According to Henri Fayol, to Manage Is to Forecast and Plan, to Organize, to Command, to Co-Ordinate and to Control.
Henri Fayol was born in 1841 into a French middle class family. Graduating from the National School of Mines at the age of 19 as a mining engineer, he started out his career at Commentry Fourchamboult Company where he remained throughout his working life. Progressing into general management during his early thirties he later became Managing Director, instigating the company’s rise from being on the verge of bankruptcy to becoming one of the leading steel producers and mining operators. He wrote many technical papers on mining engineering and the geology of coal fields, later turning his focus to general administration, publishing Administration Industrielle et Générale in 1916 which was translated in 1949.
Many theorists have attempted defining management, but Fayol was a true pioneer, the first to identify management as a process of six major activities. Namely to plan: examine the future and lay out the actions to be taken. To organize: lay out the lines of authority and responsibility; build up the dual structure, material and undertaking. To coordinate: layout the timing and sequencing of activities; bind together, unify, and harmonize all activities and efforts. To command: put the plan into action; set the work in operation. To control: monitor and correct; see that everything occurs in conformity with established rules and expressed command. (Fayol 1984)
From this, Fayol established 14 principles of management which has been seen to greatly influence how organisations are managed, yet these principles were not uncommon in organisations before his writings and although hugely influential his ideas have been challenged by modern developments in organisations. For instance Fayol refers to unity of command as one of the principles of management, however as stated in Brooks (2003) unity of command, where each person has one superior to whom they report, although still the norm is contravened in many matrix or project based organisations. Thus the rigidity of
Many theorists have attempted defining management, but Fayol was a true pioneer, the first to identify management as a process of six major activities. Namely to plan: examine the future and lay out the actions to be taken. To organize: lay out the lines of authority and responsibility; build up the dual structure, material and undertaking. To coordinate: layout the timing and sequencing of activities; bind together, unify, and harmonize all activities and efforts. To command: put the plan into action; set the work in operation. To control: monitor and correct; see that everything occurs in conformity with established rules and expressed command. (Fayol 1984)
From this, Fayol established 14 principles of management which has been seen to greatly influence how organisations are managed, yet these principles were not uncommon in organisations before his writings and although hugely influential his ideas have been challenged by modern developments in organisations. For instance Fayol refers to unity of command as one of the principles of management, however as stated in Brooks (2003) unity of command, where each person has one superior to whom they report, although still the norm is contravened in many matrix or project based organisations. Thus the rigidity of
References: Brooks, I. (2003) Organisational Behaviour: Individuals, Groups and Organisation. Harlow: Prentice Hall Fayol, H., and Gray, I. (eds) (1984) General and Industrial Management. London: Pitman Luthans, F (1998) Organizational Behaviour. 8th ed. United States of America: Irwin/McGraw-Hill Maslow, A.H. (1954) Motivation and Personality. 3rd ed. United States of America: Addison-Wesley Longman Mintzberg, H. (1975) The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact. Harvard Business Review, July – August: 49-61 Schermerhorn, J.R. (1996) Management and Organizational Behaviour Essentials. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons Stewart, R. (1967) Managers and Their Jobs. London: Macmillan