What a Manager Does: Five Management Functions and Who Performs Them

All courses / AI Boss / Module 1 / Chapter 2

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Define each of the five management functions and the boundary that separates it from its neighbours.
• Explain why the functions differ in reversibility, the person's stake and governing law.
• Identify the overlaps by which a system built for one function acts on another.
• Draft a function map for one team that records performers, systems, modes, degrees and deciders.

Key concepts

M3 Consequence defined by effect

M3 Consequence begins wherever the person's legal or economic position changes. It is defined by that effect, not by the label of the decision: an allocation rule that systematically gives one group fewer hours is a consequence decision.

Boundary between M2 and M4

Drawn by purpose. Feedback meant to improve the person is M4 Development; a rating used to compare people is M2 Evaluation. Kluger and DeNisi found that more than a third of feedback interventions reduced performance.

Evaluation feeds consequence

A throughput figure or sales score becomes an input to pay or dismissal, sometimes years after it was introduced for planning. The protection is to treat a new use of an existing figure as a change that needs its own decision.

Function map

A record, for one team, of who performs each management function today and which AI systems touch which functions, at which mode and degree, and who decided that degree. It is a file in version control, readable by the people it concerns.

Care as a relationship

Part of M5 Care is performed through attention, such as noticing that a colleague now finishes her round late every day. No dashboard records it, and when a system takes over the routes the opportunity to notice moves with it.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The chapter says the five functions describe what reaches the person managed, whereas Fayol and Drucker describe the organisation's need. What does a split made from the managed person's side reveal that the classical one hides?
2. M4 Development is governed mostly by collective agreements and practice. Why does the chapter treat that gap as a reason for care and not as freedom to delegate?
3. At Strandvik the largest finding is a dashboard used at a degree not yet decided. How would such a finding be received in your organisation, and who would own the answer?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Average visit time across a route is information for planning. According to the chapter, when does the same figure become M2 Evaluation?

   1. When it is computed per person and visible to the manager, whether or not anyone calls it evaluation
   2. When the supplier of the dashboard classifies the feature as a performance module
   3. Only when it is formally entered into an annual appraisal document
   4. When it is shown to the worker alone and to nobody else in the unit
   Show the answer

   A. When it is computed per person and visible to the manager, whether or not anyone calls it evaluation
   The boundary that matters most in M2 Evaluation is between measuring the work and judging the person; the per-person figure visible to the manager is evaluation regardless of its label.

2. Which functions does the chapter say Annex III, point 4(b), of the AI Act reaches into, and which does it not reach?

   1. It reaches M4 and M5 but leaves M1, M2 and M3 to national law
   2. It reaches all five functions equally
   3. It reaches M1, M2 and M3, but not development or care
   4. It reaches only M3, through recruitment and termination
   Show the answer

   C. It reaches M1, M2 and M3, but not development or care
   Point 4(b) covers decisions on terms of work, promotion or termination, task allocation based on behaviour or traits, and monitoring and evaluating performance, so it reaches M1, M2 and M3 but not M4 Development or M5 Care.

3. In the worked example FMAP-NR-STR-01, why do ShiftWise open-shift offers also reach M3 Consequence?

   1. Because the offers are made at Level 4 Autonomous without any playbook
   2. Because the screening pilot uses the same module to rank applicants
   3. Because the unit manager approves each offer before it is sent
   4. Because offered hours determine pay for staff who depend on extra shifts
   Show the answer

   D. Because offered hours determine pay for staff who depend on extra shifts
   The map notes that offered hours determine pay; for an hourly care assistant paid by the shifts offered, the allocation of open shifts is partly an M3 decision, and the function map must say so.