Uncertainty In Management
By Rummuser. Filed in Uncategorized |
The answers to the questions raised in this post will come, hopefully, in the comments box for this post. I am however sure that there will be comments that will provoke thought and perhaps some interesting discussions that may produce the answers. Perhaps even from GLH!
“What Would Dad Say”, is a fascinating blog with some unusual insights posted by G L Hoffman. I have made a habit of visiting his blog to enjoy some humor, some management topics and some odd subjects. GLH’s taste is eclectic as is his knowledge. His diagrams are crisp and say more than words can ever say. None of his posts ever fail to appeal to me. His tag line “Frequently wrong. Never in doubt.” says all that there is to say about his blog!
Recently, GLH wrote about a Management Topic to which I took exception, and you can see his post, my comments and his response to my comments. I suspect that he is just being polite.
The post however got me thinking about my days in Management and this post is about my own beliefs which need not appeal to everyone but, for what they are worth, I give them here. I have not been in active Management for the past eight years and so, I may even be outdated. The principles however, are unlikely to have changed dramatically in the interim.
My ability to articulate my findings have been greatly enhanced by my study of Vedanta, a school of Indian philosophy. The Bhagwat Geetha, particularly has been an inspiration and so has been my Guru’s hammering of some eternal truths into my thick skull. (Another post on the differences between a Guru and a Teacher is on its way!)
In Management, as I find in general life too, there is one thing that we cannot avoid. That is, some kind of action. We cannot just live a life without taking some action or the other. The only exception to this rule is when we are in deep sleep. Even when we are in the dream state, I would call the process of dreaming as action. From waking up, getting up, brushing our teeth and so on and so forth, we are constrained to be in some kind of action, physical or mental in our waking and dreaming state. All our actions are also with an outcome firmly held in our minds and expected to accrue as a result of the action that we take. Even brushing our teeth, though may become routine and which we do not think about, is done with a view to a obtaining a result, which could be hygiene, prevention of disease etc.
All actions therefore are taken with an end result in mind and undertaken either consciously, or as a habit and even unconsciously. An example for the last could be lighting up a cigarette without even being conscious of doing so.
For the purpose of this post, which started off, because of the post on Management in GLH’s blog, I shall restrict myself to those actions that we take consciously and with a result or outcome in mind.
To undertake any action, we need
• knowledge,
• skill and
• effort.
These three factors can be fine tuned to a great extent by training, repetition, and application/ discipline. With these three inputs, we complete taking the action and expect a desired outcome.
The outcome of any action however can be only of one of four possibilities.
• Get the opposite of what was expected,
• Get more or less than what was expected,
• Get something completely different to what was expected and
• Get what was expected.
It is common sense, and not rocket science, that these possibilities are the ones that we live with on a day to day basis.
Since any one of the four possible outcomes can become a reality for us, we must be prepared to accept whatever comes. If we are prepared thus, a lot of avoidable emotional upheavals can be eliminated from our lives.
The three inputs, knowledge, skills and effort by themselves however, are not adequate to produce any result for an action. There is the fourth dimension to this paradigm and that is the uncertainty aspect, which I call ‘chance’ or divine intervention. Since I am a believer, for lack of a better alternative, I accept whatever comes my way, arising out of actions taken by me, as the Lord’s grace and get on with the next project. Once the outcome has become a reality, my famous tag-line, ‘Wisdom By Hindsight’ comes into play, and forms the basis for my ‘knowledge, skills and effort’ inputs for my next endeavor increasing the chances of getting the desired result with the same inputs the next time around.
This was the point that I was making in my comment in the post where I had said that flexibility and doing one’s best under the given circumstances is all that one can do. All wisdom coming from the so called experts is by hindsight, given a certain set of circumstances. Unfortunately, the circumstances and the people involved keep changing all the time, or at least most of the time, and this is why ‘Managers’ are needed in any case!
No amount of formal education in Management, or Economics, both of which I had acquired, can prepare one for the uncertainties of actual Management. If they could have, we would not be in the kind of mess that we are in now would we? We should never have failures at all, should we not? Just take a look at books like “In Search Of Excellence” by Tom Peters, or “Good To Great” by Jim Collins. Companies that were doing well, admired and the authors extolled, fell flat within a few years of being written about! If all this is true, why do we then continue to have fancy colleges and universities teaching these subjects and why do students study them and employers, hire such students?
Absolutely,’The’ last paragraph. – I took the advice of Jean and cut pasted the original last paragraph as the first paragraph for this post. I think that the effect is really startling. What do you think?
Sunday, May 24th 2009 at 20:36 |
Hmmm. Sounds like a great argument for the bureaucratic procedure of allocating management jobs – and raises – to those who didn’t make any waves during the previous decade?!
Looney´s last blog post..
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:44
Ah, yes, your pet peeve about the bureaucrats who are expected to save the economy by increasing their own numbers! Perhaps the two of us should offer our consultancy to your Governor!
Sunday, May 24th 2009 at 22:26 |
Why do they do it? For the same reason the ancients used to sacrifice to the gods, in the hope of gaining some control over our lives.
Jean Browman–Cheerful Monk´s last blog post..Beginning With the End in Mind
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:42
That is precisely the point Jean. Why control?
Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 23:20
My guess is you can answer that for yourself if you look deeply at your reaction to terrorism. From what I’ve read, you would probably like to control future Mumbai attacks, for instance.
Jean Browman–Cheerful Monk´s last blog post..I’ve Been Thinking…Again
Rummuser Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 20:55
No, I expect that it is likely to happen again and when it does, I shall simply do what I can at that point of time. I have no control over whether what action I have already taken will result in no more attacks or whether I will react differently when and if it does happen again. I cannot control the outcome any more than I can control Osama Bin Laden.
Monday, May 25th 2009 at 00:18 |
Yes, the summary is good at the beginning—& at the end too, to pull the piece together.
My father was successful at managing a small company. But he became a Chemical Engineer first. Basically college teaches one to THINK.
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:41
That is another problem about which I shall be writing later. A small hint had been given in an earlier post. A good Engineer’s contribution to the firm can be lost if he is promoted to Management!
bikehikebabe Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 19:22
That makes sense.
He wasn’t promoted. He formed his own company.
bikehikebabe Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 19:48
I forgot to say that going from engineer to manager causes the Peter Principal. In a hierarchy a person is promoted to his level of incompetence.
My father made a lot more money than if he was an engineer in someone’s company. To make money in business you make or provide a service that is needed & nobody else is doing. That’s the best business.
Rummuser Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 21:01
I am sorry that I did not make myself clearer. I do not say that Engineers cannot make good entrepreneurs or good managers. Some do, but most do not. Let me take another example of hospital nurses, if you ask them to attend to paper work so that they can expect promotions, what you are really doing is to make poor nurses and good administrators. This happens at the cost of patient care. That is one profession where career growth is limited and we have to find ways of keeping them motivated. Management by and large blunders around. You might like to read my guest blog in GL’s blog – http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2009/05/27/one-out-of-1140153913-ramana-rajgopaul/ for some more insights.
Rummuser Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 21:02
Please see my response in your other comment.
Monday, May 25th 2009 at 06:19 |
Rummy–thanks for the call out.
I have to think on this post for a while. It deserves that.
GL HOFFMAN´s last blog post..Pick Up Lines That Work on TV
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:40
Take your time.
Monday, May 25th 2009 at 22:09 |
Hi Ramana: I liked the four possibilities of outcomes that you outline. The best managers ( including those not running companies ) are those that accidentally manage such that the outcomes are more or less what they expected or exactly what they expected. Management therefore should be undertaken such that the accidental probability of getting these two possible outcomes only is increased; unfortunately, management schools do not concentrate on that. Your management style based upon the Geeta is probably the best method; and I am learning this as I get more mature in business. Unfortunately, modern times discounts people that present this serene method of management. For the very same reason, all stock market predictions are baseless since the most important variable, being the human mind, is totally unpredictable. This is an absolutely fabulous post. And I am afraid my comment is becoming too long. Thank you for choosing an intellectually stirring topic.
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:39
I am very happy that you have commented and I hope that you will do so more often. Thank you for the comments.
Monday, May 25th 2009 at 23:01 |
I agree with most of what you have said, Mr. R, except for one thing. I have had bosses who often took no action (I am using the word in the same context that you did). When confronted by a problem, they often did nothing (i.e. – took no action) – in the fervent hope that the problem would either be solved by someone else or just go away! Sometimes, this approach worked, while at other times it did not.
Regarding the four outcomes you mentioned in your post as well as the statement “Since I am a believer, for lack of a better alternative, I accept whatever comes my way”, I am reminded of a statement a friend of mine once made; he said – LIFE IS UNFAIR, AND IF YOU CAN DEAL WITH IT, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE HAPPY.
Life IS unfair, and there are indeed different ways to deal with it!
Sandeep Gupta´s last blog post..India: Why the Opposition Matters
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:27
Not taking action is in fact taking a decision which is an action, not to take action. This is precisely what Arjuna wanted to do and Krishna shot him down to pieces.
Calling life unfair is being judgmental. Vedanta teaches you not to be.
Monday, May 25th 2009 at 23:51 |
Good post about management and thank for sharing. This is an interesting topic for me because related to my job now.
After involved in the real world of work, I also feel there is no exact formula from where I studied economics that can be applied perfectly as in mathematical.
Once I ever met a successful businessman who only graduate at high school. In our relax talking, I praise him: “You succeed in business and could be said has beat many economic scholars”. He replied to me: “Because they don’t know its art”. That is the answer which I always remember.
tikno´s last blog post..Mother’s Day – A Tribute for Mother
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:25
Tikno, you are a treat you are. Your successful businessman friend must be a wonderful man. You are lucky to have such people in your life.
Tuesday, May 26th 2009 at 05:31 |
Rummy, I have no comment on this post. The only thing I manage is my “cat” and she does not give a “damn” about my “knowledge, skill, or effort!” She just walks away from me and is thinking “@#$% you”!
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:24
What about the two kangaroos in the back seat of your car? What do they have to say about it? Or do they manage you?
Tuesday, May 26th 2009 at 08:06 |
Although I don’t know anything about professional management, but I know its importance. And this post is somehow sad.
Rummuser Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 16:23
Grace, I could not have put it any better. Yes, Management is sad.