Definitions of Organizing and Organizing Skill
Organizing is the process of establishing orderly uses for resources within the management system. Correspondingly, organizing skill is the ability to create throughout the organization a network of people who can help solve implementation problems as they occur. This chapter focuses on organizing and helping you develop the target skill for this chapter, organizing skill.
Orderly uses of resources emphasize the attainment of management system objectives and assist managers not only in making objectives apparent but also in clarifying which resources will be used to attain those objectives.3 A primary focus of organizing is determining what individual employees will do in an organization and how their individual efforts should best be combined to advance the attainment of organizational objectives.4 Organization refers to the result of the organizing process. Fayol presents a number of guidelines for effective organizations; these guidelines are displayed in Figure 8.1.
In essence, each organizational resource represents an investment from which the management system must get a return. Appropriate organization of these resources increases the efficiency and effectiveness of their use. Henri Fayol developed 16 general guidelines for organizing resources:
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Judiciously prepare and execute the operating plan.
Organize the human and material facets so that they are consistent with objectives, resources, and requirements of the concern.
Establish a single competent, energetic guiding authority (formal management structure).
Coordinate all activities and efforts.
Formulate clear, distinct, and precise decisions.
Arrange for efficient selection so that each department is headed by a competent, energetic manager, and all employees are placed where they can render the greatest service.
Define duties.
Encourage initiative and responsibility.
Offer fair and suitable rewards for services rendered.
Make use of sanctions against faults and errors.
Maintain discipline.
Ensure that individual interests are consistent with the general interests of the organization.
Recognize the unity of command.
Promote both material and human coordination.
Institute and effect controls.
Avoid regulations, red tape, and paperwork.
Figure 8.1 Organization: Fayol’s guidelines
The Importance of Organizing
The organizing function is extremely important to the management system because it is the primary mechanism managers use to activate plans.5 Organizing creates and maintains relationships among all organizational resources by indicating which resources are to be used for specified activities and when, where, and how they are to be used. A thorough organizing effort helps managers minimize costly weaknesses, such as duplication of effort and idle organizational resources.
Some management theorists consider the organizing function so important that they advocate the creation of an organizing department within the management system. Typical duties of this department would include three primary responsibilities.6 First, the department should periodically formulate reorganization plans that make the management system more effective and efficient. For example, companies typically restructure to devote more resources to profitable divisions and fewer resources to divisions losing money. Second, the department should foster and support an advantageous organizational climate within the management system. Finally, the department should develop plans to improve managerial skills so that they fit current management system needs.
General Electric (GE) is known the world over for its ability to develop managerial talent. Although GE is famous for its products and services ranging from light bulbs to NBC television, many suggest that the key to GE’s success is primarily the company’s ability to identify and develop managers.7
The Organizing Process
The five main steps of the organizing process are presented in Figure 8.2: reflect on plans and objectives, establish major tasks, divide major tasks into subtasks, allocate resources and directives for subtasks, and evaluate the results of implemented organizing strategy.8 As the figure implies, managers should continually repeat these steps. Through repetition, they obtain feedback that will help them improve the existing organization.9
Figure 8.2 The five main steps of the organizing process
The management of a restaurant can serve as an illustration of how the organizing process works. The first step the restaurant manager would take to initiate the organizing process would be to reflect on the restaurant’s plans and objectives. Because planning involves determining how the restaurant will attain its objectives, and organizing involves determining how the restaurant’s resources will be used to activate plans, the restaurant manager must start to organize by understanding planning.
The second and third steps of the organizing process focus on tasks to be performed within the management system. The manager must designate major tasks or jobs to be done within the restaurant. Two such tasks are serving customers and cooking food. Then the tasks must be divided into subtasks. For example, the manager might decide that serving customers includes the subtasks of taking orders and clearing tables.
The fourth organizing step is determining who will take orders and who will clear the tables and the details of the relationship between these individuals. The size of tables and how they are to be set are other factors to consider at this point.
In the fifth step, evaluating the results of the implemented organizing strategy, the manager gathers feedback on how well the strategy is working. This feedback should furnish information that can be used to improve the existing organization. For example, the manager may find that a particular type of table is not large enough and that larger ones must be purchased if the restaurant is to attain its goals.
Managers have to constantly improve organizational structure based on results. Avon cut layers of management and pushed decision making to lower levels as it needed to cut costs while stimulating growth on an international scale.
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Classical Organizing Theory
Classical organizing theory comprises the cumulative insights of early management writers on how organizational resources can best be used to enhance goal attainment. The following sections discuss three major components of classical organizing theory: Weber’s bureaucratic model, division of labor, and structure.