Title:
The Manager’s CraftAuthor:
Glenn BassettPublisher:
Organization DiagnosticsPages:
216Genre:
BusinessFormat:
Paperback/Kindle
Almost
any job or profession you can think of has a set of specific
requirements for knowledge and skill that must be mastered. Managing
and supervising the work of others is an exception. In part that is
because the job of managing requires a range of social and technical
skills that can vary widely depending on business circumstance. An
infinite diversity of technologies, materials, markets and work
skills can figure into the mix of the manager’s job. The manager
may be asked to coordinate technically skilled team players, or,
alternatively, may need to discipline the application of basic skills
to achievement of production goals. Materials may be common or
exotic. Customers may have influence over or little concern for
product quality and design. Work skills may be common or rare.
Technology may be critical or peripheral.
Some
central managerial skills like accounting and finance can be trained.
Mostly, they are dealt with as competences that are best left to
specialists. Highly technical problems that demand specific training
are, in general, treated as staff support jobs. The part of the job
that always stays with the manager is that of working with and
through other people to achieve cost-effective productivity using
formal authority, personal influence, economic incentives and an
understanding of organizing processes. As skill sets, these are very
difficult to define. They blend and merge to become a personal suite
of action strategies that are put to use as needed. Formal education
and training can provide a summary focus, but only practice and
experience can make them effective working tools. Much of managing
and supervising is thus learned from experience on the job. The
manager’s challenge is to find a mentor who can guide him/her past
the most critical traps and blunders.
Much
that passes for management training is, unfortunately, superficial or
just wrong. Economic incentives are clearly basic but always
insufficient. Application of authority is indispensable but can
backfire or fail. Motivational programs can turn out to be all PR and
noise. Workers may be satisfied and unproductive. Cost control
measures can gut the core of product quality. Balancing it all can be
a juggling act that daunts average intellectual and social skill.
Managing and supervising skills can be learned on the job if failure
is tolerated. Only limited trial and error can be accepted. The best
available advice and mentoring is required for survival over the long
course. The chapters of this book will provide the working manager
with the knowledge necessary to accelerate learning and skill
mastery. When put together in a coherent, working package through
experience, that mastery rises to the professional level.
The
author, Dr. Glenn Bassett, applies his unusual range of practical and
professional experience to defining and clarifying the requisite
skill and knowledge. From his background as a working personnel
executive, professor of management, GE corporate staffer, social
science researcher, consultant and business school dean he critically
and synergistically sorts out the realities of sound management
practice. He deals with issues of authority and discipline rationally
and realistically, disposing summarily of nearly all standard
motivational theory. He challenges commonly offered “principles”
of management showing that many are misleading or illusory. He lays
out the principles of worker productivity that a manager must grasp
to control cost and quality. What emerges is a description of the
Manager’s Craft that summarizes the knowledge and skill required of
the working manager who must exercise control in the workplace, build
commitment among colleagues, and sustain high quality, cost-effective
productivity. This is an intellectually rigorous analysis applied to
achievement of practical managerial results. This is The Manager’s
Craft.
For
More Information
- The Manager’s Craft is available at Amazon.
Dr.
Glenn Bassett is Professor Emeritus of Management and former Dean of
Business at the University of Bridgeport. A graduate of
Berkeley and Yale, as well as a former corporate staffer at General
Electric, Dr. Bassett’s career has focused on applied Social
Psychology. WordPlay is the result of exended research into the
science of psycholinguistics. He is the author of numerous articles
and published books, including The Managers Craft.
For
More Information
- Visit Glenn Bassett’s website.
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