VALUE-BASE(D) MANAGEMENT!!!

The other day I got an SMS from my friend Beena when I was preparing to go to attend a conference on Changes in Management Studies. It reads “The essence of management lies in dropping the last letter of the damn word ‘Management’ and it turns out to be ‘Manage Men’ and if you further drop another letter (as the galls of today drop their attire) it becomes ‘Manage Me’” The first thought that came to my mind was thank God it is ‘manage men’ and not ‘manage women’. Managing men must be easier than managing Women. For Managing women you need some special skills and it is not something which can be easily managed.

Ask any one in the Govt. offices, you will get these routine answers: “Oh! Ladies in the office always have many excuses, they are lazy, they are never punctual, they shirk responsibility, it is quite exceptional to see them working without a prop of Men.” You may call me a little chauvinist for the time being. But we have to examine both sides of the coin to see if it is not a fake currency. Some may add that women are more sincere than men, they are more emotionally attached, they are a pleasant sight at dry and dull working places, and they are good associates and fine team workers.

Okay! I have to come back to the topic of ‘manage men’ which perhaps means if you manage the staff properly you are a good manager and women are also included in this category of ‘men’. Further if you manage yourself that is the essence of management. ‘Manage Me’ has several inherent and obsequious meanings for me. As you can also dare to think that managing others is a little easier task but managing oneself properly and efficiently may be a little challenging affair. In today’s context ‘Manage Me’ takes you to ponder over the recent examples of ‘Manage Me’.

On the same day I got another SMS from my journalist friend and she wrote, “New accounting terminology Act passed by Parliament of Fraud: 1 crore means one khoka, 500 crore means 1 Koda, 1000 crore means 1 Radia,10,000 crore means 1 Kalmadi and 100,000crore means 1 Raja. You got me right. Manage yourself with the best profiting way. This new way of thinking would not reject the importance of the existing systems, but would redesign systems to put ME first. It would create a new system of management that humanizes the workplace in modern sense of the term.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a famous American management guru asserts: "In the past, man was first. In the future, the system will be first." If Taylor is to adapt the Indian system, he has to follow the ‘manage me’ formula which is always infallible in Indian context. Now the funda will be “In the past, system was first, but in the present, man (ME) is first” And it will be proved again that the world is round means we have become ‘globalized’ in true sense of the term, VERBATIM!! Isn’t it! In the past man was first and now in the present man is first. But the sense of the term has changed according to changing time.

That day I again got into the whirlpool of SMSes, and encountered with another sermon like message which reads: “The only place in India where food is cheap, is Indian Parliament Canteen. Can you imagine in Parliament for THOSE poor people who only earn Rs. 80,000/- per month the rates are: Tea 1.00/-, Daal 1.50/-,Meals 2.00/-, Chapati 1.00/-, Dosa 4.00/-, Veg Biryani 8.00/-, Soup 5.50/-, Fish 13.00/-, and Chicken 24.50/-.” They really need chicken in their meals otherwise malnutrition of Melghat will reach there and unnecessary free medical treatment will have to be provided to them in addition to free electricity, free telephone, free house rent, free traveling expenses (Car and Air car both) and free other additional luxuries.

I learnt many new things at the conference which diverted my attention from the text book knowledge that impressed me a lot and taught me, ‘the economic purpose of Value-Based Management is to help empower people and raise their human dignity and quality of life. Its principal means for achieving this end is expanded capital ownership’ but my encounter with new messages was not over and I got a new crisp message on my cell to tell me the practical side of corporate management. This time it was from my old colleague who came to know that I am trying to venture into management field. It was a cryptic advice for me, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at each and every dog that barks…. Better keep biscuits and continue your journey” Dhirubhai Ambani said. And I started pondering over the issue of ‘biscuits’. Biscuits in the new sense of the term are sweet creams and crisps which make your thorny way smoother, swifter, easier and faster than ever before. These biscuits are necessary in each and every field whether it is management or administration. I then remembered of one old saying, “Sweets are the uses of adversity”.

Last but not the least I was advised my good friend to focus on ‘Manage Money’ because he was repenting one thing, he sent me an SMS “ I am famished!!! See the investment returns for one year. Gold 28%, Silver 80%, Crude 40%, Sensex 35% and ONION 880%, Saala 1 lakh ke onion liya hota to is saal NEW YEAR Europe mein manaa raha hota.” What a mismanagement!!!

(Published on 17^th Jan 2011 in Middle Space)