Fayols 14 Principles

HOW FAYOL'S 14 PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT

ARE USED IN A MILITARY ENVIRONMENT

By

Mark Culligan

"The process of coordinating and integrating work activities so that they are completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people".

(Henri Fayol "General and Industrial Management."(1916))

Introduction

Management is a very complex field. Not only must managers pay attention to what is best for the organization, but they also have to do what is best for their customers. At the same time, the manager must satisfy the need of their employees. Henri Fayol developed fourteen principles of management in 1916 that organisations are recommended to apply to order to run properly. This paper will show how some of Fayols principles are still demonstrated today in the military environment to which I work.

Management

The term "management" characterizes the process of and/or the personnel leading and directing all or part of an organization (often a business) through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible).1 Fayols 14 priciples in effect cover all parts of what a good manager should aim to achieve

and to achieve this, managers must undertake the following roles and actions.

* to forcast and plan

* to organise

* to command

* to co-ordinate

* to control

However, Fayol himself cautioned that managers could not operate solely on the basis of these principles--managers needed to know more than how to plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. Each business was different, and managers had to have extensive knowledge of the businesses they managed.3

"I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people."2 (Thomas Watson 1963)

Fayol Principles within the Military

Most of Fayols principles can be found within the working military environment in which I work moreover here are some of the main principles to which I can identify with.

* Authority. In the army rank is automatically attached to authority the higher in rank you become then the more authority you gain furthermore a higher state of responsibility arises. If authority is delegated down the ranks the responsibility of the task or goal remains with the delegating soldier.

* Discipline. Soldiers within the military are trained to obey military law, which are in effect the rules that govern the organisation. If the employee breaks the rules then they understand how hard the will be punisher depending on the severity of the crime.

* Unity of Command. As most organisations I receive my orders from one commander and this continues up the chain all the way up to the government.

* Unity of Direction. This goes hand in hand with the Unity of Command. All the departments in the military unit which I work all have one head but seek to achieve different aims however collectively as a unit have the same goal which is to train visiting units.

* Centralization. In all military units there is a centralised place within a unit which is called Headquarters from here all the data from the unit is centralized and orders are given to keep the unit going in the right direction. Headquarters collects many kinds of data about the unit ranging from personnel records to vehicles within the unit furthermore headquarters report to the next level up which would be the Garrison Headquarters and so on.

* Order. This also comes from the unit Headquarters and fed down the chain using orders to which a unit, sub unit or individual must comply to.

* Equity. Each year we have certain training objectives each individual soldier must achieve the great example is Equal Opportunities and Diversity. This informs the soldier that he must treat