Functions of Management

Functions of Management

Management: Theory, Practice and Application MGT/330

The Four Functions of Management

The four functions of management are planning, organizing, leading and controlling. According to Bateman-Snell, “Planning is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals.” “Organizing is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals.” “Leading is stimulating people to be high performers.” And controlling is the function that “monitors performance and implements necessary changes.”

In the planning process usually the decisions comes from the people in charge, but not always, since there are companies that encourage their personnel to come up with ideas of how to improve their business. For the most part when the planning or business plan comes from the upper management is a done deal, they establish the plan and others follows, unless they find that the business plan is not working they stick to it until its time to improve. On the other hand some companies or organizations have teams to gather data from customers, suppliers, and any other people they come in contact with that could give them an insight of how to improve their system taking into account that they have to evolve as the world around them does, thus trying to create a system that to take the lead in a competitive world.

As mentioned earlier organization needs human, financial, physical and information interface to achieve the needed goals. Thus you need a good organizational chart detailing the business function, specifying responsibilities to each member, if necessary division within specific groups for different tasks. Also is necessary to have the resources available. In the human aspect you need people that are willing to follow the chain to work for a common goal, the physical interface is more like been able to shift things around and see...