Management and Strategic Planning Overview

Management

• Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to meet organizational goals.
• Managers are in charge of an organization or a subgroup.
• Managers create an environment and provide resources for employees to excel.
• Managers effectively and ethically guide their employees.
• Henry Mintzberg's managerial roles include interpersonal, informational, and decisional roles.

Planning

• Planning establishes objectives and goals for an organization and determines the best ways to accomplish them.
• Strategic plans establish the actions and resource allocation required to accomplish a cohesive and collective goal.
• Strategic planning process consists of six steps.

Strategic Planning Process

• Define Mission, Vision, and Core Values:
  • Mission statement: Why does the company exist and what it aims to accomplish for its stakeholders.
  • Vision statement: What a company aspires or dreams to be.
  • Values: Short list of principles that guide a company's decisions and behaviors.
• Perform SWOT Analysis: Analyze the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Develop Forecasts: Predict future trends that might influence the company's operations.
• Analyze the Competition: Understand the competitive landscape to identify rivals and their strategies.
• Establish Goals and Objectives: Define specific and measurable targets.
• Develop Action Plans: Create detailed plans to achieve the set goals and objectives.

Organizing

• Organizing arranges resources to carry out the organization's plans.
• Organizing involves tasks such as job design, departmentation, delegation of authority, span of control, and chain of control.

The Management Pyramid

• Top Managers: Set goals and reward plans, define the mission, vision, values, and culture of the organization. Focus on conceptual knowledge.
• Middle Managers: Develop plans to implement the goals of top managers and coordinate the work of first-line managers. Focus on interpersonal knowledge.
• First-Line Managers: Supervise non-managerial employees and implement plans set by higher management. Focus on technical knowledge.

Leading

• Leading guides and motivates people to work toward organizational goals.
• Establish SMART goals and objectives.
• SMART Goals are:
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-limited
• Cognitive intelligence involves reasoning, problem-solving, memorization, and other rational skills.
• Emotional intelligence measures a person's awareness and ability to manage their own emotions and the emotions of others.
• Social Intelligence is the ability to grasp social situations and social dynamics, and to function effectively in social or group settings.

Controlling

• Controlling measures progress against goals and corrects deviations if results are not as expected.
• The control process includes establishing performance standards, measuring actual performance, comparing actual performance with objectives and standards, and taking necessary action.

Crisis Management

• Crisis management involves procedures or systems for minimizing harm caused by unusually threatening situations.

Leadership Styles

• Autocratic Leaders: Control the decision-making process and do not involve others.
• Democratic Leaders: Delegate authority and involve employees in decision-making. This is called participative management.
• Laissez-Faire Leaders: Leave most decisions up to employees, emphasizing employee empowerment.
• Participative Management (democratic): Employees can take part in planning and decision-making.
• Employee Empowerment (laissez-faire): Employees have decision-making and problem-solving authority from management.

Difference Between A Boss and A Leader

• A boss inspires fear.
• A leader generates enthusiasm.

Coaching and Mentoring

• Coaching: Helping employees reach their highest potential.
• Mentoring: Experienced managers guide less-experienced colleagues in the business.

Managing Change & Corporate Culture

• Managing Change:
  • Proactive Change: Planned changes needed by the organization.
  • Reactive Change: Companies are forced to change due to external factors.
• Model of Change:
  • Unfreezing the status quo.
  • Making the change.
  • Freezing new behaviors and methods to avoid people returning to the previous way of doing things.
• Corporate Culture: Underlying values, norms, and practices shared by members of an organization.
• Managers need to establish expectations, define rules and policies that shape behavior, and "walk the talk" to foster a strong corporate culture.

Essential Management Skills

• Interpersonal Skills: Skills required to understand other people and interact effectively with them.
• Technical Skills: Ability and knowledge to perform the mechanics of a particular job.
• Conceptual Skills: Ability to understand the relationship of parts to the whole.
• Decision-Making Skills:
  • Recognize and define the problem/opportunity.
  • Identify and develop options of actions.
  • Analyze the options.
  • Select the best option.
  • Implement the decision.
  • Evaluate the decision.

This quiz explores the fundamentals of management and the strategic planning process, including essential roles of managers and the steps involved in creating a strategic plan. Understand how planning, organizing, leading, and controlling help achieve organizational goals.