Ten Fundamental and Practical Rules of Management for Chief Management Facilitators !

In today's world, academicians who propagate management research concepts to young aspiring managers in the high end Management Institutes are called Management Gurus (MG). Umpteen hot selling and high priced books written by such MGs not only find their prominence in the academic book stalls, but also in the pull carts of the book vendors of the major railway stations. In my country India, there is a likelihood of a person termed as uncultured and illiterate by the so-called neo-affluent if he or she does not recollect the names of a few MGs and a few Cricketers. 

Because Cricket and Management are the two things where all the money is made, besides the conventional Bollywood. And Indians are very fond of money, apart from being equally fond of spirituality, the latter being the essential  pre-requisite for the former! Even the Martian Spacecraft too would not be allowed to lift off unless the gods are pleased!

In such an environment, all gurus are welcome, so long as they have some magical mantras for money making.

So, there are absolutely no regrets if the Management Institutes raised their fees by ten or twenty fold in just a couple of years. After all that cannot be termed as tuition fees any more. It is some sort of an advance commission to be paid to the facilitators who would make the youngsters equipped with money spinning mantras from their potential future earnings. The higher the fees, the higher the chances of the young boy or girl to get in to a high paying corporate as a talented management team member entrusted with the task of money making. Obviously, for such a recruitment to be effected, the Management Institute has to have a proper placement cell adequately funded and managed by efficient corporate lobbyists. 

Money begets money! That is the first mantra of money making! And also modern management! The more you spend and throw out, the more some one will grab! But this is some thing that the MGs would not tell you openly.

The Management Institute is ranked by the number of students getting placement offers just before they pass out. The term used is campus recruitment. Equally important is the highest annual salary package the fresh manager from the institute is offered by the corporate. If the corporate offer for the fresher is many times more than the annual salary of the top ranking government official of the country, it is news. People have to just sit and wonder about the potential of money making in management!

Many of these young managers would soon become Chief Executive Officers of companies whose sole purpose would be to make money by any means, a good part of that money amassed earmarked for themselves. Some would venture in to the creation of such companies. But interestingly, it would be difficult for the common people to understand what the majority of these companies are doing? It is simply difficult because they make money by manipulation of policies and that is where the big money is, rather than creation of goods and services for the benefit of the people at large. 

Thus Management of the present day has deteriorated as some sort of Manipulation Techniques. Best corporate managers now known as CEOs are best be called Manipulation Technique Experts (MTE)!

Now the fundamental and practical rules of management that I would like to give here are not for the CEOs who are MTEs. 

It is for those CEOs who would prefer to be known as Chief Management Facilitators (CMFs). The abbreviation sounds like EMF, or the Electro Motive Force of applied physics. And in practice, CMFs aka CEOs,  should act like EMFs in a successful organization.

Now, what I would like to give below may not be agreeable fully to the MTE type CEOs. And as I explained, it is not for them. And I am not an MG by any means.

Now let us see what these ten fundamental rules are:

1. The first and foremost importance to any organization should be honest concern for people, both within and outside.[ After all, without people, there is no organization!]

2. The functioning of the organization should be based on a minimum set of objectives which are known to all, but profit making or money making should not be one of those.[If you do things the right way without an intent to exploit or cheat anyone , profit and money would come naturally!]

3. Elaborate written rules and procedures should not be encouraged. Instead, recognize character and competence of every individual honestly. [The more you write and document your rules and procedures, the more you create opportunities for those few who take shelter in those and make holes in your organization! In other words, the more those rule books, the less the chances of you realizing where the rats have started eating those! ]

4. The culture of respecting and honoring other human beings should be encouraged.[But, at the same time, it should not go override to the extent of developing a culture of creating many sycophants who makes the organization's overall atmosphere vicious!]

5. The organization should voluntarily encourage openness and transparency. All essential aspects of its functioning including the details of its people should be available in its website. The organization should consider answering  any public query as important as any other activity.[Replying a question or query politely always is much more than those money draining advertisements!]

6. All managers shall be facilitators and mentors for others. Centralization of authority should be avoided.[If centralization of authority happens, you pay your subordinate managers for nothing!]

7. Delegation of work, authority  and responsibility shall not be imbalanced.[It is human nature to give undue favors to those who show high loyalty , but such favors should not be by delegating more and more authority in the organization regardless of the responsibility and capacity to do work, disregarding others! A chain with weak and strong links would break even with the presence of those strong links!]

8. CMF and all other Management Facilitators should be reasonably conversant with the various functions under their responsibility areas. More importantly they should all know every other person by name and nature with whom they are supposed to work as a team.[ Do not create a situation wherein so many are directly reporting to you that your immediate subordinates have to wait to get an appointment with you. In such a case, you are going to create an organization with weak wings here and there! Those weak wings would cause your failure!]

9. The organization culture shall be slowly built up in such a way that every one feels happy to belong to the organization. A loss of a person should be felt across the organization as a real loss![If you create a frustrated person within your organization and is totally unconcerned with his departure, you are making your organization exposed for the advantage of your future adversaries and competitors!]

10. The culture of honesty should be encouraged.[Dishonest ones might gain unprecedented success sometimes, but would also cause doom and shame sometime later!]

Those organizations which function on the above said principles are found to be in existence healthily for longer duration than those which do not give importance to the above. Such organizations are the successful ones for a longer period. They are the organizations (business or others) which the society and the country could be proud of.

Their CMFs will not pressurize all others down below for quick results. They would not compel their people for achieving their goals by adopting short cuts or at the cost of violation of the laws of the land. In turn, they ensure that they function for the benefit of their clients and the country. They know the law that over pressure would cause bursting!  

They would avoid lobbyists who could manipulate the rules for their own benefits. Greed would not be their driving force of actions.

No doubt, more and more CMF driven companies and organizations would make a country prosperous. Alternatively, MTE driven companies and organizations would drag the nation and its people to disaster.

What do you think?