Online Custom «Functions of Management» Essay Sample

In contemporary world, management remains a critical undertaking for organizational success. In this regard, the four functions play a major role in the daily functioning of a given organization. According to Thomas and Scott (2010), the four management functions include: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All the highlighted functions impact on an organization’s success in different perspectives.

The Planning function helps an organization in specifying its goals and all necessary actions that are required towards achieving the set targets. This in turn helps a company to put up ways and set aside resources needed to undertake the set goals. Another function organizing is described as the process of assembling and putting together all resources to achieve the set objectives in an organization. The resources may include: information, human, financial resources etc. Leading is another function that simulates individuals to be high performers in a given organization, and determines how well communication is enhanced within the setting. Controlling is the final function that is aimed at monitoring an organization’s performance and implementation of any necessary change that will spur more success (Thomas & Scott, 2010).

An organization with effective management functions is assured of success in its operations, thereby it achieves set objectives. From the explanation above, one can undoubtedly see that the four functions are all important in every aspect. However, I consider planning to be the fundamental function as it seeks to govern the remaining three. This is because a precise analysis of the management functions shows how organizing, controlling and leading functions are all centered on the main planning function. One can be forgiven if he/she says that without planning the other three functions cannot work properly.

Decision-making

There are times when an organization develops breakdowns in its operations’ occurrences that are likely to hinder success of that particular company. In this case, appropriate decision-making mechanisms are important in order to avert any contributing factors. According to Thomas and Scott (2010), there are stages needed to be explored in decision making to solve any existing problem. They are discussed in the following paragraph.

Diagnosis of the problem is the first step, whereby issues at stake are identified (John & Ralph 2002). After diagnosing the problem, managers are supposed to identify any alternative solutions that can be put in place to replace the failing ones. Evaluating the alternatives is the third stage as it allows the managers to decide on the most effective and efficient alternative solutions. After analyzing the available choices, the decision makers are required to select the best option that can yield outstandingly and then be implemented by being put into practice. The final and utmost decision is the evaluation process, meant to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the selected solution.

Personal Decision-making

There comes a time when every individual in his/her life is required to make a critical decision. I am one of those who have faced such scenarios because I remember finding myself in a difficult situation. I was in high school and my father was persuading me to transfer from my school to a new one. Of course, I knew that if I transfered from my previous school, I would lose the post I had as the school captain for our football team. On the other hand, I was supposed to move to a school that was near our home and that meant getting closer to my family. All this translated to a situation of in debt decision making, and the next paragraph discusses how I overcame the task that was ahead of me.

Taking into account the fact that I was very much aware of the factors influencing one’s decision-making, I was in a good position to thoroughly examine the situation which was awaiting me. Individual satisfaction, cognitive biases, preferences, and commitment are some of the factors one considers when making a decision (John & Ralph 2002). After sitting alone for some time, I started evaluating the possible outcomes with respect to the decision I was going to make. Realizing that there was no alternative other than accepting what my parent was advocating for, I decided that I was to obey my father. I immediately informed him that I had agreed to move to my new school. I squarely knew that I had lost the captaincy, but on the other hand, I was moving closer to my home place. 

Similarity of Decision-making Process

The similarity of my decision making process with the one highlighted in the text is that all decision making stages have similar characteristics, meaning the processes are alike. Surprisingly, I do not think there would have been much difference in the event for which I used the decision making process and the one being highlighted in the text, because they are more or less the same. However, in my instance, I was not required to evaluate the decision after implementing it considering the fact that I had moved permanently into a new school. Doing that would have sounded insane since I was not going to weigh the option of going back to my old school.