MANAGEMENT, A STRATEGIC TOOLS FOR ORGANIZATIONS By Ikenna M. Okafor

Ikenna M. Okafor

When we talk of managers and managers, most readers are likely going to take their minds to only those who have “manager” attached to their job titles or those whom their organizations places on the “management” cadre.

 This is far from it as for me a manger is anyone who drives organizational objectives through people. So that, even if you are a driver in your organization, or an Administrative Officer who supervises the works of other people, this makes you a manger since you manage their activities to be sure that it aligns with that of the general organization.

Managers play a good and essential role in every organizational but its only good managers that drive the goal of any organization. This is because management and managers are in charge of motivating, monitoring, planning, driving performance, ensuring compliance, and managing conflicts. 

They also ensure that employees are rightfully engaged, projects are completed and service or product quality are maintained. Therefore, one can safely say that management (an act of managing) is the use of key skills sets and practices to help organizations achieve its highest potentials. 

The good news is that management skills can be learned.
Management has three basic scopes in the context of organization from my discovery. They are;
Managing People
Managing Performance
Managing the Business
We shall focus on Managing People as this is the core of management. It is people who drives the performance and performance drives the entire survival of the business.

 
Over the weekend, I came across a video by Rajiv Talreja who is an Entrepreneur and Personal Growth Analyst. In this video he points out that there are basically three generations of workers. The first generation he calls the Industrial Revolution workers who mainly work just to get food. 

The second he calls the Information Revolution workers who worked to have a better standard of living and now the Digital or Social Revolution worker who work mainly to have a good quality of life.

 In all these, the management style of these set of workers at various points in time varies. A good manager must be able to understand this.

This means the Social or Digital Revolution Generation, which for me the Generation X and the Millennia fall under works to gain social status (fame, name, recognition, appreciation) they need quality of life (spending time with people, quality of environment, quality of school their kids attend, role, opportunity.

 Therefore Managers and Management must understand these changing dynamics and create mechanisms to address the wants of people they manage.
To be a successful manager who can optimize performance to achieve successful business goals requires that one must be tactical, hands-on, and has leadership skills.

 This is because there is a thin line between a manager and a leader. One of such leadership skills is being visionary and strategic. Being visionary and strategic implies that you make plans and decisions now for your organization that would position you ahead of your competitors.

 One typical example was in 2020 during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Most organizations that survived today was because they had begun to make plan should such happened even when they never knew if it would happen, how or when.

This brings me to another point that for a manger to be strategic, he/she must conduct a SWOT Analysis of all situations (Pleas see my article on that) weighing all options especially external factors such market, final, cultural and global affairs.

 All these and many similar of such external factors must be put in consideration when managing people in today’s organization. This is because competition is not seen alone in getting into originations but it’s also seen between business entities battling to get hold of the best staff.

 Staff in turn are now choosing organizations they wish or wish not to stay.
In all, organizations of today through her managers and management must harness people’s skills, build culture, create an inspiring vision and inclusiveness strategy to bring innovation among its members to be able to achieve its organizational objectives.

 

Human Resource Manager @ Ammasco International Limited
Management Consultant @ Integrate Institute of Professional Management
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