1.

Discuss the manager’s responsibility/ies in today’s world characterized by uncertainty and

Business evolves from time to time. Failure to cope up with the changes can cause a downfall of
business for some organizations. As simple as how technology evolves, same goes to business. As
business evolves, a lot of transformation will need to happen internally within an organization. The
uncertainty and diversity in today’s world give reasons for organizations to ensure that the businesses
are able to adapt according to the situation. In terms of uncertainty, we would not know 10 to 20 years
back on how the digital era disrupts the traditional media business badly as how it is now. Talking
about diversity, due to the globalization, even local businesses that are competing to serve the local
market will be getting external resources to ensure that competitive advantages are gained. Hiring
external expertise to be on duty at a local company is a norm to large organizations in Malaysia
nowadays. Not only that, diversity can be seen from the perspective of generation gap as well. How
generation X works compared to the millennials is different. We can see clearly by how
communication preferences differ among them. With these uncertainties and diversities, to ensure
that organizations are able to carry on with the strategic directions, managers of today’s world need to
be able to adapt and implement his / her responsibilities. It is never an easy process to carry out the
managerial responsibilities at the best standard but with the right approach, it will lead into productive
behavior for the stakeholders to achieve the same organizational goals. In Malaysia, traditional media
businesses are suffering. There is a lot of public information to support this statement. Looking at the
annual report of main traditional media alone, we can see that since the era of digital, the revenues
declining badly. For example, not all print or newspaper businesses are able to survive. We can see
what happen to Utusan and also what happen to other newspaper businesses. Regardless on
political influence that can also disrupt businesses, the shift in consumer preferences in consuming
the news content from print to digital is seen as a major factor of the loss of revenue. These scenarios
have caused most of media companies to undergo transformation plans. Some organizations are
success in doing the transformation and some are not. Even at the international scale, South China
Morning Post once declined very badly in terms of its newsprint products consumption. However with
the right move and strategy, they are now one of a good business case example for other
newspapers organizations. Talking about going through the transformation process, managers
regardless of any level in the organizations’ hierarchy needs to play a vital role in ensuring everybody
in the organization able to work together in the same direction productively. The followings will be
discussing on manager’s responsibilities in today’s world characterized by uncertainty and diversity.
 Planning

As for the first core managerial function, planning is referring to the function of management that
involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives.
Planning requires that managers be aware of environmental conditions facing their organization and
forecast future conditions. It also requires that managers be good decision makers. 1

In corporate organizations, planning stage is the crucial part where the initial direction is set so that
the respective functional unit can carry on delivering the required business objectives. The managers
responsibilities at this stage covers in terms of setting up goals / business plan where the strategic
direction will be set, followed by tactical and operational strategy to ensure organizational objectives
are met. Also, in planning stage, it involves managers’ responsibilities to set the budgetary goal and
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) setting.

It is understandable that managers need to do the planning as mentioned in the earlier section.
However, every stakeholders within an organization need to play a vital role to ensure that the
planning goes smooth and align with functional units and the supporting departments’ direction. This
however is not an easy task as the challenges are something that managers need to be able to
2 overcome. Due to the uncertainty case of internal political interest and diversity that exists within an
organization, if the planning stage is not well managed by the managers, the created plan will just be
something that is put on paper. The direction for executional deliveries will be haywire and messy.
Based on observation, this is the usual case and dilemma on how traditional media industries are
suffering at the moment to make a transformation plan become a reality.

An organization can have a topline plan created for departments to follow suit with respective
planning. However, a realistic review on capability of delivering such plan must be thoroughly
reviewed before the plan is set in stones. This is the usual case where missing link is identified. Once
a topline plan has been outlined, it begs a question whether the tactical and operational plan can be
delivered or not. Because of the diversity and uncertainty, it is a major challenge for managers to
ensure that the plan is something that is realistic and achievable. To honor the higher management
request, there are cases where sales manager agreed to the unrealistic sales figure. At the end of the
day, the figures are impossible to be achieved, and even worse, the tactical and operational plan is
not being planned properly. Hence, the blaming game happens for the undelivered targets.

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 As managers, regardless at any level of hierarchy across departments, personal interest and
differences should be secondary. The primary goal is to ensure that the organization goals are able to
be achieved realistically. Staying true to conscience needs to be a practice at the top level so that it
will be an example to be followed by lower levels within an organization.

Organize

As for the second core managerial function, organizing is referring to the function of management that
involves developing an organizational structure and allocating human resources to ensure the
accomplishment of objectives. The structure of the organization is the framework within which effort is
coordinated. The structure is usually represented by an organization chart, which provides a graphic
representation of the chain of command within an organization. Decisions made about the structure of
an organization are generally referred to as organizational design decisions. 2

Organizing also involves the design of individual jobs within the organization. Decisions must be
made about the duties and responsibilities of individual jobs, as well as the manner in which the
duties should be carried out. Decisions made about the nature of jobs within the organization are
generally called “job design” decisions. Under this core managerial function, usually managers’
3 responsibilities are to ensure that organization design, staffing, delegation of work and trainings are
organized.

It is a challenging task for managers to organize the earlier mentioned responsibilities. If resources
are not well organized, then the job deliveries cannot be done properly. Based on observation, the
downfall off traditional media industries under this matter is that managers usually are unable to fight
for a justifiable business case of resources issues hence, accepting to deliver what is being told by
higher level even though it is not achievable with the current capacity. Due to this weakness the
supporting staffs suffer caused by overlapping work duties even though the work is not part of the
KPI.

It is indeed a dilemma because there are gaps between middle level managers and higher level
managers. The most important aspect of organizing is to ensure that the right resources are available
to deliver organizational goals. Managers at the higher level should be more open up to listen to the
struggle of the functional and operational units.

Leading

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 As for the third core managerial function, leading is referring to the social and informal sources of
influence that a person use to inspire action taken by others. If managers are effective leaders, their
subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort to attain organizational objectives.

Studies of motivation and motivation theory provide important information about the ways in which
workers can be energized to put forth productive effort. Studies of communication provide direction as
to how managers can effectively and persuasively communicate. Studies of leadership and
leadership style provide information regarding questions, such as, “What makes a manager a good
leader?” and “In what situations are certain leadership styles most appropriate and effective?” 3

Before going in depth on the highlighted points earlier, under this core managerial function, usually
managers’ responsibilities are to ensure that they are the liaison for communication purposes with
higher management levels and external stakeholders. Managers also play a big role to motivate and
create an environment where employees thrive while at the same time, encouraging positive culture.

Based on observation, the challenging part that most managers are lacking especially for traditional
media that is undergoing a transformation plan is that to keep everybody motivated to work together
to reach out the same organizational goals. This happens due to the diversity of different generations
4 existed within the organization. Most of the staff that falls under the earlier generation group has the
sentimental value that is being carried from the past which is known as legacy issues. The trust on
the new direction is lacking which lead into them having no buy in for the transformation plan. They
might be looking as agreeing when bosses are confronting them on work cases but deep insight they
are against it. This issue leads into frustration among the staff that supports the new business
direction because they need to work closely together with the rest.

This begs a question on what managers can do in this case. Managers need to benchmark how other
successful companies going through the same transformation process. One good example is the
case of South China Morning Post. The transformation begins with major initiative being taken to
ensure that the staff embraces new culture. Investments are made to change the culture in a form of
office landscape, equipment, technologies, and roles. Examples need to be shown by managers so
that the team will follow suit and trainings need to be given for those who need to embrace the
changes.

Controlling

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 As for the fourth core managerial function, controlling involves ensuring that performance does not
deviate from standards. Controlling consists of three steps, which include (1) establishing
performance standards, (2) comparing actual performance against standards, and (3) taking
corrective action when necessary. Performance standards are often stated in monetary terms such as
revenue, costs, or profits but may also be stated in other terms, such as units produced, number of
defective products, or levels of quality or customer service. 4

The measurement of performance can be done in several ways, depending on the performance
standards, including financial statements, sales reports, production results, customer satisfaction, and
formal performance appraisals. Managers at all levels engage in the managerial function of
controlling to some degree.

Under this core managerial function, usually managers’ responsibilities are to ensure that,
administration matters, daily operations, enforcing the right policy and evaluation on performance
being made accordingly.

Based on observation, the challenging part that managers need to face in carrying out these
responsibilities are to ensure that the respective stakeholders are committed in delivering the required
5 tasks. It is a chain effect from the planning stage where the KPI is not being well defined where the
stakeholders will just be focusing on what is being given on to them. Not considering the holistic
approach.

As managers, issues like this require rectification. If the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) needs
to be formalized, it needs to be done. Most managers that failed in this matter is because of they are
too comfortable doing what they preferred to in which most of the case, they will play the blaming
game until the issue is solved without looking at the root of the problem and rectify it. Rectification will
reduce the repetition of the same event in the future and this will lead into smoother control of work
duties.

All in all, as per the highlighted case in the earlier section, managers’ responsibilities is huge that it could
impact organizations performance in many ways. Managers with poor conscience in delivering their
responsibilities could cost the organizational performance.

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 REFERENCES

Lumen, n.d., Module 1: Introduction to Principles of Management, Planning, Organizing, Leading, and
Controlling, viewed 26 Jan 2020, <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/principlesmanagement/chapter/1-4-
planning-organizing-leading-and-controlling/>