Coordination in every managerial function

Meaning of coordination

Coordination is the process of achieving unity of action among the interdependent activities and departments of an organisation. Every organisation divides work among many people; coordination puts the parts back together, so that the right things are done at the right time and in the right amount. The statement claims that coordination is not a separate task added to the functions of management but is present in each of them.

Coordination in each managerial function

1. Planning. Departmental plans for production, sales, finance and personnel must fit one another. Planning serves as the basis of coordinating the activities and efforts of divisions, departments and individuals. A sales target that the factory cannot meet is useless; reconciling the two is coordination.
2. Organising. The organising process ends by providing horizontal coordination between departments and vertical coordination between levels; without it, departments may pursue their own ends, as when marketing presses for a larger advertising budget that the firm's wider interest does not justify.
3. Staffing. Matching the number and type of people to the work each department must do balances human resources with its needs.
4. Directing. Communication explains goals, the way to achieve them and the relationships between individuals, and so provides coordination among departments, activities and persons.
5. Controlling. Each department and employee works to standards that are coordinated with one another, so control directs all efforts towards the organisation's goals.

Why coordination runs through all functions

• It is deliberate: harmony does not arise on its own and has to be built by the manager.
• It is the responsibility of every manager, at the top, middle and operating levels.
• It is continuous: it begins at the planning stage and goes on until controlling.
• It integrates group effort, unifying diverse interests into purposeful work.

Comment on the statement

The statement is largely true. Coordination is sometimes treated as a separate function, but it is the essence of management: each managerial function is an exercise contributing to coordination, and coordination is implicit in all of them. Like a thread in a garland, it runs through every function. When a Chennai car maker launches an electric model, design, purchase, production, marketing and finance must move together: the battery supplier's schedule, the assembly line, the launch campaign and the funding all have to match. Each function the managers perform during the launch is, at bottom, an effort to make these parts fit.

Two qualifications are fair. First, coordination is not the same as cooperation: willingness to help does not by itself synchronise the work, and coordination without cooperation leaves employees dissatisfied, so both are needed. Second, each function also has its own content (the choice among alternatives in planning, the grouping of activities in organising), so coordination runs through the functions without replacing them.

Conclusion

Every managerial function aims at combining separate efforts into one result, so each is an exercise in coordination. A manager who plans, organises, staffs, directs and controls well is, in effect, coordinating well.