Glossary of management terms

If you are accountable for a task, you need to ‘own’ the results, whether it has been performed well, badly or not at all, and whether you have done the task or you have delegated the task to others.

Benchmarking refers to comparisons with other similar things. Managers can use comparative measures to see how well they and their organisations are doing.

Business plans are usually annual or short term. While a strategic plan mentions tasks, a business plan goes into far more detail about these tasks and targets, including when things would be done and with what resources.

Concurrent control is a system for controlling work. It uses the standards to check whether the production is going according to plan.

Controlling something means to have power over it. Control is often used to support planning. Good control helps make sure that:

• goals are achieved
• standards (of, say, customer service or financial reporting) are maintained
• staff adjust to changes smoothly
• opportunities for improvement are identified, because control includes comparing what is actually done with what is wanted.

Coordination is about the timing of actions. One of the biggest jobs for a manager is to coordinate the actions of people and resources to get the best result.

All staff should be focused on their customers, whether their customers are in the organisation or outside it.

Delegation happens when a manager gives authority and tasks to staff they have authority over.

Organising usually involves the economic principle of the division of labour. This is where each person involved does something different, even if they are in a team and support each other. In a way, each person is a specialist because they all have different work to do.