Mind Map of a Manager

Concept of mind map:

Mind maps are brainstorming diagrams based on a central idea or image, typically used to aid in organisation, problem solving and decision making. Mind maps use a non-linear graphical form that allows the user to build an intuitive framework around the central idea.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

Mind maps are, by definition, a graphical method of taking notes. The visual basis of them helps one to distinguish words or ideas, often with colors and symbols. They generally take a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections. Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information, as well as allowing the note-taker to associate words with visual representations. Mind maps and concept maps are different in that mind maps focus on only one word or idea, whereas Concept maps connect multiple words or ideas.

Lead more and manage less

Lead: Managers muddle – leaders inspire. Leaders are people who inspire with clear vision of how things can be done better. "What we are looking for are leaders at every level who can energize, excite and inspire rather than enervate, depress, and control."

Manage less: "We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are not told what to do by management." In the new knowledge-based economy, people should make their own decision. Managing less is managing better. Close supervision, control and bureaucracy kill the competitive spirit of the company. "Weak managers are the killers of business; they are the job killers. So a manager can't manage self-confidence into people."

Articulate own vision: "Leaders inspire people with clear visions of how things can be done better." The best leader does not provide a step-by-step instruction manual for workers. The best leaders are those who come up with new idea, and articulate a vision that inspires others to act.

1

Simplify: Keeping things simple is one of the keys to business. "Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making."

Get less formal: "A manager must realize now how important it is to maintain the kind of corporate informality that encourages a training class to comfortably challenge the boss's pet ideas."

Energies other: Genuine leadership comes from the quality of a manager’s own vision and his ability to spark others to extraordinary performance.

Face reality: Face reality, and then act decisively. Most mistakes that leaders make arise from not being willing to face reality and then acting on it. Facing reality often means saying and doing things that are not popular, but only by coming to grips with reality would things get better.

See changes as an opportunity: Change is a big part of the reality in business. "Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while, Keeping an eye out for change is both exhilarating and fun."

Get Good Ideas from Everywhere: New ideas are the lifeblood of business. "The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action - fast."

Follow up: Follow up on everything. Follow-up is one key measure of success for a business. A manger must follow-up business strategy will pave the way for your success.

Harness organizations people

Involve Everyone: Business is all about capturing intellect from every person. The way to engender enthusiasm it to allow employees far more freedom and far more responsibility.

Make Everybody a Team Player: Managers should learn to become team players. Middle managers have to be team members and coaches. Take steps against those managers who wouldn't learn to become team players.

Stretch: Stretch targets energize.  "It has been found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don't quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done."

Instil Confidence: Create a truly confident workforce. Confidence is a vital ingredient of any learning organization. The prescription for winning is speed, simplicity, and self-

2

confidence. Self-confident people are open to good ideas regardless of their source and are willing to share them. "Just as surely as speed flows from simplicity, simplicity is grounded in self-confidence."

Have Fun: Fun must be a big element in a manager’s business strategy. No one should have a job they don't enjoy. If a manger doesn’t wake up energized and excited about tackling a new set of challenges, then the manager might be in the wrong job.

Never allow company to take itself too seriously. Celebrate success. “Business is ideas and fun and excitement and celebrations, and all those things.” Business has to be fun. For too many people, it's "just a job". Celebration is also a great way to energize an organization. A CEO `s job is to make sure that his/her team is having fun – while they're being productive.

Build a winning organization

Get Rid of Bureaucracy: The way to harness the power of people of organization is "to turn them loose, and get the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their feet and the functional barriers out of their way."

Eliminate Boundaries: In order to make sure that people are free to reach for the impossible, a manger must remove anything that gets in their way. "Boundarylessness" describes an open organization free of bureaucracy and anything else that prevents the free flow of ideas, people, decisions, etc. Informality, fun and speed are the qualities found in a boundary less organization.

Put Values First: Don't focus too much on the numbers. "Numbers aren't the vision; numbers are the products." Focus more on the softer values of building a team, sharing ideas, exciting others.

Cultivate Leaders: Cultivate leaders who have the four E's of leadership: Energy, Energize, Edge, and Execution;  leader who share values of your company and deliver on commitments.

Create a Learning Culture: A manager have to turn your company into a learning organization to spark free flow of communication and exchange of ideas. "The desire, and the ability, of an organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere - and to rapidly convert this learning into action – is its ultimate competitive advantage."

Build the Market-Leading Company

3

Be Number 1 or Number 2: "When a company in number four or five in a market, when number one sneezes, a manager get depressed. When the organization number one, you control your destiny. The number fours keep merging; they have difficult times. That's not the same if it is (managers) number four, and that's his only businesses. Then he has to find strategic ways to get stronger."

Live Quality: "A manager need to change the competitive landscape by being not just better than his competitors, but by taking quality to a whole new level. He needs to make his quality so special, so valuable to his customers, so important to their success that our products become the only real value choice."

Constantly Focus on Innovation: "A manager have just got to constantly focus on innovation and more competitors. A manager got to constantly produce more for less through intellectual capital. Shun the incremental, and look for the quantum leap." Now the fundamentals have got to be more education. More information knowledge, faster speeds, more technology across the board.

Live Speed: "Speed is everything. It is the indispensable ingredient of competitiveness." Speed, simplicity and self-confidence are closely intertwined. By simplifying the organization and instilling confidence, a manager creates the foundation for an organization that incorporates speed into the fabric of the company.

Behave Like a Small Company: Small companies have huge competitive advantages. They "are uncluttered, simple, and informal. They thrive on passion and ridicule bureaucracy. Small companies grow on good ideas - regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning. Small companies dream big dreams and set the bar high - increments and fractions don't interest them."

4

Corporate Social Responsibility

The Corporate Social Responsibility is a “business’ commitment to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the local community, and society at large to improve their quality of life”. Under this point of view, the Corporate Social Responsibility rests on the fundamental pillars of both the economic growth and the quality of life as an engine for “sustainable” development.

Views of social responsibility:

Few terms have been defined in as many different ways as social responsibility. For instance, it’s have been celled “profit making only,” “going beyond profit making,” voluntary activities,” “concern for the broader social system,” and social responsiveness.” A great deal of attention has been focused on the extremes. On one side, there’s the classical or purely economic view that management’s only social responsibility is to maximize profits. On the other side stands the socioeconomic position, which holds that management’s responsibility goes well beyond making profits to include protecting and improving society’s welfare.

The classical view: The classical view holds that management’s only social responsibility is to maximize profits. The most outspoken advocate of this approach is economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. He argues that manager’s primary responsibility is to operate the business in the best interests of the stockholders ( the true owners of a corporation). Friedman contends that stockholders have a single concern: financial return. He also argues that anytime managers decide on their own to spent their organization’s resources for the “social good” they are adding to the costs of doing business. These costs have to be passed on to consumers either through higher prices or absorbed by stockholders through a smaller profit returned as dividends. Do note that Friedman is not saying that organizations should not be socially responsible; he thinks they should. But the extent of that responsibility is to maximize organizational profits for stockholders.

The Socioeconomic View: The socioeconomic view is the view that management’s social responsibility goes beyond making profits to include protecting and improving society’s welfare. This position is based on the belief that society’s expectations of business have changed. Corporations are not independent entities responsible only to stockholders. They also have a responsibility to the larger society that endorses their creation through various laws and regulations and supports them by purchasing their products and services. In addition, proponents of the socioeconomic view believe that business organizations are not just merely economic institutions. Society accepts and

5

even encourages business to become involved in social, political and legal issues. For instance, proponents of the socioeconomic view would say that Avon products Inc. was being socially responsible when it initiated it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Crusade . More and more organizations around the world are taking their social responsibilities seriously. In fact, a survey of business owners reported that 68 percent would continue socially responsible practices even if they found that the activities were cutting into profits.

Areas of social responsibilities:

Organizations that choose to exercise social responsibility have a number of areas in which to do so:• The Environment • Customers • Employees • Investors • General Social Welfare

Figure: Organizational Stakeholders

6

The Environment: One critical area of social responsibility is the natural environment. In days gone by, many businesses indiscriminately dumped sewage, waste products, and trash into streams and rivers, the air, vacant lots, and anywhere else they could think of. Now, laws regulate such activities, and companies themselves, in many instances, have seen the error of their ways and have become more socially responsible. As a result, most forms of air and water pollution have been reduced. Nevertheless, much remains to be done. Current concerns center on business contributions to the problems of acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, sewage disposal, ocean dumping, hazardous wastes, and the disposal of ordinary garbage.

Customers: Organizations can adopt a socially responsible stance toward their customers. The customers should have four basic consumer rights -the right to safe products, the right to be informed about all relevant aspects of a product, the right to be heard in the event of a complaint, and the right of consumers to choose what they buy.

Investors: Organizations need to take a socially responsible stance toward their investors. Managers should maintain proper accounting procedures, provide appropriate information to shareholders about the current and projected financial performance of the firm, and manage the organization in such a way as to protect shareholder rights and -investments. Insider trading, illegal stock manipulation and the withholding of financial data are examples of recent wrongdoings attributed to many different businesses.

General Social Welfare: Some people believe that organizations should be involved in promoting the general social welfare. Examples of such practices include making contributions to charities, philanthropic organizations, and not-for-profit foundations and associations; supporting museums, symphonies, and public radio and television; and being more involved in health and education.

Some people also believe that business should be taking a greater role in correcting some of the political wrongs that exist. A prominent illustration of this feeling is the argument that businesses should withdraw their operations from South Africa to protest that nation's policies of apartheid. Kodak and IBM have responded to these concerns by shutting down their operations in South Africa.

Managing Social Responsibility:

Social responsibility is a complex issue. To deal with it adequately, managers need to approach it like any other business problem. They should view social responsibility as a basic issue of business that requires careful planning, decision making, consideration, and evaluation. There are both formal and informal methods through which social responsibility can be managed.

Formal Organizational Activities:A variety of formal organizational activities can be used to help manage social responsibility. These efforts generally follow three basic thrusts:• Legal compliance,

7

• Ethical compliance, • Philanthropic giving.

Legal Compliance: Legal compliance is the extent to which the organization complies with local, state, federal, and international laws. The management of this compliance is generally diffused to the appropriate managers. For example, the organization's top human resource executive is generally responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations concerning recruiting, selection, pay, and so forth. Likewise, the top finance executive generally oversees compliance with securities and banking regulations. The organization's legal department is likely to be involved in this area as well, providing general oversight and also answering queries from managers about the appropriate interpretation of various laws and regulations.

Ethical compliance: Ethical Compliance is the extent to which the firm and its members follow basic ethical standards of behavior. Organizations have started doing more in this area, providing training in ethics and developing guidelines and codes of conduct. Such activities serve to enhance ethical compliance. Many organizations have established formal ethics committees, which may be asked to review proposals for new projects, help evaluate new hiring strategies, and assess a new environmental protection plan. Ethics committees might also serve as a peer review panel to help evaluate alleged ethical misconduct by an employee.

Philanthropic Giving: Philanthropic Giving involves the awarding of funds or other gifts to charities or other worthy causes.

Informal Organizational Activities

In addition to those formal mechanisms for managing social responsibility, there are also informal mechanisms. Two extremely important ones are:• The organization's culture, • The practice of whistle-blowing.

Organization Culture: The basic culture and leadership practices of an organization can go a long way toward defining the social responsibility stance adopted by an organization and its members.

For example, for years and years, Johnson & Johnson executives provided a clear and consistent message to employees. Customers, employees, communities where the company does business, and shareholders were all important but the order of importance was as just listed. Thus, when packages of poisoned Tylenol showed up on shelves a few years ago, Johnson & Johnson employees knew exactly how to respond before they received orders from headquarters. They pulled all the packages from the shelve before other customers could buy them. Such actions stand in star contrast to the messages sent to Ashland Oil employees by the action of their top managers.

8

Whistle-blowing is an informal organizational activity that affects social responsibility and the organization's response to it is whistle-blowing. Whistle-blowing occurs when an employee discloses illegal or unethical conduct by others within the organization. Whistle-blowers may have to proceed through a number of channels if they are to be heard. They may also choose to stop before going too far, or they may be fired for their efforts. Many organizations, however, welcome the contributions. The starting point is usually a report of the incident I the individual's boss. If nothing is done, the whistle-blower may go to the higher-level managers or to an ethics committee (if one exists). Eventually, the person may have to go to a regulatory agency or even to the media in order to be heard.

As an example, the apple-juice scandal at Beech-Nut started with a whistle-blower. Jerome LiCari, manager of the firm's R&D department, began to suspect that its apple juice was not pure. His boss was unsympathetic. When LiCari went to the president, he too turned a deaf ear. LiCari then resigned and took his message to the media.

Organizational Approaches to Social Responsibility

There are four basic stances that an organization can take vis-à-vis its environment and obligations to society:• Social Opposition • Social Obligation • Social Response • Social Contribution

Social Opposition: A few organizations take what might be called a social opposition approach to social responsibility. These firms usually do as little as possible in the social responsibility arena. When they cross the ethical or legal line that separates acceptable from unacceptable behavior, their response is to deny or cover up what they did. We noted Beech-Nut's problems with its apple juice. As its top managers became aware of their problem, they in turn denied it, tried to hide it, and eventually attempted to cover up the truth.

Social Obligation: One step removed from social opposition is social obligation—a stance that the organization will do everything that is required of it legally but nothing more. This is the view most consistent with the basic arguments used against social responsibility. Managers in such organizations take the position that their job is to generate profits. A firm with this position would install whatever pollution control equipment was dictated by law but would not install higher-quality equipment even though it might better limit pollution. They would only do what they were required to do. As an example, Tobacco companies like Philip Morris take this position regarding their international marketing efforts. In the United States and EU-countries, tobacco companies are legally required to include warnings to smokers on their products and to limit their advertising to prescribed media, and they follow these rules to the letter of the law. Many other countries have no such rules, however; so the cigarette makers use stronger methods. In many African countries, cigarettes are heavily promoted, some

9

cigarettes contain higher levels of tar and nicotine than those sold in the United States and the EU-countries, and few cigarette packs contain health warning labels.

Social Response: A firm that adopts the social response position meets its basic legal and ethical obligations and will also go beyond purely social obligation on a selective basis. Such firms voluntarily agree to participate in certain limited programs, but they often have to be sold on their benefits first.

For example, both Exxon and IBM will match contributions made by their employees to charitable causes, and many organizations will respond to requests for donations to Little League, Girl Scouts, and so forth. The point, however, is that someone has to knock on the door and ask.

Social Contribution: The highest degree of social responsibility that a firm can exhibit is the social contribution approach. Firms that take the social contribution approach take to heart the arguments in favor of social responsibility. They view themselves as citizens in a society and, as a result, proactively seek opportunities to contribute to that society.

An excellent example of social contribution is the Ronald McDonald House program undertaken by McDonald's Corporation. These are houses, generally located in urban areas and close to major medical centers, that families can use while their sick children are receiving medical treatment. In a similar vein, both Sears and General Electric have recently established programs to help promote artists and cultural performers.

Benefit from corporate social responsibility

A company should make the most of corporate social responsibility activities by publishing them. Ensure that customers, suppliers and the local community know what you are doing. Corporate Social Responsibility lends itself to good news stories. Publicity like this can be a key part of using Corporate Social Responsibility to win contracts. People want to buy from businesses they respect. Corporate Social Responsibility can be particularly effective for targeting ethical companies, the public sector and not-for-profit organizations.

At the same time, an owner of the organization should see Corporate Social Responsibility as part of a continuing process of building long-term value. Everything he does should help improve his reputation and encourage customers and other stakeholders to stay involved with him. A business that buys recycled paper - but exploits its customers and ignores the community - has missed the point.

Effective Corporate Social Responsibility like this helps a owner continue to differentiate yourself. Even with dozens of competitors, a real commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility lets him stand out. As an example, John Lewis department stores are well known as a business owned by its employees. Its commitment to Corporate Social

10

Responsibility feeds through into customer service, sales and profits. As well as affecting the way you behave, Corporate Social Responsibility can lead to new products and services that reflect owner’s values and those of his stakeholders. Over time, it can all add up to a powerful brand - and a winning business.

Arguments for Social Responsibility

• Since business creates many of the problems that social responsibility causes usually address, it should play a major role in solving them. This would especially be the case in areas like pollution and toxic waste cleanup. It is also argued that corporations are legally defined entities with most of the same obligations and privileges as private citizens. Logically, then, they should play a citizenship role.

• Business often has the resources to help solve social problems. Government organizations may already have their budgets stretched to the limit, and private contributions may be at an upper limit as well. Many large businesses, however, often have surplus revenues that could be used for the benefit of all.

• Business is a partner in society in conjunction with the government and the general population; and as a partner, it should do its fair share to help the others.

Arguments against Social Responsibility

• Famed economist Milton Friedman, argue that social responsibility detracts from the basic mission of business as defined by American culture - to earn profits for owners.

For example, every dollar that Chevron or General Electric spend on social programs or give to charity is one less dollar that can be distributed to owners as a dividend.

• Corporations already wield enormous power. Promoting their active involvement in social programs gives them even more, and in the absence of a system of checks and balances, the chances for abuse of power increase as well.

• Conflicts of interest. Suppose that a manager is in charge of deciding which charity is to receive a large grant from her business. Administrators of various charities may try to convince her that their organization is most deserving. Political leaders might get involved as well by advocating their pet causes.

• Business lacks the expertise to understand how to assess and make decisions about social programs.

11

For example, a company might give its money to support the local symphony when there are much greater needs elsewhere. People who hold this position point to what they see as the alarming trend on the part of business to tie products to social causes. The trend started in 1983, when American Express said that it would donate 1 cent to the Statue of Liberty restoration project each time one of its credit cards was used. Since then, Procter & Gamble and MasterCard have jumped on the bandwagon. Critics warn that companies may start exerting too much influence over the charitable causes they become associated with and the charities may start serving as marketers to help firms sell products.

Arguments For Social Responsibility

Arguments Against Social Responsibility

Figure: Arguments for and Against Social Responsibility

The Government and Social Responsibility

12

Social Responsibilit

y

Social Responsibilit

y

1. Business creates problems and should therefore help solve them.

2. Corporations are citizens in our society.

3. Business often has the resources necessary to solve problem.

4. Business is a partner in our society, along with the government and the general population.

1. The purpose of business in U.S society is to generate profit for owners.

4. Business lacks the expertise to manage social programs.

3. There is potential for conflicts of interest.

2. Involvement in social programs gives business too much power.

Government Regulation of Business: The government regulates business activities in many different areas. Some of this regulation is direct, while the rest is indirect.

Direct Regulation: The government most often attempts to influence business through regulation - the establishment of laws and rules that dictate what businesses can and cannot do in prescribed areas. In terms of social responsibility, most regulation of business focuses on the environment, customers, employees, and investors. To implement legislation, the government has tended to create special agencies to monitor and control certain aspects of business activity. Indirect Regulation: Other forms of regulation are indirect. For example, the government can indirectly influence the social responsibility of business through its tax codes. In effect, the government can influence how businesses spend their social responsibility dollars by providing greater or lesser tax incentives. Suppose that the government wanted business to spend more on training the hard-core unemployed. Congress could pass laws that provided tax incentives to companies who opened new training facilities; and as a result, more businesses would do so.Mobil recently pulled out of South Africa because of a change in the IRS tax codes that make operations in that country less profitable. Some critics argue that regulation is bad and perhaps already excessive. Instead, they argue that a free market system would eventually accomplish the same goals as regulation with lower costs to both business and the government.

Evaluating Social Performance

Any firm that is serious about social responsibility must ensure that its efforts are producing the desired benefits. This is essentially applying the control concept to social responsibility:• Many organizations require current and new employees to read their guidelines or code of ethics and sign a statement agreeing to abide by them. • The organization should also evaluate how it responds to instances of questionable legal or ethical conduct. Does it follow up immediately? Does it punish those involved? Or does it try to delay and cover things up? Answers to such questions can go a long way toward helping an organization understand how it is doing on the social responsibility front.• On a more formal level, organizations occasionally conduct corporate social audit a formal and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of the firm's social performance. Such an audit involves clearly defining all the organization's social goals, analyzing the resources being devoted to each, determining how well the various goals are being achieved, and making recommendations about which areas need additional attention. Social audits are not conducted very often because they are expensive and take a lot of time. Indeed, most organizations are probably not doing a very good job in the general area of social responsibility evaluation.

13

Reference:

Books:

Ricky W. Griffin, ManagementGareth R. Jones; Jennifer M. George; Charles W.L. Hill, Contemporary Management

Web Site:

http://www.mindmapingstrategies.comhttp://www.mapio.com/mindmaphttp://www.biz.co.uk/human_resource_managementhttp://www.12manage.com/mind_maphttp://www.quickbusiness.comhttp://www.mba4u.comhttp://www.wikipedia.com/management_social_responcibility

14