Fayol's General and Industrial Management - Part 1

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Merril qualifies Henri Fayol (1841-1925) as the Francis Bacon of management literature. His book was product of more than 50 years of the practice and study of management.
Born in 1841, Henri Fayol is a learned and gentlemanly representative of his times, and at the same time, a transformer of such times.
Among many attempts to understand the essence of management, his main work, ADMINISTRATION INDUSTRIELLE ET GÉNÉRALE. Prévoyance. Organisation. Commandement. Coordination. Contrôle., which appeared for the first time in 1916 in the newsletter of an industrial association in his native France, is considered by most specialists as a classic book, remarking a punctual chapter, the one referred to the GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT.

His book was product of 58 years of practice and study of management. His life could be defined as the life of a "Self Made Man". Fayol, Engineer by profession, developed his labor career in a company in the area of the mining industry in his country, where he entered being very young and after being promoted to Mines Manager retired as a Manager Director. He knew how to reorganize the company, expand it s a business and at certain point he managed to save it from bankruptcy.
During his last years he dedicated all his efforts to promote the Science of Management as a fundamental tool for the good performance of all kinds of organizations, whether they were governmental or of any area of the private activity.
It wasn't a simple casualty that the French author and his contemporary, the American Frederick W Taylor, were both Engineers, since in the generally extensive and overpopulated work areas of those times, people with good formation in related topics became necessary to organize and bring rationality to the big companies that appear along with the development of large capitals.