This course will cover Chapters 1 thru 10 in the textbook.  Each lesson plan (except lesson plans #5 and #9) has a homework assignment, discussion question, and a quiz. The assignments are due at midnight of the due date. Students may complete the homework assignment, discussion question, and quiz before the due date.

After completing this lesson plan, students will be able to:

1. Describe the difference between managers and operative employees.

2. Explain what is meant by the term "management."

3. Differentiate between efficiency and effectiveness.

4. Describe the four primary processes of management.

5. Classify the three levels of managers and identify the primary responsibility of each group.

6. Summarize the essential roles performed by managers.

7. Discuss whether the manager’s job is generic.

8. Describe the four general skills necessary for becoming a successful manager.

9. Describe the value of studying management.

10. Identify the relevance of popular humanities and social science courses to management practices.

Lesson One will familiarize students with Managers and Management.

Managers direct the activities of others in an organization.  They have such titles as supervisor, department head, dean, division manager, vice president, president, and chief executive officer.  Operatives are nonmanagerial personnel. They work directly on a job or task and have no responsibility for overseeing the work of others.

Management refers to the process of getting activities completed efficiently with and through other people.  The process represents the primary activities of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Efficiency is concerned with minimizing resource costs in the completion of activities. Effectiveness is concerned with getting activities successfully completed—that is, goal attainment.

The three levels of management are first-line supervisors, middle managers, and top managers.  First-line supervisors are the lowest level of management and are typically responsible for directing the day-to-day activities of operative employees.  Middle managers represent the levels of management between the first-line supervisor and top management.  These individuals, who manage other managers and possibly some operative employees, are primarily responsible for translating the goals set by top management into specific details that lower-level managers can perform. Top managers, at or near the pinnacle of the organization, are responsible for making decisions about the direction of the organization and establishing policies that affect all organizational members.

Henry Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different roles or behaviors. He classified them into three sets. One set is concerned with interpersonal relationships (figurehead, leader, and liaison).  The second set is related to the transfer of information (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson).  The third set deals with decision making (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocate, negotiator).

Management has several generic properties.  Regardless of level in an organization, all managers perform the same four activities; however, the emphasis given to each function varies with the manager’s position in the hierarchy.  Similarly, for the most part, the manager’s job is the same regardless of the type of organization he or she is in.  The generic properties of management are found mainly in the world’s democracies.  One should be careful in assuming that management practices are universally transferable outside so-called free-market democracies.

The four critical types of skills necessary for becoming a successful manager are: conceptual (the ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations); interpersonal (the ability to work with and understand others); technical (applying specialized knowledge); and political (enhancing one’s position and building a power base).

People in all walks of life have come to recognize the important role that good management plays in our society.  For those who aspire to managerial positions, the study of management provides the body of knowledge that will help them to be effective managers.  For those who do not plan on careers as managers, the study of management can give them considerable insight into the way their bosses behave and into the internal activities of organizations.

Are we paying U.S. executives too much? There are two sides to the issue. Support for paying this amount is the fact that these executives have tremendous organizational responsibilities. They have to manage today’s environment, keep moving into the future, and their jobs are six to seven days a week, often ten to fourteen hours a day.

On the other hand, most of the research done on executive salaries questions the linkage to performance. American company executives are some of the highest paid people in the world. Even when performance problems lead to dismissal, some executives are paid phenomenal severance packages—sometimes as much as $50 million. U.S. executives make two to five times the salaries of their foreign counterparts. That is interesting when you consider that a number of executives in Japanese and European organizations perform better.  U.S. CEOs make more than 500 times as much as the average employee.

Management does not exist in isolation.  Rather, management practices are directly influenced by research and practices in such fields as anthropology (learning about individuals and their activities); economics (understanding allocation and distribution of resources); philosophy (developing values and ethics); political science (understanding behavior of individuals and groups in a political setting); psychology (learning about individual behavior); and sociology (understanding relationships among people).

Although a Harris poll revealed that Americans believed that 52% of the world’s population could speak English, the actual figure is about 20%. Only 8% of the world’s population speaks English as a first language. These statistics support the need to understand different cultures and languages to compete successfully in a global marketplace and to communicate effectively with increasingly more diverse customers and employees. 

One in eight or 13.3% of the U.S. population is considered to be of Hispanic origin. This is defined as nationality, lineage, and country of birth of the person and/or his /her ancestor. Largely due to immigration and higher birth rates, Hispanics are now considered to be the largest and fastest growing minority group in the U.S.  Thirty-four percent of the Hispanics in the United States are under the age of eighteen.

An organization is a systematic arrangement of people brought together to accomplish some specific purpose. All organizations share three common characteristics. 1) Every organization has a purpose and is made up of people who are grouped in some fashion. 2) No purpose or goal can be achieved by itself, therefore organizations have members. 3) All organizations develop a systematic structure that defines and limits the behavior of its members. Organization—an entity that has a distinct purpose, has people or members, and has a systematic structure.

Managers direct the activities of other people in the organization. Customarily classified as top, middle, or first line, they supervise both operative employees and lower-level managers. First-line managers are responsible for directing the day-to-day activities of operative employees. Middle managers manage other managers and possibly some operative employees. They are responsible for translating the goals set by top management into specific details. Top managers are responsible for making decisions about the direction of the organization and establishing policies that affect all organizational members.

The management process can be condensed to four basics: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. These processes are interrelated and interdependent.

The four general skills and the six specific skills that affect managerial effectiveness are:

General Skills

Research has also identified six sets of behaviors that explain a little bit more than 50 percent of a manager’s effectiveness.

Management is the process of getting things done, effectively and efficiently, through and with other people. Effectiveness and efficiency deal with what we are doing and how we are doing it. Efficiency means doing the task right and refers to the relationship between inputs and outputs. Effectiveness means doing the right task, which translates into goal attainment. Efficiency and effectiveness are interrelated.

It’s easier to be effective if one ignores efficiency. Good management is attaining goals (effectiveness) and doing so as efficiently as possible. Organizations can be efficient and yet not be effective. High efficiency is associated more typically with high effectiveness. Poor management is most often due to both inefficiency and ineffectiveness or to effectiveness achieved through inefficiency.

Review the PowerPoint Presentation Slides for Chapter 1

Review Lecture Notes for Lesson Plan #1

Read Chapter 1 and History Module, pages 1 – 745

Reading for Comprehension, # 1-5, page 23 .

Introduce yourself to the class.

Discuss (at least 200 words) the following:  DO you believe that U.S. executives are overpaid? What's your opinion??

Reply to another (at least 50 words) student discussion question.

PART 2: (10 points)

The instructor will post additional assignments in the discussion assignment during the week. Please reply (at least 100 works) to at least one of the additional instructor's posting assignment. This posting by the instructor will be labeled PART 2 to identify the posting. When the students reply to the Part 2 posting please labeled the subject line as PART 2 REPLY. (10 points)