Overview of the Requirements
Today’s organisations compete by using flexibility, speed and innovation
and their managers therefore require excellent technical expertise as well as all round management ability. New organisations have thus been devised whose design emphasises flexibility, speed and innovation, because there is clear evidence that good managers achieve the best results through such organisations and thus are likely to bring about amore competitive economy and higher performing enterprises.
Indeed it is likely that future waves of technological innovation and other challenges will require Australian organisations to recreate themselves on a more or less continuous basis. To do so they will need multi-skilled managers with great capacity to learn and relearn their own roles and the bases of their enterprises’ competitive advantages (Enterprising Nation, 1995).
The New Emphasis on Organisation Development
The issue thus for Australia is thus to how best to achieve world completive management skills and organisation development, on a continuos basis, by giving access to high standards of management and leadership skills training and thus make possible great success in the area of organisation development.
Research of the 1990s clearly identified that Australia’s providers of management education and training and development had succeeded in providing many basic functional skills but an over-emphasis on the more analytical (academic) areas of management which is still commonplace, had neglected the development of strategic skills (suitable for leadership, coordination and successful implementation) and the people skills — needed to bring about cooperation and good communication — also a necessary requirement for a successful manager.
Since the 1990s there has been very significant attempts often led by the Australian Government to bring about successful changes of this nature, by upgrading vocational education and training and reform to management education. (Enterprising Nation, 1995:xix).
These initiatives can be expected continue to develop and diversify given the significant evidence for such support of managers and the continuing need for organisations to be efficient and effective in today’s highly integrated economy, which must meet the challenges of much reduced tariff protection arising from Government policy in the 80s and 90s, and the continuing importance in the world’s economy of the interdependence of the Australian economy with that of other nations stemming from the nature of globalisation.
The Day-to-Day Challenge of Most Managers
Managers face a daily context of routine and risk areas to exercise management and leadership skills. Thus for most:
“… the urgent is often the enemy of the important. The need for decision and action on immediate crises too frequently seems to preclude the serious, careful study of fundamental and long range problems that are so essential to foresighted leadership. Then the neglected problems of the future suddenly arise in their true importance and become new urgencies to which we must quickly respond, generally with improvisations that are too little and too late” (Kennedy, 1960:32).
This observation above, reflects the trust in the belief by Australian managers and other leaders that analytical and other means of training are important sources of information and help in the formation of management and leadership competencies but the application of this knowledge is valuable, so long as it is applied successfully in the non theoretical context of daily experience and uncertainty of the work place or in the board room because. It is widely held that successful judgments of this nature make possible successful resolution of the practical rather than academic (theoretical) issues that arise and thus personal and organisational efficiency is best determined by an executive or other leader.
Business and Organisational Efficiency
Efficiency is the major preoccupation of expert managers whether they are within small, medium or large-scale organisations and its achievement is the primary goal of resourcing organisational development.
Therefore the development of management and leadership skills, which result within a business organisation, are often of a high level. However efficiency is an elusive term, but cooperation by staff particularly at the organisation level is a fundamental process underpinning its achievement. For example:
“Efficiency of effort is the fundamental sense with which we are concerned is efficiency relative to securing of necessary personal contributions (of staff) to the cooperative system (an organisation).
The life of an organisation depends on its ability to secure and maintain the personal contributions (through cooperation) of energy (including transfer of control of materials or money equivalent) necessary to effect its purposes.
(This) ability is a composite of many efficiencies and inefficiencies in the narrow senses of these words (within an organisation), and it is often the case that inefficiency in some respect can be treated as the cause of total failure (sometimes).
But certainly in most organisation(s) … there is no basis for comparison of the efficiencies of separate aspects (because organisations function as a complex system of many aspects and efficiency can thus result from diverse positive and negative factors)”(Barnard, 1968:93).
However it is apparent from observation and experience that efficiency in other types organisations, which are not intended to serve purely material ends, is not therefore based on material considerations only. For example Barnard (1968:93) argues thus:
“There are many organisations of great power and permanency in which the idea of productive efficiency is utterly meaningless because there is no material production”.
Therefore Barnard (1968:93) again also observes the efficiency sort after and frequently attained by such organisations is based largely on non-material (often personal or subjective) factors explaining:
“Churches, patriotic societies, scientific societies, theatrical and musical organisations, are cases where the original flow of material inducements (incentives leading people to cooperate) is towards the organisation, not from it — a flow (which can be) necessary to provide resources with which to supply material to supply (these) material inducements (incentives to cooperate) to the small minority who require them in such organisations”.
Barnard (1968:93) argues further therefore of the necessity — for a balanced and comprehensive understanding of the nature of efficiency required for managers and other leaders — if efficiency is to be achieved by them at both the personal (subjective) and organisational level (the business context or task) arguing:
In most cases where the primary purpose of organisation(s) is the production of material things, insufficiency with respect to the non-material inducements (incentives), leads to the attempt (by managers or other leaders) to substitute material inducements (incentives for non-material incentives). Under favourable circumstances, to a limited degree, and for a limited time, this substitution may be effective. But to me, at least, it appears utterly contrary to the nature of men to sufficiently induce (them) by material or monetary considerations to contribute enough effort to a cooperative system (an organisation) to enable it to be productively efficient to the degree necessary for persistence over an extended period of time.
The Attainment of Efficiency and Effectiveness
Managers and other leaders usually work within the framework of an organisational setting. Therefore the task of the manager is clearly understood to get the best results from the use of resources and the application of appropriate management and leadership skills usually at the organisational level. This is best achieved if there is balance and good judgment when structuring tasks by a manager so that the organisation achieves its objectives in a fair but efficient manner, so it can compete or even lead in the market place, or in the case of a public sector agency for example achieve a highly significant leadership position or reputation.
Absolute efficiency (ideal efficiency) is rarely attainable by managers and leaders but managers and other leaders can often achieve more practical (and thus achievable) improvements in organisational efficiency with (and sometimes through) improvements in effectiveness (improvements in efficiency at the individual employee and executive level which scan pill over to the organisational level also).
The achievement of such results depends on the balanced knowledge and application of technical (usually material) factors and people skills such as leadership, which can lead to these desirable changes Barnard (1968:94) also argues this way stating:
“To establish conditions under which individual pride of craft and of accomplishment can be secured without destroying the material economy of standardised production (through the use of physical resources) in cooperative operation (a business context) is a problem of real efficiency. To maintain a character of personnel that is an attractive condition of employment involves a delicate art and much insight in the selection (and rejection) of personal services offered, whether the standard of quality be high or low. To have an organisation that lends prestige and secures the loyalty of desirable persons is a complex and difficult task in efficiency. — It is for these reasons those good organisations — commercial, governmental, military, academic and others — will be observed to devote great attention and sometimes great expense to the non-economic inducements (incentives) because they are indispensable to fundamental efficiency, as well as to effectiveness (at the individual and organisational level) in many cases.”
Change Management
Leadership and management skills make possible the application of competencies, and other knowledge, usually based on experience, which therefore requires constructive understanding and implementation of change within an organisation, in order that its organisation development is to continue to be of benefit and make possible further achievements in critical areas of organisation performance.
However enhancing organisational development is a process of paradox, because it supports existing organisation processes (as already argued) but through value adding to enhance future performance, some aspects of what has already proven achievable through existing organisational development approaches will become less significant or indeed redundant when new ideas concerning development are introduced.
The changes introduced may therefore have significant temporary or longer term negative impacts at the organisational level, and can sometimes be a source of increased or indeed very significant stress leading for example to the detioration of health essential for good performance for one or more employees.
Indeed confusion and misunderstanding within the organisation ranks can result, and may be difficult to correct giving rise to controversy and unwillingness to embrace what has been proposed: The typical employee in such an organisation may then perceive what has been done then as a too great a challenge and possibly overwhelming. Confusion and misunderstanding as argued here has been long observed in these circumstances:
“To avoid looking foolish, they feel compelled to demonstrate that others’ opinions are always wrong. When everything else fails, they resort to the argument that such and such was good enough (for others in the past). Having said this, they act as if the affair (the business outcome) had been settled and congratulate themselves on having exposed the pretender (the key executive or leader responsible) who claimed to be wiser… But yet these same men rarely see what really was excellent among the ideas and practices of the past, and whenever someone suggests that a particular thing perhaps might be done better than former times, these men cling tenaciously to the past” (Greene and Dolan, 1967:33).
Consequently executives and other leaders when bringing about change at the organisation level, require many leadership insights such as planning skills to make possible, in a balanced fashion increases in efficiency, which enhance the much needed cooperation by staff, and which can be understood well enough by them so that any conflict between their personal goals and to what is expected at the individual staff member level is minor and therefore help make possible successful implementation of the change processes required.
Future Priorities for Australian Policy
Traditionally, Australia has relied on its natural endowments to create competitive advantage for its firms (and other business organisations).
However, as competitive success depends more and more on behaviourally-based factors and less on traditional market positions, the management of intellectual and human assets is likely to become more important than the management of physical assets. It is therefore now vital for Australia’s economic future that business (and other organisations) receive(s) a substantial share of our most able young people (Enterprising Nation, 1995:1276). This approach would make possible the success of future generations of managers and similar leaders because they would be then be well placed and well and enabled to the challenge of the business tasks that lie ahead.
Australia needs to better understand and continuously improve the way it develops and utilises the talents of managers because for too long careers in business and administration been undervalued leading the best students to seek training in better known and organised as prestige areas for study and training such as medicine and law.
In this regard the following key recommendation made in the Keating years, and continues to be appropriate but do not appear to be yet honoured (more than likely for political reasons over the Howard years).
“The Government, preferably the Prime Minister, should on suitable occasions specifically address young Australians on their career choices, seeking to shift community perceptions of a business career and to establish in the community’s mind the national importance of having talented young Australians choosing careers in business (or other organisations)” (Enterprising Nation, 1995: 1277).
Australia needs to embrace such approaches as above urgently, if it is to equip managers with the appropriate competencies and insights to face today and the challenges ahead.
Bibliography
Barnard, C 1968, The Functions of the Executive, Harvard University Press,, Cambridge Massachusetts.
Enterprising Nation. 1995, Report of the Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills – Renewing Australia’s Managers to Meet the Challenges of the Asia-Pacific Century, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, April.
— Report of the Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills –Research Report Volume 2 – Renewing Australia’s Managers to Meet the Challenges of the Asia-Pacific Century, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, April.
Green, J, Dolan, J 1967, The Essential Thomas More, Mentor Omega, New York.
Kennedy, J 1960, The Strategy of Peace, Harper and Row, London.
