CHAPTER 3 - REVIEW - The Requisistes of Activities

We have established previously that resources and activities are the essential core components of the Management Universe. Management is concerned with planning events and controlling the resources and activities that lead to them. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the essential requisites of those activities, and to analyse them in detail. At the highest level we encounter what is one of the most important relationships in management. If we remember no other aspect of management the requisites of activity are the most crucial relationship to understand. Fortunately for us the highest level equation is the most important and easiest to remember.

A ^ O . C. M

Activity requires Opportunity and Capability, and Motivation

The lower level relationships within each of these components are more complex and consist of many other components. They may appear to be tediously detailed and there may be little point in attempting to memorise them. The dissection of the requisites of activity is perhaps comparable to an anatomical study, and is probably the hardest and most complex part of any general theory of management to understand and assimilate. What is important is for us to know is that these relationships exist and can be identified. They enable us to focus on real appropriate issues within any given situation rather than misleading and irrelevant ones. As in the case of medicine, there is no point in carrying out a detailed examination of a patient’s feet in order to discover why the patient is suffering from headaches.

Most importantly we have identified that motivation is one of the three essential requisites of activity, and that identifying, categorising, and understanding emotional needs is something that is an integral part of management. Many managers appear to not to understand the importance of ensuring that all three of the primary requisites of activity are satisfied in order to control resources, activities, and events. It is easier to become simply absorbed in the characteristics and procedures of organisations and their physical assets and financial value. Poor performance and failure are more plausibly excused on the basis of poor quality resources, both material and human, and unavoidable misfortune, rather than on a lack of understanding of the underlying principles of management.

Rapunzle was a beautiful maiden in a Grimm’s fairy tale who lived at the top of a tower. The only way in or out was when she lowered her long hair from her window to the ground. She fell in love with a strong handsome young prince, lowered her hair, – and they lived happily ever after.