Why Coordination is called the Essence of Management ?
Co-ordination is the Essence of Management
"Co-ordination is the Essence of Management." The meaning of this sentence implies, Co-ordination affects all the functions of management. In other words, Co-ordination affects Planning, Organising, Staffing, Directing, Communication, Leading, Motivating and Controlling.
1. Planning and Coordination
According to Harold Koontz and Cyril O'Donnell, "Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it and who is to do it."
There are many departmental plans in a business. These include, Purchase Plan, Sales Plan, Production Plan, Finance Plan, etc. All these plans must be coordinated (brought together) and one Master Plan must be made for the full business. Therefore, Planning is affected by Coordination.
2. Organising and Coordination
There are many steps in Organising. All these steps must be coordinated, for achieving the objectives of the business. The Top Level Managers must coordinate the efforts of the Middle Level Managers. Similarly, the Middle Level Managers must coordinate the efforts of the Lower Level Managers. Furthermore, the Lower Level Managers must also coordinate the efforts of the workers. Therefore, Organisation is affected by Coordination.
3. Staffing and Coordination
Staffing involves Recruitment and Selection, Training, Placement, Promotion, Transfer, etc. All these steps must be properly coordinated. Similarly, the efforts of all the individuals, groups and departments must be coordinated for achieving the objectives of the business. Therefore, Staffing is affected by Coordination.
4. Directing and Coordination
Directing means giving necessary information, proper instructions and guidance to sub-ordinates. This results in coordination. Therefore, Direction is affected by Coordination.
5. Communicating and Coordination
Many types of communication methods are used in a business. These methods include, Formal communication, Informal Communication, Upward Communication, Downward Communication, Oral Communication, Written Communication, etc. It is important to note that, all these types of communication must be properly coordinated. Lack of proper coordination will hinder the smooth functioning of the communication process. Furthermore, it will also restrict the important information flow and cause many economic problems to the business. Thus, Communication is affected by Coordination.
6. Motivating and Coordination
There are many types of Motivation. These are, Positive Motivation, Negative Motivation, Financial Motivation, and Non-Financial Motivation. All these types of Motivation must be properly coordinated. Therefore, Motivation is affected by Coordination.
7. Leading and Coordination
Every manager must be a good leader. He must coordinate the efforts of his subordinates for achieving the objectives. That is, he must coordinate the human resource. He must also coordinate the material and financial resources of the organisation. In short, a leader cannot survive without coordination. In other words, leadership cannot be performed without coordination. Therefore, Leadership is affected by Coordination.
8. Controlling and Coordination
In Controlling the standards are first fixed. Then the performances are measured. Performances are compared with the standards, and the deviations are found out. Then the deviations are corrected. So, controlling involves many steps. All these steps must be properly coordinated. If coordination is not proper, Control will surely fail. Therefore, Control is also affected by Coordination.
Conclusion On Coordination
Now we can conclude that all the functions of management are affected by coordination. Hence coordination is essential for achieving the objectives of the organisation. It is also required for the survival, growth and profitability of the organisation. Coordination encourages team spirit, gives right direction, motivates employees, and makes proper utilisation of resources. Therefore, Coordination is rightly called the "Essence of Management".
CO-ORDINATION –The Essence of Management Practices
Sangeeta Sauda
1. Introduction:
Coordination is the very important aspect in any Organization. It brings unity of action and integrates different activities of organization. Coordination is the most important function of an organization. It refers to bringing together the activities of an organization to achieve the objectives and goals of the business. Coordination is the essence of management because of the following reasons:
2. Co-ordination is needed to perform all the functions of management:
a. In Planning , coordination is required between main plan and supportive plans of different departments.
b. In Organizing , coordination is required between different resources of an organization and also between authority, responsibility and accountability.
c. In Staffing, coordination is required between skill of a person and job assigned to him, between efficiency and compensation etc.
d. In Directing, coordination is required between superior and subordinates, between orders, instructions, guidelines and suggestions etc.
e. In Controlling, coordination is required between standards and the actual performance of the organization.
3. Co-ordination is required at all levels of Management:
a. Top Level: It requires coordination to integrate all the activities of organization and lead the efforts of all the individuals in one common direction.
b. Middle Level: It requires coordination to balance the activities of different departments so that these can work as a part of one organization only.
c. Lower Level: It requires coordination to integrate the activities of workers towards achievement of organizational objectives.
4. Co-ordination is the most important function of an Organization:
Any company which fails to coordinate its activities cannot survive and run successfully for a long period of time.
For example : Allwyn Company established in 1942, was the first company to produce a double-decker bus. It was running successfully as a leading electronic industry, especially in refrigeration industry. By the end of 1980 the company faced the problem of coordination. There was lack of balance and integration of different activities; as a result the company started facing huge losses and by 1993 company had an accumulated loss of Rs.168 crores. Company failed to balance its departmental activities and product folios.
So, in short we can say without coordination no company can work efficiently and earn profit.
5. Conclusion:
After analyzing the above features we can say that coordination is not a simple function of management but it is the “essence of management” or in other words we can say that all the functions are flowers and coordination is a thread that ties these flowers to form the garland of organization.
The Essence of Project Management
One common definition of management is that a manager gets work done by other people. This is certainly not very helpful when you consider that guards over prisoners doing roadwork also get work done by other people, but we would hardly call them managers. In 1973, Peter Drucker, considered by many to be the "father" of management, wrote a book titled Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. In his book, Drucker proposed that a better definition of management is when managers make an unsolicited contribution to their organization. However, this definition is not much better than the first definition, so Drucker devoted an entire 576 pages to explaining the tasks a manager performs, the responsibilities and the practices of managing.
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In the same way, the Project Management Institute has attempted to define project management, and the essence of their definition is that management constitutes engaging in five processes. These processes are called Project Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Controlling and Closeout.
No Simple Definition for Project Management
The simple fact is that you cannot define management or leadership in a simple, concise statement. It is far too complex. However, the fact is that it does involve getting other people to perform tasks that must be done in order to meet project or organizational objectives. And Drucker makes a point that I believe is often overlooked: A project manager must get every employee whom he supervises to go beyond minimum acceptable performance. The reason is that the minimum level is survival level. No organization can afford to operate at that level. If they do, there will come a time when competition will pass them and they will die. As Dr. Deming once said, "There are two kinds of organizations: those that are improving and those that are dying."
The Essence of Project Management
The essence of project management is that a project manager should facilitate the planning, scheduling, execution and controlling of all work that must be done to meet project objectives. She must get the people who do the work to do this, rather than doing it herself—thus the word facilitate. In other words, it is all about getting people to do what must be done, and for that reason, project management (or general management for that matter) is really about dealing with people. It is not about technology. Technology is what people work with or apply to achieve desired results. It is also not about the schedule or the plan in and of themselves. These are tools that people use to manage the work. I point this out because a common belief is that if a person has a copy of Microsoft Project® or some equivalent software program for scheduling, then that individual is a project manager. If a person does not know how to actually manage, giving him or her a copy of such software only enables them to precisely document his or her failures.
People Skills are the Only "Hard Skills" You Have in Project Management
In the 28 years that I have been teaching project management, I have found that companies usually never teach their managers how to deal with people, other than the occasional course in leadership.
Yet, consider this fact: Your capital equipment alone will not make a penny for you. It is only the people who run the machines, operate the computers and sell your product or services that make you money. Therefore, it is essential that you know how to get the best possible performance from them. The skills to do this—the so-called soft skills, then, are the only hard skills you have.
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In fact, I have found that the single biggest internal problem that confronts organizations around the world is that project managers do not know how to effectively deal with people. Yes, we have recessions and competition that cause failures. These are external factors. Internally, however, we have motivation problems, conflict, lack of innovation, communication difficulties and a host of other issues that cause overall performance problems for the organization. In addition, by and large, project managers are often at a loss for how to deal with these. Why? They have never been taught how. They can read balance sheets. Schedule work. Develop budgets. But they know more about getting performance from machines than people.
So if you are trying to improve your project management skills, learn effective methods for dealing with people. In the end, they will serve you better than your scheduling software.