Unit 1. Defining the Essence of Management

Part I

How Management Works

Unit 1 Defining the Essence of Management

Reading

Task. Read the text and decide if management is a science, an art or both.

The success or failure of any business organizations, government institutions and public sector services, voluntary and non-profit organizations, sport teams and so on, often depends on the quality of their management.

The scope of functions performed by managers is very wide. It covers planning, that is setting objectives, organizing, integrating, motivating, communicating, measuring, and developing people.

Having set objectives, managers are to decide how and when their organizations can achieve them. This involves developing plans, strategies, and precise tactics. Then they need to allocate resources of money and people.

The function of organizing involves analysis and classification of activities in the organization and setting the relations among them. Managers should divide the work into manageable activities and then into individual jobs. They also select people to manage and perform the jobs.

The managers’ responsibility is also to practice the social skills of motivation and communication. They have to communicate plans and objectives to the people responsible for attaining them. They have to make the people who are responsible for performing individual jobs form teams. They make decisions about pay and promotion. As well as organizing and supervising the work of their subordinates, they have to work with people in other areas and functions.

Then managers have to measure the performance of their staff to see whether the objectives set for the organizations as a whole and for each individual member are being achieved. And, finally, managers develop people – both their subordinates and themselves.

Although the tasks of a manager can be grouped, analyzed and classified, management is not entirely scientific. It is a human skill. Business professors obviously believe that intuition and ‘instinct’ are not enough there are management skills that have to be learned. There are some people who will be unable to put all management techniques into practice. Others will have lots of techniques, but few good ideas. Outstanding managers are rather rare.

Learning the Basic Vocabulary

A. Match the words on the left with their definitions on the right. Use a dictionary if you need.

skill (n)	full of ideas; always making sth
creative (adj)	person who is under the control of sb else
scope (n)	aim/object in view
objective (n)	cleverness/ability to do sth
encourage (v)	to remove/to exclude
achieve (v)	to mix/to muddle
subordinate (n)	belief in yourself
confidence (n)	the range of things that activity deals with
commitment (n)	to succeed in doing sth/to reach (a goal)
compound (v)	generally agreed opinion
consensus (n)	promise/agreement to do sth
eliminate (v)	to give the courage or confidence to do sth
dominate (v)	to come to an agreement with people
confuse (v)	to have power and control over someone or sth

B. Word-building. Fill in the table where possible. Mind that there may be more than one noun or adjective in a box.

verb	noun	adjective	adverb
	management
			creatively
	performer
allocate
		responsive
subordinate
		measureless
	accomplishment
attain
			precisely

C. Fill in the correct form of the words in brackets.

Running a business involves many … (difficult). It is … (benefit) to have some … (know) of management, but you could employ a … (manage) instead. Of course, you must make a … (commit) to the business and that will mean working for very long hours at the beginning. You may need to get some … (finance) support to start your business. But it is just the beginning. You must be able to make the … (repay) regularly. It is … (essence) to have loyal … (employ) to work for you. Eventually, your business could be a great … (succeed).