A Preview of the Functions of Management

6. A Preview of the Functions of Management

What does a manager, at any level, actually spend their time doing? Management writers group a manager's work into a set of core functions. This chapter only introduces them briefly by name, as a roadmap — the full, detailed treatment of each function belongs to Std XII OCM's dedicated "Functions of Management" chapter, which this chapter deliberately does not attempt to replace.

• Planning — deciding in advance WHAT is to be done, WHEN, and HOW; setting objectives and choosing the course of action to reach them.
• Organising — arranging the resources and people needed to carry out the plan: dividing work, grouping activities, and assigning authority and responsibility.
• Staffing — filling, and keeping filled, the various positions in the organisational structure with the right people, through recruitment, selection, training, and development.
• Directing — guiding, instructing, supervising, and motivating people so that they actually carry out the plan.
• Controlling — comparing actual performance against the plan, and correcting deviations where they are found.
• Co-ordinating — ensuring that all of the above functions, and all the different people and departments performing them, work together harmoniously toward the same common goal (some textbooks treat co-ordination as a separate, additional function; others treat it as running through all the other functions — this chapter simply notes both views exist). …