Challenges facing Management
through speeches, reports, memos
DECISIONAL Entrepreneur Initiate improvement projects, identify new ideas, delegate idea responsibility to others
Disturbance Handler Take corrective action during disputes or crises; resolve conflicts among subordinates; adapt to environmental crises
Resource Allocator Decide who gets resources, scheduling, budgeting, setting priorities
Negotiator Represent department during negotiation of union contracts, sales, purchases, budgets; represent departmental interests
Original source – [3]
The table above was created from his primary research with only five chief executives giving a structured form of how these managers spent their time. He concluded that the manager’s work was varied, brief, fragmented and involved much time being spent on interpersonal activities. I too have found my work to be of a similar pattern and I have started to notice this with some of my colleagues too.
Management is Interpersonal
Mintzberg [3] and Carlson [1] both found that managers spent approximately 80% of their time talking to people: on the phone, in meetings, or somewhere else. This constant interaction is one of the most consistent findings across levels, organisations, and countries. Managers spend most of their time talking to other people. Of the 20% left, only 10% of it is spent in the office.
Who they talk to is very important. Managers spend time talking to people both inside and outside of their formal line of communication (good managers do this more often and more effectively). Managers spend considerable time dealing with people outside of their organisation (partially dependant on both function and level).
Many of these contacts are both unplanned and initiated by other people. Formal meetings tend to be planned, but phone calls and impromptu meetings tend to be unplanned (and usually shorter).
These findings need updating since the inception of email. However, the few studies in the last few years have found little change in this pattern, slightly more time in the office, usually answering email. But of the time spent in the office, a significant proportion of it was spent dealing with mail (Mintzberg [3] did the best analysis of this). It seems this is the primary loser to email, followed by phone calls -- but to a far smaller degree. As an aside: this may explain why spam (spam is junk e-mail as in e-mail sent to you by some one you don’t know, usually in the hope that you will visit their website or purchase their product!) is so hated. If managers only have 10% of their time to spend at their desk, then spam could well eat up a huge proportion of that time.
I too have seen similarities in my working practice which I feel has affected the way I manage my time, finding it more difficult to find the time to complete tasks and projects, especially seeing them through to the end.
Management is Fragmented
A series of Mintzberg's [3] findings hit this point [next page]