Management, management today is one of the subjects with the most widely branched areas. Management is an area under discussion and criticised since many years before till today by many contributors and authors. There have been developed many ideas and notions regarding the right way to manage and been successful manager. Some of the most important contributors are Henri Fayol and Henry Mintzberg with two different views but, in the same time very similar. Henri Fayol came first with his revolutionary principles and elements to change and establish a new model of ideas regarding how a manager can manage effectively, he also writes a book which can be used as a guide for new inexperienced managers and anyone who is interested in how to manage. After some years when Fayol published his book an associate professor Henry Mintzberg will reject his ideas by researching what really managers do, today. The ideas and arguments presented will show if Mintzberg was wrong or not.
Henri Fayol is the initial and fundamental designer of the whole idea how to manage efficiently. Fayol spent almost his entire life in a French company as a manager. During that time he creates and forms concepts and elements from his personal way of managing and his own experiences. His five basic elements in order to manage are “to forecast and plan, to organize, to comma, to coordinate, and to control” (Fayol, 1949, p. 141). Fayol believed that with these five elements and the rest fourteen principles he introduced, if a manager can understand completely Fayol’s ideas and succeed to adjust them in his own needs, he and his company can be successful. Since his book was published, Fayol’s work was deeply investigated and then heavily criticized by researchers, academicians and many others.
Henry Mintzberg is a associate professor of management at McGill University in Montreal, and one the first individuals to disagree with
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