Respond to 2 classmates posts for Business Capstone Course

RESPOND WITH AT LEAST 200 WORDS EACH

POST 1:

According to my search on the internet of management functions I found two that seem very important in my organization which is the US Army. Planning and Organizing. I am currently redeploying from a year long deployment to the middle east and it takes so very much planning and organizing to make this happen.

According to Leonard in the Five Functions of Management and Leading these are two of the most important functions of management. “Planning actions as a function evaluates the goals of the company and then sets a course for success and The organizing function brings resources together to achieve the goals established in the planning function” (Leonard, 2018). These two functions go hand in hand and pivotal in an organization as large as the Army.

I have had many leaders over my time in the Army and some have been great planners and organizers and others have struggled. The greatest takeaway from seeing leaders who are not planners or organizers is for them to lean on the people who work for them that do this well and let them help you. I have also worked for many leaders who micromanage the process of planning and organizing and often that leads to frustrated troops who have done work only to be told to change it due to last minute micromanagement. The greatest takeaway from it all is leaning on others and also admitting your weaknesses so that others can help you.

Giovanni Ford

Leonard Kimberlee. (2018). Five Functions of Management and Leading. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/five-functions-management-leading-56418.htmlLinks to an external site.

POST 2:

One thing I’ve noticed based on reading the introduction posts is that most of us are veterans or active duty. Also, it seems like most of us enlisted straight out of high school. I believe this is going to greatly impact our discussions on management as the majority of us have been surrounded by military management for a long period of time. While I will obviously consider much of the management experience I’ve witnessed and partaken in during my military experience, I will also tend to rely heavily on the experience of a young lady I know who has been with Starbucks for almost 20 years.

That being said, for my first example of a great manager I will point to what she has conveyed to me concerning her most current manager. He fits the bill because he is knowledgeable of the company, its history, and its goals; he is approachable and respected by his subordinates; he is aware of his weaknesses and works to ensure he improves where necessary; he has a working knowledge of the equipment they use; he cares about his employees as people and wants to see them succeed. As a store manager, he has control over the hiring (and firing) of store employees. This represents plenty of examples of him making both bad and good decisions based on imperfect information. Another example of a great manager is my son’s manager at the call center he works at, and that is mostly for the same reasons as the manager previously discussed. She has to constantly make decisions based on imperfect information when dealing with customers and corporate.

I’ve been binge watching “The Office” from the beginning on Netflix. So obviously, Michael Scott, though fictional, immediately comes to mind as the epitome of a manager who is not doing so well. While he obviously in his own way cares about the people who work for him, he has terrible diversity management skills, he has no understanding of employee rights, and his leadership ethics are questionable at best. When considering the external environment, he is great (though still sometimes inappropriate) with customers and gains their trust and loyalty. While in the Navy, I had a horrible manager. My chief was not at all representative of the basic tenets of naval service, or decent humanity for that matter.

Concerning my search for examples of management functions, I immediately found that there seems to be no set number of basic management functions. Our course material states four, while other sources go as high as eight.

Though not included in the list above, I found that I agreed with the addition of Staffing as a core management function. Employees at just about every company in every industry will always have issues and concerns around staffing. Leonard (2018) pointed out that improper staffing can do significant damage to a business. This is why it is important for management to be able to identify and prioritize key staff positions, and to ensure the best talent is chosen to fulfill the desired staffing structure. Life in the 21st century does not necessarily allow for or necessitate a Monday through Friday, nine to five type of lifestyle. Furthermore, we find that more and more people require multiple streams of income in order to just survive. Additionally, technological advances have made it possible for people to work from almost anywhere. Finally, the population has increased tremendously, which means there are more human resources competing for the same positions. All of these factors impact the development of an effective staffing structure, as well as the decisions made in order to properly execute that staffing structure.

Module 1 Notes

Leonard, K. (2018). Five functions of management & leading. In Houston Chronicle Online. Retrieved from https://www.chron.comLinks to an external site.