The Functions of Management

Running head: THE FOUR FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT

The Functions of Management

Successful management is accomplished through four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. According to Bateman-Snell, planning is the management function of systematically making decisions about the goals and activities that an individual, a group, a work unit, or the overall organization will pursue in the future. Organizing is the management function of assembling and coordinating human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals. Leading is the management function that involves the manager's efforts to stimulate high performance by employees. Controlling is the management function of monitoring progress and making needed changes. In a Business Management setting the four functions of management are applied and utilized in order to achieve high levels of success.

The first function is planning. In this function, you are setting goals and objectives and scheduling the steps to achieve the goals in a certain time. Then you need to decide on the resources that are needed to ensure that the objectives are met.

Pre-planning can save a tremendous amount of time. One way to do this is to use SWOT analysis completed by senior management before you even start the planning process. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Completing a SWOT analysis will save you almost an entire hour in the planning process (Rowland, R. p.4).

At a professional business; they are constantly planning on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. On a daily basis, they are planning meetings, better ways to serve customers, operation of the facility, and attendance of employees. On a weekly basis, they are planning activities for clients. On a monthly basis, there is the paperwork that needs to be submitted, financial decisions to be made, and detailed reports of the facility.

The next function is organizing. In this function they are allocating and configuring resources to accomplish the goals and objectives. A CEO of a major company uses organizational charts, which outline the various areas of functional responsibility and levels of authority, the hierarchy of the company. He said, "Of course, that is not the way that it works." He then proceeded to draw a number of dotted lines across the various functional divisions and levels of authority, explaining that these were the lines of communication which really governed day-to-day operations. He was astute enough to recognize that while organization charts are necessary to define responsibility and accountability, they cannot be allowed to define channels of communication and even the responsibility for taking action. Otherwise, the company would be so slow and cumbersome in making decisions and taking action that it would be almost totally ineffective (Suutari, p12-14). In a business, this function is put to use in order to be effective in goals of being a successful and profitable company. The capacity as to how many clients are served by the facility, the files must be organized and up-dated, and the ratio of clients to employees must be organized.

Then, there is the leading function of management. In this function leading is establishing direction and influencing people to follow that direction. This