SOCRATES SAYS "KNOW THYSELF" — DO
YOU?
I have learned over the years how to arrange my schedule to accommodate my work habits... For me, getting the most out of my abilities is directly proportionate to getting the most out of my time. I take an aggressive attitude toward time, and I seek to control it rather than have it control me.
— Mark H.McCormack
RATE YOUR SKILLS
Much has been written about the self-appraisal of skills by the executive. Since we have established that the problem of time-management is really a problem of self-management with respect to time, a close look at ourselves is in order. Realistic self-appraisal is not easy. The less secure one feels in his position the less inclined he or she will be to pursue this course of action. But there are many
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available tools to aid the executive in mirroring personal strengths and weaknesses. One of the best-known aids to self-appraisal is found in the helpful book The Efficient Executive by Auren Uris.1 This "Skills Rating Chart," as it is called, divides twenty-one executive skills into three basic categories: human relation skills (working with subordinates and maintaining good relations with your superior); procedural or administrative skills (control of paperwork and using work time effectively); and personal skills (memory and concentration).
Through the courtesy of Research Institute of America, this chart is reproduced to enable the reader to determine a personal rating and to compare this rating with the "average" profile from a group of 143 executives. Your analysis may reveal a general area of strengths or weaknesses which should be exploited or, alternatively, given special attention for improvement. The extent to which these skills are used on relatively important tasks will affect your decision as to which are worthy of special effort.
Some executives, doubting their ability to appraise themselves objectively, have done their own rating and also had one of their associates rate them for comparative purposes.
In evaluating areas for emphasis, caution should be exercised before concluding that low scores necessarily signal the most productive targets for attention. To hope to score uniformly high on all executive skills is unrealistic. In a later chapter on "delegation" we will see that one of the greatest benefits of effective delegation is the optimum utilization of special talents on the management team. Thus, should you chance to rate low in an area where a subordinate is strong, it probably would be the wiser course to delegate. Your subordinate thus can perform in
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the area of strength, leaving you free also to move in areas of strength.
Skills Rating Chart
Low Medium High
1. Using the expert — getting information, opinions, ideas from well-informed people inside or outside your company. __ __ __
2. Building reputation — making yourself known; developing a favorable name for yourself in the company. __ __ __
3. Activating — getting your people to understand and follow your instructions. __ __ __
4. Imparting information — making yourself understood by subordinates or superiors. __ __ __
5. Judging people — gauging individuals so as to be able to establish good relations and increase job perfection. __ __ __
6. Working with subordinates — establishing cordial and effective relationships with those who work with you. __ __ __
7. Interviewing — talking with people face to face. __ __ __
8. Listening — learning from the words of others how they think and feel. __ __ __
9. Getting information — motivating people to join you in accomplishing departmental goals. __ __ __
10. Maintaining good relationships with your superior — being both friendly and businesslike in your dealings up the line.
11. Using time effectively — being able to get sixty minutes of work out of every hour. __ __ __
12. Decision-making — arriving at a logical conclusion and sticking to it. __ __ __
13. Planning — developing a course of action to accomplish a definite objective. __ __ __
14. Controlling paperwork — maintaining the flow of interoffice communications, reports and the like, to and from your desk. __ __ __
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15. Getting information — uncovering the facts you need to advance your work. __ __ __
16. Delegation — making subordinates responsible for some of your activities, while retaining control. __ __ __
17. Problem-solving — licking the tough situations that interfere with efficiency. __ __ __
18. Pacing your energy expenditures — conserving yourself so as to be able to complete the day without undue fatigue. __ __ __
19. Concentration — being able to stick with a given task. __ __ __
20. Memory — remembering events, incidents, ideas, plans or promises. __ __ __
21. Self-scheduling — accomplishing the objectives of your job by efficient allotment of your time. __ __ __
Recognizing the innate resistance to self-appraisal which all humans face, Howard Dresser devised a somewhat unique approach. Reminding the reader that it is not hard to criticize another person's work, he suggests thinking about office associates and asking these questions regarding their performance: (1) Can they be relied upon to do what they say they will do? (2) Do they meet deadlines? (3) Do they make their own decisions? (4) Do they check facts carefully? (5) Do they make good use of their time? Realizing the ease with which one answers these questions regarding associates, we quickly see the ease with which they ought to be answered regarding our own performances.
TEST YOUR WEAKNESS
At one time the term "managerial obsolescence" was given no more than scant attention. Today the term is common talk in seminars and conferences... in books and
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articles... wherever the problems of management are discussed. The computer has done a great deal to prompt the panic. With vastly increased volumes of data suddenly available to the management team, new emphases are inevitable. New and persuasive theories of management generated by concentrated efforts of behavioral scientists present managers with concepts to be understood and evaluated in the light of their situations. Just as managers in industry face a difficult task in "keeping up" with new trends in managerial thinking, so too with those who hold similar positions in Christian organizations. The latter, in fact, may face an even more critical problem, if no serious effort has been made to acquire a basic understanding of the principles of management at the outset.
Not infrequently Christian organizations are headed by dynamic individuals with forceful personalities. Called "entrepreneurs" in managerial parlance, these strong and often charismatic leaders provide the vision, initiative and determination to "break through the barriers and get the mission going." As the organization grows to maturity... as the staff grows from two or three to sometimes hundreds.. as the budget doubles and doubles again... as the capital assets multiply... it is clear that the needs of the organization are changing. What the changing organization begins to require is management of a growing endeavor rather than opening of new frontiers ... solidifying of the work rather than possible overextension of resources.
Happy is the man, and blessed is the organization, where this has been recognized. Entrepreneurs make the best managers, insists Louis A. Allen, a leading consultant, after a study of 385 companies involving more than 12,000 managers.2 Virtually every one of the large industries, according to Allen, outgrew their founders, or, if they were
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fortunate, had leaders who recognized this critical fact of life in their organization's growth.
So "managerial obsolescence" may come about simply as a result of the changing needs of a growing organization, if not as a result of the technological revolution or new developments in management thinking.
In The Menace of Management Obsolescence, George Frank describes the enormous changes and rate of change in business operations in the last decade.3 He concludes that the costly obsolescence of management personnel has shifted from a gnawing problem to an alarming one. He calls, among other things, for policies and programs of management development that will help managers keep abreast of new techniques by demanding of them that same familiarity with up-to-date thinking that is required of hourly workers.
The author cites growing evidence that management is becoming "imperfectly developed, atrophied, suppressed or lacking," to borrow from the dictionary definition of obsolescence. The study of his own company confirmed some startling conclusions about managers: (1) They tend to use progressively less of their training and stop learning new ideas and new techniques when they leave the campus. (2) They practice management mechanically, lacking dynamic interest in management as a profession. (3) They exhibit little familiarity with advanced management practice to be as well acquainted with new methods as most of us are with Sanskrit. (4) They show little appreciation of the fact that many aspects of business management are evolving toward a science rather than a seat-of-the-pants operation. And, (5) they barely recognize the advances made by the social sciences in such areas as
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communications, participation, motivation and other "human" aspects of the business enterprise.
Frank's company lists a number of new management tools in a questionnaire for its management personnel recruiting.
Management Self-analysis
Please make a fair self-evaluation about your knowledge in the following areas. Can you apply and do you understand —
From the field of economics:
Present discounted capital?
National income statistics?
Leading and concurrent economic indicators?
Marginal productivity?
From the field of finance:
Turnover ratios?
Retirement and replacement programs?
Cost of money?
Rate of return?
Present value of money?
From the field of marketing:
The design and evaluation of surveys and questionnaires?
The design of a consumer panel?
Survey-sampling design?
Market penetration analysis?
From the field of organization:
Responsibility charting?
Formal versus informal organization?
Organization-planning?
Management audit?
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From the field of personnel:
A design of a job evaluation system?
A wage and salary survey and wage regression curve?
Executive compensation-planning?
Programmed instruction?
From the field of operations research:
Linear programming?
Inventory models?
Economic order points?
Queuing?
From the field of integrated data-processing:
Computer language?
Computer-diagramming and flow-charting?
Random access storage?
Digital versus analog computers?
From the field of statistics:
General probability, descriptive and inference statistics?
Analysis of variance?
Product-moment correlation?
A Chi-square analysis?
From the field of industrial engineering:
A ratio delay or work-sampling study?
L.E. schematic models?
CPM and PERT?
A work simplification program?
A production cost analysis?
An evaluation of the pros and cons of process versus product controlled layout?
An incentive system installation?
Frank refers to the "destruction costs" of a management team virtually ignorant of current management science and techniques. Such costs can be assessed directly and
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indirectly. A large number of decisions on expenditures are made by these managers. They decide manpower and inventory levels as well as patterns of distribution. They make decisions on the purchase of materials and equipment, engineering, and make-or-buy alternatives.
In his strong plea for a new look at management development, the author insists that industry today can no longer afford to settle for mediocre performance from its managers. Holding that management is simply not measuring up to its opportunities, he calls that result "destruction-by-inertia of human resources." Christian organizations have much to learn from industry... and from its critics such as George Frank.
REFERENCES:
1. Uris, Auren, The Efficient Executive, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1957.
2. Allen, Louis A., The Management Profession, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964.
3. Frank, George, The Menace of Management Obsolescence: The Job in a Changing World, American Management Association, New York, 1964.
