At the beginning of the course students were exposed to organizational management theory and how theories evolved with the changing business climate.

Theory went from focusing on operational efficiency to people centric models of resource distribution. Students learned that the role of the manager is to translate and implement the vision, mission, goals, and objectives of an organization into functional processes, procedures and rules.

In the 20th century many business managers adopted Fayol's five pillars of management to assist them in their job. Hence, many organizations tend to use these tenets as their foundation for management systems.

Also discussed in week's one and two is the notion that contemporary business organizations are taking on a more collaborative environment to cope with the need for quick decision making to deal with change.

Contemporary management theories suggest that management must be more organic in nature to create the competitive advantage.

The 21st century manager must be an "agile manager" in order to address the dynamic nature of conducting business in a transitional business environment.

The "agile manager" seeks to combine the traditional functions of management as proposed by Fayol with the contemporary theories of management to help create a collaborative environment needed for creating a competitive advantage for a business. In past weeks' students have learned how the POLC operates within business.

This week students will examine how the theories of systems thinking and agile management suggest ways to combine the POLC with the demands of the highly charged dynamic environment of the 21st century.

Theme 1: Systems thinking is a model of decision making that helps organizations change and adapt. For example, a person may look at trees, creatures, foliage, and water to know the forest.

The trees, foliage, creatures and water is the system that comprise the forest. Applying this approach to business requires one to view the entirety of an organization as a complete system with integrated complex components.

For a business to function successfully, the systems within an organization must have interaction and a connection between the components of the system. A highly functioning business system continually exchanges feedback with its parts and systems to ensure that each remains aligned to accomplish of the goal of the system and ultimately the business.

Read/View:

Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking

Smashing Silos (Available through the UMUC library. Students should search on Smashing Silos and look for the article authored by Evan Rosen)

The ten principles of collaborative organizations

Peter Senge on Systems Thinking

Seeing Your Company as a System

Theme 2: The agile manager seeks to combine the functions of management with the contemporary theories of management to create the competitive edge.

You might ask how relevant the lesson is to managers in the 21st century, including yourself, how practical is its application, as well as how possible it is to align the old with new evolved practices?

Well, there are no best answers or expectations to be aligned as a perfect model that assures 100 percent positive results when it comes to application of contemporary theories of management and its functions.

Of course, they serve as a reference to aid in achieving the best possible results when incorporated under a presented optimum environment that allows for less variables of criteria - current business environments are dynamic and fluid versus static, hence your lessons learned in this course will and should align your understanding of certain organizational theories as it influences managerial roles , comfort-ability with subject matter, and possible application to presented expectations will greatly enhance your delivery of the best possible version of a solution given the time and available resources.

Remember learning is continuous, and so is the field of organizational theory, which in turn influences the management school of thought and allows this lesson to begin a yearning for further studies in the field.

Learning Activity

In the past weeks, you have completed various types of assignments that help develop skills that employers are looking for employees to have when hired. At the same time, the assignments were grounded in the course material of management

Reflect on both the types of assignments and the course content related to management.

How were the assignments beneficial for learning how to develop skills attractive to employers?

What did you learn about management that you did not know prior to taking the course?

What did you learn about management that you can use to develop your life ambitions or professional career?