Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, staffing, leading/directing, and controlling/monitoring and motivation.

• Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next five years, etc.) and generating plans for action.

• Organizing: (Implementation) pattern of relationships among workers, making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.

• Staffing: Job analysis, recruitment and hiring for appropriate jobs.

• Leading/directing: Determining what must be done in a situation and getting people to do it.

• Controlling/monitoring: Checking progress against plans.

• Motivation: Motivation is also a kind of basic function of management, because without motivation, employees cannot work effectively. If motivation does not take place in an organization, then employees may not contribute to the other functions (which are usually set by top-level management).

• Communicating: is giving, receiving, or exchange information.

• Creating: ability to produce original Idea,thought through the use of imagination

Basic roles

• Interpersonal: roles that involve coordination and interaction with employees

• Informational: roles that involve handling, sharing, and analyzing information

• Decisional: roles that require decision-making

Management skills

• Political: used to build a power base and establish connections

• Conceptual: used to analyze complex situations.

• Interpersonal: used to communicate, motivate, mentor and delegate

• Diagnostic: ability to visualize most appropriate response to a situation

• Technical: Expertise in one's particular functional area.

Formation of the business policy

• The mission of the business is the most obvious purpose—which may be, for example, to make soap.

• The vision of the business reflects its aspirations and specifies its intended direction or future destination.

• The objectives of the business refers to the ends or activity that is the goal of a certain task.

• The business's policy is a guide that stipulates rules, regulations and objectives, and may be used in the managers' decision-making. It must be flexible and easily interpreted and understood by all employees.

• The business's strategy refers to the coordinated plan of action it takes and resources it uses to realize its vision and long-term objectives. It is a guideline to managers, stipulating how they ought to allocate and use the factors of production to the business's advantage. Initially, it could help the managers decide on what type of business they want to form.

Implementation of policies and strategies

• All policies and strategies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff.

• Managers must understand where and how they can implement their policies and strategies.

• A plan of action must be devised for each department.

• Policies and strategies must be reviewed regularly.

• Contingency plans must be devised in case the environment changes.

• Top-level managers should carry out regular progress assessments.

• The business requires team spirit and a good environment.

• The missions, objectives, strengths and weaknesses of each department must be analyzed to determine their roles in achieving the business's mission.

• The forecasting method develops a reliable picture of the business's future environment.

• A planning unit must be created to ensure that all plans are consistent and that policies and strategies are aimed at achieving the same mission and objectives.

All policies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff that is required in the execution of any departmental policy.

• Organizational change is strategically achieved through the implementation of the eight-step plan of action established by John P. Kotter: Increase urgency, get the vision right, communicate the buy-in, empower action, create short-term wins, don't let up, and make change stick.

Policies and strategies in the planning process

• They give mid and lower-level managers a good idea of the future plans for each department in an organization.

• A framework is created whereby plans and decisions are made.

• Mid and lower-level management may add their own plans to the business's strategies.