Future managers will have to face the following problems: 1. Increased Complexity of Decisions 2. Outlook for Management Education 3. Insufficiency of Existing Organisation Structure.
1. Increased Complexity of Decisions:
The decision-making process will become more complex in the future because of two important reasons.
The first reason is that managers are getting more and better information. The availability of more and better information, with the use of computerised management information system and other more sophisticated data gathering techniques has enabled managers to have much better picture of problems and a better understanding of the merits and demerits of possible solutions.
The paradox of this information improvement is that a clear-cut “best solution” may be more difficult to identify than when the manager had only fragmented data for a decision. In such situations “really complicated things” take place which make the decision more difficult.
This obviously throws a challenge on the shoulders of future managers to tackle a more “complex environment from which to choose.”
The second reason for greater complexity of decisions is the growing number of groups both inside and outside the organisation which feel that they have a stake in the decision-making process. It is, therefore, imperative for management to take into consideration the interests of these groups when making decisions.
Today, as new groups of persons, such as consumer lobbies and community representatives, begin to exert additional pressure on business, the complexity of decision making continues to grow. Tomorrow’s manager might face even more complexity.
2. Outlook for Management Education:
The outlook for management education will have to be changed.
“The manager of the future will be constantly frustrated by the obsolescence of experience. History and experience that once provided a sense of security and stability to preceding generations of managers will be of little comfort to future managers. This is true because the managerial climate changes so swiftly that outstanding solutions to problems in the past may be miserable failures in the present or future.”
Naturally, the future managers will have to continuously renew themselves. The emerging challenges will require higher degree of professionalization than ever before. The managers will have to attend seminars and educational programmes conducted by the management institutes. The managements will also have to make provisions for periodic leave to enable managers to ‘keep abreast of their dynamic field’.
The future manager will also be required to be a behavioural scientist so as to deal effectively with the people he manages.
The educational institutions will have to design courses in such a way that the future managers learn a true integrated view (i.e., economic, social and psychological) of the nature of human beings.
3. Insufficiency of Existing Organisation Structure:
The environmental trends will affect the design and operation of organisations and the role of managers.
The traditional organisation structure will have to be changed because of growing size and complexity of organisations. The organisational relationships will tend to approximate the wheel shape rather than the pyramid.
“The organisation chart of the future may look something like a football balanced upon a point of a church bell. Within the football (the top staff organisation), problems of coordination, individual autonomy and group decision making should arise more intensively than ever. We expect that they will be dealt with quite independently of the ball portion of the company, with distinctively different methods of remuneration, control and communication.”