Definition of Managerial Control

In order to oversee business operations properly, managers must exercise effective control, which we can sum up in the term managerial control. This is making the adjustments that allow a business to be successful.

Managerial control is a three-step process starting with the establishment of standards. Establishing standards is essential to this process; without standards, there is no way to measure success, because there’s nothing to compare your performance to. You need to establish those standards. This needs to be made known to the managers, but the standards also need to be made known to the employees, so they know what standards they’re being held to.

Step two is the comparison of performance to those standards. Once you have standards in place, you can see how you’re doing compared to the standards you set up. Employees need to be allowed to know some of the process that goes on to assess their performance. This way, they know what they’re being judged on, so they can tweak their performance accordingly.

Step three needs to be taken immediately after step two, which is action taken to align performance with standards. Managers must react quickly to improve performance. You don’t want to interfere too much in day-to-day operations by fixing your performance. It’s important that you do that very quickly, because every hour, every day that goes by in which you’re not fixing your performance to match up with your standards, you’re going to be hurting the brand and the reputation of that business.