Менеджеры и менеджмент (Executives and Management) - 11 стр.

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T a s k 8. Discuss the necessity of developing the following skills.
HUMAN SKILLS The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and
in groups, describes human skills. Many people are technically proficient but inter-personally incompetent.
They might, for example, be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others, or have difficulty manag-
ing conflicts. Since managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to com-
municate, motivate, and delegate.
CONCEPTUAL SKILLS Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situa-
tions. These tasks require conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to spot prob-
lems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one. Managers
can be technically and interpersonally competent yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and
interpret information.
Effective vs. Successful Managerial Activities
Fred Luthans and his associates looked at the issue of what managers do from a somewhat different per-
spective. They asked the question, Do managers who move up most quickly in an organization do the same ac-
tivities and with the same emphasis as managers who do the best job? You would tend to think that the manag-
ers who were the most effective in their jobs would also be the ones who were promoted fastest. But that’s not
what appears to happen. Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers. What they found was that
these managers all engaged in four managerial activities:
• Traditional management. Decision-making, planning, and controlling.
• Communication. Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
• Human resource management. Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training.
• Networking. Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
The "average" manager in the study spent thirty-two percent of his or her time in traditional management
activities, twenty-nine percent communicating, twenty percent in human resource management activities, and
nineteen percent networking. However, the amount of time and effort that different managers spent on those
four activities varied a great deal. Among successful managers, networking made the largest relative contribu-
tion to success, and human resource management activities made the least relative contribution.
Among effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least.
This study adds important insights to our knowledge of what managers do. On average, managers spend ap-
proximately twenty to thirty percent of their time on each of the four activities: traditional management, com-
munication, human resource management, and networking. However, successful managers don’t give the same
emphasis to each of those activities as do effective managers. In fact, their emphases are almost the opposite.
This finding challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, vividly illustrating
the importance that social and political skills play in getting ahead in organizations.
A Review of the Manager’s Job
One common thread runs through the functions, roles, skills, and activities approaches to management:
Each recognizes the paramount importance of managing people. As David Kwok found out when he became a
manager at The Princeton Review, regardless of whether it’s called "the leading function," "interpersonal
roles," "human skills," or "human resource management and networking activities," it’s clear that managers
need to develop their people skills if they’re going to be effective and successful in their job.
T a s k 9. Comment on the following interview between a journalist of CNN Global Office and Hirst
Pacific principal Kenneth Hirst. CNN.com, Dec 20, 2004.
Kenneth Hirst is an award – winning product and retail interiors designer and the founder and principal of
strategic design firm Hirst Pacific.
Global Office: What are you reading?

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