DEFINING THE FOUR FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT
“Planning: is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 16).
“Organizing: is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 17).
“Leading: is stimulating people to be high performers. It is directing, motivating, and communicating with employees, individually and in groups. Leading involves close day-to-day contact with people, helping to guide and inspire them toward achieving team and organizational goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 17).
“Controlling: monitors progress and implements necessary changes where needed. Monitoring is an essential aspect of control” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 18).
As you can see after defining the four functions of management that they prove to be a vital component for a manager and for the success of his or her team or organization in achieving the goals set forth in a particular project. In my company (NUS Consulting Group), I am an Energy Consultant and each function is important for us as well. Each day in my organization, we generate recommendations in the form of a report detailing how our clients can reduce their overall costs in electricity, gas, water, sewer, and any other commodity they wish my company to audit and analyze.
However, in some cases we need to develop strategies for them to improve their efficiency, improve
References: Bateman, S. T., & Snell, S. (2004). Management: the new competitive landscape. The McGraw-Hill Companies.