addressee rather than meeting the needs of the author. The central question is: What
is the purpose of this report, in terms of its impact on the recipient? First, he or she
must understand the content, and secondly steps of action must be clearly outlined.
In order for reports to do the most good, managers must write the content in the
briefest, most succinct manner possible, maintain formality, and write with the
addressee in mind. For example, lawyers rather prefer text only, engineers prefer
diagrams, financial experts prefer tables, etc. Whether reports are written in tradi-
tional paper form or formulated in emails, attention to proper grammar, word
choice, punctuation and logical structure is required. Although this sounds banal,
everyday written communication is often unbelievably deficient concerning these
matters. The very purpose of reports and documents is to facilitate communication;
thus they must be completely comprehensible. Therefore, upper-level managers
must be conscientious and avoid widespread bad habits such as: referencing without
citing, over-using charts with arbitrary symbols, vague interpretations that cause
confusion rather than provide clarity, and presenting in landscape format.
Third Tool: Job Design and Assignment Control
Reaching goals effectively calls for the correct organization of the tasks and
assignments for each coworker. Therefore Malik defines job design and assignment
control, i.e., the controlling the placement and utilization of people, as the third
essential tool. But in many organizations, job design is completely underdeveloped
if existent at all. “Incorrect or not thoroughly formulated job design is one of the
main sources of de-motivation, discontent, poor productivity and poor use of
resources” (Malik 2001, p. 306).
Malik believes that the most common error within organizations is to have
insufficient expectations of job roles; most workers have limited tasks and responsi-
bilities that do not allow them to fulfill their potential. Jobs must allow people the
room to function according to their capacity. “One should stretch oneself daily in
some way, and thereby slowly increase the daily quota of performance. This alone
leads to the development of people who use their internal strengths and hidden
abilities and moves them to actively think about effective working” (Malik 2001, p.
307). I want to emphasize this: people do not have to feel a sense of mediocrity with
regard to their work or bore themselves to death. Any worker who constantly
watches the clock or spends time surfing the Internet while on the job has an
unchallenging job.
Today’s businesses commonly utilize flat hierarchies. The result is that
employees and managers are no longer monitored by their superiors but instead
in terms of the fulfillment of their duties – yet another important reason why the job
must be appropriately inclusive in terms of the range of duties. Sometime job
scopes can be too large and be excessively demanding, with requirements that are
impossible to fulfill for any person, such as blending sales and marketing into one
job. Malik calls such assignments “killer jobs.”
The lack of appropriate assignment delegation or “employment control” in
German enterprises is for Malik one of the main causes for the lack of turnover,
weakness and lack of effectiveness. Here again Drucker (and later Warren Bennis)
42 2 Occupation or Calling: What Makes for Good Leadership?