"What constitutes a good manager in this field? He must be knowledgeable in the art with which he is concerned, an impresario, labor negotiator, diplomat, educator, publicity and public relations expert, politician, skilled businessman, a social sophisticate, a servant of the community, a tireless leader, -- becomingly humble before authority -- a teacher, a tyrant, and a continuing student of the arts."-- Rockefeller Panel Report: The Performing Arts
The Rockefeller Panel, in describing a good manager, was not writing tongue-in-cheek or delineating an ideal. They were being candidly realistic. Where can such managers be found? If one is bent on becoming a good manager, where does he learn? In what school does he train? Is there a codified set of principles that can be studied? Is management a science where truths can be systematically structured and enunciated as a codified set of principles?Management is as old as civilized man. It has been defined as the task of creating the internal environment for organized effort to accomplish group goals. It is the same process in all forms of enterprise and at every level of each organization. It has been practiced for as long as men have had to cooperate for some mutual objective: hunting, farming, house-building, war-making. The challenge to effective management increases as the numbers of involved people increases; as the geographic territory organized expands; as specialization of activities proliferates; and as a hierarchy of authority develops.
In his fascinating book, Management and Machiavelli , Antony Jay claims "management is not a new basic institution at all. On the contrary, it is a very ancient art The new science of management is in fact only a continuation of the old art of government." Other public officials and men of affairs (beside Machiavelli) who practiced public administration thought about it and generalized about it long before professors began any systematic study and critique. Confucius included in his parables practical suggestions for proper public administration. Socrates is reported to have said:
"over whatever a man may preside, he will, if he knows what he needs, and is able to provide it, be a good management, whether he have the direction of a chorus, a family, a city, or an army do not despise men skillful in managing a household; for the conduct of private affairs differs from that of public concerns only in magnitude; in other respects they are similar. But what is most to be observed, is that neither of them are managed without men "It has often been stated that the real genius of the Roman Empire derived from its ability to organize. The City of Rome was an early utilizer, if not the original developer, of the concept of the delegation of authority.Other institutions that contributed to the techniques of management and administration include the military and the religious. The modern concept of the General Staff can be traced to the Prussian armies of the nineteenth century. A noteworthy early example of efficacious formal organization is the Roman Catholic Church. Its successful practices include the establishment hierarchy of authority, functional specialization and the utilization of the staff device in its organizational structure.
However, until Frederick W. Taylor published The Principles of Management in 1911, and Henri Fayol published Administration Industrielle et Generale in 1916 there was no attempt to sketch a theory of management. The past seventy years has seen development of a set of principles at an ever-accelerating speed. Perhaps that is no accident. It is only in the recent past that management has emerged as an essential, distinct and leading institution. Peter Crucker says in the preface to his The Practice of Management , "rarely, if ever, has a new institution, a new leading group, emerged as fast as has management since the turn of the century."
Management, as with all the social sciences, is at best an "inexact science." Much of its present generalizations (principles) are simply the distilled experiences of perceptive managers. Many of its postulates still require testing under controlled conditions before they can be classed as proven truths. Despite the lack of an all-encompassing economic theory of business enterprise, despite the fact that management is foreordained to remain always more of an Art than a Science, there is no doubt that the principles of management, even as they exist today, are of inestimable value to all who would improve their mastery of the art of management. For science and art are complementary in this field, as in most. A better knowledge of an explanation of the processes of management can only result in an improved ability to be a more successful practitioner of the art. A brain surgeon's success can only be helped by a more thorough knowledge of the brain and how it operates; although the knowledge of the science alone will not make him a successful practitioner in the operating room.
What then, is management? It should not be confused with a class of people such as executives, administrators, producers, owners, promoters, entrepreneurs, managing directors, or managers. Rather it is an activity. Those who perform these activities are 'managers.' Management brings order to enterprise. It should provide efficiency to human endeavors. It must be distinguished from three other groups that in turn influence management: owners, employees and the public.
The traditional approach to the definition and study of management is to identify the functions common to almost all managers, and to all who perform these functions, give the label 'managing.' Ability and skill in carrying out these functions mark the successful manager. They have most often been listed as including the activities of: planning, organizing, staffing, supervising and control. Qualities that are helpful in successful management include, among others, leadership, communication and teaching ability. Anyone who performs these activities is, by definition, managing. This would include a museum director, but exclude its major patron who contributes most of its funds but rarely involves himself in its plans or problems. It would include a theatrical stage manager and exclude an actor. The chief custodian of an art gallery would be a manager if he has assistants. The dance captain of the chorus line is engaged in managing, but not the chorus personnel. Obviously it can be observed that one major prerequisite of a manager's job is the existence of subordinates subject to his control. Thus any department head qualifies as a manager, to the extent that he plans the operations of his department, selects and trains his subordinates, coordinates the work between them, evaluates their performance and sets policies and procedures.
Managers do not spend all their time managing. When the choreographer is dancing a part, he is not managing; nor is the office manager managing when he checks out the credit of a customer himself. Managers are required in all the activities of arts organizations: budgeting, designing, selling, creating, financing, accounting and artistic presentation; the larger the organization, the more managers are needed. Everyone employed in an organization is affected by management principles, processes, policies and practices as he is either a manager or a subordinate to a manager and usually he is both. Some employees perform only part of the functions described as those of managers -- and to that extent they are mostly managers in limited areas. For example, those that are assigned the preparation of plans in an advisory capacity to a manager, are to that extent making management decisions (by deciding which of several alternatives to present to the management), but have no participation in the functions of organizing, staffing, supervising and control over the implementation of the plan selected from those recommended. Of course, if the advisor has his own staff of subordinates, he becomes a manager in the fullest sense of the definition, as then he must plan how to develop the plans, he is responsible for organizing his group, hiring his staff, setting task relationships, and internal policies that will facilitate the work objective, directing the activity, evaluating performance, criticizing and training, motivating and checking, maintaining or creating an ambience of high morale and representing the group and its work to those outside.
Management has been defined as "getting things done through the efforts of other people," and that function breaks down into at least two major responsibilities, one of which is planning, the other control. It has been defined as "the activity which plans, organizes, and controls the operations of the basic elements of men, materials, machines, methods, money and markets, providing direction and coordination, and giving leadership to human efforts, so as to achieve the sought objectives of the enterprise."
Management principles have been formulated to govern managers in the prosecution of their assigned activities. The proper use of these principles should help to bring about desired results and to avoid common mistakes, when applied in appropriate circumstances. Scientific management might be described as the application of the most modern management principles, after thorough investigation and analysis of a problem into its components, evaluating the relative importance of each factor bearing on each component, amassing all known facts and carefully interpreting the resultant data; principles derived after controlled experimentation must be carefully categorized as they are not equally applicable to all enterprises: the experiences and relationships of a large firm may not be true for a small one; the truths for an industrial enterprise may not hold up when applied to an artistic one; the successful strategy of a 100 year old opera company may not work for a struggling, new one; the relevance of certain techniques that succeed in London is doubtful to Caracas. A major skill of expert managership is the ability to select the right principle, process or technique from the fund of knowledge that the science of management can provide. Of course, an intimate and perceptive comprehension of his own organization is the touchstone for maximum beneficial results.
Management, in the last analysis, is intangible. It is compounded of knowledge, intelligence, communication, emotional maturity, courage and the willingness to accept responsibility, and the view that accepts every problem as a challenge and opportunity. Good management is not easily recognized whereas poor management is noticeable by the most unsophisticated. Mismanagement will affect the success of an enterprise much more than most other errors. There is an old saying that seems to sum up the situation best: "When the fish stinks, it stinks from the head." Management is hard work. It means seeking out problems and facing up to trouble. It means the agony of deciding between mutually exclusive alternatives. It means constant study of your undertaking and of the dynamic science of management and its techniques. It means constant development of the manager's persuasive ability, his leadership qualities, his poise, his congeniality. It is never-ending. There are no limits to the time and effort that can be devoted to the task. The rewards are greater but commensurate only with the pain.
Successful managers have variously portrayed the role of the manager and the art of making a good one. Stephen Keating, president of Honeywell, Inc. mentions personal involvement, creativity, a sense of strategy, willingness to be challenged, and willingness to assume the risk of management. L.F. McCollum, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Continental Oil Company, identifies ingenuity, imagination, aggressiveness, creative drive, response to the challenge of initiating change, emotional response under fire, humility and the willingness to recognize and reward effective work. He distinguishes between managers who are 'caretakers,' concerned mainly with conserving the assets of the enterprise, and the 'builders,' who have an abiding hunger to create and improve.
In his excellent article entitled "What is a Manager?," Herbert Sonthoff summarizes the views of notable researches in the field. He notes that Batten lists 50 qualities of the 'ideal tough-minded executive' and that he further asserts modes of thinking and feeling can be developed much as strong muscles can be developed through constant exercise. Sonthoff concludes that Batten sees the manager primarily as an actor . He notes that Hower and Orth emphasize that a good manager must be a catalyst , particularly in those enterprises that deal with scientific and research-oriented people. He must be more a motivator and less of an order-giver. His summary of The Managerial Mind is that the author, Ewing, views the manager as a guardian and builder, committed to the life and growth of this organization. He quotes Moment and Zaleznik as saying that managers must be counselors, teachers, therapists -- and most of all friend . He believes that Collier, in his dialogues is searching for principles on which administrative decisions might be made, and that this manager's manager in writing about managers has the outlook that a manager is, in the widest sense, an owner .