A layman's view. Review on General Thoughts on Management

• “The art of getting things done through people “-Mary Follett

Management is derived from a Old French word meaning * The art of  conducting and directing * which in turn is derived from a Latin word * manu agree * means “to lead by hand”.  Though there are many definitions of management, the broad consensus is that  Management involves leading and directing all or part of an organization or business through deployment and manipulation of resources( human, financial, material).

Now I am not a management student, and I am a hard core techie, more comfortable with debugging code or  trying to find technical solutions to business problems. So let me make it clear what I am putting out here is only a very lay man’s understanding of management, as most of the management jargon and terms just go over my head. What I am putting out here are observations based on my experience of 5 years in the IT field.

Ability Quotient or AQ- The ability of a  manager to understand the issues, requirements and how effectively is he able to get things done or resolve a critical problem.

  Emotional Quotient or EQ-The extent to which a manager is able to understand the emotional needs of his subordinates and empathize with them in their problems.

Now if we categorize al managers as per AQ & EQ. We would be getting something like this.

Type 1- Having AQ as well as EQ- The best kind of manager who is able and efficient in his work, and at the same time is emphatic to his subordinate’s needs. He tries to understand their problems and such managers don’t have problem in getting the best.

Type 2- Having AQ, but no EQ-These managers are pretty much able, and have a very good knowledge. But they are a nightmare for their employees. They treat their subordinates like slaves and forget the fact that they are human beings. No better than the galley owners of  Ancient Roman slave ships.

Type 3-Having EQ, but no AQ- These people are not very efficient, nor having a good knowledge of their domain. But they do empathize with their employees and try to understand their problems. Good men but not the sort whom you would turn to in  a crisis.

Type 4- No AQ, No EQ- The worst of all, the scum of the corporate world. They have no ability at all, don’t even know the basics of what they are supposed to do, and WHAT IS WORSE is try to cover up their weaknesses, by bullying their employees. And yes if the team does well, these scumbags have no compunction at all in taking all credit, and if things turn out bad, they look for the scapegoats. Total losers who try to pass the buck on to some one else.

If we take a look at corporate world, Type 1 managers make up hardly 10%, type 2 and 3 managers make up around 30%, but a whooping 60% is made up of  Type 4 managers. Yes THIS IS THE TRUTH AND THE WHOLE BITTER TRUTH.  Most of the guys who call themselves as Managers belong to the Type 4 category and its worse in IT sector, where many so called Project Managers don’t even have the basic knowledge.  Most of them became Managers just by ingratiating themselves with the senior managers and the number of truly good managers in a company can be counted on one’s fingers.  The fact is in spite of all the  talk about  Indian companies becoming competitive in the global world, most of the Indian companies even the so called professional  IT companies are nothing but a glorified and more glitzy version of  the * sarkari * office. And most of these guys who call themselves managers are no better than those old fogies you come across in most of the Govt offices. The only difference is these people wear ties and suits, speak in an accented English and boast of some fancy degrees from some fancy institutes, but the basic quality of management is pathetically bad. Am I being too critical? Well here are some points on why I feel  most of the managers in the corporate sector in India( I haven’t worked abroad, so cant comment on the quality there) are no better than the babus in our Govt offices.

Putting square pegs in round holes - Many managers whom I have come across, have just no idea what are the strengths and weaknesses of their employess. They just pick up some one and don’t even see whether the person has the expertise for the job and expect the employee to deliver. And most of the cases when the employee struggles or is unable to do the work properly, they just make the person the scape goat, nicely saving their seat. I had seen a case myself in one of my projects when people who were basically  Accounts student were asked to do Database work and a person who had experience in Java programming was asked to design screens. You might talk of flexibility but that comes when you have some sort of knowledge of the field. You could ask a commercial flight pilot to fly a cargo aircraft, but you would never put him in charge of an F16 would you.

No planning, no analysis - Most of our managers are so eager to win the gora saheb’s(the US or European client) praise, that they just agree to every ludicrous proposal put forth by them, without doing a proper analysis of the terms and conditions. The result  projects with impossibly tight deadlines, tough requirements to fulfil, long hours of work to beat the deadlines, results not up to expectations and ultimately resulting in employees becoming discontented. I have sat myself with some of these managers during meetings, and  the only thing I see these jokers doing is nodding their head in response to whatever the phoren client says, and then showing off in front of them whenever the gora sahibs arrive.

No domain knowledge - Would you put a guy in a charge of a plane if he has never flown one in his entire life? Would you trust your car mechanic if he has no knowledge about the car he is supposed to repair? Why you would never want to be lectured by some one who doesn’t have a basic knowledge of their subject at all? Then why in a supposedly “Knowledge Intensive “ economy, we have managers without any knowledge of what they are supposed to do. No better than the babus in our Govt depts. Who only push files around. Most of these managers are a little more sophisticated, they send emails around. And whats worse many boast about their dumbness? “Yes I don’t know anything about this, but see I know how to get things done “. What it effectively means, see I am a loser, don’t know anything, but I can bully people to get things done.

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