Management Is Indispensable

Whoever makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before deserves better of mankind than any speculative philosopher or metaphysical system builder.

Management will remain a basic and dominant institution perhaps as long as Western Civilization itself survives.  For management is not only grounded in the nature of the modern industrial system and in needs of modern business enterprise, to which an industrial system must entrust its productive resources, both human and material.  Management also expresses the basic beliefs of modern Western society.  It expresses the belief in the possibility of controlling man’s livelihood through the systematic organization of economic resources.  It expresses the belief that economic change can be made into the most powerful engine for human betterment and social justice-that, as Jonathan Swift first overstated it three hundred years ago, whoever makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before deserves better of mankind than any speculative philosopher or metaphysical system builder.

Management-which is the organ of society specifically charged with making resources productive, that is, with the responsibility for organized economic advance-therefore reflects the basic spirit of the modern age.  It is, in fact, indispensable, and this explains why, once begotten, it grew so fast and with so little opposition.

ACTION POINT: Come up with a few examples of why management, its competence, its integrity, and its performance, is so decisive to the free world. 

Shaping the Environment

Organizations differ based on the management style used.

Organizations that are designed based on X-style assumptions are very different to those designed by Y-style managers. For example, because they believe that their workers are motivated to help the organization reach its goals, Y-style managers will decentralize authority and give more control to workers than will X-style managers. A Y-style manager realizes that most people are not resistant to organizational needs by nature, but may have become so as a result of negative experiences, and strives to design structures that involve the employees in executing their work roles, such as participative management and joint goal setting. These approaches allow employees to exercise some self-directions and self-control in their work lives.

In Y-style management, although individuals and groups are still accountable for their activities, the role of the manger is not to exert control but to provide support and advice and to make sure that workers have the resources they need to effectively perform their jobs. By contrast, X-style managers consider their role to be to monitor workers to ensure that they contribute to the production process and do not threaten product quality.

ACTION POINT: Consider which management style is more effective for the team you manage.

X and Y Management Styles

… two management styles-X and Y-based on the assumptions held by managers about the motives of their staff.

Management theorist Douglas McGregor distinguished two management styles-X and Y-based on the assumptions held by managers about the motives of their staff. X-style managers believe that workers need to be coerced and directed. They tend to be strict and controlling, giving their workers little latitude and punishing poor performance. They use few rewards and typically give only negative feedback. These managers see little point in workers having autonomy, because they think that the workforce neither expects nor desires cooperation.

Y-style assumptions reflect a much more optimistic view of human nature. Y-style management contends that people will gladly direct themselves toward objectives if their efforts are appropriately rewarded. Managers who hold Y assumptions assume a great deal of confidence in their workers. They are less directive and empower workers, giving them more responsibilities and freedom to accomplish tasks as they deem appropriate. They believe that people have hidden potential and the job of the manager is to find and utilize it.

ACTION POINT: Evaluate your management style. Are you X or Y?

Leading or Managing?

The primary difference is that managing involves coping with complexity; leading, coping with change.

Are leadership skills the same skills effective managers use? Yes, to a degree. Managing and leading are complementary and often overlapping activities. The primary difference is that managing involves coping with complexity; leading, coping with change. At the same time, managing requires leadership skills, and leading requires management skills.

Management skills will always be essential, but in responding and adapting to the changing socioeconomic realities of today's market's, managers, even middle managers, are increasingly be called upon to be leaders as well.

MANAGEMENT SKILLS LEADERSHIP SKILLS

Planning and budgeting Setting a direction
Organizing and staffing Aligning people to a vision
Controlling and problem solving Motivating and inspiring


ACTION POINT: No matter what the current economic, political, and social realities may be, the challenge for leaders today is to define their special goals or vision, to acquire as many management and leadership skills as possible, and finally, to know when to sue them to influence others to reach those goals.

Managing Oneself

...managing oneself requires new and unprecedented things from the individual...

The challenges of managing oneself may seem obvious, if not elementary. And t he answers may seem self-evident to the point of appearing naive. But managing oneself requires new and unprecedented things from the individual, and especially from the knowledge worker. In effect, managing oneself demands that each knowledge worker think and behave like a chief executive officer. Further, the shift from manual workers who do as they are told to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure. Every existing society, even the most individualistic one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put.

But today the opposite is true. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to mange oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.

ACTION POINT: Manage yourself.

Remedy Bad Habits

Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains.

It is equally essential to remedy your bad habits--the things you do or fail to do that inhibit your effectiveness and performance.  Such habits will quickly show up in the feedback.  For example, a planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. 

Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains.  But bulldozers move mountains;  ideas show where the bulldozers should to work.  This planner will have to learn that the work does not stop when the plan is completed.  He must find people to carry out the and explain it to them.  He must adapt and change it as he puts it into action.  And finally, he must decide when to stop pushing the plan.

ACTION POINT: Identify and remedy your bad habits.

Managing Oneself

...most of us will have to learn to manage ourselves.

History's great achievers--a Napoleon, a da Vinci, a Mozart--have always managed themselves. That, in large measure, is what makes them great achievers.  But they are rare exceptions, so unusual both in their talents and their accomplishments as to be considered outside the boundaries of ordinary human existence.  

Now, most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to manage ourselves.  We will have to learn to develop ourselves.  We will have to develop ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution. And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50-year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the work we do.

ACTION POINT: Develop your self in the area where you can make the greatest contribution.

Broken Washroom Doors

Every business has its 'broken washroom doors; its misdirections, its policies, procedures and methods that emphasize and reward wrong behavior, penalize or inhibit right behavior."

There are a number of things a manager can do to minimize mishaps, bad policies, unsound methods, and habits that inhibit poor performance:

Make sure your best people are placed where they can make the greatest contributions. Put strength on strength.

Write down your priorities, but no more than two, and make sure that your people are also focused on the right priorities. Drucker asserted he never knew a manager who could handle more than two priorities at a time.

Maintain an outside-in perspective by ensuring that all mangers spend time with customers in the marketplace, the only place results exist.

Review systems, processes, and policies and abandon any that add to bureaucracy and diminish productivity.

Review compensations systems to make sure you are rewarding outcomes that can actually move the needle.

ACTION POINT: Pay attention to your people, priorities, customers perspective, policies, and processes to prevent broken washroom doors.

Broken Washroom Doors

Every business has its 'broken washroom doors; its misdirections, its policies, procedures and methods that emphasize and reward wrong behavior, penalize or inhibit right behavior."

There are a number of things a manager can do to minimize mishaps, bad policies, unsound methods, and habits that inhibit poor performance:

Make sure your best people are placed where they can make the greatest contributions. Put strength on strength.

Write down your priorities, but no more than two, and make sure that your people are also focused on the right priorities. Drucker asserted he never knew a manager who could handle more than two priorities at a time.

Maintain an outside-in perspective by ensuring that all mangers spend time with customers in the marketplace, the only place results exist.

Review systems, processes, and policies and abandon any that add to bureaucracy and diminish productivity.

Review compensations systems to make sure you are rewarding outcomes that can actually move the needle.

ACTION POINT: Pay attention to your people, priorities, customers perspective, policies, and processes to prevent broken washroom doors.

Execution First and Always

Objectives are needed in every area where performance and results directly and vitally affect the survival and prosperity of the business.”


Peter Drucker understood from the outset that sound management was all about performing, organizing, contributing, developing, preparing, and achieving. His works are infused with dozens of words and phrases suggesting that action is the chief determinant of managerial success; not just any action, but responsible action that advances the objectives of the organization.


One of Drucker’s key assumptions was that management is first and foremost a practice, and for a manager to excel at it , he or she must understand that it is performance that is the ultimate measure of success. During our day together, Drucker told me what separated the good from the fair, and the fair from the incompetent manger. Here’s how he described the most capable manager.

Can hire, fire, organize... promote
Is completely accountable for results
Knows how to delegate upstairs
Makes informed decisions after thinning through the time frame
Really thinks it through and then communicates it
Is the right person for the business plan
Asks what needs to be done and sets a new priority
Ends meetings with clear assignments. most meetings end in murkiness


These tenets say a great deal about Drucker’s notion of the practice of management. Managers hire, promote, and delegate (both up, and down, the hierarchy). They are strong communicators; they make effective decisions that help the organization, not only in the near term but for the long run. They set priorities and make sure they are executed, and when that is done, they set a new priority.

ACTION POINT: Execute your role by using Drucker’s tenets for the practice of management.