Term
Exam Question 1:
1. You can’t get a decision implemented unless you manage change. What do we know about managing change? What use can you see in the Kotter 8 step model? Why do people resist change? What can you do as a manager to overcome resistance to change? What strategies do we have to implement change? Which work best and why?
GENERAL: What to touch on? |
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Definition
1. Change in Inevitable
2. 4 Ps of Change
3. Kotter's 8 Steps
4. Resistance to change
a. aspects of fear
5. How to overcome resistance to change.
6. Strategies for implementing change
a. Participation specifics, it's the best strategy |
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Term
| What are the 4 Ps of change? |
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Definition
Problem – why is there a need to change
People – who is involved both directly and indirectly
Process – how do you make the change happen
Proof – how do you know it worked, and if not, now what do you do |
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Term
| What are Kotter's 8 steps? |
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Definition
1. Urgency
2. Create powerful guiding coalition
3. Developing a vision/strategy
4. Effective communications
5. Empowering broad based action
6. Creating short term wins
7. Creating more change
8. Anchoring in culture |
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Term
| Why do people resist change? |
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Definition
Habit: learned; things we get used to doing; save decision-making time; hard to change
Homeostasis –people/organizations want to go back to the original status/norm; recapture “steady state”; act like nothing changed
Fear |
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Term
| What are the 3 types of fear? |
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Definition
• Personal fears (time, potential economic adjustments, job still requirements change, change in working conditions); things they will do differently because of change
• Psychological/emotional fears (fear of unknown, low tolerance for change, potential lack of trust in management, need for status, security)
• Sociological/group fears (Us vs. Management, disruption of work group friendships, why us?) |
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Term
| What are the strategies for implementing change? |
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Definition
1. Fiat approach: dictator; one way power; this is how it will be in the organization
2. Replacement: hiring and firing to change the organization
3. Reorganization/Restructuring: taking an organization set of relationships and rearranging them, reorganizing positions; put someone under a new manager
4. Participation/Group decision making: who’s involved in the change; degrees of participation from limited to highly involved; talking with other employees to make/implement decisions |
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Term
| Why is participation the best strategy for change? |
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Definition
a. People who have to do the work know how
b. Communicates to those who execute the decision- what/why/how
c. Those who execute have opportunity to voice opinions and offer ideas
d. Opens up ideas that you may not have thought about
e. Motivated to execute (ours not yours)
f. Communication/understanding
Participation is the best method because two heads are better than one; increases understanding by all involved; increased ownership in our decision; increases support by consensus; reduces fear because of the trust involved in group decision making (group diminishes anxiety because of social pressures) |
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Term
2. Communication is critical in implementing decisions. Why? What does the two way model look like and what important information does it give us to make communication work well? What are the barriers to effective communications and how do we overcome them?
OVERALL what should you touch on? |
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Definition
1. Why is communication important?
2. What is the two-way model and why is it important?
3. Communication process
4. Barriers to communication |
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Term
| What is the importance of communication? |
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Definition
| Communication is the key part of managing change and implementing decisions. Once a decision is made, it must be understood and interpreted by those who will carry it out or else nothing will get done. Just like in Kotter’s 8 steps, communication is needed to create urgency, a guiding coalition, develop, share, and create enthusiasm for a vision or strategy, etc. |
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Term
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Definition
Two-way model: gets you feedback and a response; message and respond; solicit and send feedback; must make sure communication is successful
a. Ideation: coming up with idea that’s worth sharing
b. Encoding: how to say it and what channel to use; appropriate symbols that fit the channel and intended receiver
c. Transmitting: sending the message
d. Noise: distractions
e. Receiving
f. Decoding: break the symbols back down into the idea
g. Action: do something |
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Term
| Describe the communication process. |
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Definition
Receiver’s responsibility: action (feedback), decoding, receiving
Sender’s responsibility: ideation, encoding (channel selection and symbol selection), transmitting, and action (feedback)
Noise is not anyone’s fault or responsibility
There is a sender who encodes a message, the message is then transmitted, then decoded by the receiver and the barriers to communication is the “noise.” Each form of communication, in person, phone, e-mail has its drawbacks but also usefulness.
The best solution is to fit the mode of communication with what is being communicated. If it is complex, then in person is best. If mundane, simple, and not time oriented, an e-mail works fine. |
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Term
| Describe the different barriers to communication. |
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Definition
1. Physical: walls, distance; your responsibility to avoid them
2. Personal: don’t “hear” what people tell us; screen them; hear what you want to hear
a. Perceptual barriers: stereotypes; see what you want to see; suit=professional
b. Social status: as receiver, we are overwhelmed with status; as sender it is hard to communicate to a person of another status (Bill Gates to assembly line workers)
c. Intentional distortion: lie; don’t tell people the truth
d. Inertia: don’t think to tell something because they thought the other person knew
3. Semantic: different words mean different things to different people (actions too)
4. People don’t listen well (can’t receive feedback) |
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Term
3. Measurable and objective goals are critical for success management. Why? MBO was proposed in class as a way to make goals useful. What is it? How does it work? What does MBO do well? Where might MBO fail and how would a manager cope or accommodate any problems using it?
What to cover? |
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Definition
1. Importance of measurable and objective goals.
2. What is MBO?
3. How does MBO work?
4. What does MBO do well?
5. Downfalls of MBO. |
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Term
| What is the importance of MBO? |
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Definition
| Measurable and objective goals are critical for success in management because they clearly define what must be accomplished and the ways to go about doing so. Without focusing on clear cut goals that can be achieved, the company has no vision and no direction and will often fall apart. |
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Term
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Definition
| MBO (management by objectives) is the process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees understand why they are in the organization.MBO is a management strategy that uses the S.M.A.R.T. goals method--setting objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. MBO works because it helps to align the individual efforts of broad teams around the organization's collective objectives. Organizations today are often diffused light sources with each member of the organization focusing on different, often personal, objectives. So instead of being able to cut through the market and capture more market share, or command higher prices, organizations are lucky to make steady growth. |
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Term
| Describe the MBO process? |
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Definition
| The MBO process starts with the organization defining its objectives. The process of strategic planning, goal setting, or visioning generates from its process a set of objectives that the organization should strive to achieve. From there it is up to the individual departments to form their objectives, most if not all of which should align and support the organizational objectives. Individual objectives are then established to support the departmental objectives. Setting goals at the employee level that align with company goals is the key. |
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Term
| What are the advantages of MBO? |
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Definition
Advantages
• You know what your job is
• Great planning tool
• Good communication between boss and subordinate
• Good to delegate, motivate, and hold accountable
• Can reward if done well/succeeded
• Articulate job you do by means to get it done |
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Term
| What are the disadvantages of MBO? |
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Definition
Disadvantages
• Boss stupidity/unfamiliarity
• Communication breakdown, such as if you and your boss don’t get along
• Not everything can be broken down into specifics
• May not have the systems to assess information to be measured in goals
• How to determine specific goals for individuals and how to judge/explain them so it sounds fair
• Lots of paperwork |
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Term
| How would a manager deal with MBO failures? |
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Definition
| A manager might fair if they are unfamiliar with the employee or the sort of tasks they participate in. Other problems may also be communication barriers, differences between boss/employee, or the inability to break down specific, individual goals. This can be accommodated by fostering good communication between boss/employee, keeping similar boundaries between each boss/employee so that there is a separation of powers, and researching each individual job so that you can tailor objectives to each. |
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Term
4. Social responsibility is a topic we discussed in class and the book spends time on it as well. What arguments are there in favor of social responsibility? Against? As a manager, which side of the argument do you buy and why (what is the social obligation of an organization?) How can you use your preferred approach to make decisions? Is ethics and social responsibility the same thing? How are they different from a manager’s point of view? What is an ethical decision?
In general, what should you touch on? |
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Definition
1. Arguments for social responsibility.
2. Arguments against social responsibility.
3. Pick a side (social obligation?)
4. Ethics vs. Social responsibility. |
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Term
| What are the arguments for social resopnsibility? |
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Definition
For
1. The best managers are in business. Therefore, business managers are the best equipped to solve social problems
2. Business has the resources necessary to solve social problems
3. A business has many characteristics of a person. Since persons must be socially accountable for their actions, so should businesses be.
4. Businesses should help the social problems it has helped to cause
5. Social responsibility is to the long-run social advantage of businesses, as it interacts with other social institutions
6. Social responsibility is to the long-run financial advantage of business. Enlightened self-interest demands that business managers should be socially responsible
7. We all want to conserve our nation’s culture and wealth. We should not allow socially irresponsible businesses to jeopardize what we have achieved as a society
8. Business managers must be socially responsible in order to avoid more government control. |
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Term
| What are the arguments against social responsibility? |
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Definition
Against
1. Social institutions can best serve society by specializing in the functions for which they were designed. Businesses are designed to serve an economic function, not a social function. The only social responsibility of business managers is to make as much money for stockholders as possible, within the rules established by society.
2. We all benefit from a diversity of institutions, each with its own activities, efforts, and values. Whenever one institution becomes dominant, society suffers
3. Business people lack the competence to move outside the business sphere and into the societal sphere. Business methods work best when goals can be established. Many social problems, being intangible, political, and emotional, do not lend themselves to this approach.
4. Business people lack the authority to move into the social sphere
5. Some activities that seem socially responsible when undertaken by a few firms may have a negative effect if undertaken by business firms in the aggregate
6. The firm that ignores social responsibilities achieves short-run competitive advantage over the socially responsible firm |
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Term
| Ethics vs. Social responsibility? |
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Definition
Ethics and social responsibility is not the same thing, but they do work hand in hand to accomplish similar goals. Both involve differentiating between right and wrong, good and bad. A company that makes decisions based on ethics is more likely to also be socially responsible. However, the two may not differ much in the eyes of a manager because they involved the same type of decision making (right vs. wrong, good vs. bad).
An ethical decision is one that defines the line between right and wrong. |
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Term
| 5. What is management? We covered a number of approaches (or schools of thought) to answer this question. What are the major approaches to looking at what managers do? Which makes the most sense to you and why? |
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Definition
1. What management is.
2. Cover at least 4 schools of thought.
3. Which school of thought makes the most sense and why? |
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Term
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Definition
| Management: the process undertaken by one or more persons to coordinate the activities of other persons to achieve results not attainable by any one person acting alone |
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Term
| What are the schools of thought? |
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Definition
1st school – scientific management
2nd school – human relations
3rd school – process (plan, organize, control, leading, staffing)
4th school – Operations Research (diverse fields come together to solve a problem. Acceptance sampling for tests – sampling small portion of population. Anything can be mathematically modeled and statistically tested.)
5th school – Decision theories (management is making decisions, how they do it, and the process. )
1. Find a problem
2. Find alternative solutions
3. Evaluating alternatives
4. Making a decision
5. Implementing decision
6. Checking to see if implementation worked
6th school- System school: everything is a system; break it down and see how interdependencies operate
7th school-Social system: social responsibility; orgs are a social entity, therefore must behave responsibly
8th school-Contingency: if things are interrelated, you must think about what things are interdependent and how they work |
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Term
| Which school of thought makes the most sense to you and why? |
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Definition
| The decision theory school of thought makes the most sense because it makes decision-making steps seem efficient and concise. A large portion of a manager’s job is day-to-day decision making, therefore this school of thought is one that is used constantly. |
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Term
| 1. What is authority, its preconditions, and how do you get it accepted? |
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Definition
Authority is the acceptance of a communication by someone who allows that communication to govern his/her behavior; earned; getting people to buy into what you want them to do There are 4 pre-conditions:
• Understand the communication
• Communication is consistent with employees perception of organizational goals
• Communication is consistent with employees own goals
• Employee is able, physically and mentally, to comply
Compliance
• Most senders comply with preconditions; don’t violate preconditions
• Zone of acceptance
o Realistic previews
o Zone of acceptance: in the job description; part of the job
o Zone of questioning: gray area between acceptance and non-acceptance; not part of the job, but not not part of the job
o Zone of non-acceptance: not in job description; not part of the job
• Group and social pressures to comply |
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Term
| 2. What are the advantages to using decision trees? Are there disadvantages too? |
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Definition
Advantages:
• Helps to clarify problem
• Uncovers alternatives you may not have thought about
• Forces consideration for future outcomes and events
• Tool for evaluating your logic/knowledge
• Communication tool (leads to group analysis and discussion)
Disadvantages:
• Easy to skew tree if you’re set on a decision before you start
• Hard to predict probability and future payoff |
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Term
| 3. What are Taylor’s Principles of scientific management? |
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Definition
• Principle 1: Study the way workers perform their tasks, gather all the informal knowledge that workers possess, and experiment with methods of improving the way tasks are performed.
• Principle 2: Codify the new methods of performing tasks into written rules and standard operating procedures
• Principle 3: Carefully select workers so that they possess skills and abilities that match the needs of the task, and train them to perform the task according to the established rules and procedures.
• Principle 4: Establish a fair or acceptable level of performance for a task, and then develop a pay system that provides a reward for performance above the acceptable level. |
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Term
| 4. What are the skills the book says a manager should have? |
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Definition
• Technical skill is the ability to use specific knowledge, techniques, and resources in performing work.
• Analytical skills are the abilities to identify key factors and understand how they interrelate, and the roles they play in a situation. Analytical skills include the ability to diagnose and evaluate. They're needed to understand problems and to develop plans of action for their resolution.
• A manager's decision-making skill in selecting a course of action is greatly influenced by his or her analytical skill.
• Managers who have digital skills have a conceptual understanding of computers, telecommunications, and, in particular, know how to use digital technology to perform many aspect of their jobs.
• Human relations skills are essential at every organizational level of management; they are directly related to a manager's leadership abilities.
• Effective communication–the written and oral transmission of common understanding–is vital for effective managerial performance.
• Conceptual skills consist of the ability to see the big picture, the complexities of the overall organization, and how the various parts fit together. |
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Term
| 5. Define maximin, maximax, minimax regret, expected value. Why are any of these important to know? |
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Definition
They are important because they affect how you make decisions!
a. Maximin – choose the maximum minimum value
b. Minimax – the minimum of maximum loss (least amount of loss)
c. Maximax – just look at highest gain/profit possible
d. Minimax regret – series of opportunity costs, the least regret for doing something)
e. Expected value- the average return of a particular decision in the long run if the decision maker makes the same decision in the same situation over and over again; found by taking the value of an outcome if it should occur and multiplying that value by the probability that the outcome will occur |
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Term
| 6. What does an MIS system seek to do and what problems do they create for managers? |
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Definition
How to get the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decisions.
• Getting people the info you want them to have; not stuff you don’t
• Encourage people to get answers from expertise
Problems
• If someone steals from a grocery, the inventory is messed up because MIS doesn’t account for it
• So much info out there, easy to get overwhelmed; info overload
• Reducing to numbers (numeric myopia)
• Hacking and protecting from unauthorized use
• Easy to lose things
• Accuracy; info systems have some inaccurate info |
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Term
| 7. When are groups better than individuals in decision making? |
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Definition
| Groups are better when there is more time, more information, more viewpoints, if the decision affects the group of people it’s better that they have input, increases understanding by all involved, reduces fear, two heads are better than one, increased ownership in “our” decision |
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Term
| 8. What are the assumptions and limitations of linear programming? |
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Definition
Assumptions:
• There is a goal to be maximized
• The goal must be expressed in mathematical terms
• There must be alternative ways to reach the goal
• Resources must be limited
• Relationships in the problem must be linear
Disadvantages:
• Not everything is linear
• Not every problem can be quantified
• Limited appreciation for and understanding of techniques
• Goals of problems are not always clear
• Uncertainty may jeopardize assumptions |
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Term
| 9. What is PERT and what does it do well? |
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Definition
PERT: Program Evaluation and Review Technique; a network management model that enables managers to focus on all necessary project tasks
• Frequently used within an org for detailed evaluation planning
• Highlights important deadlines that must be met if the entire project is to be completed on time
• Useful to project managers prior to and during a project
• Straightforward
• Helps to show the interrelationships between tasks
• Ability to highlight the project’s critical path and task slack time allowing the PM to focus more attention on the critical aspects of the project-time, costs, and people
• Excellent project tracking documentation
• Applicable in a wide variety of projects |
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Term
| 10. What are the characteristics of supply chains that we need to manage? |
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Definition
Supply chain management seeks to optimize the links between suppliers, manufacturing, distribution, and customers.
A supply chain is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these finished products to customers.
Characteristics of supply chains:
· The supply chain includes all activities and processes to supply a product or service to a final customer
· Any number of companies can be linked in the supply chain
· A customer can be a supplier to another customer so the total chain can have a number of supplier-customer relationships.
· While the distribution system can be direct from supplier to customer, depending on the products and markets, it can contain a number of distributors such as wholesalers, warehouses, and retailers.
· Products or services usually flow from supplier to customer. Likewise, design and demand information usually flows from customer to supplier.
Traditionally marketing , distribution, planning, manufacturing, and the purchasing organizations along the supply chain operated independently. |
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