Choice
Managers can often exercise choice about their work. They
informally negotiate widely different interpretations of the
boundaries and dimensions of ostensibly identical jobs, with
particular emphasis upon the development of ‘personal domain’
(ie establishing their own territory and the rules that apply
within it).
Communication
Much managerial activity consists of asking or persuading
others to do things, which involves managers in face-to-face
verbal communication of limited duration. Communication is
not simply what managers spend a great deal of time doing but
the medium through which managerial work is constituted.
Identification of tasks
The typical work of a junior manager is the ‘organizational work’
of drawing upon an evolving stock of knowledge about ‘normal’
procedures and routines in order to identify and negotiate the
accomplishment of problems and tasks.
Character of the work
The character of work varies by duration, time span, recurrence,
unexpectedness and source. Little time is spent on any one
activity and in particular on the conscious, systematic formula-
tion of plans. Planning and decision-making tend to take place in
the course of other activities. Managerial activities are riven by
contradictions, cross-pressures, and the need to cope with and
reconcile conflict. A lot of time is spent by managers accounting
for and explaining what they do, in informal relationships and in
‘participating’.
WHAT MANAGERS CAN DO ABOUT IT
To a degree, managers have simply to put up with the circum-
stances in which they work as described above – they have to
manage in conditions of turbulence, uncertainty and ambiguity.
How to be a Better Manager 9