Why Management Will Not Die Anytime Soon - Essay Example

? HUMAN RESOURCE INDIVIDUAL ESSAY HUMAN RESOURCE INDIVIDUAL ESSAY Thesis and Overview As long as the need for organizations to make use of their human resource base in achieving various forms of organizational goals, management as a human resource principle will not die any time soon. This is because according to Westphal and Fredickson (2001), management is a complex phenomenon that entails both an art and a science, revolving round the utilization of human resource and human capital to achieving organizational goals. As an art, management can be said to be the practice of making people more effective than they would naturally be in the absence of any management in place (Tushman and Nadler, 2009). Meanwhile, the twenty-first century has become a very challenging and competitive century for all organizations, businesses and companies to be more effective (Armstrong and Overton, 2007). The need for competitiveness is because the world is now a global village and so any company operating in any part of the world finds itself competing with all other companies in the same industry (Argyris and Schon DA. 1996). With such kind of competition, the best way to ensure survival is through the maximization of human resource, which the definition makes clear, can only be achieved through management. What is more, the science in management has been said to manifest in the various ways in which management is performed. In this regard also, it would be said that the twenty-first century comes with so much opportunities for leaders to be highly dynamic in the science of management, consolidating the continual growth of management. Why management will not die anytime soon Generally, management will not die anytime soon in the twenty-first century as Koch & Godden (1996) claim because the principles and pillars on which management strives continue to be important and even more important in the twenty-first century than they were before. These four pillars have been identified by Tushman and Nadler (2009) as being planning, organizations, directing and monitoring. Van (2006) notes that planning is the process of identifying what an organization would need in the short to long term basis and putting in place structures to ensure that those needs are met, whiles identifying the cost and benefits that will come with achieving those goals. Generally, proper planning has been said to prevent poor performance. The debate that management will die soon in the early parts of the twenty-first century will therefore be met with a question of whether organizations want to perform poorly in the twenty-first century. Clearly, the answer to this question is no. so in order not to perform poorly, organizations will continue to engage in planning, which is mostly regarded as the first pillar on which management stands (Baer and Frese, 2003). The twenty-century opened with much talk on global competitiveness due to globalization and most free trade agreements that were signed between leaders of nations (Thomas, Sussman and Henderson, 2001). As competition became fierce, the need for planning that is aimed at out-performing competitors also became highly necessary and inevitable. The second pillar or principle of management is said to be organising. To organize generally means to put variables where they can best fit (Armstrong and Overton, 2007). this means that in a typical organisation where there are different roles to be performed, vacancies to be fit, resources to distribute and human resources to work, it is important that the pillar of management that deals with organizing takes place to ensure that there is even, effective and fair distribution of each of the available variables to places where they belong. Organising within the organisation can best be said to be a situation that ensures that the popular saying of putting round pegs in square holes is overcome (Baer and Frese, 2003). For anyone to argue that management will die soon in the twenty-first century, it is important for the person to be asked if organisations are ready to risk putting round pegs in square holes. Yet again, the answer to this question will be no. On the other hand, the twenty-first century can be identified to be a moment when the human resource that are graduating from various educational institutions have become more open to excellent performance, that comes as a result of being assigned to roles that best fit their competences (Bass, 1999). Without this pillar of management that ensures that there is proper organisation of the competences of employees, the resulting factor is going to be that more and more organisations will experience high rates of turnover because employees will leave to go and find places where they will better fit (Podsakoff & Organ, 2006). There is also a pillar of management that has to do with directing, which involves the practice of showing the way for people to follow. Through the act of directing, the human resource base of organisations become well enlightened in knowing the options available to them and reasons why choosing certain options over others can guarantee success (Swieringa & Wierdsma, 2002). Directing is mostly done by the manager, who ensures that in the performance of their roles, which they have been carefully assigned to, employees will conduct themselves in a manner that is in line with the overall visions and ambitions that their organisations want to achieve (Thomas, Sussman and Henderson, 2001). To a very large extent therefore, directing as a component of management can be said to be likened to the popular saying of leading a blind person. This is because most employees are employed into organisations, knowing absolutely nothing about the organisations. These new employees hardly find their ways around with the organisational culture that they go to join. It is through the management principle of directing that these people gain sight and insight into the best ways for them to trend (Bass and Avolio, 2000). To those that argue that management will die in the twenty-century, the best question to pose to them is whether they are sure organisations would want blind people to lead to the blind in the twenty-first century. Clearly, the answer to this question is no. To ensure that the blind are not led by blind people, management will continue to equip managers with insightfulness in giving insight to others (Nandakumar, Ghobadian and O'Regan, 2010). There is also the pillar of management that touches on monitoring. Monitoring has been said to be so important that in its absence, there is no need engaging in the first three pillars that have been discussed earlier, namely planning, organising and directing (Murray & Kotabe, 2009). This is because it is through monitoring that organisations ensure that the structures that were put in place in the first three aspects of management are well executed and following original intent for starting them (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). Monitoring therefore involves the complex process of both evaluating and assessing performance and growth (Hall and Bagchi-Sen, 2000). More specifically, the performance of employees is evaluated and assessed against the targets that were set for them. This performance process is then linked to the evaluation and assessment of growth of the larger organisation. This is because the output of employees should always be a good indicator and basis for understanding and measuring the growth of organisations in which the employees belong (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 2005). But for there to be a proper monitoring, which is made up of evaluation and assessment, Gowen, Henagan and McFadden, 2009) have called for the need for there to be a well structured yardstick of where the organisation wants to go. Where an organisation does not know where it wants to go therefore, it will not be concerned with engaging in effective monitoring, and for that matter, management. The question that will be posed to those who believe that management will die in the twenty-first century therefore has to do with whether organisations in the twenty-first century are ready to walk the path of no direction, knowing that if you do not know where you are going, any road takes you there (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). Opposing argument and Stand Most often, people who hold opposing views have said that management will die soon because it will be replaced directly with leadership, whereby leaders are going to transform into managers and thus have more and more focus for leadership as a paradigm for change instead of management (Hair, Anderson, Tatham & Black, 2009). This however cannot be a valid justification for thinking that management will die. In reality, even if leaders combine leadership with management, management still continues to have a place in organisational structuring. But even at all, the most important point to build to such people who hold this point is that leadership and management are two different aspects of organisations structuring and it is only when the two are clearly distinguished and effectively executed as independent principles that transformational growth can be secured (Thomas, Sussman and Henderson, 2001). In his studies, Guns (2006) noted that there are three key differences between leadership and management, which if combined without a careful need to set distinctions will bring about mismanagement. The first different identified is that where managers count value, leaders create value. Secondly, he found that managers create circles of power whiles leaders create circles of influence. Finally, he observed that whiles leaders lead people through the application of principles like motivation, inspiration and training, managers manage work by ensuring that things are put where they ought to be put to ensure growth (Irwin, Hoffman & Lamont, 2008). Based on the arguments that have been developed above, I reiterate the thesis that management will not die any moment soon in the twenty-first century because it is even in the twenty-first century that management is most needed as a response to the competitive global economic environment. References Argyris C, Schon DA. 1996. 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