Management concepts of planning organizing leading and controlling

Planning is short-range planning and concentrates on the formulation of functional plans. Production schedules and day-to-day plans are examples of operational plans. Planning is foreseeing future circumstances and requirements. The management planning process consists of a logical sequence of five steps: Establish objective; conduct situation analysis; determine alternative courses of action; evaluate alternatives; and choose and implement the plan. (Craig DeWolf, cited in Channel Champion) In practice, this produces a planning hierarchy, because top management’s goals become the targets for which subsidiary units must formulate derivative plans.

When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to do next. The most important to ensure that everyone is clear of what to accomplish. Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs during each action step with your time, money, or other resources. With careful planning you often can see if at some point you are likely to face a problem. It is much easier to adjust your plan to avoid or smoothen a coming crisis, rather than to deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected time.

Most companies have moved from centralized to decentralize planning in the past few years, in part to place the planning responsibility with the product and divisional managers who are probably in the best position to understand their customers’ needs and competitors’ activities. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieving the goal. The important of planning involves like defining organization goals, establish strategies to achieve goals,and develop plans to integrate and coordinate work activities.

To setting objectives that considerable popularity is the concept of management by objectives (MBO). MBO has also been called management by results, goals and control, work planning and review, and goals management. MBO works best when the objectives of each organizational unit are derived from objectives of the next higher unit in the organization. ( Drucker, Peter F. cited in Wikipedia 1954)

There have several type of plans in an organisation. The first type of plan is strategic plans. It is long term and apply to entire organization. It also a broad plans. This type of plan is made by the top management for the whole organization such as CEO, COO, and other. This plan is usually done for 5 years and above. The second type of plan is tactical plans. It is a short term goal and basically focus on the problems of resource allocation. This plan is usually made by middle level management such as manager. It done for a period of 1-5 years. The third type of plan is operational plan. It is encompass particular operational area of the organization. It cover short time period. This plan developed by first line manager such as supervisor. The fourth type of plan is long term plan. It is plan with time frames extending beyond 3 years. This plan usually use to making research or market research. The fifth type of plan is short term plan. It is plans that are clearly defined and no room for interpretation. (Tim Berry, cited in Bplan.com 2010)

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair is the General Manager of Showa Rubber (M) Sdn Bhd. He said that normally an organisation is planned with the formation of an organisation chart, whereby the various departments and their respective head are formed to perform and execute their duties and responsibilities accordingly. Common problems and issues arising throughout the planning process are the formation of each department in order to suit the nature of business, thus, the selection of the suitable candidate for each position and task is important to every department in a company, it can influence the whole performance of an organisation. The difference of opinion between board and management is a common problem which also appears in the organisation.

Another difficulty that has profound significance in planning is the insubordination, disobedience, discipline between employees and persons of responsibility. This will cause negative attitude among the staff such as irresponsiveness, de-moralised and not motivated. The type of the plans is used by the Showa Rubber Company which is the third type of plan, operational plan. This plan is prepared by first line manager who is involved in implementation.

Being a company focused to be the best in the industry they apply the management planning process which are establish objective, conduct situation analysis, determine alternative courses of action, evaluate alternatives, and choose and implement the plan to achieve the leading-edge with the latest equipments and excellent workmanship. Their corporate strategy is to continue evolve to be always on the leading-edge in our ever-changing competitive business environment.

The top manager apply the strategy plans to entire organisation to employ the latest technology and are constantly reviewing and improving their business processes, quality control. They also use the fourth type of plan which is long term plan with time frame beyond three years to do the research and development (R&D). They haven’t used the second type of plan which is tactical plans and the fifth for short term plan.

It is futile for a manager to attempt to perform the other management functions without having a plan. What manager should do is identify the most critical assumptions of the current plan and then develop contingencies for problems that have a reasonable chance of occurring. In my opinion, a good approach is to examine the current plan from the point of view of what could go wrong. Moreover, planning is most needed in rapidly changing environments. Manager today and in the future must concentrate on where they and their organisations are headed. What goes wrong is often beyond the control of the manager.

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair knows that there is how important of a manager utilises the planning function to identify and set goals for an organisation. It can avoid the problem that are facing by the Showa Rubber Company like negative attitude among the staff and each of the department in an organisation. Thus, select the appropriate goals and determine a plan to achieve the goals not only can solve the problems that have faced by him and in order to let all the staff can perform their expertise skill in any of the department or process.

As a conclusion, Management is creative problem solving. This creative problem solving is accomplished through four functions of management: planning, organising, leading and controlling. The intended result is the use of an organisation’s resources in a way that accomplishes its mission and objectives. Planning is the first function and also the most important function. This is because without a plan, there is no method or direction in an organisation. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieving the goal. The important of planning involves like defining organization goals, establish strategies to achieve goals, and develop plans to integrate and coordinate work activities.

2.2 Organising

Organising is a system provide to organisation, because organisation is a goal oriented system seeking effectiveness and efficiency. Organisation depends on the concept of specialization. In this concept, various tasks are assigned to different specialist department. Organising is the thing arranging by several elements into a structure following one or more rules and procedures to guide the conduct of employees laid down. Organising is focuses on allocating and arranging human or non-human. Involves determine the tasks to be achieved, organising is considered utilise resource to order of place in the logically and suitable arrangement. Organising is the important function employed to achieve the goals of the organisation.

According to Elton Mayo, an Australian national, headed the Hawthorne Studies at Harvard. In his classic writing in 1931, Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization, he advises managers to deal with emotional needs of employees at work. This is because if the managers pay attention to the employees, the employees will enjoy with the team, and in order to increase the productivity.

According to Mary Parker Follett was a pioneer management consultant in the manufacturing world. As a writer, she provided analyses on workers as having complex combinations of needs, beliefs and attitude. She told managers to motivate employees on their job performance, a “pull” rather than a “push” strategy.

According to McGregor Douglas proposed two theories, which are very nearly the opposite of each other, about human nature based on his experience as a management consultant. His first theory was “Theory X”, which is negative; and according to McGregor it is how managers traditionally perceive their workers. Then, in order to help managers replace that theory, he gave “Theory Y” which takes a more modern and positive approach. He believed that managers could achieve more if they start perceiving their employees as self-energized, responsible, committed, and creative beings. By means of his Theory Y, he in fact challenged the traditional theorists to adopt a developmental approach to their employees.

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair is the current General Manager of Showa Rubber (M) Sdn. Bhd. There are many different departments that work under him such as the Human Resources department, Finance department, and Marketing department. He will report to the chairman of the board. There are 3 manager reports to him. Each department has about 30 employees report to 3 supervision, the 3 supervision report the each department manager. Mr. R. Bala Krishan Nair says that things that he gets his people to coordinate and operate the functions in the organization is by issuance of work instruction to relevant persons. He will distribute different type of work according to their specification. The employees are requiring submitting a daily, weekly, monthly, and even timely report of the work progress to him. These reports will help him to understand the work progress has reach in which stage now and give supports. He will put in mind of his employees through the memorandums to the relevant persons on the progress, delay or failures. Thus the employees will work harder and improve their mistake.

Mr. R Bala Krishnan Nair and his employees will frequently having meetings to check on the progress and discussions on improvements and overcoming shortfalls. This could improve the work quality. Besides that, these motivational meetings can help improve teamwork and instill high morale. With high morale, the employees will work together and increase the production. He will set the targets to his employees and he will recognise whoever achieves the achievements through incentives such as bonuses as rewards.

Showa Rubber Company’s organisation structure:

Organisation structure is the framework in which the organisation defines how task are divided, resources are deployed and departments are coordinated. This is functional structure easy for managers to monitor and evaluate workers.

Work specialization is the level to which organizational tasks are sub-divided into personality profession. With too much specialization, workforces are out-of-the-way and do only a sole, tiny, uninteresting job. Many organizations expand jobs or rotate assign tasks to provide superior challenges. Showa Rubber Company each executive is made in charge for only a specific role that he or she expertise as the work specialisation is important.

Authority is a manager’s formal and lawful right to make decisions, issue orders, and allocate resources to achieve organizationally preferred conclusion. Responsibility means an employee’s duty to perform dispenses task or activities. Accountability means that the employees with authority and responsibility must report and give explanation for task outcomes to those above them in the chain of command. The Showa Rubber Company must report everything to their supervisor as the matter is concern to the company.

Delegation is the sequence managers use to shift authority and accountability to positions under them. Organizations today tend to encourage delegation from uppermost to lowest potential levels. Delegation can advance flexibility to meet customers’ requirements and adaptation to competitive surroundings. The Showa Rubber Company manager delegates authority to their subordinates to reduce their work burden.

Span of control is the subordinates directly reporting to manager. Management is concerned about the appropriate span because it affects coordination. A manager with a broad span of control may be overextending himself and face difficulties in coordinating their activities. A manager with a narrow span of control can give his subordinates closer supervision but he may be underutilized. Broad span of control are flat organisation structure, and it have fewer hierarchical levels. And also it results in quick communications but can lead to over worked managers.

Showa Rubber company structure like Elton Mayo are very concern on emotional need of employees at work understand the work progress has reach in which stage and give supports. This company strategy is same with Mary Parker Follett, because they are using bonuses as a regard to attract and motive employees success that is call pull. In Douglas McGregor theory traditional theories of organisation, there have a well defined hierarchy of authority and this principle was intended to ensure the coordinated pursuit of organizational goals contributing individuals. While in this modern society, there have a lot of hierarchies of authority because the same hierarchy of authority is unable to use by every company. Authority is the right to get subordinates to accomplish something. There have certain manager misused the authority given to them. As a conclusion for organising, an organising is the second role in the managerial functions. When the organisation is well organised, it can be said that it is in the most excellent circumstances. Compare to the theory and real practices, both of them are related to assigning and arranging human and non-human resources so that strategy can be carried out effectively. The dissimilarity between a successful and unsuccessful organisation lies within the director of the corporation. So as for me, to be a successful organization, proper organising is necessary.

2.3 Leading

Encyclopaedia of business (2010) defines leadership as the process of influencing others to engage in work behavior that would lead to the achievement of goals. A successful leader must provide direction and leadership to motivate his employees to accomplish essential tasks within the required time frame. Manager has to set effective policies and formulate strategies to improve firm’s overall performance and effectiveness.

One of the theories in function of leading is Traits Theory. Traits Theory focuses on personal qualities and characteristics. Traits that are important for leadership success are self-confidence, honesty and integrity, full of ambition, flexibility and motivation. Stogdill (1974) identified the skills that are critical to a leader, for example, conceptually skill, diplomatic and tactful, fluent in speaking, knowledgeable about group task and socially skilled.

Another theory in leading function is Fiedler’s Contingency Theory. Fiedler’s Contingency Theory states that a firm needs to examine the work situation and seek a manager whose style is suitable for that situation. The three factors that will influence the effectiveness of leadership are leader’s position power, structure of team’s task, and the quality of the leader-member interpersonal relationships. (Fiedler, cited in Envision Software Incorporated 1998-2009)

Other theory in the leading function is Behavioral Theory. Behavioral theory focuses on how leaders behave when working with employees. There have two types of leadership styles which are task oriented managers and employee oriented managers. Based on Michigan Studies on leadership behavior, task oriented leader is a leader who pay close attention to an employee’s job and work procedures involved with that job. While employee oriented manager is leader who develops cohesive work groups and ensure employee satisfaction. (Michigan Studies, cited by Changing Minds Organisation 2002-2010)

Motivation is an organization’s life-blood. Thus, an effective manager must have the skills of motivation. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the manager motivate the employees by providing physiological needs for survival, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. (Maslow’s 1943 study, cited in Sharma 2010). A manager must have the ability of discover the employee’s talents and place the potential employees in the best fit position in an organization. Misplacements can cause a company substantial financial loss due to turnover, lawsuits, and loss of customers. Manager must communicate the vision with employees and invite employees to give feedback. Managers can win over employees’ loyalty, showing care, listening to them.

Herzberg’s theory categorized motivation into two factors: motivators and hygiene. Motivator factors are related with achievement, recognition, and produce job satisfaction. Hygiene factors are referring to pay, job security, and produce job dissatisfaction when hygiene needs not met. (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, cited in Sharma 2010).Money is a primary motivator. Special achievement incentive rewards, spot bonuses, and cash-equivalent rewards all play a role in the economic reward package. Autonomy is crucial to achieving a sense of self-worth. Autonomy strongly influences the decision of individuals to join and stay with an organization.

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair is the General Manager of Showa Rubber (M) Sdn Bhd. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair say that the things that motivated him the most is getting the management trust, recognition and praise when achieving goals, objectives and targets sales. Issue of challenges by management and recognition through awards and incentives could also motivate him to work.

Furthermore, Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair gives constant guidance and encourages his subordinates to talk in the meeting and training sessions. A manager has to being reasonable and accepting some useful ideas that expressed by the subordinates. He will also praise and give incentive rewards for the employees who have achieved high performance in their job. It is an important ways to rewards or recognises employees whose suggestions help improve the operation of company. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair always attends company’s social meetings, such as having dinners or lunch with subordinates and some other open discussions which are better for interactions and ice- breaking.

The challenges that he faces when leading his employees is he felt it is difficult to gaining respect from all the subordinates and superiors. This is because he is unable to remember all the name of his company’s staff and greets to them. Belilos (1999) stated that a manager who fails to greet employees or respond to greetings will lead to a high degree of de-motivation and disloyalty. In addition, he always feels that he is lack of knowledge of job. So, he always explores his capacity to learn something new. Moreover, another leading challenge that Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair faces is he has to performed strong character, leadership qualities and interpersonal skills when giving a public speaking and presentation. It is very important for a manager to made decision and judgements after analyse the idea suggested by his subordinates. This is because any misjudgement could be cause the company bankruptcy.

When a decision is needed, Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair does not just fall into single preferred style, such as using employee oriented style. In practice, things are not that simple. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair has access the Behavioural Theory in his company. He is highly emphasising the interpersonal relationship with the employees. This practice is very similar to the concept of Behavioural Theory. He always encourages his subordinates to express their own idea through meeting and he also promise rewards for the employees who has good performance. There have a number of issues that make this style difficult. The one of the problem that comes with this kind of leadership is that he is hardly to get to know the follower because he feel he do not has the time to do so. It is not such easy. But I can say is having the employee-oriented leadership will surely increase the group productivity and employee’s job satisfaction.

It is very important for Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair to select his leadership style carefully base on the changing situations. Fielder’s Contingency Theory has suggesting that there is no leadership style is best in all situations. Success depends upon a number of variables, including the leadership style, qualities of the followers and aspects of the situation. Thus, as an effectiveness leader have to always alter the leader’s style to better fit the situation by changing the structure of tasks, increasing or decreasing the leader’s power position and influencing the leader-member relations.

Furthermore, Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair has access the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in his company. He has the ability to realize the employee’s talents and place the potential employees in the right position. He always communicates with employees about the vision, company goals, market, industry and business information and future plan, and invites employees to give feedback. This is because he knows that as a smart company will actively and continuously solicit feedback from our internal customers like employees to find out how well our company is meeting their needs.

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair not only provides hygiene factors to avoid his employee dissatisfaction, but also provide motivator factors for employees to be satisfied with their jobs. In the Showa Rubber Company, the employees who have the highest level of ability will replace the employees who have lower level of skills. This practice has matched to the concept of Herzberg’s Theory.

As we see it, active, risky, self-conscious, and committed learning is required in order to become the leaders demanded by today’s complex and crisis-oriented environment. In conclusion, the manager’s responsibility in the leading stage of management is to motivate and influence the people within the organization to follow the plan to accomplish the organizational goals.

2.4 Controlling

Managers exist in every business. In fact, managers do the same types of tasks in all businesses. Planning, organizing, leading and controlling are four of the main functions that must be provided by managers in order to achieve organizational goals and maintain a competitive advantage in any management position. Management is a balancing act of many different components and a good manager has the ability to maintain the balance and keep employees motivated.

Controlling is the four-step process of monitoring the firm’s performance to make sure the goals are being achieved. It implies measurement of accomplishment against the standards and correction of deviation in case of any to insure achievement of organizational goals. The purpose of controlling is to ensure that everything occurs in accordance with the standards. An efficient system of control helps to indicate deviations before they occurred. Hence, controlling consist five steps of process to achieve the organizational goals.

The first step is determining the major areas to control. Managers usually base on their organizational mission, goals and objectives developed during the planning process.

The second step is establishing standards of performance and goals. A control standard is a target against which performance is evaluated. Performance standards are normally stated in monetary terms such as profits, costs or revenue but may also be stated in another terms such as units produced or levels of customer service.

The next step is measuring actual performance. Measurements must be accurate enough to spot deviations or variances between what really occurs and what is most desired. Managers can measure the outputs resulting from the workers behavior or they can measure the behavior themselves.

The forth step is comparing the actual performance against chosen standards. The comparison of actual performance must be taken by managers and make any decision if the performance is deviates.

The final step is taking corrective action when necessary. Managers must carefully assess the reason to take corrective action such as workers need additional training or equipment.

There are three types of controlling which is feedforward control (steering control), concurrent control (screening control), and feedback control (post-mortem controls). Feedforward control focuses on regulation of inputs to measure that the resources are available to achieve them. This type of control designed to detect deviation from standards and allow correction to be made before a particular sequence of event can be completed. This control requires timely and accurate information that is difficult to develop. This control is evident in hiring of new employees. For example, organizations attempt to improve the performance of employees up to standards by using tests or by other screening devices to select the people with the job skills.

Concurrent control involves the regulation of ongoing activities to ensure the quantity standards and designed to ensure that the employees produce the desired results. It requires an understanding of the specific tasks and their relationship between the products and desired when involves regulating continuing tasks. It can double check the aspects that management has isolated. For example, if the employees see that the standards are not being met, they will make a correction themselves or report to their manager.

Feedback control focuses on the outputs of the organization after the activity has been completed. It can analysis the weaknesses of plan. There are two advantages to use feedback control. First, feedback control provides meaningful information to the managers so the managers can use the meaningful information to make the new plan more effective. Second, feedback control can reinforce employees’ motivation.

Control system is a formal, target-setting, regulating, evaluation and feedback systems to provide managers with information to determine that the behavior of the employees and determine if strategy and structure are working efficiently and effectively. A management control system may use various techniques to improve the performance and productivity. A good control system should be flexible so managers can respond as needed and provide accurate information about the organization.

There are three types of management control system which are output control system, behavior control system and organizational culture. Output control systems can be divided into three parts which are financial controls, organizational goals and operating budgets.

Financial controls measure how efficiently managers convert resources into profits and protect resources to meet the short term debt. After set the financial goals, each division is given specific goals which is difficult to achieve. Although it is difficult to achieve, they must met the specific goals to attain the overall goals. Lastly, they will set an operating budgets which is a blueprint showing how manages can use the resources to meet the goals and stay in budget. Each division is evaluated on its own costs, income and profit.

Behavior control system which is a system state that the manager must motivate employee behavior to achieve the organizational goals. Managers can directly manage the employees and de-motivate employees who desire more autonomy.

Organizational culture also referred to as corporate culture. It refers to a set of shared value and beliefs that gives rise to a certain pattern of behavior common to the group. It could be in the form of languages, events, symbols, rituals and value systems. This culture is also a result of the type of leadership, technology, social affiliations of the company, nature of its work.

Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair is the General Manager of Showa Rubber (M) Sdn Bhd. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair monitors the progression through reviewing progress reports daily or timely. Besides that, he always generates the meetings with various levels, departments and sections to review the daily schedule, prevent problems and to ascertain when problems are exits in order to address and solve the problem that occur as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Sometimes, he will act as a supervisor to visit the job sites and production floor to measure the progression will be completed successfully and in the period of time.

During the process of monitoring, he will face a lot of common issues that suddenly occurred during the process. He will handle and identify the issues or problem statements during discussing or scheduled meetings with his employees and the relevant persons who has involved in the process of the projects. Moreover, he will discuss the root cause of the issues and problem statements by monitoring the events and progress or interactions during the floor visits. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair will also get involved in the production process and show interest in wanting to arrest the issue or problem and issuance of memorandums to deserving parties to ensure non-recurrence or elimination of the problems in the future. In order to prevent more problems occur, he will always communicate with his employee about the progression of the projects and the problems they are facing during the process. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair uses these methods to let his product to achieve the best quality and completed within a specified time.

Controlling consist five steps of process to achieve the organizational goals which is decided on which area is suitable to control, set standards, measure actual performance, compare actual performance with standards and take corrective action if the mistake is occurred. Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair has follow four steps of the process. He will set the standards before they start any production processes. After that, he will get involved in the production process measure the actual performance and compare it with the standards measure achieve the goals of organizational. If the problem is occurred, Mr. R. Bala Krishnan Nair will take the corrective action immediately and discuss root cause of the problem to ensure non-recurrence or elimination of the problems in the future.

3.0 Conclusion

An organisation can be identified as a systematic body of knowledge based on general principles, concept, theories and techniques. As any company is concern, planning, organizing, leading and controlling plays an important part to build an organization that achieve its goal, objective, vision and mission. A manager must identify what the organizations goals are and determine the activity and resources that is required to achieve those goals. Managers are also responsible for organization of the company which includes organizing workforce and resources. In addition, manager should have good leading skills in order to motivate their employees and inspire them in a work behavior. As Mr. R. Bala Krishnan mentioned, planning is done with the formation of organization chart which then will be then performed and executed by the departments head officer and it pretty common for problems to arise thought out the process. In the interview, Mr. Bala also mentioned about coordinating, motivating and leading is important for the employees to make sure they have enough knowledge, motivation and leadership to work in any environment and situation. Therefore, being a manager involves four major task of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. A good manager will be able to balance up and maintain those four tasks and keep up to standard and more important to keep employees motivated.