Top Management Process
General Course Information:
MGMT 7702-001-20093.MGMT Top management process
Instructor Information:
E. Ralph Biggadike
Professor of Professional Practice
Management
Bernstein Faculty Leader
Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics
Office: 723 Uris
Phone: 212-854-4426
FAX: 212-316-9355
Email: [email protected]
Course Overview:
The objective of this course is to help you make the mind shift that is necessary to
successfully transition from being an accomplished individual producer to the leader of
an organization.
What is top management?
Top management means the person who is leading an organizational entity (company,
division, business unit) and who is responsible for its performance (P&L, market standing
etc).)
The term „Top Management‟ includes jobs such as CEO, Managing Director, Managing
Partner, Division President, Country President and Head of Bank. Such jobs are often
referred to as General Managers (GMs). In some companies, Brand Managers, Product
Managers and Plant Managers have P&L responsibility and are regarded as GMs.
Note: people who are heads of functions (such as CFO, VP Sales, VP HR) are not
general managers.
What is the top manager‟s job?
The job of the leader of the organization is to guide the relations between her or his
organization and its environment (market, social, technological, political and economic
surroundings) and the relationships (the way people work, the emotional climate, group
dynamics, including conflict) within their organization so that their organization
continuously learns, initiates and prospers.
The organization and the larger environment are part of an entity called a system. The
term „system‟ means that each person and department in the organization and each factor
in the environment are interdependent with each other. This system is complex. The
dynamics facing GMs and their organization are many. It is the leader‟s job to ensure that
complexity is fully understood and acted upon.
Simply put, the leader is working in two directions simultaneously: outwards to the
market place and inwards to how the organization is working.
What is top management process (TMP)?
Top management process is leading an organization in such a way that the complexity
referred to above is revealed and discussed so that realistic decisions result and
performance is achieved.
More expansively, TMP is the ways leaders bring people together to work on challenges
and build relationships among them so that all of their talents are accessed and focused
on work, imaginative possibilities evolve, and the best possible decisions are made and
actually carried out.
This course can be likened to a „lab‟ course. Each day, we study a GM, the challenges
they faced, the system they were in, and how they did their job. We regard each GM as
an „experiment‟. We discuss what and how the GM is doing and what this suggests about
the GMs personal theory of general management. We then compare and contrast each
GM with those previously studied.
Modules:
The course is divided into 5 modules, as follows:
Module 1: Transition to General Management-the challenges faced in transitioning from
a functional or specialists job to leading an organization.
Module 2: Leading Complex Interactions Between Environments and Organizations
Module 3: Leading Top Management Groups When You Face Complex Decisions
Module 4: Practicum in the Mindset for Succeeding as a General Manager
Module 5: Putting It All Together.
Grading:
Class Participation: 50%
Final paper “My personal, evolving theory of general management: 50%
This paper is due Friday, December 11th. The TA will advise on delivery mechanics.
In addition, you will conduct and report on one interview of a GM and one group
leadership experiment. Because I want you to explore new ideas and experiment with
new behaviors they are ungraded.
These two papers are required to complete the course.
NOTE: Your report on your interview of a GM is due PRIOR to the first day of class,
September 11. See guidelines below.
GM Interview Assignment
Please interview a general manager (GM) and write a report of your interview using the
following questions, about 1.5 - 2 pages and send to me at [email protected] PRIOR
to our first class (which is September 11th).
1.Please interview any GM of your choice (you should not interview the same person
as your classmates) during the period August-September prior to beginning of
classes, 2009.
Our definition of a General Manager is the person who has P&L responsibility for an
organizational entity and has at least 3 different functions directly reporting in to her or
him and dotted lines to other functions (often staff activities such as HR, IT etc). Do not
interview heads of functions (such as CFOs, VP Sales, etc) because they are not leaders
of the organizational entity. (see syllabus above for more information on who is and is
not a GM).
2. Suggested Introduction in the interview:
“I am a participant in a course about making the transition to general management-the
leader of an organizational entity with P&L responsibility. The leader of the course,
Professor Ralph Biggadike, has asked each of us to interview a GM to learn about some
of the challenges, opportunities and potential pitfalls of making the transition from a
functional or specialist‟s job to a general manager‟s job.
As a general rule, the interview will take about 30-45 minutes.
I ask for your help in giving me your experiences when you made your transition into
general management. When our professor summarizes our interviews in class, he will not
be identifying anyone’s name. He doesn‟t know who is being interviewed. All he knows
is that each respondent is a general manager. His use of our interviews in class will be to
summarize all respondent‟s comments by themes, not by people‟s names.”
3. Questions:
“I would like to start off with a couple of general questions to help me get a sense of how
you see and experience the General Manager‟s job:
1. How would you describe the GM‟s job, based on your experiences in the job?
2. What work and personal challenges did you face as you were making the
transition from a functional or specialist‟s job to a GM‟s job?
Then ask these questions:
3.
4.
5.
6.
What surprises did you encounter?
What pressures did you feel?
How did you, if at all, have to change your approach to work and people?
What percentage of your time is spent working in and leading groups? What
challenges did you experience in working in and leading groups?
7. What expectations did you feel you had to meet?
8. What made you most anxious and how did you handle that? What feelings do you
recall in the early days of making your transition?
9. Who (by title, not name) did you feel you could raise your concerns with? What
resources and support, if any, were available to you?
10. What major dilemmas have you faced in the GMs job?
11. What was the most difficult aspect of the transition for you?
Advice:
12. What advice would you offer to others about to make the same transition from a
functional or specialist‟s job to a general manager‟s job?
Any additional points?
13. Is there anything else about making the transition to the job of general manager
that you would like to add? Is there some topic I should have asked you about but
didn‟t?”
5. Writing your report:
Organize your summary by the topics in each of the questions above. A bullet point
format is fine if that‟s your preference. There is no need to mention anyone‟s name. Here
are the topics:

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Brief description of the GMs job, as seen by my interviewee (Q.1)
Work and Personal challenges my interviewee experienced (Q.2)
Surprises experienced by my interviewee (Q.3)
Pressures felt by my interviewee (Q.4)
Changes interviewee made within self (Q.5)
Groups-% of time working in groups and challenges of groups (Q.6)
Expectations my interviewee felt (Q. 7)
Anxiety and Feelings experienced and how handled (Q. 8)
Help-sources of, if any (Q. 9)
Dilemmas faced in being a GM (Q10)
Most difficult aspect for my interviewee in making his/her transition (Q.11)
Advice my interviewee would pass on to others about to make this transition
(Q.12)
Synthesis-what‟s your synthesis of everything that you heard? What is the impact
for how you might do this job when you are an organization leader?
Group Leadership Experiment
Assignment-due November 21st
The purpose of this assignment is to give you further opportunities to improve your
sensing of group dynamics and your leadership of groups on complex work issues. In
this experiment, lead a group meeting during which you focus far more on leadership
process rather than on content and write a 2 page report of your experience.
The work issue before the group should preferably be an issue that has some complexity,
controversy and uncertainty about it.
The group should preferably include people with different skill sets and perspectives.
The purpose of this experiment is to practice some concepts and skills discussed in
leading groups in TMP. Recall our discussions of Columbia‟s Final Mission, the Bay of
Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis ExComs, Thirteen Days and Path to War.
While the concepts and skills that we have been discussing are not complicated
cognitively, they are very difficult to operationalize into our everyday behavior,
particularly when we are under stress. We need as much practice and reflection thereon
as we can get. This experiment will give you some practice.
Reminder
Leadership Process is about the dynamics in a group as the group deals with a work issue
and tries to reveal its complexity and how the leader facilitates the group process. A
useful question to have in mind is: how are we as a group relating as we deal with this
work issue? Another is: how much are our discussions on the work issue and how much
on reactive behavior? Others are: how are people stating theirs views? How many
questions are being asked and what kind are they? If the group gets stuck, how did we
deal with it? How am I handling the group? What am I feeling?
[see previous Power Points for fuller definitions, if needed]
Reflection and Learning
After this group leadership experiment, please reflect on how it went: for example,
surprises, difficulties, your feelings, dissatisfactions, forces influencing process, what
worked well, what worked less well and what you learnt about leading groups handling
difficult and controversial issues.
Please write a short summary (suggestion: two pages max) of the type of work issue, the
systemic and organizational context, the group, what you did, what happened during the
meeting and your reflection thereon and your learning.
Schedule of Classes
September 11: Silvio Napoli of India (A). Background Reading: The myths of
Transition and Leaders in Transition- What did we learn?
September 12: DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC, Ken Olsen
September 26: Friendly Fire
October 9: Columbia‟s Final Mission (CD ROM case)
October 10: Thirteen Days movie
October 23: Path to War movie
November 6: Group Leadership Practicum- details to follow
November 21: Group Leadership Practicum – details to follow; Group
Leadership Experiment papers due
December 5: Paul Levy (A) and CD ROM
December 11: Decision Making at the Top and Taran Swan