CHAPTER 2 Flashcards
Organization
- a structure through which people work as a group.
- two or more persons are associated in doing something
- orderly arrangement between individuals and groups
Organization
Direction and control must be provided so that the necessary coordination of human effort can be achieved.
Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard state that “the focus of [an organization’s] administrative subsystem is on authority, structure, and responsibility within the organization
Such direction is the essence of the supervisory function.
who does what for whom and who tells whom to do what, how, when and why
What are the three broad areas of a supervisor’s job?
Leading, directing, and controlling individuals and groups
These areas encompass both formal and informal arrangements.
Accreditation
a method of assisting law enforcement agencies to assess and enhance their overall performance
The foundation of accreditation lies in the adoption of standards containing a clear statement of professional objectives
Accreditation
acknowledges the implementation of a written directive system that reflects professional best practices.
The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA)
was created as a credentialing authority through the joint efforts of many of the nation’s law enforcement executive associations.
Obtaining accreditation is a significant achievement for a law enforcement agency
Gulick’s POSDCORB
a concept that is designed to call attention to the various functional elements of the chief executive, developed because words such as administration and management have been overused to the point that they have lost all specific content.
The acronym is used to help analyze/understand management functions in a structured way.
POSDCORB
- Planning
- Organizing
- Staffing
- Directing
- Coordinating
- Reporting
- Budgeting
Many of these executive functions are passed on to subordinates at all levels of the hierarchy through the process of delegation.
What is planning in the context of management?
Working out in broad outline the things that need to be done and the methods for doing them to accomplish the purpose set for the enterprise
Planning involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives.
Define organizing in management.
Establishment of the formal structure of authority through which work subdivisions are arranged, defined, and coordinated for the defined objective
Organizing ensures that resources are used efficiently and that tasks are coordinated effectively.
What does staffing entail?
The whole personnel function of bringing in and training the staff and maintaining favorable conditions for work
Staffing is critical for ensuring that the organization has the right people in the right roles.
Explain the directing function in management.
The continuous task of taking decisions and embodying them in specific and general orders and instructions and serving as the leader of the enterprise
Directing involves motivating and leading employees to achieve organizational goals.
What is the role of coordinating in management?
The all-important duty of interrelating the various parts of the work
Coordinating ensures that different departments and teams work together effectively.
What does reporting involve?
Keeping those whom the executive is responsible for informed as to what is going on, including keeping themselves and the subordinates informed through records, research, and inspection
Reporting is essential for transparency and accountability within the organization.
Define budgeting in the context of management.
All that goes on in the form of fiscal planning, accounting, and control
Budgeting is crucial for managing financial resources and ensuring organizational sustainability.
Plannning
Good planning is at the heart of efficiency,
it provides the framework for organization by specifying what should be done to meet objectives, who should do the work, and how their efforts can be coordinated.
Plannning
Plans enable the supervisor to make decisions in advance, but they are useless if they are not effectively communicated to personnel who are expected to follow them.
they should be explicit and clear
Plans may be classified into several types according to the purposes they serve.
- Procedural plans
- Tactical plans
- Operational plans
- Auxiliary services plans
- Fiscal plans
- Policies
- Rules and Regulations
Procedural plans
(SOPs) useful as guides to personnel, such as serving and processing arrest warrants, recording and processing crime or incident reports, and processing traffic citations.
Tactical plans
developed considerably in advance of expected incidents
prepared to meet exigencies encountered by police, such as widespread civil disorders, unusual crime problems, civil defense needs, or major disasters.
largely based on field intelligence supplied by supervisory personnel
Tactical plans
designed to guide personnel in controlling unusual happenings and restoring order as quickly and as efficiently as possible
basic, flexible in nature, and adaptable to modification as the need arises
Operational plans
designed to give guidance and direction to personnel in the performance of normal police activities
deployment and distribution of personnel or the search for suspects or lost persons
Auxiliary services plans
implement normal operations, such as in the recruitment of personnel or public and community relations activities
Fiscal plans
budget preparation and the use and control of funds, personnel, equipment, and supplies.
Policies
plans consisting of a set of broad principles that guide personnel in the accomplishment of general organizational objectives established by top management,
supervisors and unit commanders often establish policies for the operation of their units
Policy Manual
worthwhile as a guide for personnel to apply to all facets of police operations
Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA)
requires its members to adopt 36 chapters comprising 485 individual standards
Rules and Regulations
- specific guides to conduct and performance
- parameters for acceptable conduct provided by management
- must be current, reasonable, and clear
- Above all, must not be arbitrary, reflecting only the views of management
Organizing
As with planning, organizing is a perpetual task
Supervisors must continuously analyze the organizational structure within their sphere of operations to facilitate communication between the elements of the hierarchy and provide clear-cut downward lines of authority and responsibility and upward lines of accountability
minor organizational changes in the unit might bring about substantial improvements in operations
Staffing
Recruitment, while generally thought of as primarily a responsibility of top management, is a vital function of personnel at all levels.
Informal recruitment by members through personal contacts is often the best means of staffing departments.
Members can persuade recruits that the department is a good place to work, this is generally the most effective and consistently productive method available to meet staffing needs.
The supervisor’s responsibility for proper placement of subordinates.
- every effort should be made to place each one in the niche for which that employee is best suited
- The net result to the organization is improved performance
- Boredom and monotony are most destructive of initiative and industry in an employee
The wisdom of placing round pegs in round holes
Directing
- The function of providing direction to subordinates and control their activities is one that consumes much of supervisors’ time.
- If supervisors’ expectations are high, employee productivity is likely to be high
- if expectations are low, employee performance will probably be poor
- A follow-up or control system is a must
Coordinating
No function of management is more important than that of coordination of human effort to ensure unity of action not only between individuals but also between organizational units.
This activity must occur at all levels to prevent disharmony
Coordinating
As organizations increase in size and complexity, the need for coordination becomes ________.
greater
The essential activity of coordination can best be accomplished through direct communication.
It can seldom be accomplished by mandate.
The interchange of personnel on a training basis for short periods of time, perhaps a month or two, ___________.
will increase employees’ understanding of each other’s jobs and will tend to foster coordination.
The interchange of personnel
Proven to bring about a healthy crossfertilization of understanding between participants should well become a matter of departmental policy.
Supervisors’ attitudes
can establish a climate in which the spirit of cooperation will thrive among the subordinates.
Hostile, suspicious, or unfriendly relations between supervisors of allied units will invariably be reflected by misunderstandings, rivalries, and ill will between their respective subordinates.
What does the degree of coordination in an organization depend on?
The level of willing cooperation between individuals in various units.
True or False:
Higher levels of coordination in an organization are unrelated to the cooperation among individuals.
False
Fill in the blank:
The degree of coordination achieved in any organization will directly approximate the level of willing ____ between individuals.
[cooperation]
What is necessary for the various units of an organization to accomplish their mission?
They must work in harmony.
Basic Organizational Structure
a mechanical means of depicting, by an arrangement of symbols, the relationships that exist among individuals, groups, and functions within an organization.
Lines of authority and responsibility and functional relationships between groups and individuals are presented graphically
Line Organization
The straight-line organization, often called the individual, military, or departmental type, is the simplest and perhaps oldest form and is seldom encountered in any but the smallest of organizations.
Line Organization
- its greatest advantage is that it is utterly simple
- a division of the work into units with a person in charge
- complete control and who can be held directly accountable for results, or lack of them
- Quick decisions can be made
- Coordination of effort is relatively easy to achieve
Line Organization - disadvantage
supervisory personnel are too often required to perform the duties of specialists because little use is made of the latter for giving advice and counsel to line units.
Functional Organization
- rarely found in present-day organizations except at or near the top level
- divides responsibility and authority among several specialists,
- Coordination of effort in this type of organization becomes difficult
- Discipline is difficult to administer because of this multiheaded leadership
- One format in which the functional organization has been very successful is the task force
Functional Organization
Task Force
- very effective in addressing a specific problem
- highly focused on coordinated effort
- their inherent violation of the unity-of-command principle causes them to get bogged down over time
- Incompatible databases and politics are among the most glaring difficulties
Line and Staff Organization
a combination of the line and functional types and is found in almost all but the very smallest police agencies today
criminalist, FTO’s, research and development specialist, PIO, and the intelligence specialist
Line supervisors must remember that they obtain advice, not command, from the staff specialists
Division of Work
how work is to be divided among the various components of the establishment.
Regardless of what basis is used for this division the division must be logical and practicable.
Division of Work
For best results, the principle of specialization and the law of productivity, as stated by Leon Alford,
require assigning to each worker the fewest possible tasks or operations in order to improve the quality and quantity of work, thereby giving the highest class of work to suit the worker’s natural abilities.
Only then is the greatest individual productivity possible
The Principle of Unity of Command
- clear-cut channels of authority
- requires that every employee be under the direct command of one superior
- applies to those who are commanded, not to those who command
- It does not relieve the supervisor from the responsibility for taking action
Span of Control
This principle has been applied to the police, military, and administrative organizations
relates to the number of subordinates who can be supervised effectively by one supervisor
This limit is small, 3 - 5 at the top level of the organization, and is broad at the lower levels
Span of Control
Supervisors can effectively reduce the span of control by delegating work
if employees receive proper training they require less supervision and control and are given sufficient authority to perform requisite tasks, supervisors will be able to devote more efforts to other matters requiring personal attention
Delegation
- the process of committing an activity to another’s care
- Proper delegation frees supervisors from routine tasks and enables them to devote more time to make broader planning activities
- it provides other worthwhile benefits to employees to whom jobs are delegated
Delegating
The average employee can and will ____________ and will perform surprisingly well when a task is delegated to them and they are given credit for its accomplishment.
accept greater responsibilities beyond their ordinary duties
Delegation Failures
done poorly when subordinates are allowed to delegate upward more quickly than supervisors learn to delegate downward.
No confidence in the subordinates.
Delegation Process
- enough authority to complete task must be delegated
- process must be consistent
- supervisors must refuse to take back what has been delegated
- preside over the process of delegation
The process of delegation loses its value as a supervisory tool if follow-up inspections are not made
Personnel Development by Delegation
the development of subordinates to perform the supervisor’s job when the supervisor is absent or unable to act
all-inclusive program of training subordinates at all levels of the hierarchy to “take over” when necessary
The Exception Principle
- Developing subordinates to take over in the boss’s absence
- the head of an organization/unit should not find it necessary to act on each matter
- supervisors should have to act only on those exceptional matters that require their personal attention
- Supervisors should reserve for themselves only those decisions subordinates are not equipped to make
Delegation of Staff Projects
- requires that the person to whom work has been assigned can complete it so that the only thing left to be done is for Supervisor to approve it.
Researching Projects
- the task assigned can be completed without an in-depth investigation and study
- sometimes it requires considerable inquiry preliminary to the submission of a formal report
Planning Projects
- Difficult and complex projects should be presented in piecemeal fashion.
- plan of action should be well coordinated, unequivocal, and supported by factual data.
- a summary report—concise, brief, and to the point—should be included
- those preparing the report should place themselves in the position of the superior to whom it is to be submitted
