Management Techniques

A Practical Guide

John Argenti

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815366195
• eBook ISBN: 9781351258623
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book, first published in 1969, is in two parts, the text and the glossary. The glossary entries include a description to give an idea of what each technique is, what it is for, who can use it, and the practical results one can expect from it. The text contains the key to the use of all the techniques in the glossary: it explains what management techniques are, and describes in detail how to introduce them into your job or your company.

CHAPTER V

STEP 1—IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM

DURING a typical day in any manager’s life a hundred events may occur that require his attention and, as suggested in Chapter I, he may be under the impression that every event is separate and unconnected with any other. Sometimes the same type of event occurs so frequently that it becomes obviously part of a sequence or there is something behind these events that is responsible for them all. In fact, a great many events are just symptoms of a few problems—when a child is covered with spots it is not sensible to assume that each spot is unrelated to the others; it is much more sensible to look for an underlying cause to account for them all—such as measles. The difficulty with management problems is that the symptoms of each disease vary in different circumstances, which makes diagnosis rather difficult.

Let us consider some examples of some of these symptoms and try to diagnose the underlying problem. Start with an easy one.

A manager had to take emergency action three times in one day; he had to telephone a supplier for some extra components; he had to authorise compensation for a wasted journey by a customer, whose lorry arrived at the works only to find that they had run out of the product he wanted; and he had to authorise the disposal for scrap of several hundred components left lying in the stores for months, which would not now be required. Three unconnected events? Possibly not—all three are probably due to poor stock control methods resulting in holding too few of some things and too much of others.

Now take a second example. There have been several complaints by customers about the product; the output bonus that some of the men are paid is increasing every week; and the amount of scrapped work has increased. All three of these trends may be the symptoms of poor quality control.

The point about these two examples is that the symptoms—a customer’s wasted journey, the amount of scrapped work and so on—are particular events that may occur in one factory but not in another, at least not in precisely the same way. But the problems of stock control or quality control occur in every factory in the world. They are recognised types of management problems. A list of these is given at the end of this chapter. Consider now one more example of how a problem may be diagnosed from its symptoms: the labour turnover in a factory is high; there are frequent complaints about the canteen; the shop steward keeps threatening a strike over all sorts of apparently trivial matters; the men keep demanding special bonuses; the manager is continually having to intercede between foremen and their men. Five separate problems? Probably not. Probably these are just symptoms of one underlying type of problem which is often known as Human Relations—one that would certainly be recognised by managers all over the world.

Now all this is very simple, nor is there anything new or startling about it: managers do frequently diagnose their problems in this way. But the trouble is that not all of them do so, not all of them can divorce themselves from their day-to-day rush and hurry so as to stand back and take a calm, analytical look at the cataract of events that sweep them along every day. The result is that they tend to deal with each event on its own and they try to treat the symptoms instead of the underlying disease—like a mother putting little bits of sticking-plaster over each of the spots on her child’s body instead of getting the doctor to treat for measles.

This is often just a waste of time. Many managers have had the experience of receiving a torrent of complaints about the canteen and, in spite of effecting great improvements at enormous expense, the complaints just go on and on. In such circumstances the chances are that these complaints are symptoms of a discontent that can only be tackled at its roots—there is a technique to do this, but there is no technique for stopping complaints about canteens! In just the same way strikes are often only symptoms of poor human relations—for which, we repeat, there is a technique: there is no technique for stopping a strike. Again, there is no technique for stopping customers from complaining: there is a technique for tackling the underlying cause of some of their complaints, namely Quality Control. Managers should try to classify their problems into types, should try to trace the causes of symptoms and get to the roots of events. It is usually ineffective to try to treat symptoms or to cure individual problems—they will only crop up again later. To tackle the problem at its roots is the only satisfactory solution, and to help managers to do this there are over a hundred techniques.

So the first part of this Step 1 in the procedure for introducing techniques is to identify what type of problem one has. Many of the most common types are shown in the List of Problems at the end of this chapter. But one or two more things need to be said here. The first is the most important: many managers will be able to identify several of the types of problem in the list as being problems that are currently worrying them and then, when we come to Step 2, they may find that there are several techniques to help tackle each problem. The result of such a multiplicity of problems and techniques is that any manager new to the use of techniques might be put off by the sheer weight of the task ahead. It is strongly recommended, therefore, that managers who have not used such techniques before should take it easy to start with. They should not try to tackle all their problems at once but instead should single out only the most important one and deal with that before turning to the others.

How does one select ‘the most important’ problem? The answer is simple: since companies are run to make a profit, the test for the importance of a problem is simply the extent to which that problem affects the company’s profits. Suppose a research programme is running behind schedule, for example, how serious might this be? This can be estimated by calculating the profits the company might earn if it was completed on schedule and comparing this with the profits if it was completed as far behind schedule as it is now likely to be. Suppose the difference was estimated to be £30,000 p.a. Now compare this with some other problem: imagine that the company is losing its share of the market at the rate of one per cent every year. Losing share ef the market is not a problem—it is a symptom that something is wrong with the product or marketing policy—but the question we are trying to answer is what effect on profits would it have if the company cured the underlying cause and regained its share? This can be estimated: suppose it was £90,000 p.a. Now it is clear that this second problem is ‘more important’ than the research one. This is not to suggest that the company can ignore the research problem; it merely means that the company has now got its priorities right.

It is not always easy to estimate the effect on profits of solving a problem—in fact it is sometimes almost impossible—but there is no doubt that a rough estimate can always be made and it must surely be right to use profit as the criterion for ‘importance’ even if one cannot use it accurately. The alternative is to use some other criterion which, although it may give a more accurate answer, would be irrelevant. However, it must be added that there is a completely different type of management problem for which profit is the wrong criterion of importance. These are the moral problems that face every manager: whether to dismiss an employee for continually being late for work even though he has served the company loyally for many years; whether to take more accident-prevention precautions than the Factory Acts demand, etc.

To test the importance of these problems by using profit as a criterion would be absurd, and yet clearly they are important problems. However, as suggested in Chapter III, management techniques are powerless to solve moral problems, which cannot therefore be relevant to a book on management techniques. It follows that, although we must certainly recognise that moral problems exist and are important, they cannot be considered here; the only criterion of ‘important’, as far as this book is concerned, is profits. A problem is important if it substantially restrains a company’s profits.

Before turning to a discussion of the List of Problems and how to use it, one might make a final point: it is, perhaps, unwise to link management techniques with ‘problems’ as closely as has been done so far. These techniques can be, and are, used for attack as well as for defence: that is to say, they can not only be used to solve problems—a defensive use—but also to search out and exploit opportunities—an offensive use.

Now let us torn to the List of Problems. This is an attempt to set down some of the types of problem that managers face all over the world and in every sort of organisation. Every manager would recognise most of them. It is not a list of symptoms nor of everyday events—these, as we have explained, are infinite in number and variety and seldom occur twice in the same form. It is a list of the root causes, the underlying problems that give rise to such symptoms and events. So far as is known, this is the first attempt ever made to categorise management problems and it is unlikely therefore to be complete or perfect! In fact, it is not even intended to be complete because there are several types of problem for which no technique yet exists: this is particularly so in the marketing and sales areas.

The list is laid out in eight sections, six of which reflect the departmental structure of most companies—most companies have Production Departments, Sales Departments, Research Departments, etc., and so it seemed appropriate to place problems that production managers face under Production, sales under Sales and so on (the section headed Administration includes mainly Accounts Department problems.) The other two sections are called Company Problems and General Problems. The first of these includes those that usually have to be dealt with by chairmen, managing directors and general managers and are characterised by involving company-wide problems as opposed to departmental ones—indeed, some of them arise precisely because companies are usually organised into individual departments, with the. resulting fragmentation of effort and purpose which it must be the task of chairmen to overcome. The general section merely gathers into one section of the list some of the problems that can occur in every department; for example, human relations problems.

Each manager should now follow the instructions below, bearing in mind the points that have been made in this chapter. These were:

* Every day every manager has dozens of individual problems thrown at him.

* Most of these turn out, on inspection, to be only the symptoms of a deeper, underlying problem.

* There are comparatively few of these underlying types of problem and most of them would be recognised as universal by managers everywhere in all types of organisation.

* It is usually unsatisfactory to tackle symptoms and no management techniques exist to help managers to do this.

* There are many techniques for helping to tackle many types of problem.

* No techniques have yet been devised to help with some common types of problem and no technique can help with moral problems.

* The most important problem for any manager is the one which, if it was solved, would have the most impressive effect on the company’s profits. No other criterion will do.

LIST OF PROBLEMS

Instructions for Use

Note

Since these problems are all commonly found, most managers will look through their section and conclude that they have all the problems listed. It is strongly recommended, however, that each manager selects only one or two, or perhaps even three, to start with in order to simplify and concentrate his attack. To make this selection, choose the most important problem, using profit as the sole criterion as explained in this chapter.

General Managers

If you are a chairman, managing director, general manager, or have responsibilities that cover the whole of a company, or a subsidiary company, or that cover more than one department: look through all eight sections, paying particular attention to the first (Company Problems) and the last (General Problems). Identify the one, two or perhaps three most important, then go on to Chapter VI.

Heads of Departments

If you are in charge of one of the major departments—Sales, Production, Research, etc.—look through the first and last sections and the one corresponding most closely to your departmental responsibility. Having selected your most important problem, go on to Chapter VI.

Individual Managers

If you are a manager working within one of the departments, read through the appropriate departmental section, then the general section, select your most important problem and go on to Chapter VI. (The more senior your position, the more likely you are to be involved with company problems so it may be necessary to look through that section as well. The more specialised your job the more likely you are to be able to narrow down your selection of problems—there are people whose jobs consist solely of forecasting demand for their company’s products—and forecasting demand may therefore be their only problem.)

Training Officers

Look through all sections and discuss with your managing director whether any of the problems are so widespread or severe that a company-wide training programme should be prepared in the appropriate techniques.

Equivalent Officers, Officials and Managers in other types of Organisation

Although the problems listed below are described as if for companies, most of them occur in a slightly altered form in every organisation. For example, all organisations need to know their objectives, and to have a strategy by which they can achieve these (see Problem No. 1). They have organisational problems (see Problem 3) and problems related to information (Problems 5, 6, 7). Even the marketing and sales problems are similar since eve...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• How to use this Book
• Preface
• Contents
• I A definition of management techniques
• II Why they are not used
• III The place of management techniques in management
• IV A six-step procedure for introducing management techniques
• V Step 1—Identify the problem
• VI Step 2—Select the technique
• VII Step 3—Learn about it
• VIII Step 4—Is it worth applying?
• IX Step 5—Apply it
• X Step 6—Check results
• XI Summary and Conclusions
• The Glossary
• Index