What Is Management?

Management is the act of pulling together people and resources in order to reach a common goal. If you've ever let another person in achieving a goal, you've played the role of a manager.

What is management all about?

To answer this question, we will start by looking at an organization, because organizations are where much of management functions are practiced. An organization is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. Two things about this definition are important. The individuals in the group should be working cooperatively and they should have a common goal towards which they are working together. Because, each moment of our lives in some way or another demands management, it's only fair that management should be studied in some depth. From a historical perspective, management practices have changed considerably to evolve to its present form. After the industrial revolution, managers realized the need to not only plan for the future, organize resources on a larger scale, have control systems in place to obtain feedback but to also motivate employees. The need for effective employee policies led to HR movements in the 1930s which also gave rise to legislation to protect workers' rights. The invention of computers and development of technology have enabled managers to incorporate complex data analysis in their day to day decision making. The quickened pace of technological evolution has forced organizations and managers to adapt or get left behind.

Characteristics of an Effective Manager: Planning
In an organization, management is the combination of

1) planning for the future

2) organizing resources to achieve those plans successfully

3) setting up systems that give us feedback about the organization and the progress of the organization towards its goals, and

4) motivating and leading others in the group so that they buy into the plans and enthusiastically cooperate to fulfill them especially in an evolving organization that must embrace change.  Since planning is one of our main functions of management, let’s look at how the planning process should work.

Planning is the process of setting goals for the organization and developing strategies for achieving them. Good planning reduces uncertainty about the future, to some extent. However, the force that drives planning is information. Having relevant information about the past, present, and future helps you plan well.

Planning as a process is internal to most of us and is largely guided by intuition. Let's break down the planning process to understand how it works. 

Goal Setting
Effective goal setting is a critical part of the planning process. So how do we improve that activity?

Roy M. Spence, Jr., Chairman and CEO of GSD & M IDEA CITY stated”

“In the coming years, Millennials are not going to buy what you’re selling—they’re going to buy what you stand for”

Spence’s perspective reminds us that goals should have the flexibility to be modified or updated in order to be more realistic. Goals that are appropriate at one time may not be appropriate or effective at a different time. To be effective, goal should be clear, achievable, and challenging.

Frequently in organizations, goals include a financial component. For example, a manager may have “make a profit” as a goal. However, the manager needs to look at other areas such as development, marketing, and operations. These functions affect the financial performance of an organization, but there is often a lag time before you see the effect of goal setting in the company financial data. However, if you recognize and solve the problems in the other area of the organization early, the financials will not be negatively affected as much. If you build strong goals in other areas, the financials will be positively influenced. This is also known as The Balanced Scorecard Method (Kaplan & Norton, 1992) where cascading goals are set in key operating areas such as cost, quality, safety, and personnel.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system. It suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives.

The Learning and Growth Perspective: Reflects attitudes and actions related to individual and organizational improvements.

The Business Process Perspective: Reflects how well the organization is running and how well the mission is being achieved.

The Customer Perspective: Reflects degree of customer focus and customer satisfaction.

The Financial Perspective: Reflects timely and accurate funding and financial performance data.

While financial data can tell a manager what is happening and what has happened, information from the other perspectives can offer a glimpse about what may happen to organizational performance in the future.