Opportunities and threats are uncontrollable by management because they are external to the firm. Opportunities provide the firm the possibility of a major improvement. Threats may stand in the way of a firm reaching its mission and objectives.
Each organization has an organizational structure. By action and/or inaction, managers structure businesses. Ideally, in developing an organizational structure and distributing authority, managers' decisions reflect the mission, objectives, goals and tactics that grew out of the planning function. Specifically, they decide:
1. Division of labor
2. Delegation of authority
3. Departmentation
4. Span of control
5. Coordination
Management must make these decisions in any organization that has more than two people. Small may not be simple.
Organizational structure is particularly important in family businesses where each family member has three hats (multiple roles): family, business and personal. Confusion among these hats complicates organizational structure decisions.
Division of labor is captured in an organization chart, a pictorial representation of an organization's formal structure. An organization chart is concerned with relationships among tasks and the authority to do the tasks. Eight kinds of relationships can be captured in an organization chart:
1. The division/specialization of labor
2. Relative authority
5. The levels of management
6. Coordination centers
7. Formal communication channels
8. Decision responsibility
To improve organizing managers should listen to the opinion of Bernard L. Erven. «Organization charts have important weaknesses that should be of concern to managers developing and using them:
1. They may imply a formality that doesn't exist.
2. They may be inconsistent with reality.
3. Their usual top down perspective often minimizes the role of customers, front-line managers and employees without management responsibilities.
4. They fail to capture the informal structure and informal communication.
5. They often imply that a pyramidal structure is the best or only way to organize.
6. They fail to address the potential power and authority of staff positions compared with line positions.» [1]
Delegation of Authority
Authority is legitimized power. Power is the ability to influence others. Delegation is distribution of authority. Delegation frees the manager from the tyranny of urgency. Delegation frees the manager to use his or her time on high priority activities. Note that delegation of authority does not free the manager from accountability for the actions and decisions of subordinates.
Delegation of authority is guided by several key principles and concepts:
Directing is influencing people's behavior through motivation, communication, group dynamics, leadership and discipline. The purpose of directing is to channel the behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization's mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career objectives.
Selection, training, evaluation and discipline cannot guarantee a high level of employee performance. Motivation, the inner force that directs employee behavior, also plays an important role. Highly motivated people perform better than unmotivated people. Motivation covers up ability and skill deficiencies in employees. Such truisms about motivation leave employers wanting to be surrounded by highly motivated people but unequipped to motivate their employees. Employers and supervisors want easily applied motivation models but such models are unavailable.
The process starts with a sender who has a message for a receiver. Two or more people are always involved in communication. The sender has the responsibility for the message.
The sender's message travels to the receiver through one or more channels chosen by the sender. The channels may be verbal or nonverbal. They may involve only one of the senses, hearing for example, or they may involve all five of the senses: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. Nonverbal communication, popularly referred to as body language, relies primarily on seeing rather than hearing.
The sending of a message by an appropriate channel to a receiver appears to have completed the communication process or at least the sender's responsibility. Not so! After sending the message, the sender becomes a receiver and the receiver becomes a sender through the process of feedback. Feedback is the receiver's response to the attempt by the sender to send the message. Feedback is the key to determination by the sender of whether or not the message has been received in the intended form. Feedback involves choice of channel by the receiver of the original message. The channel for feedback may be quite different from the original channel chosen by the sender. A puzzled look may be the feedback to what the sender considered a perfectly clear oral instruction.
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