Why organisations need managers, and the writer who has done most to explain management

Why organisations need managers

Every organisation, whether a school, a hospital, a shop or a large company, exists to achieve some goals, and all of them have management and managers in common. Managers are the people responsible for the work of others; their basic aim, in every kind of organisation, is to create conditions in which the organisation's goals are achieved with the least resources through the people who work there. Studies have found that incompetent management is the cause of most business failures. More specifically, organisations need managers for five reasons.

1. To turn many efforts into one direction. An organisation is a group of people with different needs and purposes; management unites their efforts behind common goals and gives individual work a shared direction.
2. To adapt the organisation to change. The environment keeps changing and people tend to resist change; management helps them adjust so that the organisation keeps its competitive edge.
3. To be both effective and efficient. Managers must see that tasks are completed and goals reached, and that this is done with the least resources and cost; poor management shows up as both waste and failure.
4. To reconcile personal and organisational goals. Through motivation and leadership, managers help members meet their own needs while contributing to the group, and build team spirit and cooperation.
5. To serve society. By meeting its many objectives, a well-managed organisation provides good products and services, creates jobs and adopts new technology for wider benefit.

Managers do this by planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling, at three levels: top managers set overall goals and strategy and coordinate departments, middle managers interpret policies and carry out plans, and supervisors oversee the workforce directly.

The writer chosen: Henri Fayol

Many writers have shaped management thought, from F. W. Taylor's scientific management to the human relations school. In my view the writer who contributed most to our understanding of the nature of management is Henri Fayol (1841-1925), a French mining engineer who joined a mining company at nineteen and served as its managing director from 1888 to 1918. His book on general and industrial administration, first published in French in 1917 and in English in 1949, is widely regarded as a foundation of classical management theory, and he is known as the father of general management.

What Fayol contributed to our understanding of management

1. Management as a distinct activity. Fayol divided the activities of an industrial undertaking into technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and managerial, so separating management from the other work of a firm.
2. The functions of management. He was the first to identify the functions of management; his version was to plan, organise, command, coordinate and control, which underlies the list of functions taught today.
3. Principles to guide managers. He set out fourteen principles, among them unity of command, scalar chain, equity, initiative, division of work and esprit de corps, as general guidelines rather than rigid rules. He held that many activities are common to all organisations, so the principles can be applied universally.
4. Qualities of a manager. He listed the physical, moral, educational, knowledge and experience qualities a manager should have.

Justifying the choice

The question is about the nature of management, and that is exactly what Fayol explained. Taylor transformed the shop floor through the best method, a fair day's work, differential piece rates and functional foremanship; Fayol explained what a manager's work consists of and the principles to follow in doing it. The contrast is clear when the two are compared: Fayol wrote from the perspective of top management, his principles apply universally, they grew from his own experience as a practitioner, and his focus was the whole administration, whereas Taylor worked at shop-floor level, on specialised situations, as a scientist whose aim was higher productivity.

His ideas have also lasted. His principles remain widely applicable and have had a deep effect on management thinking today, even though their reading has changed; authority and responsibility, for example, now point towards empowering employees in flatter organisations. The systematic body of principles that gives management some features of a science includes his functional principles alongside Taylor's.

A fair assessment must note the limits. The contributions of Fayol and Taylor are complementary rather than rival, and the human relations writers showed that management works through people, that informal groups matter and that group behaviour differs from individual behaviour. Fayol's principles of equity, initiative and esprit de corps show he was not blind to people, but later writers deepened this side. Even so, the framework of functions and principles through which managers still understand their job is Fayol's, which is why he is the strongest choice.

Applying this to an illustrative case

Consider a hypothetical multi-speciality hospital opening in Lucknow. Without managers, doctors, nurses, technicians and billing staff would each work by their own lights. Fayol's functions give the founders a map: plan the departments and budgets, organise wards and reporting lines, command through clear instructions, coordinate the emergency, surgical and pharmacy teams, and control waiting times and infection rates. His principles settle daily questions: each nurse reports to one ward in-charge (unity of command); the normal chain of authority is followed, but in an emergency a department head may contact a counterpart directly through a gang plank; staff are treated fairly (equity); and a shared pride in patient care is built up (esprit de corps). A hospital is not a factory, yet Fayol's ideas fit it as well as they fit a mine, which is the universality he claimed.

Conclusion

Organisations need managers to unite people's efforts, use resources well, adapt to change and serve society. Among the writers who explained how this is done, Henri Fayol contributed the most to understanding the nature of management, because he defined management as a separate activity, named its functions and gave principles that still guide managers in every kind of organisation.