The Filipino Entrepreneur

A manager is a representative of the entrepreneur himself and does what he should be doing. Because the entrepreneur can’t do everything as his business grows, he hires managers to manage people and resources. Sad to say there are many managers today that don’t know the basic functions of being a manager. And the worst type I’ve encountered and became my immediate superior is a Filipino bully manager when I was still working in a swiss semiconductor bonding tools manufacturer here in the Philippines. You can view this chart to see a comparison of a true manager and a bully manager.

There are four basic management functions that every manager-at every level of management-performs.

1. Planning - laying out a course of action to achieve a specific result.

2. Organizing - distributing planned work among your people, and setting up the proper work relationship among them by balancing time, material, and equipment to focus their work on common objectives.

3. Motivating - stimulating people to produce results and to work together toward the objectives you’ve established.

4. Controlling - guiding the work of your unit in the direction it’s intended to go.

These functions are your whole job as a manager, if you’re to manage effectively, you must perform all four. These functions don’t exist apart from one another; they’re interdependent and must be carefully coordinated. In general, you must have a plan to best organize the work of your unit, to motivate your people to peak performance, and to control the outcome of their efforts. If, for example, you wish to reorganize, you must plan the rearrangement of staff, equipment, and materials. You must organize these items in a particular way and in keeping with any other organizational changes being made in the company. You must motivate or persuade both your people and your superior to believe in the wisdom of your action. Finally, you must control the reorganization to make sure that it’s going according to plan.

There’s no definite and unchangeable sequence for the functions that a manager must perform. Managers perform these functions in the order considered advisable at the moment or in the order that the situation demands.

Planning is largely a concern of top managers. Operating managers spend more time on organizing, motivating and controlling than on planning. Likewise, the control function is largely a responsibility of the operating manager, and is of limited direct concern to top management.

[tag]filipino entrepreneur,management[/tag]