There are two major methodologies for decision making – the authoritarian style and the group method. In the authoritarian method – the executive makes the decision and explains the decision to the group to gain their acceptance. In some studies, the time breakdown for a typical operating decision is somewhat like this: Making decisions- 5 minutes, Explaining the decision – 30 minutes, and Gaining acceptance – 30 minutes. Total 65 minutes. In the Group method – the group shares ideas do the analysis and agree upon a decision to implement. Studies show that the group often has values, feelings, and reactions quite different from those the manager supposes they have. Interestingly, the time breakdown in this method is somewhat like this: Group making decision – 30 minutes, Explaining the decision – 0 minutes, Gaining acceptance – 0 minutes. Total 30 minutes.
Clearly, group decision making is better from an efficiency standpoint. Moreover, it is well known that people prefer to implement the ideas they think of. They will work harder and more energetically to implement their idea than they would implement an idea imposed on them by others.
Here’s what Bill Cahan, an architect and founder of Cahan & Associates., has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Whenever we think of the office mode of working, especially in the Government, we are reminded of the word “bureaucracy.” Originally conceptualised by Max Weber, it is a term used to describe high specialization, rigid hierarchy of authority, elaborate controls, and above all – impersonality. It is a condition where the structure of the organization, systems, rules, and procedures are stringently followed. With respect to daily operations, a bureaucracy encourages efficiency, creates predictability and avoids favoritism. However, it is also true that bureaucracy is often considered by many as counter-productive. It is perceived as a cage of regulations from which no one can escape.
Here’s what John Sculley III, an American businessman and investor, who was also the president of PepsiCo, has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Organizational Behaviour (OB) is an important concept in Management. It is a field of study that researches the impact that individuals, dyads, groups, teams, and structures can have on people’s behaviour within an organization. OB attempts to deploy this knowledge towards improving organizational effectiveness. It deals with the three determinants of behaviour in organizations: Individuals, Groups and Structure – and then applies this knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. In a nutshell, the subject is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how their behaviour affects the organization’s performance.
Here’s what Jennifer Griffith‘s (an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior) work involves:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Corporate Governance is the system of rules, procedures, processes, and systems by which a company is directed and controlled. Adhering to good governance practices brings about an excellent balance in the interests of a company’s many stakeholders – customers, employees, shareholders, management, suppliers, financiers, government, and the community. Since corporate governance also provides the structure for attaining a company’s objectives, it incorporates practically every aspect of management – planning, strategizing, instituting effective control systems, performance measurement and corporate disclosure.
Here’s what Dominic Cadbury, a British businessman and member of the Cadbury chocolate manufacturing dynasty, has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Decisions and the process of decision making are fundamental to all management processes. But it is an inescapable fact of both our work-life and our personal life. It involves making a judgement — sometimes a crucial judgement — between two or more alternatives or options. The decision-making process generally comprises steps like identification, analysis, assessment, choice, and planning. To arrive at a decision, a manager must define the purpose or the problem clearly, list the options available, choose between the options and then turn that choice into action. Sometimes, the decision to choose what not to do becomes as important!
Here’s what Denise Moreland,author of ‘Management Culture’, has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Workplace ethics are a vigorous set of beliefs that differ with people. These are a set of values and moral standards that need to be followed by both employers and employees at the workplace. Such ethical acts at the workplace promote both employee-employee relationships and employee-customer relationships. An organization may decide to put such ethical and moral practices into writing or not — they are, however, meant to be followed. Ethical behaviour at the workplace may involve — abiding by the rules and regulations set forth by the organization, effective communication, taking responsibility, accountability, professionalism, trust, and mutual respect for your colleagues. These examples of ethical behaviours ensure maximum productivity at work and could be crucial for career growth.
Here’s what Martin Luther King Jr.,the legendary leader of the American civil rights movement, has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
Post-merger Integration Issues (PMIs) – this is the single main reason for the failure of M&As in quite many cases. Senior executives and other key managers generally remain occupied with negotiations and deal details of M&As rather than focusing on the vital aspect of post-merger integration. The merged firm needs a leader who can guide the combined entity and provide a sense of purpose and direction to the entire organization. This, among other things, will require visionary leadership, the magic of effective communication, aiming for high synergy and the ability to address cultural differences.
Let us take a closer look at the following image with this in mind:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
What are the types of resources you need to round up for your venture?
You are an entrepreneur managing a start-up or an organisation to navigate it in the direction of sustained profitability and growth. To accomplish the mission of your organization – you will require various physical, financial, human, informational, and other types of resources. Resource Mobilization in a broader sense will mean garnering various types of supports from friends, family, stakeholders in business, your own employees, support infrastructure as also identifying, locating, and procuring certain scarce resources that are essential for your business. Resources can include many things including but not limited to money alone.
The Basic need: Physical Resources
Physical resources may include land, buildings, plant, machinery & equipments, your workspace, working telephone lines, information systems, furniture items, and other material inventories. Mobilizing physical resources may involve lot of funds and therefore you must exercise caution before committing funds for this section. Many new entrepreneurs are known to have initiated their business ventures from their home, a cart or a stall, garage or a very small place initially.
True Value Creators: Human Resources
Human resources are the most important category of resources because all other resources are managed by people alone! Recruiting, selecting, and appointing competent manpower for your organization is therefore an extremely important resource mobilization activity. As an entrepreneur, you have to meticulously work to create an effective organizational structure. You must create a top layer of strategic managers, a middle management layer of tactical managers, and finally a lower management layer of operational executives, supervisors, and frontline workers. Apart from this, you also must identify a suitable professionals who can work as advisors and experts (like chartered accountants, legal experts, and other functional consultants) for your business.
Staying Updated: Informational Resources
Mobilizing and managing necessary information is also very important for any modern business enterprise. It may include knowledge and information related to technical know-how, manufacturing processes, plant layouts, design inputs and details relating to technology transfer and absorption. Various Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and several standardized formats for a host of organizational functions may also fall in this category.
The Inescapable: Financial Resources
Funding is the most important aspect for any start-up or business. An entrepreneur can raise funds from his/her parents, spouse, other family members, relatives, friends, and associates including his/her major suppliers and other stakeholders in business. These are the persons who can directly contribute to the equity share capital of the firm/company and/or provide unsecured loans (quasi equity) to help the entrepreneur in his/her efforts to build the required level of equity.
Having raised necessary equity, the entrepreneur can always approach a development financial institution (DFI) or some bank or term lending institution for raising necessary term loan for financing the fixed assets.
For supporting the normal day to day operations of business, the entrepreneur can always approach any commercial bank and negotiate a suitable cash credit limit (working capital) for financing of the current assets.
As an entrepreneur – you can also approach several other resources to meet your funding needs – such sources include private investors, private equity firms, venture capital funding, angel investors, and grants and subsidies from the Government. You can always get details about these sources of funding from the internet and other places. It is however important that you review your specific circumstances before you decide on any of these options.
There are differrent methods to acquire financial resources
Venture funding is not suitable for all entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists are looking for high technology proposals with high-growth potential in sectors like information technology, communications, and biotechnology. Venture capitalists take an equity position in the company to help it carry out a promising but higher risk project. This involves giving up some ownership or equity in your business to an external party.
Angels are high net worth individuals or senior executives who invest directly in small firms owned by others. They are often specialists in their own field who not only contribute their experience and network of contacts but also their technical and/or management knowledge. In turn for risking their money, they reserve the right to supervise the company’s management practices. In concrete terms, this often involves a seat on the board of directors and an assurance of transparency. Angels tend to keep a low profile.
You may also take benefit of various grants and subsidies provided to entrepreneurs by the Government. The Government announces such grants and subsidies to start-ups and businesses from time to time. The purpose of these grants and subsidies is to help you meet expenses towards research and development, marketing, salaries, equipment, and productivity improvement. A grant is a sum of money conditionally given to your business that you do not have to repay. However, you are bound legally to use it under the terms of the grant, or otherwise you may be asked to repay it.
The Replenishment: Educational Resources
The greatest thing that an entrepreneur can do when establishing a new business is to gain as much education as possible. By understanding his/her competition and gaining an in-depth knowledge of his/her industry, he/she will be better prepared to make smarter decisions regarding the direction of his/her firm. Educational resources can be found through professional trade associations, local chambers of commerce, and other professional forums.
Connecting with Stakeholders: Relational Resources
These consist of aspects like customer relationships, supplier relationships, trademarks and trade names, which have value only by virtue of customer relationships, licenses, and franchises. The value of the relationships a business maintains with its customers and suppliers is also referred as goodwill, but often poorly booked in corporate accounts, because of accounting rules. HIPOs, as they are called, high potential employees are the ones who have exceptional potential, ability, and aspiration for successive leadership positions.
Not only customers, but supplier relations are also important.
How does one begin to accomplish this?
As a smart entrepreneur – you must work out a comprehensive plan/strategy for resources mobilization. You must ensure that all necessary inputs for operations are available at the workplace as and when you require these.
Apart from the major plant, machinery and equipment items, other inputs like raw materials, packaging materials, maintenance materials, various tools and measuring instruments and a host of informational inputs like drawings, blueprints, standard operating procedures, and others will be necessary.
All such inputs must be procured in right quantity, right quality, at the right place, and at right time. It is also necessary that we make right use of acquired resources thus ensuring optimum utilization of the same.
Proper supplier data base should be created, and suppliers should be evaluated based on pre-determined criteria (decided based on the consensus reached in a multi-disciplinary meeting of executives). This will ensure that we procure our production inputs from reputed, resourceful, and tested suppliers with whom we have established relationships.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are dealing with known suppliers, we must obtain competitive bids from interested suppliers and base our purchase decision on a pre-determined decision matrix. This will make sure that we are not paying unreasonable prices to the selected suppliers.
We should also do hard negotiation with suppliers to get reasonable (and at times favourable) terms on obtaining suitable warrantees, guarantees, free spares, after sales service, and/or several other facilities which may be specific to our case.
Before I sign off — things you must remember!
Resource mobilization efforts should align with your organizational mission, objectives, and strategic plan.
Resource mobilization is also about the needs of your (prospective) funder, and your clients.
Resource mobilization is often wrongly considered as fundraising. In fact, fundraising is a component of the resource mobilization.
Your strategic plan is the anchor of your resource mobilization strategy – in which your organization’s programs, structure and systems, as well as financials are reviewed, and new business opportunities are identified.
Successful resource mobilization requires a lot of work and takes a lot of time.
If your organization needs additional revenue one year from now, start today!
Your organizational performance today impacts your ability to generate resources tomorrow.
You must establish and maintain organizational credibility and reputation.
References:
H, Mayuri. “Mobilising Resources for Startups: Types, Problems and Solution | Entrepreneurship | Business.” Essays, Research Papers and Articles on Business Management, 4 Sept. 2018, www.businessmanagementideas.com/startups/mobilising-resources-for-startups-types-problems-and-solution-entrepreneurship-business/18188.
Seltzer, Judith B. “What Is Resource Mobilization and Why Is It so Important?” HC3, 20 Oct. 2014, www.healthcommcapacity.org/resource-mobilization-important.
The universality of management is an important concept to consider in modern management thought. When describing management as universal, we refer to the widespread practice of management in all types of organizations. One cannot bring a group of people together, regardless of the nature of the endeavour, and expect them to accomplish objectives unless their efforts are coordinated. Among other things, plans must be outlined, tasks identified, authority relationship specified, lines of communication established, and leadership exercised. Management, therefore, is required before any organization can expect to be effective.
Here’s what Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani banker who founded “Bank of Credit and Commerce International”, has to say
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
You and all other people at your workplace must adhere to a certain set of values when it comes to workplace ethics. It holds good for both employees and the employer alike. When you follow good workplace ethics – you care for and stick to a set of values, moral principles, ethical behavioural standards, and all the rules and regulations that have been outlined in the handbook of your company’s handbook. Examples of ethical behaviours in the workplace include: obeying the company’s rules, effective communication, taking responsibility, accountability, professionalism, trust, and mutual respect for your colleagues at work. Such ethical behaviours ensure maximum productivity and output at work – and consequently help you to accelerate your career growth. Is that not a solid foundation for an excellent professional journey?
Here’s what Robert K. Greenleaf,the founder of the modern Servant leadership movement, has to say:
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In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.
