Institution_and_Administration_Development

Discussion On “THE EXISTENCE OF STRONG INSTITUTION RATHER THAN INDIVIDUAL AS A SINE-QUA-NON FOR EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION DEVELOPMENT” Background information As concerned business in general, Administration consists of the performance or management of business operations and thus the making or implementing of a major decision. Administration can be defined as the universal process of organizing people and resources efficiently so as to direct activities toward common goals and objectives. In some organizational analyses, management is viewed as a subset of administration, specifically associated with the technical and mundane elements within an organization's operation. It stands distinct from executive or strategic work. In other to know exactly what efficient administration entails let us look at some of the duties shouldered by an administration. Administrative Functions Administrators, broadly speaking, engage in a common set of functions to meet the organization's goals. These "functions" of the administrator were described by Henri Fayol as "the 5 elements of administration" (in bold below). Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who should do it. It maps the path from where the organization is to where it wants to be. The planning function involves establishing goals and arranging them in logical order. Administrators engage in both short-range and long-range planning. Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them. An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like. The term is also used for describing the formal procedures used in such an endeavor, such as the creation of documents, diagrams, or meetings to discuss the important issues to be addressed, the objectives to be met, and the strategy to be followed. Beyond this, planning has a different meaning depending on the political or economic context in which it is used. Two attitudes to planning need to be held in tension: on the one hand we need to be prepared for what may lie ahead, which may mean contingencies and flexible processes. On the other hand, our future is shaped by consequences of our own planning and actions. Organizing involves identifying responsibilities to be performed, grouping responsibilities into departments or divisions, and specifying organizational relationships. The purpose is to achieve coordinated effort among all the elements in the organization (Coordinating). Organizing must take into account delegation of authority and responsibility and span of control within supervisory units. The organizing of information can be seen since the time humans began to write. Prior to that, history was passed down through song and word. Be it with religion, books and spoken word, science, through journals and studies, or in many other ways, organizing not only is history, but also helps communicate history. Writing ideas in a book, as opposed to verbally communicating with someone, and more specifically cataloging ideas and thoughts, is also an attempt to organize information. The following are the benefits of proper organization: Helps to achieve organizational goal - Organization is employed to achieve the overall objectives of business firms. Organization focuses attention of individuals objectives towards overall objectives. Optimum use of resources -To make optimum use of resources such as men, material, money, machine and method, it is necessary to design an organization properly. Work should be divided and right people should be given right jobs to reduce the wastage of resources in an organization. To perform managerial function - Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing and Controlling cannot be implemented without proper organization. Facilitates growth and diversification - A good organization structure is essential for expanding business activity. Organization structure determines the input resources needed for expansion of a business activity similarly organization is essential for product diversification such as establishing a new product line. Human treatment of employees - Organization has to operate for the betterment of employees an must not encourage monotony of work due to higher degree of specialization. Now, organization has adapted the modern concept of systems approach based on human relations and it discards the traditional productivity and specialization approach. Staffing means filling job positions with the right people at the right time. It involves determining staffing needs, writing job descriptions, recruiting and screening people to fill the positions. Staffing also refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies. The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, "headhunters" for executive and professional recruitment, niche agencies which specialize in a particular area of staffing, or employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews. The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search.[2] Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description ensures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success. Directing (Leading) is leading people in a manner that achieves the goals of the organization. This involves proper allocation of resources and providing an effective support system. Directing requires exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to motivate people. One of the crucial issues in directing is to find the correct balance between emphasis on staff needs and emphasis on economic production. Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged. Alan Keith of Genentech states that, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen." According to Ken "SKC" Ogbonnia, "effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals." Leading, or motivating, is the fourth basic managerial function identified by the process approach to management. It is defined as the act of guiding and influencing other people to achieve goals. Leading involves leadership, communication, and motivation skills. In addition, the leadership role for most managers entails four primary duties: educating, evaluating, counseling, and representing. Educating includes teaching skills and showing workers how to function within the company and how to perform their assigned tasks. They do so through both formal and informal means. Examples of informal education are attitudes, work habits, and other behavior that sets an example for subordinates to follow. Evaluating activities that are part of a manager's leadership responsibilities include settling disputes, creating and enforcing standards and policies, evaluating output, and dispensing rewards. In fact, much of the respect and esteem that a manager gets from subordinates is contingent upon the ability to evaluate effectively. Controlling is a function that evaluates quality in all areas and detects potential or actual deviations from the organization's plan. This ensures high-quality performance and satisfactory results while maintaining an orderly and problem-free environment. It is an important function because it helps to check the errors and to take the corrective action so that deviation from standards are minimized and stated goals of the organization are achieved in desired manner. According to modern concepts, control is a foreseeing action whereas earlier concept of control was used only when errors were detected. Control in management means setting standards, measuring actual performance and taking corrective action. Thus, control comprises these three main activities. Managers begin by establishing specific criteria outlining how they want a company's tasks performed. Based on company objectives, managers determine the performance standards in order for the company to attain its goals. Performance standards may take the form of qualitative and quantitative criteria. Examples of performance standards are budgets, projections, pro forma statements, and production, sales, or quality initiatives. Successful managers usually rely on a feedback system to see how employees are responding to performance standards; this allows managers to identify problems before they develop into crises. During the second stage of the control process, evaluation, managers determine how closely their subordinates' or department's performance matched up with preset standards. Of import is the manager's acceptable range of deviation, or the degree to which actual performance can vary from the standard before corrective action is necessary. In addition, managers must factor into the performance comparison influences outside of the control of their unit. They must also devise a means of communicating results to subordinates in a constructive manner. WHEN IS AN ADMINISTRATION EFFICIENT' Now that we know what an administration is expected to deliver, let us also look at the meaning of “efficient” in order to call to mind what an efficient administration entails. The dictionary defines efficient as “performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort by having and using requisite knowledge, skill, and industry” or “the quality of being satisfactory and economical to use”. An efficient administration therefore, combines all of the above mentioned activities adequately and at the best cost (as regards time and resources). So, WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION' (Is it a product of the heroics of some individuals in an organization or the entire institution (or team of leaders) that makes up that organization') Till date, companies are always on the search for individuals who have shown in the near and are still capable of exhibiting of heroic leadership. To be sure, a single person can make a difference at times, but even such heroic CEOs as General Electric's Jack Welch emphasize the power of team leadership in action. As Welch himself said, "We've developed an incredibly talented team of people running our major businesses, and, perhaps more important, there's a healthy sense of collegiality, mutual trust, and respect for performance that pervades this organization." Increasingly, the top team is essential to the success of the enterprise. Indeed, Welch is celebrated not only for increasing GE's revenues nearly sevenfold in his 20-year tenure but also for building one of the world's strongest executive talent portfolios, which has provided new leadership for many Fortune 500 companies besides GE. So despite the obsessions of the business press, senior executives, shareholders, and boards of directors question the myth of heroic leadership. Merely bringing in a new CEO to reshape an organization will tend to show mixed results; in the consumer goods companies analyzed in Exhibit 1, for example, they were always worse after the arrival of a new CEO. In reality, long-term success depends on the whole leadership team, for it has a broader and deeper reach into the organization than the CEO does, and its performance has a multiplier effect: a poorly performing team breeds competing agendas and turf politics; a high-performing one, organizational coherence and focus. Often, however, the leadership team is at best a collection of strong individuals who sometimes work at cross-purposes. What does it take for senior managers to gel as a team' Our work with more than a score of top teams, involving upward of 500 executives in diverse private- and public-sector organizations, suggests a straightforward process for enhancing their performance. The most effective teams, focusing initially on working together, get early results in their efforts to deal with important business issues and then reflect together on the manner in which they did so, thus discovering how to function as a team. Formal team-building retreats are rare; behavioral interventions and facilitated workshops, though sometimes helpful, are not central to the effort of team building. Top teams address business performance issues directly but behavioral issues only indirectly and after the event. A second myth of leadership, as pervasive as the myth of the heroic CEO, is the idea that seasoned managers slotted into an organizational chart can easily function as a team. In reality, top teams face many problems: finding the right people, matching the available skills to the job, and learning to work together without taking the time to craft roles. Teams don't magically coalesce overnight. Their members have to be close in the professional rather than personal sense; they can thrive in an atmosphere of conflict if it is managed to increase creative output and to catalyze change. Becoming a top-performing top team must be one of the team's goals. Now, WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO ADOPT THIS INSTUTITION-BASED ADMINISTRATION' Our research points to some useful strategies for promoting effective action, reflection, and cohesion. Many behavioral team-improvement efforts fail because they don't speak to the needs of top managers: programmed exercises, for instance, seem artificial. Our work with top teams suggests four ways to build their performance by replicating the way senior executives actually work together 1. Address a number of initiatives concurrently. The top team must focus on the most pressing issues—work that only it can do. Achieving tangible outcomes in a variety of management challenges is essential. The activities most likely to foster team action and reflection include framing strategy, managing performance, managing stakeholders, and reviewing top talent. The team really needs to do these things whether or not its members are attempting to improve their own performance as a team. The action element of the cycle improves the direction of the organization and its ability to renew itself, while reflection makes it possible for teams to discover ways of improving their interaction. 2. Channel the team's discontent. Only 20 percent of the executives we surveyed thought their team was a high-performing one. Successful teams invite external challenges, focus on competitive threats, and judge themselves by best practice, since comparisons with industry leaders or key competitors raise the quality of debate by putting facts on the table. 3. Minimize outside intrusions. It is hard for a team to execute an improvement process by itself; some form of facilitation is usually required. Consultants or coaches should observe top teams at work rather than lead meetings or presentations. They should never try to direct the team's work. Finally, they should ensure that real work dominates the improvement process. Teams must discover what is effective for them. Merely telling a team the solution to its problems reinforces the poor quality of its alignment and interaction. 4. Encourage inquiry and reflection. More than 80 percent of the executives we surveyed said that they didn't set aside enough time for analyzing the root causes of problems. These executives believe that instead of developing rules of thumb slowly and subconsciously, they should use their business experience to draw lessons. Most senior business executives took a decade or more to develop their business judgment, but with the tenure of CEOs becoming shorter as investors' expectations rise, most top teams just cannot wait years to improve their performance. Facilitating team cycles of action and reflection—accelerating the pace of change and making the process of discovery explicit—can have a significant effect in as quickly as three months. Teamwork in the company has great importance for more than one reason. Companies, who have embraced the concept, have reported increased performance in work production, problem solving and has stimulated new growth. This group project approach has improved employee morale and increased input when managed correctly. The benefits of teamwork can make a positive effect in the company that incorporates this type of teamwork approach. Resources must be available within the company or outsourced by businesses who will come in and train company employees to make the most effective effort. One format of teamwork utilized by the company is the Self-Directed Team. Within this group a leader is assigned by management or elected by the group. The team leader must be effective early on if the group project is to be completed on schedule. He/she must be intuitive as to each team member's strength and weaknesses of knowledge and skills when assigning work needed to begin and progress to complete projects. Group projects can be short term or long term. An example of a short term project would be devising a new marketing presentation for the debut of a new product being added to the list of products made by the company. A long term project would be continuous testing of products sold by the company to develop cost saving improvements. As each new project is started, a new team leader may be assigned. The reason for this is with each new project the area of expertise needed may change. These teamwork groups are helpful to the manager. By delegating the responsibility of a project to the designated group, it lessen his/her workload with confidence the group project will be done correctly and on time with only minute participation needed from him/her. The high performance of these teams make the use of group teamwork an important part of the company's work ethics. Attributes an employee needs to have to be a productive member on a team are the ability to be a team player and possess the knowledge and skills necessary to complete their assigned portion of the work task. After completion of their portion, the employee should be willing to assist other team members with completion of all work tasks until the project is completed. Without these major attributes the team will flounder and be less productive. This is the main reason teamwork is so very important to the success of the company, because a company is only as qualified and deserving as the employees it hires and trains. Teamwork is a great idea. All businesses require a certain amount of teamwork; it is essential. But it is not the answer for all situations. Whether or not to employ teamwork in a particular situation requires consideration and an understanding of both the task and the team. Teamwork requires voluntary participation; goals must be clear; resources must be adequate to achieve goals and above all leadership must be committed to the team, its’ efforts and goals. Why it works By doing real work on important problems, top teams jump-start their performance as well as satisfy their need for visible progress. Teamwork is a pragmatic enterprise that grows from tangible achievements. The action-reflection cycle—supported by improved direction, interaction, and renewal—complements the work style of most senior teams. First, this approach pushes them to address their own performance just as directly and forcefully as they would address other business performance issues. By doing real work on important problems and applying business judgment to reflect on that work, top teams jump-start their performance and satisfy their need for visible progress. Second, taking an oblique approach to sensitive performance issues allows top teams to address their behavior after the event, without personal confrontations. Team members discover that alternative points of view are valid, that the CEO doesn't have all the ideas the company needs for success, and that the team can be both challenging and supportive at the same time. This paradoxical combination—the indirect assessment of team behavior through direct work on critical issues—allows top teams to manage their own performance. Before investing time and resources in programs to build the top team, leaders should ensure that such efforts deal with its real work.Teams must assess their own performance regularly and honestly. Every senior team should also dedicate several working sessions a year to issues—such as technology, changing demographics, political and environmental pressures, and emerging themes from management literature—that have little bearing on the next quarter but could reshape the enterprise and the team itself during the next five years. Teams should also explore unexpected successes and interesting failures inside and outside their organizations. They ought to travel, both physically and intellectually, outside their own regions and industries to companies that have tackled challenges similar to their own. In doing all this, teams should pay attention to the consistency of their leadership, the quality of their interaction, and their opportunities for renewal. They must also build into their work processes ample time to reflect on the deeper causes of problems, on the areas where they can add the most value as a team, and on the quality of their past decisions. It is the process of discovering the best way for the members of the team to work together that ensures the absorption of basic behavioral lessons.The prize for building effective top teams is clear: they develop better strategies, perform more consistently, and increase the confidence of stakeholders. They get positive results—and make the work itself a more positive experience both for the team's members and for the people they lead. CONCLUSION Now we can revisit the question that began this very discussion, to see if we now have an answer. “The existence of strong institution rather than individual is a sine-qua-non for efficient administration development”. Having x-rayed institution as a group of excellent individuals in the leadership team of an organization; working collectively towards the achievement of set goals and, at ensuring the sustenance of the organization’s productive system. The answer to this question is a resounding “yes”, as the discussion rightly shows. For an organization that desires this form of administration; this is the summary of the way forward. 1. A common direction. The team members should be much more explicit about their individual and collective roles, including responsibilities and behavior. They also should reached consensus on a number of business fundamentals: strategy, performance, people, and organization. As a result, the top team can play a much more active role in leading the corporate strategy. 2. More effective interaction. The quality of the team's debate and decision making has to improve dramatically. This will help individual members of the team take risks with one another, exposing their previously hidden agendas and making their dialogue more honest, because the level of trust had risen substantially. The result will be wider participation, more constructive debate, greater excitement, and more creative output. 3. Active renewal processes. To inject new ideas and fresh perspectives, the top team should look for outside sources of information and develop a variety of scenarios about its industry. They also have to increase their effectiveness through individual coaching of members as well as by recruiting a new member from outside the company. I will end with a statement from someone who has changed his company’s administration to become institution-based. "I can't imagine going back to the way we were before," the CEO said. "Not just the old structure but the old way of working. Our modus operandi is just fundamentally different. Almost everyone participates; the atmosphere is more relaxed yet at the same time more openly challenging. I especially appreciate the value of our reflective working sessions, which give us a chance to step back and make sure we are not missing the big picture. REFERENCES Appley, Lawrence A. “Management in Action: The Art of Getting Things Done through People”. 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