Fundamentals of Management

Running head: FUNDAMENTALS OF MANAGEMENT

Fundamentals of Management

James E. Lawrence

Management: Theory, Practice, and Application

July 18, 2005

Fundamentals of Management

The greatest asset a company possesses is its personnel. To be successful, every company must build from the top down, ensuring the right individuals are in the right positions. This all starts with management and works down from there. With the right managers performing the fundamentals of management correctly, personnel under their supervision will be motivated to perform as expected and accomplish company goals and reach milestones. Successful managers are much like circus jugglers. There are plenty of distractions and everyone is watching their performance. The basic fundamentals of management are what each manger juggles to be successful. These fundamentals are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Managers who can successfully learn each of these fundamentals and apply them properly to their management duties become valuable key players in any company. For instance, a casino is dependent upon its personnel for success. Table one shows a typical management or chain of command tree for a small casino.

Table One

As table one shows the position of the Surveillance Operations Manager is a top-level management position within the organization. This position not only has its own department, but it also oversees all the other departments. The fundamentals of management are critical to this position starting with planning and organizing to leadership and control.

Planning is an everyday requirement for a Surveillance Operations Manager, and is generally the first step in beginning the workday. “Planning is the process of moving an organization from where it is (mission) to where it wants to be (vision) in a given period of time by setting it on a predetermined course of action and committing its human and physical resources” (Jones Jr., 2003, p.30). Each day brings a new set of challenges that could potentially result in losses to the company. The planning stage becomes essential in order to prevent these losses from occurring. The responsibility of the Surveillance Operations Manager is to minimize loss through careful planning and detailed instructions for department personnel to follow. The mission of the surveillance department is to reduce or prevent losses to the company while maintaining and enforcing all federal, state, and local laws, through detailed reports, close observations, and carefully gathered evidence. The vision of the surveillance department must be determined by the Surveillance Operations Manager, and is based on the needs of the department and the company. In the gaming industry, this vision changes regularly and is directly affected by changing requirements of the company, and/or outside regulatory agencies.

A key fundamental in surveillance operations is organization. Organizing the available assets and utilizing them to the fullest is paramount to the success of any surveillance department. “Organizing can be defined as the ability to efficiently establish appropriate courses of action for oneself or others to accomplish specific goals, while being able to work in a consistent, logical, orderly way for maximum personal and work-group effectiveness” (Burrows, 1996, p.103). To achieve this definition as a Surveillance Operations Manager, it is important to assemble the right personnel for the job. Once the planning process is complete it takes the right individuals with the proper knowledge and experience to accomplish the mission of the department. By setting down specific policies and procedures for personnel to follow and implementing a good training regimen, managers can ensure that department goals can be accomplished with a minimum amount of micro-management. The Surveillance Operations Manager must ensure that each individual under his/her supervision is fully trained and that all department assets are being utilized properly. Without good organizing a department will never achieve its mission and the manager will not be effective within the company. Therefore, it requires a great deal of effective leadership to be a successful manager.

One of the core requirements of being a manager is leadership. Success or failure is generally laid upon the shoulders of the leader in any group or organization. Weak leaders struggle to achieve department or company goals, while strong leaders appear to breeze through the various challenges in achieving