Functions Of Henry Fayol And Mintzberg

Henri Fayol, was a French mining engineer by trade for a company called Commentry-Fourchamboult-Decazeville, before becoming a managing director at the same firm. He wrote a short publication ‘General and Industrial Management’ – which was translated by Constance Storrs and printed in 1949. Within this publication, Fayol laid out a rational outlook as to what management is; which entailed 5 fundamentals: to forecast and plan – to come up with a “plan of action”; to organise – arranging a task; to command – directing those involved with the

“Planning is concerned with the future impact of today 's decisions. It is the fundamental function of management from which the other four functions stem” (Erven, 1999).

The task: Henri Fayol presented his analysis of the management function in 1916 and it has largely been

Henri Fayol’s theory was almost a century old and was originally written in French. Further review on several journal articles has led to an overview background of Fayol’s working life which provided the foundation that conceptualized his theory. According to Wren (2001), Fayol was appointed as the Director in a mining company, Decazeville, where he succeeded to turnaround the company to become profitable. Fayol was the first person to classify the functions of a manager’s job. Fayol (1949; as cited in Wren, 2001) identified five key functions in managerial works.as planning, organising, command, coordination and control. Planning consists of any managerial work that involves setting goals and coordinating actions to

Henry Mintzberg and Henri Fayol may have came from totally different era’s but since there is still no definitive answer to ‘what is management’ and how can you manage effectively there has been lots of discussions and criticisms of theirs and other theorists ideas. Yet both Mintzberg and Fayol received praise for their work even though they didn’t use the same method to come to their answers.

Henry Mintzberg stated that the diverse works of managers can be best described from their roles, and regarded his ten ‘managerial roles’ as successive of Henri Fayol’s managerial functions. These roles are divided into three conceptual categories, informational (managing by information), interpersonal (managing through people) and decisional (managing through action). Informational roles can be further divided into monitor, disseminator and spokesperson, while interpersonal roles divide into figurehead, leader and liaison. Decisional roles subdivide into entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator (Robbins et al., 2003).

Management can best be defined as the process of achieving a goal effectively and efficiently through the delegation of people and resources. The major criteria that managers must employ to attain these goals are planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. By far, the most essential of these functions remains planning. Planning is the process of deciding what objectives to pursue in the future, and how those objectives will be attained. Planning plays an integral role in the long-term future of a company. If managers did not plan ahead, the organizing, staffing, leading and controlling elements would be unnecessary, because the company would have no goals to reach.

If planning is considered as providing the route map for the journey, then organising is the means by which you arrive at your chosen destination. Organising is a process for determining, grouping and structuring of activities, devising and allocating roles arising from the grouping and structuring of activities, assigning accountability for results, determining detailed rules and systems of working, including those for communication, decision-making and conflict-resolution. The role of manager in organisation are to organise, to planning, to controlling in every aspect

Throughout this essay I will be looking at the management structure Henry Fayol had discovered from his research and how it is still present today and how it has affected our perspective on how we believe managers operate. Moreover, I will analyse Fayol’s work and look at what other theorists such as Mintzberg have said concerning what effective management is. Also I will look at the Human Relations theorists and see how they play an important role in management and how they differ from the theory of classical theorists. Taking this into account I will then give my views on what I think is important to managing effectively and what I believe is true management and compromise all the information to help me conduct my

Management functions have traditionally been defined in terms of planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Since the publication of The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), academics have questioned the validity of the classical model, compared with Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles. Fayol’s five processes of management functions are essential for studying constituent elements of management, while Mintzberg’s model further details the complex, multidimensional nature of management. In essence, despite their differences, both approaches should be integrated to foster the most useful understanding of management.

Subsequently Mintzberg believing the reality of management to be vastly different from the true image went on to offer his own description of what ‘to manage’ entails. This comprised of 10 roles which can be split into 3 subsections. Mintzberg (1975) “Formal authority gives rise to the three interpersonal roles, which in turn give rise to the three informational roles; these two sets of roles enable the manager to play the four decisional roles”. Although Mintzberg’s attempt to reform the views on management was successful in stirring other theorists to conduct studies in the area, he can be criticised for the language he used not being explicit enough and although he has empirical evidence to support his discovery of how managers behave, it does not imply this is the way managers should behave as this view of management behaviour may not be that of an effective manager?

Henri Fayol, the first father of formal management statements, who wrote down five elements of management behaviour – planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling. (Wren and Bedeian, 2009) During over 50 years, Fayol’s management functions have been challenged continuously by new developed theories in modern society, considering Fayol’s functions are “folklore”, as mentioned by Mintzberg (1990, pp 50), it is improper to building a theory from own experience, then Mintzberg outlined three main categories of management roles – information roles, interpersonal roles and decisional roles. (Mintzberg, 2010) It is claimed that Fayol’s functions have been made redundant by modern theory of Mintzberg. Debate also has been triggered on which one is more useful at current, Fayol or Mintzberg. While there is no deny that Fayol’s management function has a great significance in management organisation, this essay will argue that Fayol’s theory has not been redundant when facing more empirical theories that wrote by Mintzberg. In order to demonstrate this, it will first, examine two main arguments with evidence against Fayol’s theory, claiming the limitation of commanding and controlling in reality and problem of decision-making as well. It will then illustrate strengthens of adapting Fayol’s management function, using its successful examples.

Management is the process as activity of getting things done by others by combining their group effects so as to achieve the objectives of the organization it represents that skill or activity that directs, regulates and integrates human effects in the discharge of all operations required for an enterprise. Management is a functional concept and does not include the persons who practice. In most cases, however a group of managers it found to be engaged in management functions. According to Henry Fayol, management functions are planning which includes forecasting and formulation of objective polices, programmes, schedules), organizing (identification and grouping of work activities, definition and delegation of authority and responsibility), directing (decision

Henri Fayol 's managerial activities are recognized as being essential and are specially emphasized as being universal for achieving an organization 's goals (Pugh and Hickson, 1964). The undeniable contribution to management has provided a system of concepts which has become a leading guide for managers in most organizations. Though there were few authors who weren 't affected by Fayol 's work, there were some who criticized his work as being idealist and ignoring the reality of management. Mintzberg 's theory of 3 management roles suggests an improved view on what managers are supposed to do. Thirsty, this essay will introduce management theories of Fayol and Mintzberg in more detail by deepening in each concept of management, as well as considering views of different authors on their ideas. Secondly, comparison of two theories will be held, which will at the same time analyse the functions and processes in describing managerial tasks. The objective of this essay is to critically analyse the concept of management introduced by Fayol.

The ability and means by which an organisation is run, requires for strong managerial expertise and leadership. The ability to realistically plan, organise resources effectively and efficiently, co-ordinate and control resources in this every changing, complex, dynamic environment is at the forefront of quality managerial practices. Good management has demonstrated itself more important than ever, with the peak Global Financial crisis in 2008/2009 proving that the historical theory’s and innovations in managerial practices are absolutely paramount to thriving economic prosperity. It is through the functions, approaches included in the literature of Henri Fayol’s 1949 English translated General and Industrial Management, Henry Mintzberg’s