...Henri Fayol was a French mining engineer and director of mines who had developed a general theory of business administration. He was one of the most influential contributors to modern theories of management. He also identified 5 functions and 14 general principles of management in the early 19th century. These functions and principles were based on his experience and observations and were made for general administration purposes. While today’s economy may be more service oriented, one would feel the management functions set down by Fayol are still very relevant. Many of these are considered to be common sense and constitutional to sound management. These functions are: * Planning * Organising * Directing * Controlling and * Coordinating Planning is basically deciding in advance what to do and how to do it. Planning bridges the gap between where one is and where he/she wants to be. It is the primary function and is present on all levels of management. Organising is a process that commences the implementation of the plans that are set down by clarifying working and reporting relationships and effectively deploying resources towards the attainment of organizational goals. Directing involves leading and motivating employees to perform tasks assigned to them. Motivation and leadership are essential to direction. Leadership is influencing others to do what is asked of them and motivating is getting people to want to do it. Controlling is the function...
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...Henry Amm Fayol or Mintzberg – Who is right? Date: 11/12/2011 Student Number: 110369257 Version 1.0 The task: Henri Fayol presented his analysis of the management function in 1916 and it has largely been superseded by the more descriptive approaches of what managers actually do, such that favored by Henry Mintzberg. However, it could be argued that the image portrayed by Fayol is superior to that of Mintzberg, and the latter’s description is of rather ineffective management! Who do you think is right? Fayol or Mintzberg – Who is right? By Henry Amm Introduction With his work General and Industrial Management (1949, in French 1916) Henri Fayol was a pioneer on the field of management theory. (Pryor & Taneja, 2010) Many more were to follow, some supporting Fayol’s thoughts and some, i.e. Henry Mintzberg in The Nature of Managerial Work (1973) saying that Fayol’s views are not holding true today. This essay will take a closer look at strengths and weaknesses of both Fayol and Mintzberg and conclude that Fayol’s work still is not only relevant to our contemporary understanding of management but also superior to Mintzberg in terms of its conceptualization and applicability to modern organizations. Description of Fayol’s work According to Fayol (1949) all industrial organisations consist of six different groups of activities: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and management. As he was a manager himself, or in other words an administrator, he...
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