Chapter 01 - The Exceptional Manager

PART 1 1 • INTRODUCTION The Exceptional Manager What You Do, How You Do It ©Olivier Renck/Aurora/Getty Images After reading this chapter, you should be able to: LO 1-1 Identify the rewards of being an exceptional manager. LO 1-2 List the four principal functions of a manager. LO 1-3 Describe the levels and areas of management. LO 1-4 Identify the roles an effective manager mustplay. LO 1-5 Discuss the skills of an outstanding manager. LO 1-6 Identify the seven challenges faced by most managers. LO 1-7 Define the knowledge, soft skills, attitudes, and other characteristics needed for career readiness and discuss how they can be developed. LO 1-8 Describe the process for managing your career readiness. FORECAST What’s Ahead in This Chapter We describe the rewards, benefits, and privileges managers might expect. We also describe thefour principal functions of management—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. We consider levels and areas of management and describe the three roles managers must play. Wedescribe the three skills required of a manager and the three roles managers play and discuss seven challenges to managers in today’s world. We then focus on a model of career readiness and offer tips for building your career readiness. The chapter concludes with a Career Corner that presents a process that can be used to develop your career readiness. Using Management Skills for College Success Our goal is to make this book as practical as possible for you. One place we do this is in the Manager’s Toolbox, like this one, which appears at the beginning of every chapter and offers practical advice for applying the topic of the chapter to your personal life and career. Here, for instance, we show you how to make teamwork one of your job strengths, starting now. This is an important skill that recruiters look for when hiring college graduates.1 Functions of Management In the chapter you will read about the four functions of management—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. They represent essential activities that all managers undertake in the course of doing their jobs. Although they may sound a little abstract right now, you can use them today to work more successfully on team projects assigned by your professors. Applying the Functions of Management to School Projects Consider the students in a Princeton University summer business program. Working in teams, they had 10 weeks to prepare a pitch for a start-up idea and ask for funding. One of the teams ran a four-week pilot after-school program for five Trenton, NJ girls and asked for $324,000 to scale the program up to include 40 girls on a year-round basis. Their pitch was that the program would help more young women graduate from high school and have a positive effect on the entire community. The students planned their pilot program, its budget, and its schedule and curriculum; they organized the four weeks of activities for the girls they recruited; they led the girls through each day’s events; and they used before and after surveys to control (that is, measure) the effects of their efforts. In other words, they relied on the four functions of management to ensure that they worked together to achieve their goals.2 Think about how you might make better use of planning and controlling in a team assignment for a course. You might draw up a detailed schedule of tasks and assign them to team members (planning), and then identify checkpoint dates on which you measure progress toward your deadline (controlling). You could set up a way to best use the resources at your disposal, such as time, library materials, personal expertise, and outside experts (organizing), and then use the progress checkpoints to motivate your fellow team members to continue putting forth their best effort (leading). The experience you can gain by using these essential management skills now will serve you well in your studies and throughout your career. Applying the Functions of Management in your Personal Life Consider how you might use the functions of management to lose 10 pounds. Your plan would include dates and times to exercise on your Google or Outlook calendar along with ideas for how you will change your eating habits. You then would make sure you have the resources (time, clothing, support network, dietary plan) to assist you along your weight loss journey (organizing). You also may find it valuable to have an exercise buddy during some of your workouts (leading). Alternatively, some people find it motivational to have someone hold them accountable via weekly weigh-ins (controlling). For Discussion Why would employers seek to hire people with good management skills? How can you strive to improve your managerial skills while working on class projects? 4 PART 1 Introduction 1.1 Management: What It Is, What Its Benefits Are THE BIG PICTURE Management is defined as the pursuit of organizational goals efficiently and effectively. Organizations, or people who work together to achieve a specific purpose, value managers because of the multiplier effect: Good managers have an influence on the organization far beyond the results that can be achieved by one person acting alone. Managers are well paid, with the chief executive officers (CEOs) and presidents of even small and midsize businesses earning good salaries and many benefits. LO 1-1 Identify the rewards of being an exceptional manager. When chief executive officer Mary Barra took the reins of Detroit-based General Motors (GM) in January 2014, she became the first female CEO of a global automaker anywhere in the world. She also became only the 22nd woman at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, one of those 500 largest U.S. companies that appear on the prestigious annual list compiled by Fortune magazine. (Other female CEOs of major companies are IBM’s Virginia “Ginni” Rometty, Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman, Lynne Doughtie of KPMG, Sofra Katz of Oracle, Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin, and Mondelez International’s Irene Rosenfeld.) What kind of a person is Barra, a 30-year GM veteran? She has been called “nearly impossible to dislike” and is credited with bringing a much-needed “calm stability” to GM. Among her many people skills is the ability to engage and motivate others, including top executives who may have vied for her job but who have been persuaded to stay and work with her.3 Are these qualities—which many people have—enough to propel someone to the top of a great organization? The Rise of the Die Maker’s Daughter The driving force. One quality that stands out about General Motors CEO Mary Barra is her obvious enthusiasm for cars. She is said to be given to talking excitedly about whatever car she is currently driving and what it demonstrates about GM’s product line. Do you think passion about one’s work is a necessary quality for managerial success? ©Mark Lennihan/AP Images The daughter of a die maker, Barra grew up in suburban Detroit, joined GM at age 18 as an intern on the factory floor, graduated from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) with a degree in electrical engineering, and then became a plant engineer in GM’s Pontiac Division. Spotting her talent, GM gave her a scholarship to Stanford University, where she earned a graduate degree in business. She then began moving up the GM ladder, first as the executive assistant to the CEO and then as the company’s head of human resources—formerly often as high as female executives ever got in the auto industry and many others. In 2011, Barra’s big break came when she was promoted to lead GM’s $15 billion vehicle-development operations, a high-profile role that became the stepping-stone to the CEO spot. In 2016, she was also made chairwoman of the board.4 Key to Career Growth: “Doing Things I’ve Never DoneBefore” Did it help that Barra has such deep experience in the auto industry and at GM in particular? No doubt it did. But there is another key to career growth—the ability to take risks. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, was holding down a lucrative job as a Wall Street hedge fund manager in the 1990s when he read that the Internet had recently grown 2,300% in a single year. Even though it meant leaving a stable job with a big bonus on the way, Bezos made the risky leap to the start-up he called Amazon, working out of a garage. “I knew that I might sincerely regret not having participated in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a revolutionizing event,” he says. “When I thought about it that way . . . it was incredibly easy to make the The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 5 decision.”5 Bezos built his company into the largest e-commerce hub in the world and now operates several other businesses and charities as well. He is one of the two or three richest people in the world. The Art of Management Defined Is being an exceptional manager a gift, like a musician having perfect pitch? Not exactly. But in good part it may be an art.6 Fortunately, it is one that is teachable. Management, said one pioneer of management ideas, is “the art of getting things done through people.”7 Getting things done. Through people. Thus, managers are task oriented, achievement oriented, and people oriented. And they operate within an organization—a group of people who work together to achieve some specific purpose. More formally, management is defined as (1) the pursuit of organizational goals efficiently and effectively by (2) integrating the work of people through (3) planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the organization’s resources. Note the words efficiently and effectively, which basically mean “doing things right.” ■ Efficiency—the means. Efficiency is the means of attaining the organization’s goals. To be efficient means to use resources—people, money, raw materials, and ■ Effectiveness—the ends. Effectiveness regards the organization’s ends, the goals. the like—wisely and cost-effectively. To be effective means to achieve results, to make the right decisions, and to successfully carry them out so that they achieve the organization’s goals. Good managers are concerned with trying to achieve both qualities. Often, however, organizations will erroneously strive for efficiency without being effective. Retired U.S. Army general Stanley McChrystal, former commander of all American and coalition forces in Afghanistan, suggests that effectiveness is a more important outcome in today’s organizations.8 EXAMPLE Efficiency versus Effectiveness: How Did Delta Airlines Deal with theEmergency at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport? Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is the busiest in the world, serving a quarter million passengers daily. So when an electrical fire blacked out the airport one Sunday afternoon before Christmas 2017, the potential for chaos was high. Over a long night without power, tens of thousands of passengers were stranded with no light, heat, or communications, and thousands of flights were canceled or diverted across the United States, disrupting travel for several days. The blackout halted computer systems, escalators, baggage carousels, inter-terminal transportation, and even the automatic soap dispensers and toilets in the airport’s restrooms. Passengers slept in the darkened airport overnight, unable to check social media, use travel apps, or recharge their phones, while employees gave out blankets, bottled water, and paper towels. Efficiency. Three-quarters of the airport’s traffic consists of Delta flights to and from more than 200 cities around the world.9 Atlanta is Delta’s hub and the location of its Operations and Customer Center, where 300 employees monitor local and global weather and air traffic. The Center had power during the Passengers scrambllng for help during the power outage at HartsfieldJackson Airport in Atlanta. Do you think more effective management might have prevented this accident? ©Jessica McGowan/Getty Images blackout, and emergency staff arrived to help rebook passengers and cope with 400 additional flight cancelations made on Monday because the needed planes had not been able to land 6 PART 1 Introduction the day before. Delta’s staff also had to get its pilots and crews from Atlanta to the cities where they were needed next, but without unlawfully lengthening their shifts. Delta distributed donated food at the terminal and reimbursed passengers for Atlanta hotel stays on Sunday night. Those who rebooked flights were given waivers to make the change. On Monday Delta was reporting progress. Gil West, Senior Executive Vice President and COO, said, “At the airport, Delta people . . . have been serving customers—from passing out refreshments to assisting customers with wheelchair support. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we’re nearly back to normal at our biggest hub.” By Tuesday the airline was reporting a nearly 90 percent on-time arrival rate at Atlanta, all passengers had been rebooked, and a dedicated phone line had opened to help reunite passengers with their luggage, most of which had already been delivered.10 Effectiveness. Passengers on one Delta flight spent six hours on the runway, consuming the plane’s stores of food and drinks until they could disembark. “Under the circumstances it was wellmanaged,” said one passenger, who praised Delta employees for doing their best to keep everyone calm and comfortable.11 Still, many who spent hours at the darkened airport wondering what happened felt Delta could have done more. Said one, “There was no one who could help us. There wasn’t a single Delta employee who knew what was going on. They could have at least used a megaphone to say, ‘This is what’s happening.’ ”12 Many others echoed these comments and said that despite a repeated recorded announcement that an emergency had occurred, no further information ever came. YOUR CALL The fire that caused the blackout was apparently an accident, partly attributed to aging equipment, a factor over which Delta may have little control though it is the airport’s major lessee. Some, including a former U.S. Secretary of Transportation who was stranded, saw “no excuse” for the failure of the airport’s backup power system.13 Delta believes the outage and ripple effects may have cost it $25 to $50 million and said it would seek reimbursement. “I don’t know whose responsibility it is between the airport and Georgia Power,” said Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian, “but we’re going to have conversations with both of them.”14 Do you think Delta handled the airport emergency efficiently? Could the airline have been more effective from a passenger’s point of view? How? Why Organizations Value Managers: The Multiplier Effect Some great achievements of history, such as scientific discoveries or works of art, were accomplished by individuals working quietly by themselves. But so much more has been achieved by people who were able to leverage their talents and abilities by being managers. For instance, of the top 10 great architectural wonders of the world named by the American Institute of Architects, none was built by just one person. All were triumphs of management, although some reflected the vision of an individual. (The wonders are the Great Wall of China, the Great Pyramid, Machu Picchu, the Acropolis, the Coliseum, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house in Pennsylvania.) Good managers create value. The reason is that in being a manager you have a multiplier effect: Your influence on the organization is multiplied far beyond the results that can be achieved by just one person acting alone. Thus, while a solo operator such as a salesperson might accomplish many things and incidentally make a very good living, his or her boss could accomplish a great deal more—and could well earn two to seven times the income. And the manager will undoubtedly have a lot more influence. The Financial Rewards of Being an ExceptionalManager How well compensated are managers? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly wage for full-time U.S. workers is $859, or $44,688 a year.15 Education pays: The median 2017 yearly income for full-time workers with at least a bachelor’s degree was $66,092, compared to $37,128 for high-school graduates. People employed full-time in management, professional, and related occupations had the highest median incomes, $73,372 for men and $55,016 for women.16 The Exceptional Manager The business press frequently reports on the astronomical earnings of top chief executive officers. The top earner in 2016 was Thomas Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, whose total compensation topped $98 million.17 Average compensation for CEOs at the 350 largest companies was $15.6 million in 2016, or 271 times the salary of the average worker, based on a survey by Fortune.18 The more usual median wage for CEOs in 2015 was $737,613, according to Salary.com, and for general and operations managers $102,750, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.19 Managers farther down in the organization usually don’t make this much, of course; nevertheless, they do fairly well compared with most workers. At the lower rungs, managers may make between $35,000 and $60,000 a year; in the middle levels, between $50,000 and $135,000. (For examples of managerial salaries, go to www.bls.gov/ooh/management/ home.html.) There are also all kinds of fringe benefits and status rewards that go with being a manager, ranging from health insurance to stock options to large offices. And the higher you ascend in the management hierarchy, the more privileges may come your way: personal parking space, better furniture, and—for those on the top rung of big companies— company car and driver, corporate jet, company-paid resort-area villa, and even executive sabbaticals (months of paid time off to pursue alternative projects). Best paid. Thomas Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, earned $98 million in 2016 making him the highest-paid manager in the United States that year. That’s far greater than the largest salary paid to any NBA player in that period ($25million to Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers). What do you think your chances are of making even$100 million in your entire lifetime? ©Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images What Are the Rewards of Studying and PracticingManagement? Are you studying management but have no plans to be a manager? Or are you trying to learn techniques and concepts that will help you be an exceptional management practitioner? Either way, you will use what you learn. Mike Dikison, for instance, is the curator of natural history at the Whanganui Regional Museum in New Zealand. As his recent “A Day in the Life . . .” blog post reveals, Dikison uses the skills of a manager every day, whether he is planning the loan of some rare mounted specimens to another organization, valuing the collection for insurance purposes, answering visitors’ questions, arranging publicity on social media for a guest lecturer who will speak about poisons in the environment, organizing a donated collection of bone specimens for display in the museum’s galleries, meeting with a community conservation group, or exploring the possibility of collaborative research with the Department of Conservation.20 Time management, people skills, mastery of interpersonal and e-communication, and the capacity to organize and plan are some of the management abilities that serve him well in his busy days. The Rewards of Studying Management Students sign up for an introductory management course for all kinds of reasons. Many, of course, are planning business careers, but others are taking it to fulfill a requirement or an elective. Some students are in technical or nonprofit fields—computer science, education, health, and the like—and never expect to have to supervise people. Here are just a few of the payoffs of studying management as a discipline: ■ CHAPTER 1 You will have an insider’s understanding of how to deal with organizations from the outside. Since we all are in constant interaction with all kinds of organizations, it helps to understand how they work and how the people in them make decisions. Such knowledge may give you skills that you can use in dealing with organizations from the outside, as a customer or investor, for example. 7 8 PART 1 Introduction ■ ■ ■ You will know from experience how to relate to your supervisors. Since most of us work in organizations and most of us have bosses, studying management will enable you to understand the pressures managers deal with and how they will best respond to you. You will better interact with co-workers. The kinds of management policies in place can affect how your co-workers behave. Studying management can give you the understanding of teams and teamwork, cultural differences, conflict and stress, and negotiation and communication skills that will help you get along with fellow employees. You will be able to manage yourself and your career. Management courses in general, and this book in particular, give you the opportunity to realize insights about yourself—your personality, emotions, values, perceptions, needs, and goals. We help you build your skills in areas such as self-management, listening, handling change, managing stress, avoiding groupthink, and coping with organizational politics. The Rewards of Practicing Management Many young people want not only to make money but also to make a difference. As Swarthmore psychology professor Barry Schwartz, author of Why We Work, suggests, “We care about more than money. We want work that is challenging and engaging, that enables us to exercise some discretion and control over what we do, and that provides us with opportunities to learn and grow.”21 Becoming a management practitioner offers many rewards apart from money and status, as follows: ■ ■ ■ ■ These three machinists are using several managerial skills to produce better products. One involves mentoring from the man in the middle. ©stockbroker/123RF You and your employees can experience a sense of accomplishment. Every successful goal accomplished provides you not only with personal satisfaction but also with the satisfaction of all those employees you directed who helped you accomplish it. You can stretch your abilities and magnify your range. Every promotion up the hierarchy of an organization stretches your abilities, challenges your talents and skills, and magnifies the range of your accomplishments. You can build a catalog of successful products or services. Every product or service you provide—the personal Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building you build, as it were—becomes a monument to your accomplishments. Indeed, studying management may well help you in running your own business. You can become a mentor and help others. According to one survey, 84% of workers who had a mentor—an experienced person who provided guidance to someone new to the work world—said the mentor helped them advance their careers.22 ● The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 1.2 What Managers Do: The Four PrincipalFunctions THE BIG PICTURE Management has four functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. What do you as a manager do to get things done—that is, to achieve the stated goals of the organization you work for? You perform what is known as the management process, also called the four management functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. (The abbreviation “POLC” may help you to remember them.) As the diagram illustrates, all these functions affect one another, are ongoing, and are performed simultaneously. (See Figure 1.1.) LO 1-2 List the four principal functions of a manager. FIGURE 1.1 Planning You set goals and decide how to achieve them. Controlling You monitor performance, compare it with goals, and take corrective action as needed. Organizing You arrange tasks, people, and other resources to accomplish the work. Leading You motivate, direct, and otherwise influence people to work hard to achieve the organization’s goals. Although the process of management can be quite varied, these four functions represent its essential principles. Indeed, as a glance at our text’s table of contents shows, they form four of the part divisions of the book. Let’s consider what the four functions are, using the management (or “administration,” as it is called in nonprofit organizations) of your college to illustrate them. Planning: Discussed in Part 3 of This Book Planning is defined as setting goals and deciding how to achieve them. Your college was established for the purpose of educating students, and its present managers, or administrators, now must decide the best way to accomplish this. Which of several possible degree programs should be offered? Should the college be a residential or a commuter campus? What sort of students should be recruited and admitted? What kind of faculty should be hired? What kind of buildings and equipment are needed? Organizing: Discussed in Part 4 of This Book Organizing is defined as arranging tasks, people, and other resources to accomplish the work. College administrators must determine the tasks to be done, by whom, and what the reporting hierarchy is to be. Should the institution be organized into schools with departments, with department chairpersons reporting to deans who in return report to The management process What you as a manager do to get things done—to achieve thestated goals of your organization. 9 10 PART 1 Introduction vice presidents? Should the college hire more full-time instructors than part-time instructors? Should English professors teach just English literature or also composition, developmental English, and “first-year experience” courses? Leading: Discussed in Part 5 of This Book Leading is defined as motivating, directing, and otherwise influencing people to work hard to achieve the organization’s goals. At your college, leadership begins, of course, with the president (who would be the chief executive officer, or CEO, in a for-profit organization). He or she is the one who must inspire faculty, staff, students, alumni, wealthy donors, and residents of the surrounding community to help realize the college’s goals. As you might imagine, these groups often have different needs and wants, so an essential part of leadership is resolving conflicts. Controlling: Discussed in Part 6 of This Book Controlling is defined as monitoring performance, comparing it with goals, and taking corrective action as needed. Is the college discovering that fewer students are majoring in nursing than they did five years previously? Is the fault with a change in the job market? With the quality of instruction? With the kinds of courses offered? Are the nursing department’s student recruitment efforts not going well? Should the department’s budget be reduced? Under the management function of controlling, college administrators must deal with these kinds of matters. ● I Wish My Manager… …was more of a leader than a manager. Tom Haley works in the motorcycle retail industry. “My boss is a great numbers guy,” said Tom, “But he is a manager and not a leader.” Tom’s manager strives at planning by setting achievable goals for each month, like prioritizing the sale of wheels over handlebars. And his manager strives at organizing by delegating the right tasks to the right people. “We pool togeTom Haley loves to ride. He also wishes his manager was more of a leader than a ther and talk about manager. Courtesy Tom Haley everyone’s individual strengths. We have oneemployee who is very computer savvy, so he takes care of the online orders. We have another employee who manages the work orders because he’s really good at itemizing and breaking the orders down properly. And we have other employees out on the floor because they are talented in sales,” said Tom. While Tom’s boss is successful at the planning and organizing steps of management, he is less successful at leading and controlling. Tom believes this is because his boss lacks human skills and doesn’t interact well with other people. “He has even said he doesn’t like to deal with people. He likes being back in the warehouse. He mostly stays behind the scenes,” said Tom. While Tom’s manager struggles with leading and controlling, there is another employee that Tom works with who functions as the team leader, even though he isn’t the manager. “Instead of just taking care of customers by himself and sending them on their way, he makes sure that the team sees what he does and why he does it so that if he’s ever not there, we’re able to give the customers the same kind of service.” “I remember the first time I witnessed his incredible talent onthe floor,” said Tom. “We had a gentleman come in who had visited five other dealerships and was really frustrated. He drove three hours to get to our store, and he was just tired and fed up. He said, ‘I’m trying to buy a bike and I want to make this happen, can you guys do it?’ And my co-worker, without missing abeat, said, ‘Whatever you want to do, I’ll make it happen.’” The customer came into the shop with a $3,000 budget. An hour and a half later, the customer’s total came out to $12,500 on top of the price of his motorcycle, but he was more than happy to pay extra. All because Tom’s co-worker made the customer excited to build his dream bike and worked with him to make it happen. “Truthfully, our motivation comes from sales commissions. But come winter time when things slow down, the motivation drags a little bit. But this leader’s personality keeps you intrigued and happy to keep coming into work every day.” The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 1.3 Pyramid Power: Levels and Areas ofManagement THE BIG PICTURE Within an organization, there are four levels of managers: top, middle, and first-line managers as well as team leaders. Managers may also be general managers, or they may be functional managers, responsible for just one organizational activity, such as Research & Development, Marketing, Finance, Production, or Human Resources. Managers may work for for-profit, nonprofit, or mutual-benefit organizations. The workplace of the future may resemble a symphony orchestra, famed management theorist Peter Drucker said.23 Employees, especially so-called knowledge workers—those who have a great deal of technical skills—can be compared to concert musicians. Their managers can be seen as conductors. In Drucker’s analogy, musicians are used for some pieces of music—that is, work projects—and not others, and they are divided into different sections (teams) based on their instruments. The conductor’s role is not to play each instrument better than the musicians but to lead them all through the most effective performance of a particular work. This model differs from the traditional pyramid-like organizational model, where one leader sits at the top, with layers of managers beneath, each of whom must report to and justify his or her work to the manager above (what’s called accountability, as we discuss in Chapter 8). We therefore need to take a look at the traditional arrangement first. The Traditional Management Pyramid: Levels and Areas A new Silicon Valley technology start-up company staffed by young people in sandals and shorts may be so small and so loosely organized that only one or two members may be said to be a manager. General Motors or the U.S. Army, in contrast, has thousands of managers doing thousands of different things. Is there a picture we can draw that applies to all the different kinds of organizations and describes them in ways that make sense? Yes: by levels and by areas, as the pyramid shows. (See Figure 1.2.) Three Levels of Management Not everyone who works in an organization is a manager, of course, but those who are may be classified into three levels—top, middle, and first-line managers. Nonmanagerial employees represent the foundation of an organizational pyramid. Top Managers: Determining Overall Direction Their offices may be equipped with expensive leather chairs and have lofty views. Or, as with one Internet company, they may have plastic lawn chairs in the CEO’s office and beat-up furniture in the lobby. Whatever their decor, an organization’s top managers tend to have titles such as chief executive officer (CEO), chief operating officer (COO), president, and senior vice president. Some may be the stars in their fields, the men and women whose pictures appear on the covers of business magazines, people such as Nike CEO Mark Parker or IBM CEO Virginia Rommety or Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy or Apple CEO Tim Cook, all of whom have appeared on the front of Fortune. Top managers make long-term decisions about the overall direction of the organization and establish the objectives, policies, and strategies for it. They need to pay a lot of LO 1-3 Describe the levels and areas of management. 11 12 PART 1 Introduction FIGURE 1.2 The levels and areas of management Top managers make long-term decisions, middle managers implement those decisions, and first-line managers make shortterm decisions. Team leaders facilitate team activities toward achieving a goal. Top managers Levels of Management Middle managers First-line managers Nonmanagerial employees Functional Areas R&D Marketing Finance Production Human resources attention to the environment outside the organization, being alert for long-run opportunities and problems and devising strategies for dealing with them. Thus, executives at this level must be future oriented, strategic, and able to deal with uncertain, highly competitive conditions. These people stand at the summit of the management pyramid. But the nature of a pyramid is that the farther you climb, the less space remains at the top. Thus, most pyramid climbers never get to the apex. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. Indeed, you might end up atop a much smaller pyramid of some other organization than the one you started out in—and happier with the result. Middle Managers: Implementing Policies and Plans Middle managers implement the policies and plans of the top managers above them and supervise and coordinate the activities of the first-line managers below them. Titles might include plant manager, Successful top manager. Indiaborn Satya Nadella, who joined Microsoft in 1992, became CEO of the technology company in early 2014 and has helped transition it to cloud computing. His net worth in 2018 was over $126 million. Do you see yourself joining a company and staying with it for life, as Nadella has (after an earlier job at Sun Microsystems), or is that even possible anymore? ©Justin Sullivan/Getty Images district manager, and regional manager, among others. In the nonprofit world, middle managers may have titles such as clinic director, dean of student services, and the like. Middle managers are critical for organizational success because they implement the strategic plans created by CEOs and top managers. (Strategic planning is discussed in Chapter 6.) In other words, these managers have the type of “high-touch” jobs—dealing with people rather than computer screens or voice-response systems—that can directly affect employees, customers, and suppliers. First-Line Managers: Directing Daily Tasks The job titles at the bottom of the managerial pyramid tend to be on the order of department head, foreman or forewoman, or supervisor—clerical supervisor, production supervisor, research supervisor, and so on. Indeed, supervisor is the name often given to first-line managers as a whole. Their salaries may run from $43,000 to $74,000 a year.24 Following the plans of middle and top managers, first-line managers make shortterm operating decisions, directing the daily tasks of nonmanagerial personnel, who are, The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 13 of course, all those people who work directly at their jobs but don’t oversee the work of others. No doubt the job of first-line manager will be the place where you would start your managerial career. This can be a valuable experience because it will be the training and testing ground for your management ideas. Nonmanagerial Employees Nonmanagerial employees either work alone on tasks or with others on a variety of teams. They do not formally supervise or manage other people, and they are the bulk of a company’s workforce. Areas of Management: Functional Managers versus General Managers We can represent the levels of management by slicing the organizational pyramid horizontally. We can also slice the pyramid vertically to represent the organization’s departments or functional areas, as we did in Figure 1.2. In a for-profit technology company, these might be Research & Development, Marketing, Finance, Production, and Human Resources. In a nonprofit college, these might be Faculty, Student Support Staff, Finance, Maintenance, and Administration. Whatever the names of the departments, the organization is run by two types of managers—functional and general. (These are line managers, with authority to direct employees. Staff managers mainly assist line managers.) Functional Managers: Responsible for One Activity If your title is Vice President of Production, Director of Finance, or Administrator for Human Resources, you are a functional manager. A functional manager is responsible for just one organizationalactivity. Google is particularly noteworthy for its unusual functional management job titles, such as Fitness Program Manager, Green Team Lead, and Vice President of Search Products & User Experience. Yahoo! also has unusual functional titles, such as VP of Talent Acquisition, VP Consumer Platforms, and VP of Research for Europe & LatAm. General Managers: Responsible for Several Activities If you are working in a small organization of, say, 100 people and your title is Executive Vice President, you are probably a general manager over several departments, such as Production and Finance and Human Resources. A general manager is responsible for several organizational activities. At the top of the pyramid, general managers are those who seem to be the subject of news stories in magazines such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, Forbes, and Inc. Examples are big-company CEOs Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, as well as small-company CEOs such as Gayle Martz, founder/CEO of GMinc who heads New York–based Sherpa’s Pet Trading Co., which sells travel bags. But not all general managers are in forprofit organizations. Susan L. Solomon is the chief executive officer of the nonprofit New York Stem Cell Foundation. As the parent of a 10-year-old boy diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, Solomon began reading widely about the disease and came to think that stem cells might transform the Nonprofit general manager. As CEO of the nonprofit New York Stem Cell Foundation, Susan L. Solomon does a lot of fundraising, along with directing the activities of the foundation’s research scientists, plus keeping up with the latest scientific research. “As a lawyer, you learn how to learn about a new field instantly,” she says. In addition, she learned how to read quickly—and “I’m really comfortable asking dumb questions.” Do you think managerial skills are different for nonprofit and for-profit organizations? ©D Dipasupil/Getty Images 14 PART 1 Introduction understanding and treatment of diabetes, which led her to co-found NYSCF as a research foundation out of her apartment in 2005. As CEO, Solomon has helped to raise $150 million, which makes NYSCF one of the biggest nonprofits dedicated to stem-cell research, employing 45 full-time scientists and funding 75 others around the world. Earlier she started out in law, then went into business and finance, worked for the online auction house Sothebys.com, then formed her own consulting business.25 Managers for Three Types of Organizations: For-Profit, Nonprofit, Mutual-Benefit There are three types of organizations classified according to the three purposes for which they are formed—for-profit, nonprofit, and mutual-benefit. 1. For-Profit Organizations: For Making Money For-profit, or business, organizations are formed to make money, or profits, by offering products or services. When most people think of “management,” they think of business organizations, ranging from Allstate to Zynga, from Amway to Zagat. There are 3,766 public companies in the United States today, more than 1,000 fewer than 40 years ago. A mere 30 of these firms accounted for half the total profit U.S. public firms made in 2015.26 2. Nonprofit Organizations: For Offering Services Managers in nonprofit organizations are often known as administrators. Nonprofit organizations may be either in the public sector, such as the University of California, or in the private sector, such as Stanford University. Either way, their purpose is to offer services to some clients, not to make a profit. Examples of such organizations are hospitals, colleges, and social-welfare agencies (the Salvation Army, the Red Cross). According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations are registered in the United States. This number includes public charities, private foundations, and other types of nonprofit organizations, including chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and civic leagues.27 One particular type of nonprofit organization is called the commonweal organization. Unlike nonprofit service organizations, which offer services to some clients, commonweal organizations offer services to all clients within their jurisdictions. Examples are the military services, the U.S. Postal Service, and your local fire and police departments. 3. Mutual-Benefit Organizations: For Aiding Members Mutual-benefit organizations are voluntary collections of members—political parties, farm cooperatives, labor unions, trade associations, and clubs—whose purpose is to advance members’ interests. There are nearly 10,000 such organizations.28 Different Organizations, Different Management? If you became a manager, would you be doing the same types of things regardless of the type of organization? Generally you would be; that is, you would be performing the four management functions—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling—that we described in Section 1.2. The single biggest difference, however, is that in a for-profit organization, the measure of its success is how much profit (or loss) it generates. In the other two types of organizations, although income and expenditures are very important concerns, the measure of success is usually the effectiveness of the services delivered—how many students were graduated, if you’re a college administrator, or how many crimes were prevented or solved, if you’re a police chief. ● The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 15 1.4 Roles Managers Must Play Successfully THE BIG PICTURE Managers tend to work long hours at an intense pace; their work is characterized by fragmentation, brevity, and variety; and they rely more on verbal than on written communication. According to management scholar Henry Mintzberg, managers play three roles—interpersonal, informational, and decisional. Interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader, and liaison activities. Informational roles are monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. Decisional roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator. Clearly, being a successful manager requires playing several different roles and exercising several different skills. We discuss managerial roles in this section and key managerial skills in the next. LO 1-4 Identify the roles an effective manager mustplay. The Manager’s Roles: Mintzberg’s Useful Findings Maybe, you think, it might be interesting to follow some managers around to see what it is they actually do. That’s exactly what management scholar Henry Mintzberg did when, in the late 1960s, he shadowed five chief executives for a week and recorded their working lives.29 And what he found is valuable to know, since it applies not only to top managers but also to managers on all levels. Consider this portrait of a manager’s workweek: “There was no break in the pace of activity during office hours,” reported Mintzberg about his subjects. “The mail (average of 36 pieces per day), telephone calls (average of five per day), and meetings (average of eight) accounted for almost every minute from the moment these executives entered their offices in the morning until they departed in the evening.”30 Only five phone calls per day? And, of course, this was back in an era before e-mail, texting, and Twitter, which nowadays can shower some executives with 100, even 300, messages a day. Indeed, says Ed Reilly, who heads the American Management Association, all the e-mail, cell-phone calls, text messaging, and so on can lead peoMultitasking. Multiple activities are characteristic of a manager—which is why ple to end up “concentrating on the urgent rather than so many managers use their smartphones to keep track of their schedules. Interestingly, although many of us multitask, research shows that very few the important.”31 people are good it. In general, multitasking reduces your productivity. Why do Obviously, the top manager’s life is extraordinarily you think this happens? ©Olivier Lantzendörffer/Getty Images busy. Here are three of Mintzberg’s findings, important for any prospective manager: 1. A Manager Relies More on Verbal Than on Written Communication Writing letters, memos, and reports takes time. Most managers in Mintzberg’s research tended to get and transmit information through telephone conversations and meetings. No doubt this is still true, although the technologies of e-mail, texting, and Twitter now make it possible to communicate almost as rapidly in writing as with the spoken word. 2. A Manager Works Long Hours at an Intense Pace “A true break seldom occurred,” wrote Mintzberg about his subjects. “Coffee was taken during meetings, and lunchtime was almost always devoted to formal or informal meetings.” Long hours at work are standard, he found, with 50 hours being typical and up to 90 hours not unheard of. More recently, decades following the Mintzberg 16 PART 1 Introduction research, another study found that many professionals worked a whopping 72 hours a week, including weekend work.32 In highly competitive industries such as finance and technology, where employees are often considered to be on call even when they’re not in the office, it’s not uncommon for many employees to work more than 60 hours a week.33 3. A Manager’s Work Is Characterized by Fragmentation, Brevity, and Variety Only about one-tenth of the managerial activities observed by Mintzberg took more than an hour; about half were completed in under 9 minutes. Phone calls averaged 6 minutes, informal meetings 10 minutes, and desk-work sessions 15 minutes. “When free time appeared,” wrote Mintzberg, “ever-present subordinates quickly usurped it.” No wonder the executive’s work time has been characterized as “the interrupt-driven day” and that many managers—such as GM’s Mary Barra—are often in their offices by 6 a.m., so that they will have a quiet period in which to work undisturbed. No wonder that finding balance between work and family lives—work–life balance, as we consider in Chapter 12—is an ongoing concern. No wonder, in fact, that the division between work and nonwork hours is considered almost obsolete in newer industries such as information technology, where people seem to use their smartphones 24/7 to stay linked to their jobs.34 It is clear from Mintzberg’s work that it is easy for managers to get distracted and lose focus and attention during the workday. The practice of mindfulness can help overcome these tendencies (see the Practical Action box, “Mindfulness: How Good Are You at Focusing Your Thoughts, Controlling Your Impulses, and Avoiding Distractions?”). PRACTICAL ACTION Mindfulness: How Good Are You at Focusing Your Thoughts, Controlling Your Impulses, and Avoiding Distractions? How many other things are you trying to do right now, besides read this chapter? If you are a fan of multitasking, you may want to challenge yourself to try its more effective opposite: practicing mindfulness. If you’ve never done it before, consider this challenge a practical test of your curiosity, it is an important soft skill. So what is mindfulness? Snake River at Grand Teton ©SeanXu/Getty Images Mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”35 In case you are thinking this sounds like an impractical trait for a busy manager to cultivate, consider that learning how to focus just on the task or conversation at hand is actually an invaluable way to get more done. By focusing on one thing at a time, you can complete it fully, put it behind you,and be ready to move on unencumbered by distracting thoughts. Multitasking, on the other hand, divides the mind’s attention and actually slows work down.36 One of the most effective strategies for increasing your ability to be mindful is meditation, which has also been shown to relieve anxiety and depression and improve sleep.37 Meditation can literally recharge your brain as well as strengthen your ability to break out of destructive thought patterns that have become habitual.38 There is even some evidence that meditation can improve your memory.39 All these are mental traits that will serve anyone well. Companies that now offer their employees mindfulness training include American Express, Ford, LinkedIn, General Mills, Intel, Goldman Sachs, Apple, Nike, and Target.40 A study at General Mills showed that after its 7-week program, 80% of The Exceptional Manager participating managers were making better decisions and nearly 90% felt they had become better listeners.41 Many businesses now believe that mindfulness leads to greater selfawareness, and that this, in turn, makes for stronger leaders who can better manage their own emotions as well as respond more effectively to the concerns of others.42 YOUR CALL Meditation is called a practice because it’s a skill that you improve over time. If you’re new to it, try repeating this CHAPTER 1 17 simple method for five minutes a day: Sit still in a quiet place, inhale while counting to seven, hold your breath for seven counts, and exhale for seven counts. 43 Clear your mind, thinking of nothing but your breathing, and if you find other thoughts intruding, don’t be discouraged. Put them gently aside and try again. If you find it helpful, place a neutral object in front of you on which to focus, like a candle or a small object that has religious or spiritual meaning for you, or close your eyes. Three Types of Managerial Roles: Interpersonal, Informational, and Decisional From his observations and other research, Mintzberg concluded that managers play three broad types of roles or organized sets of behavior: interpersonal, informational, and decisional. 1. Interpersonal Roles—Figurehead, Leader, and Liaison In their interpersonal roles, managers interact with people inside and outside their work units. The three interpersonal roles include figurehead, leader, and liaison activities. 2. Informational Roles—Monitor, Disseminator, and Spokesperson The most important part of a manager’s job, Mintzberg believed, is information handling, because accurate information is vital for making intelligent decisions. In their three informational roles—as monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson—managersreceive and communicate information with other people inside and outside the organization. At Google, CEO Sundar Pichai scheduled a company-wide “town hall” meeting that was abruptly canceled when some employees revealed they were being harassed online because their names and concerns had been leaked to outside websites. Pichai’s memo announcing the cancelation needed to communicate clearly and calmly in a tense situation. In it he explained the employees’ concerns for their safety and promised to set up several smaller forums “where people can feel comfortable to speak freely.” Pichai also acknowledged the many personal meetings and e-mails in which he had heard employees’ views and their concerns about being able to speak out. He closed by reminding Googlers that their “desire to build great products” is what unites them and communicated his own excitement about carrying that goal onward.44 3. Decisional Roles—Entrepreneur, Disturbance Handler, Resource Allocator, and Negotiator In their decisional roles, managers use information to make decisions to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities. The four decision-making roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator. These roles are summarized in Table 1.1. Did anyone say a manager’s job is easy? Certainly it’s not for people who want to sit on the sidelines of life. Above all else, managers are doers. ● 18 TABLE 1.1 PART 1 Introduction Three Types of Managerial Roles: Interpersonal, Informational, and Decisional BROAD MANAGERIAL ROLES TYPES OF ROLES Interpersonal Figurehead role In your figurehead role, you show visitors around your company, attend employee birthday parties, and present ethical guidelines to your subordinates. In other words, you perform symbolic tasks that represent yourorganization. Leadership role In your role of leader, you are responsible for the actions of your subordinates, as their successes and failures reflect on you. Your leadership is expressed in your decisions about training, motivating, and disciplining people. Liaison role In your liaison role, you must act like a politician, working with other people outside your work unit and organization to develop alliances that will help you achieve your organization’s goals. Monitor role As a monitor, you should be constantly alert for useful information, whether gathered from newspaper stories about the competition or gathered from snippets of conversation with subordinates you meet in the hallway. Disseminator role Workers complain they never know what’s going on? That probably means their supervisor failed in the role of disseminator. Managers need to constantly disseminate important information to employees, as via e-mail and meetings. Spokesperson role You are expected, of course, to be a diplomat, to put the best face on the activities of your work unit or organization to people outside it. This is the informational role of spokesperson. Entrepreneur role A good manager is expected to be an entrepreneur, to initiate and encourage change and innovation. Disturbance handler role Unforeseen problems—from product defects to international currency crises— require you be a disturbance handler, fixing problems. Resource allocator role Because you’ll never have enough time, money, and so on, you’ll need to be a resource allocator, setting priorities about use of resources. Negotiator role To be a manager is to be a continual negotiator, working with others inside and outside the organization to accomplish your goals. Informational Decisional DESCRIPTION The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 1.5 The Skills Exceptional Managers Need THE BIG PICTURE Good managers need to work on developing three principal skills. The first is technical, the ability to perform a specific job. The second is conceptual, the ability to think analytically. The third is human, the ability to interact well with people. Lower- and middle-level managers are a varied lot, but what do top managers have in common? A supportive spouse or partner, suggests one study.45 Regardless of gender, reaching the top demands a person’s all-out commitment to work and career, and someone needs to be there to help with children and laundry. Thus, in 2017, the majority of the 54 Fortune 1000 female CEOs were married and told the Korn Ferry Institute that they had supportive spouses: “Being a CEO, they acknowledge, is not a one-person job; a CEO’s partner has to ‘lean in’ too. The partners of the women CEOs often took primary responsibility on the home front.”46 General Motors CEO Mary Barra, who is married and is the mother of two grown children, has been assisted in her rise by her husband, Tony Barra, a technology consultant. Although female managers with supportive partners are becoming more common, society is still struggling with what it means for men and women to be peers and whether one’s career should come first or both should be developed simultaneously. Whether or not they have support at home, aspiring managers also need to have other kinds of the “right stuff.” In the mid-1970s, researcher Robert Katz (in this book we boldface important scholar names to help you remember key contributors to the field of management) found that through education and experience managers acquire three principal skills—technical, conceptual, and human.47 LO 1-5 Discuss the skills of an outstanding manager. 1. Technical Skills—The Ability to Perform a Specific Job Technical skills consist of the job-specific knowledge needed to perform well in a specialized field. Having the requisite technical skills seems to be most important at the lower levels of management—that is, among employees in their first professional job and firstline managers. Mary Barra has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in business administration and a well-rounded resume that includes important experience as executive assistant to the CEO, being head of midsize car engineering, managing GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant, and leading the company’s human resources division. Then in 2011 she was made head of GM’s huge worldwide product development, where she “brought order to chaos,” according to one account, “mostly by flattening its bureaucracy . . . reducing the number of expensive, global vehicle platforms, and bringing new models to market faster and at lower cost.”48 Said by her predecessor to be “one of the most gifted executives” he had met in his career, she displays an engineer’s enthusiasm for cars, a quality not found among other car-company CEOs promoted from finance operations.49 Indeed, says one account, “Ms. Barra can often be found on the company’s test track putting vehicles through their paces at high speeds.”50 2. Conceptual Skills—The Ability to Think Analytically Conceptual skills consist of the ability to think analytically, to visualize an organization as a whole and understand how the parts work together. Conceptual skills are more important as you move up the management ladder, particularly for top managers, who must deal with problems that are ambiguous but that could have far-reaching consequences. Today a top car executive must deal with several Triple threat. Mary Barra unveils the new-model Chevrolet Volt hybrid electric car in Las Vegas in January 2016. Barra seems to have the three skills—technical, conceptual, and human— necessary to be a terrific manager in the complex organization that is General Motors. Which skill do you think you need to work on the most? (Human skills are the most difficult to master.) ©Tony Ding/ AP Images 19 20 PART 1 Introduction radical trends—autonomous (self-driving) cars, electric-powered vehicles, and new business models of start-ups like Uber and Lyft. Said a GM executive about Barra, “When you put her in a position that’s completely new to her, she does an amazing job of getting grounded, understanding what’s important and what’s not, and executing very well.”51 Or, as Barra said about her management approach, “Problems don’t go away when you ignore them—they get bigger. In my experience, it is much better to get the right people together, to make a plan, and to address every challenge head on.”52 At every stop along the way in rising through GM, Barra analyzed the situation and simplified things. For example, in her product-development job, she streamlined designs by using the same parts in many different models. She also assigned engineers to work in car dealerships to learn more about what customers want in their vehicles.53 When promoted to CEO, she stepped into the middle of a safety crisis in which GM had to admit to misleading regulators and consumers about a defective ignition switch and agree to pay a $900 million penalty.54 Now she is dealing with bigger issues and trying to make GM a more nimble and forward-thinking company. “We know our industry is being disrupted,” Barra says. The century-old company is leading the industry in connected-car technology, new electric and hybrid vehicles, and investing in the ride-share service Lyft to prepare for a future in which city residents use self-driving cars to get around.55 I’m Glad I… …have conceptual skills. Spencer McGuffey works in construction management. Because the employees in his industry are naturally selfmotivated by pay and time off needs, he does not have to put as much energy into the leading and controlling steps of the management process. Instead, Spencer spends the majority of his time planning and organizing. “I am a site manager for a residential building, so I’m busy making schedules and making sure everyone is here on time. Iwould say 75% of my day is planning tomorrow as well as the coming weeks, and making sure that everyone is able to not only make the schedule, but also perform the quality work that I expect in a timely manner,” said Spencer. When it comes to planning out the schedule, Spencer converses with his employees before doing anything else. “I typically call my employees before I even start plugging in dates and getting everything situated. I ask if there is anything special about this particular unit or house that we’re going to be building that would require them to take more time than normal,” said Spencer. “After that, I go into our computer system that allows us to process the schedule and send it to the employees as quickly as possible so they have a copy.” Spencer understands that, once the schedule is in place, he still has to remain flexible with emergencies and last-second changes. “I carry around a hard copy of the schedule so that if someone doesn’t show up one day, I can quickly and easily track who didn’t show up, and it also allows me to correct the schedule for everyone else later. That also goes for people who are working slower than we expected,” said Spencer. He has to be able to adjust constantly, visualizing the project as a whole from start to finish. While human skills do come into play occasionally for Spencer and his team, Spencer’s conceptual skills are what help to keep his team organized and running smoothly. “I have found that it works best if you invite all of the supervisors from across the organization to lunch and have a real heart-to-heart meeting with them to figure out who needs to be where and when so that no one is stepping on anyone else’s toes,” said Spencer. “This helps me a lot. I started doing this after my first month or two on the job, and it helped me to realize that the employees weren’t in the best order prior to our discussion over lunch.” This personal touch provides Spencer with an opportunity for occasional face-to-face communication with his employees. The skill that keeps his team running smoothly on a day-to-day basis, however, is his ability to think analytically and visualize a project from start to finish with all its moving parts. Courtesy of Spencer McGuffey 3. Human Skills—“Soft Skills,” the Ability to Interact Well with People This may well be the most difficult set of skills to master. Human skills consist of the ability to work well in cooperation with other people to get things done—especially with people in teams, an important part of today’s organizations (as we discuss in Chapter 13). The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 21 Often these are thought of as “soft skills.” Soft skills are interpersonal “people” skills needed for success at all levels. As discussed in Section 1.7, developing your soft skills is an ongoing, lifelong effort. During her more than three decades at GM, Barra has demonstrated exceptionally strong soft skills. She has “an ability with people,” says her previous boss, that is critical to GM’s team-first approach.56 “She is known inside GM as a consensus builder who calls her staff together on a moment’s notice to brainstorm on pressing issues,” says another report.57 “She’s fiercely intelligent yet humble and approachable,” says a third account. “She’s collaborative but is often the person who takes charge. And she’s not afraid to make changes.”58 Among her most significant changes: hiring people with “diverse views, diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences,” she says, to try to reshape the company’s notoriously insular corporate culture and to bring GM into the age of Apple and Google. The Most Valued Traits in Managers Clearly, Barra embodies the qualities sought in star managers, especially top managers. “The style for running a company is different from what it used to be,” says a top executive recruiter of CEOs. “Companies don’t want dictators, kings, or emperors.”65 Instead of someone who gives orders, they want executives who ask probing questions and invite people to participate in decision making and power sharing. Among the chief skills companies seek in top managers are the following: ■ ■ ■ ■ The ability to motivate and engage others. The ability to communicate. Work experience outside the United States. High energy levels to meet the demands of global travel and a 24/7 world.66 ● PRACTICAL ACTION Developing Your Soft Skills Are you persistent, creative, curious? How do you deal with frustration or anxiety? Do you see yourself as part of a larger whole that gives your work purpose? How do you perceive problems—as temporary and solvable, or as a personal burden you are doomed to bear? Are you a good listener? Your answers will give you an idea about how well developed some of your soft skills are. More than 90 percent of respondents to a recent Global Human Capital Trends survey by the consulting firm Deloitte identified soft skills like communication, emotional understanding, and problem solving as a critical priority.59 Many employers say these skills are hard to find in college graduates, who often value hard skills more highly.60 Companies are eagerly looking for soft skills as well, however; Google, for example, now prioritizes persistence and curiosity in its hiring process.61 The good news is that soft skills can be taught. Employers are finding it worth investing money to develop these abilities in their employees. A new study shows that training employees in soft skills doesn’t just marginally improve individual performance and employee retention; it actually betters these metrics enough to provide a 250% return on the financial investment a company makes in training programs.62 For firms that can spare their employees for three days, the American Management Association (AMA) offers a soft-skills seminar for managers at all levels including front-line supervisors.63 Among the skills they can gain are the ability to give direction without generating conflict, to lead and motivate groups and teams, to influence others including “difficult” people, to offer effective feedback, and to get things done in an atmosphere of trust and respect. The seminar topics are a comprehensive listofessential soft skills employers look for in college graduates and new hires—and say they seldom find: communication proficiency, which includes verbal, nonverbal, and listening skills; self-understanding, lack of defensiveness, and emotional understanding and responsiveness; the ability to productively manage conflict; and an understanding of team development and the role of a team player in getting work done. For those who want to learn online and at their own pace, many inexpensive online classes are available.64 These short interactive programs are geared for everyone from CEOs to entry-level employees. They cover everything from selfconfidence to emotional intelligence, coaching teams, building healthy work relationships, handling business etiquette, resolving conflicts, decision making, reading body language, negotiating, dealing with angry customers to becoming a successful leader. YOUR CALL Look back at the first paragraph in this Practical Action box. Which of the soft skills listed there would you like to improve by the time you graduate, in order to make yourself a more attractive candidate to prospective employers? 22 PART 1 Introduction 1.6 Seven Challenges to Being an ExceptionalManager THE BIG PICTURE Seven challenges face any manager: You need to manage for competitive advantage—to stay ahead of rivals. You need to manage for the effects of globalization and of information technology. You need to manage for diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, and so on, because the future won’t resemble the past. You always need to manage to maintain ethical standards. You need to manage for sustainability—to practice sound environmental policies. Finally, you need to manage for the achievement of your own happiness and life goals. LO 1-6 Identify the seven challenges faced by most managers. EXAMPLE Would you agree that the ideal state many people seek is an emotional zone somewhere between boredom and anxiety? That’s the view of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Me-high Chick-sent-me-high-ee), founder of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University.67 Boredom, he says, may arise because skills and challenges are mismatched: You are exercising your high level of skill in a job with a low level of challenge, such as licking envelopes. Anxiety arises when someone has low levels of skill but a high level of challenge, such as (for many people) suddenly being called upon to give a rousing speech to strangers. As a manager, could you achieve a balance between these two states—between boredom and anxiety, or between action and serenity? Certainly managers have enough challenges to keep their lives more than mildly interesting. Let’s see what they are. The Struggle for Competitive Advantage: Airbnb Shakes Up theHotelBusiness In San Francisco a few years ago, jobless industrial designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, wondering how to make the rent, realized that a major design conference was about to be held in the city and that hotel rooms would be scarce. Gebbia had three air mattresses and suggested turning their apartment into an “air bed and breakfast.” Within three days they had a quicky website up and had booked three guests, each paying about $70 for several nights.68 Thus Airbnb was born, which today appeals to everyone from tourists to business travelers with $18 shared downtown living rooms but can even offer Beyoncé, in northern California for a halftime appearance at the 2016 Super Bowl, a $10,000-a-night estate in Los Altos Hills. Offering more than a million rooms in homes, apartments, even treehouses or barns—indeed, even European castles—in 34,000 cities in 190 countries ranging from Cuba to Israel’s West Bank, the company is valued at $30 billion.69 The Rise of the New Sharing Economy. Airbnb represents an example of the sharing economy, also known as collaborative or peer-to-peer marketplaces, a technological variation on past behavior. “Peer-to-peer lodging has been around for quite a while,” points out one writer. “For hundreds of years, family-owned boardinghouses were the lodging alternative for frugal travelers; homeowners listed their spare rooms in newspapers; . . . and European families often purchased second homes together.”70 What is different about today’s sharing economy is that ordinary people can now take advantage of the Internet and widespread use of credit cards to effectively turn their homes into hotel rooms. Trouble for the Hotel Industry. Airbnb has had a major impacton the hotel industry, offering more places to sleep than Hilton, Hyatt, or Wyndham combined. In the beginning there were few complaints from traditional hotels, although there is evidence that the greater room supply created by Airbnb helped restrain traditional hotel prices.71 Some small hotels even started joining the service themselves, such as the Box House Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. Before long, however, hotels began to feel the upstart’s effects and now are fighting back.72 Large hotel chains have launched new chains (such as Tru by Hilton) aimed at Airbnb’s core market of Millennials looking for a lodging experience suited to their tastes and budget. They also started creating “micro-hotels,” such as Pod, Yotel, and citizenM, hotels with tiny rooms (think 50 square feet) but big public spaces that appeal to social travelers. Some hotels now offer “pillow menus,” allowing guests to choose from a range of pillow firmnesses and shapes to suit The Exceptional Manager different sleep habits. Some remade their rooms with flexible tables, laptop trays, and abundant electrical outlets to accommodate different work styles. Roughly 40 hotels worldwide joined in creating LobbyFriend, a temporary social network that enables users to get information on nearby events, as well as send messages to other guests. The hotel industry also funded research that suggests some Airbnb operators are running “illegal” hotels.73 And it has lobbied for laws that will stop or slow Airbnb’s growth by restricting the apartments and homes that can be listed on the service. Airbnb is upping the stakes again, however. Its Niido project is a venture into several co-branded apartment buildings to appeal to tenants as well as tourists. The first apartment complex will open in Kissimmee, FL, in early 2018 with about 325units. Renters can list their apartments on Airbnb for any CHAPTER 1 part of the year. They also enjoy perks like a concierge-type service to look after guests on their behalf.74 YOUR CALL Airbnb is an example of disruptive innovation, a process in which a product or service first takes root in simple applications at the bottom of the market (Chesky and Gebbia’s air mattresses on the floor) and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors. The notion of “disruptive innovation” by computer technology is a farreaching development in the ongoing struggle of organizations to stay ahead of rivals by maintaining competitive advantage, and we describe the concept further in Chapter 10. Which sector, Airbnb or hotels, do you think will prevail in the lodging industry? Why? Competitive advantage? Do you think traditional hotels will still exist 10 years from now? ©Antenna/Getty Images Challenge #1: Managing for Competitive Advantage— Staying Ahead of Rivals Competitive advantage is the ability of an organization to produce goods or services more effectively than competitors do, thereby outperforming them. This means an organization must stay ahead in four areas: (1) being responsive to customers, (2) innovation, (3) quality, and (4) efficiency. 1. Being Responsive to Customers 23 The first law of business is Take care of the customer. Without customers—buyers, clients, consumers, shoppers, users, patrons, guests, investors, or whatever they’re called—sooner or later there will be no organization. Nonprofit organizations are well advised to be responsive to their “customers,” too, whether they’re called citizens, members, students, patients, voters, rate-payers, or whatever, since they are the justification for the organizations’ existence. 24 PART 1 Introduction 2. Innovation Finding ways to deliver new or better goods or services is called innovation. No organization, for-profit or nonprofit, can allow itself to become complacent—especially when rivals are coming up with creative ideas. “Innovate or die” is an important adage for any manager. We discuss innovation in Chapter 10. 3. Quality If your organization is the only one of its kind, customers may put up with products or services that are less than stellar (as they have with some airlines that have a near monopoly on flights out of certain cities), but only because they have no choice. But if another organization comes along and offers a better-quality travel experience, TV program, cut of meat, computer software, or whatever, you may find your company falling behind. Making improvements in quality has become an important management idea in recent times, as we shall discuss. 4. Efficiency A generation ago, organizations rewarded employees for their length of service. Today, however, the emphasis is on efficiency: Companies strive to produce goods or services as quickly as possible using as few employees (and raw materials) as possible. Although a strategy that downgrades the value of employees might ultimately backfire—resulting in the loss of essential experience and skills and even customers—an organization that is overstaffed may not be able to compete with leaner, meaner rivals. This is the reason why, for instance, today many companies rely so much on temp (temporary) workers. Challenge #2: Managing for Information Technology— Dealing with the “New Normal” The challenge of managing for information technology, not to mention other technologies affecting your business, will require your unflagging attention. Some observers even see a Fourth Industrial Revolution evolving from the Third, which was notable for introducing electronics and information technology as means to automate the production of physical goods. (The First Revolution relied on steam and water power and the Second on electric power.) Justifying the idea that a fourth revolution is on the horizon are the unprecedented speed, scope, and impact of technological breakthroughs in every industry, including AI, robotics, self-driving cars, 3D printers, the Internet of Things, and many more innovations.75 Julio Portalatin, president and CEO of Mercer Consulting, is very concerned about this issue. He told The Wall Street Journal “that high on his priority list is guarding against unforeseen, nimble rivals that could harness automation and artificial intelligence to poach customers in niche markets.”76 U.S. consumers spent more than $395 billion online in 2016, nearly 12% of overall retail spending, and are expected to spend as much as $603 billion in 2021.77 E-commerce, or electronic commerce—the buying and selling of goods or services over computer networks— has reshaped entire industries and revamped the very notion of what a company is. More important than e-commerce, information technology has led to the growth of e-business, using the Internet to facilitate every aspect of running a business. Because the Internet so dramatically lowers the cost of communication, it can radically alter any activity that depends heavily on the flow of information. The result is that disruption has become the “new normal,” according to Forrester Research.78 Some of the implications of information technology that we will discuss throughout the book are as follows: ■ Far-ranging electronic management: e-communication all the time. Using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, 21st-century managers will be masters of electronic communication, able to create powerful messages to motivate and lead teams of specialists all over the world. The next section notes that employers are looking to hire college graduates with information technology application skills. Information technology application skills reflect the extent to The Exceptional Manager which you can effectively use information technology and learn new applications on an ongoing basis. You will clearly want to excel at e-communication. ■ Ever more data: a challenge to decision making. The digital universe is expected to at least double in size every two years, and by 2020, it will be 50 times as large as it was in 2010.79 Ninety percent of generated data from now on, says one source, “will be unstructured and this includes tweets, photos, customer purchase history, and even customer service call logs.”80 The Internet, then, not only speeds everything up; through cloud computing—the storing of software and data on gigantic collections of computers located away from a company’s principal site (“in the cloud”)—and huge, interconnected databases—computerized collections of interrelated files—it can also assemble astonishing quantities of informa- ■ tion and make them available to us instantaneously. This has led to the phenomenon known as Big Data, stores of data so vast that conventional database management systems cannot handle them, so very sophisticated analysis software and supercomputers are required. The challenge: How do we deal with this massive amount of data to make useful decisions without violating people’s right to privacy? We discuss Big Data in Chapter 7. The rise of artificial intelligence: more automation in the workforce. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the discipline concerned with creating computer systems that simulate human reasoning and sensation, as represented by robots, natural lan- ■ guage processing, pattern recognition, and similar technologies. Some people fear that increasingly sophisticated robots powered by AI technology will be able to take over even complex jobs that have been thought safe from automation, such as the work of surgeons, writers, lawyers, and airline pilots.81 They point out that most workers will need expensive retraining to fill the jobs that remain. But others are more optimistic and argue for focusing on what technology has created rather than on what might be lost. For instance, a report by McKinsey & Co. points out that 33% of the jobs created in the United States in the last 25 years are in careers that did not even exist when today’s college students were born.82 Work will be transformed, these observers say, rather than eliminated, and the change will be slow enough for employers, and employees, to adapt.83 What will be the implications of these events for you as a manager for staffing and training employees and for your own professional development? Organizational changes: shifts in structure, jobs, goals, and management. With computers and telecommunications technology, organizations and teams become “virtual”; they are no longer as bound by time zones and locations. Employees, for instance, may telecommute, or work from home or remote locations using a variety of information technologies. Telecommuting was found to enhance employee satisfaction and performance.84 Meetings may be conducted via videoconferencing, using video and audio links along with computers to let people in different locations see, hear, and talk with one another. Goal setting and feedback will be conducted via web-based software programs such as eWorkbench, which enables managers to create and track employee goals. Such managers will also rely on project management software, programs for planning and scheduling the people, costs, and resources to complete a project on time. ■ Knowledge management and collaborative computing. The forms of interaction just described will require managers and employees to be more flexible, and there will be an increased emphasis on knowledge management—the implementing of systems and practices to increase the sharing of knowledge and information throughout an organization. In addition, collaborative computing, using state-of-the-art computer software and hardware, will help people work better together. Many hospitals, for example, now knit various functions together— patient histories, doctors’ orders, lab results, prescription information, billing— in a single information system, parts of which patients can access themselves to schedule appointments, question doctors, and request prescription refills. CHAPTER 1 25 26 PART 1 Introduction Challenge #3: Managing for Diversity— The Future Won’t Resemble the Past In 2015, more than 43 million people in the United States were foreign born, representing 13.4% of the population.85 In 2020, there will be nearly 48 million foreign born, representing 14.3% of the population, and by 2060 they are projected to be 18.8%.86 But greater changes are yet to come. By mid-century, the mix of American racial or ethnic groups will change considerably, with the United States becoming half (54%) racial or ethnic minority. Non-Hispanic whites are projected to decrease from 62% of the population in 2014 to 43% in 2060. African Americans will increase from 13% to 14%, Asians from 5% to 9%, and Hispanics (who may be of any race) from 17% to 29%.87 In addition, in the coming years there will be a different mix of women, immigrants, and older people in the general population, as well as in the workforce. For instance, in 2030, nearly one in five U.S. residents is expected to be 65 and older. This age group is projected to increase to 98.1 million in 2060, more than doubling the number in 2014 (40.1 million).88 Some scholars think that diversity and variety in staffing produce organizational strength, as we in discuss in Chapter 11. Clearly, however, the challenge to the manager of the near future is to maximize the contributions of employees diverse in gender, age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Challenge #4: Managing for Globalization— TheExpanding Management Universe When you ask some Russians “How are you?” the response may not be a simple “Fine” but rather the complete truth as to how they really feel—“a blunt pronouncement of dissatisfaction punctuated by, say, the details of any recent digestive troubles,” as one American world traveler explained it.89 And when you meet Cambodians or Burmese and are asked “Have you eaten yet?” you should not mistake this as an invitation to lunch—all it means is “Hello.”90 The point is this: Verbal expressions and gestures don’t mean the same thing to everyone around the world. Failure to understand such differences can affect organizations’ ability to manage globally. U.S. firms have been going out into the world in a major way, even as the world has also been coming to them. This increasingly interconnected nature of business around the word, called globalization, has had economic downsides for workers in some industries, such as Cross-border burger business. The manager of this Johnny Rockets hamburger store, which opened in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2012, found that to achieve an authentic, U.S.-style taste he needed to fly in the toppings— onions, mushrooms, and iceberg lettuce—which meant that he had to start prices at $14 for a single-patty burger. ©Sunday Alamba/AP Images The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 27 clothing, shoe, and toy manufacturing, which have largely moved out of the United States to countries where labor is less expensive. Some critics have therefore pushed back against the idea that globalization is always a good idea, but the fact is that it is likely here to stay.91 “We know from experience that international cooperation works—from reconstruction after World War II more than 70 years ago to fighting Ebola just a few years back,” says Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director.92 Managing for globalization will be a complex, ongoing challenge, as we discuss at length in Chapter 4.93 Challenge #5: Managing for Ethical Standards Under pressure to meet sales, production, and other targets, managers can find themselves confronting ethical dilemmas. What would you do if, as an employee, you discovered that your company was deliberately falsifying data about its product? In 2015, Volkswagen was found to have installed, in some 11 million cars sold in the United States, software that deactivated required emissions controls while on the road, releasing many times more emissions than allowed by law, because the controls reduced the cars’ advertised fuel economy and drivers might complain. When the vehicles were being tested for compliance with EPA standards, however, their computer systems sensed the test in progress and turned the emissions controls back on, concealing the cars’ real environmental cost. Fines and other costs resulting from the scandal are expected to cost VW more than $15 billion.94 Some executives were forced to resign and at least one was sentenced to jail time.95 How far would you go to satisfy demanding customers in a highly competitive international market? In an era of climate change, with increasingly severe storms and rising sea levels, what is your responsibility to “act green”—to avoid company policies that are damaging to the environment? Ethical behavior is not just a nicety; it is an essential principle to follow in every industry, and one that is even more compelling when you are in a position of power. This was certainly made clear in late 2017, when several women raised accusations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in a story published in the New York Times.96 This opening in a longstanding wall of silence about mistreatment of women and men by men in power was followed in rapid succession by similar charges against such prominent figures as actor Kevin Spacey, former senator Al Franken (among several other members of Congress), Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simons, “Today” show host Matt Lauer, celebrity chef Mario Batali, federal court judge Alex Kozinski, actor and comedian Louis C. K., opera conductor James Levine, and longtime newscaster Charlie Rose, to name only a few. All have retired, been fired, or resigned.97 How would you treat others if you were in a position of power? Would you offer to boost someone’s career in return for sexual favors, or ruin someone who refused you? These incidents, and many similar ones that continue to be revealed, show the enormous repercussions when people fail to realize that ethical standards must be followed in every area of life. Clearly ethical lapses have the potential to do great harm, and not only financial harm. We consider ethics in Chapter 3 and throughout the book. PRACTICAL ACTION Harvey Weinstein, cofounder of Miramax, has been accused by dozens of women of committing sexual assault and sexual abuse. The allegations span 30 years. Weinstein has denied engaging in nonconsensual sex. The courts will ultimately decide. ©Paul Zimmerman/ WireImage/Getty Images Preparing Yourself to Behave Right When You’re TemptedtoCheat All kinds of pressures influence people to cheat. Some peoplemay cheat more in the afternoon than in the morning, perhaps because mental fatigue sets in as the day wears on.98They may cheat more when technology makes it easy. (Access to copy/paste tools was associated with a higher rate of cheating.)99 One recent study of 300 college students found that 9 in 10 admitted to cheating, and some believed their instructors did as well.100 Of course, just because you may feel okay about cheating doesn’t mean it’s right, or, from a hard-headed business point of view, even effective—either for you or for the organization you work for.101 Did you know, for instance, that you can be fired for lying on a job application or resume? Learning to Be Ethical. Concerned about transgressions in the managerial world, some of the top U.S. researchers in 28 PART 1 Introduction business ethics recently introduced a new website, EthicalSystems.org (www.ethicalsystems.org). One of its purposes is to examine the problem that, as one article describes it, “how we think we’re going to act when faced with a moral decision and how we really do act are often vastly different.”102 Originally business ethics grew out of philosophy that ethical behavior was the right thing to do. Now research is uncovering the underlying reasons people act the way they do, to develop a more psychologically realistic approach and learn what tools will nudge people toward right behavior. We include a “Legal/ Ethical Challenge” case at the end of every chapter to assist you in developing an ethical orientation. Doing Right versus Being Liked. When people predict how they’re going to act in a given situation, “the ‘should’ self dominates—we should be fair, we should be generous, we should assert our values,” says business ethics professor Ann E. Tenbrunsel. “But when the time for action comes, the ‘want’ self dominates—I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to be punished.”103 Thus, you may see some wrong occur (such as an act of cheating) and actually mean to do something about it, but can’t quite figure how—and then the moment passes and you let it go and tell yourself that what you did was okay. YOUR CALL How can you learn to be ethical? First, recognize the reasons you are tempted to overlook wrongdoing—reluctance to disappoint your friends, worry about what others will think of you, or fear that you’ll get in trouble if you speak up. Then realize that the discomfort you’re experiencing is a signal that you need to be courageous and act. What will you tell yourself the next time you’re tempted to cheat or see someone cheating? Challenge #6: Managing for Sustainability— TheBusiness of Green An apparently changing climate, bringing increased damage from hurricanes, floods, and fires throughout the United States and the world, has brought the issue of “being green” to increased prominence. Following The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman wrote Hot, Flat, and Crowded, urging a strategy of “Geo-Greenism” in addressing the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy.104 Earlier former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, along with his book by the same name, further popularized the concepts of global climate change and the idea of sustainability as a business model.105 Our economic system has brought prosperity, but it has also led to unsustainable business practices because it has assumed that natural resources are limitless, which they are not. Sustainability is defined as economic development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.106 A number of companies—from PepsiCo to Walmart to REI—have recognized that corporations have a responsibility to address the causes of climate change.107 Engineering and consulting firm CH2M is a good example. Chairman and CEO Jacqueline Hinman told Fortune “as engineers and project managers, we have an inherent opportunity and responsibility to make a positive difference in the world, so our entire business is predicated on that purpose. We lead in delivering sustainable solutions for growth and a better quality of life, ultimately to achieve greater social, environmental, and economic outcomes—with intentional emphasis on the ‘and.’”108 Challenge #7: Managing for Happiness and Meaningfulness Which would you rather have, a happy life or a meaningful life? We recommend both! One study found that “Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker,” as a study author put it.109 Happiness is getting what you want, having your desires fulfilled. Meaningfulness is the sense of “belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self.”110 In our case, for example, we derive meaning from writing this book because we believe it can enrich your life and help you manage others more effectively. Research clearly shows that a sense of meaningfulness in your life is associated with better health, work and life satisfaction, and performance.111 The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 29 We have three suggestions for building meaning into your life. 1. Identify activities you love doing. Try to do more of these activities or find ways to build them into your work role. Employees at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital embody this suggestion. They truly enjoy participating in the St. Jude Marathon weekend because it raises money for the children being treated at the hospital. One employee, a cancer survivor, commented, “Each year it provides me with another opportunity to give back so that we can help countless other children have anniversaries of their own.”112 2. Find a way to build your natural strengths into your Hurricane Katrina left many people in need of help. The three men personal and work life. Doing this requires that you here rescued the women in the middle from flood waters caused by the breakdown of levees in New Orleans, Louisiana. These good samaritans assess yourself along a host of competencies desired likely felt a great deal of meaningfulness from helping others. ©JAMES by employers. The next section identifies these NIELSEN/AFP/Getty Images competencies and discusses how you might evaluate your strengths and development opportunities. 3. Go out and help someone. Research shows that people derive a sense of meaningfulness from helping others.113 Salesforce, ranked as the eighth best place to work by Fortune, follows this suggestion. The company donates “subscriptions for its technology to nonprofits and educators, it grants employees seven days off to volunteer each year and has given away more than $137 million.”114 How Strong Is Your Motivation to Be a Manager? TheFirst Self-Assessment As we stated at the beginning of this chapter, it is our desire to make this book as practical as possible for you. As an important means of advancing this goal, we developed 65 self-assessments—two to four per chapter—that allow you to gauge how you feel about the material you are reading and how you can make use of it. Go to the self-assessment website at connect.mheducation.com, complete the assessment, then answer the self-assessment questions in the book. (Note: These assessments are available only if your instructor uses Connect and assigns them to you.) Taking them is a valuable way to develop your self-awareness and interpersonal skills. The first one assesses your motivation to lead. Do you desire to hold leadership positions? Find out by taking the self-assessment. ● SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.1 CAREER READINESS How Strong Is My Motivation to Lead? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 1.1 in Connect. Are you motivated to lead others? Go to connect. mheducation.com and take the self-assessment. When you’re done, answer the following questions: 1. Do results match your desire to assume leadership roles at school, work, and home? Explain. 2. Which of the three dimensions do you think is most likely to affect your future success as a leader? Discuss. 3. What things would you say during an interview to demonstrate that you possess the career readiness competency of leadership? 30 PART 1 Introduction 1.7 Building Your Career Readiness THE BIG PICTURE Companies want to hire career-ready college graduates. In this section we describe a model of career readiness and offer tips for building your readiness. LO 1-7 Define the knowledge, soft skills, attitudes, and other characteristics needed for career readiness and discuss how they can be developed. About 80,000 undergraduate students from over 350 universities across the United States rated 2017’s most attractive employers. The top 10 were: (1) Google, (2) Walt Disney Company, (3) Apple, (4) Nike, (5) Amazon, (6) J.P. Morgan, (7), Goldman Sachs, (8) Ernst & Young, (9) Deloitte, and (10) FBI.115 Would you like to work at these companies or another like them? If so, you need to be career ready. Career readiness represents the extent to which you possess the knowledge, skills, and attributes desired by employers. How ready do you believe you are? Recent surveys of college graduates and recruiters reveal a big gap in the degree of readiness each group perceives in students. Figure 1.3 shows the results of a study of 400 employers and 613 college students. The majority of students rated themselves as career-ready on 11 of 17 skills, while the majority of employers did not perceive students to be well-prepared on any of the skills.116 The three largest gaps were in critical/analytical thinking, written communication, and locating, organizing, and evaluating information, skills that are very important to employers.117 Other studies have similarly demonstrated that employers see a major skills gap in college students’ interpersonal skills.118 You’ll want to close these gaps for three reasons: 1. To get a job and earn more money. Today’s jobs require greater interpersonal or soft skills, and employers are willing to pay higher salaries to those possessing them.119 2. To impress employers with your self-awareness. Companies prefer to hire people with realistic perceptions of their own strengths and weaknesses. This underscores the need to obtain information about your strengths and weaknesses throughout your career. 3. To create your own motivation to learn. Studies of human behavior reveal that people won’t spend time on personal development unless they feel the need. Overinflated perceptions of career readiness will not motivate you to develop the attributes that enhance that readiness. You need to motivate yourself to learn and develop. Moreover, these gaps are critical to employers too. Kate Davidson, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, concluded that a lack of soft skills “is limiting organizational productivity,” and “it is becoming increasingly difficult to find applicants who can communicate clearly, take initiative, problem-solve and get along with co-workers.”120 Knowing this, we want reading our textbook to help you become career-ready. The process starts with focusing on the ideas and suggestions in this section. A Model of Career Readiness Being career-ready is a lifelong process requiring you to continually learn and develop in response to changes in organizational needs and skill requirements. It is not a onetime event that stops after graduation. Consider what René Steiner, President/CEO of Büler North America, had to say about career readiness. “Realize that learning is not complete when you graduate. Today, more so than in the past, there is the opportunity to continue to develop, through education, learning company culture, and exploring different areas of business. And, you need to adapt to future needs.”121 Authors of the Future Work Skills 2020 report similarly concluded that individuals “will increasingly be The Exceptional Manager Proportions Saying They/Recent College Graduates Are Well Prepared in Each Area* Working with others in teams Staying current on technologies 37% 37% Ethical judgement and decision making Locating, organizing, evaluating information Oral communication 28% Written communication 27% Critical/analytical thinking Being innovative/ creative Analyzing/solving complex problems Applying knowledge/ skills to real world 26% Awareness/experience of diverse cultures outside U.S. 62% 29% Working with numbers/ statistics Proficient in other language 46% 30% 28% Awareness/experience of diverse cultures in U.S. Staying current on developments in science Working with people from different backgrounds Staying current on global developments 64% 64% 62% 55% 65% 66% 25% 57% 24% 59% 23% 59% 21% 48% 21% 44% 18% 55% 18% 16% 15% Employers 43% 34% 42% Students *8-10 ratings on 0-to-10 scale called upon to continually reassess the skills they need, and quickly put together the right resources to develop and update these. Workers in the future need to be adaptable lifelong learners.”122 Being career ready is more encompassing than you might think. Four key categories of competency fuel career readiness: knowledge, soft skills, attitudes, and other characteristics (KSAOs for short; see Figure 1.4). Let’s look at each. Knowledge (K) Skills in the knowledge category, generally referred to as “hard skills,” encompass the basic knowledge employers expect you to possess. They develop from your ability to apply academic and practical knowledge while performing the job. Your grade point average is one way to assess your current level of this type of knowledge.123 Other types of knowledge desired by employers include information technology application, cross-cultural awareness, computational thinking, understanding the business, and new media literacy (see Table 1.2). CHAPTER 1 31 FIGURE 1.3 Employers and college graduates disagree about levels of career readiness Hart Research Associates, “Employers Give College Graduates Low Scores for Preparedness Across Learning Outcomes; Students Think They are Better Prepared” Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success, 2015, 12. Copyright © 2015 Association of American Colleges & Universities. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 32 Introduction PART 1 FIGURE 1.4 Knowledge (K) Model of career readiness ©2018 Kinicki and Associates, Inc. Soft skills (S) Attitudes (A) Career readiness Career outcomes Other characteristics (O) TABLE 1.2 Description of KSAO Skills Needed for Career Readiness KSAO COMPETENCY DESCRIPTION Knowledge Task-Based/Functional Demonstrated ability to apply academic and practical knowledge in pursuit of organizational and individual goals/assignments. Information Technology Application Effective use of IT and learning new applications as needed. Cross-Cultural Competency Awareness of cross-cultural differences; respect for diverse cultures, races, ages, genders, and religions; and demonstrated openness, inclusiveness, and ability to interact with diverse people. Computational Thinking Ability to use numbers to distill abstract concepts and conduct data-based reasoning. Ability to work with and interpret Big Data. Understanding the Business Understanding of the company’s business and strategies and the needs of stakeholders, and ability to see how your work fits into the larger organizational puzzle. New Media Literacy Ability to develop, evaluate, and use new media forms, and to apply these media for persuasive communication. Ability to stay up-to-date with the latest media trends and leverage them in the interest of the organization. Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Sound reasoning to analyze situations, make decisions, and solve problems. Ability to obtain, interpret, and analyze both qualitative and quantitative information while creatively solving problems. Oral/Written Communication Ability to effectively express your thoughts, ideas, and messages to diverse people in oral and written form. Public speaking skills and ability to write/edit emails, letters, and technical reports. Teamwork/Collaboration Ability to work effectively with and build collaborative relationships with diverse people, work within a team structure, and manage interpersonal conflict. Leadership Skill at influencing a group of people to achieve common goals. Ability to motivate, coach, and develop others. Decision Making Ability to collect, process, and analyze information in order to identify and choose from alternative solutions that lead to optimal outcomes. Soft Skills The Exceptional Manager TABLE 1.2 CHAPTER 1 33 Description of KSAO Skills Needed for Career Readiness (Continued) KSAO Attitudes Other Characteristics COMPETENCY DESCRIPTION Social Intelligence Ability to connect with others in a meaningful way, to recognize and understand another person’s feelings and thoughts, and to use this information to stimulate positive relationships and beneficial interactions. Networking Ability to build and maintain a strong, broad professional network of relationships. Emotional Intelligence Ability to monitor your emotions and those of others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your thinking and behavior. Ownership/Accepting Responsibility Willingness to accept responsibility for your actions. Self-Motivation Ability to work productively without constant direction, instruction, and praise. Ability to establish and maintain good work habits and consistent focus on organizational goals and personal development. Proactive Learning Orientation Desire to learn and improve your knowledge, soft skills, and other characteristics in pursuit of personal development. Showing Commitment Willingness to support others and positively work toward achieving individual and company goals. Positive Approach Willingness to accept developmental feedback, to try and suggest new ideas, and to maintain a positive attitude at work. Career Management Ability to proactively manage your career and identify opportunities for professional development. Professionalism/Work Ethic Accountability and positive work habits such as punctuality, time management, appropriate dress and appearance, and willingness to go beyond a job description or ask for help when needed. Demonstrated integrity, ethical behavior, and concern for the greater good. Resilience Ability to bounce back from adversity and to remain motivated when confronted with challenges. Personal Adaptability Ability and willingness to adapt to changing situations. Self-Awareness A realistic view of your strengths and weaknesses relative to a specific joband context, and the ability to create and implement a personal development plan. Service/Others Orientation Willingness to put the needs of others over self-interests. Openness to Change Flexibility when confronted with change, ability to see change as a challenge, and willingness to apply new ideas, processes, or directives. Generalized Self-Efficacy Confidence in your ability to perform across a variety of situations. Source: Based on material in NACE Staff, “Employers Rate Career Competencies, New Hire Proficiency,” December 11, 2017, www.naceweb.org; Matthew Tarpey, “The Skills You Need for the Jobs of the Future,” February 16, 2017, www.careerbuilder.com; Alex Gray, “The 10 Skills You Need to Thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” January 19, 2016, https://www.weforum.org; and Kevin Lowden, Stuart Hall. Dely Elliot, and Jon Lewin, “Employers’ Perceptions of the Employability Skills of New Graduates,” 2011, www.gla.ac.uk. 34 PART 1 Introduction Soft Skills (S) We defined soft skills above as interpersonal or “people” skills needed for success at work. These are not knowledge or technical skills. Soft skills are becoming increasingly important as companies outsource and automate routine tasks. For example, a Wall Street Journal survey reported that 92% of executives believed “soft skills were equally important or more important than technical skills.” Further, 89% said they had “a very or somewhat difficult time finding people with the requisite attributes.” These gaps were found across all age groups and experience levels.124 You can increase your career readiness by focusing on the eight soft skills described in Table 1.2. You will learn more about each one as we progress through this book. Attitudes (A) Attitudes are beliefs and feelings directed toward specific objects, people, or events. More formally, an attitude is defined as a learned predisposition toward a given object. Attitudes are thoroughly discussed in Chapter 11. Table 1.2 indicates that recruiters prefer to find six attitudes in college graduates they hire. All have a positive and proactive focus. People perceive our attitudes by observing what we do and say. For example, taking ownership or responsibility is a key attitude preferred by recruiters. It reflects the extent to which a person accepts responsibility for his or her actions. We suspect recruiters desire this attitude because it is positively associated with employees’ commitment, job satisfaction, and engagement. Feelings of ownership also reduce employees’ desire to quit.125 All told, you can create more favorable impressions during interviews if you demonstrate this attitude. Find out where you stand on this attitude by taking self-assessment 1.2. It was designed to enhance your self-awareness about the extent you accept responsibility for your actions. SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.2 CAREER READINESS Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 1.2 in Connect. To What Extent Do You Accept Responsibility for Your Actions? or improve your attitude about taking ownership/responsibility for your actions. Go to connect.mheducation.com and take the selfassessment. When you’re done, answer the following questions: 1. Do you have a strong attitude about accepting responsibility for your actions? Do you agree with these results? Explain your thinking. 2. 3. What can you do to increase the strength of this attitude? What things would you say during an interview to demonstrate that you possess the career readiness competency of ownership/accepting responsibility? Building Your Career Readiness People are more likely to diligently work toward accomplishing their goals and accept performance feedback when they accept responsibility for their actions. They also are less likely to blame others for their mistakes or poor performance. This selfassessment allows you to determine your status regarding this important attitude. The survey feedback will help you to maintain Other Characteristics (O) This category contains a host of personal characteristics that prompt positive impressions among others and help you effectively adapt to personal and work-related changes. Consider professionalism/work ethic and resilience. Aaron Michel, cofounder and CEO at PathSource, a career navigation and education software company, believes professionalism/work ethic “cannot be overvalued in the job market.” He concluded that “just being on time and behaving responsibly can leave a strong impression.”126 Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity and to sustain yourself when faced with a challenge. Research shows that it is a key trait of successful people 127 The Arizona State women’s golf team displayed resiliency in 2017. After finishing sixth in the Pac-12 Women’s Golf Championship, they came back and won the 2017 NCAA National Championship. Head coach Missy Farr-Kaye said the team “dug a little deeper, practiced a little harder and showed what they were made of.” She told the team The Exceptional Manager MIssy Farr-Kay, at the far left, is head coach of the Arizona State University women’s golf team since 2015. She led her team to a NCAA national championship in 2017. It is a nation leading 8th time that the women’s golf team at ASU has won a national championship truly creating a golf dynasty at the collegiate level. Farr-Kaye notes that her team was highly resilient, never giving up even in the face of adversity. How do you think Farr-Kay and her coaches develop a resilient mindset within the players? ©Steve Woltmann/NCAA Photos/Getty Images that its poor showing in the conference championship wasn’t a bad thing but rather an opportunity.128 This type of cognitive reframing is key to becoming resilient.129 Can you see why employers want to hire people who are professional and resilient? Developing Career Readiness We classify the many ways to develop career readiness into six categories: (1) build selfawareness, (2) learn from educational activities, (3) model others possessing the desired competencies, (4) learn from on-the-job-activities, (5) seek experience from student groups and organizations, and (6) experiment. 1. Build Self-Awareness. There are two ways to gather the data or information you need to make an accurate evaluation of your strengths and developmental opportunities. ● Ask for honest, targeted feedback from fellow students, co-workers, managers, teachers, and family. Find people you trust. ● Take validated self-assessment surveys. This textbook provides 66 assessments for this purpose. Each provides developmental feedback, enabling you to devise a path toward improvement of a particular skill. 2. Learn from Educational Activities. To continue the lifelong process of learning, you need a proactive learning orientation. As defined in Table 1.2, a proactive learning orientation is the desire to learn and improve your knowledge, soft skills, and other characteristics in pursuit of personal development. This orientation allows you to improve your chances of learning new skills by means of the following: ● Taking courses at your university or attending training seminars that focus on the competencies you need, such as time management or communication. ● Watching training videos and documentaries. CHAPTER 1 35 36 PART 1 Introduction Reading books, magazines, and research articles in pursuit of developmental ideas.130 This textbook is a good source. You can also consult the references cited in this book to find more detailed information about a variety of topics. ● Search the Internet or Amazon for relevant source materials from reputable sources. 3. Model others possessing the targeted competencies. To learn from others around you, you can: ● Identify role models or mentors who possess the skills or traits you need and then interview them. Try to learn how they execute their competencies. ● Observe people who possess the targeted competency and learn from their behavior. ● Try out new behaviors and then discuss your results with a mentor, coach, or colleague. 4. Learn from on-the-job activities. Steps you can take include: ● Seeking new assignments that require you to use one of your targeted competencies. ● Representing a member of management at a meeting or business function. ● Serving as a coach to another employee. ● Asking to serve as a team leader or project manager. ● Making presentations and facilitating meetings. ● Volunteering for special projects or committees. ● Transferring to another job to obtain new skills and experience. ● 5. Seek Experience from Student Groups and Organizations. The following activities are useful: ● Join student groups and seek leadership positions. ● Join and network at student organizations such as Toastmasters. ● Volunteer at organizations where you can practice your developing skills. ● Enroll in internships, research projects, service learning opportunities, or co-ops. Internships generally last one semester or summer and can be paid or unpaid. Co-ops are paid full-time jobs that typically last 3 to 12 months.131 ● Make presentations to professional or civic organizations. ● Volunteer in religious, civic, or community organizations. 6. Experiment. Developing soft skills requires you to put new knowledge or information to use. Try these ideas: ● Identify new behaviors you want to master and then practice them. For example, if you want to increase your leadership skills, volunteer to facilitate your next team meeting at school or work. Practice using the influence skills we’ll discuss in Chapter 14. ● Keep a career journal. Record the details of your developmental efforts and learn from both success and missteps. Collect stories about your strengths and improvements you’ve made and then use them during job interviews. Let Us Help Our two overriding goals for writing this book are to (1) assist you in leading a happy and meaningful life and (2) help you become career ready by learning about the principles of management. Thus we have created a feature for each chapter titled “Career Corner: Managing Your Career Readiness.” The purpose of this feature is to help you integrate what you learn in a chapter into the process of building your career readiness. The next section is our first installment. ● The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 37 1.8 Career Corner: Managing Your Career Readiness The goal of this section is to help you apply what you learn to building your career readiness. Let’s begin with three keys to success: 1. It’s your responsibility to manage your career. Don’t count on others. 2. Personal reflection, motivation, commitment, and experimentation are essential. 3. Success is achieved by following a process. A process is defined as a series of LO 1-8 Describe the process for managing your career readiness. actions or steps followed to bring about a desired result. Figure 1.5 illustrates a process to guide the pursuit of managing your career readiness. The first step entails examining the list of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and other characteristics (KSAOs) in Table 1.2 and picking two or three that impact your current performance at school, work, or extracurricular activities. You then need to assess your skill level for these competencies. This textbook contains 65 self-assessments you can take for this purpose. The first one was presented on page 29. The second step requires you to consider how you can use the material covered in a chapter to develop your targeted competencies. For example, do your targeted KSAOs at this point relate to any of the four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, or control? If yes, reflect on what you learned while reading material regarding the functions of management and consider how you can apply ideas, concepts, or suggestions that were discussed. The third step involves experimenting with small steps aimed at developing your targeted KSAOs. The final step is to evaluate what happened during your small-step experiments. This entails reflecting on what went right and wrong. Remember, you can learn as much from failure as success. Figure 1.5 shows that willingness is at the center of developing your career readiness. This reinforces the point that it’s up to you to shape and direct your future. We are confident that you can develop your career readiness by following this process and using the guidance provided at the end of every chapter.132 ● FIGURE 1.5 Process for managing career readiness Identify the KSAOs you want to develop. Evaluate the results of your experimental small steps. Willingness Experiment with implementing a few small steps aimed at developing your KSAOs. ©2018 Kinicki and Associates, Inc. Determine which concepts are relevant for developing your targeted KSAOs. Key Terms Used in This Chapter artificial intelligence (AI) 25 attitude 34 Big Data 25 career readiness 30 cloud computing 25 collaborative computing 25 competitive advantage 23 conceptual skills 19 controlling 10 databases 25 decisional roles 17 e-business 24 e-commerce 24 effective 5 efficient 5 first-line managers 12 four management functions 9 functional manager 13 general manager 13 human skills 20 information technology application skills 24 informational roles 17 innovation 24 interpersonal roles 17 knowledge management 25 leading 10 management 5 meaningfulness 28 mentor 8 middle managers 12 mindfulness 16 nonmanagerial employees 13 organization 5 organizing 9 planning 9 proactive learning orientation 35 process 37 project management software 25 resilience 34 soft skills 21 sustainability 28 technical skills 19 telecommute 25 top managers 11 videoconferencing 25 Key Points 1.1 Management: What It Is, What Its BenefitsAre organizational goals efficiently, meaning to use resources wisely and cost-effectively, and effectively by integrating the work of people through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the organization’s resources. 1.2 What Managers Do: The Four Principal Functions nonprofit, and mutual benefit. by offering products or services. not to make a profit. collections of members created to advance members’ interests. 1.4 The Skills Exceptional Managers Need achieve them. resources to accomplish the work. are technical, conceptual, and human. influencing people to work hard to achieve the organization’s goals. needed to perform well in a specialized field. with goals, and taking corrective action as needed. 1.3 Pyramid Power: Levels and Areas of Management levels. analytically, to visualize an organization as a whole, and to understand how the parts work together. cooperation with other people in order to get things done. 1.5 Roles Managers Must Play Successfully overall direction of the organization and establish the objectives, policies, and strategies for it. of their superiors and supervise and coordinate the 38 decisions, directing the daily tasks of nonmanagerial personnel. PART 1 Introduction relies more on verbal than on written communication; second, managers work long hours at an intense pace; and, third, a manager’s work is characterized by fragmentation, brevity, and variety. 1.7 Building Your Career Readiness roles: (1) interpersonal—figurehead, leader, and liaison; (2) informational—monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson; and (3) decisional—entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator. 1.6 Seven Challenges to Being an ExceptionalManager an organization must stay ahead in four areas— being responsive to customers, innovating new products or services offering better quality, being more efficient. ages, races, and ethnicities. possess the knowledge, skills, attitudes and other characteristics (KSAOs) desired by employers. employers (see Table 1.2). awareness, learn from educational activities, model others possessing the targeted competencies, learn from on-the-job activities, seek experience from student groups and organizations, and experiment. 1.8 Career Corner: Managing Your Career Readiness information technology. your career readiness: Identify the KSAOs you want to develop, determine which concepts are relevant for developing your targeted KSAOs, experiment with implementing a few small steps aimed at developing your KSAOs, and evaluate the results of your experimental small steps. life goals. readiness. Understanding the Chapter: What Do I Know? 1. What is the difference between being efficient and being effective? 2. What is the formal, three-part definition of management? 3. How would I define the four functions of management? 4. What are the differences among the four levels of managers in the organizational pyramid? 5. Mintzberg’s study in the 1960s came up with three important findings about a manager’s routine. What are they, and are they probably still the same today? 6. Mintzberg also found that managers play three important roles. What are they, and what examples can I think of? 7. What are the three skills that exceptional managers need to cultivate, and which one do I probably have to work on most? 8. What are the seven challenges of being a manager, and which one is the one I will probably most have to worry about during my lifetime? 9. What does it mean to be career ready, and what are the attributes that define it? 10. How can I build my level of career readiness? Management in Action Did Major League Baseball Value Money Over Bob Bowman’s Behavior? Major League Baseball (MLB) is the oldest major professional sports league in the United States. It is composed of 30 teams in two leagues, the National League and the American League, each containing 15 teams. The two leagues merged into a single organization in 2000 and are led by the Commissioner of Baseball.133 The Commissioner oversees the hiring and management of umpiring crews and negotiates all contracts controlling marketing, labor, and television rights. MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) is the multimedia arm of MLB. It was formed in 2000 by then Commissioner Bud Selig: Selig was Commissioner from 1998 to 2015. MLBAM “operates the official website for the league and the 30 Major League Baseball club websites The Exceptional Manager CHAPTER 1 39 via MLB.com, which draws four million hits per day. The site offers news, standings, statistics, and schedules, and subscribers have access to live audio and video broadcasts of most games. The company also employs reporters, with one assigned to each team for the season and others serving more general beats. MLB Advanced Media also owns and operates BaseballChannel.tv and MLB Radio.”134 BOWMAN AND HIS SUCCESS AT MLBAM Bob Bowman was hired to run MLBAM in 2000. Prior to that he worked as treasurer of the state of Michigan from 1983 to 1990 and then for ITT Corp. He ultimately became ITT’s president and chief operating officer.135 Bowman was given great latitude and autonomy by Commissioner Selig. He thus decided to locate MLBAM’s headquarters two miles away from the league office on Park Avenue and ran his operation like a fiefdom, according to The Wall Street Journal. A reporter from the New York Times concluded that the physical distance between the two corporate offices and Bowman’s “ability to deliver enormous profits for the league and its team owners, apparently enabled Bowman to operate with little scrutiny from league officials.”136 MLBAM prospered under Bowman. The New York Times reported that MLBAM “became the crown jewel of Major League Baseball, the envy of every sports league and one of the most important companies as the broadcast world transitioned to digital streaming. It generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually, and 75 percent of a spinoff company, BamTech, has been sold for $2.58 billion.”137 Current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said “Bob’s vision made our game even more accessible and enjoyable to millions of fans.”138 Bowman’s success led one reporter to conclude that he “was once considered one of the two or three most powerful figures in all of professional sports.”139 It was even suggested that Bowman should have been selected over Rob Manfred as Commissioner, and as a possible successor to replace Bob Iger as CEO of The Walt Disney Company.140 ALLEGATIONS PERSIST ABOUT BOWMAN’SBEHAVIOR Reporters from The Wall Street Journal concluded that Bowman was forced to resign “after years of troubling workplace behavior that former baseball executives were said to be made aware of at least a decade ago.” The reporters noted evidence suggesting that Bowman “engaged in a pattern of behavior that included propositioning female colleagues, allegedly having consensual relationships with subordinate co-workers and cultivating a culture of partying and heavy drinking 40 PART 1 Introduction with employees outside the office.” These concerns were raised at least 10 years ago with Bob DuPuy, MLB’s president and chief operating officer, who in turn informed Commissioner Selig.141 Bowman was considered brilliant yet hard on others. The Wall Street Journal reported that he “would just talk down to people,” often yelling. “Just disrespectful.”142 More recently, Bowman was accused of “pushing an executive for the Fenway Sports Management, the Red Sox parent company, and verbally abusing an employee in October” [2017]. It also was alleged that Bowman hired women to entertain people at the 2016 All-Star Game. These women were believed to be escorts and “some of them were heard encouraging attendees to leave to have sex quickly so that they could return to solicit another attendee,” according to The Wall Street Journal.143 A former high-ranking baseball official told Wall Street Journal reporters that what Bowman “gave in heartburn was always overshadowed by what he gave in money.” This individual also stated that Bud Selig “had no interest in dealing with it.”144 NOW WHAT? Current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he was unaware of Bowman’s historically bad behavior. He did, however, believe that the latest incidents necessitated a conversation with Bowman. This conversation resulted in a joint decision that it was time for Bowman to leave.145 Bowman provided a statement to The Wall Street Journal. He acknowledged that MLBAM’s culture was hardworking and driven, and that his behavior was inappropriate. He took full responsibility for his actions. He also apologized to those he offended or hurt. Following Bowman’s departure, Commissioner Manfred made it mandatory for all full and part-time staff to participate in a 45-minute online training course that focused on discrimination and harassment. Manfred wants employees to have practical tools they can use in combatting disruptive employee behavior, according to The Wall Street Journal.146 Manfred also is addressing the culture gap between MLB and MLBAM. His solution is to combine the two offices in one location in the summer of 2019. FOR DISCUSSION Problem Solving Perspective 1. What is the underlying problem in this case from Commissioner Rob Manfred’s perspective? 2. Why do you think Bowman’s behavior was ignored for over 10 years? 3. What would you have done if you were Commissioner Manfred? Application of Chapter Content 1. Did Commissioner Bud Selig operate more from a principle of efficiency or effectiveness? Explain your rationale. 2. Which of the seven challenges to being an exceptional manager did Commissioner Manfred face in dealing with Bowman? How did he handle them? 3. Which of the three skills exceptional managers need did Bowman most lack? Which ones does Commissioner Manfred most need? Explain your answers. 4. Which of the KSAOs needed for career readiness did Bowman lack? Which ones did he display? 5. Given the facts of this case, do you believe Bud Selig should have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016? Why or why not? Legal/Ethical Challenge To Delay or Not to Delay? You have been hired by a vice president of a national company to create an employee attitude survey, to administer it to all employees, and to interpret the results. You have known this vice president for more than 10 years and have worked for her on several occasions. She trusts and likes you, and you trust and like her. You have completed your work and now are ready to present the findings and your interpretations to the vice president’s management team. The vice president has told you that she wants your honest interpretation of the results, because she is planning to make changes based on the results. Based on this discussion, your report clearly identifies several strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed. For example, employees feel that they are working too hard and that management does not care about providing good customer service. At the meeting you will be presenting the results and your interpretations to a group of 15 managers. You also have known most of these managers for at least five years. You arrive for the presentation armed with slides, handouts, and specific recommendations. Your slides are loaded on the computer, and most of the participants have arrived. They are drinking coffee and telling you how enthused they are about hearing your presentation. You also are excited to share your insights. Ten minutes before the presentation is set Uber Continuing Case to begin, however, the vice president takes you out of the meeting room and says she wants to talk with you about your presentation. The two of you go to another office, and she closes the door. She then tells you that her boss’s boss decided to come to the presentation unannounced. She thinks that he is coming to the presentation to look solely for negative information in your report. He does not like the vice president and wants to replace her with one of his friends. If you present your results as planned, it will provide this individual with the information he needs to create serious problems for the vice president. Knowing this, the vice president asks you to find some way to postpone your presentation. You have 10 minutes to decide what to do. SOLVING THE CHALLENGE What would you do? 1. Deliver the presentation as planned. 2. Give the presentation but skip over the negative results. 3. Go back to the meeting room and announce that your spouse has had an accident at home and you must leave immediately. You tell the group that you just received this message and that you will contact the vice president to schedule a new meeting. 4. Invent other options. Discuss.