Reflective Paper - Four Management Functions

Management is defined as a "process of getting things done effectively and efficiently, with and through other people." There are four management functions which make up a manager's role. The first is planning, which defines an organization's purpose, and develops plans to achieve that purpose. The second is organizing, which involves arranging and structuring work in order to accomplish an organization's goals. The third is leading, which includes directing and motivating employees, and resolving conflict. The fourth is controlling, which involves monitoring, comparing, and correcting employee performance. These four functions are performed by managers as they oversee and lead the work of others.

In class, we did a group activity dealing with winter survival while discussing planning. In the activity we were to rate, in order, from most important to least important what "tools" we would take with us to survive in the wilderness. The outcome for most of the group resulted in a greater survival rate as a group than if done individually. This was due to the group having more diversity, experience, and quantity of information to share with one another. Collectively, the group provided more alternatives and reasoning than an individual might have. The democratic dynamic of the group made the results of the decisions more favorable to everyone within the group. While I scored higher individually, I can see the benefit of group decision making over individual decision making. Team decision making is beneficial in businesses, because it offers several different perspectives. Ideas from one person may spark ideas in someone else, and these ideas can bounce back and forth potentially resulting in something far greater than what individuals can come up with on their own.

When discussing the function of organization, one of the activities covered laws regarding Human Resource Management. The class was first asked to decide individually, which questions were legal and which were not legal in an interview. It was interesting to learn that questions which I always believed to be illegal, are legal under certain circumstances. I'm a manager in an organization with over 50 employees, so I am relatively familiar with which questions can and cannot be asked in an interview. There were some questions on our application, which I always assumed to be legal, but which are not. Since learning this information, we have changed our applications not to include those questions, so as to avoid any legal issues.

One of the group activities done while covering the function of leading, was the questionnaire involving the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It is useful in measuring specific traits that a person exhibits, which can be useful when determining how a candidate may react in certain situations or with other people. It is beneficial in discovering someone's personality type, which can