The verb manage hails from the Italian word ‘maneggiare’ which means ‘handling’, In the 17th and 18th centuries, meaning of the English word management evolved from the French word ‘menagement’. Management is the art of getting things done through people, says Mary Parker Follett.
Frenchman Henri Fayol describes management as being a composition of five functions namely planning, organizing, leading, co-ordination and control.
Planning:
Planning involves identification of your business goal and the way to reach it. It involves the estimation of the costs that will be incurred and evaluation of the time required to attain the business goal. A business plan has to be documented and reviewed on a regular basis. A plan is worth it if the attainment of the business goal is feasible with the planned resources. You need to communicate your plan to your employees and accept their feedback.
Organizing:
It involves the assignment of tasks and allocation of resources throughout the business organization. It includes determining the primary goals of the business and strategies to reach them. Divide the activities into tasks and assign the tasks to suitable and deserving employees.
Leading:
Leadership is a management skill in itself. A true leader inculcates feelings of confidence, admiration in the followers and a sense of commitment towards their business. A leader, through his efficiency and effectiveness, influences the others to act efficiently and effectively. Transformation is the need of the day and such leaders ought to foster flexibility. Being innovative is important for a leader and it is again a skill. Delegation is an activity of leading. It is allocation and entrustment of responsibility. A leader not only dreams but also provides the employees with a framework for the fulfillment of his dreams.
Coordination and Control:
They are important for the success of a business. Coordination is the process of communication to track the activities towards the goal and make decisions about the next line of action. Control is better implemented in the form of prudent guidance given to the employees by their manager. Evaluations are necessary to evaluate business performance.
Business implies being busy, doing commercially practicable and productive work. Functionally, management is the process of measurement of the quantity of work while assessing its quality.
The ability of directed thinking to develop a business is a management skill. Another attribute possessed by a skilled manager is the willingness to strive to deploy effectiveness. The management guru Peter Drucker made a distinction between efficient and effective business skills. According to him, performing an activity swiftly and economically is ‘efficient’, while doing the right thing well is ‘effective’. Good business management skills lead you towards the right goals, but doing the wrong thing is the exercise of efficiency to no avail. Learn to prioritize your business activities. Understand what’s important for the business and differentiate it from what is urgent.
As a manager, you should be able to understand the weaknesses of the organization and try to improve in them. You must be able to concentrate on the threats to your business and fight them effectively. You should have the skill to endure every setback and learn from your mistakes. Successful business development strategies used by others, help you device your own. This is when your skill to ‘experiment’ comes in the scene. Experimentation has to be accompanied by skillful judgment of your actions and results.
Business management includes management of money and time. Being a manager, you have to time yourself and schedule tasks for your team, so that deadlines are met. Management of money is an integral part of running a business. The activities of buying, selling and pricing have to be done skillfully. Business management requires a large skill set. It is everything right from planning, supervising, right up to being the spokesperson for your business.
People skills, as they are nowadays called, are important for a manager to acquire. After all, management is about handling people. Bringing out the potential in the people of your team is a skill. Stone wallers need to be dealt with, by motivating them towards constructive change. You need to improve yourself and imbibe in the minds of others that improvement is a continuous process. Learn to celebrate the success of staff members always encourage them to contribute to the fullest of their capacities, towards the business organization. This helps create enthusiasm in the staff. It’s a human psychology to work to get noticed. Human expects recognition for his work. So encourage your team members to put in their best and congratulate them for doing that. It is a good practice to assign relatively experienced employees as buddies to the new ones.
'Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.’
–Henry Ford
This is what a team is all about and developing and maintaining a team spirit is indeed a management skill.
You need to have excellent communication skills to be a good manager! Being able to convey your idea to the people, and getting work done form them is a skill. Communication encompasses a range of activities, right from internal communication in your organization up to your business negotiations. Thus it requires for you to be a good communicator for the growth of your business.
Foresight is another skill to be acquired. You need to sense trouble ahead of time. You need to be prepared for it and plan accordingly. You are required to think ahead. Think far so that your business targets seem near!
Management skills are about taking the right decisions at the right time and getting them implemented by the right people!
Business Management Tips
The lack of a succession plan kills most family businesses.
You can have your heirs run the business after you. Or you can place outside managers in some or all key spots and just leave ownership to the heirs. Having a plan is more important than what the plan is. Seek guidance from an impartial counselor.
Appropriate technology can help.
Use technology to automate repetitive, mind-numbing tasks. That frees up people's time for creative and problem solving tasks. Do not reverse them.
It is easier to save a dollar than to earn a dollar.
Every dollar you don't spend is a dollar you don't have to earn to achieve the same profit level. Invest as needed to grow the business, buy what you need, but don't spend without forethought and a good reason.
In every business there are a handful of key success factors.
Define them, organize the business to achieve them, and make them your no.1 priority everyday!
Don't be an ostrich.
Even the best run company can be blind-sided by external events. Stay aware of what's happening in your industry and to your clients. Watch world events that could effect your customers, or your suppliers. Don't worry about every potential problem, but keep your eyes open for the ones that do develop.
Identify All of Your Stakeholders.
It is important to know who all of the individuals and groups are who have a stake in what you do. Learn who they are, what they expect of you, and how they will measure it.
Business is not a tightrope.
Remember that running a business is not a tightrope walking act. For one thing, you are not in this all alone. For another, nothing in business is a straight line like a tightrope.
Don't Get Lost in the Steps.
Stay focused on what it is you need/want to accomplish. Don't focus on the steps involved. Be more concerned about your ultimate goal than about any individual step along the way.
Do Your Homework.
Whether it's a proposal to a major client or a meeting with the Shop Steward of a union, you will do better if you are prepared. Collect the facts, think the problem through, talk to the others involved. Take the time to do the "up-front" work and the "downstream " work will be easier and more rewarding.
Structure follows Strategy.
When you develop your company's internet presence, or any other part of the business, remember that what you want to achieve (Strategy) has to drive the design and implementation (Structure). Don't get it backwards and let technology obscure the business purpose.
You get what you pay for.
Yes it is an old saying, but it is still true. Whether you are paying for machinery, software , advertising, or people you ultimately get what you pay for. Always buy the best you can afford. Quality always comes through.
Train Your Supervisors
The key to your business success is the productivity of your employees. The key to employee productivity is their perception of their immediate supervisor. Invest in training your supervisors and managers. It will pay off.
Appearance Does Matter.
It may be a sad commentary on our superficial society, but appearance does matter. Whether it's the packaging on your product, the first impression you make when calling on a new client, or your company's web site people notice how things look. They care about how things look and make judgements about you and/or your product based on appearance.
Change or Die.
Your business must change to survive. As much as we wish it would, nothing stays the same. Some industries change faster than others. Some markets are more fixed. To stay in business, you need to watch both and change as they do, or before.
Practice what you preach.
To lead, you have to lead by example. Don't expect your people to work unpaid overtime if you leave early every day. Don't book youself into a four star hotel on business trips and expect your employees to stay in the motel off the freeway.
You can't "cost cut" your way to greatness.
Cutting cost is, at best, a survival strategy. To get better you need to invest - in people, technology, equipment, etc.
