In the year 1916, a French miner by the name of Henri Fayol published a book called "Admininstration Indutrielle et Generale." The book set five basic functions of managing that Henri Fayol said were applicable in any type of industry. However, it wasn't until the 1950s that some management textbooks started adopting the ideas by Fayol into their writing. This marked the birth of the management process school and management courses still use many of Fayols theories to date to teach business and management. In his original book, Fayol had set forth five basic functions but authors later condensed these activities to four. These are planning, leading, organizing and controlling. The other was staffing but was incorporated to the other activities. This paper will discuss these four activities and how they are related to each other. .
The first activity is planning. Planning entails making a decision on where a company should be headed and selecting the necessary steps that the company needs to take to get there. First, it calls on managers to be aware of the huddles the business faces. Also, it requires the managers to be able to make a forecast on the future business growth and economic conditions. After this step, the managers then create objectives and deadlines that will let them know of their progress. All these objectives are supposed to be leading them to the ultimate objective of the business. The managers also need to be on the lookout for new conditions and changes so that they can re-evaluate and re-adjust their plans accordingly. The benefit of planning is that it aids in the allocation of resources and as a result, waste reduction (Robbins et al. 2005, 98). .
The second activity is organizing. Managers do organization by hoarding human, physical and financial resources in order to achieve the set objectives. The managers identify the activities that need to be accomplished, classify and assign these activities to individuals and groups and delegate authority.
