Essay: There is Only One Best Way to Manage or Not?

This essay critically examines the concept of 'the one best way to manage,' arguing against its validity through the lens of contingency theory. The essay delves into the core principles of management, encompassing planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. It highlights the limitations of a universal approach, emphasizing the significance of adapting management strategies to specific circumstances, organizational sizes, environmental factors, and employee characteristics. Drawing on various management theories and real-world examples, the essay underscores the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and situational awareness in leadership. It concludes by advocating for a contingency-based approach, where managers tailor their strategies to the unique needs of each situation, thereby rejecting the notion of a single, universally applicable management method.

Running Head: There is only one best way to manage
Essay: There is only one best way to manage
Essay

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Table of content:
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Management..........................................................................................................................................2
Contingency Theory..............................................................................................................................3
Adapting to changing circumstances.................................................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................4
References.............................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction:
“There is only one best way to manage”, I strongly disapprove of this particular sentence or a
notion, as there can be “n” number of best ways possible to do a task depending on multiple
things like people, culture, shared values, beliefs, etc. The different management theories also
say the same, in the light of different theories which were laid down by management gurus &
experts. Every organisation has decision makers who are entirely/partially different from
other firm’s people, they though might face same or different business challenges which must
be tackled, everyone uses his/her own best judgement to arrive at the best possible solution
which has to be the best solution, or the best way to manage the situation(Hill, Jones &
Schilling, 2014). In the following essay I would be using different management theories and
few examples which would support my disapproval to the sentence, “There is only one best
way to manage”. I believe in an alternate theory, “There is no one best way; The contingency
theory.
Management:
Management is common in day to day life, so when it comes to organisation, no matter
whatever the structure may be, management becomes pivotal to the firm. Management can be
understood as a process of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling(Waring,
2016). There are various theories of management which evolves around the fact that
management can be seen as a study of both science and art.
Management theories framework (Jaber, 2016)
Classical Approaches
Assuming: People are real
Scieintific management
Fredrick taylor
Frank & Lillian gilberth
Administrative principles
Henry Fayol Bureaucratic organisation

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In this case however, contingency theory would solve the purpose.
Contingency Theory:
This theory is based on the idea that there is no single best way to manage. Contingency
refers to the immediate contignent circumstances, successful organisation tailor their
planning, managing, organising & controlling activities to their particular circumstances, in
othe words leaders should definitely identify the condition of a task, people involved and
requirements of management job as parts of complete management solution(Jones & George,
2016). This approach is based on a simple fact that there is no universal answer to many
questions because situation, people, organisation vary and change all the time. Most often
there is no one right answer when mangers ask the questions: “ what is the right thing to do?
Should we have mechanistic or an organic structure? A functional or divisional structure?
Wide or narrow span of management? Tall or flat? Centralized or decentralized? What
motivational and incentive plan to be used? Thus , the answer clearly depends on the
criticality of the situation, environment and internal contingencies(Otley, 2016). Some of the
factors which supports the claim that there is no one best way to manage can be:
 Size of the organisation
 How an organisation adapts to the environment.
 Strategies deployed by the companies.
 Assumptions of managers about the employees.
 Differences among resources and operation activities.
 Experience of the employees.
 Past experience of the managers.
 Situation handling ability of the managers
Adapting to changing circumstances: No two situations are absolutely identical in any
way , hence every situation after breaking down into its component requires a unique
solution. For example, if one have to construct a building using some strategies, keeping in
mind the purpose for which the building is built and all, the same strategy can not be applied
if the same type of building has to build again for some other client. A very important aspect
of this theory is that managers have to be really flexible and adaptive to any situation or

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contingency, because no one really likes and wants a manager who is dogmatic and
inflexible, it then defies the entrie purpose of a manager. Every situation is unique and
depending on the context of the situation the management must take a decision.
The leaders ability is contingent upon various external factors also, his preferred style, the
capabilities and behaviour of followers and the organisations climate.In case the leaders try to
apply the same solution to similar situation, there is a 100 % probability that the situation will
get out of hand, putting some bullet ideas of contingency theory supporting the claim, “there
is no one best way to manage”(Mikes & Kaplan, 2013)
 Companies are more like an open system, which requires the management to take
care of the company’s individual needs on the idea of uniqueness(McAdam, Miller
&McSorley, 2016)
 There cannot be one best and perfect way of organising , it completely depends on
the organisation , task , situation , people and the kind of environment in which the
situation is to be handled in and at times also the time at hand to tackle the situation.
 Management has to act on their own discretion rather than going and simply applying
the previous treatment they did to a situation
 Different types or people, personality makes every entity unique to each other
Conclusion:The contingency theory simply puts away with the classical theory of
management which says there is one best way to manage, which is popularly also termed as
organisational fit. All the organisation differ from each other in terms of its size, number of
employees, their background, past experience, size of the firm, the type of capital, line of
business, tenure of the company etc., with so much diversification at hand , it’s really
impossible to have one best way to manage a situation/thing/people etc(Burke, 2017) The
management therefore has to keep all these things in mind before evaluation a situation at
hand and only then they can come up with the best solution to manage the situation. Effective
leaders over the years have adopted and practised their own styles to evaluate a situation and
only then have become successful in their profession. Every person is unique and so is people
involved in the situation and also the climate of organisation and the climate of organisation,
hence it becomes imperative to think of unique and different ways that are deemed fit in their
own mind to tackle a situation; else the organisation will fall into the pit of repeated failures.
Hence it can be said clearly “There is no one best way to manage”.

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References:
Burke, W.W 2017, Organization change: Theory and practice, Sage Publications.
Hill, C.W, Jones, G.R & Schilling, M.A 2014, Strategic management: theory: an integrated
approach. Cengage Learning.
Jaber, M.Y 2016, Learning curves: Theory, models, and applications, CRC Press.
Jones, G & George, J 2015, Contemporary management, McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
McAdam, R, Miller, K & McSorley, C 2016, Towards a contingency theory perspective of
quality management in enabling strategic alignment. International Journal of Production
Economics, 14,pp.14-24.
Mikes, A & Kaplan, R.S 2013, Towards a contingency theory of enterprise risk management,
McGraw-Hill.
Otley, D 2016, The contingency theory of management accounting and control: 1980–2014,
Management accounting research, 31, pp.45-62.
Waring, S.P 2016, Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945, UNC
Press Books.