Four Functions Of Management

Four Functions of Management:

All Are Needed

Effective management is like any other activity, you need to concentrate on perfecting the fundamentals before you can be considered a true professional. Much like a professional baseball player spends years perfecting his throwing, catching, and hitting of a baseball вЂ" a manager must perfect his/her use of the four functions of management. The four functions (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling) are by no means easy to master, but study of the intricacies of each, along with either a good role-model or a mentor to assist along the way can help a young manager excel to the upper levels.

Planning

“Planning is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals.” (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 16) Planning can be broken down into three levels, which coincide with the management level they are normally utilized by.

Strategic planning is done by the top level of an organization and is low in detail and normally has long-term goal(s) in mind. Further, strategic management can be broken down into six major components: “(1) establishment of a mission, vision, and goals; (2) analysis of external opportunities and threats; (3) analysis of internal strengths and weaknesses; (4) SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis and strategy formulations; (5) Strategy implementation; and (6) strategic control.” (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 126)

“Tactical planning translates broad strategic goals and plans into specific goals and plans that are relevant to a definite portion of the organizationвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 123) This planning is usually accomplished by mid-level managers and deals with mid-term goals. This level of planning further defines the broad goals established by the upper-management level vision for the future of the organization.

“Operational Planning identifies specific procedures and processes required at lower levels of the organization.” (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 123) Frontline or operational managers usually accomplish operational planning. These managers spend the majority of their time planning and carrying out the normal day-to-day operations of the organization.

All of the levels of planning are plainly evident in my organization; it has well defined mission and vision statements gleaned from the strategic planning of upper-management. Middle managers that we call “Project Managers” which employ tactical planning to deliver each contract in the most profitable way possible. Finally, we have “Lead Writers” which oversee a number of writers, and use operational planning to keep their group on task in order to meet the goals and milestones as set forth by the Project Manager.

Organizing

“Organizing is assembling and the human, financial, physical, informational and other resources needed to achieve goals.” (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 17) Just as different levels of management use different levels of planning, the same can be said for organizing. Upper level managers would normally be concerned with broader views of organization such as attracting the right people to join, establishing the chain-of command, etc., while mid-level managers might be more involved in specifying job responsibilities, grouping jobs into work units, ensuring the resources are available to achieve specific goals, etc. Lower level managers would be the cement that combines resources with personnel and “…creating conditions so that people and things work together to achieve maximum success”. (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 17)

As soon as I read the definition of “organizing,” I immediately attributed this function to the Project Manager as defined in my organization. Obviously, all levels of management utilize organizing, but it really hit home with regards to the position of Project Manager, which I hope to become at some point.

Leading

Simply put, “leading is stimulating people to become high performers” (Bateman and Snell, 2007, pg. 17) Effective leading requires