Page 190 - Introduction to Business

164 PART 2 Managing Business Behavior

out how to operationalize the goal. If the team has been los-
ing a lot of games because of a relatively weak pitching staff,
the team manager needs to think about hiring or trading for
some new good pitchers. Moreover, the manager has to
make the hiring decision in the context of limited resources.
Hiring a couple of all-star pitchers may mean that there’s
not enough money left to renew the contract of a high-
priced, very good, but not all-star third base player.
Putting the best possible team together, however, is only
the beginning of a baseball team manager’s work. The man-
ager decides which pitchers to play in which games, and the
team’s batting lineup. The manager directs players regard-
ing whether they should try to steal bases. The manager
makes sure that optimal medical care, weight training
equipment, and other resources are available for the play-
ers. The manager counsels and reprimands players who are
arrested for drunk driving on Saturday night. The manager
decides how much to invest in the team’s minor league
clubs and future player development.
Do good baseball team managers make a difference?
Recent academic research on major league baseball teams
says that the answer to this question is yes. Teams with
4
certain styles of management have been found to outper-
form other teams having equivalent or even better
resources, players, and budgets. The Anaheim Angels
baseball team, with an annual player payroll of about $65
million, won a World Series championship after beating
the New York Yankees, with an annual player payroll of
Baseball team managers, such as St. Louis Cardinals over $140 million, in the first round of the playoffs. The
manager Tony LaRussa, have significant responsibility for Anaheim Angels’ excellent management had something to
the success or failure of their teams. Here LaRussa ponders do with this success.
team strategy while awaiting the start of a recent spring
training game against the New York Mets.

The Management Process

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1
Describe the strategic planning process, including the establishment of strategic goals, strategy formu-
lation, and strategy implementation.
There are four basic functions of the management process: planning, organizing,
directing, and controlling. Managers engage in all of these activities on an ongoing
basis.

Planning
planning Establishing organizational Planning involves establishing organizational goals and deciding how best to
goals and deciding how best to get achieve them. For example, it might be the goal of a 64-year-old owner of a small
them achieved
business to sell the business for a lot of money and retire to Aruba. The question
becomes how best to plan to make this goal a reality.
Planning is the most important management function in that all the excellent
management execution in the world—excellent organizing, directing, and controlling—
is worthless without the right organizational strategy and goals. Or, as Intel

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