List and Describe the Four Principle Functions of Management? Why Do We Bother to Study Management?

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Differentiate the old school “let the country be damned, I work for my shareholders” from the modern stakeholder school of Management.

The thought process of individuals in the “old school’ method of management is to think of the bottom line results. Their idea of management stems from modelling the behavior of successful elders which may consist of viewing short term results as successes. Their style tends style tends to be a result of barking orders and having the “my way or the highway” attitude. These managers tend to use employees as tools to move the business forward rather than work with employees.

New school leadership/management styles differ quite a bit from the old-school style. They tend to have a combination of genuine attitudes such as:

- Listening to their employees for feedback

- Setting clear, reasonable, and measurable goals/objectives

- Take time out of their day to provide instruction or explain why something must be done a certain way

- Hire and groom talent to make a stronger

- Build their employees up by providing constructive criticism on work not done well or providing positive reinforcement for a job well done.

Describe the 360⁰ view of innovation as introduced by Fred Hassan, Clayton Christensen, and Henry Chesbrough at FDU Innovation Summits.

Fred Hassan thoughts on innovation was creating something new adds value to society. His thoughts were corporations need to continually reinvent themselves and this change should start from the very top and modeled from senior managers to middle managers and so on. His ideas were:

- Companies should be customer focused and deliver on value through innovation

- Leaders in organizations should think of innovation failures and opportunities to learn

- Throughout the organization there should be shared accountability/honesty and collaboration to move the organization ahead

- And continuously sustain innovation by adapting to new situations and ideas.

Clayton Christensen thoughts on disruptive innovation suggest taking a product that tends to be expensive and bought by a small population and somehow making it more affordable so it is accessible to a larger population. Examples of this include:

- Televisions, in the 1960’s – very few families bought a television set in the 60’s, but as time went on, this commodity became a household item in every home.

- Apple products – innovation has had many companies making similar products which compete in the same market with a much lower purchase price.

Henry Chesbrough ideas on open innovation suggest that companies and external sources and technologies to drive innovation within an organization. I believe a lot of organizations have started using this model, including Integra, to come up with new product innovations and enhance product portfolio. Although it seems that this type of innovations is collaborative – it also creates fair competition amongst organizations rather than one company monopolizing the market.

Why is Diversity important and how can it be managed effectively?

Diversity is about embracing many different types of people, who stand for different things and represent different cultures, generations, ideas, and thinking. Diversity is key to growth in today’s global marketplace as organizations must seek and embrace diversity to keep up with cultural intelligence. Some key aspects on how to manage diversity effectively are:

- Communication.

- Managers need to learn to communicate with different individuals within their own team and how they may approach a project or topic.

- Providing information accurately and promptly is critical for individual and team performances – but there are cultures that individuals may need to approach scenarios differently. Asian men may not feel comfortable reporting into a woman. Indian women may not be as forward in giving their opinions on specific subjects because their culture has taught them to be soft-spoken and polite.

- Team Building

- Within the USA, individuals tend to view. While other cultures and religious factions have promoted separation of genders where individuals may not communicate with a gender other than their own. Effective cross cultural team building is necessary and benefits from the potential advantages of getting a leg up on cultural intelligence.

- Time

- Different countries have different viewpoints on how to mix work and social behavior or striking a balance between work and family life. Within the US, there is an expectation to work 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, with the 8 hours being consecutive hours. France, on the other hand, has a much more embedded culture of work and life -where an individual does not have a set time to go into work and make take 4 hours of break in between a work day and return to the office in the evening. Not understanding perception of time may have different impacts on specific individuals. One example of this is when I was fasting during the month of Ramadan (not eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset), it was difficult to work a normal 8-5 schedule, and flexible times of coming and options to work from home should be considered.

- Calendars

- Generally, the business world uses the solar calendar and specifies holidays per what may be considered “normal” such as Easter or Christmas. But it may be important to stress that individuals may observe different holidays and may be forced to use a “Paid Time Off” to cover a religious holiday.

List some of the “cognitive biases” that effect the way managers and groups make decisions.

Cognitive biases are errors in thinking that influence how individuals make decisions.

- Confirmation Bias which is the tendency for people to seek out or interpret information that confirms their beliefs. Donald Trump exhibits this behavior when he praises media outlets that praise or suggest how well his presidency is going. He tends to call the media outlets that