Defining Management (Chapter 1 Part 1)
When I walk around in the library, I found the book from James F. Stoner. That book has a title “Management” published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632 in years 1978. The book has 24 chapter 683 pages including Name Index and Subject Index.
Alright now I invite you to discover the Chapter One about Managing and Managers. This chapter has 7 parts, let’s discusses one by one starting from Defining Management.
Like many areas of study that involve people, management is quit difficult to define. In fact we know that no definition of management has been universally accepted. But Stoner said that there was one popular definition is by Mary Parker Follett: Management, she says, is “the art of getting things done through people.” That is the keywords “Through the other people”. This definition calls attention to the fact that managers achieve their goals by arranging for others to perform whatever tasks may be necessary – not by performing the task by them self.
From that simply explanation we could know that Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the efforts of organizational members and the use of other organizational resources in order to achieve stated organizational goals.
Planning means that managers or leaders thinking their action through in advance.
Organizing means that managers or leaders do coordinate the human and material resources of the organization.
Leading means that managers or leaders direct and influence subordinates.
Controlling means that managers or leaders attempt to assure that the organization is moving toward its goals.
Finally my definition is that management involves achieving the organizations “stated goals”. This means that managers or leaders of any organization try to attain specific ends. This ends will, of course will vary and different with each organizations. Whatever the stated goals of a particular organization, management is the process by which the goals are achieved. It is exactly what done Mary Parker said about “Getting things done through people”.
