Dada Adefolami

These are three elements:
1. Elimination of waste: First the products and their manufacture must be properly planned for example by eliminating unnecessary parts or processes. Second, that planning must be put into action for example by scheduling production efficiently. Third, performance has to be monitored to identify where, despite the first two steps, things could still be improved. Just in time manufacturing is an example of an approach aimed at reducing waste.

2. Flexibility: In a traditional factory workers service a single production line running from receiving of raw materials to delivering the finished products. A breakdown in any part of the line nearly always resulted in the entire process halting until the problem was overcome. Cellular manufacturing systems separate the production line into cells or modules, each with a group of workers and machines. Each cell is dedicated to a particular component of the manufactured product. Ideally, workers and equipment comprising a particular cell are trained and configured to be able to take over the processes of another cell when necessary. Thus, the breakdown of one cell, due to equipment breakdown or staffing problems, does not radically affect the rest of the production process.

3. Quality: Quality of design and quality of conformance are essential if waste is to be eliminated and value added consistently. Japanese companies were the first to embrace the concept of total quality management. This addresses every activity an organization carries out and encourages a culture of never being satisfied that further improvements are not possible.

Why business plan is important?
Helping you to manage your business is another important purpose of a business plan. As a management tool, your business plan will help you evaluate your progress and provide insight into aspects of your business that need attention

Planning to plan is often the most important single component in effective business planning. Spending thoughtful time preparing to create your plan— identifying goals, stating objectives, evaluating processes, and considering your “mission” or purpose for your company — will result in a tightly focused plan.

BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING
This approach says that the structure of work has to be radically changed. Part of this means perceiving core employees not as an expense but as valuable assets, who are able to serve customers’ needs well without instruction from above. Following managers’ instructions is no guarantee that an organization will be successful as those instructions might be wrong. Organizations should be market driven.

The approach has had many critics, mainly pointing out that managers still want to manage to justify their higher salaries, that there will still be a hierarchical structure, and that many employees will, inevitably, end up carrying out repetitive, specialist tasks.

LEADERSHIP
Leadership can be defined as the process by which an individual influences other. Within organizations it is to be hoped that leaders have both power the ability to influence and authority the right to influence. One without the other is never satisfactory.

Power can arise from the following sources:
1. Rational-legal. A manager exerts power because of the title ‘manager’ and subordinates are supposed to carry out lawful instructions.
2. Charismatic. Where the person has great charm and force or personality
3. Reward power. Where the promise of pay increases or promotion are used.
4. Knowledge. Where withholding and releasing knowledge selectively exerts power.
5. Coercion. Through physical power. This is rarely seen in civilized organizations.

Authority arises from a person’s position in an organizational hierarchy, authority limits and the operation of the law.

In early theories of leadership were known as ‘trait theories’ and these suggested that all good leaders were born with certain identifiable traits that were the ‘golden rules’ of good leadership. This was bad news for those whose genetic endowment lacked those traits. More modern theories, while recognizing that there tend to be traits or styles of behavior, maintain that many of these styles can be taught. For example, research tends to suggest that successful leaders exhibit: honesty, the ability to inspire, competence, intelligence and the ability to look forward.

Style theories therefore open the possibility that training, learning and development can create good or at least better managers.
Although few would argue that the styles listed above are not desirable in a leader, the list still leaves many unanswered questions such as should the leader be:

1. Autocratic or participative?
2. Empathetic or distant?
3. Strict or relaxed?
4. Reliant on sanction or reward?

Modern thinking about leadership suggests a contingent approach: there are no golden rules that will fit every situation and how to lead and manage is contingent on the situation. One of the most accessible approaches to contingency theory is Handy’s Best Fit Theory.

Leaders, subordinate and the task from tight to flexible.
All works well if the three elements line up: a strict boss, telling passive subordinates to get on with their repetitive tasks. therefore, once there is a mismatch somewhere, things go wrong. For example, an authoritarian manager in charge of talented, intelligent, well-qualified people who are told to carry out dull repetitive tasks will not work well.

In the short-term, the leader must attempt to adjust his or her style, but a permanent solution needs more than that, and will certainly involve job redesign.

TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERS

Transactional leaders focus on the short term, controlling, maintaining and improving the current situation, planning, organizing, defending the existing culture. They rely on rational/legal power so that subordinates obey because their manager is called ‘manager’. It is sometimes said that such leaders concentrate on ‘doing things right’. Transactional leaders will form the majority of an organization’s managers and are useful to deal with the day-to-day running of the organization.

Transformational leaders are very different. They concentrate on a long-term vision and on re-engineering to change the organization radically, and they motivate their staff through a climate of trust, empowerment, change culture, and charisma. These people concentrate on ‘doing the right things’.

If an organization faces serious challenges or opportunities which call for radical changes, then it needs a visionary transformational leader at its head. Transactional leaders (managers) are unlikely to have the vision and, even if they do, will find it difficult to persuade others to follow them enthusiastically.

Finaly
in many economies, there has been a move towards greater technical requirements and a move away from manufacturing industry. Both changes can be seen in knowledge work. This can be defined as a ‘Job, process, or task that is distinguished by its specific information contents or requirements’. Examples of knowledge work include teachers, engineers, research scientists, lawyers, etc.

It must be emphasized again, that whereas the main assets in a manufacturing industry are permanent, traceable and easy to define, the main assets in an industry depending on knowledge work walk out of the office door every evening. Many of the most junior recruits, fresh from university will possess some of the most valuable knowledge that will be vital to the organization’s sustainable competitive advantage. Instead of giving orders, managers must learn to listen; instead of tall hierarchies putting distance between top managers and new employees, company structures should be flattened or de-layered. Instead of living in the tight domain of Handy’s best fit model, knowledge organizations inhabit the flexible domain.

In a knowledge business, more than in a traditional manufacturing industry, success will depend on recruiting the right people, leading them in the right way and inspiring them to perform and contribute to the best of their abilities.

Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company’s top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes.

• Dada Suraju Adefolami, Professor of Finance, School of Business Administration, UNEM University Costa Rica, is a Finance / Management Consultant and Certified Forensic Accountant. You can reach him via: [email protected]; 08052043855