Introduction

A modern business organization is based on principles like division of work, departmentation, centralization, decentralization, delegation of authority, etc.

Different departments, divisions, branches and sections function to achieve the common objectives of the organization. In all these places, different persons work in different capacities. Under this complex structure and multidimensional system of an organization, there is a vital need for maximum cooperation with minimum conflict, confusion and contradiction. Coordination is an important process of blending together all such functions. It is also considered the essence of management, as every managerial task is in practice an exercise in coordination.

Once the activities of the organization are broken into smaller units which are re-grouped into departments, it becomes necessary for managers to coordinate the activities of these departments by communicating the organizational goals to each department, setting departmental goals and linking the performance of each department with that of others so that all the departments collectively contribute towards the organization goals. Coordination is that, "the process of linking the activities of various departments of the organization."

Mere application of the principle of specialization does not enable an organisation to attain the desired results. With jobs specialized and divided among units, coordination becomes necessary. Coordination is the management inter dependence in work situations. It is the orderly- synchronization or fitting together interdependent efforts of individuals, in order to attain a common goal. For instance, in a hospital, the activities of doctors, nurses, attendants, technicians must be properly synchronized if the patient is to receive good care.

Meaning

The term coordination may be defined as the process of bringing about unity and harmony in the functioning of all departments or divisions involved in organisation. Thus, coordination is conscious and rational managerial function of pulling together various components of organized activity and weaving them into a unified and integrated whole for achieving pre-determined goals. Coordination is the process of integrating objectivities and activities of separate work units or functional departments in order to realize organizational goals. The process of coordination is inevitable and imperative, a group efforts as common goals can be achieved only by integrating, unifying and coordinating efforts made by various members. 

Definition

"Coordination deals with the task of blending efforts in order to ensure the successful attainment of an objective. It is accomplished by means of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling." - G.R. Terry

"Coordination is balancing and keeping the teams together by ensuring a suitable allocation of working activities to the various members and seeing that these are performed with due harmony among the members themselves."- E.F.L. Breach

"Coordination is the efforts to ensure the smooth interplay of the functions and forces of all the different components and parts or organisation to the end that its purpose will be realised with a minimum of function and maximum of collaborative effectiveness." Ordway Tead

"It seems more accurate to regard coordination as the essence of managership for achievement of harmony of individual efforts towards the accomplishment of group goals as the purpose of management. Each of the managerial functions is an exercise in coordination." Donnell Koontz and O'

"Coordination is the process whereby an executive develops in an orderly pattern an integrated, orderly, and synchronized pattern of group effort among his subordinates and tries to attain unity of effort in the pursuit of any common goal." - Mc Farland

Nature Of Coordination

Coordination has the following features:

1. Continuous Process

Managers in every organization must perform this activity of coordination in the beginning, in the process and at the end regularly for all types of organizational activities. As it is a continuous process, it accomplishes unity of objective.

2. Group Effort

Coordination involves all such efforts which are involved in the harmonious blending of the different parts of an organization. Such an orderly arrangement should result in minimizing of conflict, confusion and friction and maximising collective effectiveness. Coordination helps in proper timing, balancing and integrating the different activities of an organization.

3. Dynamic Process

Coordination integrates and synthesises the efforts of people of all departments at all levels towards achievement of common organisational goals. It provides a positive and dynamic element to the entire organization and smoothens the process of administration.

4. Managerial Responsibility

Coordination is the responsibility of every manager at every level for every operative functions. All managers continuously coordinate the efforts of people working in their respective departments. 

5. Unity of Action

Every individual and department has his own perspective or way of achieving the organisational goals. Coordination ensure unity of action amongst individual and departmental activities.  

6. Unity of Objectives

The very purpose of coordination is to accomplish the objectives of the organisation. So, all the efforts of different groups should be directed towards the accomplishment of the common objectives.

7. Essence of Management

Coordination is not a separate function of management. It is required for every managerial function. Managers coordinate the human and non-human resources while carrying out all the managerial functions of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling. Coordination is, thus, called the "essence of management".

8. Deliberate Effort

Coordination is not spontaneous effort of managers. Managers make deliberate efforts to coordinate their inter-departmental activities. No manager can evade or avoid this responsibility.

Coordination and Cooperation 

Cooperation refers to the collective efforts of people who associate voluntarily to achieve specified objectives. It indicates merely the willingness of individuals to help each other. It is the result of a voluntary attitude of a group of people. Coordination is much more inclusive, requiring more than the desire and willingness to cooperate the participants. It involves a deliberate and conscious effort to bring together the activities of various individuals in order to provide unity of action. It requires concurrence of purpose, harmony of effort and concerted action.

Coordination Vs Cooperation

The main points of difference between coordination and cooperation are given below:

1. Coordination is a deliberate effort by the management for the achievement of certain goals. Cooperation denotes the collective efforts by the people working on the organisation voluntarily to accomplish a particular purpose.

2. Coordination is broader in scope than cooperation. It includes both cooperation and deliberate efforts to maintain unity of action and purpose.

3. Coordination of all interdependent activities is utmost necessary. But cooperation does not arise out of any limitations of organisation structure.

4. Effective coordination cannot be achieved without the actual cooperation of the groups members. Coordination without cooperation and cooperation without coordination are fatal to the enterprise. As a matter of fact, cooperation without coordination has no fruit and coordination without cooperation has no root. Therefore, every manager should try to achieve both simultaneously.

5. The basic objective of coordination is the synchronisation of efforts of individuals in a work group so that no effort goes in waste.

The basic objective of cooperation is to protect the interest of members of a cooperative group specially from the threats presented by conflicting groups.

Coordination Vs Control

Control is one of the elements of the management process. Coordination is the essence of management itself and is an all-inclusive function. Similar to other managerial functions, control is an exercise in coordination. Both coordination and control are required in every organisation. Control is needed to maintain order and consistency in the behaviour of people and events. Coordinations is required to unify the differentiated activities and to integrate the diverse goals, interests and roles.

The points of distinction between the two are given below:

1. The focus of control is on regulation whereas coordination focuses on harmony. 

2. Control is mainly a unitary function involving the regulation of activities in individual units to create a match between planned and actual results.

On the other hand, coordination is a system function concerned with unification of two or more diverse or differentiated activities across functional units.

3. Control faces resistance and even hostility because it is associated with coercion and restriction. On the other hand, coordination is associated with positive and constructive efforts.

Coordination - Essence Of Management 

Coordination harmonise all the activities of a business in order to facilitate its successful functioning. Coordination is inherent in all managerial functions. Each of the managerial function is an exercise in coordination. According to George Terry, "It is erroneous to believe that coordination is fundamental function of management. Coordination is accomplished by means of planning, organising, actuating and controlling." Failure to perform any of the above functions efficiently shall be reflected in poor coordination. Management integrate objectives of the organisation with the objectives and activities of departments through coordination, in order to harmonise departmental goals with organisational goals. Coordination, thus, helps to coordinate the work of different departments and within each department, it integrates the functions of management. Coordination is, therefore, rightly called the essence of management. It helps each managerial function and each departmental activity contribute to overall organisational goals. This relationship between managerial functions and coordination is as under:

1. Coordination while Planning

A manager can create coordination through planning by integrating the plans of different departments. When plans are prepared with the mutual consultation and participation of all people involved in the plans, efforts of various managers are synchronised.

2. Coordination while Organising

While assigning duties and delegating authority among subordinates, the thought of coordination must be upper-most in the mind of a manager. If the activities are divided haphazardly without coordination, some activities may not be assigned to individuals and some may be assigned to more than one individual.

3. Coordination while Staffing

The jobs having been created, managers ensure that individuals are placed on different jobs according to their skills and capabilities. This ensures placing the right person at the right job in order to achieve coordination amongst their work activities. Management must bear coordination in mind while performing recruitment, selection, training, promotion and appraisal functions.

4. Coordination while Directing

Efficient direction is an important means of coordination. Continuous flow of communication creates mutual cooperation and coordination. When a manager directs his subordinates through motivation, leadership and communication, he coordinates the various organisational activities. 

5. Coordination while Controlling

Frequent evaluation of performance is helpful in synchronising efforts of the subordinates. Corrective action brings about harmony between plan and performance. The very nature of the controlling function is designed to bring about coordination.

Thus it will be fair to consider coordination as essence of management as every function of management is an exercise in coordination and not as separate function of management. 

Need For Coordination

When a number of people are working to carry out a task, coordination is the only method of synchronization. It is an important method by which a manager can avoid potential sources of conflict among members. The factors which contribute to the increasing complexity of coordination may be briefly listed below:

1. Economy and Efficiency

Coordination makes it possible to achieve economy and efficiency in operations. The economy is achieved through avoiding duplication of efforts and efficiency by proper correlation of activities. 

2. Specialisation

Specialisation leads to concentration on very narrow areas of job activity. Individuals tend to overlook perspective of the job. This requires coordination to direct all the activities towards a common goal.

3. Good personnel relations

Coordination is achieved through systematic efforts. Good coordination gives job satisfaction to the employees which keeps their morale high. Moreover, there are good human relations because the authority-responsibility relationships are clear.

4. Complex Nature of Organisation

Modern business enterprises being large and complex in nature, involve greater degree of specialisation and division of labour and employ a large number of individuals. This requires coordination as a means of synchronising the efforts of individual members towards the accomplishment of organisational goals. 

5. Dynamic Activities

Coordination helps in integrating activities which constantly change according to changes in the environment. 

6. Team Work

The skills and efforts of various employees are to be integrated to achieve the objectives of the organisation. In the absence of coordination, the group efforts may be diversed and fail to achieve the objectives. Coordination eliminates the duplication of work which leads to economic and efficient management.

7. Unity in Diversity

Effective coordination is the essence of management. There are large number of employees and each has different ideas, views or opinions, activities and background in a large organisation. There is a diversified activity in a big business organisation where these activities will be inefficient in the absence of coordination. Therefore, coordination is essential.

8. Human Relations

Coordination helps to improve team spirit and morale of employees. In a well-coordinated organisation, organisational goals and personal goals of people are reconciled. Thus employees derive a sense of security and job satisfaction.

9. Key to other Functions

The importance of coordination largely lies in the fact that it is the key to other functions of management such as planning, organising, control, etc. Coordination makes planning more purposeful, organisation more well knit and control more regulative.

10. Retention of Good Personnel

If job satisfaction is present, executives will tend to remain longer with the company. They feel that they have a place in the organisation. They cannot afford to remain long under the confusing condition of poor coordination.

Principles Of Coordination

Principles refer to fundamental truths on which an action is based. Mary Parker Follet has pointed out important essentials and principles which may be considered as a base for effective coordination. In order to achieve coordination, managers follow the following principles of coordination.

1. Direct Contact

Direct or personal contact between managers and subordinates can achieve better coordination than indirect or impersonal contact. This relationship can communicate with each other, can exchange their views and can develop mutual understanding among themselves regarding various problems and matters.

2. Continuity

Coordination should be a continuous process starting with planning and running through the managerial processes. It is something which must go on at all the time. It should be viewed as a never-ending process and every manager should strive for it constantly. 

3. Reciprocity

This principle states that all factors in a given situation are interdependent and interrelated. For example, in a group, every person influences all others and is in turn influenced by others.

When people appreciate the reciprocity of relations, they avoid unilateral action and coordination becomes easier.

4. Dynamism

Principle of dynamism states that coordination does not work on the basis of rigid and fixed basis but a dynamic basis. Dynamism is required because changes occur in external factors which necessitate changes in the organisation and its processes including coordination.

5. Early Beginning

Coordination can be achieved more easily in the early stages of planning and policy-making. It becomes difficult to secure coordination at the execution stage. Therefore, coordination should start at the stage of planning.

6. Unity of Command

Unity of command means one boss for one subordinate. It will be difficult to achieve coordination if one individual has to report to more than one boss. Unity of command, thus, helps in coordinating the activities of individuals and departments.

7. Effective Communication

Effective communication is the key to proper coordination. The channels of communication used in the enterprise should be reliable so that they are able to create proper understanding in the mind of the receiver. Personal contacts should be encouraged as it is the most effective means of communication for achieving coordination.

8. Authority and Responsibility

There is a line of authority in every enterprise which indicates as to who is accountable to whom. This line of authority and responsibility should be clearly defined to achieve coordination. Clear-cut authority relationships help in reducing conflicts among different positions, particularly line and staff which is essential for sound coordination.

9. Well-defined Work Procedures

Well defined work procedures facilitate procedural coordination. When the work procedures are well defined and adhered properly, this will help to achieve coordination easily. Well established and designed work procedures are more important in those activities which activities in the organisation which will enable them to achieve coordination ave impact on other

10. Organisation Structure

Well designed and simplified organisation structure of business facilitates effective coordination. It has been suggested that design of organisation structure should be based on the principle of coordination.

Problems In Coordination 

The following are the difficulties for coordination:

1. Strategy and Objectives

An organisation can achieve and attain coordination with the help of well planned and designed corporate objectives and strategy of business. If the organisation do not have well developed corporate strategy and objectives which may lead to problem of coordination in business functions. 

2. Inadequate Administrative Personnel

If the administrative talents are not professional and not having adequate knowledge, then they may not have the efficiency in coordinating various activities of business.

3. Increase in Size

Need for coordination arises as soon as the operations become multiple and complex. In a large organisation, a large number of individuals are employed. Personal contact is not possible and formal methods of coordination become essential.

4. Lack of Skill

Even in certain situations, where work flows smoothly, coordination becomes a problem if managers  do not have the knowledge, skill and competence to coordinate.

5. Uncertainties about Future

Changes in environmental factors can make coordination difficult. Internal uncertainties like strikes, lock-outs, etc. make coordination difficult.

6. Different approach towards the same problem

If different departments look at the same problem in different ways, there will be problem of coordinating their activities. For instance, A company wants to increase its profits. There, the approaches by production department, sales department or finance department go for different techniques, for the same purpose. So, it is difficult to coordinate the conflicting opinions.

7. Personal Revalries

Personality clashes are quite common in modern organisations. Members from rival groups try to settle personal scores in organisational activities. Such revalry is disastrous to team work. 

8. Different Outlook

Every individual in the organisation has his own way of working and approach towards problems. Capacity, talent and speed of people differ widely. It becomes imperative to reconcile differences in approach, timing and effort to secure unity of action.

Steps to achieve coordination 

The following steps should be taken for achieving effective coordination:

1. Clearly defined goals;

2. Well defined authority;

3. Effective Communication; 

4. Cooperation; 

5. Sound Planning; ;

6. Simplified Organisation;

7. Effective Leadership;

8. Precise Policies

9. Chain of Command;

10. Indoctrination.

Types Of Coordination 

Coordination may be divided on different bases, viz. scope and flow. On the basis of scope or coverage, coordination can be internal or external while on the basis of flow, coordination can be classified into vertical and horizontal. Coordination may also be procedural and substantive.

1. Internal Coordination

Coordination between the activities of departments and people working within the organisation is known as internal coordination. Internal coordination exists between:

a. Different groups of employees of the same section or department;

b. Managers and workers at different levels.

c. Board of Directors and departmental managers;

d. Different departments, branches, etc.

2. External Coordination

External coordination refers to coordination between an organisation and its external environment comprising Government, community, customers, investors suppliers, etc. 

Vertical & Horizontal Coordination

Vertical coordination is what exists within a department where the departmental head is called upon to coordinate the activities of all those placed below him. On the other hand, horizontal coordination takes place sideways. It exists between different departments such as production, sales, purchasing, finance, etc.

Difference between Vertical and Horizontal

Vertical coordination is secured through delegation of authority and with the help of directing and controlling. There is no doubt that the power or delegated authority will carry great weight but vertical coordination cannot be achieved by the mere weight authority itself. This should rather come about as a by-product of the superiors efficient and expert performance of his managerial functions.

The term 'horizontal coordination' is used when coordination has to be achieved between departments on the same level in the managerial hierarchy. Thus, when coordination is brought about between production department, sales department, personnel department, etc., it is said to be horizontal coordination.

Techniques Of Coordination 

The following are the important techniques of coordination which are widely used by modern management:

1. Rules and procedures of an organisation must provide an effective way of achieving coordination.

2. Remember, "Cooperation is a way of achieving coordination."

3. The management must ensure that all plans add up to the unified programme. 

4. Communication of information is necessary both for making adjustments in plans and preparing programmes for future.

5. Group meetings are effective for achieving a high quality of coordination. 

6. "Ideal coordination is voluntary coordination."

7. When one knows his position, the position of his boss and subordinates, in the organisation, it facilitates coordination.

8. Well defined plans and goals help to achieve coordination.

9. Free flow of information facilitate coordination.

10. Committees are to be formed to solve specific organisational problems.

11. Clear leadership communication among members facilitate effective coordination.

12. A coordination cell may be created along with a special coordinator.

13. Standing plans may be used for solving the routine and repeitive problems.

14. The need for coordination gets reduced if a unit is independent.

15. Coordination among interdependent units can be secured by putting them under one boss.