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'Management Study - Percept by percept, Line by Line and a little here, a little there'Bold text

Definition of Management

Management is a vast field of study. It cannot be merely studied during the short period of study in a business school. In the business school, merely the managerial principles and theories are taught. The real management study starts only after the student joins an organization or begins his own business. There are millions of companies - small, medium or big, departmental stores and shops, NGOs, Government or international organizations. Management in each organization is unique and distinct from other organizations. The management principles or techniques may be the same. But the behavior of the company or its culture is definitely unique in itself. As such, the management study is a vast and continuous one for any student. The student continues to be a management student even at the time of his or her superannuation.

Science is a systematic study of anything that can be examined, tested, and verified. The word “science” is derived from the Latin word scire, meaning “to know '. Management study is a systematic study of behavior of employee and of employer in business transactions. We can examine, test and verify it. As such, management is a science. Management as science is a growing phenomenon. The behavior of the employees and of employers cannot be predicted or static. It keeps changing, company to company, organization to organization, people to people, culture to culture.

A business school student can deeply study the management only when he or she is involved in the management activity and not during the study period being spent in the environment of a business school.

Management simply means ethically managing human and material resources and time. It does not mean merely acquiring knowledge in a superfluous manner. The best educational institutes or the business schools in the world impart knowledge to the students in a superfluous manner during the period of study, ranging from 3 to 5 years. The educational institutes or the business schools acquire brands over a period of time just because of their locations in affluent nations or because of the high price tags of tuition. Of course, these “elite” institutions use latest technologies in imparting education, contrary to the medieval tools of learning. But the quantum of output does not match the quantum of input. The output of any education, be it undergraduate level or postgraduate level is measured in terms of ethics and values that the students would imbibe during the course of study and would apply the same during the course of employment or work after the study.

Practices more than mere theories

Acquiring mere knowledge in a superfluous manner which cannot be practically put to use during the course of employment or business is tantamount to drawing a picture of apple on a sheet of paper which cannot be eaten. Of course, during the course of the study, the students would have been exposed to various kinds of field work or projects which might not be relevant to the field of employment chosen by him after the study. The students must have acquired knowledge on theories in management which might be useful to them to some extent. The analytical minds of the students must have undergone a great change during the course of study which may stand them in good stead in their places of employment or business. But, on the whole, acquisition of knowledge on management principles or management jargons and sharpening of analytical minds can be made at a lesser cost through educational institutes wedded to values and ethics and not to Mammon of Unrighteousness.

In India, Govt. of India deputes its officers for study in business schools like Wharton, etc. But, the officers who had undergone these courses cannot implement in their functional areas what they had learnt.

In Tamil language, there is a proverb. Whatever you learn is limited to the palm of your hand and whatever you have not learnt is compared to the world which you cannot hold in your hand. A student after his or her formal study in an educational institution learns more on his or her job using the “little” knowledge that he or she has gained during the course of study. A student produced by the Wharton business school or the Indian Institute of Management cannot be considered to be perfect or complete in knowledge after the completion of the course.

In 28th chapter of Isaiah in the Holy Bible, we can learn a great truth about the process of learning. “To whom will God teach knowledge? And whom will He make to understand the message? Those who are babies, just weaned from the milk and taken from the breasts? Is that what He thinks we are?

For it is (His prophets) repeating over and over]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little. (Verse 9 – 10)

Another translation i.e. New International Version says, “To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For it is: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there.”

Tables covered with vomit

In the preceding verse 8 of the same chapter, we find that all tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without filth”. In other words, all places where such persons (false prophets) have taught are filled with errors.

Today, we find that the curriculum of study is copied down for centuries together. The tools of learning are also copied down, institution to institution, college to college, university to university. The whole table of learning is full of vomit. If one author vomits something from his brain, it is used by another author in a camouflaged manner. The “higher education” goes with a higher price tag. If a professor has earlier worked for a renowned business school, he is hired by another business school for a higher price tag. It is merely commercialization that we call “the best technique of teaching”.

Our modern universities recruit teachers who present a picture of apple on a computer screen which cannot be consumed. The students after their joining their favorite companies or taking up professions or business ventures would produce real apples only after acquiring “on the job” skills.

Long term goals of Productivity and Sustainability

There is a craze by the MNCs to go in for campus recruitment to select the “best intelligent candidates” who are result-oriented. But, after some years of recruitment, these candidates would show their true colors as they would try to migrate to the “best” companies tagged with a higher price. The cost of training and recruitment would go down the drain. “Intelligent” students with high IQ without character or integrity are the products of modern educational institutions. They are being taught how to manage human and material resources and time for producing results. But they are not being taught how to ethically manage human and material resources and time for the sustainability of the business and for the productivity of the organization. They are motivated for the short-term “profits” or “immediate results” and not for the long term “productivity” and ”sustainability” of the business. Business Dictionary defines productivity as a measure of the efficiency of a person, machine, factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs. Productivity is computed by dividing average output per period by the total costs incurred or resources (capital, energy, material, personnel) consumed in that period. Productivity is a critical determinant of cost efficiency. How can we measure the productivity of an organization being run by managers who do not have integrity and who are not devoted to their work looking for personal gains in every business transaction or for “green pastures” elsewhere?

In the long run, the business has to be sustained in face of competition, environmental issues, human rights violations, etc. It has to withstand the recession of the industry and to abide by the public policy of the local government and by the international laws on ecological sustainability and ethical and human rights aspects.

Productivity and sustainability come about through the ethical and efficient functioning of the managers.

The students studying in these elite business or educational institutes learn a life style of lavishness and consumerism. When they find jobs in the corporate houses, they would not mind spending company’s funds lavishly and leading a lavish life style. They do not care for the financial sustainability of the company. They become parasites on company’s finances in due course misappropriating the same using their high IQ which they have learnt in business schools.

Babes as weaned from mother’s milk

With the above background in mind, let us learn management principles from the scriptures.

The companies intending to employ the students have to teach the latter like little children, weaned from the mother’s milk. Once the students come out of their business schools, they become weaned from the mother’s milk. The employers should treat their probationers as babies, just weaned from the milk and taken from the breasts. The probationers are just babies who weaned from the milk of their mothers, likened to the institutions in which they studied. They have been breastfed in colleges. They have just seen the apple on computer screens. They have to produce the apple seen by them. The professors who had shown them the apple on computer screens did not teach them as to how to produce the same in the real world. The professors have merely taught them the principles of sowing the seeds, transplanting the newly sprouted seedling to a larger pot and watering the young plants daily and finally producing the apples. If the professor had really worked as a farmer, then he or she would have been in a better position to teach the students practically by taking them to his farm. In the educational institutions like business school or an engineering college, a professional who has really worked as a business executive or an engineer, as the case may be, would be better equipped to mentor the students.

Presuming that the students have been taught theories and not practices, the companies have to take the responsibility of teaching the probationers or the recently recruited employees. This may even involve “the unlearning process” because the candidates recruited from the educational institutions should be subject to the orientation and ethics programs, both short term and long term, which would really help them in unlearning what they had been taught in an irrelevant and superfluous manner. No employer would know what the probationers had been taught through their curriculum.

First of all, treat the probationers as the babes that weaned from the mother’s milk. You have to give them dietary food or hard food to be digested by them. Character building at the entry stage of recruitment is the first step to their induction. The second step is to train them on their jobs.

“Do this, does that” – Percept by percept

For our instruction in the management, it is needful that the same precept and the same line should be often repeated to us, that we may the better understand them.

You have to give the probationers positive commands and not negative commands. If you attempt to tell them not to do a certain thing, it will curb their initiative and they will be afraid of taking decisions. The supervisors who teach the probationers have to clearly give positive instructions. If the probationers commit mistakes, then the supervisors have to correct them.

“Rule for this, Rule for that” – Line by Line

For doing a thing or performing a particular managerial function, there should be a clear procedure or rule. A particular function is underlined by a rule. You have to teach them percept by percept. Teach them one function at a time so that they can understand the same. You should not rush to the second line of function when the probationer has not succeeded in the first level of function.

The rule should be easy to understand. It should not be complex.

“A little here, a little there”

The probationers should be taught “a little here, a little there”. About the functional area, “a little” needs to be taught. “A little here” means a little knowledge from the functional area. A probationer automobile engineer needs to be taught the production process in the plant by putting him in the first line of production which is performed by a worker or a technician. In the organization where the author had served, he found that the young electrical engineers recruited for maintaining and running the power transmission system were posted in the corporate or the regional headquarters as these young engineers coveted white collar jobs in the air-conditioned offices doing office work. They had never worked in the sub-stations of the power transmission systems. The management had to involve these young electrical engineers posted in the Headquarters or the corporate office in the work of designing or engineering the transmission equipments when they had not known “a little here” in the job of electrical engineering or the basic functions of these equipments installed in remote sub-stations. These engineers posed a great liability to the organization. They had not understood the technical specifications of the equipments to be designed for or procured by the organization.

The probationers have to be taught “a little” on their functional areas in a practical manner. They should be posted to the line functions and taught a little here. They should be taught a little by little in due course in a long term training program under the vigilant eyes of superiors. This is called “internal training and development program”. Then they have to learn “a little there” also. Outside their organizations, they have to be imparted knowledge to learn “a little there”. If it is a consumer industry for producing a particular brand, the probationers should be deputed to some training programs for learning “a little there” about the regulatory laws and provisions concerning the particular consumer products which they are supposed to produce or market. This is called “external training and development”.