Managers spend most of their time instituting practices and processes that befit the size of their organizations. These practices revolve around decision-making, learning, creativity, and entrepreneurship. I work for a company, which has management practices that are devoted towards achieving organizational objectives. The company is currently in its growth stage, and according to my observation, my company managers perform exceptionally as opposed to other businesses around us.
When businesses start to grow, leaders feel pressured to perform. They begin scrambling fast and hiring extra workers. Their primary goal is to control all activities and make quick decisions throughout the day. Overconcentration on business and worker control limits managers from the frontlines of the business. This behavior also denies them time to observe the real happenings in the operation and market arenas. These managers end up creating top-down bureaucratic processes that do not make sense in practice.
The management of the company I work for have devised a participatory decision-making system where all workers must participate. Decision-making begins from workers and moves up to the strategic management in system of bottom-up approach. The issue in question is forwarded to low-level managers to discuss it with their subordinate groups. Suggestions from all workers are forwarded to the management for further scrutiny and integration. Bureaucracy is not tolerated in the company; any worker can contact any superior at any time. Recently, for example, the company wanted to amalgamate with another company. All workers were called upon to forward their feelings about the proposed plan.
The company believes that learning is a continuous process. I can describe the company as a learning organization as it facilitates the learning of its publics and continuously transforms itself. The learning culture has developed as a result of pressures facing the modern organizations; learning is one strategy that enables companies to remain relevant and maintain their competitive advantage. Whenever a new product or service is introduced, experts are commissioned to the market to educate consumers on its appropriate use and limitations. Managers also invite experts from various fields of knowledge to train workers on the effective ways of handling their tasks in order to achieve excellence. The strategic management organizes and gives workers grants to attend workshops, conferences and seminars offering knowledge related to our industry. In our company, learning is characterized by systems thinking, mental models, team learning, shared vision and personal mastery, which are the core features of learning organizations.
Creativity and entrepreneurship are highly appreciated and rewarded. The management encourages everyone to make mistakes and eventually learn from them. The company introduced a system of rewarding the best employee of the year; the objective of this was to encourage hard work, thinking, and creativity in identifying business opportunities and seeking the necessary finances to implement the project. To enhance further creativity and entrepreneurship, the company encourages workers to organize themselves into teams and quality circles when they want to discuss any issue. Teams and quality circles are vital as they enhance team spirit, create positive attitudes, ensure personality development, and increase productivity.
Management practices are studied and in classroom and applied in the real world by devoted managers. Participative decision-making achieves support from the workers during project implementation. Learning promotes creativity, understanding, and both personal and professional growth of workers for further enhancement of their skills. Creative works and entrepreneurial skills are usually rewarded as one way of encouraging workers to think innovatively in their operations. Successful managers should concentrate on participative decision-making, creating learning organizations, and rewarding creativity and entrepreneurship.
