Corrective Action

          By our definition, part of the controlling function involves the application of corrective action when goals have not been met. Here are four examples of situations that may call for corrective action:

1.)   A production schedule specifies that 800 units of a product must be completed each month, but actual production last month was only 725 units. Managers must determine the reason for the shortage. Were products rejected because quality wasn't controlled? If so, why? Is new equipment needed? Are employee' working method at fault?

2.)   The purchasing department exceeded its budget for the month by 10 percent. Why? Can be situation be explained? Should the explanation be accepted, or is corrective action needed to ensure that this does not happen again?

3.)   A company's current financial position reveals an acute shortage. How did this happen? Is it dangerous? What can be done to improved the situation and avoid problems within business circles? What financial resources are available to help?

4.)   Sales volume represented only 22 percent of the total market, when the objective was set at 30 percent. Managers must determine why. Can the planned goal still be reached? How? Or should the goal be charged?

Controlling Defined

          Controlling is evaluating performance to see whether objectives are being met, and the application of corrective action if they are not. Managers at all levels of the organization are responsible for controlling and some spend all their time doing that.

Controlling

Our first three management functions have planned, organized, and directing the efforts of the organization. The fourth function, controlling, then measures and evaluates the reult.

Leadership

          This leadership key aspects of directing may, in fact, be considered a motivating device itself. Good leaders earn subordinates' aspect and have little trouble in getting them to follow instructions. They do this by displaying such qualities as an ability to do the job, a pleasant personality, human concern and understanding, fairness, an ability to communicate, and loyalty to the company.
          We can easily distinguish types of leadership by the degrees of autocracy used. When an army sergeant gives an order to a private, complete autocracy prevails. The sergeant may or may not have the other qualities of leadership we noted above. When leadership authority is exercised in a manner which reflects concern for the individual, industry finds that better results can be achieved. More democratic leadership provides for group participation in key decisions affecting employees duties. Such participation may be overdone.
          In directing professional people, more democracy in leadership is usually essential. Leadership may also be exercised by having the leader operate essentially in a resource capacity - to answer questions or help with specific problems. This would be particularly applicable in projects of the arts, literature, or research projects for industry.

Motivation

          Motivation is the process of bringing forth the best efforts of subordinates in accomplishing group assignments. Recent business history has shown that wages alone do not accomplish this goal. In the past, workers valued their jobs more because of their need for income, and wages were more effective as a motivating device. But today's society is relatively well-off, and employees (and their unions) have made other benefits of work an important factor in motivation. Thus, besides wages, employees today are motivated by such fringe benefits as pleasant working conditions, reasonable work assignments, supervisory training programs, health, insurance and retirement policies, vacation arrangements, promotion policies, and participants in decision making.
          Many ideas for motivating employees have been developed by non-business people, particularly psychologists and other social scientist. We shall examine some of their ideas, but it should be noted here that the decreasing productivity of employees in recent business history has been a matter of great concern to business leaders. More and more managers and management theorists are leaning toward task-oriented management, which stresses production results rather than the assurance that every employee will be a well-adjusted human being. According to this view, supervisors should exercise their authority diplomatically rather than only trying to be popular  in all their dealings with subordinates.
          Probably, there can be no final best way to motivate employees because times and people's needs change. Still, at least one motivator seems to apply most of the time: respect for supervisors. Employees prefer a personable, serious, task-oriented supervisor who applies rules uniformly to everyone, rather than a supervisor who is always trying to be popular and who applies rules inconsistently. This brings us to the matter of leadership.