Chapter 6: Managing Human Resources 30/04/2012

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Chapter 1

• Organizations: a systematic arrangement of people brought together to

accomplish a specific purpose

• Three Characteristics All Organizations Share:

o Distinct purpose/goal expressed in terms of a goal or set of goals

o People that achieve that goal or purpose

o All organizations develop a deliberate and systematic structure that

defines and limits behavior of its members.

• Managers differences from Nonmanagerial Employees:

o Nonmanagerial employees are people who work directly on a job or

task and have no responsibility for overseeing work of others.

o Managers are individuals in an organization who direct and oversee

the activites of other people in the organization.

• Titles Managers Have:

o Top Managers are those who are responsible for making decisions

about the direction of the organization and establishing policies that

affect all organized members.

o Middle Managers are those who are responsible for translating

goals set by top managers into specific details that lower-level

managers will see get done.

o First-line Managers are supervisors responsible for directing the

day-to-day activities of Nonmanagerial employees.

• What is Management?

o Management is the process of getting things done, effectively and

efficiently, with and through other people.

o Managers job is to support the people doing work (upside pyramid)

• Efficiency v. Effectiveness

o Easier to be effective if you ignore efficiency

o Effectiveness is most important

• Four Management Functions to *Achieving the organization’s stated

purpose*:

o Planning- (French Scholar) defining goals, establishing strategy

(planning), and developing subplans to coordinate activities.

o Organizing- Determining what needs to be done, how it will be

done, and who is to do it.

o Leading – Directing and coordinating the work activities of an

organization’s people. AKA getting people to do something they

otherwise would not do, and getting them to do it.

o Controlling – Monitoring activities to ensure that they are

accomplished as planned.

• Manager’s roles include Leader, Liaison: coordinating the different sectors,

Monitor: knowing what is going on, and Spokesperson.

• Management/Manager Roles:

o Managerial roles – specific categories of managerial actions or

behaviors expected of a manager. *Conceptual – being able to see

big picture*

o Interpersonal roles – involve people and other duties that are

ceremonial and symbolic of nature. 3 interpersonal roles are

figurehead, leader, and liason. *Interpersonal skill- dealing with

people*

o Informational roles involve collecting, receiving, and disseminating

information. 3 informational roles include monitor, disseminator,

and spokesperson. *Technical skills are job specific knowledge and

techniques needed to perform work tasks*

o Decisional roles entail making decisions or choices. 4 decisional

roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and

negotiator. *Political skills to build power base and establish right

connections*

• As a person’s responsibilities increase the mix of skills changes

o First level managers

o Leading

o Organization becomes more important as does planning and

controlling with more responsibility

o As organizations get larger skills become specialized

• Anthropology- study of societies, which helps us learn about human

beings and their activities

• Philosophy- Inquire into the nature of things, particularly values and ethics

• Ethics: figuring out how to live without harming others

• Psychology: why do people do what they do

• Sociology: why do others interact with others the way that they do

• What do theories do?

o Explain and predict

• Innovation

o Innovation means doing things differently, exploring new territory,

and taking risks.

o Innovate or die.

History Module

• History of Management

• Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it –Gorge

Santayana

• History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes -Mark Twain

• The renaissance began at the end of the 14th century

• The pin effect, if you divide the work up, the result is each specialization,

and an increase of productivity.

• The downside is that this is tedious, and people do not enjoy their work.

o Taken from Robert Smith’s Wealth of Nations, 1974

o Known as the first economic book

• 1812-1911

o The US got into the industrial revolution rather late

o The civil war, the production of arms and ammunition, propelled the

US into the industrial revolution

o Huge waves of immigrants helped stimulate this growth

o Factories

The supervisor and the manager negotiated the wage rate.

The supervisor would negotiate the wage rate for the

mostly immigrant work force, who could not speak

English

This lead to unfair wage distributions

Frederick Taylor attempted to achieve social justice by

getting everyone a fair wage rate, using a scientific method

Taylor is unjustly hated, due to managers exploiting

Taylors technique to cheat the workers

Kurt Vonnegut

Anti-establishment

Wrote the book “Player Piano”

• Described how managers exploit workers

• Books name taken from the way a player piano

works, a skilled pianist plays a piece of music

and a roll of paper marks the notes. Then you

can roll it back and it depresses the keys for you

• Principle argument: This technology was not

only exploiting workers it was replacing workers

• Functions are what managers do. Principles are what managers should do

o Unity of command: all workers should receive commands from only

one superior.

o Scalar chain: each boss reports to their own boss.

o Unity of Direction: when an employee is at work, their main

direction should be to complete company work

o Remuneration: workers must be paid fairly for their work

o Centralization: A variable, the degree to which ordinary employees

are involved in the decision making process

Centralization: authority is contained to the top of the

pyramid

Decentralization: authority is spread out throughout the

organization

o Stability: managers should treat employees with dignity and

respect.

o Initiative: employees who are allowed to originate and carry out

plans will exert high levels of effort

o Esprit de Corps: promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity

within the organization

• Hawthorne Studies

o Engineers at Bell wanted to promote efficiency

Broke workers up into

Experimental group

Control group

Found to their surprise that productivity continued to go up

no matter what they did.

Study found that productivity went up because they were

being watched

Organizational/Industrial psychology

• Quantitative Approach

o 1940s

o if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it

o focus is shifted from what is important to what is easy

• Joseph M. Duran

o Total quality management: management philosophy devoted to

continual improvement and responding to customer needs and

expectations.

o US would not listen to his philosophy, so he took his strategy to

Japan, who began to beat US manufacturers.

• New management ideas are always coming up

o It’s not what you think it’s how you think

• There is no one best way

Chapter 12

• How Does the Communication Process Work? (7 Parts)

o The communication source or sender, encoding, the message, the

channel, decoding, the receiver, and feedback.

o Encoding – source initiates by encoding a thought. Four conditions

that affect are skill, attitudes, knowledge, and the social cultural

system. Media/Plural and Medium/Singular

o The Message – actual physical product from source that conveys

some purpose. (speaking, writing, painting, gesturing)

o The Channel – is the medium through which message travels.

Formal or informal: formal are established by organization and

transmit messages that pertain to job-related activities of

members.

o Decoding – the symbols in it must be translated into a form that can

be understood by the receiver – the decoding of the message.

(before message can be received to receiver)

o Feedback – the check on how successful we have been in

transferring our messages as originally intended.

o Barrier to communication – We all have a different dictionary in our

head, and arguing semantics; extremely important.

*Noise* Sender (Purpose) > Encoding (Message) >

Channel (Message) > Decoding (Message) >Receiver

> Feedback and circles back.

• Are written communications more effective than oral?

o Richard Draft

The richness of the medium should match the complexity of

the message

Richness: information carrying capacity of the medium

Richest medium: face-2-face

2nd Richest: live lecture

3rd Richest: video chats / face time

4th Richest: telephone

5th Richest: letter

Last Richest: email spread sheet

• Difficult to convey emotion in email

o If Medium is too rich : information overload

o If medium is not rich enough : ambiguity/uncertainty

• Grapevine: is the unofficial way that communications take place in an

organization. It’s neither authorized nor supported by the organization,

and grapevine gets information out to organizational members as quickly

as possible.

o Marvin Gay

o Origins: Civil War messages strung from trees

o Modern meaning: gossip

Rumor that human beings tend to create stories to explain

what they see.

When there is lack of trust, human tendency is to create the

most unfavorable interpretation

o What is a manager to do about the grapevine?

Do not suppress it, you cant

“Don’t think of white elephants”

Monitor the grapevine, by giving limited factual information

• How do nonverbal cues affect communication?

o Body language: nonverbal communication cues such as facial

expressions, gestures, and other body movements.

Actors excel at body language

“Ides of March”- George Clooney

“Steel Magnolias”- Julia Roberts

o Verbal Intonation: An emphasis given to words or phrases that

conveys meaning

• What barriers keep communication from being effective?

o Filtering: deliberately manipulating information to make it appear

more favorable to the receiver (bad)

o Selective Perception: receiving communications on the basis of

what one selectively sees and hears depending on his or her needs/

motivation, experience, background, and other personal

characteristics.

o Information Overload: when amount of information one has to work

with exceeds one’s processing capacity.

o Emotions: How the receiver feels when a message is received

o Language: Words have different meanings to different people.

Receivers will use their definition of words being communicated.

o Gender: How males and females react to communication may be

different, and they each have different communication style.

o National Culture: Communication differences arising from different

languages that individuals use to communicate and the national

culture of which they are part of.

• Jargon: technical language (Language affects communication)

o Not a bad thing if it facilitates communication within the

organization

o Only bad to outsiders who cannot understand

• How does gender affect communication?

o To keep gender differences from becoming persistent barriers to

effective communication requires acceptance, understanding, and a

commitment to communicate effectively with each other

o “You Just Don’t Understand”- Debora Tanning

explains how men and women differ in communication

o Which communication style is better? – neither

• Why should simplified language be used?

o Incontrovertible: cannot be argued with

o Constrained emotions

Recognize when your emotions are running high

When they are, don’t communicate until you have calmed

down

Be aware of what you are feeling so that you can control your

emotions

• Use Feedback: Check accuracy of what has been communicated—or

what you heard

• Simplify Language: Use words that the intended audience understands

• Listen Actively: Listen for the full meaning of the message without

making premature judgment or interpretation.

• Constrain Emotions: LOOK ABOVE USE FEEDBACK

• Watch Nonverbal Cues: Be aware your actions speak louder than

words. Keep the 2 consistent.

• Emotions: The trick is to understand your own emotions. Do not suppress

your emotions, control them! (Mad, Sad, Scared, Glad, Guilty, Ashamed)

• Active Listening:

o Recognizing emotions in others and reporting them

o Listening for a full meaning without making premature judgments

or interpretations.

o Listening disarms people

• Empathy: ability to recognize the emotions of others, and reflecting it

back to other people.

• Sympathy: when you start to feel the emotion of the other person.

• Three Developments in information technology appear to have

had significant effect on current managerial communication:

networked computer systems, wireless capabilities, and

knowledge management systems. Networked Communication

Capabilities include:

o E-mail, IM, voice mail, fax machines, electronic data interchange,

and 1v1 meetings

• How is technology affecting managerial communication?