Management has become as the significant part of our society and it is also one of the most important human activities. The field of management grew in our society during from the time human beings began in the form of social organizations to achieve the goals they could not accomplish as individuals, managing has been essential to ensure the coordination of individual efforts. A French industrialist named Henry Fayol proposed all managers perform four functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling that. As the development of society on group effort, and as many organizations have become large, the task of managers has been increasing in importance and complication. That’s why, this essay is going to describe and discuss about this four functions.
Planning is the first functions of the management process. Planning has defined as the process of setting performance objective and determining what actions should be taken to accomplish them. Though planning, a manager identifies desired result and ways to achieve them. There are four key elements to plan: objectives, actions, resources and implementation. Planning is the logical thinking through goals and making the decision as to what needs to be complete in order to achieve the organizations’ objectives. Managers use this process to plan for the future, as the blueprint to predict problems, choose the actions to avoid the difficult problems and to response the competition. As an example of planning in decision in action, consider the situation Tsuneji Uchida as President and COO Canon Inc who have lead Canon Company become the overwhelming No.1 position worldwide in all current core businesses.. Uchida must live by it values which clarify the company’s objectives and goals. First, he decided that objectives were the maintaining canon’s position as the best company in the world; expand the business operation by diversification; get high profit for company.
Second, He decided to choose the course of action. He decided to create the new digital camera with the good design and new technology for sustaining in marketing competition He decided on the lowering production costs through innovation to get higher profit. He decided to find new business domains for expand the company business.
In order to reach the aims of the organization, managers are also responsible for arranging work to accomplish the organization’s goal. Organizing is the process that managers use to establish a structure of working relationships that allow organization members to impact and cooperate to achieve organization’s goal. A manager must know their ability of inferiors in order to organize the most valuable resources of the company. Then, managers will coordinate work activities, set up the training for the employees, acquire resources, and organize the work group into a productive team. Moreover, the manager must go over the plans the team; divide the projects into units that each person can complete, link jobs together in an understandable organized and distribute the jobs to individuals. Tsuneji Uchida faced the issue of how to structure the organization. He provided the flexible direction for the staff. First, he was continue develop the strength in producing camera to build up Canon’s brand. Second, at the same time, Uchida coordinate the other team manufacture office imaging equipment like copiers generate earnings for company, and optical equipment, such as the steppers, used to produce semiconductors, boast cutting edge technology.
Every organization includes people, and management’s job is to work with and through people to accomplish organization goal. When the managers motivate subordinates, influence individual or team as they work, select the most effective communication channel or deal in any way with employees’ behavior issues, they are leading. Leadership is the power of persuasion of manager to motivate the subordinates achieving organization’s goals. For example, the managers at Canon’s company encouraged workers to fulfill the goals of the company. Leaders had contacted with workers by using open communication and were able to give awareness about the position of the company and motivated them more cooperation in production. That attributed Canon’s success to smoothly adapting to the emerging environment of digital world. Management is there to inspire subordinates to step up to the plate and find innovative means to solve organization problems.
The last function is the controlling process that guarantees plans are being supplemented properly. Controlling involves monitoring actual performance, comparing actual to standard, and taking action if necessary. This allows for the performance standard within the group to be set and communicated. At Canon’ company, the maintaining Canon’s positions and high profitability structure represent two very important management objectives to ensure continuous future growth. So, to guarantees the improvement of Canon firmly, Uchida identified the potential business in displays and in the field of medical equipment like X-ray systems capable of displaying moving images. Through this vast potential, Uchida have expanded the company business in the new field that ensured the maintenance and improvement of Canon’s business.
Overall, through the definition of four functions’
management and the virtual example about the Canon’s company, that show us these classical functions provide clear and discrete methods of classifying the activities that managers use for achieving of goals.
Moreover, a research named Henry Mintzberg identified the set of the management roles about informational roles, interpersonal roles, and decisional roles. His conclusion that the typical are not a systematic person who carefully decides how to plan, organize, lead, and control. So, the four function’s Fayol and the management roles’ Minztberg which one is correct? In fact, each has their own merit. Fayol’s approach is quite similar to Mintzberg’s way of classifying manager’s jobs. Mintzberg suggests that managers have quite similar roles as they have to be able to be a leader and communicate well. In additional, Fayol said that one of the four functions of management was organizing. Mintzberg, as well as most theorists have said that organizing is a crucial part of managing. Without organizing there would be no need for a manager. So, Fayol’s traditional approach was the frame of the underlying management that the theorists got his ideas and then expanded on them.
However, there are also some differences between Fayol’s and Minztberg’s theories. Fayol stated that there is a hierarchical chain of command in control. So if the workers only take control from one person then everyone above that person does not have control of them. So, a manager of a department is in charge of their workers but as it is essential to take control from only one person that means that the store manager cannot give the department managers workers orders. Whereas Mintzberg suggests that managers have interpersonal roles and are just a liaison for the owners of the organization. They are used purely to get across the main objectives of the business and to get the workers to do what they are supposed to do, so they are also motivators. Mintzberg doesn’t just look at the internal factors that influence managers but he also looks at the external influences as he uses the systems approach. Managers do not just spend their time planning, organizing, leading and controlling, they also do other important tasks such as dealing with customers, going to meetings and building interpersonal relationships.
Overall, the role of managers will depend on the type of organization you are working for. Therefore, there is a variation of the types of fucntions and the types of roles that managers have in an organization. As a result there cannot be one theory that can work for every single organization. The
closest theory that can is Fayol’s, but that is only because he uses a broad range of what the managers role is Fayol’s theories can be said that they were the foundation thoughts for all the theorists. Fayol’s functions still represent the most useful way of conceptualizing the manager’s job.