Why mgnt is the process of coordinating resources to organizational goals

Functions of management are a systematic way of doing things. Management is a process to emphasize that all managers, irrespective of their aptitude or skill, engage in some inter-related functions to achieve their desired goals.

4 Functions of management are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling that managers perform to accomplish business goals efficiently.

First, managers must set a plan, organize resources according to the plan, lead employees to work towards the plan, and control everything by monitoring and measuring the plan’s effectiveness.

Management process/functions involve 4 basic activities;

1. Planning and Decision Making: Determining Courses of Action,
2. Organizing: Coordinating Activities and Resources,
3. Leading: Managing, Motivating and Directing People,
4. Controlling: Monitoring and Evaluating activities.

1. Planning and Decision Making – Determining Courses of Action

Looking ahead into the future and predicting possible trends or occurrences that are likely to influence the working situation is the most vital quality and manager’s job. Planning means setting an organization’s goals and deciding how best to achieve them.

Planning is decision-making regarding the goals and setting the future course of action from a set of alternatives to reach them.

The plan helps maintain managerial effectiveness as it works as a guide for future activities. Selecting goals as well as the paths to achieve them is what planning involves.

Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them. It requires decision-making or choosing future courses of action from among alternatives.

In short, planning means determining what the organization’s position and the situation should be in the future and decide how best to bring about that situation.

Planning helps maintain managerial effectiveness by guiding future activities.

For a manager, planning and decision-making require an ability to foresee, visualize, and look ahead purposefully.

2. Organizing – Coordinating Activities and Resources

Organizing can be defined as the process by which the established plans are moved closer to realization.

Once a manager sets goals and develops plans, his next managerial function is organizing human resources and other resources identified as necessary by the plan to reach the goal.

Organizing involves determining how activities and resources are to be assembled and coordinated.

The organization can also be defined as an intentionally formalized structure of positions or roles for people to fill in an organization.

Organizing produces a structure of relationships in an organization, and it is through these structured relationships, plans are pursued.

Organizing is part of managing, which involves establishing an intentional structure of roles for people to fill in the organization.

It is intentional in the sense of making sure that all the tasks necessary to accomplish goals are assigned to people who can do the best.

The purpose of an organizational structure is to create an environment for the best human performance.

The structure must define the task to be done. The rules so established must also be designed in light of the abilities and motivations of the people available.

Staffing is related to organizing, and it involves filling and keeping filled the positions in the organization structure.

This can be done by determining the positions to be filled, identifying the requirement of the workforce, filling the vacancies, and training employees so that the assigned tasks are accomplished effectively and efficiently.

The managerial functions of promotion, demotion, discharge, dismissal, transfer, etc.  They have also included the broad task “staffing.” staffing ensures the placement of the right person in the right position.

Organizing decides where decisions will be made, who will do what jobs and tasks, who will work for whom, and how resources will assemble.

3. Leading – Managing, Motivating, and Directing People

The third basic managerial function is leading. It is the skills of influencing people for a particular purpose or reason. Leading is considered to be the most important and challenging of all managerial activities.

Leading is influencing or prompting the organization member to work together with the interest of the organization.

Creating a positive attitude towards the work and goals among the members of the organization is called leading. It is required as it helps to serve the objective of effectiveness and efficiency by changing the behavior of the employees.

Leading involves several deferment processes and activates.

The functions of direction, motivation, communication, and coordination are considered a part of the leading processor system.

Coordinating is also essential in leading.

Most authors do not consider it a separate function of management.

Rather they regard coordinating as the essence of managership for achieving harmony among individual efforts towards accomplishing group targets.

Motivating is an essential quality for leading. Motivating is the management process of influencing people’s behavior based on knowing what cause and channel sustain human behavior in a particular committed direction.

Efficient managers need to be effective leaders.

Since leadership implies fellowship and people tend to follow those who offer a means of satisfying their own needs, hopes, and aspirations, understandably, leading involves motivation leadership styles and approaches, and communication.

4. Controlling – Monitoring and Evaluating Activities

Monitoring the organizational progress toward goal fulfillment is called controlling. Thus, monitoring progress is essential to ensure the achievement of organizational goals.

Controlling is measuring, comparing, finding deviation, and correcting the organizational activities performed to achieve the goals or objectives. Thus, controlling consists of activities like; measuring the performance, comparing with the existing standard and finding the deviations, and correcting the deviations.

Control activities generally relate to the measurement of achievement or results of actions taken to attain the goal.

Some means of controlling, like the budget for expenses, inspection records, and the record of labor hours lost, are generally familiar. Each measure also shows whether plans are working out.

If deviations persist, correction is indicated. Whenever results differ from the planned action, persons responsible are to be identified, and necessary actions must be taken to improve performance.

Thus outcomes are controlled by controlling what people do. Controlling is the last but not the least important management function process.

It is rightly said, “planning without controlling is useless.” In short, we can say the controlling enables the accomplishment of the plan.

Conclusion: Management is a process of interrelated functions.

All the management functions of its process are interrelated and cannot be skipped.

The management process designs and maintains an environment in which personnel’s, working together in groups accomplish efficiently selected aims.

All managers carry out management’s main functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. But depending on the skills and position on an organizational level, the time and labor spent in each function will differ.

Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are the 4 functions, which work as a continuous process.

Learning Outcomes

• Explain the primary functions of management.
• Differentiate between the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling functions of management.

We have defined management as a process to achieve organizational goals. A process is a set of activities that are ongoing and interrelated. Ongoing means that the activities are not done in a linear, step-by-step fashion where responsibility is passed from one activity to the next. Instead, the activities are continued as new activities are started. Interrelated means that the results of each activity influence the other activities and tasks. It is the responsibility of management to see that essential activities are done efficiently (in the best possible way) and effectively (doing the right thing).

The management process consists of four primary functions that managers must perform: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. It is important to realize that the management process is not always linear. It does not always start with planning and continue through each step until organizational goals are achieved because it is not possible to plan for every problem the organization will face. As the management process proceeds, changes and modifications are made when unforeseen events arise. Managers make sure the necessary changes are implemented and that the unity and integrity of the entire process is maintained.

The key functions in the management process are connected, but not always linear.

Planning

Planning means defining performance goals for the organization and determining what actions and resources are needed to achieve the goals. Through planning, management defines what the future of the organization should be and how to get there. Strategic plans are long-term and affect the entire organization. A strategic plan bridges the gap between what an organization is and what it will become. Tactical plans translate strategic plans into specific actions that need to be implemented by departments throughout the organization. The tactical plan defines what has to be done, who will do it, and the resources needed to do it.

For instance, recall the example used at the beginning of this module. It described how ThyssenKrupp AG decided to become an elevator manufacturing and servicing company because of increased competition from Chinese steel. The management of the company set a goal of deriving the majority of its revenue from elevator-related activities. To do this, the management team made plans to create partnerships or take over existing elevator companies. The team devised plans to develop new human resources and to acquire other material resources. The company also had to divest existing steel-related resources to raise capital for the new initiative. This example is a long-term strategic plan that will take years to complete and require many changes along the way. But it starts by defining a goal and a preliminary path to achieve it.

Organizing

Once plans are made, decisions must be made about how to best implement the plans. The organizing function involves deciding how the organization will be structured (by departments, matrix teams, job responsibilities, etc.). Organizing involves assigning authority and responsibility to various departments, allocating resources across the organization, and defining how the activities of groups and individuals will be coordinated.

In the case of ThyssenKrupp AG, the management had to determine how to support two very different sets of activities if it were to achieve its long-term goal. Management needed to continue steel production activities to provide continuity of funds as the emphasis gradually shifted to elevator production. It also had to develop new skills and resources to build the company’s elevator capabilities. A new organizational structure was needed that could support both business activities as one was downsized and the other built up.

Leading

Nearly everything that is accomplished in an organization is done by people. The best planning and organizing will not be effective if the people in the organization are not willing to support the plan. Leaders use knowledge, character, and charisma to generate enthusiasm and inspire effort to achieve goals. Managers must also lead by communicating goals throughout the organization, by building commitment to a common vision, by creating shared values and culture, and by encouraging high performance. Managers can use the power of reward and punishment to make people support plans and goals. Leaders inspire people to support plans, creating belief and commitment. Leadership and management skills are not the same, but they can and do appear in the most effective people.

It is very difficult to motivate people when plans involve radical change, particularly if they include downsizing and layoffs. Many people are naturally resistant to change. When the change means loss of jobs or status, people will be very resistant. At ThyssenKrupp, the labor unions vehemently opposed the shift from steel production to elevator manufacturing. Although the people involved in the new business functions were excited by the plans, people involved with steel production felt abandoned and demotivated. Management would have been wise to get union support for its vision of the company’s new future.

Controlling

There is a well-known military saying that says no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. This implies that planning is necessary for making preparations, but when it’s time to implement the plan, everything will not go as planned. Unexpected things will happen. Observing and responding to what actually happens is called controlling. Controlling is the process of monitoring activities, measuring performance, comparing results to objectives, and making modifications and corrections when needed. This is often described as a feedback loop, as shown in the illustration of a product design feedback loop.

Product design feedback loop

Controlling may be the most important of the four management functions. It provides the information that keeps the corporate goal on track. By controlling their organizations, managers keep informed of what is happening; what is working and what isn’t; and what needs to be continued, improved, or changed. ThyssenKrupp had little experience in elevator manufacturing when it was making plans. It was developing new products and processes and entering new markets. The management knew it could not anticipate all the difficulties it would encounter. Close monitoring as the plan progressed allowed the company to make changes and state-of-the-art innovations that have resulted in a very successful transition.

Watch the following video for an overview of the management process and a simple example of how the management functions work together.

Who Directs Each Function?

Although these functions have been introduced in a particular order, it should be apparent that the different activities happen at the same time in any one organization. The control function ensures that new plans must be created. Leaders often step up as needed when a crisis or unexpected bump demands immediate action. All managers perform all of these functions at different times, although a manager’s position or level in the organization will affect how much of his or her time is spent planning as opposed to leading or to controlling. We will look more closely at different types of managers in the next section.