Management
performs the functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and
controlling for the accomplishment of organizational goals. Any person who
performs these functions is a manager. The first line manager or supervisor or
foreman is also a manager because he performs these functions. The difference
between the functions of top, middle and lowest level
management is that of degree. For instance, top management concentrates more on
long-range planning, organization, middle level management concentrates more on
coordination and control, and lowest level management concentrates more on
direction function to get the things done from the workers.
Every
manager is concerned with ideas, things and people. Management is a creative
process for integrating the use of resources to accomplish certain goals. In
this process, ideas, things and people are vital inputs which are to be
transformed into output consistent with the goals.
Management
of ideas implies use of conceptual skills. It has three connotations. First, it refers to the need for
practical philosophy of management to regard management as a distinct and
scientific process. Second,
management of ideas refers to the planning phase of management process. Lastly, management of ideas refers to
distinction and innovation. Creativity refers to generation of new ideas, and
innovation refers to transforming ideas into viable relations and utilities. A
manager must be imaginative to plan ahead and to create new Ideas.
Management
of things (non-human resources) deal with the design of production system, and
acquisition, allocation and conversion of physical resources to achieve certain
goals. Management of people is concerned with procurement, development,
maintenance and integration of human resources in the organization.
Every manager has to direct his subordinates to put the organizational plans
into practice.
The
greater part of every manager's time is spent in communicating and dealing with
people. His efforts are directed towards obtaining information and evaluating
progress towards objectives set by him and then taking corrective action. Thus,
a manager's job primarily consists of management of people. Though it is his
duty to handle all the productive resources, but human factor is more
important. A manager cannot convert the raw materials into finished products
himself; he has to take the help of others to do this. The greatest problem
before any manager is how to manage the personnel to get the best possible
results. The manager in the present age has to deal efficiently with the people
who are to contribute for the achievement of organizational goals.
Peter F.
Drucker has advocated that the managerial approach to handle workers and work
should be pragmatic and dynamic. Every job should be designed as an integrated
set of operations. The workers should be given a sufficient measure of freedom
to organize and control their work environment. It is the duty of every manager
to educate, train and develop people below him so that they may use their
potentialities and abilities to perform the work allotted to them. He has also
to help them in satisfying their needs and working under him, he must provide
them with proper environment. A manager must create a climate which brings in
and maintains satisfaction and discipline among the people. This will increase
organizational effectiveness.
Recently,
it has been questioned whether planning, organizing, and directing and
controlling provides an adequate description of the management process. After
an intensive observation of what five top executive actually
did during the course of a few days at work, Henry Mintzberg concluded that
these labels do not adequately capture the reality of what managers do. He
suggested instead that the manager should be regarded as playing some ten
different roles, in no particular order.
MANAGEMENT
FUNCTIONS
There is
enough disagreement among management writers on the classification of
managerial functions. Newman and Summer recognize only four functions, namely,
organizing, planning, leading and controlling.
Henri Fayol
identifies five functions
of management, viz.
planning, organizing, commanding,
coordinating and controlling.
Luther Gulick states seven such
functions under the catch word "POSDCORB' which stands for planning,
organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting. Warren
Haynes and Joseph Massie classify management functions into decision-making,
organizing, staffing, planning, controlling, communicating and directing.
Koontz and O'Donnell divide these functions into planning organizing, staffing,
directing and controlling.
For our
purpose, we shall designate the following six as the functions of a manager:
planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating and controlling.
Planning:
Planning is the most fundamental and
the most pervasive of all management functions. If people working in groups have
to perform effectively, they should know in advance what is to be done, what
activities they have to perform in order to do what is to be done, and when it
is to be done. Planning is concerned with 'what', 'how, and 'when' of
performance. It is deciding in the present about the future objectives and the
courses of action for their achievement. It thus involves:
1. determination
of long and short-range objectives;
2. development
of strategies and courses of actions to be followed for the achievement of
these objectives; and
3. formulation
of policies, procedures, and rules, etc., for the implementation of strategies,
and plans.
The
organizational objectives are set by top management in the context of its basic
purpose and mission, environmental factors, business forecasts, and available
and potential resources. These objectives are both long-range as well as
short-range. They are divided into divisional, departmental,
sectional and individual objectives or goals. This is followed by the
development of strategies and courses of action to be followed at various
levels of management and in various segments of the organization. Policies,
procedures and rules provide the framework of decision making, and the method
and order for the making and implementation of these decisions.
Every
manager performs all these planning functions, or contributes to their
performance. In some organizations, particularly those which are traditionally
managed and the small ones, planning are often not done deliberately and
systematically but it is still done. The plans may be in the minds of their
managers rather than explicitly and precisely spelt out: they may be fuzzy rather
than clear but they are always there. Planning is thus the most basic function
of management. It is performed in all kinds of organizations by all managers at
all levels of hierarchy.
Organizing:
Organizing involves identification
of activities required for the achievement of enterprise objectives and
implementation of plans; grouping of activities into jobs; assignment of these
jobs and activities to departments and individuals; delegation of
responsibility and authority for performance, and provision for vertical and
horizontal coordination of activities. Every manager has to decide what
activities have to be undertaken in his department or section for the
achievement of the goals entrusted to him. Having identified the activities, he
has to group identical or similar activities in order to make jobs, assign
these jobs or groups of activities to his subordinates, delegate authority to
them so as to enable them to make decisions and initiate action for undertaking
these activities, and provide for coordination between himself andhis subordinates, and among his subordinates. Organizing thus
involves the following sub-functions:
1. Identification
of activities required for the achievement of objectives and implementation of
plans.
2. Grouping
the activities so as to create self-contained jobs.
3. Assignment
of jobs to employees.
4. Delegation
of authority so as to enable them to perform their jobs and to command the
resources needed for their performance.
5. Establishment
of a network of coordinating relationships.
Organizing
process results in a structure of the organization. It comprises organizational
positions, accompanying tasks and responsibilities, and a network of roles and
authority-responsibility relationships.
Organizing
is thus the basic process of combining and integrating human, physical and
financial resources in productive interrelationships for the achievement of
enterprise objectives. It aims at combining employees and interrelated tasks in
an orderly manner so that organizational work is performed in a coordinated
manner, and all efforts and activities pull together in the direction of
organizational goals.
Directing:
Directing is the function of leading
the employees toperform efficiently, and contribute their optimum to the
achievement of organizational objectives. Jobs assigned to subordinates have to
be explained and clarified, they have to be provided guidance in job
performance and they are to be motivated to contribute their
optimum performance with zeal and enthusiasm. The function of directing thus
involves the following sub-functions:
1. Communication
2. Motivation
3. Leadership
Coordination: Coordinating is the function of
establishing suchrelationships among various parts of the organization that
they all together pull in the direction of organizational objectives. It is
thus the process of tying together all the organizational decisions,
operations, activities and efforts so as to achieve unity of action for the
accomplishment of organizational objectives.
The
significance of the coordinating process has been aptly highlighted by Mary
Parker Follet. The manager, in her view, should ensure that he has an
organization "with all its parts coordinated, so moving together in their
closely knit and adjusting activities, so linking, interlocking and
interrelation, that they make a working unit, which is not a congeries of
separate pieces, but what I have called a functional whole or integrative
unity". Coordination, as a management function, involves the following
sub-functions:
1. Clear
definition of authority-responsibility relationships
2. Unity
of direction
3. Unity
of command
4. Effective
communication
Controlling: Controlling is the function of
ensuring that thedivisional, departmental, sectional and individual performances
are consistent with the predetermined objectives and goals. Deviations from
objectives and plans have to be identified and investigated, and correction
action taken. Deviations from plans and objectives provide feedback to
managers, and all other management processes including planning, organizing,
staffing, directing and coordinating are continuously reviewed and modified,
where necessary.
Controlling implies that objectives,
goals and standards of performance exist and are known to employees and their
superiors. It also implies a flexible and dynamic organization which will
permit changes in objectives, plans, programmes, strategies, policies,
organizational design, staffing policies and practices, leadership style,
communication system, etc., for it is not uncommon that employees failure to
achieve predetermined standards is due to defects or shortcomings in any one or
more of the above dimensions of management.
Thus,
controlling involves the following process:
1. Measurement
of performance against predetermined goals.
2. Identification
of deviations from these goals.
3. Corrective
action to rectify deviations.
It may
be pointed out that although management functions have been discussed in a
particular sequence-planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating and
controlling – they are not performed in a sequential order. Management is an
integral process and it is difficult to put its functions neatly in separate
boxes. Management functions tend to coalesce, and it
sometimes becomes difficult to separate one from the other. For example, when a
production manager is discussing work problems with one of his subordinates, it
is difficult to say whether he is guiding, developing or communicating, or
doing all these things simultaneously. Moreover, managers often perform more
than one function simultaneously.
CONCLUSION
I can’t be
a good leader without followers so there is a need to understand how to
motivate people to buy into my agenda. Motivation is what makes employee’s act
in certain ways, so how can I as a manager achieve this?
Understanding
peoples motives - their reasons for doing something is the key to becoming a
good leader
One of the
main theories relating to motivation is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. As a
manager, it should be noted that people have needs. A need is a lack of
something we want. This produces the drive and desire which motivates us to
satisfy that need. Satisfying their need or getting the thing we want or lack
is the goal.
Maslow’s
theory of the motivation is called “hierarchy of needs”. Maslow believes that
people have five main needs in the following order of importance:-
Physiological needs:
1. The
need to eat
2. The
need to drink
3. The
need to work
4. The
need to sleep
5. The
need to reproduce
6. The
need for shelter
7. The
need to feel secure
Belonging needs
1. The
need to feel part of a group
2. The
need for acceptance
Self esteem needs:
1. The
need to feel good about themselves
2. The
need to be recognized for their achievement
Self-realization needs
1. The
need for personal fulfillment
2. The
need to grow and develop Maslow believes that people would not move on down
this list to be motivated by the next set(s) had been satisfied.
We as
managers need to apply Maslow’s ideas to understanding the need of people at
work for determining what can be done to satisfy them. This theory advices us
as managers to recognize that deprived need play negatively influence attitude
and behaviors. Similarly, providing opportunities for need satisfaction may
have positive motivational consequence.
References
Albers, H. H., (1982):
Management – The Basic Concepts, Second Edition. Robert E, Krieger Publishing
Company.
Western Illinois
University, 218-219.
Aldag, R. J., Stearms,
T.M. (1987): Management, South-Western Publishing Co., 442-443.
Brenner, V.C.;
Carmack, C. W.; Weinstein, M.G., (1971): An Empirical Test of the motivation –
Hygiene theory, Journal of Accounting research, 359-366