Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices [antikvár]

Preface: Management as Profession and Commitment As a subject management is multidimensional. It is first a discipline in its own right. It is a young discipline; modern organizations are barely a century old, and management arose with them. But while there is still a great deal we do not know, we know that management is not just common sense. It is not just codified experience. It is, at least potentially, an organized body of knowledge. This book tries to present what we know so far. But it also tries to present the much larger body of our "organized ignorance"—that is, the areas in which we know that we need new knowledge in which we can define what we need, but in which we do not as yet possess the knowledge. Yet practicing managers cannot wait. They have to manage as the problems and needs arise. This book therefore attempts to develop approaches to the areas of our ignorance; to think through policies, principles and practices; to accomplish the managerial tasks. This book tries to equip the manager with the understanding, the thinking, the knowledge, and the skills for today's and also tomorrow's job. Management is tasks. Management is a discipline. But management is also people. Every achievement of management is the achievement of a manager. Every failure is the failure of a manager. People manage, rather than "forces" or "facts." The vision, dedication, and integrity of managers determines whether there is management or mismanagement. This book therefore focuses on the manager as a person. It focuses on what people do and what people achieve. Yet it always tries to integrate people and tasks. For the tasks are objective and impersonal. It is "managers" who perform. But it is "management" that determines what is needed and what has to be achieved. Management is work. Indeed it is the specific work of a modern society, the work that distinguishes our society from all eariier ones. For management is the work that is specific to modern organization and makes modern organization perform. As work, management has its own skills, its own tools, its own techniques. Many of these are discussed in this book—a few in some detail. XI