Like his contemporary Frederick Winslow Taylor, he is widely acknowledged as a founder of modern management methods.

Henri Fayol was born in 1841 amidst the great eruption of the industrial revolution in a suburb of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

His father, a military engineer, was appointed superintendent of works to build Galata Bridge, across the Golden Horn.

That same year, aged 19, Fayol started working at the mining company named "Compagnie de Commentry-Fourchambault-Decazeville" in Commentry, in the Auvergne region.

With rich and broad administrative experience, Fayol contributed a lot in turning around the company's fortunes.

In 1916 he promoted his ideas in Administration Industrielle et Générale, at about the same time as Frederick Winslow Taylor published his Principles of Scientific Management.

[11] Fayol divided the range of activities undertaken within an industrial undertaking into six types:- In his original work, Administration industrielle et générale; prévoyance, organisation, commandement, coordination, controle, five primary functions were identified:[11] The control function, from the French contrôler, is used in the sense that a manager must receive feedback about a process in order to make necessary adjustments and must analyze the deviations.