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Business English is … ______
Nina Medvedeva
MODULE 2
MANAGEMENT CULTURE
OF
BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS
Section 1: Business world
I. READING
1. Read the following 6 texts. Discuss the answers to the questions below each text. Sum up the main points of all the texts in writing (300 words).
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Business English is … ______
1. WHAT IS MANAGEMENT? /To the vast majority of managers, management is about action rather than ideas. They are motivated by the sense of achievement when they raise profits, successfully introduce new products into the marketplace, record a sale, or bring in a new customer. Their language is direct, snappy, and peppered with talk of the bottom line. To them management is not a passive, studious, desk-based art, but something which is immediate and active. Management lives in the here and now.
The managers are right. Management is active, not theoretical. It is about changing behavior and making things happen. It is about developing people, working with them, reaching objectives, and achieving results. Indeed, all the research into how managers spend their time reveals that they are creatures of the moment, perpetually immersed in the nitty-gritty of making things happen.
But, management is nothing without ideas. "There's nothing so practical as a good theory," George Bain, principal of London Business School has observed. Ideas drive management as surely as the immediate problems which land on manager's desks or which arrive via their e-mail. Decisions have to be based on ideas, as well as instinct. Without ideas managers flit desperately from crisis to crisis. They cannot know where they are going, why they are doing something or what they will achieve without the vital fuel of ideas.
This observation of the economist Keynes holds true for management: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
Ideas count. Look at the postwar resurgence of Japanese industry. Its growth was based on the precept of quality - this was largely based on the ideas and research of two Americans, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran. While the duo were listened to in Japan their ideas were all but ignored in the West until the 1980s. By then it was almost too late. The Japanese converted theory into practice and became a huge industrial power thanks, in part, to their highly effective implementation of the ideas of Deming and Juran.
The Japanese have a tradition of revering ideas and being able to translate them into dynamic practice. Early management thinkers, such as Frederick Taylor and Mary Parker Follett, were widely acknowledged in Japan while receiving only tepid reactions in their home country. In contrast, ideas in the West tend to be seen as distractions and are categorized as instant solutions or as simply impractical. There is often an unwillingness to try to understand or to try and make them work. The requirements of the moment take precedence in a world beset by ever-increasing demands on time, energy, and money.
Paradoxically, though managers appear to be bogged down in the minutiae of the moment, they are hungry for ideas, new perspectives and fresh approaches. Management books sell in their millions. Managers want to know and learn more. The problem is that they simply don't have the time. Research by the Management Training Partnership found that three quarters of personnel directors buy at least four management books a year. However, only one in five are actually read.
That management books tend to be decorative is not the only problem. The key ideas which have shaped and continue to drive management are often regarded as inflexible. They concentrate on the "one right way" to carry out a task or achieve an objective. In reality, managers know that it is unlikely that one particular approach will solve all their problems. Reengineering, the latest in a long line of corporate saviors, has been the idea of the 1990s. Yet, even its most enthusiastic adherents would admit that reengineering cannot cure all known organizational ills.
Ideas count, but they are not ready-made solutions. No matter what consultants might suggest, there is no panacea. Faced with a crisis a manager cannot reach across for the file on "How to implement strategy" and hope for instant results. Achieving success in the 1990s and beyond involves a multitude of ideas, approaches, and skills.
The trouble is that managers appear addicted to the idea of the quick fix. There is still an air of desperation in the way that managers cling to new ideas. Fads and fashions emerge in a fanfare of superlatives only to disappear almost as quickly.
The learning organization was one of the fads of the early 1990s. Peter Senge's “The Fifth Discipline” led the way. An international bestseller, it propelled the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor to international renown. By 1995 Senge was receiving a less enthusiastic response. "It's part of the fad cycle," he told “The Financial Times”. "People consume then drop fads and ideas all the time and corporations are no different."
Indeed, research at MIT suggests that management fads follow a regular life cycle. This starts with academic discovery. The new idea is then formulated into a technique and published in an academic publication. It is then more widely promoted as a means of increasing productivity, reducing costs or whatever is currently exercising managerial minds. Consultants then pick the idea up and treat it as the universal panacea. After practical attempts fail to deliver the promised impressive results, there is realization of how difficult it is to convert the bright idea into sustainable practice. Finally, there follows committed exploitation by a small number of companies.
Ironically, blame for this obsession with the latest trend can be partly attributed to the professionalization of management. Once management became regarded as a profession, it was assumed that there were a number of skills and ideas which needed to be mastered before someone could proclaim themselves a professional manager. The skills of management were regarded like a bag of golf clubs. When the occasion demanded a particular skill it was extracted from the bag and put to work. New skills could occasionally be added to the managerial bag of tricks when, and if, required.
Unfortunately, managerial life is no longer so straightforward. Typically, work by the UK's Management Charter Initiative to identify standard competencies for all middle managers emerged with several hundred. Simplifying the complex is never easy.
Despite this, the faddishness of managers continues as they seek out new skills and new solutions to perennial problems. "It has become professionally legitimate in the United States to accept and utilize ideas without an in-depth grasp of their underlying foundation, and without the commitment necessary to sustain them," observes Richard Pascale in “Managing on the Edge”
The search for the secret of management has taken managers and organizations through bewildering loops and has spawned an entirely new vocabulary. Managers have embraced brainstorming as a useful tool; they have explored Douglas MacGregor's Theory X and Theory Y; negotiated Blake and Mouton's "Managerial Grid"; been driven on by "Management by Objectives"; discovered strategic management through Igor Ansoff in the late 1960s; been converted by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman's “In Search of Excellence”; and have, no doubt, also tried their hand with quality circles and various forms of Total Quality Management. And yet, there is no single best way to manage -simply a ragbag of shared experiences, short-lived best practice and high expectations.
It is not that these various ideas are poor concepts. Many do work, but they are not set in tablets of stone. They have to be flexible, and used when needed, rather than as all encompassing "solutions." "Management has always been beset by fads and fashions, gurus and demagogues. But never before has there been such a sheer volume of new approaches," says Edward Lawler of the Center for Effective Organizations. "This has led many managers to reach one of two incorrect conclusions: that the new approaches are all hype with no substance, or that a particular program is the answer. The reality is more complex and challenging."
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QUESTIONS:
1.What is management for managers meant to be?
2.What is management said to be about?
3.How is the research portraying managers?
4.What drives management ahead?
5.What was the post war growth of Japanese industry based on?
6.Are managers described as intensive readers on the problems of management?
7.What idea is mentioned as the latest in a long line of corporate saviors?
8.What does achieving a success in management involve?
9.What does a research at MIT suggest?
10.What can the blame for the obsession with the latest trend be partly attributed to?
11.What are the skills of management compared to? Why?
12.Why does the faddishness of managers continue?
13.Who are the chief beneficiaries of the fad industry emerging?
14.What ‘bewildering loops’ has the search for the secret of management taken managers and organizations through?
15.What are the two wrong conclusions many managers have been led to reach?
2. FROM THE MACHINE AGE TO THE INFORMATION AGE
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The roots of modern management lie in the "machine age" of the nineteenth century, though the practice of management has far more historical antecedents. Commentators repeatedly observe that the machine age is fast being
replaced by what is called the "information age." In the words of futurist Alvin Toffler, the "brute force economy" is being superseded by a "brain force economy."
This new era presents revolutionary challenges to the way managers manage and how they think about those they manage. "The closer we get to the information age, the more questionable become the traditional practices and precepts of Management. (In most companies management still comes with a capital 'M')," says Gary Hamel, coauthor of “Competing for the Future”. "In the machine age a manager was a professional.... Managers were given credentials.... A manager was an analyst (value chain analysis, segmentation analysis, cost structure analysis). The act of management took place within the boundaries of industry convention, company tradition, vested authority, national context, functional specialization, the demonstrably feasible, and the here and now. Management was by the rules, by the numbers and by the book. That was then, this is now. The boundaries are gone. The game has changed. The rule book is out of date."
Of course, there was never an actual "rule book" of management. But, like an unwritten constitution, there were ways of doing things and expectations, which shaped every single aspect of managerial activity.
THE MACHINE-AGE RULE BOOK
There was no hallowed ring-binder, but the "rule book" of machine age management was based on a number of precepts:
● command and control - management was exercised on people through a kind of benign dictatorship, inspired by military role models, the manager told people what to do and then supervised them.
● one right way - the instructions of management were assumed to be right. The role of those who were managed was not to question or suggest alternative approaches. There was a belief in one right way to undertake tasks.
● subjugation not subversion ~ the machine age was built around subjugation. Contrast this with the positive encouragement of what would once have been regarded as plain subversion in some of today's more innovative companies.
● labour not human resources - the workforce was "labor," hired hands with no stake in the organization. Labour was generally in plentiful supply and the company did not owe them anything, though they were expected to demonstrate loyalty to the company.
● national not global - perspectives were generally national, sometimes regional, and rarely international.
● security not insecurity - while employees were not offered recognition or responsibility, there was an unspoken contract built around security. Companies had a feel of permanence, dominating towns and their markets. The future seemed predictable and their place in the future even more predictable.
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QUESTIONS:
1. What did Alan Toffler compare the two ages to?
2. What does this new era present revolutionary changes to?
3. What makes the ‘rule book’ out of date?
4. What was the main function of an ‘unwritten constitution’?
5. What precepts was the ‘rule book’ mainly based upon?
3. MANAGEMENT AS SCIENCE
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Business English is … ______
FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR
If there was any one creator of the machine-age rule book, frederick winslow taylor (1856-1917) should probably take the credit. Today, the name of the American inventor and engineer is now known by only a few practicing managers. And
yet, his work forms the cornerstone of much of the management practice of the twentieth century. The man may be forgotten, but his legacy lives determinedly on and, once described, would be instantly recognized by most managers.
Taylor was the originator of what became known as "scientific management." To the eyes of the late twentieth-century observer, scientific management would be considered anything but scientific. Taylor's science was built around minute observation of the best way a task could be undertaken and completed. Having found the best way, people could then be made to follow it, to the second, in the prescribed manner.
Taylorism was based on the notion that there was a single "best way" to fulfill a particular job and that then it was a matter of matching people to the task and supervising, rewarding, and punishing them according to their performance. The job of management was to plan and control the work.