Discussion Forum Unit One

“The art of getting things done through the efforts of other people” (Carpenter et. al., 2010, para
3). Put yourself in the shoes of a manager and explain what this definition means in the context
of a company operation. You can use the example of any company (large or small) and any good
or service.
Answer
When I put myself in the position of manager, and let’s say I am managing a service provider
organization, and taking the definition given above literally, it means that I will manage other
people who are assigned to do some activities to enable the organization to provide services
properly (Carpenter et. al., 2010, para 3). From this concept, I can deduce that I am the
responsible person to follow up individuals’ activities in the organization and check if things are
going as intended to bring the intended result of the organization’s output, which is supplying
services to customers. That means my position is dependent not only on my managing capability
but also on the others’ capability to do the activity. For example, I am managing others to do
things, and let us say some of their activities failed and they were unable to do them due to some
capability limitations. This will result in a failure to get things done, and my organization will
not supply services to its customers.
The failure of the organization to supply the services to its customers did not happen due to my
failure to follow up with others to get things done, but to others’ failure to do things due to
ability limitation. Therefore, from this, I can conclude that the definition lacks universality. This
is because, firstly, it did not consider external and internal environmental factors. In paragraph
one, I said that the organization is a service provider and that there are users who use the
organizations’ services, which are external entities and the external environment. On the other
hand, the others’ capability to do things is an internal environment to be considered, and what I
said the definition did not include, Secondly, it did not consider the human aspect, as it considers
people the only means of getting things done. Thirdly, it failed to consider the role of manager as
restricted only to following up others to do things. Finally, it didn’t consider the scientific
aspects of management (EasyMBA, 2018).
Word count=431
 Reference

EasyMBA. (2018). Definition, concept & importance of management. [Video file]. YouTube.
Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GyKxRYx1tQ.

Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2010). Management principles, v. 1.1.
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/management-principles-v1.1/index.html