An extra emotional Manager

Few days back I met with a manager and I found him extra emotional. I have tried a lot to know the reasons for being extra emotional and tried different ways to know the root cause. He was over protective while talking about his team members. Oh !! What an unusual thought process. While talking to him I found that he had never been to a business school and with the passage of the time he has been elevated to the position of a manager. However, he is an individual contributor with talent and lots of skills and promoting such type of people to the position of a manager is nothing but inviting threats to the department and organization respectively.

Managers should work with emotions without being emotional. Otherwise he/she (Manager) can meet with an accident called a failed manager as per the Management experts. Managers should build a team of talented people to make the department working effectively. Getting attached emotionally with the team members is good, but that should not be going up to that extent where Manager looks for ways to hide the mistakes of team members, so that they can be saved.  Doing so the manager thinks that he is doing his best by saving his people. Trust me, this concept never works. In this way the manager stops the team member to build his/her skills further and time comes when the team member will be of no use and will go out dated. At that time he/she(team member)may feel and will accept the truth that it was his Manager who spoiled his/her career. Managers should work with the military philosophy of “Mission first and people always".

Going back to Lord Krishana's management style, Lord Krishna also let Abhimanyu die on the battlefield of Mahabharata to get Arjun more aggressive and will lead the team towards success. Death of Abhimanyu was really a big loss to Pandavas where they were fighting with a ratio of 7:1 with Kauravas and losing a great worrier like Abhimanyu was really not affordable for the Manager of Pandavas(LK) at that time, but it was the need of the seconds of that battle. Lord Krishna worked with emotions but worked without being emotional.

To be contd..........

Bhagwan ShreeKrishna : A Management Guru

28/02/2012

Expert in Rhetoric

As a manager you should be rhetoric

Rhetoric is an art of delivering speeches. Being a good orator is difficult, because this art needs knowledge of many disciplines. The speaker should have knowledge of particular time and occasion; he must know the target audience with whom he interacts. Bhagwan ShreeKrishna was the master of this art.  Oratory skill is an important point of management skill. Let me discuss this through the life of Bhagwan ShreeKrishna.

Lord Krishna was acting like a kid in front of his parents, was behaving like a handsome and smart youth with his friends, he was talking the language of a strategist in the battlefields and was using language of  a diplomat while with the company of other kings. This oratory skills of Bhagwan ShreeKrishna helped him to eliminate the hurdles while he was approaching towards the achievement of his goals.

As a Manager you should be a good orator and should understand the nerves of the occasion for an effective speech. A Manager should posses the knowledge of multiple disciplines so that he can be a good orator.

While working with a team of people you must be agreed with me that you will come across some balck-sheeps inside the team. One of my friends called them as “devils who always deny success”. To overcome such black-sheep a manager should be good orator. So that the manager can be able to make those people understand what is expected from them and when they should deliver and why.

29/02/2012

Choice of a Manager must be in the direction of achieving targets.

In human life one can have many options. Where there is many options a single choice is difficult. However, incase of a single option there is no choice. Choice is determined by the target. You should select a righteous way to attain a righteous target. To reach a pure end one should follow the righteous means, otherwise long time survival is difficult.

Friends ! in a quick success , there may be attraction. A daffodil has much attraction. However, its life span is very short. Hence it can’t be a source of attraction for a leader . There is no future prospect of leadership without stability and a leader has to control emotions to achieve his target. Managers should work with sentiments but should not be sentimental at all as being sentimental may bring hurdles to the path towards achievement of the goals.

Let me justify this through the life of Bhagwan ShreeKrishna. Despite the good nature of Bhishma and Guru Dronacharya, Lord Krishna  employed devices to kill both of them as they were with a wrong side and for a lost cause. Those who support criminals /devils should not get a safe passage. Choice of a manager should be in the direction of achieving targets.


Happy Holi........

A manager should be the master of Time Management.

Bhagwan ShreeKrishna was Master of Time Management; He was very selective in relation to time and timing of all of his activities. It is whether related to governance, diplomacy or war. He also selected the timing of the epic battle of Kurukshetra in right relation to season, soil conditions and availability of food that was the requirement for the huge mass of men and animals used or deployed to fight the Mahabharata war.

Bhagwan Shree Krishna rightly timed his interaction with the pandavas at Panchal at the time of their marriage to Draupadi. Bhagwan Shree Krishna superbly timed his long distance celestial assistance to protect Draupadi from the evil attempts of Duryodhan and his friends.

After the pandavas lost the dice game and were banished to harsh forest life, then Bhagwan ShreeKrishna critically timed his visits to share their problems and pains on one hand and to influence the thought process of Pandavas for future actions on other hand.

Clouding the sun and creating the illusion of sun-set, a few minutes before the sun set due time, he saved Arjun from self immolation on his failure to keep his promise to kill jaidratha. There were so many instances when Bhagwan Shree Krishna managed the time and wisely use the time to advice the Pandavas to conquer Kauravas which was possible only the Manager of Pandavas and with his excellent managerial skills.

Let me share one of my small experience on wise use of time when I faced an interpersonal relationship issue with a team of professionals in one of the well known organization few years back. In my last post I have mentioned the name of a devil as        “Crisis of faith” who created all mess-ups with a team of young smart professionals, that Devil was so cruel and conditioned by-self to hurt people without any second thought. Other team mates do not want to confront that devil; however all were in trouble and pain. It may be due to the reason that no one wants to invite unnecessary troubles to the path of their work or job. As a Manager it was my duty to make people comfortable and confront the devil for what is happening for a longtime by the devil. I was looking for a proper time to come to open the real face of that devil. In a winter morning I got disturbed with a phone call from someone complaining on that Devil and I came out with a thought that it should be resolved to save the team. I had a meeting that indirectly explains the situation and some activities should be stopped without any loss of time as it hampers the productivity of the team and I was managing the time to get a clue from the public on what actually I was trying to explain. Suddenly an young man come out with a little frustration to confront the devil and I have superbly managed that time to clear my views and thoughts on the Devil and explained well on the Devil which needs to be vanished to get a productive environment.

16/03/2012..

A Manager should possess the Art of Managing Difficult people.

If you are a manager and heading a team of people, you will always encounter some difficulties to handle people. Some people represent a concentration of negative intensions and attitudes, primarily non-conducive for smooth working in a team work environment. Managers do have sleepless nights to find solutions for such un-cooperative natured people. Managing such people demands a set of superior skills. Managers should come out with any of the three methodologies, first is to motivate negative people and turn their negative approaches in to cooperative productive action. If the first methodology works then it is good for both the Manager and the team member. Otherwise  to stress them in a manner that dividends from their behavior are turned totally negative and unacceptable to them and their followers. if employment of stressors will not work, then those negative people and their supporters should be eliminated to save others and to make the working environment harmonious. Let me elaborate this with the management techniques of Lord Krishna.

Sometimes, in difficult to handle situations, superiority of the information is employed as a decisive tool, as it was evidenced by Bhagwan Shree Krishna in finding ways of eliminating Bhishma, Drona and Karna in epic of Mahabharat.Bhagwan ShreeKrishna had erected an efficient system of intelligence gathering and analysis in regards to all evils and potential evils and he was fully aware of their capacity and intensions to create obstructions in the job of elimination of evil from the earth.

When Duryodhan was going necked to see his mother as per her advice so that once her mother Gandhari will open her eyes then power can made the body of Duryodhan so strong that it can’t be devastated by any force. Bhagwan ShreeKrishna Intercepting Duryodhan and persuading him to cover at least his minimum private part of his body. Duryodhan done that which saved Bhima’s life when two were in mortal combat at the end of the Kurukshetra battle.

Here, Bhagwan ShreeKrishna taught to the Managers that highly effective approach towards handling of difficult to deal with people, one should know that the most effective way of the same is to employ the right type of stressors, in right quantum and at right time to force a trouble maker deviated from his/her erroneous course.Else eliminate those negative people who never understand and never follow right instructions and also eliminate those who are the supporters of those evils. I had encountered a difficult to handle people while working with an IT conglomerate, let me again say attention to my memory when I have started working in  an organization few years back, again I will call that difficult as “crisis of faith” that devil with  wrong intensions but having a good capacity of persuasion got people with and use one to attack others to satisfy own ego state and when the Devil came to know that her/his ego is satisfied then he/she was out of the loop forcing the other person face the consequences of what he/she had done to others after getting motivated with that Devil’s  wrong persuasion.  Everyone was the next victim of that devil “Crisis of faith”. The devil’s wrong persuasion forced another charming member (came from a respected family) of that team to attack a friend and that lovely member turned as a foe to his/her friend. What a game???. I have implemented right stressors to get that devil caught by the people and when things came in to place it was a painful experience and obvious the result was good. So friends!! Be aware of such type of black-sheeps you may have in your team. Employing right stressors at right time and at right place can be the solution for those people. Bring those negative people in to light, open their ever confusing friendly and helping mask (which is not actual what they are)that confuses others and let people decide what they want to do with that devil.

You may have a question now in your mind about the stressors and how to employ a right stressor, you are advised to write to me with your real life case and no doubt you will get a solution for the same. Again employment of stressors is another important theory of the management that needs to culture.

Your thoughts on this are most welcome..... to be contd...

Lord Krishna : A Management Guru

Dear Readers,

Let me start the discussion on the topic "Management wisdom of Bhagwan Krishna.  Let us discuss the  beauty of Management techniques applied by Lord Krishna.

A Manager should have a GOAL, A Target and Mission . Same was for Lord Krishna . His Goal was "Pritranaya Sadhunaam" - "welfare of positive minded people"

Achieving goal by moving in a positive direction

A Target:

Vinashaya Cha Dushkritam"  - " Elimination of evil"

Achieving target by eliminating negative forces or un-expected hurdles

Mission

"Dharmasanthapanarthaya, Sambhavaami Yuge yuge"- "To establish & strengthen righteousness in every era"