Effective management practices in contemporary organizations

Literature review

Effective management strategies and skills are essential to the success or failure of a business (Craig, 2009). A business manager’s responsibilities are overseeing and coordinating business operations, marketing, strategizing, sourcing finances, creating a unique company culture and ensuring that the business fully complies with state rules and regulations. Effective business management entails many things and to be a successful business manager, one ought to understand the wider dimensions into which the particular business draws.

Operating a business organization effectively involves a lot of activities and many tasks. These cover all things from running the building that houses the business, maintaining the stock and organizing the finances to effectively communicate with clients, promoting the business and dealing with the staff. Coordinating all these activities and making sure that all of them work in harmony is what effective business management is all about (Moore & Kevin 1991). Management can be defined as the art of making effective use of resources to achieve goals and objectives. It involves careful planning, coordination and implementation of all aspects of an organization’s operations in such a manner that the aspirations and aims of an organization are promoted. Thus effective management strategies enable one to identify the purpose for which a business organization operates.

David (2000) argues that having well experienced staff at the managerial level of an organization is essential to ensuring the success of the organization. Almost all organizations employ university graduates with advanced degrees as company chief executive officers. Education and experience are very fundamental to effectively running a business organization. Effective business management goes hand in hand with effective planning. Planning is one of the chief executive officer’s core responsibilities. This is a decision making process that not only focuses on the future of an organization but also how it will achieve its activities. Majority of organizations have embraced the planning process and regard it as essential to their success (Keene & Suzanne, 1996). Business planning entails consideration of the organization in both its internal and external environments. A successful company manager understands the company’s strategy, the strategic plan of the company and also the operational plan for achieving the company’s targets.

According to Craig 2009, contemporary business organizations have employed sophisticated and high tech management strategies not only for ensuring their survival in the dynamic business environment but also for edging out their competitors from the market. It is imperative for organization managers to fully understand the fundamentals and building blocks of organizational structures so that they can make appropriate preparations for implementing structures to enhance the performance of their respective organizations.

The recruitment and development of managerial staff is another aspect that is if great importance to the eventual success of an organization. David (2000) notes that well defined and organized succession planning, in-house training, internal promotion, outside training, human resource planning, creation of new positions and active recruitment are important processes that have a significant bearing on the management practices. However, these practices cannot work on a stand alone platform but rather require apt coordination with each other and also continuous follow-ups to monitor progress achieved.

Among other strategies for effecting successful management practices, contemporary organizations have invested a lot of their resources in developing good community relationships with the view of casting their images and reputations in good light. Community relationships involve projecting good public relations and participating in community affairs. According to Hamori, (2009), an organization that participates in the activities of community affairs has the advantage of creating an indelible legacy besides getting opportunities to explore new markets.

The desire to develop good management practices is driven by need for high profits and growth. It is in light of this view that business organizations have set up well defined business objectives with corresponding strategies for achieving these objectives. Better still, contemporary business organizations have realized the importance of running their affairs by a board of directors unlike the traditional business that were run by one person. Communication is one other essential deliverable that impacts considerably on the success on management practices.

No matter the size of a particular business entity, all business organizations require well defined communication channels. In almost all business organizations, there are well implemented communication mechanisms for channeling reports from executive managers, board complaints job descriptions and practice standards. In their research, Munsell & Julie (2008) argue that organizations fail not because of poor operation practices or stiff competition but because they fail to put in place sound structures for necessitating effective communication both within the organizations and between the organizations and their external environments. One of the most critical skills that a business manger needs to be successful is communication. Good managerial performers are good communicators. All outstanding business managers have the ability and audacity to communicate effectively across a wide range of issues (Keene & Suzanne, 1996).

Good managerial practices require that business managers be equipped with a diversity of skills and this range from people skills to operational skills. Having a university degree in a particular field of study is not enough in itself. Successful business management and leadership involve more than just academic excelling but rather being able to incorporate this knowledge in creating a solution for a particular business problem. Successful management is all about transforming information, understanding and meaning from a particular area to another.

Coaching is one other essential practice that cannot be wished away by business management strategists. Coaching helps improve manager’s skills. In his research study, David (2000) points out that about 20 per cent of what makes effective business management is coaching of the managerial staff. This is fairly complemented by the corresponding training of the staff.

Hiring and recruitment are other spheres of influence associated with effective management practices. Problem centered hiring enables organizations to identify the right people who can work with managers in the execution of day to day running of the business. A company chief executive officer can have everything but unless he has the right employees, all his efforts in achieving company goals are doomed to fail. Trends in modern business practices have shown that business chiefs are not only ready to hire the best employees but also utilize them effectively to their limits and potentiality for the success of the business. The potentiality of employees is enhanced to its limits when they are challenged for new ideas and deeper insights (Craig, 2009). Thus to remain afloat in the fast changing business world and achieve highest levels of managerial success company executives have the clout to deploy or remove incompetent or resistor employees.

Effective business management also involves effective conflict resolution at workplaces. Conflicts, differences in opinions and clash of interests occur in every organization be it a family, company or government. Usually conflicts happen for various reasons and involve different people and these may be drawn from different departments within an organization (Moore & Kevin 1991). Successful managers need highly articulate skills to manage conflicts and enable them take advantage of the conflicts to create good organizational relationships. Conflict resolution is closely related to customer satisfaction. No company can be in business if it doesn’t have customers and as such no management practice can succeed if it overlooks the organization’s customer care practices.

Effective business managers always ensure that everybody working in their organizations understand the importance of customers and their services. Majority of business organizations have a customer care department that is mandated with the duty of overseeing that customers are treated in the best of their interests. Efficient customer satisfaction practices not only contribute to increased business in terms of retaining customers but also act as a tape for gauging the level of the manager’s success in selling the image of a company (Keene & Suzanne, 1996). Thus managers can ignore the contribution of good customer care practices at their own peril.

Different operational practices are needed to achieve effective business management. Effective organizational management can be discussed in terms of particular functions. Some of these functions include financial management, financial management, programme management, revenue collection management and personnel management. (Gomez-Mejia et al, 2008) claims that regardless of the business type under consideration, all good management practices rely on the following principal tools:

Policies: they set the framework necessary for decision making in business. Effective business management ensures that relevant policies are developed, kept up to date and understood by everybody in the staff.

Plans; these are the blueprint for action development. Plans help set out how the aims and objectives of an organization will be achieved. Policies cannot work on their own but rather need plans so as to turn them into reality. Effective business management creates and implements sound business plans to cover respective areas of business operations.

Procedures; these are step by step instructions on how to carry out tasks as pointed out in the company’s policies and plans. No management strategy can succeed without developing good operation procedures that ensure that all activities are coordinated properly.

People; people are the primary resources that make the operations of any business possible. Good management practices require that adequate provisions be made for the needs of people.

In the past organization management was often perceived to be similar to administration and as such covered the non-collection aspects of business operations like salaries and business dealings. Administration was a preserve of as a smaller select group. But nowadays, administration functions are regarded as only an aspect of management. Everyone in any business organization who deals with its operation has a role to play in that organization’s management success. Michael et al, (2009) identifies four characteristics of an effectively managed organization:

Every employee has a clear understanding of their work and its importance to the organization

Everybody works to a plan which has been specifically prepared to their areas.

In an effectively managed organization, there are clear procedures which are followed for each activity undertaken

Each section of the organization is involved in and is responsible for the efficient operation of its respective area.

Hence everybody and not the executive managers alone manages an organization. Management practices must evolve and change so as to meet the diverse needs of an organization. This has over the years given rise to a wide variety of management practices like objective-oriented management, scientific management, risk management and crisis management. To a certain extent, effective business management requires use of common sense to what should work in a particular circumstance. Increasingly, business organizations are using two concepts to identify the best management practices and measure management progress. These are; examining the operations of an organization and determining which operation strategies are the most successful. Those organizations that are perceived to have excelled in their operations are actually measured by the levels of achievement in management practices (Gomez-Mejia et al, 2008)

Effective management also involves keeping a record of all the resources that are available to keep the operations of the business running. It also requires taking close considerations whether existing resources can be used to sustain business operation in the future (Moore & Kevin 1991). All these are easily achieved by setting goals and checking progress against the best practices of the organization. Checking of management progress is the benchmark against which achievements are measured. Effective business managers always look for new examples of best management practices to which they strife. Recognizing highest levels of excellence, implementing appropriate measures and strategies for achieving it and improving the levels of business operations are all essential components of good and effective management practices.

Most of the business organizations have developed internal guidelines that address all their core responsibilities and operations (Keene & Suzanne, 1996). These guidelines are presented as series of general requirements that have to be adhered to by employees during the execution of their duties. Implemented properly, these guidelines turn out to be successful in the development of frameworks for implementation of management practices. Implementation of sound managerial policies is very essential to enhanced decision making in any business organization. Best management practices provide a blueprint for other business operations to imitate. When management structures are weak, the entire business organizations become weak and as a result no meaningful operations can be accomplished. The most appropriate aspects of business operation should be adopted and implemented subject to the situation in a particular organization (Michael et al, 2009).

Bibliography

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