What are managers, what are they supposed to do, and how? We can find out a bit more when we look at the root of the word management. The English term "Management" is coming from old French "ménagement", meaning "conducting", "directing". The contemporary French "ménage" stands for Housekeeping. Management, then, is directing, and it has to do with good housekeeping. There are two word roots in Man-age-ment: "
Man-" and "
agere". The first,
man-, comes from the Latin "
manus", meaning "hand". This comes from Sanscrit "
ma", there meaning "measure". "
Manus" is the hand, our tool for gestures (orchestra conductors use their hands to direct their orchestra) and expression. The hand is used in fight, thus the Latin
manus is often used as "bravery". In Latin,
manus is also an artistic hand and as such can mean "the finishing touch".
The Latin word manus is also the designation for a unit of war, a corps, and generally an organisational body or company. The meaning of manus contains another important insight here: The military corps is the "hand" which executes a military strategy, and similarly a company is understood as the "hand", the organ which executes a strategy and intent. The hand gestures and the hand makes. The latter is contained in "Manu facta" - the root of "manufacture". There is always the danger of overdoing, and so manufacta can be used as "overdone, artificial, fabricated" such as in "oratio manu facta" (oratio = speech) - an overdone, artificial speech.
The second root is the the Ancient Greek "agô"- to carry, convey, bring. In Medieval Latin, ago means "to set in motion, to drive". There it has a multitude of uses such as in se agere - "to set oneself in motion", or simply "to go". "Hoc agere" (hoc = this) then means "to attend to the matter at hand". The word agere converts some preceding nouns to action: It means "to express thanks" when attached to "gratias", when attached to "pacem" (pace = peace) it means "to keep the peace". Agere would also be "to deal with" and can also mean "to take a matter up publicly", "to incite to action", and "to be concerned".
Management combines manus, the directing gesture, with agere, setting into motion. In manus, there is both the meaning of leadership and bravery. In agere, there is the meaning of conveying, pointing at the vital need that managers must be communicators.
