Summary
Administration is of great importance in any social organism.
Success depends directly and indirectly on your good management.
That is why Henri Fayol made his proposals that became doctrines, principles and theories that today are the basis for the realization of an excellent administrative performance.
Introduction
Henri Fayol is currently considered "The Father of Modern Administration" since his theories, principles and doctrines that he carried out since 1900 have been the bases for a good administration today.
In the investigation based on the achievements made by this great character we will reveal step by step the development of the administration.
The objective is to introduce students and workers to the basic teachings that Henri Fayol left us and that they serve as a great help to increase expectations, strategies or objectives within their functional workplace of each one.
Henri Fayol
Henri Fayol (1841-1925), who was born in Constantinople into a bourgeois family, did his first studies at the Lyceum in Lyon, France. Later, in 1860, the National School of Mines in Saint Etienne awarded him the degree of mining engineer. From that moment I worked in the extraction of coal and the iron foundry of the French consortium Commentry-Fourchambault Company.
Fayol worked all his life in the same company. From 1860 to 1866 he worked as an engineer, at which time he made notable advances in the technique to combat the underground fires that occurred in the company.
At age 25 his work was rewarded with promotion to Commentry Mines Manager. Six years later I occupy the position of director of a group of mines. In 1888, the company was going through serious difficulties because it had not paid dividends since 1885, I named him CEO, from which position he began to revitalize it. It closed the Fourchambault smelter and centralized production at Montuclon, another plant in the consortium, to achieve economies of scale.
Fayol acquired new coal deposits in Bressac, Decazeville and in Jondreville. The new company, called Comambault, recovered under his direction and is until today part of Le Creusot Loire, the largest mining and metallurgical group in central France.
From these experiences in Comambault Fayol developed his administration proposal.
Without a doubt, Fayol was the one who had the greatest theoretical influence on the classical perspective: it is necessary to remember that in the first chapter we explained the functions of the administration, which are the results of his studies. These functions, which are now more than 80 years old, are studied in all universities in the United States, Europe and much of the rest of the world.
Concern for the creation of an administrative doctrine
In the year 1888, the mining engineer Henri Fayol (1841-1925), managed to save from ruin a large French metallurgical company, in which he had been working for twenty years. Acting as its director, Engineer Fayol applied a new management method that gave him satisfactory results, which he called Positive Management.
According to his own statements, the administrative studies he carried out had exclusively practical and personal application purposes; However, after several years of constant experimentation, observation and control, these served him not only to achieve unprecedented success but also allowed him to postulate the doctrinal body of the principles of the science of administration. The Fayolist doctrine began giving special importance to the methodological foundation, hence Fayol himself called it Positive, Scientific or Experimental Administration.
On June 23, 1900, at the closing session of the International Congress of Mines and Metallurgy, Henri Fayol presented his administrative ideas for the first time and in 1908, on the occasion of the Congress of the Society of the Mining Industry, he developed in a summarized way the fundamental criteria of his theory. His main work in this field is the book entitled, Industrial and General Administration.
In a second stage, Fayol expanded his doctrine, including procedures for administrative investigation, since the first methodological conception presented only fundamental rules which he had called Elements of Administration.
For Fayol, administrative procedures were very important instruments for the good management of any company since they allowed the diagnosis and solution of many difficulties typical of the organizations of his time.
Fayolism also had a third expansion or stage in terms of its postulates, when Fayol himself completed and deepened the principles of his doctrine to make it universal and also applicable to the field of public administration. In the last years of his life he devoted himself preferably to writing about this topic in order to indoctrinate the State to make it more efficient.
Fayol's investigations focused on all companies and the State. Little by little he became convinced that administrative principles were applicable to all companies, whatever their nature, objectives and magnitude. “There is no administrative doctrine for the industry and an administrative doctrine for the State; there is only one administrative doctrine. The principles and rules that apply to the industry apply to the State and vice versa. "
Universality of the Administration
The administrative phenomenon occurs wherever there is a social organism, because in it there must always be systematic coordination of means. The Administration is given for the same in the State, in the army, in the company, in a religious society, etc. And the essential elements in all those classes of Administration will be the same, although logically there are accidental variants.
First definition of functional areas
- Technical activities: tasks related to the transformation and production of goods (products and services) Commercial activities: work associated with purchase, sale and swap transactions Financial activities: tasks connected with the raising and proper use of capital Activities of security: functions whose objective is the preservation and protection of people and property Accounting activities: tasks aimed at facilitating controls and records, for example, inventories, balance sheets, costs and statistics Administrative activities: related actions with the integration of all the operations of the organization; the administrative activities coordinate and synchronize the previous activities, thus interfering / influencing them.
First administrative process model
- Anticipate: attempt to evaluate the future through a program and to make forecasts to carry it out (this function gave rise to the planning function) Organize: mobilize human and material resources to put the plan into action Lead: establish guidelines for employees and ensure that tasks are completed Coordinate: achieve the unification and harmony of all activities and efforts Control: verify that tasks are carried out in accordance with the rules established and expressed by management.
Management principles
The general principles of administration suggested by Fayol are still considered, by most administrators, useful for the contemporary practice of administration.
These principles, elaborated in 1916, are presented in the order that their author presented them, with their respective explanations, namely:
- Division of work: the distribution of tasks should be done between groups and individuals, to ensure effort and attention are focused on special parts of the activity; Fayol proposed the specialization of work as the best way to take advantage of the human resources of the organization. Authority and responsibility: the authority for Fayol, is defined as "the right to give orders and the power to obtain his faithful obedience"; Responsibility implies being trustworthy, which, by nature, is associated with authority. Discipline: this precept implies the need for workers to make a common effort, in an orderly manner; however sanctions must be applied, with good judgment, to encourage common effort. Unit of command:the workers of the organizations must receive orders from a single "administrator", in order to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings. Unit of direction: according to this rule, the entire organization must move in the direction of a common goal: in a single direction. Subordination of the individual interest to the general interest: this principle holds that the interests of a person (or group) should not prevail over the goals of the organization as a whole. Remuneration of the personnel: the payment must be fair - not exploitative - and reward good performance, you must resort to various forms of payments, for example: for time, work, reason for production, etc. Non-financial rewards also need to be awarded Centralization - As defined by Fayol,centralization means “reducing the importance of the role of the subordinate while decentralization implies increasing it; the degrees of centralization / decentralization adopted depend on each organization in which the "administrator" works. Scalar chain: this characteristic defined by Fayol as a line of authority, meant that a certain amount of authority must correspond to each hierarchical position, but also that lower strata of managers should always keep higher levels informed of their work activities Order: to increase efficiency and coordination all materials and people related to a specific type of work should be designated in the same general location within the company; a place for everyone to be in their place.this principle that Fayol differentiated from justice, constituted the execution of the established conventions; however, the conventions cannot foresee everything, for which they must be interpreted and their insufficiencies supplemented; all employees should be treated in the most “equal” way possible. Staff stability in their positions: retention of the most productive workers should be a priority for management; The hiring of new employees usually carries associated the costs of recruitment and selection, as well as the defects of the process. Initiative: administrators must stimulate the initiative of the worker, which is defined as “a new or additional activity undertaken of their own free will ”. Team Spirit: in accordance with this precept,Managers must foster harmony and general goodwill among employees, both of which are powerful organizational forces.
The importance of the administration study
The following facts are enough to prove it:
- Administration occurs wherever there is a social organism, although logically it is more necessary the larger and more complex it is.The success of a social organism depends, directly and indirectly, on its good administration and only through this, on the elements materials, humans, etc. With this body it counts. For large companies, technical or scientific administration is indisputable and obviously essential, since due to its magnitude and complexity, they simply could not act if it were not based on a highly technical administration. It is in them where perhaps the administrative function can be better isolated from the others.For small and medium-sized companies also perhaps their only possibility of competing with others is the improvement of their administration, that is, to obtain a better coordination of their elements: machinery, market,qualification of manpower, etc. lines in which they are indisputably surpassed by their large competitors.The increase in productivity, perhaps the most important concern today in the economic and social field depends, for what has been said, on the adequate administration of the companies, since if each cell of This social economic life is efficient and productive, the society itself formed by them will have to be. Especially for countries that are developing, perhaps one of the substantial requirements is to improve the quality of their administration, because to create capitalization, develop the qualification of its employees and workers etc. essential bases of its development, the most efficient coordination technique of all employees is essential,which therefore becomes the starting point of that development.
Social attitude
We have established that administration is a technique to achieve maximum efficiency of social functions. It follows from this that there is not, nor can there be, administration outside a society and at the same time that every society needs the technical means of the administration for the effective performance of its functions.
We must specify that social relations are studied from two different angles: the philosophical and the empirological.
In the first case, it is a matter of looking for the ultimate reasons and the fundamental principles of the essential and common in social functions: What is society? What is the cause that leads man to form society? Is it your own nature or your free will or the combination of both? What is the difference between community and society?
This point of view, which has been commonly called “social metaphysics”, has connections with the administration, since the principles that the latter uses to deduce its rules and structure its administrative instruments are, very often, of a sociological nature. Perhaps we would dare to say that - especially in the first years of the administration; that of the unity of command; etc. As already analyzed before, perhaps many of these principles currently have more full and fruitful application in the administrative field than in the psychological one.
On the other hand, there is "Sociology" empirically considered, this is using proximate reasons, which without going into the metaphysical analysis of the social, rather describes social facts, seeks their typification, classifies them and deduces their frequency and generality indexes. mainly with a view to studying and solving social problems.
In relation to this second species - which is what is properly called "Sociology" today - it is indisputable that the administration takes advantage of many of the analyzes and laws that the first establishes on social behavior, since they serve it to achieve its end I specify, which is the optimal coordination of people and things. In turn, the administration provides sociology with many of the techniques and experiences obtained in coordination.
If we wanted to synthesize, it could be said that Administration is the technique of coordination.
Regarding Business Administration and subject to analyzing the concept of these later, we can formulate this definition: it is the technique that seeks to achieve maximum efficiency results in the coordination of the things and people that make up a company.
conclusion
Any organization, be it commercial, industrial, political, religious, military or philanthropic, needs administration; in any condition there is an administrative function to perform. Organization in the formal sense means order and its objective is to have an organized and orderly procedure.
Bibliography
- O. Da Silva Reinaldo (2002). Theories of Administration (Ed.) México DF. Thomson Learning. Reyes Ponce Agustín (2004). Modern Administration (Ed.) Mexico City. Limusa Noriega. Ramírez Cardona Carlos (1993). Fundamentals of Administration (Ed.) Santa Fe Bogotá. Ecoe.
