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Foundations of Control - Coggle Diagram
Foundations of Control
What is Control and why is it important to management?
Definition:
Control is the management function concerned with monitoring activities and correcting any mistakes. Planning helps managers to this task.
Managers do not know whether their employees are doing their jobs correctly until the employees’ activities have been examined and the actual performance is compared with desired results.
An effective control system ensures that activities are completed in ways that lead to attainment of the organization’s goals.
Control is important, because
it is the only way that managers know whether organizational goals are being met and – if not – the reasons why.
The value of the control function
can be seen in
three specific areas:
·
Planning
·
Empowering Employees
·
Protecting the Workplace
Planning:
Just stating goals or having employees accept goals does not guarantee that the necessary actions to accomplish those goals have been taken.
The effective manager follows up to see whether employees are doing their jobs and goals are being achieved.
Empowering Employees:
Many managers are reluctant to empower employees, because the managers fear something will go wrong and they (the manager) would be held responsible.
An effective control system can provide information and feedback on employee performance and minimize the chance of potential problems.
Protecting the Workplace:
Organizations face threats from natural disasters, financial pressures, scandals, supply chain disruptions, security breeches, etc.
Managers must protect organizational assets in the event that any of these should happen. Comprehensive controls and backup plans will assure minimal work disruptions.
What takes place as
Managers control?
Managers usually follow the control process.
The “control process” is a three step process:
measuring actual performance,
comparing actual performance against a standard,
and taking action to correct problems or to address inadequate standards.
The control process assumes that performance standards already exist. They are the specific goals created during the planning process.
The control process sometimes can have more than three steps; but in its most basic form, the number of steps is three.
The first step in control is
measuring
.
To determine actual performance, a manager first must get information about it.
Four common sources of information
that are often used include:
Personal observation
Statistical reports
Oral reports
Written reports
Each of these common sources of information have their particular strengths and weaknesses.
However, using more than one source increases both the amount of information and the chances of receiving reliable information.
Personal Observation:
Definition:
This is the firsthand, intimate knowledge of an actual activity – information that is not filtered by others.
“Management by walking around” (
MBWA
) is a phrase that is used to describe when a manager is out in the work area, interacting with employees, and exchanging information about what is going on.
MBWA can pick up information that may be missed by other sources. This includes factual omissions, facial expressions, and tones of voice. All of which might tell a manager more than what the numbers reveal.
Personal observation does have its problems. It is subject to personal biases and requires a large amount of time. In addition, employees might interpret a managers overt observation as a lack of confidence or a sign of mistrust.
Statistical Report:
Thanks to the popularity of computers, statistical reports have been easier to create and more readily available. Statistical information is easy to visualize and effective for showing relationships.
However, sometimes they only can provide limited information about an activity. They often ignore subjective factors which occasionally can be very important.
Oral Reports:
Definition:
This is acquiring information through conferences, one-to-one conversations, telephone calls, or other means of oral communications.
The advantages and disadvantages of this method of measuring performance are similar to personal observation.
Although the information from oral reports is filtered, the method is fast, allows for feedback, and permits expression and tones of voice as well as words to convey meaning.
One of the major drawbacks of oral reports is the problem of documenting information for later reference. Fortunately, technological progress has made this problem smaller. However, legal ones might remain.
Written Reports:
They are slower yet more formal than firsthand or secondhand oral measures.
This formality also often gives them greater comprehensiveness and conciseness than found in oral reports.
In addition, written reports are usually easy to catalog and reference.