Henri Fayol
The Frenchman, Henri Fayol, trained as
a mining engineer but moved rapidly up the management hierarchy becoming seen
as a successful manager. He believed that management is a science which can be
taught and argued that there are six basic business activities: technical, commercial,
financial, security, accounting and managerial. He divided managerial
activities into five: planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and
controlling. His fourteen ‘principles of management’ are:
Division of labour Centralisation
Authority Hierarchy
Discipline Order
Unity of command Equity
Unity of direction Stability of staff
Subordination of individual interest Initiative
Remuneration Esprit de corps
Fayol
believed that organisations could have a single purpose and that they operated
in relatively stable environments in which a particular organisational
structure could survive for many years. He believed in a centralised,
hierarchical model of organisational relationships in which good managers
ensured that staff were treated fairly in return for their commitment to organisational
goals. This follows logically from his belief in a single purpose for the
organisation and, in some ways, he was ahead of his time in suggesting that the
‘right’ relationships between management and staff are essential for the
success of an organisation.
F.W Taylor
Taylor's approach is also often
referred to, as Taylor's Principles, or frequently disparagingly, as Taylorism.
Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:
1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods
with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.
2. Scientifically select, train, and
develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.
3. Provide "Detailed instruction
and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete
task.
4. Divide work nearly equally between
managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management
principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.
Taylor had very precise ideas about how
to introduce his system. It is only through enforced standardization of methods,
enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced
cooperation that faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the
adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management
alone.
Peter Drucker
Drucker identifies three broad types of production each of which needs
a different type of organisation:
• unique product production — in which
articles are produced individually — needs centralisation and specialisation;
• mass production — in which many
articles are produced simultaneously — requires a high degree of coordination
but not necessarily centralisation;
• process production — in which
products are produced via a continuous process (e.g. an oil refinery or a
nuclear power plant) — requires a decentralised structure.
Drucker argues for a minimum of
hierarchy, decentralisation wherever possible and decisions to be taken as far
down an organisation as possible. He also argues that productivity can only be improved
through human resourcefulness, that, to liberate that resourcefulness, people
must be encouraged to use their brains productively and that they will only do
that if that are given the freedom to develop their own ideas about how to carry
on the business of the organisation.
So
each manager must set her/his own objectives related to the organisation’s
overall aims which his/her boss will help her/him to achieve. Their manager
will do this primarily through clarifying how they will meet the organisation’s
overall aims and supplying the information the manager needs to chart his/her
progress and to make any adjustments that may be necessary to achieve those
objectives. Each manager then does the same for her/his subordinates.
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