Summing up the Functionalist View

Before we continue, let me summarize the points I have made so far:

“Management” is defined as the process that makes organizations become and remain effective and efficient, now and in the future. These, I suggest, are the goals of every organization, regardless of how it measures its success, regardless of technology, size, and culture.

The organization will achieve these goals if four roles are performed well: (P)roviding for the clients’ expected needs, (A)d­mi­nistering, (E)ntrepreneuring, and (I)ntegrating – or (PAEI). In other words, the organization must be results-oriented (P); it must be flexible and adapt well to change (E); but that flexibility must be controllable and generate predictable results (A). Finally, its system must be self-adaptive (I), so that no outside corrective action is called for.

The role of management, then, is to perform those four roles – because they do not happen by themselves. Thus, “to manage” means to perform any or all of those four roles, regardless of an individual’s title or position in the hierarchy – or whether he is even on the payroll.

Now that we have defined “management” and know what we are looking for, we should be well on our way toward finding the ideal manager, right?

Wrong. But we are closer to discovering why the ideal manager does not and cannot exist.

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