Four Functions of Management

Four Functions of Management

Management can be defined as the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals. Management as a profession is a relatively recent development in the history of managing. For centuries, managing was basically trial-and-error. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that managers needed to become more disciplined and scientific. Since the turn of the century, many approaches have been defined and implemented. Much of what is in use today has it’s roots on these past approaches. The current model for success defines four basic functions of management as described below.

Planning

The first function of management, planning, can be defined as specifying the goals that need to be achieved and the actions required to meet those goals. Planning is often cited as the most important function management can perform. For without a direction, how can managers know where to lead or what to control? While planning is indeed critical, an organization that excels in only this function is doomed to fail. For example, managers who over plan, can stifle innovation and creativity by insisting employees “stick to the plan”. But these skills are critical to succeed in today’s competitive markets.

In my organization, the strategic planning is done each year by the Executive Committee. Four to five goals are defined and communicated to the organization. Each division then maps their goals to the corporate goals. Then each department maps their goals to the division and corporate goals.

Organizing

The second function of management, organizing, can be defined as pulling together all of the resources available to the company to achieve goals. Resources include people, money, hard assets, information, etc.

For many years, my organization treated the “org chart” as taboo. We considered ourselves entrepreneurial in spirit and felt the classic organizational chart was too constrictive and would create unnecessary bureaucracy. But as the company grew, people began creating informal organization charts just to keep track of other groups and their members. Eventually, formal charts did appear. However, most of the people resources are considered “matrixed”. That means, they can be assigned to a project that crosses organizational boundaries any time. In fact, this is encouraged.

Leading

The third function of management, leading, can be defined as directing, motivating and communicating with employees with the intent to create high performance. Much has been written about what makes a great leader and how to motivate people to work to achieve upper management goals. But the future will require a leader that can provide an environment where people can collaborate across organization (and even company) boundaries to create new ideas and innovation.

At my company, leadership attributes