The Seven Ss (SSSSSSS- in case you can’t remember the 7 Ss here is a handy acronym)

The Seven Ss is a framework developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s for analysing organisations and looking at the various elements that make them successful (or not). The framework has seven aspects, each of them beginning with the letter S, hence the mnemonic:

1. Strategy: the route that the organisation has chosen for its future growth.

2. Structure: the way in which the organisation is put together; how its different bits relate to each other.

3. Systems: the formal and informal procedures that govern everyday activity; today this increasingly involves the implementation of information technology.

4. Skills: the distinctive capabilities of the people who work for the organisation.

5. Shared values: originally called superordinate goals, the things that influence a group to work together for a common aim.

6. Staff: the organisation’s human resources.

7. Style: the way in which the organisation’s employees present themselves to the outside world, to suppliers and customers in particular.

The Seven Ss helped change managers’ thinking about how companies could be improved. The theory told them that it was not just a matter of devising a new strategy and following it through (as they might have thought before). Nor was it a matter of setting up new systems and letting them generate improvements. To improve, companies had to pay attention to all seven of the Ss at the same time.

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The seven were often subdivided into the first three (strategy, structure and systems), referred to as the hard Ss, and the last four, called the soft Ss. All seven are interrelated, so a change in one has a ripple effect on all the others. Hence it is impossible to make progress on one without making progress on all of them.

The theory was developed in the context of the astoundingly rapid progress of Japanese manufacturing companies in the 1960s and 1970s. Western companies, it was said, were better at the hard Ss. But it was because the Japanese combined both hard and soft that they were so much more successful.

Diagrammatically, the seven are usually represented in a circle to convey the idea that they are all of equal significance. No one of them is more important than any other, although Richard Pascale (see article), the theory’s champion, subsequently gave a special status to superordinate goals (also known as shared values). These, he said, “provide the glue that holds the other six together”. This positioning of superordinate goals at the centre of the circle stimulated some of the subsequent work on corporate culture, since culture is to some extent a combination of an organisation’s superordinate goals and its style.

Just as the growth share matrix is powerfully associated with one of the leading strategy consultancies (the Boston Consulting Group), so the Seven Ss is linked with another (McKinsey & Company). It was the seedcorn from which grew the idea of excellence and one of the most popular business books ever written (”In Search of Excellence”). Excellent companies were those that excelled in all of the Seven Ss. Pascale subsequently expanded the idea in his book “The Art of Japanese Management”, in which he compared a Japanese company, Matsushita, with an American company, ITT, greatly to the credit of the former.

Paying to Pee at 30,000 feet

From the Economist

Pay to pee

IT’S been almost two whole days since we last posted about Ryanair, so here goes again. Michael O’Leary, the budget airline’s boss, told the BBC this morning that he was considering charging passengers to use the toilets on his planes. The introduction of a coin slot on the door would, he said, oblige customers to “spend a pound to spend a penny”.

The idea may be pie in the sky, an attempt to create debate and earn publicity, but Gulliver is still intrigued. If a budget airline can keep the basic cost of a flight down by charging for every little extra “service”, then doesn’t a toilet fee make sense? After all, toilets at some of the big railway stations in Britain have long required entry fees, even from those customers paying to travel on the railways.

But high in the air, this may be a step too far. Mr O’Leary’s idea conjures up visions of families squeezing into the toilet together; children crying because Dad’s run out of coins; and everyone feeling a mite grottier as a result of one more bit of nickel-and-diming. If one assumes that half of all passengers use the toilet on an average, short-haul Ryanair flight, Gulliver would rather see the price of every ticket raised 50 pence to cover the cost of toilets for all. Or perhaps Ryanair will think differently when it considers the impact such a move could have on its in-flight drinks sales? That beer after take-off is slightly less appealing when you have to pay another pound to get rid of it.

Technical Scope of Management

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century, defined management as “the art of getting things done through people”.[2] One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one’s intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol[3] considers management to consist of seven functions:

1. planning
2. organizing
3. leading
4. co-ordinating
5. controlling
6. staffing
7. motivating

Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase “management is what managers do” occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.

One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to “business administration” and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More realistically, however, every organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order to maximize its effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach management as “business schools.” Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term “management.”

English speakers may also use the term “management” or “the management” as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term was often contrasted with the term “Labor” referring to those being managed.

Metacognition

There’s something about management in there. -zach

Metacognition refers to a level of thinking that involves active control over the process of thinking that is used in learning situations. Planning the way to approach a learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating the progress towards the completion of a task: these are skills that are metacognitive in their nature. Similarly, maintaining motivation to see a task to completion is also a metacognitive skill. The ability to become aware of distracting stimuli – both internal and external – and sustain effort over time also involves metacognitive or executive functions. The theory that metacognition has a critical role to play in successful learning means it is important that it be demonstrated by both students and teachers. Students who demonstrate a wide range of metacognitive skills perform better on exams and complete work more efficiently. They are self-regulated learners who utilize the “right tool for the job” and modify learning strategies and skills based on their awareness of effectiveness. Individuals with a high level of metacognitive knowledge and skill identify blocks to learning as early as possible and change “tools” or strategies to ensure goal attainment. The metacognologist is aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, the nature of the task at hand, and available “tools” or skills. A broader repertoire of “tools” also assists in goal attainment. When “tools” are general, generic, and context independent, they are more likely to be useful in different types of learning situations.

Another distinction in metacognition is executive management and strategic knowledge. Executive management processes involve planning, monitoring, evaluating and revising one’s own thinking processes and products. Strategic knowledge involves knowing what (factual or declarative knowledge), knowing when and why (conditional or contextual knowledge) and knowing how (procedural or methodological knowledge). Both executive management and strategic knowledge metacognition are needed to self-regulate one’s own thinking and learning (Hartman, 2001).

Finally, there is a distinction between domain general and domain-specific metacognition. Domain general refers to metacognition which transcends particular subject or content areas, such as setting goals. Domain specific refers to metacognition which is applied in particular subject or content areas, such as editing an essay or verifying one’s answer to a mathematics problem.

Hawthorne Effect

“Instead of treating the workers as an appendage to ‘the machine’,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld notes in his detailed analysis of the studies, the Hawthorne experiments brought to light ideas concerning motivational influences, job satisfaction, resistance to change, group norms, worker participation, and effective leadership.13 These were groundbreaking concepts in the 1930s. From the leadership point of view today, organizations that do not pay sufficient attention to ‘people’ and ‘cultural’ variables are consistently less successful than those that do. From the leadership point of view today, organizations that do not pay sufficient attention to people and the deep sentiments and relationships connecting them are consistently less successful than those that do. “The change which you and your associates are working to effect will not be mechanical but humane.”14

Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles

According to Mintzberg there are 10 managerial roles divided into three activities.  The first activity is interpersonal, which is the managers responsibility for managing relatioships with organizational members and other constituents.  The other constitents consist of the first three managerial roles, figurehead (the head honcho or the big cheese), leader (someone who works with and through employees), and liaison (information and communication centre).  The second activity is informational, which is the managers responsibility for gathering and disseminating information to the stakeholders of the organization.  The stakeholders of the organization include the monitor (observe externally), the disseminator (shares the monitors information), and the spokesperson (informs other managers).  The third activity is decisional which consists of the managers responsibility for processing information and reaching conclusion.  That includes entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.