“WHAT DO MANAGERS DO?” DANIEL RAPKA MGMT605 SPRING 2007

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“WHAT DO MANAGERS DO?” DANIEL RAPKA MGMT605 SPRING 2007
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Manager, a term that is so ubiquitous that its definition is commonly assumed

“What Do Managers Do?”

Daniel Rapka

MGMT-605

Spring 2007 Research Project

Dr. Stephen Hartman

Table of Contents

“WHAT DO MANAGERS DO?” DANIEL RAPKA MGMT605 SPRING 2007

Introduction

Manager, a term that is so ubiquitous that its definition is commonly assumed. But the need to seek a definition rises proportionally to the drive to increase the productivity and efficiency of business in an ever changing marketplace. Armed with the tools yielded by the science of organizational behavior, a working definition of this common term can be rendered as well as an answer to, “What do managers do?”

A “WHAT DO MANAGERS DO?” DANIEL RAPKA MGMT605 SPRING 2007 n appropriate starting point to explore the duties of a manager lies within the function of the management position. The origins of a functional description of management can be found in the works of Henry Fayol. Fayol, originally an engineer that turned to management in late-nineteenth century France, set the foundation for management theory by outlining five primary functions of the manager; planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. To fully understand the activities of the manager, it is necessary to delve beyond function to determine how it is expressed. For this, the work of Henry Mintzberg can be applied to illuminate how a manager performs these functions. In The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), Mintzberg proposed that a manager will utilize a combination of ten different roles to achieve their objectives. These roles can be grouped into three broader categories based on how information is handled.

The informational group directs the collection and distribution of information in the organization. Roles within the decisional group determine how that information is utilized. The interpersonal group links together the other groups by establishing and maintaining a framework and environment, both externally and internally, that dictates where and how that information is conveyed and to which objectives is it meant to fulfill.

In order to bridge the rift between theory and practice, three managers were interviewed to identify the roles they perform. A questionnaire was provided that reflected the ten roles of Mintzberg and it was used to guide the conversation. In addition to specific examples of each role in action, the managers were asked to quantify the importance of and time spent on each role by correlating a least and most bias to a scale of 1 to 5, respectively. To capture any activity that may fall beyond the bounds of Mintzberg’s ten roles, an “other” category was included. The results of each conversation were compiled into a data sheet for further analysis (appended at the end of this report).

Bearing in mind that the activities of a manager should reflect the type of organization in which they exist, a sample group was selected to capture a cross section of business size and structure. Manager “A” works for a large Fortune 500 in a middle-upper management tier. Being an older, well established organization, it is deep with hierarchy but has adapted successfully to a changing business landscape. Company “A” offers a wide array of products and services to a diverse group of markets. Manager “B” manages a regional office for a small internet based company that is less than a decade old. This is a service based company with a flat hierarchal structure. Manager “C” is the founder and CEO of a small, recently established (two year old) company that provides consultation, distribution and installation services. This company’s industry is technologically driven and as such it often behaves like a virtual organization to achieve their objectives.

Results of the Interview

Figurehead

The figurehead is bestowed the authority as the head of the organization. Often this role possesses the ultimate legal responsibility for the company. In addition, this role reinforces the culture of the organization by directing social and ceremonial events.

Table 1: Figurehead Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	1	1	1
Manager B	3	2	1.5
Manager C	5	2	2.5
Average	3.0	1.7	1.7

Although the average importance figure lies in the center of the scale, the scope of this role is certainly a function of the level of manager. Manager A falls in the midst of the hierarchy for a large company and, as such, his figurehead role is limited thus yielding a score of 1. Manager A’s duties within this role involve approving supplier contracts up to a certain dollar amount (after which a higher level manager is needed for approval). Manager B is employed by a smaller company but does head a local office. As reflected by the importance score of 3, his figurehead role encompasses signing all contracts that relate to his office regardless of their nature or money involved. Finally, Manager C scores the importance of this role very high since he serves as the Chief Executive Officer of his company. In addition to the responsibility of all legal and financial matters, Manager C organizes social events to celebrate achievements of milestones and to recognize the contributions of employees to reach these milestones. In building partnerships with other organizations, Manager C implements this role. Also, since the company is small, the time allocated to this role is disproportionately small as evidenced by a functional ratio much greater than unity.

Leader

The leader dedicates time to build the structure that guides the tone and operation of an organization. In addition, the leader acts to motivate and, when necessary, discipline the employees. The growth of employees is metered by the leader’s influence.

Table 2: Leader Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	4	3	1.3
Manager B	5	5	1
Manager C	5	2	2.5
Average	4.7	3.3	1.6

As opposed to the figurehead role which seems to be a function of managerial level, the leader role is categorized as important for all managers. Both Managers B and C rate this with the highest mark for importance. Manager B dedicates a large portion of time to this endeavor since his company is experiencing positive growth so hiring and training occupies a good portion of his day. The time Manager C spends on this role is focused on crafting detailed job descriptions and establishing a policy that utilizes self appraisals as a means for employee development. Although Manager C doesn’t spend enough time on this role, his hopes are that the self management structure he is instituting will pass some of the responsibility of this role to the employee. Manager A does not score the importance of this role with the highest mark but still feels that this role is critical to establish methods to define the productivity of his department. Currently, he is attempting to shift the company practice of measuring productivity as a decrease in cost from year to year to a comprehensive analysis of total cost reductions which reflect non-tangible aspects of the supply chain. In part, he is scoring this based on the parameters of his job description versus what he feels personally about the role. This type of response could be interpreted as a condition of working for a company with a rigid hierarchy. Manager C also exhibits this role in developing his employees. A common method of development involves the definition of “stretch goals.” These are expectations that lie just outside of the comfort zone (as in public speaking) or just beyond the skill set (as in familiarly with a new software platform) of his employees. Coupled with encouragement, Manager C pushes his employees to reach these goals.

Liaison

The development of information networks both internally and externally is the key component of this role.

Table 3: Liaison Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	5	5	1
Manager B	4	3	1.3
Manager C	4	1	4
Average	4.3	3.0	2.1

The liaison is seen as an important role for all managers; however, the time allocated appears to be a function of the company size. Manager A devotes a significant amount of energy into this role to develop and maintain his “knowledge database” (his words). This task manifests as considerable face time spent with coworkers, managers, suppliers and customers. Since the company structure is large, identifying fertile contacts can prove to be a daunting task. Once those contacts are made, it is important for them to be nurtured to ensure that information will always be free flowing. Manager B defines this role through communications between his office and other offices held by his company. Manager C rates this with high importance; however, he feels that this role would be more critical when his company is larger. His main focus is building sales and revenue. As such, he allots little time to this role.

Monitor

The monitor utilizes the communication network (established by the liaison role) to retrieve information to determine the performance and status of the organization.

Table 4: Monitor Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	4	3	1.3
Manager B	1	1	1
Manager C	5	3	1.7
Average	3.3	2.3	1.3

For Manager A, the role manifests in the creation and maintenance of an internal sourcing database which tracks the productivity of his department. In addition to generating reports that highlight exceptions (poor performers), the information in this database is used to conduct “intelligent negotiations.” This approach enables the manager to include documentation of past performance and problems with any supplier or customer during the negotiation. Manager C exhibits this role more informally through conversations on weekly meetings. Manager B doesn’t incorporate this role. This type of information is rendered when necessary for a decision; he does not have to actively retrieve it.

Disseminator

The distribution of information is accomplished by the disseminator. The manager exhibiting this role will decide how and to whom relevant information is given. Also, information is delivered to reinforce the culture of the organization.

Table 5: Disseminator Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	3	2	1.5
Manager B	5	3	1.7
Manager C	5	3	1.7
Average	4.3	2.7	1.6

As expected, Manager A of the large company does not attribute significant time or rank to this role. While much time is spent developing a communication network and retrieving information, Manager A doesn’t filter this information to subordinates. All collected information is available for his employees to review. The only dissemination from Manger A results from field trips (conferences, customer visits) after which he will debrief his team with relevant details. Manager B serves as the gateway of information between the main office and his office. He ranks this role high for importance since he is responsible for transferring the appropriate information to his employees. Manager C also ranks this high for importance. Scheduling and forecasting are important mechanisms for Manager C. With these tools, he defines milestones which indicate his company’s progress. Weekly meetings are held to relate this information to his employees. In addition, Manager C drafts policy letters on best practices for business which are occasionally distributed at these meetings. For example, he recently distributed a letter that outlined negotiation tactics that he would like to see exhibited by members of his company. In this case, the tactics reflect the fair-play image he is trying to create for the company. As opposed to the “low-ball” approach, he would prefer that the negotiators approach the deal with the attitude that both sides could profit.

Spokesman

This role involves distribution of information outside of organization or department, similar to public relations duty.

Table 6: Spokesman Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	5	2	2.5
Manager B	5	3	1.7
Manager C	5	2	2.5
Average	5.0	2.3	2.2

It’s no surprise that this role would rank high on importance for all managers since the promotion of positive performance is the key aspect of the spokesman. It is interesting to note that the low time spent scores may not necessarily be a result of poor time management. Each manager responded with similar examples for this role and each included some form of electronic communication. Websites, email and text messages are employed by each manager to distribute information to customers, superiors, subordinates and suppliers. These modes of information transfer would certainly reduce time necessary to complete these tasks..

Entrepreneur

The entrepreneur utilizes information to identify, develop and implement programs to affect a positive change within the organization.

Table 7: Entrepreneur Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	4	2	2
Manager B	5	4	1.3
Manager C	5	2	2.5
Average	4.7	2.7	1.9

The structure of company A includes provisions to identify improvement projects (Six Sigma). As a result, while Manager A ranks this role with high importance, not much time is spent with this endeavor. In addition, much of this work is related to other roles. For example, the sourcing database discussed in the monitor role can be considered as a subset of the entrepreneurial role since he periodically changes the methods of manipulating or displaying that data to reflect new trends or to proactively respond to customer situations. Manager B ranks this role high in both counts since improvement projects are necessary to sustain growth. Typically, growth will exaggerate weakness in existing procedures and processes. Continued productivity during this growth phase is ensured by identifying these weak points and addressing them before problems escalate. Manager C recognizes the importance of this role; however, many of the policies and procedures are still being developed. Hence, time spent is low. Improvement projects are tasked after a problem has surfaced.

Disturbance Handler

Any unexpected deviation from normal operation is addressed through this role. Typically described as, “putting fires out.”

Table 8: Disturbance Handler Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	2	4	0.5
Manager B	5	2	2.5
Manager C	5	2	2.5
Average	4.0	2.7	1.8

This category returned the only functional ratio less than unity for this set of samples. Manager A indicated a low importance rating but revealed that much time is spent in this role. Manager A suggested that this discrepancy is a result of company policy. In part, he feels that the culture focuses more on tactical than on strategic responses. His example is the Six Sigma program which, as he explains, looks for defects and then motions to remedy the root cause of the defect. He suggests that a lean manufacturing approach should be adopted in which a cross functional design processing team develops a procedure that produces no faults. This cross functional team would include suppliers, engineers, manufacturing associates and quality control representatives. Both Managers B and C responded similarly to this role with a high importance but low time. In addition, their preliminary tactics are the same which include information gathering and, interestingly, root cause analysis. To unite all entities associated with the disturbance, Manager C typically builds a consensus to address the problem.

Resource Allocator

The resource allocator schedules the workflow for employees and distributes necessary resources for the employees to complete their objectives.

Table 9: Resource Allocator Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	3	2	1.5
Manager B	5	5	1
Manager C	5	3	1.7
Average	4.3	3.3	1.4

Regardless of varied importance and time rank, this category exhibits very effective time management utilization by all managers as indicated by a functional ratio close to unity. Manager A empowers his employees to gather resources on their own hence he ranks this lowest out of this group of managers. Once expectations are established, he will not allocate unless a specific request is made. Much of the information resource can be accessed via the knowledge database mentioned in previous roles. Manager B ranks this high in both time and importance. Since he is training most of his staff, this type of allocation is part of the learning curve. Once his employees have more experience, he expects the rating of this role to decrease. Manager C considers this an important role; however, he is attempting to embed the allocation process into the structure of the subordinates’ job. As previously mentioned he creates detailed job descriptions and promotes self assessments which would include successful utilization of information resource.

Negotiator

The negotiator acts as the main representative for all types of negotiations both internal and external to the organization.

Table 10: Negotiator Results
	Importance	Time	Functional Ratio
Manager A	5	5	1
Manager B	5	3	1.7
Manager C	5	4	1.3
Average	5.0	4.0	1.3

Similar to the resource allocator results, the responses to this role indicate very effective time management skills. Additionally, all managers rank this with the highest importance. Establishing a fair trade with customers and suppliers was the universal reply to this question. In addition, transactions with banking institutions, insurance agents and real estate leasing were cited as examples for this role.

Conclusions

As evidenced by the lack of results in the “other” category, Mintzberg’s 10 roles seem to accurately dissect the performance of a manager. In fact, only Manager A initially responded with an “other” response that he labeled as arbitrator. He described this as resolving conflict between entities in the organization. However, closer investigation revealed that this could be defined as a combination of the negotiator and disturbance handler roles. This observation leads to another conclusion from these results. Many activities of the manager are actually interconnected roles. For example, during his disseminator response, Manager A described a situation in which he returned from a conference and debriefed one of his employees with information his learned on his trip. His purpose in the debriefing was two-fold; to pass along an interesting trend in industry and to empower his subordinate to utilize this information to develop a process improvement. So in that one act, he exhibited characteristics of the disseminator, leader (to develop employee) and entrepreneur (process improvement).

Further conclusions can be drawn by ranking the roles based on respective scores. The average rankings reveal that spokesman and negotiator are the top two roles based on importance while negotiator and leader are indicated at the top of the time rank. Based on the functional ratio, negotiator and monitor are cited as the two most effectively performed roles. Clearly, negotiation is the pinnacle role in this manager sample group. Negotiation can be viewed as communication with consensus. To be effective, a manager must influence those around them to achieve their objectives. But that influence cannot be forced, instead it results from a type of compromise in which the party receiving the information accepts the terms of the transfer and, furthermore, feels the exchange is equitable.

Some insight to the relationship between management level and company structure can be witnessed in the ranking results as well. Manager A responded to the importance category with well stratified scores. This demonstrates prioritization in his managerial duties. Manager C essentially responded with equal importance for all roles. It would seem reasonable that the hierarchy established in Manager A’s company helps to give priority to the duties of a manager. Whereas, the self directed Manager C with a new company lacks the embedded structure and deems all roles with equal merit. As a result, the functional ratios of Manager A are much less than that of Manager C which seems to suggest that Manager A is more effective (at least with time management). The managerial ratio also suggests that increased effectiveness of time management is a result of company hierarchy. Manager A received a managerial ratio closest to unity (1.4) with Manager B close behind at 1.5. Manager C scored 2.3 for this measure.

In instances of homogeneous responses for ranking, another metric was implemented to try to stratify ranking. For the case of Manager C, a functional factor was introduced to help rank the importance of roles. This functional factor is the product of the importance and time score. The logic here is that time spent may indirectly indicate importance (especially for a high level manager of a small company i.e. time spent is automatically directed to what seems important since no higher level manger exists to deviate this tendency). This method was used in the appended rankings. However, it should be noted that this logic may not be relevant to managers in companies that exhibit deep hierarchy.

In an attempt to relate effectiveness of role performance (I/T ratio) to the importance of the role, another metric was developed, the weighted functional ratio. This ratio is the product of importance and the functional ratio. In essence, this value should indicate effective time management for those roles deemed most important. Effectiveness for this measure would be at maximum with a rating of five. Values lower than five indicate that more time is spent in this role than the importance would suggest. Values over five reveal excess time spent on important duties. The average weighted functional ratio rankings demonstrate that the monitor and resource allocator roles are performed most effectively when considering importance. These results are appended to this report.

References

Allen, Gemmy Managerial Roles at http://telecollege.dcccd.edu/mgmt1374/book_contents/1overview/managerial_roles/mgrl_roles.htm#assignment, Accessed April 27, 2007

Classification of Managerial Roles at http://www.bashedu.ru/konkurs/ibatullina/eng/categor.htm, Accessed April 27, 2007

Henri Fayol at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fayol, Accessed April 30, 2007

Henry Mintzberg at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mintzberg, Accessed April 30, 2007

Mintzberg: The Managerial Roles, Business Open Learning Archive at http://www.bola.biz/mintzberg/mintzberg2.html, Accessed April 27, 2007

Appendix

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