Controlling Function of Management

Controlling is a four-step process of establishing performance standards based on the firms objectives, measuring and reporting actual performance, comparing the two, and taking corrective or preventive action as necessary. This article will give you some information about controlling function of management. Performance standards come from the planning function. No matter how difficult, standards should be established for every important task. Although the temptation may be great, lowering standards to what has been attained is not a solution to performance problems. On the other hand, a manager does need to lower standards when they are found to be unattainable due to resource limitations and factors external to the business. Corrective action is necessary when performance is below standards. If performance is anticipated to be below standards, preventive action must be taken to ensure that the problem does not recur. If performance is greater than or equal to standards, it is useful to reinforce behaviors that led to the acceptable performance. Characteristics of the Control Process The control process is cyclical which means it is never finished. Controlling leads to identification of new problems that in turn need to be addressed through establishment of performance standards, measuring performance etc. Employees often view controlling negatively. By its very nature, controlling often leads to management expecting employee behavior to change. No matter how positive the changes may be for the organization, employees may still view them negatively. Control is both anticipatory and retrospective. The process anticipates problems and takes preventive action. With corrective action, the process also follows up on problems. Ideally, each person in the business views control as his or her responsibility. The organizational culture should prevent a person walking away from a small, easily solvable problem because that isnt my responsibility. In customer driven businesses, each employee cares about each customer. In quality driven dairy farms, for example, each employee cares about the welfare of each animal and the wear and tear on each piece of equipment. Controlling is related to each of the other functions of management. Controlling builds on planning, organizing and leading. Management Control Strategies Managers can use one or a combination of three control strategies or styles: market, bureaucracy and clan. Each serves a different purpose. External forces make up market control. Without external forces to bring about needed control, managers can turn to internal bureaucratic or clan

control. The first relies primarily on budgets and rules. The second relies on employees wanting to satisfy their social needs through feeling a valued part of the business. Self-control, sometimes called adhocracy control, is complementary to market, bureaucratic and clan control. By training and encouraging individuals to take initiative in addressing problems on their own, there can be a resulting sense of individual empowerment. This empowerment plays out as self-control. The self-control then benefits the organization and increases the sense of worth to the business in the individual. Designing Effective Control Systems Effective control systems have the following characteristics: 1. Control at all levels in the business (Figure 19.1) 2. Acceptability to those who will enforce decisions 3. Flexibility 4. Accuracy 5. Timeliness 6. Cost effectiveness 7. Understandability 8. Balance between objectivity and subjectivity 9. Coordinated with planning, organizing and leading Dysfunctional Consequences of Control Managers expect people in an organization to change their behavior in response to control. However, employee resistance can easily make control efforts dysfunctional. The following behaviors demonstrate means by which the managers control efforts can be frustrated: 1. Game playing> control is something to be beaten, a game between the boss and me and I want to win. 2. Resisting control> a blue flu reaction to too much control 3. Providing inaccurate information > a lack of understanding of why the information is needed and important leading to you want numbers, we will give you numbers.

4. Following rules to the letter> people following dumb and unprofitable rules in reaction to do as I say. 5. Sabotaging > stealing, discrediting other workers, chasing customers away, gossiping about the firm to people in the community 6. Playing one manager off against another > exploiting lack of communication among managers, asking a second manager if dont like the answer from the first manager. Written by: Bernard L. Erven We also suggest this relevant article if you have time: 4 basic functions of management

Four basic functions of management

Any organization, whether new or old, whether small or big need to run smoothly and achieve the goals and objectives which it has set forth. For this they had developed and implemented their own management concepts. There are basically four management concepts that allow any organization to handle the tactical, planned and set decisions. The four basic functions of the management are just to have a controlled plan over the preventive measure. The four functions of management are: The base function is to: Plan It is the foundation area of management. It is the base upon which the all the areas of management should be built. Planning requires administration to assess; where the company is presently set, and where it would be in the upcoming. From there an appropriate course of action is determined and implemented to attain the companys goals and objectives Planning is unending course of action. There may be sudden strategies where companies have to face. Sometimes they are uncontrollable. You can say that they are external factors that constantly affect a company both optimistically and pessimistically. Depending on the conditions, a company may have to alter its course of action in accomplishing certain goals. This kind of preparation, arrangement is known as strategic planning. In strategic planning, management analyzes inside and outside factors that may affect the company and so objectives and goals. Here they should have a study of strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For management to do this efficiently, it has to be very practical and ample.

The subsequent function is to: Organize

The second function of the management is getting prepared, getting organized. Management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function. Through this process, management will now determine the inside directorial configuration; establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources. While determining the inside directorial configuration, management ought to look at the different divisions or departments. They also see to the harmonization of staff, and try to find out the best way to handle the important tasks and expenditure of information within the company. Management determines the division of work according to its need. It also has to decide for suitable departments to hand over authority and responsibilities. The third function is to: Direct

Directing is the third function of the management. Working under this function helps the management to control and supervise the actions of the staff. This helps them to assist the staff in achieving the companys goals and also accomplishing their personal or career goals which can be powered by motivation, communication, department dynamics, and department leadership. Employees those which are highly provoked generally surpass in their job performance and also play important role in achieving the companys goal. And here lies the reason why managers focus on motivating their employees. They come about with prize and incentive programs based on job performance and geared in the direction of the employees requirements. It is very important to maintain a productive working environment, building positive interpersonal relationships, and problem solving. And this can be done only with Effective communication. Understanding the communication process and working on area that need improvement, help managers to become more effective communicators. The finest technique of finding the areas that requires improvement is to ask themselves and others at regular intervals, how well they are doing. This leads to better relationship and helps the managers for better directing plans. The final function is to: Control

Control, the last of four functions of management, includes establishing performance standards which are of course based on the companys objectives. It also involves evaluating and reporting of actual job performance. When these points are studied by the management then it is necessary to compare both the things. This study on comparison of both decides further corrective and preventive actions.

In an effort of solving performance problems, management should higher standards. They should straightforwardly speak to the employee or department having problem. On the contrary, if there are inadequate resources or disallow other external factors standards from being attained, management had to lower their standards as per requirement. The controlling processes as in comparison with other three, is unending process or say continuous process. With this management can make out any probable problems. It helps them in taking necessary preventive measures against the consequences. Management can also recognize any further developing problems that need corrective actions. Effective and efficient management leads to success, the success where it attains the objectives and goals of the organizations. Of course for achieving the ultimate goal and aim management need to work creatively in problem solving in all the four functions . Management not only has to see the needs of accomplishing the goals but also has to look in to the process that their way is feasible for the company. Written by: Jayashree Pakhare

Functions of Management in Business Organizations

Managers perform certain activities or duties as they effectively and efficiently coordinate the work of others. In the early part of the twentieth century, a French industrialist named Henri Fayol first proposed that all managers perform five functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. In the mid-1950s, a management text book first used the functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling as a framework. Today, most management text books still continue to be organized around the management functions, although they have been condensed to four basic and very important ones: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Let us briefly define what each of these management functions encompasses. If you have no particular destination in mind, then you can take any road. However, if you have some place in particular you want to go, you have got to plan the best way to get there. Because organizations exist to achieve some particular purpose, someone must clearly define that purpose and the means for its achievement. Management is that someone. Managers perform the planning function, define goals, establish strategies for achieving those goals, and develop plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Managers are also responsible for arranging work to accomplish the organizations goals. We call this function organizing. When managers organize, they determine what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made. Every organization includes people, and a managers job is to work with and through people to accomplish organizational goals. This is the leading function. When managers motivate subordinates, influence individuals or teams as they work, select the most effective communication channel or deal in any way with employee behavior issues, they are leading.

The final management function is controlling. After the goals are set (planning), the plans formulated (planning), the structural arrangements determined (organizing), and the people hired, and motivated (leading) there has to be some evaluation of whether things are going as planned. To ensure that work is going as it should, managers must monitor and evaluate performance. Actual performance must be compared with the previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is managements job to get work performance back on track. This process of monitoring, comparing, and correcting is what we mean by the controlling function. Written by: Rashid Javed We also suggest this relevant article if you have time: 4 basic functions of management

How did Management Functions Change in Past Years?

I will talk about changes in management functions in the past few years in this article. I will not explain management functions in details in here, but just point out the differences. Please check some other articles on say economy if you would like to learn more about management functions in todays leadership/management. Years ago, management was the one who said yes or no to everything. It was the management function to find good ideas, good products that company will produce. Management had to find investments and make sure the company runs well. But not anymore. Functions of management have changed. Management is more and more about finding the right people to do things rather than doing things on your own. For example instead of searching for a good investment, top managements function is to find good people to run financial management or investments management in the company. Instead of searching for a good product, top management now has to search for great people to run the marketing function. Selling is not the top management function anymore. We have sales management for that! Top management is more or less just the one running/leading the whole thing. Top management needs to make sure that all calculations are right and that company runs well. They got to make sure that people are motivated enough, payed enough, and that they do not want to go to their competition. Todays market is so fast growing and our civilization has gathered so much knowledge that one cannot know everything! That is why it is managements function to find enough and right people who will be able to control all the information instead of controlling it by themselves. Written by: Matt We also suggest this relevant article if you have time: Functions of Management in Business Organizations

Staffing Function of Management

Staffing function of management has been neglected for a long time but is getting on value in last few months or maybe even years. So what is staffing function of management? What should we do in this step of management? I will try to give you a brief presentation of staffing function and I suggest you to look around or site for some more articles about basic functions of management if you want to learn some more. There are many articles here that cover this topic very well. So to the point, staffing function of management Staffing function is one of five basic functions of management. It is very important function to perform in your business process if you want to achieve goals they youve set in the first function of management (planning). Staffing is part, when you already know what kind of people you need but you do not know who those people are. So for example you know that you need a team of hard working people with one or two idea guys one guy that is administrator and will make sure everything goes smoothly and you need one more language guy you will translate everything when communicating with other countries. Once you know all that, you can move to staffing function of management. Make a list of your potential staff and then cross them out. Be careful not to eliminate someone you might need and make sure that no one in you staff knows what you are doing. People do not like when they are being selected out of the mass or even worse, not being selected out of a mass. This is more or less it, staffing functions is a selection of your staff that will help you perform well in other functions of management. Written by: Matt We also suggest this relevant article if you have time: Directing Function of Management

Five Basic Functions of Management

We already have few articles about 4 basic functions of management on say economy. But today Ive heard of a different sort of list of basic functions. And this list had 5 basic function of management on it. So I made a little bit more researching about those five functions of management and decided to write an article about it trying to present you this list. First one of five basic functions of management is planning, the same as with 4 basic functions of management. Planning is of course one of the most important parts if not the most important part of management. You need to know where you are going if you want to get there, so it is very important that you plan your path very well. Planning is necessary if you want to go on with other four functions. Make sure you know exactly what you want to do and how you are going to do it!

The second one of five basic functions of management is organizing. I n this function you need to organize everything you are going to do. You need to gather the resources, you need to know what kind of people you need for this job and similar things. Now be careful, since this is the main difference between 5 basic functions of management and 4 basic functions of management. In 4 functions version you organize everything here, while in 5 functions version you only decide what sort of people you need for this job, but not who you are going to recruit. You recruit people in third function of management that is called staffing. You need to decided who you are going to hire for achieving your goal and you need to prepare them and explain them your goals. Now it is not a mistake that staffing is a separate function. Staffing is that much important! You need to make sure you hire the right people for what you have planned. As Napoleon said, plan is only as good as people doing it. Once you have explained to them what you want them to do, comes the fourth basic function of management, leading. Now you have to lead your people through the process and help them, to help you, to achieve the goals you have set in the first function. Remember to motivate them well enough; otherwise they will not give you their best. And last but not least is the fifth basic function of management that is controlling. You have to make sure how the process went in order to improve it in the future. You need to get feedback of your work and this is what the last function is all about. Try to share it with other workers that participated in the process, it is the only fair thing to do. So five basic functions of management is nothing else but a process of work that should be applied no matter what you are doing in your life. Written by: Matt We also suggest this relevant article if you have time: 4 basic functions of management