Report
Executive summary
Management has been described as getting work done through others. The managerial functions of Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling are critical aspects of management. This report involved investigations of the challenges facing Outdoor Adventure Paintball Park (OAPP). The investigation was carried out with reference to the managerial functions. Management play various roles in the organization. The effectiveness with which they play these roles dictate the nature of organizational performance. OAPP was performing initially well but it reach a point where its performance began to dip. Generally, the business has recorded low scores in terms of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The suggested leadership style for the business is collaborative leadership. A study on the business revealed a lot of weaknesses in aspects such as mission statement, resource organization, human resources, employee motivation, acting on information, and organizational outcomes. It was therefore recommended measures should be put in place to address these concerns.
Firstly, a mission statement for the business need to be developed. This will be developed alongside vision and core values. It was also suggested that personnel organization need to be enhance to ensure optimum utilization of the labor. There were also issues of human resources that require development of recruitment plan, job designs, job specifications and job description for employees. Further, it was observed motivational program is needed. Motivation of employees can be done by using various approaches which can be extrinsic or intrinsic. Besides motivation, there was also a recommendation of the need to come up with training and development programs. Decision making is very critical to business performance. Based on the findings obtained, it was recommended that decision making need to be made urgently especially when there is a negative information suggesting decline in business performance. Organizational outcomes may not be realized if they are not communicated to the employees. It was therefore recommended that organizational outcomes be formulated and communicated clearly to employees. Finally, a balance scorecard for the business was prepared which illustrate four perspectives: financial, internal processes, learning and growth, and customer value.
Introduction
Outdoor Adventure Paintball Park (OAPP), a business owned by Ethan, Daisy, and Mike, has been doing well until it started to record poor performance. On average, the business was losing up to $3,795 per day on battle fields alone. When other activities are factored in, the losses were enormous. The purpose of this work was to study the challenges faced by OAPP with a view to coming up with recommendations for short and long term solutions. The work will commence by studying all the three owners of the business and how each contributed to the failure of the business. Then, the specific strengths and weakness of the business in relation with the components of the POLC will be highlighted. A management style deemed appropriate for OAPP will be identified. Then an explanation as to why the model was chosen will be presented. Roles and responsibilities of the business owners as well as the employees will be developed followed by a discussion as to why the positions are necessary. A balanced scorecard will be also designed to help OAPP align its business activities with the vision and strategy of the organization, improves communication, and monitor the business performance against goals. Other contents of this report include the background, teams’ tasks (problem, conclusion, methodology, and recommendations).
Background
Businesses exist to make profit. Profit is one of the yardsticks of measuring how well or bad a business is performing. Firms with dwindling or low revenues are usually categorized as poor performers while those which record higher levels of revenue are regarded as good performing businesses. Evidence has shown that there is a strong correlation between management and business performance. Wall and Wood (429-462), content that human resource management has an impact on organizational performance. Businesses which are managed poorly tend to perform poorly while business that well-managed tend to perform well. It is therefore important that management of firms focus more on effective and efficient management of their business if they want to improve their performance. Management has been defined as getting work done through others. It has been found that the focus of managers is not just to ensure that work is done but to ensure that work is done efficiently. Efficiency has been described as the ability to do more work with minimum effort and less wastage. Efficiency, though, is not enough. Managers also ought to ensure that work is done effectively. Effectiveness has been defines as the ability to accomplish tasks which further the goals of the organization, such as striving to achieve high levels of customer service and customer satisfaction.
Founders of management contend that there are certain functions that need to be performed by managers. These functions are known as management functions. The founders argue that the success of a business largely depend on the administrative ability of its leaders more than their technical capacity. One of the Founders of management suggested that there are four management functions performed by managers: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (POLC). Planning is concerned with determination of organizational goals and ways of achieving them while organizing is making certain decisions such who to do what tasks and job, when and where tom make decisions, and who to work for who in the organization. Ina research to find out how marketing planning affects business performance, Pulendran, Speed, and Widing (476-497) found out that high quality market planning results in business performance benefits. Leading is concerned with inspiring as well as motivating employees to strive to achieve organizational goals. Controlling involves monitoring activities needed to achieve goals and then taking corrective actions where progress is not being realized. Control starts with setting of standards needed to achieve a particular goal and then comparing performance with those set standards. Changes are made when performance is deviating from the set standards. For example, the standard could cost-cutting while the goal is to increase profits. If the performance show a continued increase in costs and further decline in profits, corrective actions are made. Previous studies support the claim that managers who are capable of performing management functions well turn out to be better managers. For example, evidence has shown that profitable companies have their CEOs spending a large fraction of their time planning. This view is supported by the claim of Kannan Tan (153-162) when managers become committed to quality they produce a great effect on business performance. Research by Mintzberg showed that managers have up to three key roles to perform including interpersonal roles (figurehead, leader, and liaison), informational roles (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson), and decision roles (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator). Organizations whose managers excel in both management roles and management functions have been found to record high levels of performance.
Identification of the Problem
The business performance is not impressive and there is a likelihood that performance will further drop if nothing is done to correct the situation.
Findings
A study on the business suggest there are a number of root causes contributing to the poor performance. The strengths and weakness of the business will be identified in terms of POLC. Planning is about determination of the goals of OAPP and means of achieving them. However, it appears that OAPP is operating without goals as well as means of achieving those goals. Organization involves making far-reaching decisions such as where to make decisions, who to work where and how, and so forth. A study on the company suggest there is lack of organizing element. Leading involves doing such things as motivating and inspiring workers to strive to achieve organizational goals. First, OAPP does not have existing organizational goals. Second, there is absence of leadership. One way of motivating employees is by training them. However, the employees are complaining that they require additional training in certain tasks they are not well conversant with. Controlling involves monitoring progress towards the achievement of organizational goal and taking corrective action when progress is not being realized. However, in the case of OAPP, business is run without any goals. Even when progress getting worse, there are no corrective actions being taken to return to normalcy.
Management Style
Preferred management style for the business is collaborative/collective management. In this arrangement, both the manager and the employees share managerial decision-making. In the case of OAPP, Mike can act the manager while Daisy and Ethan act as other employees of the company. However, when it comes to managerial decision-making, all of them share ideas. It has been found that a well-designed and implemented collaborative management satisfy both individual and organizational needs. Further, it helps build lasting relationships between employees and managers (Rubin, Rubin, and Rolle, 1999).
Roles and Responsibilities
At OAPP, roles and responsibilities should be shared in such a way that it contribute towards business success. Roles and responsibilities also have to be shared fairly so that each owners or employee is not overburdened or assigned fewer responsibilities.
Owners
As managers, the owners are supposed to perform the following managerial roles:
Interpersonal roles
Informational roles
Decision roles
The responsibilities of the owners are:
Develop the business’ vision, mission, and core values
Recruit, train, develop, and motivate employees to achieve business goals
Assigning jobs to employees
Supervise day-to-day running of the business
Keep records of business performance
Set standards on how work is done: quality, efficiency, costs, and so forth
Monitor progress to see business goals are achieved and taking corrective actions
Laying out of business strategic plans for short and long term
Employees
Perform assigned jobs
Monitor individual or team progress in their respective tasks and take corrective actions when necessary
Participate in decision-making in their respective work place
Report any areas where improvement is needed
These roles and responsibilities are very important for the business because it spells out clear who is supposed to do what and what results are expected. For example, managers (owners) ought to play interpersonal roles where they act as figureheads for the business, leaders, and work in liaison with others. While figurehead imply their importance in ceremonial functions, they play leading roles when they encourage and motivate workers to meet business goals. In interpersonal roles, owners act as monitors, disseminators, and spokespersons. By monitoring they scan the business environment for information while acting as disseminators means thy share information with the managers and also with employees. In their decision roles, owners act as entrepreneurs, disturbance handlers, resource allocators, and negotiators. As disturbance handlers, the owners respond to acute problems that demand immediate action. As resource allocators, the owners are placed in a position to declare who gets what resources. And as negotiators, they play an important role in negotiating goals, employee remuneration, outcomes, resources, projects, and schedules. When both the owners and the employees perform their roles effectively and efficiently, the result is improved business performance.
Recommendations
Mission statement. A strategic plan for business need to be developed. The strategic plan will consist of the business vision, mission, and core values. Strategic plans helps in not only determining organizational goals but also actions or processes needed to achieve the goals. The vision define the aspirations of the business, the mission describe the resources it shall employ to achieve the vision, and the core values are what the business stand for.
Resource organization. Management has been defined as getting work done through other people. And part of management functions is organizing. In this context, there is a need to organize material and human resources for optimum utility. For example, there is a need to optimize human resources by first recruiting talented employees, training and developing them, assigning them right tasks for right skills, supervising them, and motivating them to perform the best. Adequate number of employees also ensure that the employees are not overworked.
Human resources. Human resources are key to business performance. Once organizational goals are set, one way of achieving them is through people: the employees. Organizing of human resources is critical to the success of OAPP. As such, a plan should be developed on when and how to carry out recruitment. Job analysis should be also carried out for the various positions in the company so that there is a clear job description and job specification for every employee. Furthermore, a recruitment procedure should be developed to aid in attracting the best talent. Finally, a plan should be put in place detailing who, when, and why to attend training programs. Evidence suggest training and development improve productivity of employees and thus business performance (Elnaga and Imran 137-147).
Employee motivation: It is one thing to recruit an employee and another thing to make employee contribute to the overall business success. Available evidence suggest there is a positive relationship between employee motivation and business performance. Investigations reveal that highly motivated employees contribute a lot to organizational excellence. Motivation does not occur until somebody initiate it. And a manager is in a better position to motivate employees. To motivate employees, manager must first know what motivates employees (Linder 1-8). It is therefore important leadership put in place measures that inspire and motivate employees to strive and achieve organizational goals. Studies have shown that not all employees can be motivated by the same approach. As such, employee motivation should be tailored to suit each employee. Alternatively, a combination of methods should be employed. Studies have also shown that motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic. At OAPP, there is a need to find out the most suitable approaches to motivate employees. A combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational methods can be used. This include salary increase, flexible work hours, bonuses, employee engagement, job rotation, employee recognition, job enlargement, and thanking employees among others. However, according to Wiley (263-280), good wages is the highest ranked factor of motivation. A consideration to increase wages might prove to be the most effective motivator for employees.
Acting on information: Information is key to a manager. It could be negative or positive information. But whichever nature of information, it can help in either building more confidence or determining of corrective actions. At OAPP, controlling aspect of management function should be enhanced. Once negative business trends or information is received, corrective actions should be taken urgently to avoid further worsening of the situation. Negative information at OAPP can come from the news, customers, or even staff. Negative information can also be obtained from records of business performances such as falling revenues, employee turnover, or drop in number of customers.
Organizational outcomes: Decision making is important for OAPP business. Delay in making decisions negatively affects business. Business conditions deteriorate up to a point where little can be done to salvage the situation. As such, management has to be in control of situations. Decision-making in matters aimed at improving organizational outcomes has to be made swifter. For example, when sales are found to be falling due to customer complaints, decisions should be made urgently on what need to be done to avoid further loss of customers. Once decisions are made, actions should follow immediately.
OAPP Balance Scorecard
Works cited
Elnaga, Amir, and Amen Imran. "The effect of training on employee performance." European Journal of Business and Management 5.4 (2013): 137-147.
Kannan, Vijay R., and Keah Choon Tan. "Just in time, total quality management, and supply chain management: understanding their linkages and impact on business performance." Omega 33.2 (2005): 153-162.
Lindner, James R. "Understanding employee motivation." Journal of extension 36.3 (1998): 1-8.
Pulendran, Sue, Richard Speed, and Robert E. Widing. "Marketing planning, market orientation and business performance." European Journal of Marketing 37.3/4 (2003): 476-497.
Rubin, Barry M., Richard S. Rubin, and R. Anthony Rolle. "Successful collaborative management and collective bargaining in the public sector: An empirical analysis." Public Productivity & Management Review (1999): 517-536.
Wall, Toby D., and Stephen J. Wood. "The romance of human resource management and business performance, and the case for big science." Human relations 58.4 (2005): 429-462.
Wiley, Carolyn. "What motivates employees according to over 40 years of motivation surveys?" International Journal of Manpower 18.3 (1997): 263-280.
