|
| |
MANAGERS AS PLANNERS.
Term Paper ID:28582
|
|
|
Essay Subject:
Examines requirements necessary for managers to focus on visionary planning rather than traditional emphasis on competition.... More...
|
5 Pages / 1125 Words
4 sources, 10 Citations,
APA Format
$20.00
Return to List of Papers
|
Paper Abstract:
Examines requirements necessary for managers to focus on visionary planning rather than traditional emphasis on competition.
Paper Introduction:
The Manager as Planner
Introduction
With the increasing speed of doing business around the world, and the rapidly-changing global business environment the manager is no longer simply able to react to events of the current moment, but must also be skilled in planning for change, and how that change will affect the company. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, sees the necessity for planning as critical. Stating that businessmen always
“overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten” he warns planning managers to not be “lulled into inaction” (Gates, 1999, 69).
Johnson (1995), writing about management planning in the new millennium
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
(1995) Managing in the next millennium, Oxford:Butterworth-Heinemann, Ltd. That means we have to get everybody in the organizationinvolved. Kim and Mauborgne (1999) suggest that the "new success comes from]looking at familiar data from a new perspective; none requires any specialvision or foresight about the future" (Kim & Mauborgne, 1999, 83). A "strategy" is a long-range goal to achieve anobjective or objectives. This was the beginning of a long article by a respected CEO who wascomparing the competitive global marketplace to a war game. Now Jack Welch is rewriting it -- to tap employees'brainpower, Fortune, 4 . 1), Market space, HarvardBusiness Review, 83. If you do that right, the best ideas will rise to the top. (1999, Jan. "Such companies share animplicit set of beliefs about how we compete in our industry or in ourstrategic group. Kim, W.C.; Mauborgne, R. Belief in the Impossible There is a strong need for managers to learn to believe in theimpossible. Such thinking is not new. 2. These management thinkers and doers agree that dealing with change,especially when conceiving and implementing strategic goals, calls for"leaders" as opposed to "managers." For instance, in creating a strategy,the manager is said to establish "detailed steps and timetables forachieving needed results" while the leader "develops a vision for thefuture" (Collins & Devanna, 1994, 397). They share a conventional wisdom about who theircustomers are and what they value, and about the scope of products andservices their industry should be offering" (Kim & Mauborgne, 1999, 83). For example, placing an ad is a "tactic"whereas planning product opportunities is a "strategy." The literature contains many rule-of-thumb approaches used by managersto compare strategy choices, probably the most often discussed techniquesover recent years are growth-share matrix, General Electric's stoplightgrid, life cycle theory and the related product/market evolution portfoliomatrix, gap analysis, and directional policy matrix. Study War "Leadership in the late 2 th century" he points out "is all aboutmaking decisions in the midst of complexity-- something that traditionalmanagement systems fail woefully to prepare executives to do. 1. 3. ..[our] assault on the future by rethinking executive power and giving someof it to process champions who might be veeps in TV programming or janitorson a cleaning crew....This is one of the biggest planned efforts to alterpeople's behavior since the Cultural Revolution" (Stewart, 1991, 4 ). Johnson (1995), writing about management planning in the newmillennium says "There have been a lot of battles on the way, but there canbe little doubt that, overall, marketing has won the day as the preeminentdiscipline of the corporation of the next millennium ...the way we aregoing with technology, by 2 1 practically anything is possible" (Johnson,1995, 98). Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, sees the necessity for planningas critical. The Manager as Planner Introduction With the increasing speed of doing business around the world, and therapidly-changing global business environment the manager is no longersimply able to react to events of the current moment, but must also beskilled in planning for change, and how that change will affect thecompany. Stewart,T.A. "Despite its mystical aura, vision is acritical aspect of leadership, and it very much reflects the new world ofcompetition. 12),GE keeps those ideas coming: It wrotethe book on management. This paper will examine some of the requirements necessary for themanager to become the visionary planner. There is nosecond place. Stretch Ideals Traditional managers tend to focus on matching and beating theirrivals, a tradition which has tended to divide the business world intosegments in which strategies tend to blur. By its nature, vision implies looking ahead and often with aparadoxical twist - seeing with a degree of clarity what may not beapparent to others" (Fuller, 1995, 397). Dependence on formulas may even dullmanagement's thinking about its competitive position and moves. To succeedin this sometimes baffling environment, managers have to devise dynamic newsystems to assist them" (Smith, 1996, 19 ). The aggressive head of General Electric,Jack Welch saw the need for this years ago, when he said that he wanted toremove the "boss" element from management, and replace it instead with"21st- century managers [who] will forgo their old powers -- to plan,organize, implement, and measure -- for new duties: counseling groups,providing resources for them, helping them think for themselves. The "planner-manager", on the other hand, tends to the concept ofmanaging by selecting competencies. References Johnson, M. 3 ), Business as War Game,Fortune, 19 -193. Such a company is General Electricthat is constantly reinventing itself. Welch believes "The only ideas that count are the A ideas. Fuller, writing about the power of visionary thinking, calls it theimpossible belief structure. (1991, Aug. This is dangerousbecause these strategies are usually identifiable, and therefore they allowcompetitors who know you are using a certain formula to anticipate yourstrategic moves accurately. (1996, Sept. This is inline with much traditional management literature that has focused onfinding and keeping "market share." Such thinking, suggests Smith, leadsto situations where the planning is "tactical" rather than "strategic."The difference is this. Smith, R.W.; McGowan, J. We'regoing to win on our ideas, not by whips and chains" (Stewart, 1991, 4 ). A termthat is much in vogue in management literature today is "out of the box"thinking, wherein managers are praised for being able to cast new visionsfor their companies. Some of these models, especially those that attempt to portray thecomplex strategy comparison or selection decisions as a simple matrixmodel, have received increasing criticism, sometimes being calledsuperficial shortcuts to management decision-making. Stating that businessmen always"overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years andunderestimate the change that will occur in the next ten" he warns planningmanagers to not be "lulled into inaction" (Gates, 1999, 69). All too often, management training consists of dealing withevents of the past, where management theorists explain management theory,often without the practical experience of management themselves. "Tactics" are the specific actions that are takento accomplish this strategy.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
Click here to request an essay written just for you.
|
|
|
