
Are You Mastering the Four Functions of Management?
Do you remember what the four functions of management are? What are the four things that we must do each day, once a week, once a month, and once a year?
If you said planning, organising, implementing, and controlling, you’d be right!
Planning
The first thing a manager is paid to do is to plan. For example, at the end of each month in preparation for the next month, you need to plan what has to be achieved for the month ahead. Do you take enough time at the end of each month to plan for the month ahead? What about the managers and key personnel who report to you? Do they take time at the end of each month to plan for the month ahead?
Do you plan your week on a Monday morning? Do you have a clear idea of what you hope to achieve by Friday afternoon? Again, what about the people who report to you? Do they have a plan for what they hope to achieve for the week ahead? If you want to be an effective manager, then you need to know what has to be accomplished and then create a plan to accomplish it.
Organising
The second function of Management is to organise your plan. In other words, there are quite a number of things that you need to organise each month, each week, and each day in order to achieve the plan.
The easiest way to remember what to organise is what we call the 5 M’s.
- Manpower. Do you have the right people doing the right work this month, this week, and today?
- Materials. Do your people have all of the materials that they need to do their work this month, this week, and today?
- Methods. Does everyone in your team, including yourself, have a clear idea of how they’re going to execute their tasks this month, this week, and today? For example, are you confident that every one of your team members knows exactly what they have to do and how they need to do it? If they don’t, then what are you going to do about it?
- Money. Are you responsible for budgets, such as staffing or purchasing equipment? If you are, do you know how much money you can spend this month on wages or other costs?
- Motivation. Although technically motivation is a function of leadership, a good question to ask yourself is “how will I provide the right level of direction and support to my team this month?”
Implementing
We now come to the third function of Management, which is to implement the plan. This is what you do day by day. Remember, at the training we spoke about managing by walking around. One of the best ways you can inspect what you expect is to walk around and catch people doing things right. When you do, offer them positive, or at the very least, constructive feedback.
To implement your plan, you must lock time off in your day to work on your critical projects and tasks. You should make time in your week to catch up with your key stakeholders. Including your plan means you’re working on the most important tasks at the most important time of the day.
Controlling
Now we come to the final function of Management, and that is to monitor and control everyone’s outputs. Use reports, data, observation, one-on-one, and team meetings to make sure that everyone in your team is making progress towards their daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
A significant portion of your time as a manager is to pause frequently and to assess if you’re making progress on your critical tasks. If they’re not, you’ll need to go back and re-plan and reorganise to get things back on track.
In summary, if you want to be an effective manager then you need to have a clear understanding of the four functions of management: to plan, to organise, to implement, and then to control what’s going on. If required, you’ll need to readjust your plan and reorganise your resources and then re-implement.