Page 172 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

CHAPTER 5 • Foundations of Planning 171
In the traditional approach, planning is done entirely by top-level managers who often
are assisted by a formal planning department, a group of planning specialists whose sole formal planning department
A group of planning specialists whose sole
responsibility is to help write the various organizational plans. Under this approach, plans responsibility is to help write the various
developed by top-level managers flow down through other organizational levels, much organizational plans
like the traditional approach to goal setting. As they flow down through the organiza-
tion, the plans are tailored to the particular needs of each level. Although this approach
makes managerial planning thorough, systematic, and coordinated, all too often the focus
is on developing “the plan,” a thick binder (or binders) full of meaningless informa-
tion that’s stuck away on a shelf and never used by anyone for guiding or coordinating
work efforts.

In a survey of managers about formal top-down
organizational planning processes, over 75 percent
said that their company’s planning approach
was unsatisfactory. 38

A common complaint was that “plans are documents that you prepare for the corporate
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planning staff and later forget.” Although this traditional top-down approach to planning
is used by many organizations, it’s effective only if managers understand the importance
of creating documents that organizational members actually use, not documents that look
impressive but are never used.
Another approach to planning is to involve more organizational members in the pro- Virginia Poly, founder and CEO of Poly Place-
cess. In this approach, plans aren’t handed down from one level to the next, but instead are ments, a Canadian recruiting firm, manages
developed by organizational members at the various levels and in the various work units in a dynamic environment where clients
continue to use more contingent workers.
to meet their specific needs. For instance, at Dell, employees from production, supply To succeed, she plans to keep her employees
management, and channel management meet weekly to make plans based on current prod- focused on building long-term relationships
uct demand and supply. In addition, work teams set their own daily schedules and track with customers and serving as consultants
rather than transactional salespeople.
their progress against those schedules. If a team falls behind, team members develop
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“recovery” plans to try to get back on schedule. When organizational members
are more actively involved in planning, they see that the plans are more than just
something written down on paper. They can actually see that the plans are used in
directing and coordinating work.

What Contemporary Planning Issues

Do Managers Face?

The second floor of the 21-story Hyundai
5-4 Discuss Motor headquarters buzzes with data
contemporary 24 hours a day. That’s where you’d find
issues in planning. the company’s Global Command and
Control Center (GCCC), which is
modeled after the CNN newsroom
with numerous “computer screens relaying video and data keeping
watch on Hyundai operations around the world.” Managers get in-
formation on parts shipments from suppliers to factories. Cameras
watch assembly lines and closely monitor the company’s massive
Ulsan, Korea, factory looking for competitors’ spies and any hints
of labor unrest. The GCCC also keeps tabs on the company’s
R&D activities in Europe, Japan, and North America. Hyundai can Richard Lautens/Newscom
identify problems in an instant and react quickly. The company
is all about aggressiveness and speed and is representative of how
a successful twenty-first-century company approaches planning. 41