SKILLS FOR INCREASING ABILITIES AS AN EFFECTIVE MANAGER

Here are six basic skills to increase abilities as an effective manager:
1. Know Your Stuff
An effective manager must have a sound understanding of general business principles and specific company goals in order to guide employees to the desired objectives. Not only will this ensure that the objectives can be met, but it will also help to instill a sense of confidence among employees. They will be able to look to their manager as the expert and be able to get any help they need to meet their specific responsibilities. If you need to brush up on your skills or get additional education to be competitive, many continuing education ideas, resources and other business skills tips.
2. Organized & Responsible
An effective manager must set a good example by being highly organized and responsible. They will employ those skills to provide structure, set goals and meet deadlines for their team. If a manager is disorganized or irresponsible, it has an incredibly destructive ripple effect on their team’s performance. If this is an area of difficulty for you, it is definitely worth working on.
3. Strong Communication
Not only should effective managers know their stuff, but they need to also be able to communicate it effectively, both verbally and in writing. Effective managers need to be able to relay their objectives, teach employees processes and explain complex issues to their employees. Additionally, effective managers need to develop good listening and comprehension skills to be able to understand the tasks to be completed and, in many cases, understand an employee’s concerns or difficulties.
4. Team Building
An effective manager knows and appreciates the value of a positive and productive work environment and will put great effort into fostering good will through team building and personal rapport. An effective manager should be looked to as a source of confidence, knowledge and professional mentoring and friendship. Most managers are the first contact for Human Resources issues and must be able to be trusted with sensitive information.
5. Measure, Report and Reward
Goal setting is essential to effective management, both for productivity measurement and employee morale. Goals should include measureable milestones and specific timelines. Those should be measured at regularly-appointed times, reported both to superiors in the company and employees providing those results, with proper praise and credit given to the team. This is a great source of pride and motivation for most employees. In addition to praise, you should give occasional rewards to employees to increase morale and motivation. Ultimately, motivated employees will work harder, longer and produce better quality work, so it is a win-win to make sure they are as happy with their job and performance as you are.
6. Provide Accountability
In addition to departmental goal setting, effective managers should work with individual employees to set personal goals and standards and help hold them accountable to them. This is another way to motivate employees and help them to perform at their best. Likewise, as an effective manager, you are responsible to run a tight ship. Ultimately, you are responsible for everything your team does or doesn’t do. You must earn and keep their respect by holding them accountable for mistakes, errors in judgment and poor workmanship to ensure overall work quality.
Ultimately, if you are good at what you do, you have and express confidence in your employees to do a great job, and you hold everyone accountable to the highest standards, you will be well on your way to becoming a very effective manager. With a little practice, anyone can become a titan of industry.

DEMING MANAGEMENT

The idea or thoughts given by W.Edward Deming in the sectors of management is called Deming management.He has given 14 points guidance to increase quality of goods and services. Deming management gives emphasis on quality improvement of goods, involvement of employees and customers satisfaction.

• Quality improvement-strategic commitment needs to improve quality of goods and services.High quality raw materials should be used and technology, method, production process should be modern and improved.The product should satisfy customers wants. Production materials should not be wasted, if any incompetence is found in production process, it should be immediately improved.The quality of goods and services expands markets and provides new business opportunities.
• Worker involvement-For the quality of product, the technique of total quality management can be used to correct process, rather than to blame people. So the workers should be involved in production process.According to Deming the workers can easily identify necessary improvement in product rather than other. So the management should involve them in production process.The employees should be given necessary knowledge and support.According to W.Edward Deming-the purpose to involve the workers is to increase their ability and skills.
• Customer-According W.Edward Deming the management should focus their attention to customer.quality of product should meet customer's wants.So the management should remain effort full to improve the quality of product by studying the markets and customer's wants.The customer's wants and desires may not be always same. So the management should produce the goods or services so that they are satisfied.
  

THE DIMONSON OF MANAGEMENT

Business enterprises and public service institution as well are organs of society. They do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfill a specifics purpose and to satisfy a specific need of society, community or individuals.They are not ends in themselves but means. Management, in turn, is the organs of institutions. It has no function in itself, indeed, no existence in itself.Management divorced from the institution it serves is not management.There are three tasks equally important but essentially different that face the management of every institution.

• to think through and define the specific purpose and mission of the institution,
• to make work productive and more worker achieving and
• to make social impacts and social responsibilities.

These might be called the dimension of management.

PURPOSE AND MISSION

An institution exists for a specific purpose and mission, a specific social function.In the business enterprises this means economic performance.With respect to this first task, the task of specific performance, business and non business differ.In respect to together they are similar.In all other institution-hospital, church, university and armed services, economic is a restraint.In business enterprise, economic performance is the rationale and purpose.Business management always must, in every decision and action, put economic performance first.It can justify its existence and its authority only by the economic results it produces.A business management has failed if it fails to produce economic results.The first definition of business management is that it is an economic organ, the specifically economic organ of an industrial society.Every act, every decision, every deliberation of management, has economic performance as its first dimension. But business management is not different from the other institutions in one crucial respect; it has to manage.And managing is not just passive, adaptive behaviour, it means taking action to make the desired results come to pass.Off course it is important to adapt to economic changes rapidly,intelligently and rapidly. But managing implies responsibility for attempting to save the economic environment for planning, initiating and carrying through changes in that economic changes.

BENIFITS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Following are the benefits of project management.

1. Result oriented-Project management is result oriented. It is art of getting work done through other people effectively under constraints of time, budget and quality specification in order to achieve overall organizational objectives.
2. Team building-Project team consists of multi-disciplinary people of varying degrees of experiences and expertise. Project management creates a good work environment for these people through establishing trust and developing respect for each other. This encourages and motivates the team members to be creative.
3. C0-ordination-The project manager serves as the responsibility center. Therefor he is fully responsible and accountable for the end result.There are no hierarchy which makes it easy for co-ordination between the functional manager within the project.
4. Environmental adaptation and customer satisfaction-Projects are operated in continuously changing environment. Project management team can make adjustments and changes to cope up with the changes in the environment in which it is operated. Similarly, project management focuses on customer satisfaction. The activities are carried out according to the specification provide by the customers.Efforts are to satisfy their needs.
5. Change management-Project management dismantles barriers and reduces resistances to changes.It facilitates new technology and technique.It serves as tool to introduce and manage change.
6. Organizational restructuring-project organization has temporary nature. The structure could be pure functional and matrix. In many of the technical project, matrix organizational structure is set up by pooling the functional line manager.The work in project management s historical and vertical in cases where services of line manager are used. This facilitates continuous organizational restructuring but doesn't provide long term commitment of the employees.
   

LIMITATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Following are the limitation of project management.

• Team related problem-The project team members come from various background and experiences. The line and the staff may not co-ordinate their activities due to ego and attitude of both staff line managers. They may place their loyalty at different place. This result in conflicts between the line and staff personnel.
• Absence of long term planning-The project is temporary activities as it is one shot time bound operation.All activities are planned for short period. This doesn't encourage long range planning.
• Organizational disruption-Projects are operated in changing environment which requires frequent adjustment and introduction of changes. Changes are rested by functional managers. Project also compete with functional department for human and non-human resources. This actually causes disruption in the normal functioning of both functional and project organization.
• Retards human resources development-Project teams are shifted from one project to another or even laid off. This affects training and development of new generation of employees. There might be low levels of utilization of diversified workforce.This retards effective human resources development.
• Conflict-The functional manager supervise and control the project team members. The staff personnel advise the line personnel. Project personnel also enjoy more autonomy and flexibility compared to line managers. The line manager may not co-ordinate and co-operate with the project team.This often leads to conflict and affects the project completion within the stipulated time and allocated budget.
• Unsuitable-Project management is unsuitable for individuals or small project.Smaller organization may not have the request human and non-human resources to adopt a project type ,of organization.
  

FEATURES OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project management is a new technique of getting work done through other people.The following are its features.

1. Body of knowledge-Project management requires application of various skills and knowledge.It includes and embraces all the following areas of expertise.

• Cost management-In order to reduce to wastage, all the functional resources have to be utilized efficiently. Therefor it includes knowledge of cost management.
• Human resources management-Project requires expertise and competences in different discipline.The project team is comprised of various backgrounds and expertise including skills and in conflict solution.
• quality management-Project management emphasis on quality performance of project activities. The management team must have skills for quality control.
• Risk management-Project are operated under condition of risk and uncertainties.The project team has to identify and analyze the risk.

2.Goal oriented-project management is goal oriented. Project management has clearly defined objectives and management is concerned with achieving those objectives.
3.Team based-Project management consist of personnel from various disciplines with varying levels of experience and expertise.Each participant has a responsibility and accountability for each unit of work.
4.Constraints-The project is operated under various constraints.These are time,cost and quality.
5.Planning and controlling-The project activities requires continuous planning. The original plans have to be modified as time passes and work progress.For such modification certain control mechanism have to be designed for continuous control.
6.Change oriented-Project management is a mechanism which facilitates management of change.this requires proper planning as project is operated under condition of risk and uncertainties.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP IN CHANGE MANAGEMENT

When change is imposed (as in downsizing scenarios), clearly the most important determinant of "getting through the swamp", is the ability of leadership to...well, lead. The literature on the subject indicates that the nature of the change is secondary to the perceptions that employees have regarding the ability, competence, and credibility of senior and middle management.
If you are to manage change effectively, you need to be aware that there are three distinct times zones where leadership is important. We can call these Preparing For the Journey, Slogging Through The Swamp, and After Arrival. We will look more carefully at each of these.
The Role of Leadership
In an organization where there is faith in the abilities of formal leaders, employees will look towards the leaders for a number of things. During drastic change times, employees will expect effective and sensible planning, confident and effective decision-making, and regular, complete communication that is timely. Also during these times of change, employees will perceive leadership as supportive, concerned and committed to their welfare, while at the same time recognizing that tough decisions need to be made. The best way to summarize is that there is a climate of trust between leader and the rest of the team. The existence of this trust, brings hope for better times in the future, and that makes coping with drastic change much easier.
In organizations characterized by poor leadership, employees expect nothing positive. In a climate of distrust, employees learn that leaders will act in indecipherable ways and in ways that do not seem to be in any one's best interests. Poor leadership means an absence of hope, which, if allowed to go on for too long, results in an organization becoming completely non functioning. The organization must deal with the practical impact of unpleasant change, but more importantly, must labor under the weight of employees who have given up, have no faith in the system or in the ability of leaders to turn the organization around.
Leadership before, during and after change implementation is THE key to getting through the swamp. Unfortunately, if haven't established a track record of effective leadership, by the time you have to deal with difficult changes, it may be too late.
Preparing For The Journey
It would be a mistake to assume that preparing for the journey takes place only after the destination has been defined or chosen. When we talk about preparing for the change journey, we are talking about leading in a way that lays the foundation or groundwork for ANY changes that may occur in the future. Preparing is about building resources, by building healthy organizations in the first place. Much like healthy people, who are better able to cope with infection or disease than unhealthy people, organization that are healthy in the first place are better able to deal with change.
As a leader you need to establish credibility and a track record of effective decision making, so that there is trust in your ability to figure out what is necessary to bring the organization through.