Relevance of Fayols Theories for Todays Managers - Essay Example

Debate on the Relevance of Fayol’s Theories for Today’s Managers Name Professor Institution Course Date Debate on the Relevance of Fayol’s Theories for Today’s Managers Introduction With globalization, technology advancement changing rapidly in the business environment, competition is taking a ne level and managers are forced to rethink their strategies to sustain change. Managers that have been relying mostly on Fayol’s theories of management have found them less relevant compared hundred years ago. According to McLean (2011, p.32), Henri Fayol is commonly recognized as the one of the earliest pioneer and proponents of the management task. His name is identical with a past age when management was regarded as an emerging field and the contemporary world was in the great change to the industrial revolution (McLean, 2011, p.32). The organizations have become too complex to run because the businesses now operate in culturally different environments. As such, the moment for general management is over and businesses now have to create teams, motivation, and effective organization structure, employees’ involvement and advanced technology in their operations so as to have market, advantage through human resource management and performance (Wren 2001, p.475). Based on the information, this essay will debate some of the Henri Fayol’s 14 management principles and five elements of management and how their relevance today. Fayol’s concepts or theories According to McLean (2011, p.32), the management theorists and practioners, Fayol has been recognized with laying the basis upon which modern management praxis and theory has been formulated. His principles and roles of management have drawn debate and discourse in disciplines ranging from historical management principles to strategic management. Fayol’s principles were adopted at the time of societal and environmental uncertainty, great change, economic and innovation growth (Burnes, 1996). The transformation from the agrarian society to an industrial one prompted a steep increase in factorization that the humanity had never observed before. Fayol’s most renowned contributions to theory of management include categorization of all organizational activities into technical, financial, commercial, security, management or accounting (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1345). Fayol’s theory also identifies of five major management functions including planning, organizing, co-coordinating, command and control. According to Crainer (2003, p.42), Fayol’s theory also came up with 14 principles mentioned including division of work, authority, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interests to the general interests, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity, stability of tenure of personnel, initiative and espirit de corps. Today, his theory exists largely as a rather shadow figure in the “history of management”. It is these fourteen principles in which some of them are rendered irrelevant. In the contemporary texts, his continuing relevance to practice of modern management gets little acknowledgment (Parker & Ritson 2005p.1348). Secondly, Fayol is famous for the 5 elements of management consisting of planning, organizing, coordination, command and control which are relevant and fitting to the contemporary management (Pryor & Taneja 2010, p.490). Within the five elements Fayol claimed there are six essential functions of an organization including technical activities, commercial activities, financial activities, security activities, accounting activities and managerial activities. However, Fayol have been disparaged for stereotyping all organizations to be the same (Parker & Ritson 2005 p.1351). Additionally, several contemporary management theorists now perceive irreconcilable contradictions and conflicts between their research and that of Fayol. Advantages and disadvantages of Fayols’ concepts to managers One of the Fayol’s principles that are debatable today is division of labor. According to Fayol, work ought to be divided amongst person and groups to make sure that attention and effort is concentrated on special segments of the tasks (Rodrigues 2001, p.880). At the point, Fayol provided work specialization as an ideal way to utilize the HR in the organization. However, the business environment has changed greatly, and division of labor is not efficient anymore as it used to be. For example, numerous US companies are now embracing the use of robots over specialized jobs while other low skilled jobs have been moved to other nations in which workers need interesting and challenging work (Rodrigues 2001, p.880). Also, numerous US companies currently find themselves in a condition which they have to downsize their employees so as to remain competitive. Rodrigues (2001, p.881) posits that with less specialized jobs, organizations’ managers have to depend on employee doing several tasks. Sometimes in economic downtown, organization would want to retain their qualified workers. In such circumstances, there are less to perform, the company would deploy these qualified employees in other tasks away from their specialized profession. Similarly, with firms competing for markets, delivery is important to the same. Spatig (2009, p.198) claims that division of labor discourages team settings yet teams are known to work fast on projects. Fayol in his theory argued that for a manager to carry out his or her responsibility, they need more authority (Rodrigues 2001, p.881). Employees must see him or her as a boss. With post industrial revolution, and the number of industries increasing, many people have the option to quit and look for work elsewhere. Rodrigues (2001, p.881) asserts that currently, US organizations pay less focus on the bosses who have authority to manage employees but rather they practice employees’ involvement and group empowerment in decision makings. Research reveals that in companies where participative management is encouraged, employees feel motivated and valued (Rodrigues 2001, p.881). However, in organizations, where managers view themselves as bosses and need to be ‘worshiped’ suffers employees’ turnover. As with disciple, the principle still remains relevant. In an organization where both top management and lower level staff are disciple and respect each other and their work, people work with a common goal of improving the performance (Brunsson 2008, p.36). Disciple discourages the notion that employees need to be controlled to work. The primary control only arises when employees have individualist behavior and do not want to work for the common goal. Fayol also claimed that for an organization to be effective, power must be centralized at the top (Rodrigues, 2001, p.883). Today’s managers are finding this concept to authoritarian, rendering middle level managers powerless as far as making decisions are concerned. Even though the centralization of power is good and fast in making decision, it makes employees feel very far from the authorities and cannot air their views. According to Fayol, individuals were to be paid according to work done, for instance piece rate time, job, profit-sharing, bonuses and non-financial incentives (Spatig 2009, p.198). How Fayol’s theory or Concepts may be viewed differently today from the past Some of the Fayol’s theory of management are claimed to be irrelevant today because they generalize and universalize management as well as authoritarian, de-motivates and promotes division of labor (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1350). Generalization does not stand a chance in the modern management. Brunsson (2008, p.30) states that most people concur that companies are there to perform different things. This issue can be considered true bearing in mind that there are different organizations such as hospitals, banks, and pizzerias. This is in contrary to Henri Fayol’s top-down perspective which is anchored on the assumption that organizations operate similarly (Brunsson 2008, p.31). Parker & Ritson (2005, p.1349) argue that categorizing Fayol together with Taylor forms an intuition that, just like Taylor, Fayol promoted a universalistic strategy to management. To be precise, Fayol recommended an inflexible and rigid range of principles developed to fit into every organization, in every circumstance all the time times (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1348). In this manner, the practitioner and student is persuaded to think that Fayol has nothing or little to present a world which look for integrative strategies like systems-oriented thinking and recognizes the significance of the contingency in managerial life (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1349). The contemporary manager who value employees as assets portrays both Fayol as “romantic rationalists” and “functionalists” who perceived employees as nothing and compared them to productive units who swap their labor for just financial remuneration (Pryor & Taneja 2010, p.496). At this time, Fayol just adopted a baseless approach to employee motivation. For this reason, Fayol did not recognize that the motivation of an employee to perform at the place of work did not just come from financial remuneration need. Parker & Ritson (2005, p.177) claim that many experts and contemporary managers perceive Fayol as “authoritarian” in his management theory which centralized every power of decision-making under the top management. In a business environment in which organizations operate, they now support participatory decision-making under the support of methods like total quality management and management by objectives (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.177). Fayol recognized commitment to centralized and authoritarian management can look hopelessly dated and antiquated. Without doubt, Fayol’s insertion of principles like authority, centralization and unity of command amongst other 14 principles of management reinforces the authoritarian stereotype (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1338). However, some managers rarely observe Fayol’s concepts concerning the significance of authority, unity of command and centralization, as outdated with the current business environment (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.1339). Such managers have faced poor performance and employees’ turnover. Parker & Ritson (2005, p.1350) argue that for Fayol, the best manager looks to be one who ensured the operational integrity of an organization by asserting their authority whenever required, while retaining the capability to motivate their subordinates by relying on their capability for strategies. It is worth noting that unlike many modern researchers, Fayol has, up to now, failed to get away with fayolism stereotype. For such reason, management experts criticizes Fayol’s theory of management as having inability to react to ever changing business needs and demands (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.180). The extent to which Fayol’s concepts are relevant for today’s management Even though, Fayol’s work have been criticized to lack touch with today’s reality, some of its theory are still relevant in contemporary management (McLean, J 2011, p.32). Five elements of management by Fayol are still relevant today. Henri Fayol's management theory identified five elements or functions such as planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. According to Pryor & Taneja (2010, p.479), “Mintzberg agreed that if one asks the managers their role, they will tell you they plan, organize, coordinate and control”. Planning is still relevant to contemporary managers. Globalization and the technologies are changing so fast and must think first and plan on how to get into the new markets. Product development and market entry strategies needs planning so that the process not to be marred with failure. In a nutshell, it also assists to take the basic safety measures to avoid risks. Parker & Ritson (2005, p1339) argues that planning makes optimal use of available resources. It assists to cut wastage of significant resources and reduces duplication. Through planning, contemporary managers are able to give higher profits at the lowest potential cost (Parker & Ritson 2005, p.495). Planning therefore increases the general efficiency. On the other hand, organizing do not just involve relating raw materials, it also applies to human resources. A divided workforce cannot achieve success. For that reason, Fayol categorized organizing as one of the functions of the manager. McLean (2011, p.33) contends that in the current competitive business arena, a manager must organize and maintain relationships between every employee and lead them in the direction he wants the business to take. Organizing help the manager avoid duplication of resources and functions of every employee. The armed forces must have a commander to help in maintaining activities amongst the junior staff and give orders in the particular time and telling them what precisely to do. Currently, in the business sector, commanding may not be relevant because employees may perceive their manager as hostile and authoritarian rather than a leader (Parker, & Ritson 2005, p.181). This may create fear and less motivation amongst the staff. Fayol’s insertion of coordination as an important element of the function of a manager is also still relevant today. Fayol proposed that managers ought to unify, harmonize and bind together ever activities of the organization (McLean, 2008, p.33). This interprets to modern management practice, to the extent that managers are responsible for making sure that every organization activities are coordinated to uphold symbiosis and synergy between its processes and functions both internal and external. Significantly, this consists of conversion of input into output through the guidance of a manager. McLean (2008, p.33) hypothesize that co-ordination has currently been included into the role of organizing, since there exist synergy between the two. Fayol identified the significance of control in an organization and advocated that it makes sure “everything takes place in conformity with set rules and communicated command” (McLean, 2008, p.33). In the 21st Century period, control remains one of the most critical functions of managers and entails exercising proper leadership to make certain that all is working in accordance with plan and within the budget, allocated resources and set time frame. McLean (2008, p.33) affirms that control works together with strategizing, planning, and organizing and looks to enable the alignment of people and organizational performance. To ascertain the use of such activities in contemporary, more recent management theorists such as Henry Mintzberg, Colin Hales and John Kotter draw their management recommendations from Fayol’s concepts (Brunsson 2008, p.34). To the present day, management students and scholars learn the short form POSDCORB translated as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting so as to keep in mind what their role could be if they become managers (Brunsson 2008, p.34). Conclusion Even though Fayol’s theory of management has been criticized in the contemporary management, conclusively, his concepts have left a permanent mark on the history of management. More than 100 years on, his concepts still stand the test of time and still remain relevant and important to contemporary organizational leaders since he ‘walked the walk’, and lived with the realities, highs, lows and challenges of a manager. The finding established that 10 of his 14 principles of management are still useful in the today management except division of work, authority, unity of command and centralization. Through his concepts, Fayol has created an inextricable connection between the manager and an organization. Certainly, like any ideal theory, managers can deduce, apply, assess and critique five elements of management by Fayol based on their different situations. Even though, Fayol’s management theory and concepts contribution are indisputable, he has been disparaged for the romanticizing management and providing a nearly ‘quasi-autobiographical’ analysis to management theorization. Based on the analysis and how globalization, technology advances, increased pressure from external forces is shaping up competition in markets, this paper concludes that to remain successful in the 21st century, move away from Fayol’s authoritarian, division of work and centralization concepts and embrace ideas that creates employees participation and motivation. References Brunsson, K 2008, Some Effects of Fayolism, International Studies of Management & Organizations, vol. 38, no. 1, p. 30-47. Crainer, S 2003, One hundred years of management, Business Strategy Review, vol. 14, issue 2, pp. 41-49. 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Wren, DA 2001, Henri Fayol as strategist: a nineteenth century corporate turnaround, Management Decision, vol. 39, issue 6, pp. 475-487. Read More