Management
Management implies taking care of assets for oneself or for another person or entity. For example fiscal management is the care of financial aspects of the business, while personnel or human resources management is responsibility for the employees of a company. Sales management is the process of supervising sales people in the performance of their duties, and at the same time making sure that sales levels remain in line with projections.
Business management and business administration are used interchangeably, although formal university degrees are Masters of Business Administration. An MBA from one of the Ivy League schools such as Harvard University or Wharton School of Business is almost a blank check careerwise.
A person in a management role, whether personnel, sales, fiscal or information technology hopefully has enough experience in the job to manage the assets entrusted to him or her. In addition to hands on experience, a management position usually involves formal education in one or more of the following aspects of management.
* Business law
* Basic accounting
* Personnel management
* Data processing
* Marketing
* Economics
* Finance
Because management involves some or all of the above aspects, people tend to ignore the fact that the best managers are those who learn how to do the tasks above, but also learn to manage the employees under their supervision.
Some management people seem to have an innate ability to get the best cooperation out of the employees, others have to work very hard at it, while others never succeed at all. Much study has been done about management styles and their effectiveness or lack of it, with entire popular books being written about various management concepts. An example of this is “The Peter Principle” which states that people within an organization generally tend to be promoted just one step higher than they should have. Meaning they might be entirely competent as a worker in a factory, but when promoted into a management position, they fail dismally.
Unfortunately when there are cutbacks within an organization, it is usually middle management that is the hardest hit. Literally thousands of middle management positions were cut from businesses during the 1980’s. Many of the former management position people were hired back as private consultants. Others opened their own businesses or went into other fields. At the same time, with many low level jobs being outsourced overseas, middle management positions are being reduced once again.
by Nathan.Smarty 19 years ago