A little bit of history

(1) In the late 1990s it did not seem extraordinary that managers should manage by walking about. But in the 1950s many white-collar managers turned their offices into ivory towers from which they rarely emerged. Edicts were sent out to the blue-collar workforce whom they rarely met face-to-face. The outside world was filtered through to them via a secre­tary who, traditionally, sat like a guard dog in front of their (usually closed) office door.

(2) Coming into this culture, MBWA was revolutionary. It was popularized by becoming an important part of ‘The H-P Way’, the open style of management pioneered by Bill Hewlett and Bill Packard, the two founders of the Hewlett-Packard computer company. Many of the prac­tices of The H-P Way became widely copied by corporations throughout the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s[1].

(3) The idea received a further boost when Tom Peters (the guru of Excellence) wrote in his second book (A Passion for Excel­lence) that he saw ‘managing by wandering about’ as the basis of lead­ership and excellence. Peters called MBWA the ‘technology of the obvious’. As leaders and managers wander about, he said that at least three things should be going on.

q They should be listening to what people are saying.

q They should be using the opportunity to transmit the company's values face to face.

q They should be prepared and able to give people on-the-spot help.

►Question/Answer session:

1. What does MBWA involve?

2. “The big problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.” Comment on this.

3. What is the drawback of MBWA? Do you think it’s justified?

4. Why was the adoption of MBWA revolutionary?

5. Tom Peters says there are at least 3 things that should be going on as leaders and managers wander about. What can you add to this list? Explain your choice.

‘BATTLE’ POINT

►Team up with your classmate and start to develop your arguments about the following statements:

1. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – much ado about nothing.

2. Theory X is down-to-earth; Theory Y is nothing but ‘WHY?’.

3. MBWA is an impeccable management style that never fails.

4. Total quality management! Total? Sounds unrealistic.

See ‘Battle Point’ in unit 2 for instructions.

‘WWW.’ POINT

► Go to www.hp.com and learn about the company’s history, values and principles. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation on ‘The H-P way: a philosophy in practice’.

‘GRAMMAR’ POINT

►The examples below are taken from ‘Theory-1, -2 and -3 Point’:

1. Self-actualization is different from[2] the other levels of need in at least one respect.
2. Maslow also criticized Theory Y for its “inhumanity” to the weak, and to those who are not capable of a high level of self-motivation.
3. Europe, which at times looked as if it was being squeezed out of this game of American-Japanese ping-pong, has also made claims to be the fount of total quality.

►Translate the examples into Russian and explain:

1. Is it correct to leave out ‘the’ in the first example?

2. Why is there ‘the’ before ‘weak’ (an adjective!) in the second example?

3. Why is the past continuous in the passive used in the third example? Can ‘if’ be replaced with another conjunction?

‘THEORY-5’ POINT

MBO

(1) The idea of management by objectives (MBO), first outlined by Peter Drucker and then developed by George Odiorne, his student, was pop­ular in the 1960s and 1970s. In his book The Practice of Management, published in 1954, Drucker outlined a number of priorities for the man­ager of the future. Top of the list was that he or she “must manage by objectives”. John Tarrant, Drucker’s biographer, reported in 1976 that Drucker said that he had first heard the term MBO used by Alfred Sloan, author of the influential My Years with General Motors.

(2) With the benefit of hindsight, it may seem obvious that managers must have somewhere to go before they set out on a journey. But for many at the time it came as a blinding flash. Odiorne said:

Drucker has been a voice of sanity in graduate schools. Faculty members are still busy running mathematical models and measuring the distance between managers' eyeballs, but Drucker has always focused on what managers actually do.

(3) He also said that managers lose sight of their objectives because of something called “the activity trap”. They get so involved in their cur­rent activities that they forget their original purpose. In some cases they become engrossed in this activity as a means of avoiding the uncom­fortable truth about their organization’s condition.

(4) A library of literature about MBO appeared soon after, much of it as unreadable then as it is today. Managers of the smallest business units were urged to follow the principles of MBO: first, determine the business’s objectives; then plan how to achieve those objectives efficiently; and lastly implement that plan.

(5) MBO urged that the planning process, traditionally done by a few high-level managers, should involve all members of the organization. The plan, when it finally emerged, would then have the commitment of all of them. As the plan is implemented, MBO demands that the organization monitor a range of performance measures, designed to help it follow the right path towards its objectives. The plan must be modified when this monitoring suggests that it is no longer leading in the right direction.

(6) One of the more fruitful outcomes of the MBO literature was a fresh analysis of objectives that soon came into common currency. It was known by its acronym - objectives, it said, must be SMART:

q Specific

q Measurable

q Achievable

q Realistic

q Time-related

(7) One critic claimed that MBO encouraged organizations to tamper with their plans all the time, as and when they seemed no longer to be heading towards some immutable objective. This was often counter­productive, and many firms came to prefer the vague overall objectives of a mission statement to the firm, rigid ones demanded by MBO.

(8) After a while, Drucker himself downplayed the significance of MBO. “MBO”, he said, “is just another tool. It is not the great cure for manage­ment inefficiency… Management by objectives works if you know the objectives: 90% of the time you don’t.” Drucker’s central point is that management has to be all pervasive, and that it is primarily a human activity, not a mechanical or an economic one. Too much business activ­ity still takes place without it.

Date: 2016-01-05; view: 929