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1.5 Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling

Learning objectives.

  • Know the dimensions of the planning-organizing-leading-controlling (P-O-L-C) framework.
  • Know the general inputs into each P-O-L-C dimension.

A manager’s primary challenge is to solve problems creatively. While drawing from a variety of academic disciplines, and to help managers respond to the challenge of creative problem solving, principles of management have long been categorized into the four major functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (the P-O-L-C framework). The four functions, summarized in the P-O-L-C figure, are actually highly integrated when carried out in the day-to-day realities of running an organization. Therefore, you should not get caught up in trying to analyze and understand a complete, clear rationale for categorizing skills and practices that compose the whole of the P-O-L-C framework.

It is important to note that this framework is not without criticism. Specifically, these criticisms stem from the observation that the P-O-L-C functions might be ideal but that they do not accurately depict the day-to-day actions of actual managers (Mintzberg, 1973; Lamond, 2004). The typical day in the life of a manager at any level can be fragmented and hectic, with the constant threat of having priorities dictated by the law of the trivial many and important few (i.e., the 80/20 rule). However, the general conclusion seems to be that the P-O-L-C functions of management still provide a very useful way of classifying the activities managers engage in as they attempt to achieve organizational goals (Lamond, 2004).

Figure 1.7 The P-O-L-C Framework

image

Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives. Planning requires that managers be aware of environmental conditions facing their organization and forecast future conditions. It also requires that managers be good decision makers.

Planning is a process consisting of several steps. The process begins with environmental scanning which simply means that planners must be aware of the critical contingencies facing their organization in terms of economic conditions, their competitors, and their customers. Planners must then attempt to forecast future conditions. These forecasts form the basis for planning.

Planners must establish objectives, which are statements of what needs to be achieved and when. Planners must then identify alternative courses of action for achieving objectives. After evaluating the various alternatives, planners must make decisions about the best courses of action for achieving objectives. They must then formulate necessary steps and ensure effective implementation of plans. Finally, planners must constantly evaluate the success of their plans and take corrective action when necessary.

There are many different types of plans and planning.

Strategic planning involves analyzing competitive opportunities and threats, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and then determining how to position the organization to compete effectively in their environment. Strategic planning has a long time frame, often three years or more. Strategic planning generally includes the entire organization and includes formulation of objectives. Strategic planning is often based on the organization’s mission, which is its fundamental reason for existence. An organization’s top management most often conducts strategic planning.

Tactical planning is intermediate-range (one to three years) planning that is designed to develop relatively concrete and specific means to implement the strategic plan. Middle-level managers often engage in tactical planning.

Operational planning generally assumes the existence of organization-wide or subunit goals and objectives and specifies ways to achieve them. Operational planning is short-range (less than a year) planning that is designed to develop specific action steps that support the strategic and tactical plans.

Organizing is the function of management that involves developing an organizational structure and allocating human resources to ensure the accomplishment of objectives. The structure of the organization is the framework within which effort is coordinated. The structure is usually represented by an organization chart, which provides a graphic representation of the chain of command within an organization. Decisions made about the structure of an organization are generally referred to as organizational design decisions.

Organizing also involves the design of individual jobs within the organization. Decisions must be made about the duties and responsibilities of individual jobs, as well as the manner in which the duties should be carried out. Decisions made about the nature of jobs within the organization are generally called “job design” decisions.

Organizing at the level of the organization involves deciding how best to departmentalize, or cluster, jobs into departments to coordinate effort effectively. There are many different ways to departmentalize, including organizing by function, product, geography, or customer. Many larger organizations use multiple methods of departmentalization.

Organizing at the level of a particular job involves how best to design individual jobs to most effectively use human resources. Traditionally, job design was based on principles of division of labor and specialization, which assumed that the more narrow the job content, the more proficient the individual performing the job could become. However, experience has shown that it is possible for jobs to become too narrow and specialized. For example, how would you like to screw lids on jars one day after another, as you might have done many decades ago if you worked in company that made and sold jellies and jams? When this happens, negative outcomes result, including decreased job satisfaction and organizational commitment, increased absenteeism, and turnover.

Recently, many organizations have attempted to strike a balance between the need for worker specialization and the need for workers to have jobs that entail variety and autonomy. Many jobs are now designed based on such principles as empowerment, job enrichment and teamwork . For example, HUI Manufacturing, a custom sheet metal fabricator, has done away with traditional “departments” to focus on listening and responding to customer needs. From company-wide meetings to team huddles, HUI employees know and understand their customers and how HUI might service them best (Huimfg, 2008).

Leading involves the social and informal sources of influence that you use to inspire action taken by others. If managers are effective leaders, their subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort to attain organizational objectives.

The behavioral sciences have made many contributions to understanding this function of management. Personality research and studies of job attitudes provide important information as to how managers can most effectively lead subordinates. For example, this research tells us that to become effective at leading, managers must first understand their subordinates’ personalities, values, attitudes, and emotions.

Studies of motivation and motivation theory provide important information about the ways in which workers can be energized to put forth productive effort. Studies of communication provide direction as to how managers can effectively and persuasively communicate. Studies of leadership and leadership style provide information regarding questions, such as, “What makes a manager a good leader?” and “In what situations are certain leadership styles most appropriate and effective?”

1.5

Quality control ensures that the organization delivers on its promises.

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center – Maize seed quality control at small seed company Bidasem – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Controlling

Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards. Controlling consists of three steps, which include (1) establishing performance standards, (2) comparing actual performance against standards, and (3) taking corrective action when necessary. Performance standards are often stated in monetary terms such as revenue, costs, or profits but may also be stated in other terms, such as units produced, number of defective products, or levels of quality or customer service.

The measurement of performance can be done in several ways, depending on the performance standards, including financial statements, sales reports, production results, customer satisfaction, and formal performance appraisals. Managers at all levels engage in the managerial function of controlling to some degree.

The managerial function of controlling should not be confused with control in the behavioral or manipulative sense. This function does not imply that managers should attempt to control or to manipulate the personalities, values, attitudes, or emotions of their subordinates. Instead, this function of management concerns the manager’s role in taking necessary actions to ensure that the work-related activities of subordinates are consistent with and contributing toward the accomplishment of organizational and departmental objectives.

Effective controlling requires the existence of plans, since planning provides the necessary performance standards or objectives. Controlling also requires a clear understanding of where responsibility for deviations from standards lies. Two traditional control techniques are budget and performance audits. An audit involves an examination and verification of records and supporting documents. A budget audit provides information about where the organization is with respect to what was planned or budgeted for, whereas a performance audit might try to determine whether the figures reported are a reflection of actual performance. Although controlling is often thought of in terms of financial criteria, managers must also control production and operations processes, procedures for delivery of services, compliance with company policies, and many other activities within the organization.

The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are widely considered to be the best means of describing the manager’s job, as well as the best way to classify accumulated knowledge about the study of management. Although there have been tremendous changes in the environment faced by managers and the tools used by managers to perform their roles, managers still perform these essential functions.

Key Takeaway

The principles of management can be distilled down to four critical functions. These functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. This P-O-L-C framework provides useful guidance into what the ideal job of a manager should look like.

  • What are the management functions that comprise the P-O-L-C framework?
  • Are there any criticisms of this framework?
  • What function does planning serve?
  • What function does organizing serve?
  • What function does leading serve?
  • What function does controlling serve?

Huimfg.com, http://www.huimfg.com/abouthui-yourteams.aspx (accessed October 15, 2008).

Lamond, D, “A Matter of Style: Reconciling Henri and Henry,” Management Decision 42, no. 2 (2004): 330–56.

Mintzberg, H. The Nature of Managerial Work (New York: Harper & Row, 1973); D. Lamond, “A Matter of Style: Reconciling Henri and Henry,” Management Decision 42 , no. 2 (2004): 330–56.

Principles of Management Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Management Notes

Organizing

Organizing – Meaning, Importance, Process, Principles and Approaches | Principles of Management (POM)

Meaning of Organizing

Organizing refers to grouping elements of an organization in the most effective way. To accomplish an organization’s goals efficiently and effectively, all its resources must be integrated and coordinated to define the essential relationships between people, tasks, and activities.

Importance of Organizing

The following are the importance of organizing.

a) Enhances organizational efficiency: As part of organizing, a structure is built which defines the activities involved and their relationships. By doing so, confusion and delays in the completion of the work can be avoided. As a result, duplication of effort and overlap of efforts are further reduced. It is established that coordination will take place. As a result, organizational efficiency increases.

b) Specialization is facilitated : There is a clear definition of the duties and responsibilities of the employees in the structure. Employees are knowledgeable about their jobs. The result is that they are able to perform their duties more efficiently, resulting in a specialization of their jobs.

c) Optimal use of human and other resources: It is important to organize so that the right person is hired for the right position. In addition to motivating employees toward their individual goals, it also motivates them toward the team goals. A reduction in costs is also achieved through specialization. Besides allocating organizational resources effectively, it also ensures the effectiveness of other processes

d) Communication effectiveness : Communication between departments or units of an organization is facilitated by organizing. There are structural relationships between different jobs and positions. Communication channels and modes are specified between departments or units.

e) Diversification and growth : Organizational activities can be carried out smoothly when resources are optimally utilized and work is divided among departments. By facing environmental challenges, organizations can expand and grow.

f) Employee development : It is easier for employees to develop their skills and knowledge when the roles and activities are clearly defined. By building shared goals between employees and the organization, a sustainable organization can be created.

g) Relationships of authority and responsibility are established: Relationships among members of an organization are determined by the organizational structure. As a result, job performance is more efficient. It becomes apparent to all members what their responsibilities are. As a result, they also become more cooperative. Ultimately, it contributes to a congenial work environment.

h) Enhances productivity and job satisfaction : Clarifying job positions is part of organizing. Each level has clearly defined roles. As a result, employees feel more secure and satisfied. Job satisfaction depends heavily on this.

Process of Organizing

The process of organizing is complex. It requires a thorough understanding of organizational policies, plans, and strategies. Following are the steps involved in organizing.

a) Defining the objectives: Organizations are established to accomplish certain goals. As a result, an organization’s long- and short-term objectives are essential. Long-term objectives should be supported by short-term objectives. It is important to set measurable, realistic, achievable, and attainable objectives.

b) Identifying and grouping activities Identification of activities: Identifying all organizational activities is the first step in organizing. Depending on the size and nature of the organization, organizational activities may vary. Among them are finance and accounting, production and operation, marketing and sales, human resources, and research and development. It is called departmentalization when related activities are combined and grouped into units or departments. Departments and units are divided into sub-departments or groups when related activities are grouped together. Specialization can be achieved by grouping activities. An organization’s needs should be considered along with the human factor, the nature of its activities, and the nature of its activities.

c) Responsibilities and duties are assigned: Different individuals are assigned responsibilities and duties according to their skill, knowledge, abilities, and aptitudes in this step. Everyone has a clear understanding of their responsibilities. The goal is to avoid duplication of effort and overlapping of work. Individuals are assigned specific jobs based on their qualifications and made responsible for their accomplishments.

d) Authority delegation: Each individual is delegated authority to perform the assigned duties effectively after duties have been assigned. You should delegate authority in proportion to the responsibilities you have been assigned. From the top of the structure down, delegation of authority establishes a clear hierarchy of authority.

e) Coordination of activities: Coordinating activities is part of organizing. In order to achieve a common goal, activities are arranged in an orderly manner. This ensures harmony and synchronization between different departments and groups. It is necessary to coordinate activities in order to prevent conflicts between employees and departments, duplication of work, and time and effort waste. Besides ensuring that all departments are doing their jobs, it also facilitates harmony between them.

f) Identifying positions and distinguishing them: It is also important to differentiate between line and staff positions when organizing. Line positions are those in the direct chain of command. Achieving organizational goals is its responsibility. Alternatively, staff positions provide line managers with expertise, advice, and support.

g) Reorganizing and reviewing:  As internal and external factors change, the organizing process must be continuously reviewed and appraised in order to adjust or modify the organization structure.

Principles of Organizing

There are certain principles that govern organizing. The building blocks of organization are these elements.

a) Specialization: It is the principle of specialization that all work in an organization should be divided among employees according to their qualifications, abilities, and skills. It is possible to achieve specialization through the division of work.

b) Functional Definition: It is important to clearly define all the functions of an organization based on the principle of functional definition. A person’s duties, responsibilities, authority, and relationships within the organization must be defined. Organizational efficiency can be achieved through the clarification of authority-responsibility relationships.

c) Span of Control/Supervision: An area under supervision is referred to as a span of control. A single manager can effectively manage and control a given number of employees. An employee’s number under a manager should be determined according to this principle. Depending on the span, a wide or narrow decision can be taken.

  •  Wide span of control: The manager is able to supervise and control a large number of subordinates at the same time.
  • Narrow span of control: Managers in this situation supervise and control few subordinates under them.

d) Chain of Command and Unity: In an organization, the chain of command defines who reports to whom and links all individuals. Two principles underlie this: the unity of command and the scalar principle.

  • Unity of command: According to this principle, each employee should have only one direct supervisor. There should be no more than one person reporting to an employee.
  • Scalar chain: In an organization, the principle of scalar chain describes a clearly defined hierarchy. Each person in the organization should be linked by a clear and unbroken chain of command.

e) Unity of Goals/Objectives: Every organizational activity is geared toward achieving organizational goals that have been formulated for each level of the organization (top, middle and low) and each functional area. Everyone must understand and communicate the goals clearly. To achieve the goals effectively, all levels, areas, and units should support one another.

f) Responsibilities and authority are delegated: There must be a balance between authority and responsibility. It is the responsibility of the individual to fulfill the assigned task, which requires a certain level of authority. It is important that the tasks assigned are completed within the scope of authority. Performance will be poor if responsibility is not accompanied by authority.

g) Flexibility: There is a competitive, complex, and volatile environment in which modern organizations operate. It is crucial that they address the environmental impacts in order to succeed. Therefore, they should be flexible or situational. As environmental factors change, organizations must adjust their plans, policies, and structures.

h) Exception: Various activities should be performed by managers according to policies, procedures and rules of the organization. When dealing with complex situations or unusual circumstances, they may be exceptional. In this way, they are able to respond to situations promptly and enhance their ability to make creative decisions.

i) Personal Ability: The organization should always strive to improve the efficiency of workers at all levels according to this principle. Training and development programs can help achieve this goal. As a result, employee commitment and productivity are further enhanced.

j) Coordination and balance: An organization should have a good balance between its parts. It is important for an organization to develop its structure in a balanced way in order to maximize coordination. The centralization and decentralization of power must be balanced.

k) Efficiency: Efficiency is the basis of an organization’s operation. In order to achieve this, the organization must be operated in a cost-effective and efficient manner. In order to keep costs low, the quality of the product is not compromised. Through an effective organizational structure, human and other resources can be utilized effectively.

l) Simplicity : An organization’s structure should be simple in accordance with this principle. The simplicity of a structure makes it easy for all employees to understand. The duties and responsibilities of each person became clear to them. There should be less hierarchy and a clear line of communication in the structure.

Approaches to Organizing

Organizing can be divided into three major approaches. There are three types of approaches: classical, behavioral, and contingency.

a) Classical Approach

According to the classical approach to organizing, there is one best way to manage an organization. The universal approach is also known as the universal approach. The scientific management, administrative management, and bureaucratic theories can highlight this approach to organizing. To minimize production costs and increase profits, scientific management theory advocates effective planning and controlling, modern machines and tools, and optimum utilization of resources. By utilizing modern tools and machines and paying workers properly, this theory aims to maximize workers’ efficiency. Employee development is achieved through training and development that maximizes the degree of cooperation between employers and employees.

Organizations are designed rationally according to administrative management theory. Power and authority are delegated to administrators through a formalized administrative structure. Providing a comprehensive framework for the study and development of management, this theory defines management as a series of functions including planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Organizations that follow the bureaucratic theory must be structured into hierarchies and follow clearly defined rules and procedures. In bureaucracies, there are several aspects that promote decision-making, resource control, worker protection, and organizational success. The theory suggests that the organization should have a high degree of specialization, a clearly defined chain of command, and the principle of rationality, objectively and consistently. Each member of the organization should have a formal relationship based on their positions and governed by well-defined rules and regulations.

b) Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach emphasizes the importance of behavioral and human factors in organizing. Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory, McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and Herzberg’s two-factor theory fall under this category. Using a five-step model depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid, Maslow’s need priority theory is based on human needs. It is necessary to address the needs lower down in the hierarchy before attending to those higher up. When organizing, he stressed the importance of these human needs. Theory X and theory Y were developed by Douglas McGregor. Management philosophy is based on Theory X. People want to avoid work as much as possible, which means they don’t want to take responsibility. Through financial incentives, people are motivated.

In order to keep them under control, rewards and punishments are the best method. The theory Y presumes that people are intrinsically happy at work, as opposed to theory X. The objectives motivate them to pursue them. Reward and punishment systems are unnecessary. People want to use their creativity to solve problems and are prepared to take responsibility for everything they do.

According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, certain job factors lead to satisfaction while others lead to dissatisfaction. In order to describe job satisfaction, Herzberg used the term ‘hygiene and motivators’. In terms of hygiene factors, they include compensatory elements, job security, career development, the organization’s politics, working conditions, leadership quality, and relationships between supervisors and subordinates. A person’s intrinsic motivation includes a sense of responsibility, job satisfaction, recognition, achievement, and the opportunity to grow and advance.

c) Contingency Approach

Organizational contingencies state that management is situational. According to this theory, there is no perfect management style as management principles are not universal. By focusing on the multivariate nature of organizations, it enables them to cope with a variety of environmental conditions. According to the environmental conditions, it provides a framework for solving problems. Organizations must adapt to both internal and external environments, as well as fit between the two.

  • Size of the organization: It is likely that larger organizations will have more hierarchies and units due to their size.
  • Task and technology: It is also important to consider how much technology is used in organizing. Communicating patterns, job functions, employee relationships, and authority-responsibility relationships are governed by it.
  • Environmental uncertainty: It is also important to consider how much uncertainty there is in the environment when organizing. A flexible structure is preferred when the organizational environment is volatile. Organizations that operate in relatively stable environments may be organized in a formalized manner.
  • Individual differences: Organizational structure is also determined by individual differences in leadership. The authority of an authoritative leader tends to be centralized at the top.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Leading Wisely, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Understanding management means understanding people. What motivates us to engage deeply and perform powerfully at work? How do we inspire that in teams? What are the best ways to organize ourselves to exploit opportunities and solve problems? These are critical questions for all leaders who share the goal of thriving in a global, digital, fast-paced future.

There are countless ways we can approach those topics, and diverse perspectives to consider—as is evident from the thousands of management manuals, podcasts, executive seminars and more. For example, among the TED Talks included in Leading Wisely, Itay Talgam shares a lyrical metaphor on the style of the great conductors, while Clay Shirky delivers a statistical deconstruction of the power of informal networks. It's precisely this enormous scope and variety that defines the reality of modern management and which makes it so fascinating, and so vital. Modern thinking on management — from teaching and research inside universities to the way the world's most revered businesses organize themselves — has continuously evolved throughout the 20th and early 21st century. What's more, the pace of this evolution is increasing: the TED Talks in this collection cover a number of topics that didn't even exist ten years ago! This means successful managers must learn quickly, forecast trends and execute wisely.

Division of labor and beyond: Management theory is born

Industrialization shaped the work of the first management theorists in the US and Europe, where efforts to perfect new production processes gave management a practical focus and scientific method. Mining engineer Henri Fayol was one of the first to set out clear principles of management, which were formed through experiences organizing labor and machinery to extract coal in the most cost-efficient way. In the early decades of the 20th century Fayol identified six core principles of management: forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. A century later, these key principles still shape our ideas about management, even though we may implement them in more sophisticated ways.

In Fayol's time, managers enacted these six principles through authority and discipline, and the regimentation of that approach created as many problems as it did advantages. For example, perfecting production techniques through the division of labor involved a systematic breaking-down of production into repetitive, individual tasks, or 'piece work'. This formed the foundation of a new mass-production economy and significantly improved the standard of living for many workers and consumers--but the work was often tedious and didn't draw upon the worker's ideas or abilities in any meaningful way.

Fayol's contemporary, Henry Ford, provides the most famous example. In his quest to mass-produce an affordable automobile, Ford identified 84 specific steps required to assemble the Model T and hired Frederick Taylor, the creator of "scientific management," to conduct time and motion studies on the factory floor. In this way, Ford reasoned, he would know exactly how long it should take his workers to complete each of the 84 steps, and he could direct the exact motions each worker should use so that the assembly proceeded with maximum efficiency. Ford also reasoned that he could reduce the time spent on each task if his workers didn't have to move from one assembly to the next. So in 1913, inspired by a grain mill conveyor belt he'd seen, Ford introduced the first moving assembly line for factory production.

Only a year later, Ford surprised everyone when he announced that he would double wages and reduce working hours at his Detroit auto plant. Wall Street investors were dismayed. Media around the world reported Ford's announcement as a philanthropic gesture, or speculated that Ford was trying to create a bigger market for his Model T by creating a new middle-class American workforce. The reality? Ford realized he could lower turnover, and the costs of recruiting and training new employees, by offering better conditions and pay.

Beyond efficiency: Valuing people

When he raised wages and shortened the work day, Ford signaled that employee satisfaction was an essential element of successful management. There was a growing appetite to understand workers in this context and, more than that, to take a sociological or even anthropological viewpoint.

Although sociologists like Emile Durkheim had begun this work in the late 19th century, the backlash against division of labor gained momentum in the 1920s and '30s, when the horrors of the First World War fueled disillusionment with wide-scale mechanization. Many felt that workers were treated as machinery measured by volume of production alone.

In contrast, Elton Mayo highlighted the importance of social ties and a sense of belonging in the workplace. In Mayo's view, managers had to acknowledge these needs and listen to their employees, in order to make workers feel valued.

Mayo's ideas originated in part from his work at the Hawthorne General Electric Plant in Chicago, where he measured the effect of lighting levels on employees at the plant. Mayo found that simply taking an interest in the activities and opinions of staff produced a motivating effect—though when his work concluded and the plant returned to business as usual, productivity dropped.

Although Mayo championed a different kind of dynamic between managers and their subordinates in order to improve conditions and increase output, workers were given no real decision making power. Nevertheless, his work advanced management theory in a significant way, and decades later we can appreciate its influence on the people-oriented, more democratic operation of many modern companies like Semco. Its CEO, TED speaker Ricardo Semler, acknowledges that "it takes a leap of faith about losing control" to reorient a company so that it truly takes care of its people and treats them as its most important asset.

The new leader

As our conception of the workforce changed – from assembly lines of replaceable robots in the era of Fayol and Ford, to individuals with diverse talents to empower (and exploit) today — so has the role of the leader. The command-and-control approach – appropriate and effective in factory-like environments – has given way to newer, more nuanced approaches to leadership that lean more heavily on inspiration and persuasion.

Modern management theorist and TED speaker Simon Sinek believes that great leaders inspire action because they think, act and communicate from 'the inside out'—beginning with and focusing primarily on their core beliefs and values. Sinek suggests that people, whether they're your employees or customers, "don't buy what you do—they buy why you do it." Hiring people who understand and embrace these core beliefs and values, Sinek claims, means they don't work just for a paycheck—they work with "blood and sweat and tears."

When people see their work in this way, the rules and incentives that leaders have leaned on in the past to manage and motivate employees may be unnecessary. In fact, as TED speakers Dan Pink and Barry Schwartz observe, they may actually do harm. Pink shows through a series of surprising experiments that traditional carrot-and-stick motivators like bonuses and pay-for-performance plans can actually decrease creative thinking and employee engagement. What's more, according to Barry Schwartz, these incentives, coupled with an over-reliance on rigid procedures, "cause people to lose morale and the activity to lose morality." Schwartz believes that moral skill, moral will, and practical wisdom are absolutely essential if organizations want to deal with complex challenges in a smart and timely way.

The importance of innovation

Up to now, we've focused on how we organize resources—and in particular, human resources—to complete tasks and meet our goals. However, this alone doesn't equip managers to launch a successful startup to compete in a fast-moving global marketplace, or to keep pace with consumers' changing values, wants and needs. Innovation and marketing are central tenets of modern management, too. How do you harness market knowledge to position yourself as distinctive and essential, and to predict what people will want and use? How can you empower team members to come up with ingenious and elegant ideas?

In an earlier era, innovation often occurred in the first stage of production, which involved creating the product blueprint; innovation may also have altered the production process in order to bring costs down. But today, organizations increasingly aspire toward innovation at all stages, in order to compete and to thrive.

To enable innovation, leaders encourage a diversity of perspectives and empower employees to contribute in unconventional, 'left-field' ways; quite often, this plays out in ways that contradict the chain of command and strict discipline which characterized early management theory. For example, some companies formalize the freedom to experiment with 'left-field' ideas in programs like Google's "20% time" and Apple's "Blue Sky" program; these provide contractual 'free time' for employees to work on their own projects, which the company may later adopt and launch. (It's worth noting that this idea goes as far back as Edison, who encouraged a young Henry Ford to play around with combustion engines in his spare time while Ford worked at Edison's light bulb manufacturing plant.)

Ideas from everywhere: The new "crowd-sourced" workforce and on-call experts

Along with enabling creativity within their teams, in recent years, forward-looking organizations have become more sophisticated in harnessing participation from the public. Through social media platforms, open-source development environments and other collaborative tools, we're increasingly able to amass ideas from around the globe, and from people traditionally considered 'consumers' rather than the 'producers' of our organizations' goods and services.

This signals a profound reversal from Henry Ford's earlier efforts to gather people under one roof around a specific task; rather, as TED speaker Clay Shirky notes, we're now able to take the question or task to the people—who may not be 'employees' as we've traditionally thought of them, and who may never meet us face-to-face in our offices. Shirky predicts that in the coming decades, loosely coordinated groups will be increasingly influential and that "one arena at a time, one institution at a time" more rigidly managed organizations will move towards different and more open methods of management.

The technology that enables crowdsourced solutions also allows leaders to tap 'expert' knowledge from around the world. We have instant access to advice from thought leaders and consultants when we're overwhelmed by the array of information and the pace of innovation in today's world—but then managers must discern what's most helpful to achieve the organization's goals, filtering out what is and isn't useful. What's more, we need to be judicious about when and how we call in the experts: in her TED Talk, Noreena Hertz argues that the constant urge to defer to experts is damaging our ability to think independently and solve our own problems. Indeed, as you make your way through the talks in this TED Study, you'll need to decide for yourself what best applies to you and your team.

All work and no play: The need for balance

Today's technology enables managers and their teams to be connected to the office 24/7, if we want to be, and organizations can draw on workforces from all over the world, at short notice. This creates amazing opportunities and thorny problems for managers. For example, how should a manager interact with employees who may be scattered on several continents, working for multiple employers on several simultaneous projects?

Technology companies developed ways to manage the 'scrum' of work and organize loose networks of employees and stakeholders, in order to coordinate a wide range of activities. Outside the tech sector, these concepts are becoming increasingly central to modern management.

Even in a more standard office environment, the challenges of prioritizing and maintaining efficiency have multiplied. The stereotypical modern open-plan office with its endless meetings and distractions can make the idea of single-minded, creative problem solving seem impossible, as Jason Fried notes in his TED Talk "Why work doesn't happen at work."

It would be difficult to explore the evolution of management without also considering the evolution of work itself. How much work do we actually want to do? And how much are we able to do, before it starts to adversely affect our lives and the organizations we work for?

Striking the right balance between our professional and personal lives is becoming easier and more difficult. For example, our ability to connect to the office 24/7 provides flexibility, but it also means managers and their teams may be tempted—or expected—to put in more hours than ever before. TED speaker Nigel Marsh suggests that workers need to set and enforce their own, individual boundaries, but he doesn't let their employers off the hook: managerial (and organizational) duty of care must come into play. This is a huge societal issue, one that's measured by national governments and critical to our individual health and happiness. But it's not solely an altruistic appeal—for organizations with an eye on productivity, employee engagement and retention, it's simply smart business.

Facebook COO and TED speaker Sheryl Sandberg is particularly interested in the challenges that many women face as they advance in their professions and become wives and mothers. Although many fathers undoubtedly feel these pressures as well, Sandberg notes that by and large it's women who are dropping out of the workforce, and this means that women are all too often conspicuously absent from the top levels of governments, corporations and other organizations. Sandberg asks managers to consider what messages they're sending to the young women in their organizations, and to create ways for all people to engage fully at work so that we benefit from their diverse and valuable perspectives.

Sandberg is candid about her own struggles with work-life balance, and her example is also interesting because it touches on so many of the other issues that we've raised in this introductory essay. Facebook is a company of 7,000 employees working across 15 countries, constantly striving to meet the needs of its more than one billion users and figuring out how to harness the power of that global network. It must continuously innovate to maintain its leadership position as social media proliferate at an amazing rate. Executives like Sandberg must nurture the talent and creative thinking of team members who fuel that innovation—or risk losing them to others who may offer more appealing opportunities.

Get started

Let's begin Leading Wisely with TED speaker Itay Talgam, who uses a musical metaphor to illuminate the evolution of management and describe different leadership styles in "Lead like the great conductors".

organizing in management essay

Itay Talgam

Lead like the great conductors, relevant talks.

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Simon Sinek

How great leaders inspire action.

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The puzzle of motivation

organizing in management essay

Barry Schwartz

Our loss of wisdom.

organizing in management essay

Noreena Hertz

How to use experts -- and when not to.

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Clay Shirky

Institutions vs. collaboration.

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Sheryl Sandberg

Why we have too few women leaders.

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Nigel Marsh

How to make work-life balance work.

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Jason Fried

Why work doesn't happen at work.

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Chip Conley

Measuring what makes life worthwhile.

What is organizing in management?

What is organizing in management?

Organizing is one of the four important activities of a manager. However, what is the organizing function of a manager? Also, why is it important? Here we shall try to understand what is organizing in management and how to use it to improve managerial skills. 

POLC framework 

There are different types of managers, working in various departments and positions. Nevertheless, we can simplify the role of management in an organization. Consequently, we may understand the functions of a manager is through the POLC framework. This framework suggests that the roles of a manager can be described in four types of work: Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling. In this article, we focus on the organizing work of the manager. 

What is Organizing in management? 

Organizing is the process of managing different resources to create value for the firm. Typically, managers bring together resources like finance, human resources, technology together to produce an output for the customers. This output could be a product or a service. In a more practical sense, we can also say that organizing is coordinating different teams, bringing people together, and empowering them with respective roles. All of this is done while keeping in mind the larger end goal. The subordinates typically focus on their tasks while the manager organizes these tasks to create the desired end results or objectives for the firm. 

Therefore, we can say that there are some key aspects of organizing: 

  • Co-ordinating with people 
  • Motivating them for the work 
  • Distribution of work 
  • Synchronizing the work 

Six facets of organizing 

Organizing can also be visualized in the form of six aspects as represented in the diagram below: 

Organizing role of manager

Firstly, and most importantly, we should set our objectives. Objectives are statements that define the goals for the organizational activities. It could be to launch a new product in the market or it could be to act upon supply chain disruption . Once the objectives are set, we can proceed to develop the project management plan. This requires us to prepare the list of inter-dependent activities that are required to meet the objectives. Managers are expected to identify the set of activities that are required for the required objective. 

Specialization based work distribution  

Secondly, we need to assess, the type of work required. This will help us divide the work between the workforce. We can use the concept called ‘specialization of labor.’ Although, you may be aware of the basic concept, here is a quick recap. Specialization of labor looks at dividing the work so that individuals only work on a specific type of task. This type of work is called specialization of labor. The concept comes from the days of the pin factory. The father of scientific management, Adam Smith envisioned increased productivity if each worker did a specific type of work like only bending the pin. The second worker made the second bend, and so one. This was in contrast to the traditional system where each worker took the blank pin and made all the bends to create the pin.  

However, keep in mind that modern work distribution is very different. The pin-factory type specialization makes the workers get bored due to repetitive work. It causes fatigue and burnout. When we talk about specialization-based work, we mean work distribution based on the area of expertise. Modern management principles recommend that people bring in learning and expertise together and help each other out with ideas. 

Developing authority structure  

Once the work has been clustered based on the different areas of expertise, the work needs to be delegated. Delegation involves the transfer of authority for a particular task. The concerned managers are handed specific goals. Additionally, the managers are also given authority for the tasks. Authority is given in the form of different levels. These levels form the authority structure. We require authority structure to facilitate smoother workflow. It helps in increasing the efficiency and timely completion of the goals. You may follow these  golden rules of goals  to help you in fulfilling them. 

The table above summarizes the authority structure in an organization. Typically, we classify the authority in three tiers of management levels: top management, middle management and lower management. Further, we should note that authority is closely tied to responsibility. The higher the authority, the higher is the responsibility. Responsibility makes the managers accountable towards the completion of their goals. 

Coordination  between teams  

Once we have the authority structure in place, we look into the relationship between and within teams. Firstly, coordination enables channels of communication between teams. Communication is key to align the entire firm along with an objective. It also helps in assessing the progress of work. Secondly, coordination also helps in developing channels of feedback.  

As a top-level manager, it is essential to coordinate between different departments. It is an innate tendency to have a myopic perspective. Mid-managers may be focused too narrowly on the fulfillment of departmental goals. At times, this perspective may conflict with the goals of other departments or the organizational goals. This coordination work is an essential part of what is organizing in management, especially top management. The manager’s role also requires them to be visionaries for the organization.

Goal management  

Goal setting is only the first step towards fulfilling the organizational objectives. We need to monitor the progress closely. This helps in prognosis of problems and also helps in fixing them in time. Here are some key aspects of goal management: 

  • Problem definition 
  • Specification of goals 
  • Goal setting 
  • Progress tracking 
  • Monitoring and guidance to lower levels 
  • Feedback and Reporting to higher levels 

The first step in goal management is defining the problem. In the case of mid-managers and lower managers, the problems are given by the higher level in the form of problem specification. This helps in defining the problem. Once the problems are defined, managers have to set goals. One of the well-known approaches is to set SMART goals. Further, the progress has to be tracked. The managers have the responsibility to guide their subordinates. On the other hand, they are also expected to report to their superiors. This is where the authority structure we had established earlier, comes into play. Another way to look at goal management is to look at it from people’s perspectives. Goal management is essentially managing people at upper and lower levels. 

Analysis and Feedback  

We cannot discuss contemporary management without referring to analytics. Analytics is the use of information to improve performance. We may use statistical tools to understand how we are performing with respect to key performance indicators or KPIs.  

Further based upon the analysis, managers are expected to provide feedback. This feedback helps in correcting any problems with the approach. Sometimes, work may need to be expedited to meet downstream dependency. All of these decisions have to be taken once the required information is available.  

Some Frequently Asked Questions about organizing:

Organizing is the kep to organizational success. It helps in excuting strategies to fulfil organizational goals. It also helps in boosting the performance and work satisfaction of employees.

1. It helps in structuring the work 2. Increases the work efficiency 3. Improves the job performance for employees 4. Reduces the wastages 5. It helps in managing any contingencies

No, planning is an essential part of organizing. If we skip planning stage, there may be problems in the later stages like organizing, leading and controlling.

Planning is the precursor to organizing as per the POLC framework. Planning forms the first step towards meeting the organizational goals. Planning helps us take the stock of the requirements and formulate these goals. It also helps us in developing work execution plans to fulfil these goals.

Both of these are correct. However, the usage depends on the type of English followed in your organization. American English usage is ‘organization.’ On the other hand, we use ‘organising’ for British English. Also, ensure that you use one form consistently across a document.

Mobilizing is related to deployment of resources. On the other hand, organizing is about the holistic approach towards fulfilment of organizational goals.

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1.5: Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling

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Learning Objectives

  • Know the dimensions of the planning-organizing-leading-controlling (P-O-L-C) framework.
  • Know the general inputs into each P-O-L-C dimension.

A manager’s primary challenge is to solve problems creatively. While drawing from a variety of academic disciplines, and to help managers respond to the challenge of creative problem solving, principles of management have long been categorized into the four major functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (the P-O-L-C framework). The four functions, summarized in the P-O-L-C figure, are actually highly integrated when carried out in the day-to-day realities of running an organization. Therefore, you should not get caught up in trying to analyze and understand a complete, clear rationale for categorizing skills and practices that compose the whole of the P-O-L-C framework.

It is important to note that this framework is not without criticism. Specifically, these criticisms stem from the observation that the P-O-L-C functions might be ideal but that they do not accurately depict the day-to-day actions of actual managers (Mintzberg, 1973; Lamond, 2004). The typical day in the life of a manager at any level can be fragmented and hectic, with the constant threat of having priorities dictated by the law of the trivial many and important few (i.e., the 80/20 rule). However, the general conclusion seems to be that the P-O-L-C functions of management still provide a very useful way of classifying the activities managers engage in as they attempt to achieve organizational goals (Lamond, 2004).

PLOC framework as described in paragraphs above and below

Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives. Planning requires that managers be aware of environmental conditions facing their organization and forecast future conditions. It also requires that managers be good decision makers.

Planning is a process consisting of several steps. The process begins with  environmental scanning  which simply means that planners must be aware of the critical contingencies facing their organization in terms of economic conditions, their competitors, and their customers. Planners must then attempt to forecast future conditions. These forecasts form the basis for planning.

Planners must establish objectives, which are statements of what needs to be achieved and when. Planners must then identify alternative courses of action for achieving objectives. After evaluating the various alternatives, planners must make decisions about the best courses of action for achieving objectives. They must then formulate necessary steps and ensure effective implementation of plans. Finally, planners must constantly evaluate the success of their plans and take corrective action when necessary.

There are many different types of plans and planning.

Strategic planning  involves analyzing competitive opportunities and threats, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and then determining how to position the organization to compete effectively in their environment. Strategic planning has a long time frame, often three years or more. Strategic planning generally includes the entire organization and includes formulation of objectives. Strategic planning is often based on the organization’s mission, which is its fundamental reason for existence. An organization’s top management most often conducts strategic planning.

Tactical planning  is intermediate-range (one to three years) planning that is designed to develop relatively concrete and specific means to implement the strategic plan. Middle-level managers often engage in tactical planning.

Operational planning  generally assumes the existence of organization-wide or subunit goals and objectives and specifies ways to achieve them. Operational planning is short-range (less than a year) planning that is designed to develop specific action steps that support the strategic and tactical plans.

Organizing is the function of management that involves developing an organizational structure and allocating human resources to ensure the accomplishment of objectives. The structure of the organization is the framework within which effort is coordinated. The structure is usually represented by an organization chart, which provides a graphic representation of the chain of command within an organization. Decisions made about the structure of an organization are generally referred to as  organizational design  decisions.

Organizing also involves the design of individual jobs within the organization. Decisions must be made about the duties and responsibilities of individual jobs, as well as the manner in which the duties should be carried out. Decisions made about the nature of jobs within the organization are generally called “job design” decisions.

Organizing at the level of the organization involves deciding how best to departmentalize, or cluster, jobs into departments to coordinate effort effectively. There are many different ways to departmentalize, including organizing by function, product, geography, or customer. Many larger organizations use multiple methods of departmentalization.

Organizing at the level of a particular job involves how best to design individual jobs to most effectively use human resources. Traditionally,  job design  was based on principles of division of labor and specialization, which assumed that the more narrow the job content, the more proficient the individual performing the job could become. However, experience has shown that it is possible for jobs to become too narrow and specialized. For example, how would you like to screw lids on jars one day after another, as you might have done many decades ago if you worked in company that made and sold jellies and jams? When this happens, negative outcomes result, including decreased job satisfaction and organizational commitment, increased absenteeism, and turnover.

Recently, many organizations have attempted to strike a balance between the need for worker specialization and the need for workers to have jobs that entail variety and autonomy. Many jobs are now designed based on such principles as empowerment,  job enrichment  and  teamwork . For example, HUI Manufacturing, a custom sheet metal fabricator, has done away with traditional “departments” to focus on listening and responding to customer needs. From company-wide meetings to team huddles, HUI employees know and understand their customers and how HUI might service them best (Huimfg, 2008).

Leading involves the social and informal sources of influence that you use to inspire action taken by others. If managers are effective leaders, their subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort to attain organizational objectives.

The behavioral sciences have made many contributions to understanding this function of management. Personality research and studies of job attitudes provide important information as to how managers can most effectively lead subordinates. For example, this research tells us that to become effective at leading, managers must first understand their subordinates’ personalities, values, attitudes, and emotions.

Studies of motivation and motivation theory provide important information about the ways in which workers can be energized to put forth productive effort. Studies of communication provide direction as to how managers can effectively and persuasively communicate. Studies of leadership and leadership style provide information regarding questions, such as, “What makes a manager a good leader?” and “In what situations are certain leadership styles most appropriate and effective?”

Two men on either side of a conveyor belt covered with grain removing bad stuff

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\):Quality control ensures that the organization delivers on its promises. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center –  Maize seed quality control at small seed company Bidasem  – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Controlling

Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards. Controlling consists of three steps, which include (1) establishing performance standards, (2) comparing actual performance against standards, and (3) taking corrective action when necessary. Performance standards are often stated in monetary terms such as revenue, costs, or profits but may also be stated in other terms, such as units produced, number of defective products, or levels of quality or customer service.

The measurement of performance can be done in several ways, depending on the performance standards, including financial statements, sales reports, production results, customer satisfaction, and formal performance appraisals. Managers at all levels engage in the managerial function of controlling to some degree.

The managerial function of controlling should not be confused with control in the behavioral or manipulative sense. This function does not imply that managers should attempt to control or to manipulate the personalities, values, attitudes, or emotions of their subordinates. Instead, this function of management concerns the manager’s role in taking necessary actions to ensure that the work-related activities of subordinates are consistent with and contributing toward the accomplishment of organizational and departmental objectives.

Effective controlling requires the existence of plans, since planning provides the necessary performance standards or objectives. Controlling also requires a clear understanding of where responsibility for deviations from standards lies. Two traditional control techniques are budget and performance audits. An audit involves an examination and verification of records and supporting documents. A budget audit provides information about where the organization is with respect to what was planned or budgeted for, whereas a performance audit might try to determine whether the figures reported are a reflection of actual performance. Although controlling is often thought of in terms of financial criteria, managers must also control production and operations processes, procedures for delivery of services, compliance with company policies, and many other activities within the organization.

The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are widely considered to be the best means of describing the manager’s job, as well as the best way to classify accumulated knowledge about the study of management. Although there have been tremendous changes in the environment faced by managers and the tools used by managers to perform their roles, managers still perform these essential functions.

Key Takeaway

The principles of management can be distilled down to four critical functions. These functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. This P-O-L-C framework provides useful guidance into what the ideal job of a manager should look like.

  • What are the management functions that comprise the P-O-L-C framework?
  • Are there any criticisms of this framework?
  • What function does planning serve?
  • What function does organizing serve?
  • What function does leading serve?
  • What function does controlling serve?

Huimfg.com,  http://www.huimfg.com/abouthui-yourteams.aspx  (accessed October 15, 2008).

Lamond, D, “A Matter of Style: Reconciling Henri and Henry,”  Management Decision  42, no. 2 (2004): 330–56.

Mintzberg, H.  The Nature of Managerial Work  (New York: Harper & Row, 1973); D. Lamond, “A Matter of Style: Reconciling Henri and Henry,”  Management Decision 42 , no. 2 (2004): 330–56.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): The P-O-L-C Framework

Module 9: Management

Introduction to organizing, what you’ll learn to do: describe the organizing function of management and common types of organizational structure.

Organizing is not only a critical management function, it’s critical to effective execution of a business’ plan. In this section, we’ll discuss when organization occurs, what the organization function entails, and benefits of organizing. Recalling Henri Fayol, we’ll discuss the role of specialization and division of labor. Finally, we’ll discuss and illustrate types of organization structures, defining the terms organization chart and span of control and presenting the three most common business structures: divisional, functional, and matrix, including advantages and disadvantages of each.

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  • Introduction to Organizing. Authored by : Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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Organising in Management: What, Definition, Principles, Importance

  • Post last modified: 12 May 2022
  • Reading time: 30 mins read
  • Post category: Management

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What is Organising?

Organising is a managerial activity that involves arranging and structuring of responsibilities and work of the employees for attaining the desired result. The organising function requires effective skills, a proper chain of command, authority, a delegation of work, and efficient control.

Table of Content

  • 1 What is Organising?
  • 2 Organising Definition in Management
  • 3.1 Chain of command
  • 3.2 Delegation of authority
  • 3.3 Span of control
  • 4.1 Promotes effective delegation and management
  • 4.2 Provides efficient administration
  • 4.3 Optimum use of human resources
  • 4.4 Growth and expansion
  • 4.5 Ensures flexibility and adapting to changes
  • 4.6 Ensures coordination and communication
  • 4.7 Ensures job satisfaction
  • 5.1 Designing jobs
  • 5.2 Grouping jobs or departmentalisation
  • 5.3 Establishing a reporting relationship
  • 5.4 Distributing authority
  • 5.5 Coordinating activities
  • 5.6 Differentiating among positions
  • 6.1 Defining the objectives
  • 6.2 Division of activities
  • 6.3 Grouping of activities
  • 6.4 Defining authority and hierarchy
  • 6.5 Coordination of activities
  • 6.6 Reviewing and reorganising
  • 7 Management Topics

The activities are defined in terms of allocating the duties and responsibilities to different employees of various departments in a coordinated manner for a common purpose. Organising also involves the integration of the various relationships among different activities and job responsibilities for attaining the goals of the enterprise.

Organising Definition in Management

According to Kimball and Kimball , Organising embraces the duties of designating the departments and the personnel that are to carry on the work, defining their functions and specifying the relations that are to exist between the departments and individuals.

In the words of Mooney and Railey , Organisation is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.

According to George Terry , Organising is the establishment of effective authority relationships among selected work, persons, and workplaces for the group to work together efficiently.

According to Stoner , Organising is the process of arranging and allocating work, authority, and resources among an organisation’s members so that they can achieve the organisational goal.

Organising is an important function of management and requires various skilled managers and employees for completing tasks.

The various activities involved in the organising function are:

  • Division of work among employees
  • Coordinated efforts of employees to achieve specific objectives
  • Implementation of predetermined strategies

Principles of Organizing

The concept of organising is based on the following principles:

Chain of command

Delegation of authority, span of control.

The chain of command involves the hierarchical structure of the organisation and the line of authority that connects them in the organisation.

The chain of command works on two basic principles, which are as follows:

  • Unity of command : This principle ensures that all the employees working in an organisation report to a single manager who is the functional authority. The line of command is defined clearly and all the employees are supposed to follow that line. Having to report to two or more managers can lead to conflicting demands from different supervisors at a time.
  • Scalar principle: The scalar principle involves the line of command and the defined line of authority that involves the workforce of the organisation from the top level of the hierarchy to the lower level of the hierarchy. The process facilitates a clear and unbroken chain of command that ensures the linking of every person within the organisation from the higher levels of authority up to the employees.

Effective organisation is possible through efficient delegation of authority. With the delegation of authority, employees get the power to complete the assigned tasks in their own ways. The process helps in increasing employee job satisfaction and leads to ensuring better job performance.

The ability of the managers to successfully delegate responsibilities and effectively utilise the talent and strength of their employees leads to the achievement of the set targets.

The span of control is the method of ensuring control over the workforce by defining their roles and responsibilities and monitoring their activities. It helps in limiting the number of people who need to be guided, monitored, and controlled by the supervisor. It is easy for the authority to control the limited number of people in the team that can improve the quality of work and prove the efficiency of the supervisor.

The span of control is also dependent on organisation and gets limited by the organisational structure of the enterprise. In the centralised system of organisational structure, the power of authority is concentrated with the top management.

On the other hand, in the decentralised system, the authority level is spread at the lower and middle levels of the enterprise.

The factors that influence the level of control are dependent upon the following:

  • The environment in which the company operates
  • Nature of decision making
  • Ability and authority of managers
  • Organisational structure

Importance of Organising

The management of a company gets immense benefits by following a comprehensive approach to organising. Various resources of a business enterprise are aligned with the help of the organising function to achieve a common goal. Organising is important for all aspects of management.

For instance, a multinational company puts together its four major divisions to function as a group. The grouping made sense for making synergy in terms of financial and marketing cooperation.

However, the manufacturing departments of the grouped divisions had little in common. There was lack of internal direction, and no overall coordination. The parent company was challenged with a number of major capital appropriation requests from all manufacturing departments.

The process of organising is the main backbone of the management function that assists in planning through well-organised techniques for facilitating the smooth transition of organisational goals. Adopting an effective method of organising improves the performance of the organisation and paves the way for a smooth transition and growth of the organisation. The importance of the organising function helps in the survival, growth and development of the organisation that enables it to meet the various challenges.

Organising is a tool used for coordinating and controlling the functions of an enterprise. It provides a framework for directing the efforts of the people productively and effectively for ensuring fruitful outcomes. The importance of organising is that it helps in solving the problems of the enterprise by effectively contributing to the success of the organisation.

The importance and significance of organising become clearer from the words of Andrew Carnegie, Take away our factories, take away our trade, our avenues of transportation, our money, leave us nothing but our organisation, and in four years we shall have established ourselves. Hence, any form of business requires productive and constructive methods of organising in a systematic and coordinated manner for improving their performance and achieving their goals.

The importance of organising are as follows:

Promotes effective delegation and management

Provides efficient administration, optimum use of human resources, growth and expansion, ensures flexibility and adapting to changes, ensures coordination and communication, ensures job satisfaction.

The method of organising is an effective tool used for delegating and managing the tasks for achieving the goals set by the management in an organisation. A successful organisation works efficiently by proper planning for increasing managerial efficiency and avoiding delays and duplication of work. They motivate the employees to work effectively by reducing the response time.

Organising is an important tool that is used by enterprises for achieving their goals. An effective method of organising helps the management in defining the different activities and the authority established in the relationship of the organisational structure and hierarchy of the organisation.

Organising function is important in eliminating confusion and obstruction in various activities of the organisation that occur due to work duplication and delays. It is an effective tool used by the management for controlling, directing and coordinating the various activities within the enterprise.

An efficient method of organising ensures the accurate matching of roles and responsibilities for the people in the organisation as per their knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA). The process of matching jobs leads to better performance and better use of human skills.

An efficient organisation employs and engages people with different interests, skills, and knowledge of various types of work. The process helps with the economy of operation and leads to a reduction in costs.

Efficiency in organising contributes to the growth of the enterprise which leads to further expansion of the enterprise. Expansion of the enterprise increases the strength of the management which may further enhance its overall organisational activities.

An effective organising function enables an organisation to respond quickly to changes that may take place frequently in the business environment. This is because by organising its processes from time to time an organisation can review and refine its policies and get a fair idea of what needs to be done and when it is to be done.

For example, an organisation may adopt new technology by being more creative and encouraging innovative ideas.

Organising is an important means of integrating and coordinating the activities and work in different departments. It ensures and specifies effective channels of communication flowing between the different departments of the enterprise. The various roles and responsibilities are embedded together by the structural relationship that helps in coordinating the various activities of the employees in the organisational structure.

The process of organising is based on the principle of participative management where employees are involved in the process of planning in a democratic environment. It makes the employees feel important and part of the organisation which increases their level of productivity and job satisfaction.

According to Louis Allen, Organising is the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships to enable people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.

Components of Organising

Organising involves various methods of coordinating activities, designing work roles, linking jobs, delegating work and keeping up with changes in the environment. Organising ensures the effective utilisation of resources that results in the efficient growth of the organisation.

The various constituents of organising are described as follows:

Designing jobs

Grouping jobs or departmentalisation, establishing a reporting relationship, distributing authority, coordinating activities, differentiating among positions.

Job design defines the roles and responsibilities of an individual in the structure of the enterprise. It helps in determining the responsibility of persons, their expected goals, and their involvement in the process of decision making.

The various factors involved with designing jobs are as follows:

  • Job specialisation
  • Job characteristics model
  • Job rotation
  • Job enlargement
  • Job enrichment

Grouping of jobs comes after the roles and responsibilities are assigned in job designing. The jobs are then grouped in various departments based on their functions, products, customers and locations.

The process of departmentalisation follows a formal structure of the organisation. Job grouping is done according to different departments and their working relationships with one another. The relationships in the organisational structure are formed with the chain of command.

The various elements of departmentalisation are as follows:

  • Departmentalisation of functions
  • Customer departmentalisation
  • Product departmentalisation
  • Process departmentalisation
  • Departmentalisation by the task force
  • Departmentalisation by location
  • Matrix departmentalisation

Establishing reporting relationships determines the chain of command that clearly defines the line of authority among the structural system of the enterprise. The process of organising establishes the span of management that determines the number of people who report to the supervisor or the reporting authority in the chain of command. It establishes the reporting relationship between the different jobs within the hierarchical structure of the organisation.

Distributing authority is used for determining the authority of the manager within the enterprise. It authorises certain powers to the manager according to the right given to him through the process of organising jobs.

Managers use the authority to delegate jobs and tasks to their subordinates in a structured manner. The manager in his position has the authority to delegate tasks to the employees and take decisions. This authority is given as a part of job responsibility within the enterprise.

The distribution authority follows the following principles:

  • Establish the positions and authority in the enterprise
  • Ensure power to the authority for making decisions
  • Exercise the authority of delegation in the decentralised structure of the organisation

Coordination of activities is necessary for linking jobs and activities of different departments. Effective coordination of activities leads to the smooth functioning of the departments and their work that leads to an increase in productivity and achieving the group targets.

The process of organising requires differentiating among various positions for the effective working of an enterprise. The line position determines the direct chain of command that is needed for achieving the objectives of the enterprise. The staff position in the enterprise defines the line of specialisation, support, expertise and advice.

Managers use the following positions in the staff line for achieving their targets:

  • Line position : It refers to the direct chain of command required for achieving the objectives of the enterprise.
  • Staff position : It refers to the line of specialisation, expertise, advice and support provided by the staff line.

Process of Organising

Organisations grow with time and require effective organising capabilities to meet their ever-changing needs. Organising processes involve defining the tasks to be carried out by the workforce. The people carrying out the tasks need to be included in the framework for decision making within the organisational structure for accomplishing the goals of the enterprise.

Effective implementation of the organising process creates an environment, where people are aware of their duties and responsibilities and the work, gets carried out amicably. The various steps involved in an organising process are shown in Figure:

The various steps involved in the organising process are explained as follows:

Defining the objectives

Division of activities, grouping of activities, defining authority and hierarchy, coordination of activities, reviewing and reorganising.

Every organisation works on certain activities that are based on the objectives and vision of the company. The first step in the process of organising is determining the scope of the workload of the enterprise.

Thereafter, plans are made for achieving objectives. Hence, it is the objective and the mission of the enterprise that defines the different activities that need to be carried out following the structure of the organisation. Keeping these principles in mind, Alfred Chandler said, Structure follows strategy.

It is not easy for a person to manage all the work hence the tasks are divided into various departments and units for accomplishing the plans and objectives of the enterprise. The division of work leads to better productivity and has the following benefits:

  • Increase in output
  • Better efficiency
  • Facilitation for training

The activities are divided according to the work specialisation, qualification, ability and skills of the people. The tasks are divided in terms of:

  • On-going tasks (regular activities of the organisation)
  • Specific ‘once for all’ tasks (rarely occurring events like setting up a new branch)

The process of organising initiates the smooth flow of work and smooth functioning of the enterprise hence the departments are made and the divisions are done within the department by grouping of activities.

The process ensures a systematic manner of functioning through the grouping of activities referred to as departmentalisation. The number of departments and divisions in an enterprise is dependent upon the size of the organisation. Each department is supervised by its departmental head or manager who is responsible for the following functions:

  • Assess every identified task for understanding its character
  • Classify the tasks according to their functional areas
  • Determine the departmental design for the organisational structure

Authority helps managers or departmental heads to effectively carry out their individual responsibilities by getting tasks completed efficiently and on time. The authority provided to managers or departmental heads should match their existing competence. The departmental head has the responsibility of delegating tasks to the people of his department.

Authority delegation has a direct relationship with the hierarchy of the organisation. Authority flows from top to bottom of the organisation while responsibility flows from bottom to the top. Authority establishes the reporting relationships between the manager and the employees of the company, based on the authority and responsibility assigned to them.

It is the responsibility of the departmental head or the manager to ensure that the activities carried out by the department and groups are well coordinated. While performing the activities, conflicts may arise between departments and groups. There may be duplication of work leading to wastage of time and hampering the working of the system.

The managers should be well experienced in handling these conflicts through effective coordination so that there is harmony in the flow of activities for achieving the goals of the organisation. The process of coordination helps in the optimum use of the resources and brings down the working costs. Coordination between various departments helps in establishing effective communication and relationships between the people working in different departments.

The working of any system requires constant monitoring and reviewing of the various processes and functions. Due to the changes in the internal and external environmental factors, the working of the system may require certain modifications.

The process of reviewing helps in evolving the organisational structure, as and when required. Reviewing is an important aspect of the organising process and it helps in implementing the changes to meet the requirements of the organisation.

Management Topics

  • What is Management ?
  • Who Is a Manager ?
  • Marketing CIs Management an Art or Science

Classical Management Approach

  • Planning in Management
  • Decision Making in Management
  • Organising in Management
  • What is Organisation Structure ?
  • What is Departmentation ?
  • What is Span of Control ?
  • What is Authority ?
  • What is Staffing ?
  • What is Human Resource Planning ?
  • What is Job Analysis ?
  • What is Recruitment ?
  • Modern and Others Schools of Management Thought
  • What is Selection ?
  • What is Coordination ?
  • What is Controlling ?
  • What is Leadership ?
  • What is Organisational Change ?
  • Motivation in Management
  • Motivation Theories
  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  • Herzberg Two Factor Theory
  • Mcclelland’s Needs Theory of Motivation

Business Ethics

( Click on Topic to Read )

  • What is Ethics?
  • What is Business Ethics?
  • Values, Norms, Beliefs and Standards in Business Ethics
  • Indian Ethos in Management
  • Ethical Issues in Marketing
  • Ethical Issues in HRM
  • Ethical Issues in IT
  • Ethical Issues in Production and Operations Management
  • Ethical Issues in Finance and Accounting
  • What is Corporate Governance?
  • What is Ownership Concentration?
  • What is Ownership Composition?
  • Types of Companies in India
  • Internal Corporate Governance
  • External Corporate Governance
  • Corporate Governance in India
  • What is Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)?
  • What is Assessment of Risk?
  • What is Risk Register?
  • Risk Management Committee

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

  • Theories of CSR
  • Arguments Against CSR
  • Business Case for CSR
  • Importance of CSR in India
  • Drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Developing a CSR Strategy
  • Implement CSR Commitments
  • CSR Marketplace
  • CSR at Workplace
  • Environmental CSR
  • CSR with Communities and in Supply Chain
  • Community Interventions
  • CSR Monitoring
  • CSR Reporting
  • Voluntary Codes in CSR
  • What is Corporate Ethics?

Lean Six Sigma

  • What is Six Sigma?
  • What is Lean Six Sigma?
  • Value and Waste in Lean Six Sigma
  • Six Sigma Team
  • MAIC Six Sigma
  • Six Sigma in Supply Chains
  • What is Binomial, Poisson, Normal Distribution?
  • What is Sigma Level?
  • What is DMAIC in Six Sigma?
  • What is DMADV in Six Sigma?
  • Six Sigma Project Charter
  • Project Decomposition in Six Sigma
  • Critical to Quality (CTQ) Six Sigma
  • Process Mapping Six Sigma
  • Flowchart and SIPOC
  • Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility
  • Statistical Diagram
  • Lean Techniques for Optimisation Flow
  • Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
  • What is Process Audits?
  • Six Sigma Implementation at Ford
  • IBM Uses Six Sigma to Drive Behaviour Change
  • Research Methodology
  • What is Research?
  • What is Hypothesis?
  • Sampling Method
  • Research Methods
  • Data Collection in Research
  • Methods of Collecting Data
  • Application of Business Research
  • Levels of Measurement
  • What is Sampling?
  • Hypothesis Testing
  • Research Report
  • What is Management?
  • What is Controlling?
  • What is Coordination?
  • What is Staffing?
  • Organization Structure
  • What is Departmentation?
  • Span of Control
  • What is Authority?
  • Centralization vs Decentralization
  • Organizing in Management
  • Schools of Management Thought
  • Is Management an Art or Science?
  • Who is a Manager?

Operations Research

  • What is Operations Research?
  • Operation Research Models
  • Linear Programming
  • Linear Programming Graphic Solution
  • Linear Programming Simplex Method
  • Linear Programming Artificial Variable Technique
  • Duality in Linear Programming
  • Transportation Problem Initial Basic Feasible Solution
  • Transportation Problem Finding Optimal Solution
  • Project Network Analysis with Critical Path Method
  • Project Network Analysis Methods
  • Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
  • Simulation in Operation Research
  • Replacement Models in Operation Research

Operation Management

  • What is Strategy?
  • What is Operations Strategy?
  • Operations Competitive Dimensions
  • Operations Strategy Formulation Process
  • What is Strategic Fit?
  • Strategic Design Process
  • Focused Operations Strategy
  • Corporate Level Strategy
  • Expansion Strategies
  • Stability Strategies
  • Retrenchment Strategies
  • Competitive Advantage
  • Strategic Choice and Strategic Alternatives
  • What is Production Process?
  • What is Process Technology?
  • What is Process Improvement?
  • Strategic Capacity Management
  • Production and Logistics Strategy
  • Taxonomy of Supply Chain Strategies
  • Factors Considered in Supply Chain Planning
  • Operational and Strategic Issues in Global Logistics
  • Logistics Outsourcing Strategy
  • What is Supply Chain Mapping?
  • Supply Chain Process Restructuring
  • Points of Differentiation
  • Re-engineering Improvement in SCM
  • What is Supply Chain Drivers?
  • Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model
  • Customer Service and Cost Trade Off
  • Internal and External Performance Measures
  • Linking Supply Chain and Business Performance
  • Netflix’s Niche Focused Strategy
  • Disney and Pixar Merger
  • Process Planning at Mcdonald’s

Service Operations Management

  • What is Service?
  • What is Service Operations Management?
  • What is Service Design?
  • Service Design Process
  • Service Delivery
  • What is Service Quality?
  • Gap Model of Service Quality
  • Juran Trilogy
  • Service Performance Measurement
  • Service Decoupling
  • IT Service Operation
  • Service Operations Management in Different Sector

Procurement Management

  • What is Procurement Management?
  • Procurement Negotiation
  • Types of Requisition
  • RFX in Procurement
  • What is Purchasing Cycle?
  • Vendor Managed Inventory
  • Internal Conflict During Purchasing Operation
  • Spend Analysis in Procurement
  • Sourcing in Procurement
  • Supplier Evaluation and Selection in Procurement
  • Blacklisting of Suppliers in Procurement
  • Total Cost of Ownership in Procurement
  • Incoterms in Procurement
  • Documents Used in International Procurement
  • Transportation and Logistics Strategy
  • What is Capital Equipment?
  • Procurement Process of Capital Equipment
  • Acquisition of Technology in Procurement
  • What is E-Procurement?
  • E-marketplace and Online Catalogues
  • Fixed Price and Cost Reimbursement Contracts
  • Contract Cancellation in Procurement
  • Ethics in Procurement
  • Legal Aspects of Procurement
  • Global Sourcing in Procurement
  • Intermediaries and Countertrade in Procurement

Strategic Management

  • What is Strategic Management?
  • What is Value Chain Analysis?
  • Mission Statement
  • Business Level Strategy
  • What is SWOT Analysis?
  • What is Competitive Advantage?
  • What is Vision?
  • What is Ansoff Matrix?
  • Prahalad and Gary Hammel
  • Strategic Management In Global Environment
  • Competitor Analysis Framework
  • Competitive Rivalry Analysis
  • Competitive Dynamics
  • What is Competitive Rivalry?
  • Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
  • What is PESTLE Analysis?
  • Fragmentation and Consolidation Of Industries
  • What is Technology Life Cycle?
  • What is Diversification Strategy?
  • What is Corporate Restructuring Strategy?
  • Resources and Capabilities of Organization
  • Role of Leaders In Functional-Level Strategic Management
  • Functional Structure In Functional Level Strategy Formulation
  • Information And Control System
  • What is Strategy Gap Analysis?
  • Issues In Strategy Implementation
  • Matrix Organizational Structure
  • What is Strategic Management Process?

Supply Chain

  • What is Supply Chain Management?
  • Supply Chain Planning and Measuring Strategy Performance
  • What is Warehousing?
  • What is Packaging?
  • What is Inventory Management?
  • What is Material Handling?
  • What is Order Picking?
  • Receiving and Dispatch, Processes
  • What is Warehouse Design?
  • What is Warehousing Costs?

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A Growth Strategy that Creates and Protects Value

  • David A. Hofmann
  • John J. Sumanth

organizing in management essay

Four steps to build a continuous value creation cycle.

For organizations to truly innovate and grow, leaders in every role and at every organizational level must be attuned to how they are creating new value while simultaneously protecting existing value. Just as a soccer coach must simultaneously pursue both scoring and defending, leaders must constantly focus their attention on opportunities to create value — through innovation, risk-taking, and experimentation — and to protect value — by preserving and defending key aspects of their responsibilities. Because both approaches are essential to success, organizational leaders must proactively and continually encourage their teams to adopt both a creating value and protecting value mindset when tackling their day-to-day responsibilities. But how can leaders do this? More specifically: Where and how do leaders deploy these two approaches, and how do these approaches change over time? In this article, the authors offer four steps leaders can take to ensure that they’re on the right path for growth.

Ask any leader what comes to mind when they hear the word “innovation” and you’ll quickly hear examples of a new, user-centric product design, or an R&D team pursuing a new mission, or their company’s exploration of a new market opportunity to drive additional revenue. But what if this relatively narrow view captures only a slice of the potential innovation that resides within your organization? What if your organization could unlock non-traditional avenues and areas for innovation, experimentation, and value creation?

organizing in management essay

  • David A. Hofmann is the Hugh L. McColl, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Senior Associate Dean of UNC Executive Development at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • John J. Sumanth is the James Farr Fellow & Associate Professor of Management at the Wake Forest University School of Business.

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Example Of Organization and Management Essay

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Management , Workplace , Employee , Human Resource Management , Family , Listening , Information , Organization

Words: 1250

Published: 04/12/2021

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Organization and management has never been easy. The difficulty often arises because of the diversity that characterizes any workplace or any social place for that manner. One would ordinarily be influenced by his or her school of thought, personal preferences and biases. However, it is my humble submission that management and organization is both an acquired and nurtured trait that needs patience and hard work to accumulate and develop. In that breadth, in this paper, I shall discuss some of my organizational and managerial strengths and weaknesses drawing from the everyday experiences that I often encounter both at the workplace and in the family setup.

I must accept and equally appreciate that I am a good listener. I picked my listening character from my mother who often taught me on the skill of listening. My mother was an office manager at a laundry firm. She often informed the four of us in the family that the best way of reaching consensus was through listening to one another. She would say this in a joking manner whenever any of the girls had reported to her cases of disturbance from our elder brother. My mother would listen to both parties and interestingly find blame from both. This would later get ingrained into my character. In the organization, whenever any junior employee submits any complaints with me, I ensure that I fully listen to him or her. I give her all the attention and listen empathetically often capturing the emotions and gestures that accompany the presentation. Then I summon the supervisor or peer worker complained against and equally start the all motion process again. I have learnt never to be prejudicial and take sides with any of the parties. This element which I took from my mother’s approach, has enabled me solved conflicts at the workplace constructively. I often ensure that either parties leaves my office having gotten the message without necessarily feeling dressed down. I, therefore, can authoritatively count of listening as one of my management strengths.

Secondly, a discussion of my organizational strengths cannot be exhausted without my mentioning my strength in speaking. I have perfected the art of Peter Drucker in the use of language. In managing employees, one critical weapon that has often made my work easy is the use of language. It is often a psychological game that one has to play and perfect it while playing. Workers regardless of their position in the hierarchy have the preponderance of wanting to get praised and noticed while being left and or pardoned for the mistakes they commit. A good manager of my caliber has learnt this essential skill. I use it through the language in my speech. Workers often appreciate words such, “Thank you, I recognized you’re the earliest today that was wonderful, among others.” I have perfected this in my speech. This even applies when dealing with one’s superiors. The workers often love one that appeals to their emotions and tends to show recognition for the work well done. In the same breadth, I have learnt on how to use the language to politely communicate my discontent and or displeasure. One does not get it positive if you are strict and direct with the dress down. Workers appreciate being spoken to indirectly. A perfect example of a way to correct a worker which I do employ is, “I guess coming to work at eight would be better off that arriving late after nine o’clock tea.” That example can be used on an employee who has the character of coming to work late say at ten. It politely tells the worker that reporting time is at eight and that as a manager you are aware that he or she reports to work late. Such an approach is better than the use of threats and warnings which often do not give the worker the opportunity to explain and or correct his lateness. The former approach allows room for discussion and operates like an invitation for the worker to explain the conditions operant. Such is the beauty in the use of language. Word choice remains one of the critical of the potent weapons of management.

Lastly, I must observe that am a good information seeker. Information seeking relates to the ability to gather information from sources within and without the organization. Information is power to the worker and even more essential for purposes of organization and management. One way of keeping workers on their toes is often challenging them at whatever they do. Ensure you able to motivate them and keep them putting in more and more. One way I achieve that is through a thorough information system. One can always challenge his employees by attributing the success of such and such to such and such and opening up channels for employees to do more. In addition, an information seeking policy must be backed with an open door policy at the managerial level. This is precisely what I do whenever in a management position. Ensure the organizational structure is as flat as ever to avoid any cases of distortion. In equal measure, flat structures eliminate the unnecessary bureaucracy that only acts as a barrier to free flow of information. A manager must be able to discern good from bad information. Employees only need a given amount of information. Too little leaves them too depend while too much gives them too much autonomy which can be subject to misuse. It is, therefore, important to discern the right ration and apply it effectively. My approach, which has succeeded whenever I try it, entails the clustering of employees into informal structural groups in which each group is diagnosed for a relevant amount of information and level of communication.

On the other hand, one of my greatest weaknesses is my inability to write some of the most important decisions and policies. I tend to rely on my ability to remember. Often this fails especially for cases of informal transactions. Occasions have occurred where I misinform workers in reliance of a failed memory or even fail to observe my appointments because I failed to write it down. I do believe I still have a great memory and that mine (memory) qualifies as one the best. However, I have learnt to keep writing or typing essential matters and agreements especially orders and agreements that have a monetary bearing. Secondly, I find myself impatient with incompetent workers. I have been brought up in a world of competence and often portray zero tolerance to incompetence. However, I have been made to appreciate that cases of incompetence in the work output are not often necessarily on the part of the employee only. At times, the problem is simply a mismatch of skills, a function which is managerial in nature. I have lately been employing my listening abilities in solving cases of incompetence by tracing where the problem lies.

Aberdeen Group . (2013). Human Capital Management Trends . Aberdeen Group . Retrieved from http://www.aberdeen.com/assets/report-preview/8101-RA-human-capital-management.pdf Brickley, J., Zimmerman, J., Smith, J., & Clifford, W. (2008). Managerial Economics & Organizational Architecture. Economics . Retrieved from http://home.comcast.net/~drbrucehartman/Brickley5Online.pdf O'Rourke, J. S. (2012). Management Communication. New York: Pearson Education.

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Business Process Management (BPM) is a systematic approach to managing and streamlining business processes . BPM is intended to help improve the efficiency of existing processes, with the goal of increasing productivity and overall business performance.

BPM is often confused with other seemingly similar initiatives. For example, BPM is smaller in scale than business process reengineering (BPR), which radically overhauls or replaces processes. Conversely, it has a larger scope than task management, which deals with individual tasks, and project management, which handles one-time initiatives. And while enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrates and manages all aspects of a business, BPM focuses on its individual functions—optimizing the organization’s existing, repeatable processes end-to-end.

An effective BPM project employs structured processes, uses appropriate technologies and fosters collaboration among team members. It enables organizations to streamline project workflows, enhance productivity and consistently deliver value to stakeholders. Ultimately, the successful implementation of BPM tools can lead to increased customer satisfaction, competitive advantage and improved business outcomes.

3 main types of business process management

Integration-centric BPM focuses on processes that don’t require much human involvement. These include connecting different systems and software to streamline processes and improve data flow across the organization, for example human resource management (HRM) or customer relationship management (CRM)

Human-centric BPM centers around human involvement, often where an approval process is required. Human-centric BPM prioritizes the designing of intuitive processes with drag and drop features that are easy for people to use and understand, aiming to enhance productivity and collaboration among employees.

Document-centric BPM is for efficiently managing documents and content—such as contracts—within processes. A purchasing agreement between a client and vendor, for example, needs to evolve and go through different rounds of approval and be organized, accessible and compliant with regulations.

Business process management examples

BPM can help improve overall business operations by optimizing various business processes. Here are some BPM examples that outline the use cases and benefits of BPM methodology:

Business strategy

BPM serves as a strategic tool for aligning business processes with organizational goals and objectives. By connecting workflow management, centralizing data management , and fostering collaboration and communication, BPM enables organizations to remain competitive by providing access to accurate and timely data. This ensures that strategic decisions are based on reliable insights.

Through BPM, disparate data sources—including spend data, internal performance metrics and external market research—can be connected. This can uncover internal process improvements, strategic partnership opportunities and potential cost-saving initiatives. BPM also provides the foundation for making refinements and enhancements that lead to continuous improvement.

  • Enhanced decision-making
  • Efficient optimization
  • Continuous improvement

Claims management

BPM can be used to standardize and optimize the claims process from start to finish. BPM software can automate repetitive tasks such as claim intake, validation, assessment, and payment processing—using technology such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA ). By establishing standardized workflows and decision rules, BPM streamlines the claims process by reducing processing times and minimizing errors. BPM can also provide real-time visibility into claim status and performance metrics. This enables proactive decision-making, ensures consistency and improves operational efficiency.

  • Automated claim processing
  • Reduced processing times
  • Enhanced visibility

Compliance and risk management

By automating routine tasks and implementing predefined rules, BPM enables timely compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies. Processes such as compliance checks, risk evaluations and audit trails can be automated by using business process management software, and organizations can establish standardized workflows for identifying, assessing, and mitigating compliance risks. Also, BPM provides real-time insights into compliance metrics and risk exposure, enabling proactive risk management and regulatory reporting.

  • Automated compliance checks
  • Real-time insights into risk exposure
  • Enhanced regulatory compliance

Contract management

Contract turnaround times can be accelerated, and administrative work can be reduced by automating tasks such as document routing, approval workflows and compliance checks. Processes such as contract drafting, negotiation, approval, and execution can also be digitized and automated. Standardized workflows can be created that guide contracts through each stage of the lifecycle. This ensures consistency and reduces inefficiency. Real-time visibility into contract status improves overall contract management.

  • Accelerated contract turnaround times
  • Real-time visibility into contract status
  • Strengthened business relationships

Customer service

BPM transforms customer service operations by automating service request handling, tracking customer interactions, and facilitating resolution workflows. Through BPM, organizations can streamline customer support processes across multiple channels, including phone, email, chat, and social media. With BPM, routine tasks such as ticket routing and escalation are automated. Notifications can be generated to update customers about the status of their requests. This reduces response times and improves customer experience by making service more consistent. BPM also provides agents with access to a centralized knowledge base and customer history, enabling them to resolve inquiries more efficiently and effectively.

  • Streamlined service request handling
  • Centralized knowledge base access
  • Enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty

Financial management

BPM is used to streamline financial processes such as budgeting, forecasting, expense management, and financial reporting. It ensures consistency and accuracy in financial processes by establishing standardized workflows and decision rules, reducing the risk of human errors and improving regulatory compliance. BPM uses workflow automation to automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, reconciliation and report generation. Real-time visibility into financial data enables organizations to respond quickly to changing market conditions.

  • Increased operational efficiency
  • Instant insights for informed decision-making
  • Enhanced compliance with regulations and policies

Human resources

Using BPM, organizations can implement standardized HR workflows that guide employees through each stage of their employment experience, from recruitment to retirement . The new employee onboarding process and performance evaluations can be digitized, which reduces administrative work and allows team members to focus on strategic initiatives such as talent development and workforce planning. Real-time tracking of HR metrics provides insights into employee engagement, retention rates, and the use and effectiveness of training.

  • Reduced administrative work
  • Real-time tracking of HR metrics
  • Enhanced employee experience

Logistics management

BPM optimizes logistics management by automating processes such as inventory management, order fulfillment, and shipment tracking, including those within the supply chain. Workflows can be established that govern the movement of goods from supplier to customer. Automating specific tasks such as order processing, picking, packing and shipping reduces cycle times and improves order accuracy. BPM can also provide real-time data for inventory levels and shipment status, which enables proactive decision-making and exception management.

  • Streamlined order processing and fulfillment
  • Real-time visibility into inventory and shipments
  • Enhanced customer satisfaction and cost savings

Order management

BPM streamlines processes such as order processing, tracking, and fulfillment. BPM facilitates business process automation —the automation of routine tasks such as order entry, inventory management, and shipping, reducing processing times and improving order accuracy. By establishing standardized workflows and rules, BPM ensures consistency and efficiency throughout the order lifecycle. Increased visibility of order status and inventory levels enables proactive decision-making and exception management.

  • Automated order processing
  • Real-time visibility into order status
  • Improved customer satisfaction

Procurement management

BPM revolutionizes procurement management through the digital transformation and automation of processes such as vendor selection, purchase requisition, contract management, and pricing negotiations. Workflows can be established that govern each stage of the procurement lifecycle, from sourcing to payment. By automating tasks such as supplier qualification, RFx management, and purchase order processing, BPM reduces cycle times and improves efficiency. Also, with real-time metrics such as spend analysis, supplier performance, and contract compliance, BPM enables business process improvement by providing insights into areas suitable for optimization.

  • Standardized procurement workflows
  • Real-time insights into procurement metrics
  • Cost savings and improved supplier relationships

Product lifecycle management

BPM revolutionizes product lifecycle management by digitizing and automating processes such as product design, development, launch, and maintenance. Workflows that govern each stage of the product lifecycle, from ideation to retirement can be standardized. Requirements gathering, design reviews, and change management , can be automated. This accelerates time-to-market and reduces development costs. BPM can also encourage cross-functional collaboration among product development teams, which ensures alignment and transparency throughout the process.

  • Accelerated time-to-market
  • Reduced development costs
  • Enhanced cross-functional collaboration

Project management

In the beginning of this page, we noted that BPM is larger in scale than project management. In fact, BPM can be used to improve the project management process. Business process management tools can assign tasks, track progress, identify bottlenecks and allocate resources. Business process modeling helps in visualizing and designing new workflows to guide projects through each stage of the BPM lifecycle. This ensures consistency and alignment with project objectives. Tasks assignments, scheduling, and progress monitoring can be automated, which reduces administrative burden and improves efficiency. Also, resource utilization and project performance can be monitored in real time to make sure resources are being used efficiently and effectively.

  • Streamlined project workflows
  • Real-time insights into project performance
  • Enhanced stakeholder satisfaction

Quality assurance management

BPM facilitates the automation of processes such as quality control, testing, and defect tracking, while also providing insights into KPIs such as defect rates and customer satisfaction scores. Quality assurance (QA) process steps are guided by using standardized workflows to ensure consistency and compliance with quality standards. Metrics and process performance can be tracked in real time to enable proactive quality management. Process-mapping tools can also help identify inefficiencies, thereby fostering continuous improvement and QA process optimization.

  • Automated quality control processes
  • Real-time visibility into quality metrics

Business process management examples: Case studies

Improving procure-to-pay in state government.

In 2020, one of America’s largest state governments found itself in search of a new process analysis solution . The state had integrated a second management system into its procurement process, which required the two systems, SAP SRM and SAP ECC, to exchange data in real time. With no way to analyze the collected data, the state couldn’t monitor the impact of its newly integrated SAP SRM system, nor detect deviations during the procurement process. This created an expensive problem.

The state used IBM Process Mining to map out its current workflow and track the progress of the SAP SRM system integration. Using the software’s discovery tool, data from both management systems was optimized to create a single, comprehensive process model. With the end-to-end process mapped out, the state was able to monitor all its process activities and review the performance of specific agencies.

Streamlining HR at Anheuser-Busch

AB InBev wanted to streamline its complicated HR landscape by implementing a singular global solution to support employees and improve their experience, and it selected workday as its human capital management (HCM) software. Working with a team from  IBM® Workday consulting services , part of IBM Consulting™, AB InBev worked with IBM to remediate the integration between the legacy HR apps and the HCM software.

What was once a multi-system tool with unorganized data has become a single source of truth, enabling AB InBev to run analytics for initiatives like examining employee turnover at a local scale. Workday provides AB InBev with a streamlined path for managing and analyzing data, ultimately helping the company improve HR processes and reach business goals.

Business process management and IBM

Effective business process management (BPM) is crucial for organizations to achieve more streamlined operations and enhance efficiency. By optimizing processes, businesses can drive growth, stay competitive and realize sustainable success.

IBM Consulting offers a range of solutions to make your process transformation journey predictable and rewarding.

  • Traditional AI and generative AI-enabled Process Excellence practice uses the leading process mining tools across the IBM ecosystem and partners.
  • Our patented IBM PEX Value Triangle includes industry standards, benchmarks, and KPIs and is used to quickly identify process performance issues and assess where and how our clients can optimize and automate everywhere possible.
  • IBM Automation Quotient Framework and Digital Center of Excellence (COE) platform prioritized and speeds up automation opportunities, ultimately establishing a Process Excellence COE for continuous value orchestration and governance across your organization.

Key improvements might include 60-70% faster procurement, faster loan booking, and reduced finance rework rate, along with risk avoidance, and increased customer and employee satisfaction.

With principles grounded in open innovation, collaboration and trust, IBM Consulting doesn’t just advise clients. We work side by side to design, build, and operate high-performing businesses—together with our clients and partners.

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How One Partnership is Stabilizing the Healthcare Workforce

A woman in a dark jacket and glasses speaks at a podium. A banner in the background reads "H-CAP Healthcare Career Advancement Program. H-CAP Education Association."

The Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP) is a labor-management partnership established by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and various national healthcare industry employers that currently serves over half a million workers. Its purpose is to advance innovation, quality, and equity in the healthcare profession. H-CAP is one example of a labor-management partnership that aims to bring together healthcare industry employers, local unions representing healthcare workers, training organizations, colleges and government representatives, all with the objective of making the industry a better place for workers, patients and employers.

Panel Discussion

H-CAP recently celebrated 20 years of work with a national symposium entitled "Impact of Labor-Management Partnership on Stabilizing the Healthcare Workforce." I was privileged to moderate a conversation on the "Impact of Labor-Management Partnerships." This session explored how the collaborative efforts between labor unions and management are crucial in shaping policies, developing programs to enhance workplace conditions and influencing funding allocation within organizations.

 Six women sit in chairs on a stage for a panel discussion.

The panelists, representing diverse perspectives, included Jane Hopkins (SEIU 1199NW president), Cenetra Pickens (nursing residency coordinator for Kaiser in Washington), Merissa Clyde (CEO of the 775 Benefits Group), Delores Prescott (healthcare worker and SEIU 1199 NW Member) and Sylvia Liang (home care worker in Washington). Their insights provided attendees with a comprehensive picture of the successful partnerships and emphasized the win-win nature of these collaborations.

As a full-time care worker for her son with autism, Sylvia Liang's compelling story added a personal touch to the discussion and highlighted the profound impact of successful labor-management partnerships. For Sylvia and other workers in the homecare sector, many of whom have been excluded and marginalized, H-CAP and partnerships like it are providing the opportunity to earn a living wage, affordable benefits and paid time off. Her firsthand experience underscored the long-term effects on professional development and the positive economic impact that a good job had on her family. Sylvia also emphasized how these partnerships help retain skilled workers and support employer recruitment efforts.

Two women stand side-by-side, smiling. Their nametags read "Darnice" and "Danielle."

The symposium also covered topics such as supportive services in apprenticeship programs , retention and the impact of artificial intelligence on the healthcare industry.

Want to learn more? Information on H-CAP and its upcoming activities is available on the HCAP website at hcapinc.org .

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Labor-Management Partnership Program supports employers and workers in collaboratively addressing complex organizational issues. Learn more about how we can help workers and your organization thrive.

Darnice Marsh is the labor-management partnership coordinator in the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.

A special thank you to H-CAP for their contributions to this blog post. This post does not constitute an endorsement of H-CAP by the Department of Labor.

  • Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS)
  • Labor-Management Partnership
  • skills training
  • career development
  • healthcare workers

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Register for AOM 2024

Midwest Academy of Management - Call for Papers - 2024 Conference Moorhead, MN

1.  midwest academy of management - call for papers - 2024 conference moorhead, mn.

Greetings from the Midwest Academy of Management!

We would like to cordially invite you to submit your current and in progress work and to join us at our annual meeting this fall in Moorhead, Minnesota.   This year, you could get to experience "North of Normal!" Moorhead is part of the Fargo metro area spanning three cities, Fargo, West Fargo, and not so "far to go" is MOORHEAD!

Will you join us?

The deadline for submissions is – MAY 31 st !

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 67 th

  MIDWEST ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE

Hosted by Concordia College – Offutt School of Business (Moorhead, MN)

October 24-26, 2024

https://www.mwaom.org/ Conference Theme: Ideas, Actions & Outcomes

An idea can change the world. And as management scholars and practitioners, our strength is in generating innovative ideas as part of our research and teaching efforts. A promising idea mobilizes us to take action to bring it to fruition. And finally, our actions produce outcomes that are assessed and evaluated. During this time of reflection, "what if" questions, recommendations, and suggestions typically lead to new, improved, or revised ideas and ways of thinking. This recursive process enables us to make an impact for the betterment of society. For this year's Midwest Academy of Management conference, we invite all members of the academy – researchers, educators, practitioners, and students – to submit papers and proposals that will challenge and motivate us to a) be more innovative, b) share ways in which actions have been taken to advance new ideas, and c) share valuable knowledge and lessons learned to generate new ideas to be explored in the future.

Deadline for submissions – May 31, 2024 @ 11:59 PM

Acceptance decisions will be made by early August 2024.

Program Chair:

Shontarius Aikens ( [email protected] )

Thursday - Oct 24:

Doctoral Consortium

The Midwest Doctoral Consortium will be held on Thursday, October 24, 2024. If you are a currently

enrolled doctoral student in business or a related area and are interested in attending, please send an

email to – Marcia Hagen ( [email protected] )), with the following information:

Name, College/University, Program description (DBA, Ph.D., etc.), Program area (i.e., OD, OB, HR,

Strategy, etc.), and Program Status or expected completion date (e.g., May 2023). In addition, you

should indicate what your specific interest would be from the doctoral consortium. The coordinator

will respond to you with additional information. Doctoral students will have to become members of

Midwest Academy of Management.  

Reviewers play a key role in academic conferences by providing authors with constructive feedback on improving their work and providing feedback used to determine submissions selected for acceptance at the conference. To sign up to review proposals, go to https://www.openconf.org/mwaom2024/ , enter the keycode reviewer2024 in the "Sign Up- Keycode" section, click Enter, and fill out the requested information. Any questions or issues with signing up as a reviewer can be sent to Carla Flores, Director of OpenConference ( [email protected] ).

Submission Deadline: Friday, May 31st, 2024, 11:59 pm EST

   

For formatting and submission guidelines , and

To submit a proposal , go to :  

https://www.mwaom.org/conferences/guidelines-for-all-submissions/

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Management Planning Paper Essay

Introduction, reference list.

Management is an important aspect in all business organization regardless of their size. It ensures proper utilization of the available resources in order to achieve a company’s goal, objective, mission and vision. Management has got various concepts, planning being the core upon which the rest should build on.

Planning has got many merits on the company’s performances and failure to plan can have adverse effects eventually leading to collapse. In this paper, WorldCom is the subject of study where effects of planning and various factors that led to its failure have been looked at.

Planning is very important in any organization as it helps one focus ahead and determines what actions to be implemented in the future. It falls among the four functions of management, the rest being directing, organizing and controlling. Planning is an on going process and because unavoidable factors will always be present to influence a company’s performance either positively or negatively, adjustment to the planned action is required and this can be termed as strategic planning.

It gives a systematic way of determining when a given activity or task in the organization is going to be executed, which manner it is going to be done and the individual responsible for executing it.

It is a basic function of management which enables adequate use of available resources in order to meet the demand. It ensures achievement of the set goals by use of facts and not guesses. Since objectives and goals are set in planning, alternatives are also availed by the same process so as to maximize the results of an organization at the long run.

As a basic function of management, planning is vital for success of any company as it determines the current position and gives a way of reaching future expectations. It simplifies ways of achieving set goals in an organization. Strategic planning is vital as it enables establish a company’s strengths and weakness (Rane 2007).

WorldCom organization is a company responsible for telecommunications. In 2000, this company failed in its services delivery due to lack of proper management plan which is essential in achieving a company’s goals and objectives.

Firstly, the management did not control the bad actions such as acts of fraud by those under their control. Infact, they joined hands in the perpetuation of these acts which are a detriment to success of a company.

Under, proper management, those above such as the human resource managers and departmental directors are supposed to control when, how and who is responsible for certain action and that a proper coordination among the various departments is available.

Lack of such responsibility saw this company which initially performed well go down. Secondly, information dispersion was not done in the right manner, there are several instances where transactions were carried out within minutes and the stakeholders had no idea or received very short notices of the same.

Proper communication is important for it ensures satisfaction among the involved parties. For a company’s development, it has to be flexible and be in a position to adapt to the changes that occur; this is made possible by research on the desired technological advancements, this helps the company offer services well to the satisfaction of the customers.

There should be proper consultations before making decision that is likely to affect the functioning of the organization at large. This is evident in WorldCom acquisition of Skytel, Inc and intermedia Inc. Other cases of decision making failures included the debt management, loan and benefit management, where the directors made these decisions on their own. Contrary to management plan, directors of WorldCom become self centered in that they were up to their own interests rather than the company’s wellbeing.

This contributed to management failure which contributed greatly to the collapse of the organization. Individual responsibility and proper governance lacked in WorldCom which form the basics for strategic planning. It is for these reasons that the organization did not perform to the expectations (Worldcom et al, 2003).

In planning, social responsibility requires an individual or a group’s engagement in an activity that is helpful to the society and not just to an individual.

Usually, research and development are meant not to maximize profits in an organization but to serve the customers satisfactorily and in a safer manner. By WorldCom, not involving social responsibility, which is by not involving in actions that are beneficial to all, it did not succeed.

Top officials engaged in fraud cases involving financial statement in order to gain not minding about customer’s interests. Apart from business responsibility, managers of a company may engage in activities such as conducting fund drives to collect money that can be used to help the needy in the society such as orphans, HIV/AIDS victims and the aged. In order to improve the corporate image of a company, management decisions that are right and good are made regardless of how unprofitable they might be.

Ethics also call for actions that are aimed at bringing much profit to the company for the benefit of all the employees. Though some actions may be considered unethical to some individuals, they are undertaken so as to help a company gain advantage such actions may include employees’ relocation and retrenchment of others in order to maximize profits.

In many cases, governments impose laws and regulations which a company must operate under; this affects its normal running as it must adhere to such imposed rules. In such cases deregulations has been employed in most companies WorldCom being among them (Thinking made easy, 2008).

Several factors may have had an influence on the planning management of WorldCom, such may include; finance, lack of competent labor and inexperienced mangers. As a large company that deals with communication system, a lot of money was required for its proper running but this was unavailable leading to the company’s borrowing of loans.

Lack of proper management of debts within the company led to misappropriation of funds resulting to greater debts accumulation. Human resource is vital for such a company in the production of the information system, this was in adequate in the company and the incoporaration of some system without the employee’s knowledge led to low outcome.

Managers for this company were self-centered and they made most of the decision on their own with an aim of benefitting themselves which is contrary to management requirement. Lack of good communication protocol also resulted to the company’s failure.

In conclusion, for the success of any organization, it is important to have proper planning failure to which the company can easily collapse or fail to achieve its set goals. Without planning WorldCom did not perform well to the end and all companies are vulnerable if planning is not incorporated in its management process.

Rane Sanjay .(2007). The Four Functions of Management: Foundation for All Management Concepts. Web.

Thinking made easy. (2008). Web.

WorldCom et al. Second interim report of dick Thornburgh, bankruptcy court examiner (2003). Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 27). Management Planning Paper. https://ivypanda.com/essays/management-planning-paper/

"Management Planning Paper." IvyPanda , 27 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/management-planning-paper/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Management Planning Paper'. 27 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Management Planning Paper." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/management-planning-paper/.

1. IvyPanda . "Management Planning Paper." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/management-planning-paper/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Management Planning Paper." December 27, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/management-planning-paper/.

  • WorldCom: How Corporations Misuse Data to Make Gains
  • Bernie Ebbers and the WorldCom Scandal
  • Fraud at WorldCom Company
  • Unethical Business Procedures: Worldcom, Enron, & Philip Morris
  • Whistle Blowing: A Case by Cynthia Cooper
  • Bernard Ebbers' Input to WorldCom Firm's Growth
  • Justice Department Seeks to Enjoin Merger Between WorldCom and Sprint Corporation
  • Communication Barriers: Bernard Ebbers' Case
  • Enron Company's Unethical Business Research Practices
  • Ethical Analysis of the Actions of General Electric Capital
  • Aspects of Organization Design
  • Delegation and Empowerment
  • What Is Organizational Development?
  • Chiefs Restaurant: Action Plan for the Cooks
  • Virtual Teams Challenges in Global Corporations

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