| Traditional Management
Overview |
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Ask a typical business person today, "What is management?", "What does
a manager do?", "What does a manager manage?" Chances are the word "people"
will appear in the definition. |
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Traditionally we think of managers as managing people. We talk about such
things as performance appraisals, span of influence, and job descriptions.
Traditional management tends to be very "people focused". |
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This has resulted in hierarchical organizations where each employee has
a boss and each boss has a few directly reporting employees. A common wisdom
is that it is difficult to directly supervise more than approximately seven
people. Thus many layers of management result in a management pyramid. |
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Decision making in a hierarchical organization generally involves passing
information, requests, and instructions up and down the management pyramid.
The more important or significant the decision, the higher up in the organization
the decision must be made. |
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It also encourages the organization of the company into departments, divisions,
and profit centers. Information tends to be shared on a "need to know"
basis. The higher up in an organization a manager resides, the less detail
he or she can be aware of. |
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In some organizations, particularly larger ones, a methodology known as
Management By Objectives is considered the most effective way to manage.
High level managers establish major objectives which are further refined
into smaller objectives. They are then passed on down the management pyramid
until they finally yield a discreet group of specific objectives at front
line level. |
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The information that is collected tends to focus on results. Performance
is measured by how close the objectives have been reached. |
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Traditional managers are often valued and compensated according to the
number of employees under their span of control. Traditionally the path
to higher rewards was to move up the corporate pyramid, "climbing the corporate
ladder". |
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These various features in a very brief way describe the management in a
traditional organization. |
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