Management

Management is the process used to accomplish organizational goals through planning, organizing, directing and controlling people and other organizational resources. This definition spells out the four key functions of management: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.

Planning. The planning function is the capstone activity of management. Planning activities determine an organization’s objectives and establish the appropriate strategies for achieving those objectives. Planning is done by all managers at every level of the organization.

Organizing. After managers develop objectives and plans to achieve the objectives, they must design and develop an organization that will be able to accomplish the objectives. Thus, the purpose of the organizing function is to create a structure of task and authority relationships that serves this purpose.

Directing. Sometimes called leading or motivating, directing function involves influencing the members of the organization to perform in ways that accomplish the organization’s objectives.

Directing focuses directly on the people in the organization, since its major purpose is to channel human behaviour toward accomplishing organizational goals.

Controlling. Finally, a manager must make sure that the actual performance of the organization conforms with the performance that was planned for the organization. This is the controlling function of management.

At this point, one should note that the management process does not involve four separate or unrelated activities but a group of closely related functions. Also the four functions do not necessarily occur in the sequence which has been presented. In fact, the only time they might do so is when a new organization is being formed. In reality, various combinations of the four activities usually occur simultaneously.