Managing Performing Living

Preliminary Remarks (p. 153-154)

Principles are the first element of effective management. The second are the tasks carried out by managers. They are the subject of the following section. What we are discussing here is not managers’ activities as such. Hence, I am pursuing a totally different objective from the Canadian management writer, Henry Mintzberg , who attracted attention several years ago with his assertion that managers’ actual activities have little or nothing at all to do with what they are said to be in certain management literature, such as that by Peter Drucker . On one hand, he is right, on the other hand, this completely misses the main issue.

This section of the book will not deal with what managers actually do for the entire day, but what they should or must do if they wish to be effective as managers. The daily routine of managers includes, and in this I am in agreement with Mintzberg, much that has little to do with management or its effectiveness . Among other things, this routine includes commitments related to carrying out, or sometimes even supposedly carrying out, job-related tasks such as dealing with correspondence, negotiations, business meals, covering for others, reading the newspapers, etc. A distinction must be made between job-related and management tasks.

In the following fi ve chapters, I will cover those tasks that I believe essentially determine the effectiveness of management, and they do so in such a crucial way that they must occupy center stage in our discussion of effectiveness: managing objectives, organizing, decision-making, supervising people, and developing people. Without adopting a craftsmanlike, professional approach to carrying out these key tasks it will not be possible to achieve results in any organization. What I have said with relation to principles is also applicable to these tasks and the tools that will be discussed later. The what of management is the same everywhere, the how can and must occasionally be very different.

If this is overlooked, there will be confusion about the content and also its inherent logic. Due to their very nature, carrying out management tasks requires not only a knowledge of management , but also factual and special knowledge . While management tasks are the same everywhere, the factual knowledge required to carry them out is very different. What factual knowledge depends on a number of factors, for example: the purpose and activity of an organization, the industry, the geographical area in which a person is working, the size of an institution, and, last but not least, the manager’s level in the organization. All this should be obvious, but it is frequently overlooked in treatises on management, and in the general understanding of management. For the sake of clarity here are a few examples. The fi rst of the management tasks to be discussed is "managing objectives".

This task must be carried out in every organization. However, the substance of the objectives in a company dealing with aluminum differs from those in a pharmaceutical company, the administrative body of the Ministry of the Interior has different objectives from those of the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a non-profi t organization that helps young people to beat drug addiction has objectives that differ from one that looks after old people in need of care.