Issues in Management

Abstract

In many contemporary organizations, motivating high performance is increasingly becoming a very important issue alongside attracting and maintaining them. Their priority majorly focuses on creating work environments that do not just provide a sense of challenge among the employees but also more meaningful. According to Whetten and Cameron in the year 1998 concluded that good management of people is the most important factor in trying to attain profitability.

The search of the best ways to manage people in a work environment is a way back thing that started with ideas from articles from “In Search of Excellence” by Peters and Waterman in the year 1982 and also “The One – Minute Manager” by Blanchard and Johnson’ in the year 1983. Jim Collins also made a significant contribution in the pursuit of attaining the best management scheme for people in a working environment in his article,”Good to Great” in the year 2001. In addition, articles on HBR list contain relevant topic concerning methods on how to gain total commitment in employees. Although the articles bear almost immediate impacts, enduring influence and resilience remain the only major two real measure of the impact. Major theorists have put forward several ideas that help administrators and managers have good management skills for their employees.

Many business owners have created their own structures of organization that help them make good decisions in business and for their proper management of employees. They also set up strategies to attain the goals of the company through the employees involving strategies for organization, their visions and missions. These include centralized businesses that rely on individuals to make decisions in business and decentralized businesses that rely on several recommended individuals in making decisions. Different companies have very different ways of attaining their goals. Some apply the focused purpose way of view entailing creating short-term goals, while others put in place future perspectives by setting long-term goals for attaining within a given period.

Abraham Maslow, one of the most famous theorists in management, shed light on practicing management and the field of organizing behaviors in a work place. According to his 1943 article about “A Theory of Human management”, he put forward a “proponent hierarchy” suggesting that a framework is composed of five sets of needs including love, self-actualization, safety, physiological and esteem. According to him, each of the needs operates at every single time; however, one deficient set at either one circumstance in time dominate the individual.

The order of potency of the needs tend to be manifested by the needs. People tend to try to find their essential satisfaction of their needs by resolving the basic goals. according to the framework’s hierarchical nature, needs having a lower ranking are usually tried to be met first before considering other unsatisfied needs. Thus according to Maslow, gratifying a need is just as important as motivational deprivation. Satisfying physiological needs create room for more social goals to emerge. Needs that are already satisfied will no longer be considered motivators for other purposes unless subsequent deprivation makes their reopening to ever be considered. Maslow’s has attracted a wide appeal since it is not only simple but also clear. However, it has also received several criticisms for example by Wallace in 1990 and Jones in 2002 concerning the content of the hierarchy. Some critics say that there is no evidence for the hierarchy while others classify them in two clusters into biological and safety at lower level while a global set including higher order needs. According to Maslow, needs drive behaviors hence can make managers pick out different behaviors among their employees hence understanding their behaviors in management.

Fredrick Herzberg in 1959 divided Maslow’s needs hierarchy in two distinct classes including motivator and factors for hygiene. The hygiene factors involve external job conditions that include wages, the working conditions, benefits and the employee interpersonal relations. According to him, these factors highly determine the working spirit of the employees when they are present. The factors, however, do not influence the motivation of workers. They in a way are the same as Maslow’s lower level needs. His second classification of needs is into intrinsic needs that greatly affect the employees’ motivation. They include recognition, responsibility, personal growth, personal development and career advancement. The second class of factors corresponds to Maslow’s second class of higher-level needs. Only if the second class of factors existed at a work place will the employees be motivated in a work place. A state of no satisfaction will definitely arise if the second class of factors is absent.

David McClelland put forward a motivational model that explains how to achieve needs, power and affiliation greatly affects the actions of both managers and employees in a work environment. According to him, the needs for affiliation makes people spend time not only creating social relationships but also maintaining them. People tend to enjoy being part of groups and having the desire of attaining love from others and group acceptance. People in this group definitely do not make good managers because they spend so much time worrying about what other people think about them. The other group of people according to him is those that are achievement motivated that tend to master a task. This group of people would prefer working on moderately difficult tasks, which the results base on their efforts and not just luck. They also tend to perceive the feedback of the work they have done. The third class of people is those that have the need for power. This group of people tends to have the desire to not only influence others but also teach and encourage them. These people tend to enjoy working and place discipline among their highest priority. This kind of people, however, tend to focus more on their goals rather than the goals of the groups they are. According to them, for one person to win the competing person must lose. According to McClelland, managers should have a top need for power and a low need for affiliation. He suggests that even though people with a high priority for achievement can make good managers, allowing them to take the top positions in management is a bad idea in case we are aiming for maximum results.

Structures of organization and strategies also play a role in determining the best management skills. Business managers usually create their own structures that help them make decisions in business and motivate employees. Centralized businesses usually use one centralized person, the manager in most cases to make the decisions of the company. Many small businesses put this in practice. However, this creates room for sluggishness in the working environments since in the absence of the person making all the decisions then everything comes to a standstill. Decentralized businesses, on the other hand, put in place a group of people with the authority of making decisions for the company. This works best for large companies and businesses and ensures the businesses are always on toes. Goal setting in businesses also varies as future perspective businesses set long-term goals for reaching after a given period while focused purpose businesses tend to set short-term goals.