The Four Functions of Management and How It Relates to My Organization

The Four Functions of Management and How it Relates to My Organization

In today’s corporate world a manager to be affective must be able to incorporate the four functions of management (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling) into his or her management techniques. Managers who fail to implement the four functions have a greater chance of being unsuccessful in accomplishing the primary outcome for the project or task. Thus, generating an inferior product.

DEFINING THE FOUR FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT

“Planning: is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 16).

“Organizing: is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 17).

“Leading: is stimulating people to be high performers. It is directing, motivating, and communicating with employees, individually and in groups. Leading involves close day-to-day contact with people, helping to guide and inspire them toward achieving team and organizational goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 17).

“Controlling: monitors progress and implements necessary changes where needed. Monitoring is an essential aspect of control” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 18).

As you can see after defining the four functions of management that they prove to be a vital component for a manager and for the success of his or her team or organization in achieving the goals set forth in a particular project. In my company (NUS Consulting Group), I am an Energy Consultant and each function is important for us as well. Each day in my organization, we generate recommendations in the form of a report detailing how our clients can reduce their overall costs in electricity, gas, water, sewer, and any other commodity they wish my company to audit and analyze.

However, in some cases we need to develop strategies for them to improve their efficiency, improve their machinery, install backup generation, etc. In these scenarios, a team is developed with the consultant being the project manager or point man. Therefore, these projects require the four functions to be followed so we can develop the best possible solution. The first function used is “Planning”, which allows us to outline a strategy catering to the specific needs of our client. The “Planning” function also gives us a time table on how long the project will take to complete, who needs to be involved, and how we expect to accomplish each goal.

Next, we dive into the “Organizing” function were I divide the workload among the various members of the team, while delegating additional responsibilities to team members where needed. Additional responsibilities cover contacting suppliers and vendors, pricing equipment, studying the utility market, and gaining insight into alternate strategies to accomplishing the same project.

As the “Organizing’ function gets under way, and team members work through their portion the “Leading” function for me kicks into high