Most would classically define management as "planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling the resources of an organization in order to
achieve effectively the objectives of the business" (Borgsdorf & Pliszka,
1999, p. 6). Indeed, any growth-oriented company must pay attention to all
of these at all levels of management and production. Without performance
planning, coaching and counseling, it quickly becomes clear that no amount
of organizing, leading or controlling will get the company or any of its
employees anywhere. Arguably, then, it is useless to speak about
organizing, leading and controlling unless employees understand and adhere
Even in small, closely held companies, it is necessary to appraise even
founders and family members for their planning skills, and "Individuals who
consistently miss the boat must be coached or removed from people-
management responsibilities" (Ayres-Williams, 1992, p. 295+).
That sounds like the Genghis Khan School of Management. However, in
my industry, MRI and CT scans, sales is paramount, and planning is
paramount to sales, or, more specifically, to customer service management.
Most of my tasks in sales and marketing for the company involved customer
service management: My goal is to raise my quote from 120 to 200 scans per
Planning, in this case, means making decisions. In the case of MRIs
and CTs, it meansâ€"as with any other businessâ€"choosing which customers to
develop. As in any business, "Customers are not equally desirable" and
often, some cost more to serve than the amount of their business merits
While that is a concern that I take into account, in fact it is also
a company-wide decision issue, and it is the sort of question about which I
take advice from those planning the future of the company. However, once
we have decided that certain sorts of customers are not ben
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