper mechanism for dealing with conflicts & grievances. Usually an HR manger is responsible for performance management, training & development and grievances. If disputes are not sorted out when they arise then they can greatly effect efficiency or productivity of organization.  

Here are some tips to help you tactfully turn conflict into consensus between feuding employees.

• Understand the nature of the conflict.
• Encourage employees to work it out themselves if issue is minor.
• Nip it in the bud quickly and professionally.
• Listen to both sides because taking sides can effect culture & productivity.
• Determine the real issue, an initial inquiry can determine it quickly.
• Consult your employee handbook for grievances complaint process.
• Find a solution and never leave it to rot.
• Write it up because you can always refer back for counselling, learning and improvement of discipline.
• Training & Development: Very important aspect for growth and efficiency of business because if you won’t train and develop your workers then with time you would be facing difficulty. Professional organizations always have clear SOPs and clear job description / tasks for every role which exists within business. If any staff gets sick or face any kind of emergency then who would take over that particular task. In case of non-availability of trained staff business can come to halt resulting into poor productivity. In today’s IT world use of various IT tools efficiently can boost business success therefore training new workers and upgrading systems are important. This important HRM task should be given due consideration for smooth functioning of business. It is duty of top management to make sure dedicated HRM apparatus exists. This figure explains HR functions for better understanding :

 Decentralization of Tasks: Decentralization is a type of organizational structure in which daily operations and decision-making responsibilities are delegated by top management to middle and lower-level managers. This frees up top management to focus more on major decisions. This is a very important aspect because if tasks are not decentralized and distributed to each employee then with passage of time various issues would start to emerge. Some of the pros and cons could be:

a. Without clear tasking accountability and performance management issue would start to emerge.

b. Training & development of employees would be effected

c. Blame game culture can erupt and can effect morale & motivation of employees. 

d. Greater autonomy empowers employees and better for grooming of staff.

e.  Decentralization help prepare under command staff for emergencies in case of non-availability of top management.

f.  For a growing business, decentralization can facilitate the process of expansion. i.e. if expansion results in opening a new business unit in a different geographic area, decentralization allows the new unit to operate as an independent entity.

Conclusion: CEO & Directors make the key decisions in an organization. These top managers shape the goals, strategies, objectives and projects in a company. They take decisions which affect every person working in the organization and are ultimately responsible for the failure or success of the enterprise. Leadership, culture, processes and business models must change, otherwise companies, and the CEOs who run them, risk being blown away by the storm in an ever more competitive marketplace. Businesses with good CEOs who understands their responsibilities in ever changing technological advancements perform better so it is important to understand which strategy works and when. 

About Author:

Imran Hanif spent almost two decades in the army before moving to United Kingdom. He graduated from Prestigious Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) as commissioned officer. PMA is equal to Sandhurst in United Kingdom and West Point in USA. He is a graduate of Police management course (train the trainer) from Centre of Excellence for Stability Police Units (COESPU) in Vicenza, Italy. He got early retirement in 2008 at his own request and pursued his post-graduation degrees of Master of Business Administration (MBA) from University of Huddersfield (West Yorkshire, England) and post-graduate diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership from Chartered Management Institute (CMI) London, UK. He achieved the ultimate accolade in management and awarded Chartered Manager (CMgr) status. He is Fellow of Chartered Management Institute (FCMI) and Institute of Manager & Leaders (Australia & New Zealand) both. He is also Member of International Professional Security Association (MIPSA) and try to keep himself abreast of latest developments in the field of Strategy & Security. He has been freelance trainer in the field of Conflict Management, Physical Intervention, Security guarding within Private Security Industry in UK. He has spent almost four years researching and writing his book titled “Storm over Kabul” which reveals all dimensions of Afghan Conflict including a way forward and a logical conclusion for peace and stability in the region. Presently he is CEO of two business in Melbourne, Australia.