What does Management and its function mean to you?

Management is the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals, who good managers do both effectively and efficiently things. To be effective is to achieve organizational goals and to be efficient is to achieve goals with minimum waste of resources to make the best possible use of money, time, materials and people.

What can managers do to be effective and efficient?

The four Management Functions are:

1. Planning: is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions taken to achieve those goals, which include analyzing current situations, anticipating the future, determining objectives, deciding in what types of activities the company will engage, choosing corporate and business strategies, and determining the resources needed to achieve the organizational's goals. It assesses the management environment to set future objectives and map out activities to achieve those objectives. To be effective, the objectives of individuals, teams, and management should be coordinated to support the firm's mission. 
2. Organizing: is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals, which include attracting people to the organization, specifying job responsibilities, grouping jobs into work units, Marshalling and allocating resources, and creating conditions so that people and things work together to achieve maximum success. The deployment of resources to achieve strategic goals.
3. Leading: is stimulating people to be high performers, which include directing, motivating, and communicating withe employees, individually and in groups and involves close day-to-day contact with people, helping to guide and inspire them toward achieving team and organizational goals, providing an example for others to follow, and creating conditions that encourage management of diversity. It energizes people to contribute their best individually and in cooperation with other people. 
4. Controlling: measures performance, compares it to objectives, implements necessary changes, and monitors progress. Many of these issues involve feedback or identifying potential problems and taking corrective action. Specific controlling activities are to set performance standards that indicate progress toward long-term goals; to monitor performance of people and units by collecting performance data; to provide people with feedback or information about their progress; to identify performance problems by comparing performance data against standards; and to take actions to correct problems. Budgeting, information systems, cost cutting, and disciplinary action are just a few of the tools of control. Successful organizations, large and small, pay close attention to how well they are doing. They take quick action when problems arise and are able to change as needed.

By Thomas S. Bateman and Scott A. Snell