Question

Jennifer is the vice-president of coding operations of a company that offers remote coding services. The company is located in the Midwest, but has client sites nationwide and in India. Jennifer oversees five regional managers and to this point each region has operated fairly autonomously. With the recent expansion to India, Jennifer saw her time spent in communication with the regional managers grow. She finds herself answering the same question multiple times and puts out the same fires across the country. Jennifer hired each regional manager and knows their capabilities well. She is confident that given the opportunity they can come together as a team and self-manage in areas such as recruitment, training, compliance, and customer satisfaction. Jennifer would be kept in the communication loop, but would not be a member of the team.

The regional managers are the following individuals.

•                     Northeast: Devon, a 31-year-old single African-American male. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology and the Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) and Certified Coding Specialist–Physician-based (CCS-P) credentials. He has been with the company for two years. He came from a consulting company where he was a remote coder for eight years. He has been vocal about the lack of minority representation and lack of a diversity plan in the company.

•                     Midwest: Sarah, a 36-year-old married white female. She has a bachelor’s degree in business and the Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT) and CCS credentials. She has been with the company for five years and has worked her way up from a temporary coder to regional manager. Sarah is concerned about the decreasing motivation among the coders in her region.

•                     South: Alice, a 62-year-old divorced white female, has a masters degree in business administration (MBA), and the Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA), CCS, and CCS-P credentials. She has been with the company from day one, almost 11 years. She came to the company from a management position at a large teaching hospital, and relocated to the South in order to care for her elderly mother. Alice is worried that the younger managers will perceive her need to care for her mother as a lack of commitment to the organization.

•                     West: Maria, a 32-year-old married white female. She has a bachelor’s degree in HIM and the RHIA credential. She has been with the company for four years and worked her way up from a temporary coder to a regional manager. Maria echoes Sarah’s concerns about decreasing motivation.

•                     India: Pavan, a 40-year-old single Indian male. He is a medical doctor (MD) with no coding credentials. He has less than one year with the company. Pavan has not vocalized any personal concerns with either Jennifer or other regional managers.

Assumptions

•                     Jennifer is the team sponsor. She expects to be kept in the communication loop.

•                     All of the US employees have met face-to-face at least once. Pavan has not met any employee in the United States face-to-face.

•                     There are no immediate plans to bring the regional managers together for face-to-face meetings.

•                     All coders go through an intensive orientation, but once they are on their own, there is no formal quality check plan. There are no written policies and procedures for recruitment, training (other than a coding orientation program), or logging of customer feedback.

•                     Current company statistics indicate that upper level management is 100 percent white female, middle level management is 87 percent white female, and coding professionals are 83 percent white female.

Create a report to send to the president of the company. The report should include the following components:

• Recommendation for creating a self-managing team including the rationale for creating the team
• Outline of communication technology to be used for meetings
• Suggest a person for appointment of a team leader and provide a rationale for the choice
• Recommendations for frequency and time for meetings
• Assessment of the need for a diversity plan
• Description of three strategies to address motivation concerns

Answer 1

Managing people effectively in extension programmes is a skill that requires constant planning and development. An extension programme manager can be defined as the person who is vested with formal authority over an organization or one of its sub units. He or she has status that leads to various interpersonal relations, and from this comes access to information. Information, in turn, enables the manager to devise strategies, make decisions, and implement action (Mintzberg, 1988). Management is concerned with the optimum attainment of organizational goals and objectives with and through other people. Extension management organizations are characterized by many strategies, wide spans of control, democracy, and autonomy. Their management practices cannot be reduced to one standard set of operating guidelines that will work for all organizations continually. However, all managers of professional organizations face the same challenge: to manage one's time, objectives, and resources in order to accomplish tasks and implement ideas (Waldron, 1994) Managers of extension programmes are painfully aware of the need for revision and development of the new skill sets held by today's high performers. If change is not handled correctly, it can be more devastating then ever before. High performers reflect, discover, assess, and act. They know that a new focus on connecting the heads, hearts, and hands of people in their organization is necessary. Astute managers know what needs to be done but struggle with how to do it. Quite often they prefer to consider themselves as teachers or communicators rather than managers. This results in under-utilization of the increasing amount of literature on management theory and practice. The root of the problem is implementation. They must learn how to motivate others and build an efficient team More formally defined, management is the process by which people, technology, job tasks, and other resources are combined and coordinated so as to effectively achieve organizational objectives. A process or function is a group of related activities contributing to a larger action. Management functions are based on a common philosophy and approach. They centre around the following 1. Developing and clarifying mission, policies, and objectives of the agency or organization 2. Establishing formal and informal organizational structures as a means of delegating authority and sharing responsibilities 3. Setting priorities and reviewing and revising objectives in terms of changing demands 4. Maintaining effective communications within the working group, with other groups, and with the larger community 5. Selecting, motivating, training, and appraising staff 6. Securing funds and managing budgets, evaluating accomplishments and 7. Being accountable to staff, the larger enterprise, and to the community at large (Waldron, 1994b).

Figure 1.Strategic planning model (Source: OMAD Strategic Planning Factsheet, 1991), Managerial Planning If long-range planning can be linked to "macro," then managerial planning can be linked to "micro." Managerial planning is the implementing of the strategic plan, it is the combining of resources to fulfil the overall objectives and missions of the organization. Managerial planning focuses on the activity of a specific unit and involves what needs to be done, by whom, when, and at what cost. The strategic planning process serves as an umbrella over the management planning process which deals with the foll 1. Establishing individual goals and objectives 2. Forecasting results and potential problems 3. Developing alternatives, selecting alternatives, and setting priorities 4. Developing associated budgets 5. Establishing personnel inputs 6. Establishing specific policies related to the unit 8. Appraising how the management unit has succeeded in meeting its goals and objectives Decision making Closely related to both strategic and managerial planning is the process of decision making. Decisions need to be made wisely under varying circumstances with different amounts of knowledge about alternatives and consequences. Decisions are concerned with the future and may be made under conditions of certainty, conditions of risk, or conditions of uncertainty. Under conditions of certainty, managers have sufficient or complete information and know exactly what the outcome of their decision will be. Managers are usually faced with a less certain environment. They may, however, know the probabilities and possible outcomes of their decisions, even though they cannot guarantee which particular outcome will actually occur. In such cases, there is a risk associated with the decision and there is a possibility of an adverse outcome. Most managerial decisions involve varying degrees of uncertainty. This is a key part of a managers activities. They must decide what goals or opportunities will be pursued, what resources are available, and who will perform designated tasks. Decision making, in this context, is more than making up your mind. It consists of several steps: Step 1: Identifying and defining the problem Step 2: Developing various alternatives Step 3: Evaluating alternatives Step 4: ISelecting an alternative Step 5 1 Implementing the alternative ! Step 6: Evaluating both the actual decision and the decision-making process