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Introduction: How to be a Great Manager - Managers need to plan and guide the work for their employees

In order to accomplish the goals desired, you will need to have a good strategic and tactical plan. You will need a basic roadmap on where you are now, and where you are going. You would also need to determine the best way on how to get from point A to point B. Finally, you would need to make sure you have the means to get to your final destination.

For example, if providing excellent customer service were your main objective, you would need to come up with a strategy to make sure the customers are satisfied in every way. This is where managing and organizing your department comes into play.

You might need to organize the department differently to achieve the goal such as setting up a Tier 1 group to handle the simple and quick calls, and a Tier 2 group to handle the difficult longer lasting calls. You would need to determine who would go into each group and where they would sit. You would have to have the calls routed differently. You will need to direct the staff to follow the process and monitor the performance to make sure all functions are running smoothly and in a coordinated fashion. You also at the same time need to take into consideration the costs associated in structuring your department while staying within budget. These are the kinds of the decisions that come with structured planning and organizing. How you deal with these kinds of decisions are a big part of being a successful manager.

In this lesson we will look at a model that can help you fully understand and improve your organization, and ways to set up your department to its optimum performance to be able to meet any goals or objectives that may come your way.

Also in this lesson, and throughout the course, we will be using management examples of a Customer Service/Technical Support Manager. Customer service is so important and just about every manager has some sort of customer service expectations related to their goals and duties. This makes these examples exemplary. We will use an example company that provides telephone and Internet service called Sample Corp. The fictitious product being used is called a Widget, which is an Internet service related product. The manager’s name that is being used in the short stories in lessons 1 through 7 is John Smith. Be sure to keep in mind that the basic premise and logic of these examples can be translated into just about every managerial scenario and function.