Directing

Directing refers to the process of instructing, guiding, counselling, motivating and leading people in the organisation to achieve its objectives.

Directing is the guidance, the inspiration, the leadership of those men and women that constitute the real core of the responsibilities of management.

Urwick and Brech

Just as starting the motor of a car does not make it move unless it is put into the gear and the accelerator is pressed, in the same way organized actions are initiated in the enterprise only through the directing function of management.

Features of planning-

The main characteristics of directing are discussed below:

 (i) Directing initiates action:

 Directing is a key managerial function. A manager has to perform this function along with planning, organising, staffing and controlling while discharging his duties in the organisation. While other functions prepare a setting for action, directing initiates action in the organisation.

(ii) Directing takes place at every level of management:

Every manager, from top executive to supervisor performs the function of directing. The directing takes place wherever superior – subordinate relations exist.

(iii) Directing is a continuous process:

Directing is a continuous activity. It takes place throughout the life of the organisation irrespective of people occupying managerial positions. We can observe that in organisations like Infosys, Tata, BHEL, HLL and the managers may change but the directing process continues because without direction the organisational activities can not continue further.

(iv) Directing flows from top to bottom:

Directing is first initiated at top level and flows to the bottom through organisational hierarchy. It means that every manager can direct his immediate subordinate and take instructions from his immediate boss.

Importance of Directing

The importance of directing can be understood by the fact that every action in the organisation is initiated through directing only. Directing guides towards achievement of common objectives.

(i) Directing helps to initiate action by people in the organisation towards attainment of desired objectives. For example, if a supervisor guides his subordinates and clarifies their doubts in performing a task, it will help the worker to achieve work targets given to him. Hence, Direction is also called Management in action.

 (ii) Directing integrates employees efforts in the organisation in such a way that every individual effort contributes to the organisational performance. Thus, it ensures that the individuals work for organisational goals. For example, a manager with good leadership abilities will be in a position to convince the employees working under him that individual efforts and team effort will lead to achievement of organisational goals.

 (iii) Directing guides employees to fully realise their potential and capabilities by motivating and providing effective leadership. A good leader can always identify the potential of his employees and motivate them to extract work up to their full potential.

(iv) Directing facilitates introduction of needed changes in the organisation. Generally, people have a tendency to resist changes in the organisation. Effective directing through motivation, communication and leadership helps to reduce such resistance and develop required cooperation in introducing changes in the organisation. For example, if a manager wants to introduce new system of accounting, there may be initial resistance from accounting staff. But, if manager explains the purpose, provides training and motivates with additional rewards, the employees may accept change and cooperate with manager.

(v) Effective directing helps to bring stability and balance in the organisation since it fosters cooperation and commitment among the people and helps to achieve balance among various groups, activities and the departments.

Principles of Directing

 Providing good and effective directing is a challenging task as it involves many complexities. A manager has to deal with people with diverse background, and expectations. This complicates the directing process. Certain guiding principles of directing may help in directing process. These principles are briefly explained below:

(i) Maximum individual contribution:

 This principle emphasises that directing techniques must help every individual in the organisation to contribute to his maximum potential for achievement of organisational objectives. It should bring out untapped energies of employees for the efficiency of organisation. For example, a good motivation plan with suitable monetary and non-monetary rewards can motivate an employee to contribute his maximum efforts for the organisation as he or she may feel that their efforts will bring them suitable rewards.

 (ii) Harmony of objectives:

 Very often, we find that individual objectives of employees and the organisational objectives as understood are conflicting to each other. For example, an employee may expect attractive salary and monetary benefits to fulfill his personal needs. The organisation may expect employees to improve productivity to achieve expected profits. But, good directing should provide harmony by convincing that employee rewards and work efficiency are complimentary to each other.

 (iii) Unity of Command:

 This principle insists that a person in the organisation should receive instructions from one superior only. If instructions are received from more than one, it creates confusion, conflict and disorder in the organisation. Adherence to this principle ensures effective direction.

(iv) Appropriateness of direction technique:

According to this principle, appropriate motivational and leadership technique should be used while directing the people based on subordinate needs, capabilities, attitudes and other situational variables. For example, for some people money can act as powerful motivator while for others promotion may act as effective motivator.

(v) Managerial communication: Effective managerial communication across all the levels in the organisation makes direction effective. Directing should convey clear instructions to create total understanding to subordinates. Through proper feedback, the managers should ensure that subordinate understands his instructions clearly.

 (vi) Use of informal organisation:

A manager should realise that informal groups or organisations exist within every formal organisation. He should spot and make use of such organisations for effective directing.

(vii) Leadership:

While directing the subordinates, managers should exercise good leadership as it can influence the subordinates positively without causing dissatisfaction among them.

(viii)Follow through:

Mere giving of an order is not sufficient. Managers should follow it up by reviewing continuously whether orders are being implemented accordingly or any problems are being encountered. If necessary, suitable modifications should be made in the directions.

Elements of Direction

In directing the human effort towards organizational objectives, managers soon realise that they should think in terms of the following elements:

– Supervision

 – Motivation

 – Leadership

 – Communication

CONCEPT OF SUPERVISION

 Supervision refers to the direct and immediate guidance and control of subordinates in the performance of their work. It involves observing the subordinates at work and ensuring that they work according to the plans and policies of the organization.

 George R. Terry and Stephen G. Franklin have defined supervision as“Supervision is guiding and directing efforts of employees and other resources to accomplish stated work outputs.”

Features of Supervision

 The following are the salient features of supervision:

(i) Supervision is done at all levels of management:

 Top management supervises the work of middle management which in turn supervises the work of lower management.

 (ii) Supervision is most pronounced at the lowest level of management:

Although managers at all levels are generally engaged in overseeing the work of their subordinates, the lowest-level managers have it as their primary duty to supervise the workers engaged in basic operations. Depending upon the system of designation in an organization, these managers may be called supervisors, foremen, superintendents, overseers or section officers.

 (iii) Supervision aims at guiding subordinates in their work performance:

To guide subordinates in their work performance, the act of supervision involves preparing work schedules, assigning work and work facilities for employees, issuing orders and instructions for maintaining smooth work-flow, inspiring subordinates for better and higher performance by creating team spirit and controlling work output by comparing actual performance with work targets and removing the gap between the two, if any.

Factors of Effective Supervision

 Effective supervision is a function which has several factors. Some such factors are given hereunder:

(i) Skills and Abilities:

 Whatever the situation may be, the range of duties to be performed by a supervisor will call for possession of specific skills. Basically, a supervisor will require three types of skills, namely technical, human relations and conceptual.

(ii) Leadership Position:

 Leadership is an influencing process. By influencing the work behaviour of subordinates, a manager directs it towards the attainment of organizational goals. To be effective, supervisors should be given proper place and status in the organization and should be vested with requisite authority so that he is able to exercise leadership over the group and motivate employees to perform better.

(iii) Nature of Supervision:

Here the supervisor should be intelligent enough to decide whether he has to exercise general or close supervision. Experience of most organizations suggests that general supervision has a favourable impact on the morale and productivity of subordinates.

(iv) Group Cohesiveness:

 Effective supervision relates to group cohesiveness. Group cohesiveness is characterized by the degree of attraction that each member has for the group. Groups with high cohesiveness produce better results because each member of the group works towards the attainment of common goals and is prepared to share responsibility for the group work.

(v) Improved Relationship with Superiors:

Problems of supervision usually arise from omissions, mistakes and negligence on the part of superior managers. Hence, for any improvement in supervision, supervisor’s relations with his superior must be cordial so that he can frankly present his views and suggestions related to his subordinates and their work performance.

CONCEPT OF MOTIVATION

The word motivation is derived from the Latin term movere, which means to move. Today, of course, the term means a lot more than this. Joe Kelly opines that it “has to do with the forces that maintain and alter the direction, quality and intensity of behaviour”. And M.R. Jones has defined it as being concerned with “how behaviour gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is stopped, and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organization while all of this is going on”.

Motivation is a very complex process for the following reasons:

(i) The exact cause or motive a person has for a particular action cannot be seen; it can only be inferred. Thus, when a salesman is explaining the benefits of his product to a customer, it does not necessarily mean he is motivated by customer’s welfare. In fact, he may simply be trying to influence the customer to buy his product somehow.

(ii) Individuals have lots of needs and expectations which may be in conflict with one another and it may become difficult to say which need is impelling the person to act at a point of time. For example, when an employee does overtime it could be with a sole objective of completing his work or could be with an intention to get into the good books of his boss, or could be to earn some extra money.

 (iii) People try to satisfy their needs in different ways. Therefore, it is not necessary what motivates ‘X’ individual will also motivate ‘Y’. Some are satisfied by a handsome increment in the salary, whereas some may be satisfied only when promoted.

(iv) Satisfaction of a particular need may actually lead to an increase in its intensity. It is, therefore, not a sure indicator of a person being really motivated. For example, a highly paid employee may still want more money to work more.

 (vi) Lastly, goal-directed behaviour does not always lead to need satisfaction

Types of Motivation

 Motivation can be of the following types:

Psychological Motivation

Dr. Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon from McGill University discovered in 1951 that not only the past events are recorded in detail in the brain, but also the feelings that are associated with those events. An event and the feelings which are produced by the event are inextricably locked together in the brain. The memory record continues in fact even after the person’s ability to recall it disappears. The brain functions as a high fidelity tape recorder. (So if the record is of a pleasant or happy experience the person will be always motivated with that experience). The recorded experiences and feelings associated with them are available for reply today in as vivid a form as when they happened and provide much of the data which determines the nature of today’s transactions. Dr. Eric Berne developed this concept further and devised a scientific method to study human behaviour. He originated Transactional Analysis (T.A.).

Transactional Analysis

 According to Eric Berne, a transaction is the unit of social intercourse. When two or more people encounter one another, sooner or later one, of them will speak or give some indication of acknowledging their presence. This is called transactional stimulus. The other person will then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus, and that is called transactional response. Transactional analysis is the method of examining the social intercourse of this type. It helps in finding out ‘why people do as they do’ by determining which part of the multiple natured individuals is being activated in any transaction. Ego States The parts of the multiple nature of an individual which are recorded in the brain and are replayed in course of a transaction are described as: parent, child and adult, (PAC) ego states.

Parent:

What a child sees his parent doing and what he hears from them are recorded straight in his mind in the first five years. Thus, hostility of parents is recorded with terror and love with pleasure. Thousands of no’s and repeated dont’s are recorded in this set. It is thus the taught concept of life. The recordings are available for replay throughout the life. These are reflected in such words as ‘work hard’, ‘do not worry,’ ‘everything will be O.K.’, ‘done well’, ‘never do so again’ and such actions as outstretching of arms, hugging, foot tapping, blessing and rebuking.

 Child:

This is the recording of the response of ‘little person’ to what he sees and hears. It is done simultaneously with the recordings of external and imposed events which we have described as parent. Most of the reactions of the child are ‘feelings’. He is small, he is dependent, he is clumsy and so on. When a person is in the grip of feelings, we say that his child has taken over.It is thus the felt concept of life. It is reflected in such words as: ‘do not leave me’, ‘I would not do so again’, ‘I wish’, ‘I want’ and in such actions as tearful eyes, surprise on face, anger, pleasure, pleading for something and being playful.

Adult:

When the child is able to move at about 10 years, the recording of adult also starts. The self actualisation is the beginning of the adult. An important function of adult is to examine the data in parent whether or not it is true and to examine the child to see whether or not the feelings are appropriate to the present. It is thus the thought concept of life. During early years, adult is fragile and indecisive. It cannot change or erase the recordings in the parent and child. Adult is reflected in such words as ‘why’ and ‘who’, and such actions as ‘listening’, ‘thinking’, ‘pondering’ and ‘reflecting’.

 Crossed Transactions

Any social intercourse may be parallel or crossed. The parent-parent, child-child or adult-adult transactions are parallel. These are complementary and can go on indefinitely (except child-child transactions which are few as the child is a get stroke rather than give stroke creature). Parent-child, child-parent, parent-adult, adult-parent, etc., are the examples of crossed transactions.

Benefits of Transactional Analysis

 Transactional Analysis can give employees fresh insights into their own personalities and it can also help them understand why others sometimes respond as they do. A major benefit of transational analysis is improved interpersonal communication. Employees can sense when crossed communication occurs and they can take steps to restore complementary communication. Transactional Analysis is especially useful in sales and other areas where success depends on customer relations.

Financial and Non-Financial Incentives

 Incentive means all measures which are used to motivate people to improve performance. These incentives may be broadly classified as financial and non financial

Financial Incentives:

In the context of existing economic system, money has become a means to satisfy the physical needs of daily life and also of obtaining social position and power. Since, money has the purchasing power, it becomes a very important incentive for every individual.

Financial incentives refer to incentives which are in direct monetary form or measurable in monetary term and serve to motivate people for better performance.

These incentives may be provided on individual or group basis. The financial incentives generally used in organisations are listed below:

 (i) Pay and allowances:

For every employee, salary is the basic monetary incentive. It includes basic pay, dearness allowance and other allowances. Salary system consists of regular increments in the pay every year and enhancement of allowances from time-to-time. In some business organisations, pay hike and increments may be linked to performance.

(ii) Productivity linked wage incentives:

 Several wage incentive plans aims at linking payment of wages to increase in productivity at individual or group level.

(iii) Bonus:

Bonus is an incentive offered over and above the wages/ salary to the employees.

 (iv) Profit Sharing:

Profit sharing is meant to provide a share to employees in the profits of the organisation. This serves to motivate the employees to improve their performance and contribute to increase in profits.

 (v) Co-partnership/ Stock option:

 Under these incentive schemes, employees are offered company shares at a set price which is lower than market price. Sometimes, management may allot shares in line of various incentives payable in cash. The allotment of shares creates a feeling of ownership to the employees and makes them to contribute for the growth of the organisation. In Infosys the scheme of stock option has been implemented as a part of managerial compensation.

 (vi) Retirement Benefits:

Several retirement benefits such as provident fund, pension, and gratuity provide financial security to employees after their retirement. This acts as an incentive when they are in service in the organisation.

(vii) Perquisites:

 In many companies perquisites and fringe benefits are offered such as car allowance, housing, medical aid, and education to the children etc., over and above the salary. These measures help to provide motivation to the employees/ managers.

 Non-Financial Incentives:

All the needs of individuals are not satisfied by money alone. Psychological, social and emotional factors also play important role in providing motivation. Non-financial incentives mainly focus on these needs. Some times, monetary aspect may be involved in non-financial incentives as well. However, the emphasis is to provide psychological and emotional satisfaction rather than money driven satisfaction. For example, if an individual gets promotion in the organisation, it satisfies him psychologically more as he gets a feeling of elevation, increase in status, increase in authority, challenge in the job etc., Though promotion involves payment of extra money, non-monetary aspects over-ride monetary aspects. Some of the important non-financial incentives are discussed below:

(i) Status:

 In the organisational context, status means ranking of positions in the organisation. The authority, responsibility, rewards, recognition, perquisites and prestige of job indicate the status given to a person holding a managerial position. Psychological, social and esteem needs of an individual are satisfied by status given to their job.

(ii) Organisational Climate:

Organisational climate indicates the characteristics which describe an organisation and distinguish one organisation from the other. These characteristics influence the behaviour of individuals in the organisation. Some of these characteristics are–individual autonomy, reward orientation, consideration to employees, risk-tasking etc., If managers take positive measures regarding these aspects, it helps to develop better organisational climate.

 (iii) Career Advancement Opportunity:

 Every individual wants to grow to the higher level in the organisation. Managers should provide opportunity to employees to improve their skills and be promoted to the higher level jobs. Appropriate skill development programmes, and sound promotion policy will help employees to achieve promotions. Promotion works as a tonic and encourages employees to exhibit improved performance.

(iv) Job Enrichment:

 Job enrichment is concerned with designing jobs that include greater variety of work content, require higher level of knowledge and skill; give workers more autonomy and responsibility; and provide the opportunity for personal growth and a meaningful work experience. If jobs are enriched and made interesting, the job itself becomes a source of motivation to the individual.

 (v) Employee Recognition programmes:

 Most people have a need for evaluation of their work and due recognition. They feel that what they do should be recognised by others concerned. Recognition means acknowledgment with a show of appreciation. When such appreciation is given to the work performed by employees, they feel motivated to perform/work at higher level.

 Some examples of employee recognition are:

Congratulating the employee for good performance.  

Displaying on the notice board or in the company news letter about the achievement of employee.  Installing award or certificate for best performance.

 Distributing mementos, complimentaries like T-shirts in recognition of employee services.

 Rewarding an employee for giving valuable suggestions.

(vi) Job security:

Employees want their job to be secure. They want certain stability about future income and work so that they do not feel worried on these aspects and work with greater zeal. In India, this aspect is more important considering the inadequate job opportunities and too many aspirants for these. However, there is one negative aspect of job security. When people feel that they are not likely to lose their jobs, they may become complacent.

(vii) Employee participation:

 It means involving employees in decision making of the issues related to them. In many companies, these programmes are in practice in the form of joint management committees, work committees, canteen committees etc.,

(viii)Employee Empowerment:

Empowerment means giving more autonomy and powers to subordinates. Empowerment makes people feel that their jobs are important. This feeling contributes positively to the use of skills and talents in the job performance

Leadership

Leadership is one of the important aspects of managing. It is an interpersonal process of influencing the behaviour of the individual and the group so that defined objectives are accomplished willingly and enthusiastically. A leader directs and motivates members of the group. He also represents the group in the outside world and introduces the outside world to the group.

Definitions According to George R. Terry, “leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives”. Koontz and O’Donnell state that “leadership is influencing people to follow in the achievement of a specialised goal”.

Review of these definitions and those of some and other writers reveal that most management writers agree that leadership is the process of providing direction in group activities, and influencing individuals to achieve group objectives in a given situation. The leadership process is a function of the leader, the follower, and other situational variables, i.e., L = f(l, f, s).

Important Elements Important elements in the process of leading are:

(i) One who leads is a part of the group. Nevertheless he must maintain his separate identity if he is to continue to lead.

(ii) Leadership contemplates interpersonal influence and close man-to-man relationship. It is rooted in feelings and attitudes that grow out of reactions that occur among individual personalities.

 (iii) It is a dynamic and ever-evolving process; a manager must lead continuously.

(iv) It involves directing, guiding and influencing the behaviour of individuals and groups so that future actions and behaviour are modified in the right direction.

Formal and Informal Leaders

The organisation structure is characterised by hierarchy of positions which are manned by individuals in the scalar chain. Officially every manager enjoys power to lead and secure sufficient support of his subordinates. Managers are leaders because they have the formal authority to direct, motivate and lead people. This kind of leadership is known as formal or managerial leadership. However, along with formal leaders there always grow informal leaders in every organisation. Informal leaders are not delegated by any authority to lead; rather they acquire such authority themselves to guide and lead. Informal leadership is spontaneous and is part of informal organisation. If properly handled, informal organisation offers a good support and training ground for formal leaders to develop and test their leadership skills.

Concept of communication

 Communication plays key role in the success of a manager. How much professional knowledge and intelligence a manager possesses becomes immaterial if he is not able to communicate effectively with his subordinates and create understanding in them. Directing abilities of a manager mainly depend upon his communication skills. That is why organisation always emphasise on improving communication skills of managers as well as employees.

The word communication has been derived from the Latin word ‘communis’ which means ‘common’ which consequently implies common understanding. Communication is defined in different ways. Generally, it is understood as a process of exchange of ideas, views, facts, feelings etc., between or among people to create common understanding. Some of the definitions given by management experts are presented in the box.

A close examination of above definitions reveals that communication is the process of exchange of information between two or more persons to reach common understanding.

Elements of Communication Process

 Communication has been defined as a process. This process involves elements like source, encoding, media/channel, receiver, decoding, noise and feedback. The process is represented in the figure. The elements involved in communication process are explained below:

 (i) Sender: Sender means person who conveys his thoughts or ideas to the receiver. The sender represents source of communication.

 (ii) Message: It is the content of ideas, feelings, suggestions, order etc., intended to be communicated.

(iii) Encoding: It is the process of converting the message into communication symbols such as words, pictures, gestures etc.,

(iv) Media: It is the path through which encoded message is transmitted to receiver. The channel may be in written form, face to face, phone call, Internet etc.,

(v) Decoding: It is the process of converting encoded symbols of the sender.

(vi) Receiver: The person who receives communication of the sender.

(vii) Feedback: It includes all those actions of receiver indicating that he has received and understood message of sender.

(viii)Noise: Noise means some obstruction or hindrance to communication. This hindrance may be caused to sender, message or receiver.

 Some examples of noise are:

(a) Ambiguous symbols that lead to faulty encoding.

(b) A poor telephone connection.

(c) An inattentive receiver.

(d) Faulty decoding (attaching wrong meanings to message).

(e) Prejudices obstructing the poor understanding of message.

(f ) Gestures and postures that may distort the message

Importance of Communication

 Communication is one of the most central aspects of managerial activities. It has been estimated that a manager spends 90 percent of his time in communicating-reading, writing, listening, guiding, instructing, approving, reprimanding, etc.

Effectiveness of a manager depends significantly on his ability to communicate effectively with his superiors, subordinates and external agencies such as bankers, suppliers, union and government. An ex-president of American Management Association once observed that number one management problem today is communication. Bernard has called it the foundation of all group activities. Communication serves as the lubricant fostering for the smooth operations of the management process.

 The importance of communication in management can be judged from the following:

(i) Acts as basis of coordination:

 Communication acts as basis of coordination. It provides coordination among departments, activities and persons in the organisation. Such coordination is provided by explaining about organisational goals, the mode of their achievement and inter relationships between different individuals etc.

(ii) Helps in smooth working of an enterprise:

Communication makes possible for the smooth and unrestricted working of the enterprise. All organisational interactions depend on communications. The job of a manager is to coordinate the human and physical elements of an organisation into an efficient and active working unit that achieves common objectives. It is only communication which makes smooth working of an enterprise possible. Communication is basic to an organisation’s existenceright from its birth through its continuing life. When communication stops, organised activity ceases to exist.

(iii) Acts as basis of decision making:

 Communication provides needed information for decision making. In its absence, it may not be possible for the managers to take any meaningful decision. Only on the basis of communication of relevant information one can take right decision.

(iv) Increases managerial efficiency:

 Communication is essential for quick and effective performance of managerial functions. The management conveys the goals and targets, issues instructions, allocates jobs and responsibilities and looks after the performance of subordinates. Communication is involved in all these aspects. Thus, communication lubricates the entire organisation and keeps the organisation at work with efficiency.

(v) Promotes cooperation and industrial peace:

Efficient operation is the aim of all prudent management. It may be possible only when there is industrial peace in the factory and mutual cooperation between management and workers. The two way communication promotes cooperation and mutual understanding between the management and workers.

(vi) Establishes effective leadership:

 Communication is the basis of leadership. Effective communication helps to influence subordinates. While influencing people, leader should possess good communication skills.

 (vii) Boosts morale and provides motivation:

An efficient system of communication enables management to motivate, influence and satisfy the subordinates. Good communication assists the workers in their adjustment with the physical and social aspect of work. It improves good human relations in industry. Communication is the basis of participative and democratic pattern of management. Communication helps to boost morale of employees and managers.