Principles of Management

Question
• What do principles mean?
• has aptly defined a principle as ..
. successful management of his/her establishment, therefore there can be
• Principles are guidelines formulated on the basis of past experiences of
managers in related situations, through a process of recording mentally
or in writing, the effects of decisions taken in the past.
• Certain basic guidelines can be formulated by every manager to help in the
very different principles that are applied in various organizations according
to past experiences and judgment of managers in their particular situations.
• This is also because no two situations are exactly alike to demand prototype
decisions taken in the past, and people involved also change their behaviour
at different points in time.
• Present decisions however, can be based on the results of past decisions taken
under fairly similar circumstances, depending on future goals to be achieved.
• Principles are not rigid fool proof rules which can provide definite
solutions to problems or needs but are flexible, practical,
consistent and relevant guidelines for use in similar sets of
situations.
• They help to predict the results of decisions taken when used
with the manager’ s own judgment of when to apply or use them.
• When managers take decisions that have constantly proved
wrong, the fault does not lie with the principles, but in the
judgment made and the principle applied by managers in a
particular situation.
• Suppose a catering manager follows the principle of serving lunches
strictly between 12.30 and 2.30 pm every day, but one day finds that
there is an unexpected rush of customers, and meals get finished by
2.00 pm. How will he apply his principle to manage the situation with
respect to customers who habitually come to the establishment
between 2.00 and 2.30 pm?
Give your individual answer thinking you as a manager.

• Let us list what decision choices he has in the situation.

• — Close down service at 2.00 pm on that day.
• There are 14 principles which have formed the basis for • According to , principles of • — Use some ready to serve foods held in stock to make up extra meals to cover the
management activity, but each manager may use as many as management are descriptive or predictive and not prescriptive. demand between 2.00 to 2.30 pm.
• — Request staff to make sandwiches and arrange for making eggs to order to make
they think useful in a particular situation. • In other words, they do not tell a manager what he should do, but up a meal platter for customers.
• In fact, every manager can create principles to suit their own only give him an idea of what may be expected if certain variable
particular field of work which could form reference points for interact in a situation. In this manner there can be many different reactions to a particular situation and it may seem
confusing to make a decision.
success in the future.
But the principle if applied with a manager’ s value judgment helps to make decision making
easier and more effective.

Let us see how different managers use their value judgments to make decisions.

• A manager who places greater value on the goodwill of customers will not
think twice about keeping the food service open, and providing whatever he
can to his customer. He would not take the risk of turning away even a
single customer.
• Another manager might value his own image vis-à -vis his staff, in which
case he will treat the situation as a challenge and think of quick
preparations, being guided by the principle of keeping the food service open
till 2.30 pm.
• A third manager may value good relations with his staff and take the
opportunity to give them half an hour off, based on the fact that the number
of customers in the last half hour are not significant enough to make his
staff prepare meals all over again and create stress in the environment.
• Which of the above decisions would you choose if you were the
manager of the establishment and why?
• It is possible that when you apply your value judgment you may
come up with a fourth decision absolutely different from that of
the three managers cited above.
• Principles therefore represent the historical collection of cause and effect
data obtained from experiences gathered by managers in various situations,
from which practicing and potential managers can draw for making
effective decisions.
• There are therefore, no fixed numbers of principles that a manager may
adopt as the basis for developing an organization.
• As experience is gained very different guidelines emerge, some principles
helping to predict, others providing guidelines for decision making at
various levels of the organization.