Manisha Mane

Management is, we suppose, principally about getting things done. Then the argument
goes that if you are aware of the options and have some knowledge of what
management is supposed to be about, being better informed leads to better action.
Is that really the case?
There are enough infamous case studies to show that the supposedly best informed
can still contrive to bring about the greatest disasters: the charge of the Light Brigade,
Three Mile Island, forecasting the great storms of 1987, the Tacoma bridge disaster—
all lessons in disregarding information in favour of what? Hunch? Gut reaction? An
innate misguided infallibility? Or just the inability to see the worst case scenario as a
possibility?
There are some lessons from disaster management that do not fit easily with the
natural human predilection towards first-hand trial and error:
1. Don’t rely solely on either past experience, or new technology
2. Don’t be blinkered by your own expectations or the limitations of your own
experience.
3. Use your own judgement in co-ordination with your experience to halt the dangers
of information overload or paralysis by analysis.
4. Pay close attention to the environment you are working in and understand the
factors which can lead to success or failure.
However, we digress, and stray a little far from defining management. Simple, really:
getting things done—usually by others—successfully or not. Yes, we can hark back to
planning, co-ordination, scheduling, organisation, control, review, etc. So much has
been assimilated—or ignored—from the past.
But this is the age of the sound bite, something short and catchy but which actually
means something to the person who will put it to practice. Achievement of objectives
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through other people sounds fine, but it fails to communicate any sense of the range
and depth of issues that management can involve.
Management can be messy and ordered, inspirational and controlled, creative and
dictatorial. It is about planning, acting, checking and reviewing; it’s also about instinct
and taking risks. It is about not jumping in the deep end without a life jacket, and
about not checking every conceivable possibility so that you miss the boat altogether.
Bypassing the debate on leadership, management is about both doing things right and
doing the right thing. It also embraces the opposites, and maybe that makes it bad
management, but it’s still management.
Let’s come at it from a different angle. Does management conjure up positive or
negative vibes? Consider the following and score them good or bad, exciting
or…otherwise:
• performance appraisal
• disciplinary procedure
• breakfast meeting
• financial disaster
• invisible trade
• human capital
• critical-ratio analysis
• creative strategy
• simple regression analysis
• complex adaptive systems
• death by misadventure
Where does all this leave us? So much of good management practice is obvious
common sense that it looks banal when expressed in descriptive sentences. For
example:
• Circulate an agenda before the meeting
• Treat people like grown-ups and they will respond like grown-ups
• Communicate goals clearly
• Do unto others….
• Look before you leap…
People seem to behave this way more or less naturally at home, managing their
domestic affairs more or less reasonably—most, if not all, of the time. But what
happens when they find themselves in an organisation? More often than not, common
sense seems to go AWOL in favour of cultural necessities, custom and practice,
protocols, and other quirks typical of organisations, which mean that you operate to a
certain behaviour or code which is quite different from the way you do things at
home. Why is this? McGregor, Likert, Herzberg, Maslow, Tom Peters, Edgar Schein,
and thousands more have all tried to understand and explain it.
The key factor seems to lie in the organisation itself—we need organisations to create
and service customers, and we can’t have organisations without management.
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And organisations work well if we get the management right. (Not necessarily—but
they’ll arguably have a better chance.)
Getting management right isn’t so straightforward when it comes down to people
dealing with other people. This is the nightmare. It’s an overwhelming opportunity for
getting it wrong. Human relations isn’t nearly as basic as quantum physics or brain
surgery, with laws and scientific method to follow.
So is management an art or a science. F.W. Taylor’s scientific management
dehumanises when it goes to extremes. Elton Mayo’s Human Relations approach
becomes too country-club when pushed to extremes. Simple solution: don’t go to
extremes—unless or until you have to. How do you know when is the right time to go
to extremes? It’s probably when things have got so bad that you’ll go under if you
don’t. How come you go under? Bad management. What else can you do? Guess,
bring about change, and upset most of the people most of the time.
So, we go round in circles, which is probably about right. Let’s finish on something
clear:
What management isn’t: voluntarily riding a bicycle without lights down a dark
tunnel, your hands tied behind your back, oncoming train in sight.
What management has been: getting someone else to ride the bike, and then blaming
the consultant.
What management might be: choosing an alternative route or means of delivery.