What is management

Kyazze Nicholas

What is rules of management

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Kyazze Nicholas

What is rules of management

Not sure which question you are asking, so I will answer them both.

Management by definition is:
the control and organization of something:
OR
the group of people responsible for controlling and organizing a company:
(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/management)

The Rules of Management is a book by Richard Templar. See:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/974898.The_Rules_of_Management
This is just one perspective of what makes good management.

If you are asking what constitutes good management, it's going be a long list of divided opinions where a lot of the principles aren't really implemented in practice, despite huge evidence to the contrary. Management at the end of the day is really an art form, where you get multiple correct answers i.e. there is no one right way of managing an organisation, and one style of management might not transfer over to another organisation easily. In other words, it's also very contextual.
If you want to look at things objectively, you would use metrics to measure management by. Of course, whether any of these metrics are attainable is another matter.
Good management at the end of the day is really just an opinion, and opinions vary infinitely (sometimes not by people who know what they are talking about or anything about the job).

What consistute the wrong way of managing an organisation is if the organisation would inevitably lead to failure, but then you get a long winded debate of what consitutes failure. Failure to meet arbitrary metrics/targets? Bankruptcy? Violation of laws?
There are often clear signs of failure of management, but people often tend to ignore them e.g. endless strike actions, workers quitting in droves, failure to turn a profit consistently, complete disorganisation, etc. I have read about companies to go as far as stubbornly sticking to bad decisions, refusing to acknowledge their own bad decisions, continue doing what they always have, and rather jeaporadise the future of the organisation than to change the way they do things. Change is a very difficult thing to implement, and not necessarily because the change is difficult to put in place either.

There was one person who tried to turn management into a science, but he was quickly booed and kicked out. See: https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/business-studies/human-resources/taylor-motivation-theory/

What people often forget is that management is equal art and science. Management is also about people as much as it's about profit. Ignoring people is like inviting the organisation to go the way of the Titanic. That's assuming that the science right.

What the law mandates is that management take accountability for the decisions they make. Some things are not within their control, but those that are should be accounted for.

One other thing that is often overlooked in academic research is the influence of office politics on management. It's one cocktail that usually doesn't bode well for the organisation, but it's inevitable since you're dealing with people. Although it's difficult to measure, I usually find it more apparent than say identifying corporate culture or "good management" techniques/strategies. Ideally, I would like to see more research in this area, but it's not always possible.

Management as a subject covers a wide range of material. People have written numerous thick heavy textbooks about it and people have done various degrees in it. I would doing it injustice by giving a post about it. It's better if you read about in various articles. Wikipedia woud be a good start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management

Having said that, what I do insist is that management isn't really a skill that you can thoroughly learn through books and courses alone. It's a skill that you need to train and refine through application. The theory is fine for a basic framework and getting the basics of the science, but application is often contextual and based on experience. After all, management is as much of an art form (which usually requires experience) as it is a science.

If none of the above answers your specific question, I would need the question to be far more specific in order for me to know what you are asking.