American Management Styles

By Terry Sargent

Concern over the future of American industry has never been higher. Yankee quality and productivity levels often lag behind those of our foreign competitors. Every day, newspapers and magazines carry fresh stories on eroding domestic market shares or the takeover of yet another American firm by Asian and European concerns. Downsizing is a term children know and their parents know even better. Why is this happening and what can be done to fix it? This book has some lighthearted suggestions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry Sargent
• Release date: Aug 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476453767

Terry Sargent

Not only a retired naval officer, Terry Sargent is an award-winning freelance writer of professional articles, newspaper writings, and works of fiction. He has written several pieces for North American conferences as well as international ones with his papers and practices in use world-wide. Available is his book regarding management behaviors entitled American Management Styles. His fiction works include short stories and, at present, two novels; Spellbound, A Mystical Mystery and F.I.A.T.

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Preface

We Americans (specifically, the populace of the United States) have always prided ourselves on doing things the American way; going to great pains to make sure that the American way is somehow distinguishable from the ways employed by other North Americans (Canadians), or South and Central Americans, Europeans, Asians, and all the other nationalities that inhabit this beautiful planet of ours. It was a spirit instilled, or drilled, into all of us during our formative years by our parents, teachers, and leaders, just as it was drilled into them by their Forefathers, and their forefathers before them, continuing back for generations of forefathers uncounted.

Regardless of whether a manager labors (if it can be called that) in manufacturing, retail, organized sports, the military, or any other commercial endeavor, it is the universal way of the world for one person to be in charge of others. The process of obtaining a leadership role is usually carried out either by appointment, election, heredity, or usurpation. Quite often these processes will work in highly unexpected ways that result in the mantle of leadership being placed upon an unsuspecting, and therefore quite often unwilling, bystander. Other times the processes result in a misdirection of the responsibilities, placing authority in the hands of someone whom everyone believes to be totally incapable, and all too often they are proven correct in their beliefs. Still other times the role of organizing and leading can fall upon one of the troops who signed on to be led, only to learn that being led and leading can be one in the same when the formal leader won’t step up to the plate and they have to fill the role of both leader and follower.

Once we Americans find ourselves in a position of authority, universal ways give way to the American Way in terms of how we control our human resources, hence the defining of the American Management Styles, or AMSs.

Sometimes our American methods are effective, sometimes they're not. How effective we are as managers depends on many different factors, the most important of which is our own personality, followed closely by the individual or collective personalities of those of whom we are attempting to influence, and the situation in which we are placed.

Since our way of life in the United States (or anywhere for that matter, since we are all products of our environment) directly influences our personality, it stands to reason that we would develop a unique style of management that is a direct outgrowth of that influence. It further stands to reason that, since each of us have our own unique personality, it would logically follow that we would have our own unique style of management based upon that personality (some more unique than others) and our underlying beliefs. But to carry it one step further, each of our unique personalities is unique only in so far as combinations and permutations of finite human traits permit, tempered by the strength of our convictions. Since we draw upon a common pool of human behaviors, similarities can be found among and between us. If this were not true, thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and other behavior modeling professionals would be standing in the unemployment line. But since these learned professionals are very much gainfully employed, I will assume that you, the reader, will accept this hypothesis as plausible and are eager to continue deeper in a heroic endeavor to understand your boss or, should you be the boss, in trying to understand yourself.

It is the intention of this book to take a light hearted, sometimes satirical, look at the way American businessmen conduct themselves when they are in the role of Manager, a nebulous title at best considering how many people hold it, second only to the number of Vice President titles that abound. However, taking a light hearted look should not lead the reader to the conclusion that it is a facetious or fallacious look. Sarcasm and satire involve exaggerations or skewed views of the truth, but nevertheless, they do have truth as their basis, their very core.

The cryptic meaning behind the title of this book will be readily apparent once one has scanned the Table of Contents. The onerous task I have taken upon myself, in spite of the personal sacrifice involved, and ignoring the advice of loved ones, casual acquaintances, and total strangers, is to look back upon my years of being both a boss, and an underling, so as to draw some conclusions. The real work involved was to assess and analyze the behaviors I have witnessed, then categorize these behaviors into neat little boxes which I can label alphabetically, accounting for each letter at least once and only once. However, recognizing that the Chinese have over five thousand characters in their alphabet, and my projected life span, I have limited my categorization of American Management Styles to the English alphabet.

Within these pages I have also paid homage to the American love of terminology that eschews the uninspired custom of using common names in favor of ones that incorporate letters and/or numbers, as evidenced by a brief scan of the cars marketed under the sports and luxury categories, and even the more modest all purpose cars. Capitalizing upon our love of acronyms and alphabet soup, I have painstakingly devised TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) for each management style, the first two letters being MB which stands for Management By. The third letter is the first letter of the word that best describes that unique style. This of course led to the additional burden of elaborating upon that word and why it is apropos to the cadre of people whom I have seen use methods or tactics characteristic of that word, examining their beliefs and personalities which have predetermined their management style.

Having stated the above, I am now ready to state even more, hence the need for the following pages. As you read this book, please remember that it is intended as a broad summary of some of the styles which I have witnessed firsthand. It is not meant to be all encompassing of the many flowering and vegetating management styles that one can find in the corporate cabbage patch.

If you are amused at times, it is intentionally so. If you are shocked at how many of these styles are present in your world, that is also intentional. And, if recognizing these categories somehow helps you cope with these people, that too is intentional and would please me to no end.

The styles listed here are not inherently good or bad. Instead, as with many things in this world, it's how they're carried out that determines their effectiveness. Some of the styles cited in this book may sound negative but, when used properly or combined with another style, can be very effective; different strokes for different folks, depending upon whether you're chained to the oars or are beating the drum.

The analogy to be remembered as you read this book is that the management styles identified are like tools. Using a tool correctly takes practice. Abusing a tool requires only carelessness. The more tools you use properly, the more jobs you can do.

After all, would you hire a carpenter who only had a hammer in his tool box?

Table of Contents

Chapter Title

Preface

Table of Contents

MBA   Management By Abdication

MBB   Management By Barriers

MBC   Management By Committee

MBD   Management By Delegation

MBE   Management By Edict

MBF   Management By Feelings

MBG   Management By Greed

MBH   Management By Heredity

MBI   Management By Inertia

MBJ   Management By Japan

MBK   Management By Kindness

MBL   Management By Leadership

MBM   Management By Mirrors

MBN   Management By Nobility

MBO   Management By Obscurity

MBP   Management By Partnership

MBQ   Management By Query

MBR   Management By Rote

MBS