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Management Lesson from the Guru
- By Osuolale Akande
- Published November 2nd, 2009
- Business School
- Unrated
“Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement” Peter Drucker 1909-2005
Background
PETER Drucker was a leader in the management field. Some love him others don’t but all respect him. Mostly referred to as the father of management, he practised what he preach. From General Motors to General Electric to Intel he was instrumental to the growth of these companies and others in one way or the other. But despite all his push for excellence and good remuneration in the workplace he was appalled by the huge pay and bonuses that was going out to the executives. The bulwark of management thinking, for him, should be wrapped around decentralization and simplification; high regards for the workers and the fact that success once achieved should be use as a stepping stone. In other to learn from a master there will be the need to scour the Internet endlessly and ruminate on all the books he wrote and was written about his work. Having done some of this myself I will try and serve this management lesson on five chosen quotations of Peter Drucker.
“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done”
It is the fad nowadays to change strategies at every opportunity, retool structures, add more paperwork, create additional duties and overload workers with non-core duties but in the end a quagmire is created. Value may be generated in the short term but morale will drop, disenchantment will take place, staff turnover increases and instability is increased. Long term objectives are not adequately addressed and the whole organization is threatened by needless friction between the different layers of management. In order not to fall into this rot Peter Drucker belief that management should be diversified and simplified with layers of management minimised to the barest minimum
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”
No matter how some managers try, they always feel that they are not being appreciated. This stems from the fact they are doing things right but they may not be doing it because it is right for all the stakeholders involve. All they are interested in, is fending for themselves and their cronies, although through their deeds the larger society and other stakeholders may benefit, it was never their first intention. The right thing to do as manager may even go against the organization’s objective but if it serve the larger population better, then the right would be assumed to have been done if it was done. The issue of excessive executive pay and bonuses do suffice in this instance, while the drive to achieve higher value for an organization may have a colouration of altruistic motive. The expected gains of operative to the detriment of the organization, other workers, the government and the society need to be questioned in the quest to earn this huge bonuses can be questioned.
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes”
Learning is the key to organizational development but good managers have to learn, unlearn and re-learn; it is a cycle that must continue;there is always a need for new skills to be learnt, old reliable ones to be exposed to new workforce and for strategies to be formulated in a suitable and feasible manner. Organizations need to expose their work force to constant training in order to increase the depth of knowledge that is domicile in an organization. It is not only needed for those in the organization to be trained, it is also good if organization can lend a helping hand to training organization to turn out good materials that will be useful for all. Innovative ideas should form the bedrock of all organization and most of all implicit knowledge should be made explicit.
“Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake”
The inverted pyramid in management is the reality of today and these have helped a lot of organization but the gains will not be fulfilled if leaders still hold on to the idea that they are the only one to make the decisions. Decision making takes place at the different level of management while those decisions taken at senior executives’ level may be long-term, those taken on the lower rung of the ladder may be medium and short term nevertheless the later is as critical to the success of the organization as the former. Customer facing workers take a lot of decisions that may make or mar an organizational long term strategy, mid-level managers implemented strategy and policy therefore they are critical to the success of an organization.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
Look into the future, draw different scenarios of the future and put your organization in the midst of each other then draw an inference on the possibility of your survival. Be prepared to ride the tide when the weather turned hostile, from the internal environment to external environment, each and every components should be scrutinize for possible weaknesses and strength. Most organization fails because they rely too much on their past success in planning for the future that is full of uncertainty but the best way to continue being relevant in turbulent times is to prepare for the worst, for example, what happen if tariffs and tax for your product or service is lowered or raised? What will happen if the whole management of a company was removed or died? In order to be prepare for the future, good leaders should take the 4W1H (What, When, Where, What and How) questioning serious The quotations above from the guru, Peter Drucker, are just few ones that will guide and guard corporate leaders in their quest to excel in their organization and set it on the path of continuous growth. So look around for more and fortify your knowledge with them.
Background
PETER Drucker was a leader in the management field. Some love him others don’t but all respect him. Mostly referred to as the father of management, he practised what he preach. From General Motors to General Electric to Intel he was instrumental to the growth of these companies and others in one way or the other. But despite all his push for excellence and good remuneration in the workplace he was appalled by the huge pay and bonuses that was going out to the executives. The bulwark of management thinking, for him, should be wrapped around decentralization and simplification; high regards for the workers and the fact that success once achieved should be use as a stepping stone. In other to learn from a master there will be the need to scour the Internet endlessly and ruminate on all the books he wrote and was written about his work. Having done some of this myself I will try and serve this management lesson on five chosen quotations of Peter Drucker.
“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done”
It is the fad nowadays to change strategies at every opportunity, retool structures, add more paperwork, create additional duties and overload workers with non-core duties but in the end a quagmire is created. Value may be generated in the short term but morale will drop, disenchantment will take place, staff turnover increases and instability is increased. Long term objectives are not adequately addressed and the whole organization is threatened by needless friction between the different layers of management. In order not to fall into this rot Peter Drucker belief that management should be diversified and simplified with layers of management minimised to the barest minimum
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”
No matter how some managers try, they always feel that they are not being appreciated. This stems from the fact they are doing things right but they may not be doing it because it is right for all the stakeholders involve. All they are interested in, is fending for themselves and their cronies, although through their deeds the larger society and other stakeholders may benefit, it was never their first intention. The right thing to do as manager may even go against the organization’s objective but if it serve the larger population better, then the right would be assumed to have been done if it was done. The issue of excessive executive pay and bonuses do suffice in this instance, while the drive to achieve higher value for an organization may have a colouration of altruistic motive. The expected gains of operative to the detriment of the organization, other workers, the government and the society need to be questioned in the quest to earn this huge bonuses can be questioned.
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes”
Learning is the key to organizational development but good managers have to learn, unlearn and re-learn; it is a cycle that must continue;there is always a need for new skills to be learnt, old reliable ones to be exposed to new workforce and for strategies to be formulated in a suitable and feasible manner. Organizations need to expose their work force to constant training in order to increase the depth of knowledge that is domicile in an organization. It is not only needed for those in the organization to be trained, it is also good if organization can lend a helping hand to training organization to turn out good materials that will be useful for all. Innovative ideas should form the bedrock of all organization and most of all implicit knowledge should be made explicit.
“Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake”
The inverted pyramid in management is the reality of today and these have helped a lot of organization but the gains will not be fulfilled if leaders still hold on to the idea that they are the only one to make the decisions. Decision making takes place at the different level of management while those decisions taken at senior executives’ level may be long-term, those taken on the lower rung of the ladder may be medium and short term nevertheless the later is as critical to the success of the organization as the former. Customer facing workers take a lot of decisions that may make or mar an organizational long term strategy, mid-level managers implemented strategy and policy therefore they are critical to the success of an organization.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
Look into the future, draw different scenarios of the future and put your organization in the midst of each other then draw an inference on the possibility of your survival. Be prepared to ride the tide when the weather turned hostile, from the internal environment to external environment, each and every components should be scrutinize for possible weaknesses and strength. Most organization fails because they rely too much on their past success in planning for the future that is full of uncertainty but the best way to continue being relevant in turbulent times is to prepare for the worst, for example, what happen if tariffs and tax for your product or service is lowered or raised? What will happen if the whole management of a company was removed or died? In order to be prepare for the future, good leaders should take the 4W1H (What, When, Where, What and How) questioning serious The quotations above from the guru, Peter Drucker, are just few ones that will guide and guard corporate leaders in their quest to excel in their organization and set it on the path of continuous growth. So look around for more and fortify your knowledge with them.
