Writing You work in the Personnel Department of a modern, forward-looking organization. You are very interested in the course advertised below. Write a short memo (70-80 words) to your Head of Department, including (see Writing File p. 214): -
a request to go on the course
-
why you think the course would be useful
-
some details of the course
-
an enquiry about the possibility of financial support towards the course fee
BRENTFORD COLLEGE
|
BUSINESS AND ADMINISTRATION TRAINING
Autumn-Winter Courses Communication & People Skills
The aims of this one-week seminar are to:
-
improve participants’ speaking and listening skills
-
analyse common communication problems and explore ways of resolving them
-
give participants opportunities to experiment with conflict resolution strategies
-
help participants deal with defensiveness and aggressiveness
This seminar will be of interest to all the professionals who have to deal with people and work out problems with others.
Facilitator: Patricia McGovern, PhD, President of Schroders Consultants in Geneva, author of the bestseller How to listen to Others and resolve Conflicts
Course fee (including manual): 520$
Date: October 7–15
Venue: Brentford College
For further details, contact: Martin Lowles, BATP
Brentford College, 27 Burrard Street, Brentford TW9 0AK
Email: mlowles@BATP.ac.uk
| Unit 2. The Four Management Functions of Business Introduction
1. What kinds of activities does business usually perform?
2. Do you consider all business activities equally important for business making?
Reading 1
1. Guess the meaning of the following words without dictionary.
administration, business function, controlling, coordinating, directing, innovation, motivation, operating plan, planning process, strategic plan, standard, integrate, formulate, interaction, statistical report, operating data.
2. Read the following text.
The Four Management Functions of Business
Business management deals with the same general kinds of activities but differs in two principal ways: it handles resources and activities on a larger scale than most of us are accustomed to in our personal lives and it accomplishes work through other people.
The process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the use of a firm’s resources to effectively and economically attain its objectives is called management. A business can be viewed as a system: a group of related parts organized to work together for some purpose. Management is the function that integrates the parts of this system and makes sure that they work together toward a desired purpose. Administration is another term with nearly the same meaning, though it is more often used to refer to the management of institutions, such as schools or hospitals. It may, however, also be applied to business firms, particularly to the functions of higher-level management.
Managers typically perform four key functions for their businesses (see Figure 1): (a) planning, (b) organizing and staffing, (c) directing and coordinating, and (d) evaluating and controlling. Each of these functions is continuous and all are interrelated. The functions can be seen as a process continuously repeated in a cycle. Managers make plans to solve the problems and to take advantage of the opportunities presented to their companies. People are recruited to carry out the plans.
He or she directs and coordinates the activities of those who work in it. Evaluations of how well the organization is working toward its goals partially determine plans for future operations.
Planning is the backbone of every management effort. A plan, to a business manager, is an explicit statement of the business’s future objectives combined with a step-by-step description of the actions that will be necessary to reach those objectives. The planning process centers on satisfying the two main requirements of this definition: clear goals and specific actions to meet them.
Figure 1. The Four Key Functions of Management
The terms goals and objectives can be used interchangeably. They represent the targets, or endpoints, toward which business efforts are directed. At a given time, a company may have hundreds of overlapping objectives. Some are general and long-range, such as maintaining an acceptable profit and rate of company growth. Others are more specific, usually devised to contribute to the general goals.
The first important part of the planning process is to set forth the important objectives of the company and to make them explicit. The other steps in planning follow naturally from this beginning.
The manager’s goal is to reduce the costs of selling the product. The manager then considers several alternative solutions: (a) discontinuing the starters, (b) establishing a minimum order size, or (c) installing expensive new conveyor systems to aid order filling.
The same kind of process must be applied to all planning and at every level of management. The resulting plans for attaining the overall, long-term goals of a company are called strategic plans. The plans and procedures for reaching goals that are only a week, or month, or year away – those plans that involve what must be done from day to day – are operating plans.
Plans specify the actions to be taken; the way in which these actions will be carried out is determined by the organizing function of management. Organizing is the process of setting up the structure and rules to control the way resources – workers, material, machinery, and money – work together to reach objectives. Organizing determines what authority each employee has, who will do what job, what methods and equipment will be used, and other specific rules which determine how the work will be done.
Outstanding plans and an excellent organization will accomplish nothing unless people are actually put to work, doing the right job and doing it correctly. Directing is the process of guiding and motivating people in the organization to do the work needed to accomplish the company’s goals. It includes telling and showing subordinates what jobs to do and how to do them and detecting errors and seeing that they are corrected. Effective directing requires the kind of sensitivity and leadership that will motivate subordinates and fellow workers.
In management, coordinating is largely a process of assuring communication between parts of the organization – individuals, departments, and levels of management – to make sure that they are working together on appropriate efforts toward mutual goals. Coordination attempts to avoid duplication of effort or omission of some essential activity. It insures that various parts of a total effort will take place at the right time and in proper sequence.
The final function of management is controlling. It requires evaluating the performance of the firm and its parts and making changes to improve operations. This function is clearly related to all of the other things management does, but it is most intimately connected with planning. The evaluations that are made as part of controlling the business operation serve to determine whether plans are being carried out and objectives met.
Controlling compares actual results of operations – sales, production output, costs, product quality, and employee performance – with performance goals or standards (see Figure 2). Ideally, the standard should be set as part of the planning process.
Correct or Correct Correct
change inputs or change outputs
process with
standards
Figure 2. Management controlling process
Vocabulary Focus
3. Match words from each column to make word partnership.
1. recruiting people
|
a) planning
|
2. comparing results
|
b) coordinating
|
3. checking up company performance
|
c) controlling
|
4. monitoring works of departments
|
d) directing
|
5. guiding and motivating people
|
e) staffing
|
6. setting up goals and objectives
|
f) evaluating
|
4. Complete the statements with suitable words from the box.
-
responsibilities, to influence, step, overlap, profit, standards
| -
All management functions ______ and affect one another.
-
Directing requires the ability _____ other people so they will work towards the goals of the company.
-
Many business activities are general and long range such as maintaining acceptable _____ of a company.
-
Controlling _____ describes company’s actual performance with desirable results.
-
The structure of all organizations indicate who works for whom and what each person’s _____ are set up.
-
A manager should carefully follow every company’s _____ for good planning.
5. Fill in the preposition.
-
Business management deals __ some kind __ activities but differs __ private family management.
-
Good planning helps to handle resources and activities __ a larger scale.
-
Staffing defines how to accomplish work __ other people.
-
The term administration is more often used to refer __ the management of public institutions than companies.
-
Effective executive coordinating and marketing made possible to devote more time __ selling goods abroad.
-
Directing as a function can be applied __ business firms, particularly to higher-level management.
-
Small business usually has one or two managers who are responsible __ the diverse management functions.
-
The range __ management functions can extend __ buying new stationary __ deciding to buy a new department store.
6. Match one half of the sentence with the other.
1. Plans specify the actions to be taken
|
a) to do their work the best possible way
|
2. Directing requires the ability
|
b) can be defined as managerial efficiency of business
|
3. Management must take actions
|
c) restriction of funds may be demanded for
|
4. Statistical reports for product quality control
|
d) which is determined by the organizing function of management
|
5. The use of mineral resources in raw materials, money and people
|
e) performance standards and variances are identified
|
6. Sometimes operating date should be compared with
|
f) provide a great deal of information necessary for effective control
|
7. Costs of these operations are too high so
|
g) after identifying the problem and illumination its causes
|
7. a) Complete the following sentences with these words:
-
achieved, board of directors, communicate, innovations,
manageable, performance, resources, setting supervise
|
1. Managers have to decide how best to allocate the human; physical and capital _____ available to them.
2. Managers logically have to make sure that the jobs and tasks given to their subordinates are _____.
3. There is no point in _____ objectives if you don’t _____ them to your stuff.
4. Managers have to _____ their subordinates, and to measure, and try to improve their ____.
5. Managers have to check whether objectives and targets are being _____.
6. A top manager whose performance is unsatisfactory can be dismissed by the company’s _____.
7. Top managers are responsible for the _____ that will allow a company to adapt to a changing world.
b) Which of the managerial functions can be applied to the sentences above.
8. The exercise contains a number of common verb-noun partnership. Match up these verbs and nouns to make common collocations.
1 allocate
|
a) decisions
|
2 communicate
|
b) information
|
3 develop
|
c) jobs
|
4 make
|
d) objectives
|
5 measure
|
e) people
|
6 motivate
|
f) performance
|
7 perform
|
g) resources
|
8 set
|
h) strategies
|
9 supervise
|
i) subordinates
|
9. Complete column 2 of the table with opposite meanings. Use the prefixes – in-, ir-, un-, il- or dis-. Complete column 3 with the noun forms.
Adjective
|
Opposite adjective
|
Noun form
|
considerable
|
inconsiderable
|
consideration
|
appropriate
|
|
|
changeable
|
|
|
economical
|
|
|
regular
|
|
|
perfect
|
|
|
acceptable
|
|
|
logical
|
|
|
organized
|
|
|
rational
|
|
|
responsible
|
|
|
10. Define to what of the four management functions the following activities may belong to.
negotiating, leadership, tacking the broad, long-term view, involving all parts of an organization in one process, decision making, solving of conflicts, motivating people, analytical abilities, multimedia or technological understanding, team building abilities, interpersonal skills, maintain information links inside and outside of organization, initiate improvement projects, identify new ideas, resolve conflicts, decide who gets recourses, take correct actions during disputes or crises, represent department during negotiations of sales, purchases, budgets, improve and correct a project.
Planning
|
Organizing
|
Coordinating
|
Controlling
|
|
|
|
|
Comprehension 11. Answer the following questions on the text:
-
The four basic functions of the management process are referred to as a cycle. What are the four functions, and why are they a cycle?
-
Why are plans vital to business operations?
-
How are plans, goals, and standards related?
-
What element links controlling to planning?
-
Why is communication so important to the directing function of management?
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: |