I have just finished reading three books: "Concept of Corporation" and "The Practice of Management" by Peter Drucker and "My Years With General Motors" by Alfred P. Sloan. I read these books to understand how management as a subject was born and what is management all about actually.
History, I have always believed, has the roots of what we see today and lessons about what to avoid. The central theme that I have picked from these three books is that optimum decentralization with a strong core is the secret of managing growth. Not only it makes managing easier, but also it helps to test and evaluate managers without endangering the whole enterprise. An enterprise that cannot generate its own leaders is bound to run into trouble sooner or later. To generate leaders and retain good people, the company's course of action and its expectations from its people needs to be transparent. This brings us to what Mr. Drucker calls managing by objectives, that everybody in the organization has clearly defined goals and is able to track his progress objectively. The next challenge is aligning the interest of the individual to that of company by helping each person to see the whole rather than one, small, obscure part. Giving people more responsibility and meaningful tasks are the suggested remedies.
The concepts, as simple as they may seem, offer a powerful perspective supported by recent books like "Good to Great" and "In Search of Excellence". This makes me feel that there do exist some basic, common-sense tenets or principles that remain unchanged over time, but still need some experience and wisdom to apply correctly. Perhaps this will keep the management an art known by many and perfected by few.
History, I have always believed, has the roots of what we see today and lessons about what to avoid. The central theme that I have picked from these three books is that optimum decentralization with a strong core is the secret of managing growth. Not only it makes managing easier, but also it helps to test and evaluate managers without endangering the whole enterprise. An enterprise that cannot generate its own leaders is bound to run into trouble sooner or later. To generate leaders and retain good people, the company's course of action and its expectations from its people needs to be transparent. This brings us to what Mr. Drucker calls managing by objectives, that everybody in the organization has clearly defined goals and is able to track his progress objectively. The next challenge is aligning the interest of the individual to that of company by helping each person to see the whole rather than one, small, obscure part. Giving people more responsibility and meaningful tasks are the suggested remedies.
The concepts, as simple as they may seem, offer a powerful perspective supported by recent books like "Good to Great" and "In Search of Excellence". This makes me feel that there do exist some basic, common-sense tenets or principles that remain unchanged over time, but still need some experience and wisdom to apply correctly. Perhaps this will keep the management an art known by many and perfected by few.
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