Principle 4: Utilize Specialization

An organization should utilize specialization to achieve efficiency. The more specialized the work assigned to individuals within the limits of human tolerance, the greater the opportunity for efficient performance.

A specialist is a person who masters or becomes expert in doing a certain type of work. This expertise usually results from long periods of training, work experience, or some combination of the two.

Specialization has made possible much of our economic and social progress. Workers with expert skills can be found everywhere — welders on the automotive assembly lines, chefs in restaurants, sales agents in the insurance industry, and full-time typists and computer programmers in offices. When people specialize, the quality of their work is higher; they are usually more accurate and adaptable; they learn new tasks faster; and they can accomplish more work in a given time period. Hence, such workers are more productive than workers without specialized skills.

Specialization, however, can be overdone. When the work becomes too narrow in scope or too repetitious, workers may become bored; and the quality and quantity of the work may suffer. To solve this common problem, several personnel techniques, such as job enlargement and job enrichment are used. Another useful technique for applying Principle 4 is listed in Figure 2-1. Simply, this means that managers should concentrate on management work while clerical personnel specialize in support services, accountants focus on accounting duties, and salespersons handle the selling responsibilities.

Principle 5: Delegate Authority

Individuals in the organization must be delegated authority in keeping with the responsibility assigned them so that they can be held accountable for properly performing their duties.

Delegation is the process of entrusting work to employees at lower levels who are qualified to accept responsibility for doing the work. When work is delegated to others, the results to be accomplished should be mutually understood by the delegator—a manager or supervisor— and the subordinate. (A common technique for achieving such understanding is summarized in Figure 2-1.) In order for delegation to work well, there must be a clear-cut flow of authority from the top to the bottom of the organization. If this can be accomplished, functions can be carried out effectively, and duplication and overlapping of work assignments can be minimized. As a result, management goals can be achieved.

A common complaint in many firms is that managers and supervisors fail to delegate authority. Some supervisors never learn to delegate; instead they insist on handling many work details themselves. In many cases, managers assign their assistants responsibilities but little or no authority.

To manage their departments successfully, office supervisors must delegate authority properly. As a minimum, they should delegate enough authority to get the work done, to allow their key workers to take initiative, and to keep work flowing in their absence. Of course, the people to whom authority and responsibility are delegated must be willing to accept their obligations and be competent in those areas for which they are being held accountable.