Written by Henry Fayol also developed fourteen management principles, which are: Division of work; Authority and Responsibility; Discipline; Unity of command; Scalar chain; Equity; Espirit De Corps; Unity of direction; subordination of individual interest to the general interest; Remuneration; order; Centralization and decentralization; initiative; and stability of tenure of personnel.
Planning is the systematic process of identifying the objectives of an organization and determining the best course of action to take to achieve these objectives.
It is a process of setting goals and deciding how to achieve them.
Planning can also be defined as anticipating future events and determining the best course of action to attain specific goals and objectives.
According to Koontz, Planning is defined as “deciding in advance – what to do, when to do & how to do. It bridges the gap from where we want to be”.
The traditional understanding of a manager’s job is always being defined in terms of management functions, which was introduced by French industrialist Henri Fayol in 1916.
Fayol identified five functions that a manager must perform, namely planning, commanding, coordinating, controlling, and organizing.
However, this description of a manager’s job was based on his observations and experiences in the French mining industry and was not derived from any thorough survey of managers.
In the late 1960s, Dr Henry Mintzberg conducted an empirical study to determine if Fayol’s description of a manager’s job was still valid in the 1960s.
Mintzberg studied five executives and discovered that the best way to define managers’ job is through the roles they play in the organization.
There are three levels of management that can exist in any organization, namely: Top-level management, Middle-level management, and Lower-level management
According to George Terry, “Management is the process consisting of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling, performed to determine and accomplish the objectives by the use of people and resources”
To Stanley Vane, “Management is simply the process of decision-making and control over the actions of human beings for the express purpose of attaining predetermined goals”, says Stanley Vane
In Mary Parker Follett’s words, “Management is getting things done through people”
Ordway Tead defined management as “the process and agency that directs and guides an organization’s operations in the realization of established aims.”
In general, management is seen as a series of interrelated activities grouped into four distinct categories (planning, organizing, leading and controlling).
It is an important function of human resource management as it plays an important role in the survival and growth of the business.
