Formal education programs emphasize the development of problem-solving and decision-making skills, but give little attention to finding and exploiting opportunities or to dealing with potential problems. Effective managers, on the other hand, share characteristics that cannot be taught in a classroom: they need to manage, they need power, and they have the capacity for empathy. Furthermore, managers develop leadership capacities by firsthand observation of their environment and by an assessment of feedback from their actions. Managerial aspirants must be taught how to learn from their own first-hand experiences. McKinsey Award Winner.
Prediction and shipment has been a scheduling and budgetary problem. Multiple regression is suggested as a solution. Evaluation of regression coefficients leads to better understanding of trend, seasonality, and promotion effectiveness.
The results of interviews with 600 Pillsbury employees, to determine the effectiveness of internal communications, reveal that good communication and favorable employee attitudes are related. Providing employees with information that they want quickly, and through the channels they prefer, characterizes good communication. The principle organizational procedures of an in-plant communications program are: setting aside 15 minutes of the workweek for supervisors to meet with employees, reporting verbally on matters of interest, and learning from question-and-answer sessions.
Negotiating with the Japanese involves many cultural complications which executives may profitably overcome through study and sensitivity. Japanese negotiations involve predictable steps and actions: establishing good personal relations, making a presentation, testing sincerity through style of approach, overcoming opposition or crises, drawing up the contract and closing the discussions. Americans may refine their philosophy of individualism by understanding the selfless Japanese emphasis on the harmony of the whole.
An "imperfect tester" problem involving the decision of how to produce batches of plastic strapping, given uncertainty about the length of the molecular chain in the raw material. A decision on whether to test the raw material and a choice of production process must be made; the latter choice, combined with the length of molecular chain, will affect costs and quality of output. For one process, there is additional uncertainty about pressure. Intended for use early in that portion of a decision theory course involving Bayes Theorem. Involves many decision theory techniques, and can also be used as an examination.
Douglas McGregor's "Theory Y" fails to explain worker motivation under all circumstances. Recent studies show that there is not one best organizational approach, and that the best approach is one fitted to the nature of the work to be done. The "Contingency Theory" states that an individual's central need is to achieve a sense of competence. Competence is most likely to be fulfilled when there is a fit between task and organization. In this situation, competence continues after the achievement of initial goals.
Organizations are political structures which provide platforms for the expression of individual interests, and which revolve around the accumulation of power as a vehicle for transforming personal interests into activities. A "political pyramid" exists when people compete for power in an economy of scarcity. The organizational structure is an instrument rather than an end. It represents the working coalition attached to a CEO, and is a product of negotiation and compromise among executives who hold semiautonomous power bases. McKinsey Award Winner.
Performance appraisal can have negative as well as positive motivational consequences, especially in "zero-sum" systems in which an employee's performance is ranked against that of his other peers. As alternatives, there are a number of "management by objectives" systems which center on the establishment of goals and the subsequent contrasting of performance with these goals. Employees are measured against agreed-upon goals rather than against each other. These systems are future-oriented, non zero-sum and flexible.
Companies should develop contingency plans aimed at preserving and managing the flow of funds to handle the problem of the unforeseen event. Companies should first maximize the amount of available reaction time by conducting a contingency analysis of possible events that would affect the company's performance. A computerized model of the company's finances can simulate contingency events and explore a range of alternative actions. The company should then make an inventory of resources it could draw upon to cover unexpected deficits.
The three major functions of management are conceptual thinking, of which planning is an essential part; administration, managing the details of executive affairs; and leadership, influencing people to accomplish desired objectives. A three-dimensional diagram, which shows the activities, functions, and basic elements of the executive's job, is useful in establishing the differences between leadership and administration.
Describes a young man's first job with a large corporation, where he is given a great deal of responsibility but little authority or supervision. The action takes place in the 1960s.
Set in 1965, at a time when the company's mix of "sales" was shifting increasingly to customer leasing of its computers, the student is asked to evaluate possible revisions in the policies for depreciating the cost of a leased computer.
Return on investment (ROI), as a measure of division contribution to profits in decentralized companies, is of limited use. ROI is too simple a model for a complex process, especially when different profit objectives and types of fixed assets exist. ROI application problems include: setting proper annual profit objectives, assigning responsibility for deviation, and measuring accounted profit in a short period of time. Increased familiarity with division operations and more realistic profit objectives and time span evaluations are needed. Recentralization is an inappropriate alternative for ROI, and correction of the technical drawbacks and implementation constraints of ROI procedures is necessary pending further improvements for new research.
Corporate strategy affects manufacturing goals and processes. Manufacturing must pay attention to the cost, time, and quality factors that go into production. Trade-offs in efficiency, cost and productivity become necessary in pursuing specific markets. As a result, product quality suffers. Computer specialists have replaced efficiency experts as the reigning technical experts in manufacturing. Top management shies away from both of these technical areas. Companies must develop and use a management policy for manufacturing.
Describes a large-volume automotive parts contract in a high-quality machine work company. Quality and delivery problems arise when one of the four men on the job is replaced with a high producer who cannot earn a substantial bonus because of machine interference.
Five separate studies, conducted under confidential but controlled conditions, investigate the feasibility of job enrichment in several varied occupations. Companies participating in the study reported high financial gains, improved job performance, and gradual growth in job satisfaction. Job enrichment allows managers to concentrate primarily on task organization and task support. The job itself functions as the primary vehicle for individual development; management provides authentic and motivational tasks.