INTRODUCTION: MANAGERS IN ORGANISATIONS
In business, Managers are responsible for effectively managing, informing, mentoring, motivating,
coaching, instructing, supporting and reporting on all activities conducted by the organisation. All of
these tasks are driven by communication.
Making a difference as a manager today and tomorrow requires a different approach from yesterday.
Successful departments and organisations do not just happen– they are managed to be that way.
Manages in every organization pacemaker challenges and have an opportunity to make a difference.
Flexibility and agility are important new approaches and capabilities of managers and their
organisations. (Samson, Donnet & Daft 2018, p. 8; Samson & Daft 2015, p. 9)
Much has changed in the workplace over fifty years. Earlier concepts of traditional, hierarchical
mechanistic management structures, predominately using a top down communication style, are now
balanced by more organic structures. Organic structures tend to have a flatter management structure
and communications are often vertical, horizontal and lateral, allowing for a more creative response to
innovation across the organisation.
In reality, many contemporary organisations are a hybrid of mechanistic and organic management
structures and styles, modelled to fit the needs of the organisation and as a reflection of their work
culture. Nonetheless, the enduring notion that management is the process of planning and coordinating
work activities and tasks to be completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people
remains the constant principle.
Module 1
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DISCUSSION POINT. Mechanistic organisational structures are pyramid shaped, with decision making
and power concentrated at the top. They have rigid communication lines with authority based on
position. Organic organisational structures have a flattened horizontal shape. Decision making is at all
levels. Communication flows are based on current needs. Authority is based on expertise. They are
fluid, dynamic and ever-changing.
Think about your own workplace experiences and reflect on which of those organisations were more
mechanistic or more organic in their structure. What did that feel like? How are they different?
*A NOTE ABOUT DISCUSSION POINTS.
Throughout this study guide you will find these discussion points. They are there for you to follow through
as a personal and reflective moment about the issue at hand. Sometimes they will direct you to specific
short reading or to a YouTube clip.
They are presented as an extra thinking exercise that will help you gain further insights into the principles
and concepts being discussed throughout the semester.
A manager’s responsibilities are many and varied, but include:
• Being the corporate face, representative or point of contact for an organisation or a work
team within an organisation
• Monitoring information and its flow
• Networking both internally and externally
• Entering into transactions and negotiations with workers, leaders and other managers
within the organisation to effectively coordinate activities
• Planning and scheduling work activities
• Allocating physical and human resources to different work teams and activities
• Directing and monitoring the work of team members
• Monitoring and informing human resources management activities
• Adapting to changing situations and unexpected events that may directly affect work flow
or the workplace
• Engaging with innovation within the workplace on product and management levels
• Remaining current within your professional or functional expertise.
Management can be defined as having four main roles. These are:
• Assessing and monitoring. The first task of a manager is to ensure that the current
activities of the organisation are functional and under control. Systems need to be
developed and monitored to ensure the organisation is meeting its current targets and
vision. Failure to do so can stifle any other future vision, goals and aspirations of the
organisation. Business runs on cash flow and day to day production and management
detail must be strictly adhered to. Monitoring operations is an ongoing process.
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• Planning. An organisation needs managers who can set out its future goals and develop
detailed strategies about how the organisation may achieve growth. In these days of
globalisation and turbulent finance, this planning has become both regular and crucial to
securing the organisation’s future.
We are surrounded by stories of organisations that failed to make the right moves resulting
in their markets and clients moving away, either locally or offshore. In the age of
information, we see tastes and trends moving rapidly. Many times these changing trends
and tastes are predictable. Today, managers need to be more than content experts. Not
only do they need to be able to motivate, innovate, communicate and build solid workplace
relationships with their colleagues in order to succeed, they need to be across their internal
and external communication in order to be able to adapt quickly to changing business
environments.
• Organising. The current management ‘buzz’ is transactional management. This term
describes how the vision of the organisation transforms into processes, systems and work
activities that are going to be effective within the organisation’s available resources. This
responsibility rests with the Board, often developed in tandem with a small leadership team
from within the organisation. Their role is to fulfil the ‘big picture’, deliver vision and mission
statements, aims and objectives. ‘Organising involves the assignment of tasks, the
grouping of tasks into departments, and the allocation of resources to departments’
(Samson, Donnet & Daft 2018, pp. 12-13; Samson & Daft 2015, p. 13). Managers work
with the leadership team and the wider organisation to transform that vision in reality
through negotiation and transactional processes, systems and work activities to implement
this vision.
These transactions, by necessity, may lead to the development of a new structural design
for the organisation or even the engagement of innovative management models resulting
in the integration of new work teams, either structured or self-managed.
The term transactional management implies and requires the constant engagement of
communication skills and models: messages sent and received, identification of noise and
interference, feedback techniques, emotional intelligence, active listening, an
understanding of non-verbal communication, together with an understanding of the
organisational culture. The many wider cultural backgrounds of employees also need to be
consistently and sensitively engaged. People from other cultures often work to a non-
mainstream set of social and workplace values.
• Leading. In any event, these innovations, new systems and processes are then fed back
up into the leadership team and discussed, changed, tested and ultimately verified. The
role of the manager then becomes the implementation of change, potentially establishing
or rebuilding teams towards the development of functional new systems and processes.
In modern organisations, change is the only certainty. Organisations run the risk of being
left behind in today’s global market and business environment which is ‘morphing’ itself
faster than at any time in human history.
Managing for change and communicating these changes is the challenge for modern
managers.