Management: Theory, Practice, and Application - MGT 330 - The Four Functions of Management

Essay by SunshineGirlUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, August 2006

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Management plays a key role in the success or failure of a business. An adept manager will utilize the four functions of management, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to the best of his or her ability. In my position as an executive assistant at Hewlett-Packard, it is vital that I use each of these skills to the best of my ability.

The first function of management is planning. In our text, Management: The new Competitive Landscape, Planning is described as "specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals." (Bateman & Snell, 2004) In order to plan, one must have a firm grasp of the current situation and the ability to anticipate the future course of the business. Our text tells us that historically, the planning process for companies was a tops-down process where senior management sent their edicts down to the masses, who then implemented the plans.

In today's modern workplace, there is a more synergistic approach to planning. Now, all levels of a company are solicited for input and responsible for formulating the planning process. In my role, I am responsible for the budget for all team building and morale activities for the group. I have to plan carefully what events will cost and how much of the budget allocation an event will receive.

The next function of management to consider is organizing. "Organizing is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical informational and other resources needed to achieve goals." (Bateman & Snell, 2004) Organizing can include a variety of tasks from designing a workgroup to figuring out which tasks need to be done on a project. I am tasked with organizing our annual charitable toy drive at HP. Each year I begin the project by organizing...