The Academy of Business Strategy – Management

Only a handful of the large companies of fifty years ago still depend exclusively for their success on their original lines of business. They have had to respond to changing markets to survive. Former railroad companies now exploit oil and gas, while toymakers market computers. The business world is evolving so rapidly that the watchword for the modern world is change. What once took many years to manifest itself and become part of the social fabric, can now happen overnight. Progress in technology, communications and competition has seen to that.

Changes have happened so fast that the present has hardly begun before the future is already upon us. The indications are that the rate of change is likely to continue accelerating. This presents the manager with a demanding but not insuperable problem. Change must be welcomed, enhanced and embraced and turned to good effect, even though it may be threatening. Innovation and adaptability must become part of the everyday habit of managers. They must find more efficient ways of doing things, accept new developments in their industry and seek new opportunities for generating business. If they do not, competitors almost certainly will.

As a manager, you must view change and innovation as opportunities to seize rather than as threats to fear. You will only learn to master change when you encourage, welcome and incorporate it into your professional and personal lifestyle. Businesses are microcosms of a dynamic and ever-changing environment. Legal, political, financial, technological, economic and sociological forces continually act upon companies, sometimes uncontrollably, often dramatically. Fluctuations in international interest rates, changes in foreign exchange rates and technological innovations are just some of the external forces that daily shape the fate of many businesses.

As a manager you must play an important role in dealing with change. You have to interpret change, both outside and inside your organization and create certainty and stability for your staff. You have to instigate and implement changes you consider essential for your part of the organization and you have to contribute to the discussions and decisions concerning the future of the organization.

Fixed ideas bring suffering not prosperity, whereas flexibility of outlook and purpose helps you to understand and adapt to changing environments. Innovation and change are a way of life for some businesses, such as those in the high-tech arena. But others, often the more traditional businesses, have a history of stability and may be resistant to change.

While doing what you have always done may be wise in an unchanging world, learning to be accomplished in a variety of ways is advisable in a world of accelerating change. What you need is to develop a personal strategy for managing change which:

Enables you to assess potential change in the light of long-term improvement for the company.

Gives you advance feedback of likely reaction to change.

Does not position you as a prophet of change, thus lessening your influence.

Does not overcomplicate the achievement of beneficial change by too precisely-stated sets of objectives and highly detailed plans.

If you learn to deal with change, the benefits are positive and greater creativity, better performance, more achievement. Even if you make mistakes, they will be instructive. Change also creates situations where your talents can shine and be well rewarded.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Fiona Rawlins DBA MBA LLM is an accomplished management specialist who has led various board room teams within a variety of different industries including fashion retail, FMCG retail, healthcare, publishing and media industries. She has experience in operations, marketing, human resources, customer services and finance. She is recognized for her extensive knowledge of globalization and decentralization. She now works within the professional education industry and is a registered Professor at the Academy of Business Strategy.

Delegating responsibilities to others increases your available time to carry out important work. Delegation also develops your team which, in turn, increases the effectiveness of your operation and improves your chances of achieving departmental goals. Willingness to delegate is one of the marks of leadership, but delegation is difficult to exercise effectively. This is chiefly because it entails getting work done in a way that appropriately balances the quality of the solution with the needs of individuals. To delegate successfully, you need to know exactly what task has to be performed and exactly what motivates and satisfies your individual members of staff. Effective delegation involves a continued and growing relationship between you, the manager and those to whom you assign tasks.

As a manager, you should delegate authority but not responsibility. This means that you must be prepared to accept responsibility for the actions of your staff. That will sometimes be tough. You should also be prepared to let them have the glory when their actions are successful. That may be even tougher. Effective delegation is essential for growth and development of each member of your staff. They must know what results are expected of them and to what extent they are accountable. Subordinates need the authority and freedom to get on with the tasks at hand knowing they have your confidence and can come to you for help.

Delegation invariably involves an element or risk. A task may not be performed as well, as cheaply or as quickly as you might do it yourself. But once your subordinates have the opportunity to learn, they will eventually end up either matching your own level of expertise, or even exceeding it. Younger managers always tend to hang onto too much work, especially with the more exciting and responsible aspects of work. A good manager should always look to delegate everything possible as if they were planning to take time off work or render themselves redundant. If we are honest with ourselves, there will be very little that we cannot delegate. If you are always left with too much work in your in-tray then as a manager you are not delegating enough.

Do not overestimate your abilities or underestimate your team’s potential. Delegating may well create new or better ideas about how solutions can be achieved. Good managers tend to delegate a great deal, creating a team which is constantly drawn up to the next challenge. A broad base of skill and experience is thus firmly established. These are the teams, departments and ultimately companies which achieve the most. Indeed a good manager will always have time to exceed employer expectations and have time for continuous self-development and personal career planning too. The managers who have the ability to manage parallel careers are effectively priceless to an employer and these individuals tend to be the ones who will eventually occupy the core vacancies within the company which employs them. Companies simply cannot afford to let these managers move on.

You should delegate everything you need not do personally, especially tasks which you are good at yourself and are used to doing. You will be particularly good at training your subordinates to perform and take responsibility for tasks with which you are familiar. Make sure that you delegate some aspects of the job which stretch your staff’s ability and provide challenges. Obviously you should delegate to staff members who have better knowledge or more up-to-date information than you. Managers are often overworked and effective delegation frees them for work on larger and broader projects. When tasks are delegated to you by your boss, do not assume that you are the right person to do them. Your desire to impress must be tempered by the need to have the work performed by the most appropriate person within your team.

Effective management relies upon effective delegation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Fiona Rawlins DBA MBA LLM is an accomplished management specialist who has led various board room teams within a variety of different industries including fashion retail, FMCG retail, healthcare, publishing and media industries. She has experience in operations, marketing, human resources, customer services and finance. She is recognized for her extensive knowledge of globalization and decentralization. She now works within the professional education industry and is a registered Professor at the Academy of Business Strategy.