Пойгина Л.Б., Туринова Л.А. - English for Masters. Management Part 1 (1175658), страница 10
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For the organization to be proactive,rather than reactive or merely adaptive, management must also change. To increaseproductivity and survive in a world where the competition keeps getting better, managementmust comprehend that yesterday's best way might be today's anachronism.This does not mean change for change's sake or abandoning all the basic practices thatworked in the past. Surprisingly, in many cases the types of changes that result inorganizational effectiveness often involve management philosophies and styles that are notreally new. For example, the student of management will recognize, that Japan's emergence asa pacesetter in productivity and quality is in many ways due to a highly successful applicationof findings of Western management theorists such as F. W.
Taylor, Elton Mayo, ChesterBernard, Fritz Roethlisberger and Mary Parker Follett.With these observations philosophical point of departure, let's examine how managersmay be able to meld the social and technical dimensions of the organization so thatproductivity will increase and lead to organizational success.(from “Management”by M.
H. Mescon, M. Albert, F. Khedouri)2. Scanning exerciseScan the text to find information on three aspects:a) a systems view of productivity;b) international competition;c) interconnection between productivity and environment.3. Vocabulary studyGlossaryan integrated approach;initial response;productivity decline;excessive government regulation;productivity leadership;the key of improving productivity;a system view of productivity;to grasp the impact of quality;30 at productivity performance level;the direct costs of negative outputs;to determine true output;to visualize productivity;volume of outputa) find Russian equivalents for the following word-combinations:important factors in overall productivity; the volume of output; the advantage of economiesof scale; profit margins; to grasp the impact of quality on productivity; both an internal andexternal component; include reliability; high standards of performance, speed, availability,and low cost for comparable benefits; underestimated the external component of quality;function of many interacting forces; a digital, computerized mixing system, hi-fi; to comparethe output to the competing organizations; "acceptable" level of defects; a policy of strivingfor zero defects; to play an important role in building the image of perceived quality; asignificant competitive advantage; recessionary economic cycle; external environment:ground rules of the productivity game; internal environment; to achieve the highest rate ofproductivity growth in the world; abandoning all the basic practices that worked in the past;with these observations as a philosophical point of departure; social and technical dimensionsof the organization.b) find Russian equivalents for the following:рассматривать не только как переработку поступающих в систему ресурсов в конечныйпродукт; отношение стоимости входных ресурсов к стоимости выходной продукции;процесс, имеющий множество внешних воздействий; с точки зрения системногоподхода; рассматривать показатели объема производства; являться важным элементом«затратного» компонента; концентрировать внимание на доходах и затратах в прямомсмысле; уменьшение случаев возврата изделий покупателям вследствие имеющихсядефектов; преимущества масштабности производства, позволяющего увеличить долюприбыли в доходах; положительные и отрицательные результаты на выходе;концепция восприятия ценности; обеспечение «приемлемого» уровня дефектов; низкийпроцентный показатель дефектности от общего объема произведенной продукции;связь между потребляемыми ресурсами и выпускаемой продукцией.4.
Discussing exercisea) Discuss what happens if the forecasts are in erroneous and how important the results are forthe productivity of each part of the company - marketing, production, finance, planning, etc.b) Discuss how you would evaluate the performance of individual plant managers in thefuture.c) Discuss what changes you would make in the production planning process to improveproductivity and give your reasons.5. Summarizing exerciseWrite the plan of the text in the form of statements.Develop your plan into a summary.31 6.
Abstract Writing exerciseWrite an abstract of Text 5 (a 200-word limit).Text 61. Pre-reading exerciseThe text headlined "The Control Process" consists of five logical parts, each part is clearlystructured. Study the list of sub-headings covering the composition of the text which aregiven in an arbitrary sequence. Skim through the text and relate each sub-heading to thecorrespondingpart of the text:a)b)c)d)e)Setting standardsTaking necessary corrective actionWhy control is necessaryRevise standardsComparing performance to standardsThe Control ProcessControl, like power, is a word that control connotes restraint-the leash on a dog, contrary toour ideal of individual liberty.
Because of this preconception, controlling is one of the mostmisunderstood management function. If asked to guess what control means to a manager,people often respond with something like keeping workers in line. This is correct in a sense.One aspect is control is indeed ensuring conformity of a sort. However, to think ofcontrolling is simply restraining negative behavior and making everyone toe the line is tomiss its primary purpose in management As a management function:Controlling is the process of ensuring that the organization is attaining objectives.Managers begin performing the control function the very moment they formulateobjectives and establish an organization.
This control is essential if the organization is tosucceed. Without it chaos would reign, making group effort of any complexity virtuallyimpossible to unify. Even more important , goals, plans, and structure give the organizationdirection by channeling and guiding work. Thus, control is an inherent outgrowth oforganization. This is a major reason why Peter Drucker states, "The synonym for control isdirection".There are three distinct stages in the control process setting standards, comparingperformance to standards, and taking necessary corrective action.
Each stage involves severalactivities.The first phase of the control process, setting standards, highlights how closelyintertwined the planning and control functions are. Standards are specific objectivesagainst which progress can be measured. They are an outgrowth of the planning process: Allcontrol standard ought to be derived from the organization's multiple objectives andstrategies.Two essential characteristics distinguish objectives that can be used as standardsnamely, a time limit and aspecific criterion against which accomplished work can hecompared To earn aprofit of $1 million during 1987 or to reduce absenteeism below 3 percent32 by 1987 are examples of objectives that serve as control standards.
The specific, measurablecriterionof$1 million and the time limit of one year are called performance indicators.Aperformance indicator defines exactly what must be achieved to attain anobjective. This enables the manager to compare actual work to planned productivity and toanswer the crucial questions "What do we have to do to reach our objective?" and "Whatremains to be done?" For instance, if management finds that the firm has earned only$400,000 during the first six months, it knows that the company will have to step upproductivity greatly to meet the planned goal of $1 million by year's end.It is relatively easy to establish performance indicators in such areas as profit, sales,and cost of materials because they are quantifiable. But several crucial organizational goalscannot readily be expressed numerically.Improving morale, for example, is an objective that often seems difficult orimpossible to quantify.
One cannot rate morale accurately on a scale or reduce it to dollarequivalents. But effective organizations try to overcome the quantification difficulty. Forexample, one can obtain information about the mental state of workers through attitudesurveys and interviews. Furthermore, some of these apparently immeasurable objectives canbe quantified indirectly by measuring manifestations of the indicator. Low labor turnover forinstance, is usually a manifestation of high satisfaction.
Therefore, the turnover rate may beused as a performance indicator for setting standards in the area of satisfaction. For example,top management could establish an objective for the coming year of reducing turnover from10 percent to 6 percent.The danger in using manifestations instead of direct measurement is that othervariables may affect the manifestation being measured. Low turnover, to continue ourexample, could reflect generally poor economic conditions rather than high satisfaction. Inother words people stay not because their needs are genuinely being met, but because theybelieve it would be hard to get another job.
The manager must always be careful todistinguish between symptoms and true causes. It is essential for management to recognizethat many factors in the situation affect the outcome of a managerial action.Inability to express a performance indicator directly in quantifiable terms should not,as it often is, be used as an excuse to avoid setting a control standard in the area. Even asubjective indicator, provided its limitations are recognized, is better than none at all.
Withoutsome form of performance indicator there can be no effective managerial control. Theinevitable consequence of this is management by reaction, which is not really managementbut rather a knee-jerk response to situations already out of hand. Some otherwise excellentlymanaged organizations have suffered severe problems because they failed to establishperformance indicators in the difficult-to-measure areas of social responsibility and ethics.One area where it is particularly difficult to establish performance indicators isresearch and development. Attempts to establish objective measures have frequently provedinadequate.
Traditional measures include numbers of patents, publications, reports, andproject completions. All of these indicators focus on the productivity and efficiency of R&D.None of them focuses on the direction of R&D effort and the usefulness of the effort to theorganization. Are all of the patents, publications, and completed projects focused ondiversification efforts or market penetration efforts? If the company has a preference—and itusually does—the focus of efforts is of critical importance.In recent years managers in research and development have realized that theintangibility of the work is no excuse for relying on intuition or for using inadequateindicators as the sole basis for performance appraisal. A survey of 400 R&D managersrepresenting 40 industries showed that some of the more commonly used measures of overall-R&D performance are "attainment of organization goals" and "percentage of work adoptedby company.
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