Management is an Art:Any Tom, Dick and Harry Can't be a Good Manager!

"The wise and all powerful beings who are responsible for the universe management undoubtedly know exactly what they are all about" 

[The Urantia Book 65:5.3]

First let me make some distinction about the word management. The word when used as a verb means the 'act of managing some work'. Here managing means accomplishment of an objective successfully. Management when used as a noun can have several meanings. It could mean the team of people who manage a business organization or the academic study topic that covers the principles of management.

I consider success in fulfilling the objective is an important aspect of management. Thus, when an act fails to fulfill its objective, I would say it was with no management. Thus success is directly linked to management. No success, then there is no management! It is not required to specifically qualify management as poor or bad or improper. At least that is the way I consider it, though it is now common for people to call some managements in that manner as failed objectives in tasks and businesses are becoming more and more common.

A person who accomplishes a task or a business or a project or a mission successfully is a good manager. His or her management of the task was good. If a team of managers sustain a business successfully, then they form a good management.

So for accomplishing success in our missions or tasks or projects or businesses, we need good managers to manage those. 

But the question is whether all people can be good managers always? Unfortunately, all are not good managers. Good managers seem to be a rare breed in the world today. Otherwise we would not have been encountering failed missions or tasks or businesses or projects very often around us!

I do not consider task masters who accomplish the work or task or business with apparent success for some time as good managers! They are clever pseudo managers with good knowledge and intelligence but with no ethics, character or honesty or compassion to other human beings. The success they seem to achieve are temporary in nature only to become huge failures at a later date! Their success is not sustainable! And non-sustainable success is no success at all!

It is possible to train or educate a person giving him or her some insight in to some qualities and skills that may prove beneficial for a person to become a good manager. But this alone need not make a person a good manager. Even people with no formal education also could be good managers! Management qualities are partially inherent and partially acquired by experience and observations.

Just as any person cannot be a good artist, just any person cannot be good manager. Management is essentially an art! It is the art of getting the resources optimally to accomplish the mission successfully. The resources are the people who do various kinds of works, the money, the materials, etc. Some observers often call the resources as the 3 M's (Men, Money and Materials).

In the resources, the men (and women) who form the work force are the most important factor. That is because the people are the only item that are living and have the ability to act independently with their own intelligence and thoughts.

Therefore, a good manager is the one who knows the art of making others work in unison for making the task a success. With the help of the people, the manager should get the best from the available money and materials.

For finishing the task successfully, it may be necessary to divide the main task in to many sub tasks and assign each of the sub tasks to the people so that each of those tasks are managed well. Thus, the people working for the manager for a particular task become associate or assistant managers for the sub tasks. The manager has to ensure that all the people in the team manage their own shows well towards the overall success of the main objective.

But how does the manager ensure that each of the people turn themselves to become good managers for their own tasks? It becomes a tricky job. The manager needs to delegate the task properly with due diligence! The right man for the right task will make things easy. Otherwise, the management becomes a mess! Indeed, this part is an art. The skill needed is the art of understanding people and the art of delegation of tasks to the right people.

Many people think it is a very simple thing. What is the difficulty in assigning work to the people? I agree, there is not much difficulty for that. The difficulty is in getting the work successfully accomplished. When the work or tasks are assigned the wrong manner, the overall task would never get managed. It will not be a success!

A manager is a person who knows the strengths, weaknesses, character and other personality traits of the people well and possess the leadership and authority to assign work honestly according to his assessments. Not only he knows the art of delegation, but also knows how effectively he communicates with his team.

While he possesses the power to interfere in the sub-tasks as assigned to the individuals in his team, he avoids using that power. A driver can use the control pedals and steering of a car the way he likes. But when he does that too often without any justification, he becomes a bad driver! Similarly, a manager who often interferes with the assigned tasks of his team members is a bad manager! A bad manager can lead the organization to mismanagement accidents that could be fatal to the organization!

There are many more things in management. Only good managers can find and judge other good managers. Someone who assigns the management task to any Tom, Dick and Harry can't be a good manager himself! 

Assigning tasks to the right people is the prime task in management. If this is done, success is at least half accomplished!

People say, India is a country which is poorly managed. If it is so, the reason is very simple. 

The people of India lack managerial abilities. They do not recognize the importance of assigning the right people for the right job! Perhaps they also do not understand the technique of judging and picking the right people or the good managers for the various managerial tasks of the nation!

It is my simple opinion. I am not sure what you might say!