Need and importance of co-ordination in management
Need of Co-ordination
Need for co-ordination arises due to the following reasons:
1. Growth in Size : In a large enterprise, there are several persons. It is not possible for a manager to keep personal contacts with all of them. In the absence of personal communication, deliberate efforts have to be made to maintain harmony among them.
2. Specialisation: In modern business, every individual concentrates on one type of work throughout his career. His outlook becomes narrow and he tends to over-emphasise his work. Co-ordination is necessary to create unity of action in the midst of diversity of tasks.
3. Human nature: Human beings are selfish by nature. They prefer their personal interests and their own departments. Co-ordination is needed to avoid potential sources of conflict.
4. Functional Differentiation: The functions of a large organisation are divided into several divisions, departments and sections. Each division or department tries to perform its activities in isolation. Co-ordination becomes necessary to ensure that the efforts of every department support those of others.
5. Interdependence of Activities: The main reason for co ordination is that departments and work groups are interdepentent. There are subordinates under every manager. The work entrusted by a manager to his subordinates is interrelated. The performance of each employee affects the performance of others.
Importance of Co-ordination
Co-ordination offers the following advantages:
1. Efficiency and Effectiveness: Co-ordination helps to improve the efficiency of operations by avoiding overlapping of efforts duplication of work. It makes a productive enterprise out of diverse activities. It results in synergy of operations.
2. Unity of Directions: Co-ordinations helps to ensure unity of action in the face of disruptive forces. It helps to avoid conflicts between line and staff elements.
3. Human relations: It helps to improve team spirit and morale of employees. In a well-co-ordinated organisation, organizational goals and personal goals of the employee are reconciled. As a result, employees derive a sense of security and job satisfaction.
4. Quintessence of management: It is an all-inclusive concept and the end result of management process. According to Mary Parker Follett, “The first test of effective administration should be whether you have a business with all its parts so co-ordinated, so moving together in their closely knit and adjusting activities so interlocking that make a working unit that is not a convergence of separate pieces but a functional whole or integrated unit”.
