Micro management
Lecture 1
Organizations as open systems
The challenges of managerial roles
Challenge 1: Performing through others
Influence: interests, aspiration, hopes, passions, frustration, jealousy, anxiety
Challenge 2: the complexity of organizations
• The decisions and actions of individuals and groups affect each other, and can have multiple
repercussions throughout the organization
• The "double multiplicity" of management:
Multiple consequences Multiple actions
One One
• Managers need to choose the right coordinated
decision goal interventions to steer the system in the
right direction
Challenge 3: There's a changing world outside
- New technologies
- Changing customer needs
- Social acceleration
*Organizations must adapt to a constantly changing environment
, Seeing the whole picture
• Reduction: Filtering out the essence of a situation, identifying the most
important elements, and building theories about their interconnections
• 'Helicopter view': Seeing a problem in its overall context, while still
being able to attend to details if necessary
• Recognize trade-offs and be willing to decide on priorities
The day-to-day activities of managers
• Managers “work at an unrelenting pace” (Mintzberg, 1975, p. 50)
• Managers work long hours
• Managers constantly receive, review, and disseminate information
• Managers spend most of their time in face-to-face communication
• Managers have become e-mail slaves
• Managers are event-driven rather than intention-driven
• Managers often experience conflicts
Is that the way that managers must work?
• Managers have some degree of choice of what to do
and what not to do (priorities management)
• Managers can turn obligations into opportunities
(seeing in every situation an opportunity for making progress on issues that are on the
manager's agenda)
Lecture 1
Organizations as open systems
The challenges of managerial roles
Challenge 1: Performing through others
Influence: interests, aspiration, hopes, passions, frustration, jealousy, anxiety
Challenge 2: the complexity of organizations
• The decisions and actions of individuals and groups affect each other, and can have multiple
repercussions throughout the organization
• The "double multiplicity" of management:
Multiple consequences Multiple actions
One One
• Managers need to choose the right coordinated
decision goal interventions to steer the system in the
right direction
Challenge 3: There's a changing world outside
- New technologies
- Changing customer needs
- Social acceleration
*Organizations must adapt to a constantly changing environment
, Seeing the whole picture
• Reduction: Filtering out the essence of a situation, identifying the most
important elements, and building theories about their interconnections
• 'Helicopter view': Seeing a problem in its overall context, while still
being able to attend to details if necessary
• Recognize trade-offs and be willing to decide on priorities
The day-to-day activities of managers
• Managers “work at an unrelenting pace” (Mintzberg, 1975, p. 50)
• Managers work long hours
• Managers constantly receive, review, and disseminate information
• Managers spend most of their time in face-to-face communication
• Managers have become e-mail slaves
• Managers are event-driven rather than intention-driven
• Managers often experience conflicts
Is that the way that managers must work?
• Managers have some degree of choice of what to do
and what not to do (priorities management)
• Managers can turn obligations into opportunities
(seeing in every situation an opportunity for making progress on issues that are on the
manager's agenda)
