MANAGEMENT STYLES

Luisa

I have started to do this in essay form, highlighting possible links to other people's work. Vicki and I are working on this, so we will find some way to incorporate both of our works together. Also, hopefully we will have some graphs to accompany our work. Still working on that, though. Any suggestions are appreciated!

The "history" of management can not be traced to an exact source. However, the history of modern management practices do have roots in a theory. Introduced by Frederick W. Taylor, the idea of "scientific management" came to light in the early twentieth century. Presenting to the Interstate Commerce Commission, Taylor outlined the six following "scientific" principles to increase effieceny in the workplace.

1. Management must be responsible for analyzing, planning, and controlling every detail of the entire manufacturing process. In so doing, management must use scientific methods to isolate the very best methods for performing each aspect of every task carried out in the plant.

2. Each step in each task must be standardized, and tools must be developed for them which are appropriate both to the task and to the workers who were to carry them out.

3. Planning departments must be established to develop to science of each job, including the rules, laws and formulate for its execution. These rules would replace the judgment of individual workers.

4. Detailed records must be kept of every activity and transaction so that accountablity could be established and traced.

5. Managers must carefully train workers in the exact execution of their tasks, and closely supervise them to make sure that they are following directions.

Using scientific means for to increase efficency, Taylor led a new develop in industry. Taylorism emphasized productivity and efficiency by giving power to management. Management then dealt repetitive-tasks to fewer workers, thereby decreasing workers and increasing their individual productivity.

The effectiveness of any business/company/firm is determined by the way work is organized and by the way people work with or against each other. The way in which people work -and work with each other- depends on the style of management they are under.
Management styles include the way managers deal with working women, childcare issues and minority issues. Directly depending on the management style one's under, one will have to deal with alienation and discrimination at work.
As Richard Edwards well explains, continuing conflict in the workplace and employers' attempts to contain it have thus brought the modern American working class under the sway of three different systems for organizing and controlling their work: simple control, technical control, and bureaucratic control. Simple control declined in its efficacy as the firms' needs for control increased, but as firms began to emply thousands of workers, the distance between capitalists and workers expanded, and the intervening space was filled by growing numbers of foremen, general foremen, supervisors and other officials.
Technical control emerged from employers' experiences in attempting to control the production (or blue-collar) operations of the firm. The assembly line came about, establishing a situation in which only one task sequence was possible and "needless" motions were avoided. Struggle between workers and bosses over the transformation of labor power into labor was no longer a simple and direct personal confrontation; now the conflict was mediated by the production technology itself. The line established a technically based and technologically repressive mechanism that kept workers at their tasks.
The substitution of technical for human direction and pacing of work simultaneously revolutionized the relation between foreman and workers, but it didn't mean the end of technical control, which would continue to be used in particular industries and would be employed for some tasks in nearly all industries.
Bureaucratic control institutionalized the exercise of hierarchical power within the firm. The definition and direction of work tasks, the evaluation of worker performance, and the distribution of rewards and imposition of punishments all came to depend upon established rules and procedures, elaborately and systematically laid out. The shift to bureaucratic control was a shift towards relatively greater dependence on this organizational method, and bureaucratic control came to exist alongside and be reinforced by elements of hierarchical and technical control.
What neither of these control methods were concerned about was the "de-skilling" of work. Already by 1920 personnel departments, rational and precise cost accounting, central planning offices, and production and efficiency engineers had become fixtures of the new factory bureaucracies. Skills disappeared in the new factories. Mule spinners in the textile factories and heaters and rollers in the steel mills worked at highly skilled, factory-created jobs (CITE!!!) , but this became more and more rare as the drive toward ever-greater efficiency made every skilled job precarious. Industrialization upset the certainty that hard work would bring economic success. "As industrialization shook the idea of the permanence of scarcity, as the measure of economic health turned from how much a society produced to how equitably and conscientiously it consumed, it became harder and harder to insist that compulsive activity, work, and usefulness were the highest goals of life." (CITE, page 29)

Is there a "successful way" to be a manager?

Is there a list of principles to follow? In the "Personel Journal" issue of November, 1995, Don Bagin, publisher of Alexandria, Virginia-based "Communication Briefings" gives the following list, under the title: "Successful Managers Have Similar Styles":

Be approachable. Make it easy for people to talk to you. Rearrange your office furniture to reduce any physical barriers people face when coming to speak with you.
Remember that manners are free. Be as courteous to the mall clerk as the CEO.
Share ideas and articles you come across with those who may benefit from them
Avoid complaining about disappointments or adversity you may be facing. People lose confidence in those who always seem preoccupied with problems
Be seen as an upbeat person -not someone constantly criticizing and pointing out negative
Level with people when they ask for your opinion. Don't be insensitive, but be direct. You'll develop a reputation as someone people can count on for an honest opinion.
Learn to laugh at yourself and the little things that go wrong. Be a person known for diffusing the stress.

These principles are still based on the foundation for management as offered by Frederick Taylor. Despite modernization of industry, Taylor's concept of productivity and efficiency is continuing to be present. Taylorism has found a current name as total quality management. TQM incorporates the same principles that Taylor presented in 1910, however TQM attempts masking the hierarchy of management, appealing to popular society. TQM offers specific ways of achieving total quality management.
As Taylor was to "Scientific Management", W. Edwards Deming created the concept of TQM as being a, "philosophy of management". Deming created his own fourteen points of successful "principles" or "obligations" which outline his "management of culture." Interestingly, Deming's theories are based on his studies of Japanese management and their success.

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service.

2. Adopt the new philosophy.

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection.

4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service.

6. Institute training.

7. Institute leadership.

8. Drive out fear.

9. Break down barriers between staff areas.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force.

11. Eliminate numerical quotas.

12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and improvement.

14. Take action to accomplish the transformation.

More specified than Taylor, Deming's principles offer a continuation of Taylor's first six principles. With modern language and reference, Deming also seeks to increase productivity through management.
The business of increased production and efficiency has become an industry in itself Advertisements for companies who will teach TQM come in many specified forms. For example, Glen Canyon Environmental Studies offers their services in environmental manager training.
Statistics of labor productivity are important resources also available. Data is available on the productivity, worker/per hour, on many different industries, including steel, motor vehicles and telephone communications.

MANAGEMENT STYLES:

Stemming from Frederick Taylor and the deskilling of workers, productivity is seen as the result of management. Periodicals on management and labor produce hundreds of monthly articles, each searching for the latest and updated successful management strategies. Articles such as, "The Successful Manager in the New Business World" found in American Management Association, April 1995, whose front page story was titled, "What's On Managers Minds?"
Other articles offer new and innovative ways at improving productivity. "Does Spirituality at Work Work?" in Working Woman, March 1995 to "Ignore Your Customer", found in Fortune, May 1, 1995, the hierarchy of labor follows Deming's advice to, "Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service."

Within these basic prinicples, there are styles of management.
The following are two popular divisions of management styles:

1. Competitive; Avoiding; Accomodating; Compromising; Collaborating (http://www.spcomm.uiuc.edu/projects/vta/vta021.402)
A competitive style is commonly used when the person involved is focused on his or her own personal goals, rather than on relationships with other people in the group or the well being of the group as a unit.
When a conflict situation arises that does not seem important in terms of a participant's personal goals or their relationships with others, they may choose to avoid a conflict completely.
The accomodating style of management is characterized by attemps to appease other people. This style may be used in situations where relationships with other individuals or the well-being of the group as a unit are more important than task-related goals. Accomodation is the opposite of competition.
A compromise is characterized by give-and-take on the parts of all members. Participants may give in on one point in order to gain an advantage on another.
Collaborating is the most time consuming of the styles because it requires that members discuss the issues involved in the conflict and come to a plan which is acceptable to all members. The purpose is to find a way to resolve the conflict so that the goals and investments of all of the parties are met.

2. Authoritarian; Participative (Manfred Davidmann)
In the authoritarian style of management, managers transmit orders, decisions are made at the top, the manager assumes that people hate work, have to forced to do it, and have to be forced to achieve the company's objectives. In this type of management, managers fear motivation from the workers. For further insight, refer to Barbara Garson's work: All the livelong day: The Meaning & Demeaning of Routine Work. Revised edition. 1994. Penguin Books. In her book, Garson examines the working conditions in different types of companies, and finds that a large number of companies want the employees to work in a "mechanical" way, frown on employees coming up with new ideas and expect their employees to have no motivation to work or loyalty towards the company.
In the participative style of management, work can be a source of satisfaction, there is participation in decision making at all levels, people are encouraged not only to accept, but to seek greater responsibility (work at a higher level), and managers reward motivation.
The case of Japan poses some interesting questions. Japan is a democratic country, but is fairly authoritarian in its style of management. There is little or no power sharing, and although there are bitter confrontations between employees and employers as a result of the impact of foreign ideology, loyalty to the company is strong. The general picture is one of a democratic government and authoritarian but paternal management, combined with a system of management consultation and co-operation. The result: diversified Japanese companies have strong digital technology bases and flexible production systems. The Japanese dominate world markets for many standardized, high-volume products, including personal copiers, electronic and cellular telephones, fax machines, graphics displays, laser printers, and optical disk drives. (Harvard Business Review, July 1990).

(NOTE; INSERT INFO ON "CHRISIS OF MANAGEMENT")

MANAGEMENT STYLES IN DIFFERENT SIZED COMPANIES

Smaller companies have to be more effective and are more effective. Their problems are more related to moving with the times, to getting and using specialist advice and applying it in a way suited to their operations.
The large organization has many experts but its main problem is how to get these experts and all the other people to work together. The larger the organization the more difficult it is to achieve this.
The smaller company is more effective when compared with the larger company both as regards employee utilization and capital utilization. The difference is about 24 to 33%. (Davidmann).

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MANAGEMENT STYLES IN OTHER COUNTRIES

More and more companies in the United States are looking at other possible ways to manage their employees, and they are examining the ways in which other countries deal with this. This is not referring to the United States seeking cheap labor in other countries. For a discussion of this topic, please look at international outsourcing.
Management styles both in the United States and in other countries are very much related to the type of government the country is under. It looks like authoritarian attitudes result in confrontation, and co-operation results in economic success. Furthermore, "a quick inspection shows that democracies have a higher standard of living than more authoritarian forms of government" (Davidmann). The top 30 countries with the highest gross national product are almost all democracies. 10% are authoritarian oil producing and exporting countries, another 10% are authoritarian communist countries, and the other 80% are all democracies.

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