Management Functions

Management Functions

The four basic management functions that make up the management process are described in the following sections:

ü  Planning

ü  Organizing

ü  Influencing

ü  Controlling.

1 Planning

Planning involves choosing tasks that must be performed to attain organizational goals, outlining how the tasks must be performed, and indicating when they should be performed. Planning activity focuses on attaining goals. Managers outline exactly what organizations should do to be successful. Planning is concerned with the success of the organization in the short term as well as in the long term.

2 Organizing

Organizing can be thought of as assigning the tasks developed in the planning stages, to various individuals or groups within the organization. Organizing is to create a mechanism to put plans into action. People within the organization are given work assignments that contribute to the company’s goals. Tasks are organized so that the output of each individual contributes to the success of departments, which, in turn, contributes to the success of divisions, which ultimately contributes to the success of the organization.

3 Influencing

Influencing is also referred to as motivating, leading or directing. Influencing can be defined as guiding the activities of organization members in the direction that helps the organization move towards the fulfilment of the goals.

The purpose of influencing is to increase productivity. Human-oriented work situations usually generate higher levels of production over the long term than do task oriented work situations because people find the latter type distasteful.

4 Controlling

Controlling is the following roles played by the manager:

ü Gather information that measures performance

ü Compare present performance to pre established performance norms.

ü Determine the next action plan and modifications for meeting the desired performance parameters. Controlling is an ongoing process.