DIRECTING

Directing is a managerial process of guiding, motivating, leading and supervising employees to accomplish desired organizational objective, once the objectives are being defined the planning is being done and inputs like manpower, machines, materials are brought together, the implementation will only be successful if the direction is being done effectively, directing is people oriented activity which helps to ensure that the resources are utilized in an optimum level and the tasks are being carried out as per the planed course of action.

The process of directing helps the employees to stick to the predetermined path and prevents ineffective use of resources due to lack of interest and lethargy. Directing deals with issuing of instructions to begin or end a task, to supervise and guide work and eliminate hindrance to accomplishment of the objective, it ensure that personnel are motivated and contribute their efforts in the direction of the achievement of the objectives. As per Koontz and O’Donnell “ Directing includes all those activities which a manager undertakes to influence the actions of his subordinates and achieve goals.”

Characteristics of Directing

·         Oriented towards achievement of objectives:- process of directing try to ensure that the objectives are achieved through the consolidation of human effort and non human inputs in the most effective manner. Process ensures that human efforts are streamlined only in direction of the objectives.

·         People centric process:- directing deals with people by inspiring, guiding, motivating and supervising them to achieve the targets. Directing deals with a very complex resource as each individual and his priorities are different hence to bring them to harmony is very difficult task.

·         Seeks and require harmonious relationship among people:- directing require and seeks to bring harmonious relationship within the organization, supervisor or manger not having a harmonious relation with employees will not be able to get the required performance, similarly directing helps in building better coordination among different people putting their effort for the achievement of desired objectives.

·         All pervasive activity:- Directing is an all pervasive activity and is present at all level of management every manager or supervisor are expected to guide, inspire, lead and help the subordinates working under him.

·         Performance Driven:- directing is an activity which ask for the performance from the individuals, it makes things happen and translate plans in to action.

·         Dynamic and continuous activity:- directing is a dynamic and continuous activity which means that the ways and means of directing people employed by the manager will change as per the requirement of situations, to make it more effective. Secondly directing will be a continuous activity as mangers have to perform directing activities throughout the functioning of the organization on a day to day basis.

·         High emphasize on communication and interactions:- directing activities are highly dependent of communication and interactions, without the effective communication and regular interactions the objective of directing will not be possible. A supervisor has to interact with his foreman to supervise or guide him secondly a manager have to communicate his instructions timely and clearly for proper implementation.

IMPORTANCE OF DIRECTINON

Direction is an essential activity for implementation and achievement of organizational targets and is very important in following ways

·         Initiate action and seeks performance:- directing with help of instructions initiate action and with help of guidance, supervision and inspiration seeks to achieve performance from the employees.

·         Integrates human and non human efforts:- directing helps to create harmony among people and ensure optimum use of resources. Directing integrate the human effort with non human inputs of the organization.

·         Builds an environment of change:- with effective direction from supervisor there will be lesser resistant and better adoption of changes which are likely to come over a period of time in the organization.

·         Motivate people and build morale:- directing helps to motivate people and make them realize that they can achieve higher standard of performance by moving in the right direction and integrating efforts. With achievement of targets and appreciation of managers the morale of employee improves which again help the employee in contributing superior performance in the future as well.

·         Helps in balancing work and life targets:-  directing helps the employee to work to their full capacity and achieve the organization targets, these achievements bring rewards to employees which in turn helps them to achieve the personal goals of life, without the process of direction people would not contribute their best resulting into non fulfillment of organizational or personal targets.

·         Directing helps in channelizing human effort:- directing helps employees in channelizing their effort in the right direction, direction helps them understand the objective of their initiatives.

Principles of Direction

·         Unity of Command:-  Direction require unity of command i.e. every employee should receive commands from one person only which means only one person should be there to guide and employee, where there are more than two person directing the efforts, chances are that the person may get confused or there is duplicacy of effort and lack of coordination.

·         Principle of harmony:- direction should resolve the conflict between personal and organizational goals. It should try to bring harmony between the efforts of all individuals and groups working in the organization towards achievement of objectives.

·         Direct supervision­:- direction requires direct contact or supervision of the person directing and the individual receiving direction. Without close interaction direction will not be possible or will become ineffective. Direct supervision motivates the personnel and they feel important secondly there is less chances of communication gaps and misinterpretations.

·         Use of informal approach:- directing also require the informal set up with in the organization, this helps the managers to supplement and support the formal channels of directing. Informal approach helps in better cooperative behavior resulting in to more effective coordination.

·         Principle of individual contribution: directing activities should target to get maximum individual contribution so that even higher objective can be achieved by integration of all such efforts. This also helps in providing better rewards for the employees.

·         Flexible mechanism of direction:- directing involves a flexible mechanism of direction which means employees working in different levels and every employee being different , so manager must use suitable mechanism to direct him, e.g. depending on situation, nature of work and person involved the manager may have to use differential styles of leadership like sometime he may go for autocratic or democratic ways.

·         Use of motivation:- directing will bring better result if the manager motivates his subordinates, a manager can motivate his juniors with the help of various motivating techniques like monetary benefits, appreciation, job enrichment, job rotation etc. With motivation employees are more committed to the job and contribute their effort in a better manner, resulting into high performance for the organization and greater job satisfaction.

Steps for efficient Direction

Following are the different steps one can follow for effective direction

·         Instructions :- the process of directing initiates with the instructions form superior to the lower levels of the organization, the instructions can be regarding allocation of tasks, beginning or ending a process, report on current status, etc. instructions given should be clear, specific, easy to understand, complete and should reach all concerned people and at right time, so that the implementation can be done effectively, secondly instruction has a chain reaction effect which means with one instruction might be the whole organization will come into action hence it is very important to ascertain that instructions should be given after due consideration. The instructions should be given in a recorded form i.e. there should be a record maintained of all important instructions, to act as the base and a proof of the decision, so that no confusion prevails and accountability can be fixed.

·         Expedition and follow up:- once the instructions are being given it should not be considered as being executed, the manager require to follow up whether the instructions being given are being implemented by the people or not, secondly manager should also monitor the process on a regular basis to find whether the process or instruction is following the required path, if there are deviations he should take necessary instruction to ensure that objectives of instructions are achieved as desired.

·         Use of standard practices:- if the organization has well established standard operation procedures and practices then direction activity can be done with much ease as the people understand the instruction easily and know what is the standard procedure to execute these instructions, manager is also have clear picture as he can monitor the implementation in better way.

·         Use of explanation:- the next thing to be followed for better directing is the use of explanation, when the manager clearly explain the instructions about its objectives, expected outcome and people role then the implementation is smooth as person executing those instructions are well aware about the complete situation and also has a feeling of participation in the process.

·         Consultation:- the practice of consulting the people involved in executing the instruction by the manager will also bring better result, with consultation the manager can also look in to matter from the other perspective, can get views about feasibility of the instructions, better alternatives and finally more commitment level from the people as when employees are given participation they show high level of commitment towards it.

·         Orientation towards people centric and task centric approach:- instructions will be better implemented when a manager give due weightage to people approach along with task orientations, when a manager has reasonably good relations with his team, the team becomes more willing to contribute the efforts.

·         Feed back and feed forward:- the manager should take the feed back from the people to know whether the process is going smooth or in case receives a feed back should also respond with the feed forward where in he can clarify things further or further guide them or remove the hindrances.