Good Managers are those managers that discover how to implement the four primary manager functions which are Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.

Planning consists of mapping out the exact way of how to achieve particular goals. Let’s say that Company A's primary goal for the following year is to increase the number of clients. The function of the manager in this case scenario will be to lay out specific steps to accomplish those goals. Some of the steps might include investing more in advertising, sales staff, and professionals like accountants.

After a good plan has been established then Organizing takes its place. The manager needs to organize its team in the best possible way. Also, a manager needs to organize the tools and materials to be used for planning. For example, the right tools for a good advertising campaign might be social media accounts. Managers can have a marketer on the teamwork on the social media accounts for the company. In this way the manager can make use of the tools and team members to accomplish what’s been planned.

The third step of the manager functions is leading. Leading is from our perspective the most important skill that a manager must possess. Good leaders are well known to increase the overall happiness of any business which results in better results as a company. Leading involves constant motivation, conversation, guiding, and encouraging. It is required from outstanding managers to assist; coach and problem solve with employees all the time.

Finally, the fourth and last step of managers is to be able to control and to be on top of everything. After the other steps are in place a manager’s job has not finished. Managers must continuously check for results against goals and take immediate action if something is not in place to move forward to the goals of the company.

Managers of all types should be taking care of the four management functions. Great results might come from the good leadership of managers in a company. However, the amount of time a manager spends focused on these functions depends on the specific organization and the level of management.

As you grow in the business world it is important to develop skills that will allow you to be an effective manager. These skills will affect the way that you motivate, lead, interact with employees and make decisions.

The first skill to acquire is technical. Technical skills are learned for specific jobs. This may include working with tools and machinery or learning how to make sales. (Andrade) Technical skills are important in accomplishing tasks in certain areas. Individuals with certain skills are needed at lower management levels to “set goals, assign tasks, motivate, and ensure accountability.” (Andrade)

As an individual moves up in management, they will need to use the technical skills they have acquired and start applying human skills. These are skills that help with human interaction. This is important as a manager because you need the ability to lead, motivate, and communicate with employees. (Andrade) As a manager, this skill is very important because it leads to “less employee turnover, greater job satisfaction, a stronger organization, greater productivity, and better financial outcomes.” (Andrade) The ability to connect with and interact well with employees is critical to the overall functioning of your organization.

When top level management is reached conceptual skills become very important along with technical, and human skills. Conceptual skills involve the ability to see the big picture and making decisions and plans to get there. (Andrade) As a top-level manager this skill will help you as you lead and make decisions that will potentially affect a lot of people and the company as a whole.

The image below shows the importance of attaining all of these skills. We see that human skills are very important for each level of management. At first level management, it is not as crucial to have conceptual skills, but technical skills are very beneficial. The chart also shows as an individual moves up to top management that it becomes increasingly important to have conceptual skills where technical skills become less of a focus.

When I worked as a Customer Success Manager at a Thumbtack, a tech startup, the functionality and structure of the leadership team was primal to accomplishing the overall goals of the organization as a whole. We made sure that we were structured in a way that we could give support, training and guidance to anyone in any position.

Each week would be started with an individual planning meeting between myself and my team leader to understand the needs of our team and what needed to be accomplished within the given week. That meeting would be followed by an org (organization) wide leadership meeting that would accomplish the same goals. We made sure that each week, the plan was known and actions were in place to accomplish the goals set.

Once the week was set, I would then have the amazing opportunity to meet one on one with my agents in order to give them guidance, set goals, and give coaching specific to the needs of the individual. This would not be possible without the organization and planning done earlier in the week.

I remember a particular agent that was having a hard time relating to the professionals whose businesses they were assisting with. We sat and spoke through their concerns for a good hour before finally coming down to the root of the problem; the agent didn’t feel qualified to speak regarding business specifics. What were we to do in this situation? I assured the agent that they were not only qualified, they were more so qualified than the people they were speaking to because they knew how our very own business was run. Better than anyone. We then put a plan in place that consisted of weekly goals, weekly check ins, action plans set for when goals were met or not met, and further coaching sessions and quality assurances done by me to go over with the agent.

The functions of Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling when being exercised by a manager, can be done in any level of an organization. From Senior leaders to front line agents; on an individual level or organization wide. And when done correctly, as the car analogy states, it runs like a well oiled machine.

Andrade, M. S. (2019). Organizational behavior in practice. 2nd ed. Dubuque, IA: Great River Learning.

Just like in homes and social lives, people have roles in the workplace. Some examples include c-suite, vice-presidents, managers, and staff. Different roles have expected behaviors that come along with them. Sometimes different roles can cause conflict, because different people may have various opinions of how individuals in that role should act. Often, these perceptions come from examples that others have set in their roles. Based off past experiences, people develop perceptions and expectations for individuals in certain roles. For example, if someone was used to having co-workers who communicate a lot and work together on many projects and then moved to a company where people do more individual work and keep to themselves, this may cause conflict because their role expectations and perceptions for co-workers are that they should be outgoing and collaborative.

Norms are rules and behaviors that help govern individuals within an organization and can help resolve conflicts. These norms may be written or unwritten and are known by the individuals within an organization. (Andrade) Norms can include things like dress code, communication policies, and schedules. Norms vary from organization to organization. Some things that may affect norms are culture, policies, history, and values.

Something that affects teams is status. Status is the position or rank given to someone by those around them. (Andrade) Within an organization there are a lot of things that can affect a person’s status, such as experience, success, position/job-title, and access to resources. (Andrade) Within a team status is an important thing to recognize. People with a higher status may have different roles in the team than people with a lower status. This can affect the way the team operates and can sometimes cause conflict if roles are not given productively.

There are two common performance issues with teams that must be noted: punctuated equilibrium and social loafing.

Punctuated equilibrium- speaks about the tendency of teams to start a project and make little progress until the halfway point.

Social loafing- is when a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group then when they are working alone.

In many ways “two heads are better than one”. Each one of us looks at things from different angles and our lens of experience, biases, and personalities. At 5A consulting we believe that teamwork is essential for any type of project. If we can get along with our team members and get different ideas and perspectives, the more likely we are to generate creative ideas and new solutions and make good decisions. The CEO of a company certainly has extensive expertise but we all know that as much as someone could know and learn it's impossible to learn about everything. Having multiple perspectives on a difficult situation is a huge advantage. Group decision making has some great advantages. For example, working as a group might bring more and better ideas for more creative projects. Group decisions may be more widely accepted than individual decisions because multiple people have had input and buy-in occurs in the decision-making process. Dangers do exist in group decision making. One of those dangers is that we are not individually accountable for the decisions made. A group might take a risk or a safer course of action (referred to as Groupshift). Groupshift - occurs when group decisions are more conservative or risky than an individual would make on his or her own.

We always hold two meetings every week. One on Monday before we send out the work and the other on Thursday to go over our plans for the following week and also goal setting. We go over the feedback that is given by the professor and work to implement them. Our goal, as the company name shows, is to finish this class with A’s and we strive every week to keep up with it. We depend a lot on each other as a team. We communicate openly about the work and if something comes up we support each other. Our team effectiveness is based on the commitment we have with ourselves and the team. We make sure it is a safe environment where we all contribute to success.

To maintain organization within our team we meet twice every week to discuss the progress and effectiveness of our work. Along with this we maintain communication over text throughout the rest of the week to address any new concerns or questions that come up between meetings. In these meetings a few things happen that help us to stay organized and continue progressing in our work. Something we always start with is discussing what due dates are coming up and then how to address them. We go over any concerns that we have as a team and divide the work. As a team we decide on a due date for different projects and try to give ourselves enough time to come together again and review everything as a whole before the project is due.

Each of us have responsibilities within our team. Michael, the CEO, is responsible for overall organizational direction. He helps lead our meetings and encourages ideas and involvement from each member of our team. He also helps review everything as a whole to bring it together for final submission. Charity and Kelly are both content contributors who write some of the content for each of our blogs and share ideas for content. They also helped put together the main video on our web page that explains what we do as the 5A team. Kelly has also been crucial in getting information for our project as we work with the Utah State Development Center. Benjamin, communication specialist, contributes to the team through giving ideas in meetings and helping the team overcome roadblocks. He also contributes insightful content to our blog. Benjamin also designed the logo for our team. Oscar, organization culture and marketing, helped design our page and contributed a lot to its layout. This was an important base for our work and he now continue to contribute ideas and content. Each of us contribute to the overall content of our page and we work together to accomplish our goals.

As a team we fully benefit from the different personalities and skill sets represented on our team. Currently with our project we have some difficulties in gathering data with the company we are working with. We discussed the situation in our last meeting yesterday. We had different ideas of how we could get around the issue, and move forward with helping the client. Together we decided which idea would be the most beneficial for the client, and are moving forward with that decision. All of our teammates are self motivated individuals. We communicate when we are going to need help on a specific work week or a day when we may need help. We established early on that we all want an A in this class. As a team we are dedicated to make our five A’s come true. We may struggle communicating when times are busy, and communication can be scarce at times. We have a txt group for quick communication and for easy access for all to attempt to bridge that scarcity as much as possible.

As a team, we have to establish ways to see if our team is doing a great job working together and if we are getting to our goals and meeting all the expectations that the class requires. We assigned the team member that we thought was gonna be the best to represent the team as the leader. Michael is the perfect individual to represent our team as the CEO and the leader. He is a member that works extra to make sure that we are exceeding the class expectations. The leader regularly contacts each member to make sure everything is on track. The best way in which we could measure individual and team performance is through the feedback we receive from our professor. If we receive good feedback that means that everyone did a good job on their assigned part and that also means that we succeeded as a team for the assignment. On the other hand, every team has their difficulties and we might need some corrective actions to take care of. Generally, we work great as a team and our grades are just the perfect proof of it. The only corrections to be made are to be motivated about the project and always try to remember what are our goals are as a team.