Fayol’s Management Theory Is Still Relevant Today.

Henri Fayol was an Engineer and French industrialist. He recognizes the management principles rather than personal traits. Fayol was the first to identify management as a continuous process of evaluation. Fayol developed five management functions. These functions are roles performed by all managers which includes planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Additionally, he recognizes fourteen principles that should guide management of organizations.

When Fayol as a manager wrote his concepts the era and the way of managing was very different in contrast with nowadays. Fayol developed a strategy based on the way he was managing, for instance he was the only one who had to make the plan, to organise everything, to command and get involve in situations where it was necessary, co-ordinate and synchronize all the activities take place in the organization, and last control everything. In few words he was the only main head of the organization. It does not mean that he was alone but in compare with the present most of the organizations operate with the bureaucratic structure of Max Weber’s theory that “organizations are managed on an impersonal, rational authority basis and they are not depend on to a particular person who may leave or die”(Weber, 1997, p.45). Today all the organizations have been divided in many departments and all these departments with the help of the assistant managers have been undertake by one Fayol’s element. These departments make all the work and then introduce their work to the manager. So the only thing that managers have to do is consider ready information and reports that the units of the organization have done, and then just take a decision. And this is what exactly Mintzberg observes in his research. As a fact that Fayol’s elements are widely used not exactly by the managers but rather from the whole organization. “Luthans and others believe that

Since Fayol left his general manager office, separated management from business operation and studied it, management has become an independent subject. A number of academics and entrepreneurs are desirous to find what management is and how to be a successful manager. Therefore, through varied approaches, many different views about management has been appearing such as Fayol’s function theory (1949) which based on his owe managing experience and Mintzberg’s 10 roles theory (1973) which came from observing five chief-executive officers. Furthermore, Mintzberg regarded Fayol’s theory as “folklore”. It seems that Fayol’s theory has been made redundant by Mintzberg’s study. The purpose of this paper, however, is to present that

For Henri Fayol, management was not so much as a way of devising systems to increase productivity but it was concerned with the integration of the different functions of the organisation such as production, sales, finance and so on (Wren, 1994).

Within today’s construction industry, it is vital for organizations’ to have concrete management plans so projects are completed on time and on budget. Many management theories, which have been developed over the last several hundred years, are still being applied today, and with varying industries and organizations using different theories to suit them. In relation to the construction industry, Henri Fayol (1841-1925), a French Industrialist, may be said to have the most relevant management theory (Jarvis 2004).

The last management principle of Fayol is control. The manager should ensure conformity to the rules and regulations. This is one of the most important concepts under Fayol because without control his other principles would have difficulties being carried out. Follett believed that a leader does not have control but directs the efforts of the group and maintains that directions but does not influence to the realm of control. Everyone can be a leader instead of only one having absolute control.

Fayol (1949:53-54) divides organization into material and human organization and focuses on the latter. He then lists the managerial duties associated with organizing as ensuring the plan is judiciously prepared and strictly carried out; matching the resources to the plan; leadership ("a single, competent energetic guiding authority", "unity of command", control, supervision); harmonising and coordinating activities; decision making; job analysis and design; staffing selection; empowerment (encouraging a "liking for initiative and responsibility"); performance management - fair and appropriate remuneration; maintenance of discipline and sanctions against faults and errors; subordination of individual interests to the general interest; and fighting against excess regulations, red tape and paper control.

By the time Henri Fayol had finished his theory, General Industrial Management, in 1916, which was based on his reminiscence as a successful turnaround of a major mining company from depths of failure; he set out to illustrate management as being a separate entity to other jobs within an organisation as he would say although “technical” and “commercial” “function” were “clearly defined”, “administrative” education was lacking. In his theory he introduced his five duties a manager had to follow to be called effective: plan, organise coordinate, command, and control and added to this fourteen principles he felt managers should use as reference to conduct the five duties. However Fayol was very much an idealist his theory was based on what a complete manager should be like and gave the view of managers taking control from behind a desk, yet critics, most influential being the academic Henry Mintzberg, who released his work in 1973, were more realists and saw a manager life as chaotic, involved and interactive, arguing what Fayol was portraying is not possible, and outdated.

One of the first persons to sit down and try to work out what managers do (and what they should do) was a Frenchman called Henri Fayol. Fayol was born in Istanbul in 1841 in a French middle class family. After his graduation in 1860, he began working as an engineer at a large mining company in France (S.A. commentart-Fourchambault). He eventually became the director, at a time when the mining company employed more than 1,000 people in.

Henri Fayol, the first father of formal management statements, who wrote down five elements of management behaviour – planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling. (Wren and Bedeian, 2009) During over 50 years, Fayol’s management functions have been challenged continuously by new developed theories in modern society, considering Fayol’s functions are “folklore”, as mentioned by Mintzberg (1990, pp 50), it is improper to building a theory from own experience, then Mintzberg outlined three main categories of management roles – information roles, interpersonal roles and decisional roles. (Mintzberg, 2010) It is claimed that Fayol’s functions have been made redundant by modern theory of Mintzberg. Debate also has been triggered on which one is more useful at current, Fayol or Mintzberg. While there is no deny that Fayol’s management function has a great significance in management organisation, this essay will argue that Fayol’s theory has not been redundant when facing more empirical theories that wrote by Mintzberg. In order to demonstrate this, it will first, examine two main arguments with evidence against Fayol’s theory, claiming the limitation of commanding and controlling in reality and problem of decision-making as well. It will then illustrate strengthens of adapting Fayol’s management function, using its successful examples.

Henri Fayol: Henri Fayol was administrative management’s most articulate spokesperson. A French industrialist, Fayol was unknown to U.S. managers and scholars until his most important work, General and Industrial Management, was translated into English in 1930. 16 Drawing on his own managerial experience, he attempted to systematize the practice of management to provide guidance and direction to other managers. Fayol also was the first to identify the specific managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. He believed that these functions accurately reflect the core of the management process. Most contemporary management books still use this framework, and practicing managers agree that these

The book General and Industrial Management (1949, French 1916) was the first book published by Henri Fayol. After that others followed and created their own theory of management built upon the basis of Fayol’s classical theory of management, some, for instance: Mintzberg in his book The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), suggests a different view on management.

According tot the Administrative Management Theory, management is the process of getting certain tasks completed through the use of people. In this theory developed by Henri Fayol, he believes that it was very important to have the use of a multiplied of people instead of just relying on one person alone. Henri Fayol is known today as the “Father of Modern Management”, his theory has shaped what is know today as the Administrative Model, which relies on Fayols fourteen principles of management. These principles have been a significant influence on modern management; they have helped early 20th century manager learn how to organize and interact with their employees in a productive way. Fayols principles of management were the ground work in which his theory was formed. He believed highly in the division of work throughout a project and within the project he believed that the task at hand had to be done with a certain level of discipline in order for the division of work to be able to run smoothly without error.

Henri Fayol (1841-1925), was a director of mines and French engineer. He is accepted as the father of modern operational management theory and viewed management as a profession trained and developed. He was the first person who analyzed the functions of management for the first time. Administrative management theory is another well-known classical management theory which was developed by Henri Fayol in 1961. He settled this theory on his own understanding and practice. This theory is about business management along with overall management. He made clear distinction between technical and managerial skills, and identified the functions of management, which constitute the process. And finally he developed six functions and fourteen principles of management (Mahmood & Basharat, 2012).

During the operation of management, structured people in one organisation coordinate with each other to accomplish common goals. To ensure the process is efficient with scare resources, different scholars advance different interpretations, such as Classical Theorists and Human Relations Theorists. The most famous point of view in Classical Theorists is to manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to co-ordinate and to control, which is advanced by Fayol. It must be admitted that an increasing number of people are concerned about the usability of the Classical Theorists. However, whether it is suitable and widespread in daily management has caused heated debate. From my perspective, Fayol’s standpoint is certainly universal in organisations and management today and I will discuss this in the following paragraphs.