Please take a moment to imagine life without management or think about carrying out a project without planning for it. Things would be weird and very unsuccessful. The whole circle of life is a function of management. We enjoy and admire everything in life due to careful planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and control. These are the basic elements involved in the management, which functions to achieve the expected goals and objectives in any endeavor. It can be Psychological or physical, or both, as the case may be.
This is probably not new to you, “if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” When I was a little boy or may choose to say when I had little understanding, I used to ponder the quote, how can one plan to fail, I mean, nobody ever wants to fail anyway. Everyone wants to win. Though, that was a real childish thought.
Now that I have understood certain things, I can now understand the meaning of the above quote. Childishness can seem to be foolish at times, especially when children do things without ” thinking” or “planning’ it, which is common. However, it’s the joy of childhood, and rather than it being tagged foolishness, it’s the innocence of not knowing due to a developing brain.
The Necessity Of The Functions Of Management
Functions of management must be underscored if achieving results is deemed necessary. Management, therefore, becomes a prerequisite for reaching our set goals and objectives, be it in corporate organizations, personal projects such as marriage, school, faith, health, education, resolutions such as consistency, proactiveness, getting things done within the stipulated time frame, even in our relationship with people.
The functions of management serve as a compass, procedures, steps, and a roadmap for accomplishing a task and ensuring that such accomplishment archive its purpose. Without effective and efficient management, tasks cannot be properly managed, leading to failure in achieving the objective. This will effectively mean resources, such as time, finance, workforce, studies, research, etc., all went down as a loss. Dealing with ourselves even proves to be the hardest form of management as it determines how we can effectively and efficiently manage other things in life.
Understanding The Scope Of The Functions Management
Thus far, we have seen the spheres of management, and it’s an inevitability in achieving or even failing. In the description of management lies its functions. This is why I so much love the concept. It helps me to improve my personal life and also my relationship with my environment.
Management, however, we chose to construe involves the deliberate, systematic, and painstaking process toward fulfilling the desired goal or attaining the desired result. Management helps to put things and events in order of priorities and pursue them to follow a prescribed system and to forgo certain things when necessary to reach a set target.
It is important to understand that management, as opposed to popular knowledge, is intrinsic and extrinsic. It is both psychological and physical. When the concept of management is being addressed, it is mostly focused on the extrinsic, the physical management. Can a person who has not been able to manage him/herself properly manage a physical task? The obvious answer is no. Here, we will understand how management functions in both ways.
Management functions in ensuring our Psychological wellbeings, which is critical to everything, our level of emotional intelligence, the ability to properly manage our emotions (anxiety levels, anger, happiness, drive, depression, etc.), and our social environment such as school, work, places of worship, our business, family, friends, government. This is how far management can function.
Permit me to state this straight and to be forward with management’s function, the whole matter of the function of management is nothing more or less for attaining our desire as an individual or as a group. This is a classical scenario of bypassing the established protocol, which is deemed the basics in management functions, as we saw in the first paragraph.
Complexities Underlying The Functions Of Management
A lot of variables interact to construct management, its functions, persons involved, and the environment. We have been stereotyped about management’s description, and trust me, I was too, but no anymore, I very much believe that you have stereotyped that management means getting things done through people. Well, that is partially true.
However, if this assertion holds absolute truth, then it will mean that we, as individuals lack the will to effect changes or an outcome in our lives by ourselves. This can never be true, for we can not deny that we must hold ourselves accountable for our failures in life. Else, we will be living in a delusional state.
Society is heterogeneous, and so is the individual. We have our emotions to manage, our personal goals, anxiety levels, and emotional intelligence, which must be managed well to reconcile with a society with a complex structure.
Our society is filled with people of mixed race, ethnicity, different levels of emotional intelligence, believes, ideologies and perspective, and even language. This complexity that exists gives management its mandate to prevail and functions well for a prosperous life.
Functions of Management The Traditional Way.
Traditionally, there are many functions of management, but I am going to be focusing on just five as follows;
- Planning
- Planning is everything in management. In this phase, the objective/goals (vision) to be achieved are defined—the processes to be followed, how to go about it, and when to go about it. Timing is crucial to the success of any event. The most suitable environment must also be taken into cognizance. The type of workforce to be hired. All of it must be carefully and strategically selected for the overall success of any task.
- Organizing
- Selecting and providing the needed resources to ensure a task does not suffer inadequacy of resources in achieving its purpose. Resources may range from time, finance, workforce, information, and staff. It also involves the selection of procedures in carrying out the task, a grouping of staff, and setting a time frame for achieving results.
- Directing
- In simple words, it means telling people what to do. It is the flow of information from the management to other staff. It is the communication flow from the management to its subordinates.
- Staffing
- This is the process of selecting staff suitable for the task based on targets or goals. This is where recruiting of staff comes to play. It involves job analysis ( job description and specification), job placement. Performance appraisal must be conducted routinely to know if certain employees would require replacement or retrenching and if more staff are required and if some staff might need regrouping.
- Control
- This is the act of ensuring that all procedures and resources are properly in place for the attainment of goals. It is keeping things and staff in check at all times to ensure the tasks are carried out properly and set goals are achieved.
Conclusion
Thus far, we have seen the inevitability of management and its functions as far success is concerned in any endeavor. Birds of the air, aquatic, terrestrial, and amphibious animals can’t escape this if they must survive, which survival, as we know, is a necessity. Nature itself is a master at management and management functions.
