Business Studies · Ch 1 — Nature and Significance of Management
Coordination — The Essence of Management
Coordination — The Essence of Management
Coordination — The Essence of Management
A manager performs five interrelated functions — planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling — within an organisation that is itself a system of interlinked, interdependent parts. Linking these diverse groups so that they pull together towards a common goal is the task of coordination: the process by which a manager synchronises the activities of different departments.
Coordination is the force that binds all the other functions of management — the common thread running through purchase, production, sales and finance that keeps the organisation working as one. It is sometimes treated as a separate function, but it is really the essence of management, because achieving harmony among individual efforts is what makes group goals attainable. Coordination is implicit and inherent in every function: it begins at the planning stage, shapes how the structure is organised and staffed, guides directing, and closes the loop at controlling — ensuring the orderly arrangement of individual and group effort with the least possible conflict.
The characteristics of coordination and the reasons for its importance are examined in detail in the sections that follow.
The Dabbawallas of Mumbai — Excellence through Coordination
The Dabbawallas of Mumbai are a Six Sigma business enterprise. Their success lies in a complex yet well-coordinated exercise carried out daily on the streets of Mumbai. The process:
- The first dabbawalla picks up the tiffin from home and takes it to the nearest railway station.
- The second dabbawalla sorts the dabbas at the station according to destination and places them in the luggage carriage.
- The third dabbawalla travels with the dabbas to the station nearest to the destination.
- The fourth dabbawalla picks up the dabbas from the station and delivers them to offices.
By mid-morning, thousands of dabbawallas are bicycling through Mumbai, ensuring a hot home-cooked lunch for customers. The system relies on low capital — cycles, wooden carriages, and local trains — with negligible technology. Several groups work independently and network with each other. Each area is divided into small distribution sectors handled by a specific person who knows the locality well. New employees work for months under senior guidance. Punctuality and time management are top priorities; the dabbawallas never get delayed even by a few minutes.
The Global Manager and Coordination …
The essence of management is captured in these definitions of coordination:
"Coordination is balancing and keeping together the team by ensuring suitable allocation of tasks to the various members and seeing that the tasks are performed with harmony among the members themselves."
— E.F.L. Brech
"Coordination is the process whereby an executive develops an orderly pattern of group efforts among his subordinates and secures unity of action in the pursuit of common purpose."
— McFarland
"Coordination is the orderly synchronising of efforts of subordinates to provide proper amount, timing and quality of execution so that their united efforts lead to the stated objectives, namely, the common purpose of the enterprise."
— Theo Haimann …