Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Russell C. Swansburg (1996) Management and Leadership for Nurse Managers, p. 1
“

To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To foresee and plan means examining the future and drawing up the plan of action. To organize means building up the dual structure, material and human, of the undertaking. To command means binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. To control means seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed demand.

— Henri Fayol on Management theory

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To foresee and plan means examining the future and drawing up the plan of action. To organize means building up the dual structure, material and human, of the undertaking. To command means binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. To control means seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed demand." in the context of "Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Russell C. Swansburg (1996) Management and Leadership for Nurse Managers, p. 1" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Management theory" (Quotes: Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author, A - F) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Henri Fayol

About Henri Fayol

Henri Fayol (29 July 1841, Istanbul – 19 November 1925, Paris) was a French mining engineer and director of mines who developed a general theory of business administration.