Henri Fayol and Henry Mintzberg

Henri Fayol, at the age of 19, began working as engineer at a large mining company in France which eventually led to him becoming a director. Through the years that led on to this Fayol then developed his 14 principles of management which he considered to be the most important. According to Fayol, these principles indicate how managers should organise and interact with their peers. Fayol’s analysis is considered to be one of the earliest theories of management that has been created and therefore

As said in chapter 2, being a manager is a continuous job with a continuous amount of work load that never really finishes. As a manager, their job is never really “done”. Page 18 of Mintzberg, describes how managing is just “one damn thing after another.” (Mintzberg, 2013 p.18) I found many reasons to support this, my own experience and some factual evidence in both books. Mintzberg explains the reason for this is because the manager is responsible for how well the unit does, at no point will the job be done and finished. The job is continuous, everlasting if you will. A manager’s success in an organization depends all upon how well they can utilize their resources and how well they can perform and meet their objectives. To do this, a manger must fully be able to utilize their resources, which leads me to my first connection on page 2. A manager must be able to integrate their resources effectively and efficiently in order to be successful at implementing strategies and meeting objectives (Lussier, 2017 p.2). Being able to fully utilize human, financial, physical, and informational resources will allow the manager to be more

The “influencing people can involve both what a manager does and how the manger does it” (Dean, 2013, p. 306).

Back in the day, being a manager was a much more novel task and performance was measured by one’s own accomplishments and abilities. Modern day managers can commonly find themselves doing more and not being able to focus on what is important. As a result they find themselves doing more but in reality getting

While scientific development emphasised principles to improve worker effectiveness, another branch within the classical school arose, administrative management, with its main contributor being French industrialist Henri Fayol. He is regarded as the father of administrative management as he proposed fourteen principles of management intended to assist managers in determining what to do to manage an organisation more effectively (Rodrigues, 2001). Fayol’s ideas are still valid in today’s organisations and his definitions of management are widely used in this field of study. In his book General and Industrial Management, published in 1916, he defined management as “to manage is to forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to coordinate and to control” (Fayol, 1916). This definition yielded the now known functions of management. Fayol’s approach to management has several similarities with Taylor’s scientific management theory. Included in Fayol’s fourteen principles is the division of work, which outlined the need for workers to specialise in specific jobs (Rodrigues, 2001). This idea of work specialisation has been derived from Taylor’s principles of scientific management. Furthermore, the empowerment of managers, proper training of employees and the use of a reasonable rewards system were principles that originated

Indeed, the operational realities faced by construction organisations mean that all too often the needs of employees are subjugated by performance concerns (Dainty and Loosemore, 2012).

Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was a theorist who believed in a theory which was based on how management interacts with the performance of a business. Management theory is defined as ‘bringing change in actual behaviour’ (chapter 2 article). In this modern day, many businesses rely on Fayol’s Classic theory to manage staff effectively. Fayol introduced the idea of splitting crucial activities that firms carry out on a day to day basis into 6 separate groups (technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and management). However, out of those activities, Fayol believed that managerial activities within organisations, whether they are big or small, where senior jobs are present, most important. (Henri Fayol article 1949) He came to the conclusion that within the managerial sector, there are five elements. This included, planning, organisation, command, coordination and control. These were listed in his book General and Industrial Administration (1916) (Henri Fayol article 1949). This essay is going to explore different interpretations of management and specifically comparing classical theorists such as Fayol and Taylor as well as humanist theorists such as McGregor and finally, empirical theorists such as Luthen. This essay will also analyse Fayol’s theory and how it has been criticised over the years.

While reading the One Minute Manager, I learned through the young man’s quest to find an effective manager, that they are two types of managers: One being autocratic- “A bottom-line manger.” “Hard-nosed.” “Realistic.” “Profit mined.”, and the other being a democratic manager. “Participative.” “Supportive.” “Considerate.” “Humanistic.” The young man came to realize that mangers wanted results or they cared about people one or the other, not both. He finally came to the conclusion that he was looking for an effective manager, but along his quest he met only a few who would not share the secrets of their success.

Fayol’s functions of management are as relevant today, just as they have been a century ago, both theoretically and practically. Though under harsh scrutiny by some theorists as an oversimplified theory of management, this essay argues that Fayol’s functions are not just part of a grand theory, they form a basis for all managerial work. In addition, Fayol’s functions are seen as flexible and malleable, adding to their application to today’s world. This essay also suggests that today’s predominantly service economy, as fast paced and ephemeral as it is, is a stark proof of Fayol’s theory’s success. The position is taken that

Management is the process of ensuring that an organisation or company is able to operate in both the immediate and near future. Managers are charged with making decisions that will impact an organisation on every level. Therefore, it is very important for an organisation to know the functions of management. Henri Fayol was the first father of management, he was the first person try to work out the job of the managers and he identified five functions of management that an organisation should develop. However, an argument has been established that Fayol’s theory has been redundant by Mintzberg’s theory. The aim of this essay is to discuss and anaylse the different perspective of Fayol and Mintzberg’s theory.

Henri Fayol (1841-1925), was ‘’famous for the classical school of management, that emphasises command and control’’. (Robinson, 2005) He is deemed to be one of the founders of general and modern management; also referred to as the administrative theory and later becoming known as ‘Fayolism’.

If we then take into consideration what Mintzberg has said, he does not outline a successful manager either as he only describes what he saw and what a managers daily routine consists of but even then it is hard to tell whether his research was fair or not as there could have been factors such as the timings in which the information was recorded or it could have been that the information he used from other researchers were not accurate. So going further how do we know anything Mintzberg is correct and reliable? As he

Henri Fayol (1841-1925), was ‘’famous for the classical school of management, which emphasises command and control’’. (Robinson, 2005) He is deemed to be one of the founders of general management; also referred to as the administrative theory and later on becoming known as ‘Fayolism’.

​Management is one of the most significant factors of production necessary for the realization of a company’s objectives. The number of managers varies from one corporation to another and is highly dependent on the size of the corporation. The leadership of a company’s management is instrumental as it sets and guides the general direction that the company ought to go. It provides efficient methods in which the company’s resources can be utilized in the production of goods and services as well as dealing with any deviations, expected or otherwise, in order to increase the productivity and competitiveness of an organization. This paper will give an in-depth analysis of Henri Fayol’s perspective on management in addition to exploring other perspectives employed by other authors.

For instance, Mintzberg (1973) claims that the Fayol’s management model has nothing in common with the reality of managerial work. Thus, relying on own observation of five senior managers, he concludes that managers would get some responsibilities and behaviours that will need to be adhered to with the type of management they are doing or for the type of organisation that they are working for, (Mintzberg, 1971; Fells, 2000). However, the main point of debates is the fact that the classical management theory outlined only general principles and provided a framework of what is the nature of managerial work. Fayol’s work is also regarded as being one of the first to be written down about manager’s roles based on observation research method. So as he was the first there is always a chance that he could be wrong, or this could be because times change, and this is apparent when trying to compare the classical approach to Mintzberg’s systems approach. Although Fayol’s classical approach was not really a tested solution so lacked any evidence, whereas another approach has been tested and can therefore be backed up by evidence to make it a more solid argument. In this case, the point is that the future studies could be more informative and