Abstract
IN his paper, "The Nature of Management", based on an address to the London and District Society of Chartered Accountants, and now issued as "Occasional papers No.2" by the British Institute of Management Sir Charles Renold insists that management is directed to action and that the action is at secondhand : management is concerned with guiding the actions of people other than the planners or guiders. Accordingly he regards management as fundamentally the process of getting things done through the agency of a community, and the functions of management as the handling of a community with the view of its fulfilling the purposes for which it exists. A large part of those functions is, in fact, concerned with the well-being of the team or community, and, in pursuing that well-being, the particular purpose of the community may be only of very indirect consideration. Sir Charles examines in some detail the requirements of community well-being so far as they are yet understood, emphasizing the importance not only of the structure or organisation of the community and procedures but also of their acceptance by the individuals forming the community. Contentment will not be secured unless there is confidence that rules and discipline are administered fairly, and the processes of using the team or community to achieve its purposes really turns on devising instructions appropriate to the situation. Planning he regards as a group of processes providing the raw material from which operative instructions are fashioned, and control as seeing how the plans are working out with the view either of modifying them or of improving the response of the community when necessary. Accountancy is one of the indispensable techniques of management ; but he points out that every official in the course of his executive duties has to make decisions which are of the nature of policy, and the readiness to accept responsibility for making such decisions and the ability to make wise ones are as important elements in the qualifications of an official as is loyal compliance with orders. The statement that policy-making is the business of the board of directors and execution that of the management should not be accepted uncritically ; and Sir Charles distinguishes policy-making as the establishment (not necessarily the origination) of an overall pattern of rules and principles from the development of these rules and principles into greater detail, and execution as their application to particular situations.
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Analysis of Management. Nature 163, 632 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163632b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163632b0