Author | Xiao Xiaofeng Source | Management Wisdom Introduction / Many companies still fail to distinguish between managers and operators, blindly believing they are the same, even when problems arise. However, if this continues, they will only watch other companies make money leisurely while they themselves are busy day and night, exhausted like dogs. If you are a senior executive, such as General Manager, Deputy General Manager, HR Director, Sales Director, or Financial Director, and someone suddenly asks you: Are you an operator or a manager? You might be taken aback: Is there a difference? Operators look outward, primarily responsible for making correct decisions under uncertainty; pure managers look inward, mainly responsible for making optimal decisions under certainty. For a company to make money, it must first make good operational decisions, which can be summarized into four most important decisions: Whether to launch a project; what products to produce (or sell); how much to produce (or purchase); and at what price. These four decisions face great uncertainty, and wrong decisions can cause significant losses; they are high-risk decisions. For example, should a real estate company build more houses? It's hard to say; prices may continue to rise or may soon fall. Should it build high-end apartments or affordable housing for ordinary people? Unknown; which will sell better will only be known later. How much to build? Needs research; too many may not sell, too few may not meet demand. What price to set? Also uncertain; decide after construction. These questions have no predetermined answers, yet they are the most important. If these decisions are correct, the boss makes money easily, employees work easily, and everyone gets bonuses and dividends at year-end. Conversely, if these decisions are wrong, no matter how hard production workers sweat or salespeople run around, the company will ultimately face losses. Therefore, operators must look outward, closely monitor the market, and strive to make correct operational decisions under uncertainty. Managers are different; they look inward, mainly responsible for making optimal decisions under certainty. If a company has decided to launch a project, how to do it best given certain human, financial, and material resources? For example, how to fully motivate employees, how to finance at the lowest cost, how to procure raw materials at minimum cost while ensuring quality, how to ensure housing quality, and how to minimize construction costs—these are all optimal decision problems under certainty. Of course, there are now scientific methods, especially quantitative methods, to solve such problems, so these decisions are relatively easier than operational decisions. In a company, doing the right things is mainly the operator's job; doing things right is mainly the full-time manager's job. In the operator's eyes, the company is a whole, focusing on overall competitiveness; in the manager's eyes, the company is a system composed of multiple parts, mainly focusing on system efficiency. In the operator's eyes, the company should be a whole, and he mainly focuses on its overall competitiveness—whether it has an advantage over competitors and can outcompete them. He should not focus too much on details because he is an operator, someone who must see the big picture. Those who focus excessively on details find it hard to be good operators. Operators should look at the overall situation and focus on the whole, not overemphasize details. For example, in the operator's eyes, the company should be just a fist, mainly looking at whether the fist has strength and can beat others, not overemphasizing whether the fist has four or five fingers, which finger is long or short, which is strong or weak—these are not his concerns. On the contrary, these should be the concerns of full-time managers. Because in the manager's eyes, the company is a system composed of multiple parts (departments), and they mainly focus on system efficiency, i.e., the input-output relationship. If they can achieve more output with less input, they succeed as managers. For a system to be efficient, its subsystems must be efficient. Theoretically, a manager needs to do three things well: first, allocate resources reasonably among departments; second, fully motivate each department; third, leverage synergies to improve overall efficiency. These are also the three criteria for scientifically evaluating a manager's success. Managers should be busy and tired, while operators should have leisure time to sip tea, read newspapers, listen to music, and socialize. Many operators, especially small and medium enterprise owners, are entrepreneurs who complain of being busy and tired. These bosses must pay special attention to "role transformation," and should and must extricate themselves from specific management tasks, gradually transforming into far-sighted operators, from a busy and tired manager to an operator with leisure time to sip tea, read newspapers, listen to music, and socialize. Operators should make full-time managers tired and busy, while they have leisure time for other things, giving them enough time to consider major strategic issues, especially operational and development issues, so their companies can become bigger and stronger. Operators must establish systems and order within the company to ensure it operates normally even when they are absent, and continuously receive feedback from subordinates—this is key to successful delegation. There must be institutional guarantees for "information acquisition." Lack of understanding of internal issues and information will inevitably affect senior operators' strategic decisions and may cause significant losses. Therefore, necessary information communication systems, such as regular meetings and monthly summary reports, are essential. From the above analysis, the relationship between operators and managers can be described as: an operator is also a manager because he has at least a group of direct subordinates to manage; but a manager is not necessarily an operator; he is just a pure manager because he does not bear significant responsibility for company profits. Most senior executives today are both operators and managers. -END- The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for distributors and enterprises Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brands | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]