Fundamental principles of coordination have been enunciated by Mary Parker Follet, focusing on the following aspects:
1. Direct Control:
Direct personal contacts help to coordinate activities of different individuals. It helps in bringing agreement on different managerial actions and decisions duly clarifying possible misunderstandings of employees.
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Therefore, direct contact is considered as the most important principle of coordination.
2. Early Start:
To achieve success, coordination is more effective in the early stages of planning and policy framing. Through coordination, employees are involved in these two processes, which because of its essence of participation, enhances commitment from employees. Coordination at the execution stage is not effective obviously because people working in organization lack their commitment for their non-involvement.
Therefore, direct contact should start right from the beginning so that all cross-sections of employees working in an organization are made aware about the plans and programmes beforehand. This ensures proper execution of the plans.
3. Reciprocity:
This principle of coordination requires relating men, materials and environment with the organizations reciprocally. In a total situation, all factors are reciprocally related. To illustrate, when A works with B and B in turn works with C and D, all of them are influenced by the others and, therefore, contribute to the total situation. Due to this reason, the principle of reciprocity is important for coordination.
4. Continuity:
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Coordination is a continuous process. It never ends. This is because the ultimate aim of coordination is to achieve organizational goals, and every organization operates in a dynamic environment. Hence, environmental forces, which set the competitive arenas for an organization, are to be aligned with the organizational goals, which keep on changing. Every manager, therefore, constantly works to achieve coordination. This is why the principle of continuity is so important for coordination.
Apart from the above principles, enunciated by Follet, we can also list following important principles of coordination:
i. Principle of pervasiveness
ii. Principle of unity of action
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iii. Principle of subordination of individual interest to organizational interest
iv. Principle of unity of command and direction
v. Principle of teamwork
vi. Principle of mutuality
vii. Principle of employee-ship
viii. Principle of synergy
ix. Principle of integration
x. Principle of interdependence