Four Functions Of Management

The Four Functions of Management within

Ginseg Regional Healthcare Systems

Henry Fayol, a 20th century mine owner, first coined term, "Four Functions of Management" to define a functional organization design, focused on essential skill sets. ("Four Functions of Management", 1999) Since then, processes, projects, teams, systems, and different specialisms, like Marketing and Human Resources have manipulated, added to, and overlaid these concepts. However, these four basic concepts are still at the core of managerial thinking, they are Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.

Planning is concerned with the future impact of today’s decision. (Erven, n.d.) Planning, as a basic definition, is setting objectives, analyzing dependencies and scheduling activities and resources to ensure that objectives are met. It is an ongoing process of developing the business’ mission and objectives and determining how they will be accomplished. Planning includes both the broadest view of the organization, e.g., its mission, and the narrowest, e.g., a tactic for accomplishing a specific goal. Planning is the essential function from which the other three functions of management stem.

At GRHS, (GINSEG REGIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM), basic planning initiates the organization by determining the system’s vision, mission, objectives, and goals. Grasping the fundamental understanding of what GRHS is seeking to achieve is determined by planning. Every aspect of the hospital has to be planned for; nursing staff to meet patient needs, conference services to ensure continuing education classes can take place, as well as environmental services where sanitation is of the utmost importance. Without this crucial step in management, organizing, ...

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... To accomplish a successful group decision, you can do the above four steps in any order. To fulfill these functions they also stress how communication plays a major role in accomplishing these functions whether it be communication that calls attention to, detracts from, or refocuses the group on the functions. (Hirokawa, 2001)

References

Four Functions of Management, Retrieved October 7, 2004, from www.quality 4results.com

Erven, Bernard L(n.d.) The Foundation of ManagementExcel. The Five Functions of

Management, Retrieved October 5, 2004, from http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/mgtexcel/funtion.html

James Higgins,1994 The Management Challenge, Second Edition, Macmillan, 1994

Hirokawa, Randy. Randy Hirokawa Home Page.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~comstud/faculty/Hirokawa/,Retrieved October 7, 2004, from http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory59.htm