Basic Management Principles

• Course Outline
• Management principles, functions of management, nature and purpose of organization, employee selection and appraisal, management development, motivation and leadership, controlling, the control process and control techniques, recent development in the control function, the Nigerian environment, and management problems in Nigeria form part of the study.

Basic Management Principles

• Management principles serve as guidelines for managers in decision-making to achieve organizational goals.
• Division of Work: Specializing tasks increases efficiency.
• Authority: Managers are given decision-making powers.
• Discipline: Clear rules and consequences are established.
• Unity of Command: Each employee reports to one supervisor.
• Unity of Direction: One plan is used per organization unit.
• Subordination of Individual Interest: Organization goals are prioritized.
• Remuneration: Fair compensation for employees.
• Centralization: Balancing control and economy.
• Scalar Chain: Maintaining clear communication and materials.
• Order: Organizing resources and materials.
• Equity: Treating employees fairly and justly is important.

Planning

• Planning involves deciding on actions today for tomorrow.
• Planning is a preparation for future activities and designs today's actions for tomorrow's outcomes, as noted by Ernest Dale in 1960.
• Planning bridges the gap between the current state and the desired future.
• It involves deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, and who will do it.
• Key elements include setting objectives, planning actions, allocating resources, and implementing plans.
• Objectives are goals that a firm aims to reach within a specific time, like increasing returns on investments from 7-14% in 3 years or market share by 10-20% in 5 years.
• Goal: A broad, long-term desired outcome or destination.
• Objective: A specific, measurable, achievable step to reach a goal.
• Action encompasses specific steps to achieve the objectives, like downsizing, subcontracting, or using technology to increase productivity.
• Resource Allocation: Effective planning requires careful allocation of resources, detailing their source and deployment to achieve objectives
• Implementation: Plans are accomplished via guidelines that detail the execution of intended actions, including task division, reporting relationships, and timelines.

Importance of Planning

• Reduces risk and uncertainty.
• Enhances decision-making.
• Improves coordination and control.
• Encourages innovation.
• Optimizes resource allocation.
• Planning is goal-oriented and the primary function of management.
• Planning has a reference to the future and facilitates control.
• Planning is all-pervasive and efficient.
• Efficient: Getting it done quickly and with minimal resources.
• Effective: Getting it done.

Organizing

• Organizing involves creating a dynamic system where tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated.
• Organizing also encompasses dividing work among groups and individuals and ensuring coordination between them.
• It entails identifying and grouping work, delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships in order to enable people to work effectively.
• Managers perform the organizing function by identifying the work, grouping the work, establishing formal reporting relationships, providing measurement, evaluation, & control, and Delegating Authority and Responsibility.
• Grouping related and similar activities is essential.
• Formal reporting relationships are established to ensure compliance with organizational directives.
• Established reporting relationships help individuals understand their responsibilities and to whom matters should be referred.
• Managers should set targets, benchmarks, and control points to measure, evaluate, and control subordinate performance.
• Managers must delegate authority and responsibilities to subordinates to facilitate work dispensation.
• Two fundamental concepts around which organizations are structured are differentiation and integration.

Importance of Organizing

• Facilitates administration.
• Poor organization leads to waste.
• Permits optimum use of resources, especially through specialization.
• Facilitates growth and diversification.
• Stimulates creativity through division of labor and specialization.
• Provides individuals with well-defined duties, clear lines of authority, and responsibility.
• Departmentation: Classifying an organization on the basis of departments to facilitate planning and control.
• Departmentation can be defined as dividing a large organization into smaller, more flexible units.
• Departmentation can be a function performed by product, territory, or customer.

Centralization & Decentralization

• Centralization involves moving power to a single central authority.
• Decentralization involves distributing authority among several bodies.
• Centralized organizations have high-level executives making most decisions.
• Power and discretion are concentrated at the top levels of management.
• Centralization is anchored on certain reasons which includes promoting personal relationships and integrating organizations.

Leading

• Leading is defined as the process of influencing group activities toward the accomplishment of goals in a given situation.
• A leader is viewed as a person in the group capable of influencing group activities towards goal achievement.

Characteristics of Good Leadership

• Drive: Reflects high effort, achievement need, ambition, energy, and initiative.
• Leadership Motivation: Desire to lead and have power.
• Integrity: Consistency between words and actions, honesty, and credibility.
• Self-Confidence: Important for a leader.
• Knowledge of the Business: Effective leaders typically possess a high degree of knowledge in their organization.
• Understanding Others: The quality of a leader to perceive the needs and goals of others and adjust their personal leadership approach.

Functions of Leadership

• Developing teamwork
• Counselling
• Task performance
• Decision-making
• Group maintenance
• Striving for effectiveness
• Leadership Styles refer to the behaviors a leader exhibits during supervision of subordinates

Leadership Styles

• Autocratic Leadership: An autocratic leader exercises complete control over subordinates, centralizing power and decision-making. Subordinates are expected to follow orders unquestioningly.
• Democratic Style: The democratic leader practices leadership by consultation and cultivates decision-making abilities in subordinates, and decision making is collaborative.

Controlling

• Controlling assesses performance against objectives, adjusting as needed, and ensures alignment with goals.
• Controlling helps management determine if outcomes aligned with expectations.

Need and Purpose of Controlling

• Efficient and effective attainment of organizational objectives.
• Locating deviations through controlling and restoring appropriate remediation actions.
• Aiding in the efficient achievement of organizational objectives, highlighting weaknesses and errors, and insuring organizational goals.
• Maximum production at minimum cost.
• Facilitates the attainment of profit maximization in a rational manner.
• Efficient Resources: Prevents wastages & overlapping of actions.
• Mega Quality: Maintains or improve quality by implementing control
• Better Decisions: Offers chances for the management team to make informed choices from the information gathered
• Individual Contributions: Shows team members their performance versus targets and how to grow.
• Necessary measure because plans and actuals can experience unforeseen setbacks and adjustments.
• Steps in controlling: establishment of standards, supervision(measurement of actual performance) and comparison of actual performance against standards.

Types of Control

• Feed Forward Control: Focuses on preventing problems before they occur. Example: Scheduled maintenance.
• Concurrent Control: Applied as processes happen, like direct supervision and automated systems.
• Feedback Control: Focuses on the results of operations to guide future planning.

Challenges of Controlling in Nigeria

• Weak regulatory enforcement.
• Financial transparency issues.
• Insecurity.

Opportunities of Control in Nigeria

• Rise of corporate governance standards
• Technology for monitoring and evaluation.

Technique of Control

• Techniques are tools that managers use to ensure that organizational activities align with planned goals and objectives; help manage, adjust and run operations.
• Budgetary Control: Setting a financial budget for projects and comparing actual expenses against it to control costs, allocate resources efficiently, and monitor financial performance.
• Financial Control: Analyzing financial statements to assess a company's financial health, using profitability ratios and solvency, which helps managers evaluate the performance of an organization.