Improving Management Styles

Improving Management Styles and Their Function

In the article When the Problem is Management, author Lawrence Sawyer takes a look at the different styles that managers have in their practice, how they can better perform their functions and how they relate to the four basic functions of management. As an internal auditor, Mr. Sawyer provides some insight to these managers in helping them and their departments make better use of the tools they have and points out what basic function they are violating. This article and its basic points relate directly to the assigned 1st week’s reading in our Management 330 textbook and is an excellent example in how to relate the reading to a real life example. Ways to improve one’s own organization or their specific department in their own organization can be taken and applied as well, as this article is an excellent review on the functions of management and how they put their practices into effect.

In the article, Mr. Sawyer recalls many experiences he has had in dealing with managers of different organizations and how he has found that whatever flaws was found could be directly related to the four basic functions of management, which are planning, organizing, directing and controlling.

Planning is described as the function preceding all other functions and allows a smooth and proper flow through the remaining functions by establishing objectives and goals and following procedures and rules that have been set. An excellent example was given of an audit performed for a company where a manager’s practice in governing his engineer’s time schedule was scrutinized. The manager was made to realize from his own work how he had three years of planned backlog. This was seen and accepted by the

Management Functions 3 manager and corrective action was taken to regain control of the tasks at hand. Better planning practices were implemented to establish priorities and cut completion time expectations for his engineers.

Good organization practices are described more as a counter to failure than a guarantee for success. Responsibility, auth...

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...ecisions that are very routine often consume much time in getting supervisory approval and would be very easy to delegate to the agents responsibility. Also, upper level management be surprised at how interesting it would be to an ordinary agent to learn about how forecasting works and the outcomes of other reports in our department.

In conclusion, Lawrence Sawyer’s assessment of the importance of the four basic functions of management and the different styles managers have in implementing them was very informative. Anyone should be able to take this evaluation and better improve their own personal management habits and styles and see how they can be applied to their surrounding work environment.

Management Functions 6

Resources

Sawyer, Lawrence B. (1998, August). When the problem is management. Internal Auditor Vol. 55 Issue 4, p33, 6p. [EBSCOhost]. University of Phoenix Online Collection. Available: http://www.apollolibrary.com/srp/ubm/mgt330.asp: (2002, August 5).