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[Management Behavior] Chapter 2: Existing management theory is merely trying to solve by extracting the same aspects of the organization.


Roughly speaking

  1. Chapter 2 of Management Action. The second time in the series.
  2. The problem with the management saying. Specialization? Uniformity of orders? Reduce the number of people in control of your boss? Organisations by purpose, process, customer, and location? Think about all trade-offs.
  3. In the end, the goal of management is to maximize efficiency.


Chapter 2 is a cut-off of existing business adages


This is the second chapter of the Management Action series. At Introduction and Chapter 1 are separate articles. A glimpse of the value of this book.


Articles for all chapters are here.


Business books include so-called management adages such as "It's good to create a manual," "Let's eliminate the hierarchy of departments," and "Let's make everyone think from the president's perspective." Business adages can be obtained from books, and sometimes as a rule of thumb. Simon seeks integrated modeling of theory, so he refutes management adage one after another. It's really lewd and we'll identify trade-offs in detail.


Perhaps because I've been reading Simon's texts recently, I've only started to worry about the exact meaning of the text expressing it. Looking at normal sentences means that you need to compensate for the lack of definition from the context, and if you check with the other person what you have supplemented, no matter how much time you have, you will not be enough. So I solve any questions I have raised myself and try not to throw them too much into the other person. Many people naturally perform the act of somehow being convinced in a context, but they gradually become less and less able to do so.


But there are advantages. I'm getting better at defining data in programming lol. System Science ArticleMany conversations in the world are made up of lack of definitions, which the system cannot decipher at all. If Simon were the era, he must have been an engineer. Well, I think it's already a system of complexity in management behavior, so I think it left a legacy of a good system in business administration.



Business maxims are everyone lacking in consideration?


Simon was tired of existing business adages. All of the rules outlined below are merely standards for improving management, and the rules themselves do not become principles of improvement. Some sayings have contradictory contradictions between them.


Specializing in professional and location


Typical improvement methods are job skills in management (roles such as sales and marketing), and specialization by location.


It is only natural that communication efficiency will improve if sales and marketing are consolidated in the same location. On the other hand, if sales and marketing forces are consolidated in the same location, know-how can be shared more and management efficiency will increase. Naturally, one would improve one, but the other would lose its advantage. The specialization of places and professionals mentioned in the management aphorism is itself just a standard. Simon says there is no point in accepting this saying, thankfully.


Centrality of the command




This is about the relationship between a boss and a subordinate. This means that it is more efficient to get instructed by one boss than to get instructed by two bosses. For example, let's say you are a sales person and sign a contract. Ask legal affairs about legal affairs, and receive instructions from a legal boss other than your own sales boss. What should you do if your sales boss says "I want to involve this contract at all costs," and your legal boss decides that this is a little strict. Unless your boss coordinates and one of them does not respond, decisions will not progress. During this time, subordinates will be idle in this agreement. It is common to see large companies where pending status is becoming a norm. In recent years, the number of companies where external consultants become acted section managers has been increasing. There are often people who complain that employees can't use, but that's just because the problem with the organizational structure has not been solved. In other words, it is not a problem of people, but a problem with deeper roots, structures that are likely to be exhausted.


One simple solution is to respect one's will in the event of a dispute, but this is a temporary solution, and there may be some who say that it would be better to not create a hold in the first place. That's right. The basic principle for startups to overcome competition with large companies is to increase market fitness at speed of decision making. Certainly there is Tesla said that Mercedes-Benz completed a month-long work with 10 people in 3 days.. An overwhelming decision-making speed can be achieved by entrusting decision-making to individuals, but of course there are risks as well. I'll introduce it in a later chapter.



narrowing the range of controls for your boss


This is a way to reduce the number of subordinates of your boss. If there are eight subordinates, two deputy section chiefs will be established and two controls will be controlled. This is achieved by interjecting a deputy section manager or part-time worker. But there is also a trade-off. It's understandable without saying that, but this means increasing the hierarchy of the organization and slowing down the speed of decision-making. In other words, the large range of controls is just a standard when considering management efficiency.



Organizations by purpose, process, customer, location


This is similar to the initial specialization, but all of the above suffer from trade-offs. If you prioritize one, you will lose one.



In the end, the goal of management is to maximize efficiency


Simon recalls that the common management adage is merely a standard, and what was the purpose of management. According to Simon, the goal is to increase efficiency, and all of the previous sayings are partial countermeasures that exist to improve efficiency, and in order to solve this problem, it is necessary to measure efficiency and improve it. In other words, I would like to say that the management adage is making the problems too simple.


What exactly is the efficiency Simon states? It is to increase the efficiency of achieving organizational objectives using rare means. We optimize everything in one go so that we can find and implement the best possible solution in a short time.


So what to optimize? In one person, the factors are the "ability to make the right decisions" and "ability to do the right thing." In the case of organizations, it becomes complicated. In order for multiple people to work together to identify options, make and implement decisions, the following are necessary:


  • Overcoming the limits of rationality that humans and organizations face
  • Exclude psychological biases
  • Matching the organization's goals with the individual's goals
  • The ability of the superior to exercise authority to make his subordinates act appropriately, eliminating obstacles to authority such as conflicts between departments.
  • Rectifying communication within an organization
  • Proper resource management of monetary, time and other social values
  • Keeping loyalty

I can't explain everything unless I have to explain each item in chapters, so I'll introduce it in the next article.



Aside (Gonjicchi memo)


Notes are written for each chapter using iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. This time it's not an e-book, but it has around 550 pages, making it inconvenient to carry around. If you make a note of it on your tablet, you can do it on your smartphone when you review it later.