WHAT MANAGERS REALLY DO? A LITERATURE REVIEW
PART I
INTRODUCTION
For more than half a century, the basic question, what do managers do? has not been seriously addressed despite the devotion of the field of management to progress and change ( 1992). In 1961 the French industrialist had tell us a little about what managers actually do. The renowned academic and author on business and management have written more than 140 articles and thirteen books on the topics of management and business strategy ( 2006). In 1973, Professor Mintzberg has published a book entitled The Nature of Managerial Work which answers the basic question, what managers really do? He examines the various roles and functions perform by managers within their organization. He then provides recommendation for more effective management. He also discusses the importance of training programs aimed at practicing the managers to manage. has raised important issues concerning managers that need to be faced.
In modern business organization the lack of knowledge of managers to managerial work manifests in: (a) boasts by successful managers who never spent a single day in a management training program, (b) the turnover of corporate planners who never quite understood what it was the manager wanted, (c) the computer consoles gathering dust in the back room because the managers never used the fancy on-line MIS that they needed. However, the most vital issues on ignorance show up in the inability of the large public organizations to come to grips with some of their most serious policy problems ( 1992).
THE MANAGER
The manager in business is a person in charge of an organization or subunit he is the CEO of the company. In social community manager would include the vice presidents, bishops, supervisors, hockey coaches, and prime ministers. Managers are given the authority over his organizational unit. In some cases, managers intensively observed the others and they kept detailed diaries. In some studies, the records of managers were thoroughly analyzed. All kinds of managers were studied-foremen, factory supervisors, staff managers, field sales managers, hospital administrators, presidents of companies and nations, and even street gang leaders. These “managers” worked in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Great Britain.
Many managers that participate in management field have graduated with a bachelor’s degree or M.B.A. Successful managers must learn management skills not only through formal education but also through experiences. Facing the day-to-day pressures of a managerial position leads to the development of insights that cannot be learned from books. Managers are classified into two according to differentiation by levels of management and differentiation by areas of management.
KINDS OF MANAGERS
Differentiation by levels of management
Top managers are the executives who control the organization by making its goals, overall strategy, and operating policies. Top managers include CEO, president, and vice president. They make important decisions on which activities the organization should be involved in, such as acquisitions, research and development, and expanding capacity. Middle managers are the largest group of managers in many companies. These managers include plant manager, operations manager, and division head. They primarily put into effect the goals and strategies designed by top managers. First-line managers supervise and coordinate the activities of operating employees. These managers often have job titles of a supervisor, and office manager. Their major task is directly supervising the work of their subordinates.
Differentiation by areas of management
Marketing managers are working in marketing functions of the organization. They are exerting efforts in finding ways on how to convince the consumers and clients to buy the products and services of the organization. Financial managers are dealing with the financial resources of the organization. They are involved in activities like accounting, cash management, and investments. Operations managers are responsible for creating and managing the systems that provides or manufacture the products and services of the organization. They are executing production control, inventory control, quality control, and plant site selection and layout. Human resource managers are task to hire and develop employees. They are responsible with the flow of employees in the organization that include selection and recruitment, training and development, compensation and benefits, and performance appraisal and discharging. Administrative managers are engaged in all functions of management rather than specialized training in any one area. Other kinds of managers have specialized management positions include public relations managers, who deal with the public and media on behalf of their firm, and research and development managers, who coordinate the activities of scientists and engineers working on scientific projects.
MANAGERS COMMAND HIERARCHY
Managers take different functions and job descriptions in a traditional command hierarchy (2006).
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
The success or failure of the business is in the hands of the CEO. To assure the success of the business is the ultimate responsibility of the CEO. He or she is providing the firm with the overall strategic plan, often they are assisted by a team of vice presidents. In addition, the resposibility of the CEO also involve decision-making like what products to market, what market segments to target, what functions to outsource, what business model to employ, and what geographical areas to operate. The CEO has a greater accountability to the board of directors. Most often the CEO is assigning many obligations to one or more executive vice presidents. Typically in small firms the chief executive officer assumes many roles and responsibilities.
Executive Vice President, Marketing
The executive vice president for marketing is directing overall marketing strategies, advertising, promotions, sales, product management, pricing, and public relations policies. The direct obligation of the EVP is to supervise advertising and promotion. In a small firm, they ometimes serve as a go-between to the firm and the advertising or promotion agency that they have crontracted for advertising or promotional functions. In larger firms, part of the responsibility of the advertising managers is to look into the in-house account, creative, and media services departments.
Marketing Managers
The major responsibility of marketing managers is to develop a detailed marketing plans and procedures for the firm. With the help of product development managers and market research managers, they determine the demand for products and services offered by the firm and its competitors. Moreover, they identify potential markets for business firms, wholesalers, retailers, government, or the general public. Developing the pricing strategy, maximizing the firm’s share of the market and its profits and ensuring the customers satisfaction is also delegated to marketing managers. They also monitor the trends in the demand for new products and services and product development in collaboration with sales, product development, and other managers. Marketing managers are working with advertising and promotion managers to promote the product and services of the company and to encourage potential customers.
Promotions Managers
Promotions managers supervising sales promotion department. They establish promotion programs like integrating purchase incentives in advertisements to increase sales. Promotional programs may involve direct mail, telemarketing, television or radio advertising, catalogs, exhibits, inserts in newspapers, Internet advertisements or websites, in-store displays or product endorsements, and special events. Purchase incentives may include discounts, samples, gifts, rebates, coupons, sweepstakes, and contests. This iniative is done to get closer with purchasers, dealers, distributors, or consumers.
Public Relations Managers
Public relations managers are supervising the people in public relations unit. These managers developing publicity programs for the public. Crisis management in a specific industry is their experties. They are utilizing every communication channel in order to gain support from specific group like the consumers, stockholders, or the general public to whom their organizations success depends. For instance, the public relations managers clarify or justify the the position of the firm on health or environmental issues to community or to interested groups. They serve as the eyes and ears of the management and they also evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising and promotion programs. They observe social, economic, and political trends that might ultimately affect the firm and make recommendations to enhance the firm’s image based on those trends. They may also communicate with labor relations managers to have an internal communications in the company. They also confer with financial managers to produce company reports. They are helping the executives of the company in making draft speeches, interview arrangements, and maintaining other forms of public contact; oversee company archives; and respond to information requests. In some cases they handle special events such as sponsorship of races, parties introducing new products, or other activities the firm supports in order to gain public attention through the media even without making direct advertisements.
Sales Managers
Sales managers are responsible to sales program of the company. They assign sales territories, set goals, and establish training programs for the sales representatives. It is the obligation of sales managers to give advice to sales representatives on ways to improve their sales performance. In multinational company they have regional and local sales managers who oversee their subordinates. They must maintain contact with dealers and distributors of their firm. Sales managers analyze sales statistics gathered by their staffs to determine sales potential and inventory requirements and to monitor the preferences of customers. The information at hand is necessary to enhance products and maximize profits.
Account Executive
The account executive is the head of the account services department. They assesses the need for advertising in advertising agencies, maintains the accounts of clients.
Creative Director
The creative director manages creative services department. They conceptualize and develop the subject matter and presentation of advertising. The creative director oversees his subordinate the copy chief, art director, and associated staff.
Media Director
The media director supervises planning groups that select the communication media to launch the advertising whether in radio, television, newspapers, magazines, Internet, or outdoor signs.
CHALLENGES OF MANAGERS
Being manager is not as easy as what other people think. Managers must bear in mind the importance of managerial work. To effectivly execute his job in management, he must understand and respond to pressures and difficulties of the job. Managers must courageously face the challenges in management field.
Challenged to deal consciously with the pressures of superficiality
By giving serious attention to issues, by stepping back to see a broad picture and by making use of analytical inputs the manager is challenged to deal consciously with the pressure of superficiality. When managers respond to varying problems, he often responds to each and every issue equally. Because of this, they can never work on the actual and pieces of information into a comprehensive picture of the issue. A closer relationship with the organization’s own management scientists will help senior manager to deal with complex issues. The planning dilemma can be resolve if an effective working relations can be develop with your colleague. When a manager learns to share information and the analyst learns to adapt to the needs of the manager a successful working relationship between the two will become more effective. Adaptation for analyst means working less about the style of the method but more on its speed and flexibility. By scheduling time, feeding in analytical information, monitoring projects, developing models to aid in making choices, designing contingency plans for disturbances that can be anticipated, and conducting “quick and dirty” analyses for those that cannot are things that analyst can do to help top manager. Analysts must flow within the mainstream of the manager’s information flow to prosper cooperation between the two. Managers should learn the lesson that the pressures of the job drive them to take on too much work, encourage interruption, respond quickly to every stimulus, seek the tangible and avoid the intangible, make decisions in small things, and do everything quickly ( 1992).
Challenged to gain control of time
Most often manager turns his or her obligations into advantages and turn things into obligations. In this situation manager is challenged to gain control of his or her time. In past studies, large percentage of managers seemed to control their time. There were two factors why managers control their time ( 1992). The first is managers are spending so much time on discharging obligations because they want to leave no mark on the organization. Managers are can be classified in unsuccessful and effective. Unsuccessful managers blame failures in the organization on the obligations while effective managers turn obligations into advantages. Second, the manager frees some time to do things that he considers important into obligation. Sometimes they leave time open for reflection or for general planning because they thought that pressures will go away if they do so. Managers – who want to innovate or initiate projects and obligate others to report back to them; who need certain environmental information establish channels that will automatically keep them informed; and who have to tour facilities commit themselves publicly are managers who are challenged to gain control of their time.
Challenged to find systematic ways to share privileged information
For most managers, the dilemma of delegation, the database centralized in one brain, the problems of working with the management scientist is part of the nature of manager’s information. There are higher risks if managers centralize the organizations data bank into their minds. When they leave, they take their memory with them. Sometimes manager is challenged to find systematic ways to share confidential information. It was suggested that managers should engage in a regular debriefing session with key subordinates, a weekly memory dump on the dictating machine, maintaining a diary for limited circulation, or other similar methods may ease the logjam of work to prevent them from sharing privileged information. However, managers must be well advised to weigh the risks of exposing privileged information to his subordinates who can make effective decisions ( 1992).
PART II
WHAT MANAGERS REALLY DO?
THE FOLKLORE AND FACTS ABOUT MANAGERIAL WORK
Before getting into the meat of the matter, John J. Garbarro (1992) in his work entitled Managing People and Organizations published in Harvard Business School Publications, he emphasizes that there are folklore and facts about managerial work. He pointed out that there are four myths about the job of the manager that do not have bearing of the facts.
Folklore: The Manager is a reflective, systematic planner.
Fact: Study after study has shows that managers work at an unrelenting pace, that their activities are characterized by brevity, variety, and discontinuity, and that they are strongly oriented to actions and dislike reflective activities.
In the study conducted by on the five chief executives, he found out that half the activities engaged in by the five chief executives lasted less than five minutes and only 10 percent go beyond one hour. In the study of 56 U.S supervisors, there were an average of 583 activities per eight-hour shift and an average of 1 activity every 48 seconds. The speed of work for both chief executives and supervisors was inexorable. From morning until evening, the chief executives met a continuous flow of callers and mail. Even coffee breaks and launches were mostly work related. In a diary study of 160 British middle and top managers, they found that they work without interruption. In the verbal contact study, the chief executives 93% of them engaged in ad hoc basis.
Furthermore, only 1% of the executives’ time was spent in open-ended observational tours while out of 368 only 1 verbal contact was unrelated to a specific issue and could be called general planning. In some researches found that “in not one single case did a manager report obtaining important external information from a general conversation or other undirected personal communication.”
Folklore: The effective manager has no regular duties to perform.
Many managers are spending more time planning and delegating than spending time with the customers and engaging in business negotiations. According to (1992), these are not the true tasks of the manager. Henry Mintzberg compared the good manager to the conductor who carefully orchestrates everything in advance, then sits back, responding occasionally to certain situation. When spending day with Bramwell Tovey an orchestra conductor he observed that an orchestra conductor really perform examples of what business managers do but there were some differences.
Controlling and Conducting
Like all managers, Bramwell accede to the functions of management which include controlling and coordinating. The controlling function of conductors consists of managing external relations, selecting the program, determining how the pieces are played, staffing the orchestra, and choosing guests artists.
Directing
In the aspect of directing, a conductor is doing less directing function. Unlike many management positions, orders are directed only when necessary to a whole section and not directed at a single individual. In an orchestra, few tasks are delegated and there are very few authorizing decisions unlike in management.
Leading
A conductor in an orchestra is like a first-line supervisor. They are more dedicated in doing rather than hands-off and leading. Conductor is not expressing much conventional leadership, but without them, the orchestra would not be in harmony. A conductor is having difficulty to fit into the three types of leadership and there is no need to mentor. In orchestra, there isn’t much team building; and the culture is more built in rather than built up by the conductor.
Linking
Bramwell is like a senior manager who maintains personal relationships with key stakeholders of the organization. He represents the orchestra to the community. Bramwell do both the external linking and dealing and the internal linking and dealing just like what managers does.
Fact: Managerial work involves performing a number of regular duties, including ritual and ceremony, negotiations, and processing of soft information that links the organization with its environment.
On the study of the work of the presidents in small companies found that they engaged in monotonous activities because their companies could not afford to hire staff specialists and often when single person is absent the president substitute and need to do the task. One study of field sales managers and of chief executives suggest that to see important customers, assuming the managers wish to keep those customers is a natural part of the jobs of both sales managers and chief executives. Somehow, other managers entertain visitors so that others can finish their work. In the study of Gabarro, he found that certain ceremonial duties such as meeting, visiting dignitaries, giving out gold watches, presiding at Christmas dinners were a natural part of the chief executive’s job. Studies have shown that managers play a vital role in securing “soft” external information (much of it available only to them because of their status) and in passing it along to their subordinates.
Folklore: Thee senior manager needs aggregated information, which a formal management information system best provides.
Before, managers received all essential information from a giant comprehensive MIS literature. Lately these information system giant were not used. The enthusiasm to information technology has declined. This a clear evidence on how managers process information.
Fact: Managers strongly favor verbal media, telephone calls and meetings, over documents.
Base on two British studies, an average of 66% and 80% of managers’ time were spent in verbal communication. An average of 78% was the result of the study conducted on five American chief executives. These five chief executives agreed that mail processing should be dispensed because it is now becoming a burden. On the contrary, an interesting finding reveals that managers seem to pay attention to “soft information” like gossip, hearsay, and speculation. Gabarro sees only one reason for this. The reason is its timeliness; today’s gossip may be tomorrow’s fact. There are two reasons why managers give emphasis on verbal media. The first reason is because verbal information is stored in the brains like the strategic data bank of the organization it is not stored in the memory of its computer but in the minds of its managers. Second, the extensive use of verbal channel by managers explains why they are hesitant to hand over tasks. Managers must take time to dispose memory to tell their subordinates all about the subject. But this could take so long.
Folklore: Management is, or at least is quickly becoming, a science and a profession.
In all definition, whether of science or professional this statement is untrue. There is a notion that managers practice a science. A science is systematic, analytical determination of procedures or programs. If we do not understand the procedures managers use, how can we recommend scientific analysis? We cannot consider management a profession if we cannot determine what managers need to learn. After all, a profession involves “knowledge of some department of learning or science” ().
Fact: The managers’ programs – -to schedule time, process information, make decisions, and so on remain locked deep inside their brains.
On the course of Garbarro’s study, he was surprised when observing the executives he saw that they are the same from their counterparts in the past. They seek their information in the same way through words of mouth, despite the fact that their needs are different. The procedures of managers’ decision-making are still the same procedures used by managers in nineteenth century even if their decisions concern modern technology. We are all aware of the importance of computers in the specialized work of the organization. Unfortunately, it had no influence on the procedural work of general managers. The manager is now suffering an increasingly heavy work pressures but cannot find assistance from management science.
THE ROLES OF MANAGERS
To meet the demands and challenges in the competitive climate of the business world, managers shoulder multiple roles and responsibilities. (1973) has identified ten common roles of all managers. These ten roles are divided into three groups: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.
In contrast to the traditional description of managerial work as planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling, this book depicts the manager as working in “calculated chaos,” “controlled disorder” (to quote one newspaper review of it). The job is characterized by its unrelenting pace; its brevity, variety, fragmentation, and interruption; the extensiveness of contact (especially of a peer and lateral nature); and its Orientation to live action and oral Communication. The content of the work combines interpersonal roles that feed informational roles that feed decisional roles. Dilemmas of planning and of delegation as well as problems of superficiality plague its execution. (p. 298)
In brief description, interpersonal roles ensure the availability of information, decisional roles make use of the provided information and informational roles connect together all managerial works. Managers performed these roles at different times and to different degrees depending on the level and function of management. The ten roles form whole integrated works of managers.
INTERPERSONAL ROLES
The three interpersonal roles are primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships. These roles are divided into three sub roles. The managers played the figurehead role, the leader role and the liaison role.
The Figurehead Role
In figurehead role, the managers represent the organization in all legal or social activities or gatherings. Usually these duties are ceremonial or symbolic. If there are dignitaries touring, the company president greets them. The supervisor attends to the wedding of operators. While the sales managers’ takes important client for launch. In the study of (1992) he found out large percentage of incoming mail are dealing with acknowledgements and request while the remaining percentage are spend on ceremonial duties.
The chief executives spent 12% of their contact time on ceremonial duties; 17% of their incoming mail dealt with acknowledgments and requests related to their status. For example, a letter to a company president requested free merchandise for a crippled schoolchild; diplomas that needed to be signed were put on the desk of the school superintendent.
Interpersonal duties are becoming a routine task to most managers. These roles involved only a little earnest communication and give little importance in decision-making. However, they are important to the smooth functioning of an organization and cannot be disregarded.
The Leader Role
The manager being a leader should encourage the employees to improve productivity and shows them how to do it. The responsibility of managers is to ensure the good performance of the people in his unit. Leadership actions of managers may involve training their own staff. The manager is exercising indirect leadership role when they motivate and encourage their employees when at the same time reconciling the needs of each individual with the goals of the company. Every communication made by managers like “Does she approve?” “How would she like the report to turn out?” “Is she more interested in market share than in high profits?” is a leaderships clues. The leader role of the managers greatly influences his employees. The potential determination of leadership mostly depends on the vested power of the manager.
The Liaison Role
Performing liaison role involves the coordination of the activities of two or more people, groups of people or organizations. Unfortunately, the liaison role is seldom mentioned in management literature. In some study concerning managerial work it was found out that mangers are surprisingly spend much of their time with friends and to other people outside their department.
In the diary study of (1967) resulted:
The 160 British middle and top managers spent 47% of their time with peers, 41% of their time with people inside their unit, and only 12% of their time with their superiors. (p.102)
In the study of (1965) of US foremen shows that the contacts were numerous and wide-ranging. It often involved more the 50 individuals and fewer than 10 individuals.
For Robert H. Guest’s study of U.S. foremen, the figures were 44%, 46%, and 10%. The chief executives of my study averaged 44% of their contact time with people outside their organizations, 48% with subordinates, and 7% with directors and trustees. ()
CEOs are making wide range of contacts with people around them such as subordinates; clients, business associates, and suppliers; and peer managers of similar organizations, government and trade organization officials, fellow directors on outside boards, and to people with no affiliations on the organization.
INFORMATIONAL ROLES
The relationship of interpersonal roles and informational roles are interconnected. Studies in the past have shown the relationship of this interconnection not only to managers but also from street gang leaders even up to the presidents of the United States. (1950) explains that “this happens because they were at the center of the information flow in their own gangs and were also in close touch with other gang leaders, street gang leaders were better informed than any of their followers”. (1960) observes that as for presidents:
“The essence of [Franklin] Roosevelt’s technique for information gathering was competition. He would call you in, one of his aides once told me, ‘and he’d ask you to get the story on some complicated business, and you’d come back after a couple of days of hard labor and present the juicy morsel you’d uncovered under a stone somewhere, and then you’d find out he knew all about it, along with something else you didn’t know. Where he got this information from he wouldn’t mention, usually, but after he had done this to you once or twice you got damn careful about your information” ().
When Roosevelt considers the relationship between the interpersonal and informational roles we can see where he got information. Being the leader manager has a direct link and easy access to each of his staff. Managers are being exposed to external information when engaging in liaison contacts. Because of this the managers gain more information. Part of the managers’ job is to process information. In the study of (1992), “CEOs spent 40% of their contact time on activities devoted exclusively to the transmission of information; 70% of their incoming mail was purely informational (is opposed to requests for action)”. The result also shows that managers do not leave meetings or hang up their telephone to get back to work.
There are three roles that describe the aspect informational roles of managerial work.
The Monitor Role
As monitor, the manager continuously examines the environment in search for information, he asks liaison contacts and his subordinates, and welcomes information. Mostly all gathered information’s were from personal communication. Large portion of the information collected by managers in doing monitor role was from verbal communication such as gossip, hearsay, and speculation.
The Disseminator Role
There are times when managers passes privileged information to subordinates. The manager bridged the gap in contact between subordinates by passing information from one to the other.
The Spokesperson Role
As spokesperson, the role of the manager is to disseminate information to people with no affiliation in the organization. The information is sent in different ways. For example, the president of the company makes a speech to lobby for an organization cause, or a foreman suggests a product modification to a supplier. In the spokesperson role, every manager should inform and please the prominent people who are in charge of the department. In this case the foreman informed the plant manager on the current situation in the shop. However in a large corporation the president spend much of his time dealing with influential individual. They must informed directors and shareholders about the finances. As a spokesperson they must assured to the consumer groups that the organization is carrying out its social responsibilities. They must also satisfy the government officials that the organization is abiding by the law.
DECISIONAL ROLES
Performing the informational roles is not the final role of the manager. One of the major role plays by manager in the organization as part of their managerial work is decision-making. Only the manager is given the formal authority to execute new courses of action in his unit. Because only the managers has the full access to information, he holds the full responsibility of setting decisions that will determine the strategy that will be implemented in the unit.
The process of decision-making involves different steps.
1) Identify issues (What exactly has to be decided)
The first step is to identify the exact issue that is being tackled, and you prioritize objectives. It is important that you have a clear understanding of what it is you are trying to decide
2) Undertake analysis (What are the alternatives)
To continue gathering information and researching careers, you will need to start identifying your options. An analysis of the situation will reveal those options that are impossible or impractical to implement, leaving a manageable range of alternatives for a more detailed assessment. At this stage, the view of others may be enlisted.
3) Evaluate options (What are the pros and cons)
If you have completed your research, you are now ready to evaluate each of the options you have identified. The advantages and disadvantages of each course of action should be carefully evaluated, keeping the ultimate goal in the forefront.
4) Identify choice (Which alternative is the best?)
Based on the information you have gathered and analyzed, you should now be able to choose one of the options. Be sure to choose the best among all the alternatives.
5) Implement plan (What actions need to be taken)
Having chosen your best alternatives, you can now begin developing and implementing a plan of action. A plan is devised to show how the decision will be executed.
There are four roles that describe the manager as decision maker.
The Entrepreneur Role
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