Today managers need to perform various functionelaborate the statement?

Answer 1

1. Planning

2. Organising

3. Leading

4. Controlling

1. Planning:

It involves the process of defining goals, establishing strategies to achieve these goals, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Effective planning enables an organisation adapt the change by identifying opportunities and avoiding problems. It provides direction to the other functions of management and for effective team work. All levels of management engage in planning in their own way for achieving their presser goals.

Planning in order to be useful must be linked with strategic intent of an organisation.

Strategic Planning:

Top level managers often engage in strategic planning or long term planning. It is a process of developing and analysing the organisation's mission, overall goals, general strategies and allocation of resources.

The tasks in strategic planning include the following steps:

a. Define mission:

Planning begins with clearly defining the mission of the organisation. A mission statement should be short and should be easily understood by every employee. It guides employees to work independently yet collectively toward the realisation of organisation' potential

b. Conduct SWOT analysis:

A situation or SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis is vital for the creation of any strategic plan. It begins with the scan of external environment. Organisations need to need to examine their business situation in order to map out the opportunities and threats present in their environments. It provides assumptions and facts on which a plan will be based.

In general terms the best strategy is one that fits the organisations strengths to opportunities. The SWOT analysis is used as a base line for future improvement, as well as gap analysis.

Set goals and objectives:

Strategic goals and objectives are developed to fulfil the gap between current capability and the mission. They are aligned with the mission and form basis for the action plans. Objectives are also called performance goals.

Develop related strategies (Tactical and operational):

Tactical plans are based on organisations strategic plan. In turn, operational plans are based on the organisations tactical plans. These are specific plans that are needed for each task or supporting activity comprising the whole. All plans must be accompanied by controls to ensure proper implementation.

Monitor the plan:

A systematic method of monitoring the environment must be adopted to continuously improve the strategic planning process. Feedback is encouraged and incorporated to determine if goals and objectives are feasible.

2. Organising:

It involves designing, structuring and coordinating the work components to achieve organisational goals. It the process of determining what tasks are to be done, who to do, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made. The purpose of this function is to make the best use of the organisation's resources to achieve organisational goals.

The steps in organisation process include:

a. Review plans

b. List all tasks to accomplished

c. Divide the tasks into groups one person can accomplish-a job

d. Group related jobs together in a logical and efficient manner.

e. Assign wokr to individuals.

f. Delegate authority to establish relationships between jobs and groups of jobs.

3. Leading:

An organisation has the greatest chance of being successful when all of the employees work toward achieving its goals. Since leadership involves the exercise of influence by one person over others, the quality of leadership exhibited bys supervisors is critical demand of organisational success.

Leading involves the following functions:

a. Team Building:

Rigid department boundaries and fixed teams are giving way to ad hoc squads whose membership changes with every project. Competitive arenas require quick decisions by knowledgeable employees who work close to the source of problems. Teams enable knowledge-based and innovative decision making. This collaboration is a revolution in work place.

b. Consensus Building:

Top performance demands the joint effort of many people working together toward a common goal. Together, employees can do more than the collective efforts of each individual working alone.

c. Selecting:

Selecting competent, high-performing employees capable of sustaining their performance over the long run is a competitive advantage. The section process consists of forecasting employment needs, recruiting candidates, interviewing applicants and hiring employees.

d. Training:

After selecting employees, they enter an organisational program to be formally introduced to their jobs. Orientation sets a tone for new employees work by describing job-related expectations and reporting relationships.

Employees are informed about the benefits, policies and procedures. Specific duties and responsibilities and performance evaluation are clarified. During orientation, the supervisor has the opportunity to resolve any unrealistic expectations held by employee. All new employees [current employee in new jobs] must be trained. Cross training prepares employees for a job normally handled by someone else. Training starts with Organisational analysis. Task analysis identifies the current and future tasks to be done. Personal needs analysis involves asking managers and employees to analyse their training needs.

4. Controlling:

It involves monitoring employee's behaviour and organisational processes and takes necessary actions to improve them.

There are 4 steps in control process:

i. Establish performance standards. Standards are created and objectives are set during planning process.

ii. Measure actual performance. Supervisors collect data to measure actual performance. Oral reports will allow for fast and extensive feedback. Computers give supervisors direct access to real time, unaltered data, and information.

iii. Compare measured performance against established standards. Establish the acceptable variation. Deviations that exceed this range would alert the supervisor to a problem.

iv. Take corrective action. If the performance is from a deflect in activity, then the supervisor can take immediate corrective action and get performance back on track.

Controls are effective when they are applied at key places. Supervisors can implement control measures before the process begins [Feed forward], during the process [Concurrent], or after it ceases [Feedback].