MANAGEMENT STYLES CONTINUES....
Style No. 1.
This is a reasonably old story.
If you happen to feel that, it is about you, the writer is not at fault. You may have to re align yourself. It is not even about your organisation :
Ramesh is a very hard working
employee of an organisation. He would
come to the organisation little early and would leave the office only after
completing the work. His subordinates
were happy with him. They would proactively
undertake the assignments and Ramesh will be with them for anything and
everything. The atmosphere in the
organisation was conducive and there was reasonable growth in business
too. His boss was also happy with
him. His sincerity, integrity and commitment
was unmatchable.
Meanwhile, a famous management
consultant happened to meet the company CEO.
They made a visit to the work place and later informed the CEO that management
techniques in the system needed to be updated and the employees were not
effectively utilised. The consultant
also convinced the CEO that it has got the potential to become the best in the
industry if not the Numero Uno; provided modern management tools were applied.
Impressed with their ideas, CEO
entrusted the work to the management consultant. The fees quoted by the consultant was much on
the higher side, but the presentation made before him about the future was very
much soothing to him. The action plan
submitted by the management consultant, their interaction with all levels in the organisation
was exciting. Glossy reports with flow
charts, thread bear analysis of profitability and projection of the
organisation at the top etc enthralled the CEO.
The management consultants, after 3 days of brain storming, convinced
the CEO and senior executives to set their dreams and goals high. They were made to believe that not able to
dream high is a crime. Another factor they stressed upon, was that monitoring
is the key. Eventually, monitor or
perish became the motto of the company.
But the idea was not fully
conceived by Ramesh and his team. They
felt let down. The harsh words used by
the consultants during the interation like “change or leave the job”, need for
change in attitude, unlearning old practices was not entirely comprehensible to
them, as they were not graduated to
those schools of thinking.
With an element of
dissatisfaction at lower level, the project started rolling out for
implementation. The first stage was
appointing the supervisors to monitor the performance of the employees. A monitoring department was established. Supervisors needed to report to the monitoring
department. A digital board was placed in front of every employee and time left
and task to be completed would get exhibited in graphic form throughout the day. Monitoring department prepared beautiful
reports, trend analysis, projections etc.
CCTV cameras were established everywhere and high-tech punch machines
with biometric features were established.
Coffee meetings, travelling meets, morning walk discussions, tele
meetings, and video conference reviews were the order of the day.
Ramesh and team were in utter
confusion. Unlearn, change, perform was understandable to them, but don’t know
how to go about. They found it difficult
to cope up with the work pressure,that most of their time was spent on meetings,
teleconferences and updating performance data.
Paper work increased manifold.
The earlier jovial atmosphere was replaced with uncertainty,
restlessness and stress and so on. They
forgot their smiles.
The consultants left the organisation
having receiving the hefty fees and took up the consultancy of another similar
organisation. The organisation was made
to believe that they are in the growth trajectory, despite initial set backs. The fall in the business in the initial
stages shall get compensated by the future performances, because the outcome of
new capacity creation would take some time to yield results. It was also suggested by the consultancy that
if the performance of the employees were not up to the required level, they
shall be handled ruthlessly and demonstrative action shall commence immediately and non
performance shall be nipped in the bud.
The high-power committee took a
review of the performance of each department.
The committee chairman reminded the group, the need to take
demonstrative action to send a message to rank and file that the organisation
will not tolerate non performance. The report of the task force on remedial
action was submitted to the high-power committee. The committee had a marathon discussion on
the attitude, lack of motivation and underperformance of Ramesh and unanimously
decided to dismiss Ramesh!! The meeting
also decided to give out of turn promotion to the chief of the Monitoring
department for effectively monitoring and making timely reporting to the higher
authorities..
Young upcoming managers shall
understand that the growth of the organisation is inversely related to the
number of many such hapless Ramesh.
