Innovative Approaches To Corporate Management example essay topic

Innovative approaches to Corporate Management Felipe Guadalupe Innovative approaches to Corporate Management company is only as strong as its weakest link. In order for it to succeed in today's competitive market, the company will have to depend on the acquisition and application of good, relevant knowledge on which to base its decisions. For that to happen, good and sound decision making has to be a part of everyday business. Therefore, corporate managers have taken innovative approaches to corporate management by creating consistency and unity towards a purpose, along with an environment where both the company and employees can excel. Experienced managers have come to realize how they impact their subordinates and that most problems in a company occur as a result of a lack of communication up and back down the "chain of command". The more informed the employees are, the better managers will be able to instill a common vision and establish consistency throughout.

Once one creates that constancy and unity, one will enable the company to have a lasting vision that unifies everyone in the company under a common purpose. For the company to succeed, everyone needs to share the same vision. This can be accomplished by valuing, recognizing, and rewarding the outstanding and dedicated contributions of the many employees who take care of their customers. In doing so, the vision will be clear and everyone will know and will personally be able to relate to and identify with the objectives of the company. Companies must grow to attract and retain talented and experienced workers. Typically, "talent goes where there is opportunity" (Thurm, 2004, p. 1).

Where there is opportunity, there is growth. Too rapid growth will tend to stretch a company and its managers too thin, which can create new problems. A good example of this occurrence was in the 1990's. Enron Corp. was one of fastest growing companies of the 1990's. It was forced to file bankruptcy as a result of the top executive's embezzlements and fraudulent scandals that cost its employees their life savings. Every company has managers, all with different leadership styles and strengths.

Not everyone has the same style of managing. The assessment and development of their style of leadership is essential to achieving the management strength that the company needs. It is a manager's job to improve the value of, and make a profit for, the company. In order to do that, he or she has to have everyone on board "playing from the same sheet of music". Discipline needs to be established before any team can function as a team. In the article, "It's your ship: A Navy commander's grassroots leadership (2003), a Navy commander, Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, took command of his ship, the USS B enfold, encountering very low morale throughout the ship.

He utilized what he called his grassroots leadership strategy to raise the ship to be the best ship in the Pacific Fleet. While in command, he incorporated three principles that he used as guidelines for his leadership strategy. First, "Create discipline through purpose" (Unknown, 2003). Abrashoff did away with the diversity and instituted a unity program to help the crew focus on the ship's common purpose and become a team through communication and support of each other. Basically, he wanted to instill in them that there is no "I" in "team". Second, "Listen-and communicate-aggressively" (Unknown, 2003).

Here he interviewed the crew extensively, asking about family and personal background. He told them what he needed from them and asked them what he could do for them to help them achieve their goals. In doing so, he was able to produce an environment where anyone could critique anyone else on the ship through proper communication channels. Finally, "Be a champion for your team" (Unknown, 2003). If the crew needed something and it was within his power to obtain it, he would give it to the crew.

They eventually came to believe that they owned the ship. No longer was it a "your" ship mentality. Abrashoff had changed that sort of thinking. He gave them full reign over the ship by establishing three rules. The crew could not do anything that would damage the ship, hurt themselves or others, or waste taxpayers' money. In the end it would pay off.

The ship's retention went from 20% to 100%. That team spirit had finally unfolded to show a display of new founded camaraderie through out the ship which helped earn them the Spokane Trophy for the best ship in the Pacific Fleet. It is important to exhibit and practice good leadership qualities to have people willingly follow your instructions. Companies not only need good leaders, they need good managers as well to controls resources and expenditures to allow the company to prosper. There are many different models of management strategy that corporate management can follow to assist them in helping their company evolve. Process-based management, corporate entrepreneurship, and Total Quality Management (TQM) are some of them, just to name a few.

Process-based management deals with how companies provide products and services to their customers. It focuses on five areas to help develop longevity for the company. First is promoting a process-based culture, where people are trained in the mindset of learning a process so that they do not even have to think about what they are doing, they just react to a learned behavior. Second, there is managing end-to-end business processes. Here is where the focus is on how to improve on the process from start to finish, reducing the cost and time and still provide quality products and services to the customer. Next, is understanding and meeting customer expectations.

In this step, one analyzes the customer's need and how they will value your product or service. Once it is known what the customer expects, one can tailor the service and / or work with the customer to meet that specific need. Then there is integrating diverse initiatives into a process-oriented approach. Here is where the ideas for improving the process are put to use and integrated with the process. The last phase of the process is linking incentives and compensations to process performance where employees are rewarded for good job performance.

Entrepreneurship is also being utilized by companies to give managers the competitive edge and mindset of being their own entrepreneur. The training is offered to key members of the staff that have proven themselves to the company. They learn the skill of identifying and shaping ideas. From that, they learn techniques and discipline to make a distinction between a good proposal and a good prospect.

Following this approach, given the right education, support and training, anyone with the right mindset will be able to learn how to become an entrepreneur. Simply stated, even "managers who have never seen themselves in that light have found significant new business opportunities as a result of their entrepreneurial training (Anonymous, 2003, p. 2). TQM is a management style that promotes a process of continuous improvement to achieve better performance. In this style, quality is stressed from the top management down to all employees. "TQM provides a vision that focuses everyone in an organization on quality improvement" (August, 2005, p. 88). To obtain and maintain this quality cannot be ignored if a company wants to survive in this demanding and competitive economy.

For TQM to work, the company needs to implement a system of creating values and goals that will not only satisfy customer expectations, but also improve on the company's performance. The most valuable resources of a company are its' employees. Everyone in the company should be trained and given training on the methodology of TQM principles, which include team skills and problem solving. After all, it is a decision-making process to achieve "total quality" that involves everyone's efforts to continually improve on the process, "to work towards doing things right the first time, every time" (August, 2005, p. 89). In order for a company to prosper and survive, changes may have to be made. They may need to incorporate or adopt one of the many different management styles that have been developed to train the management staff and enlighten them in the ways of better performance.

What ever style or method chosen, it can not be accomplished without good leadership. If people are not willing to follow the directives given to them, then the process is doomed. Once a leader earns the respect of his people, he / she will be better able to manage them and enable the company to turn a profit to survive.

Bibliography

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Leadership (A Special Report); The best ways to grow: Every business wants to get bigger, but so many do it wrong. How do you know which path is right for you? Wall Street Journal, p. R 1. Unknown. (2003, August).