Change, Management, Business, Nepal & Managers
By Manohar Man Shrestha
I was giving my sales pitch to Buddhijee, CEO of a growing organization. I said: “I can help transform your workforce into leaders who will be able to produce top results. I do that by equipping them with leadership skills and building up their confidence.” He stopped me and then said, “I don’t need them to become leaders. For leadership I am here. I need you to help them become good coordinators and managers. I need them to get things done. Is that too much to ask?” A tone of frustration followed in his voice.
So what do we need: leaders or managers? Fundamentals of both we are lacking.
I am a fan of late Peter Drucker, author of “The Practice of Management.” His work consists the foundation of all our management textbooks and knowledge (mainly academic, in the context of Nepal). His thoughts helped shape management practice over the past 60 years in America. We are late in Nepal. We might implement the best economic policies for growth like that of China by devaluating the Nepali currency against the dollar thus promoting export and discouraging imports, but if we don’t know how to manage the upcoming boom, we are doomed none-the-less.
Board-of-directors from a big retail chain unanimously repeat, “Times have changed. Employers no longer have the last word. Business is too big and complex for owners to be able to take care of all. More and more we have to depend on employees. It is better we groom them to like us than dislike us and to manage than to be managed.”
Upon the request of a trading firm that specialized in construction chemicals and other products, I have been facilitating their different meetings. The MD tells me what he wants to achieve from the meetings. I chair the meeting accordingly. This time we wanted the ten employees to learn salesmanship. Most of the ten were already salespersons, even given territories to look after, entrusted to bring in business. We played a game. The one who could come up with the highest number of the names of products being sold by the company would win Rs.500. There are 115 separate components of works while making any building and this firm has about 60 products that could be sold. For example, when the foundation is being laid, the firm could offer to sell water-proofing chemicals. But the salesperson must know that they have water-proofing chemicals and that it can be sold when someone is raising the foundation. Obvious? Not so. To the shock of the MD, none of the salespeople could name more than 40 products. Many of those who had worked for over a year, handling big accounts and territories, knew less than 10 products.
You might wonder who took the prize or still how did the low-scorers feel. A senior salesperson who has worked over 5 years took the prize of Rs.500. Those who missed the target of remembering what they are supposed to sell said, “I feel I’ve realized. Thank you for making me realize my weakness. I never had thought about my work this way. I am sad but I am determined to improve and now I know how to give the best performance.” I did not believe them so I asked to jump three times if they were really speaking the truth. They did.
Do I think there is an ideal manager in Nepal? Talk about leaders, we can name many as exemplary in terms of their first and foremost function: to formulate a vision and attract followers. There are so many banks in Nepal. Himalaya Shumser Rana and Himalayan Bank were once the leaders in this sector. They had a vision of the private sector contributing in the banking industry. Today there are dozens of his followers; still more are coming. At around the same time, Madhukar Shumser Rana and Nefinsco played a similar leadership role for the upcoming finance companies. Someone in Thamel about a decade back seeing a need started the first communication center so that foreigners could call home. Since then, thousands of followers have opened shop across the country. Leaders can’t all set good trends. The Maoist started the trend of change through force. Now we have half a dozen of Prachanda wanna-be’s in the Tarai. Someone decided not to pay bills on time so that he could maintain his own cash-flow. Too many have followed his practice ultimately crippling the economy. Some businessmen saw a way to swindle banks. Many others followed suit.
What about managers? There are awards such as the ‘Manager of the Year’. But if I could point to someone whom I think all managers should learn from, he is Bhojraj Pokharel, chief of the election commission. I don’t know him personally but based on the media coverage, he exhibits many of the qualities of a great manager or coordinator that are applicable as much in the government as private sector.
Manager’s function is to make things happen. In order to do that you must start from the end in mind. What are the milestones of the job done? Financially the indicators of success can be stated as a certain level of profits (revenue minus expenses), liquidity, leverage and cash flow. But the true manager doesn’t stop at that because it would be like advising a foreigner to go ahead or turn back when he asks for a direction from a certain place’. In order for the foreigner to get to his destination, you must be able to guide him in at least four dimensions. One is to tell him to go ahead or turn back (and that we just covered), the second direction we must give him if we want him to get there is ‘to go left or right’, the third is ‘to go up or down’ and the fourth is ‘to go slow or fast’. This concept is also known as ‘the Balanced Scorecard’. It is slowly gaining popularity. One day it will take the status that Management by Objective (MBO) has currently occupying.
In a workshop I conducted recently, a school principal was intrigued by the concept of MBO and wondered how it worked really. So, for the benefit of the uninitiated, a quick example of MBO is like this: the objective of the principal is to increase the intake to his school by three times as compared to last year. Accordingly, the objective of the admission department must be to distribute at least nine times more forms than last year. The objective of marketing must be to position the school as highly desirable to 18 times more people than last year through as many channels as possible. The objective of HR must be then to hire two times more teachers than last year. The objective of management must be then to provide three times more classrooms than last year. If any of the departments thinks that the respective departmental objective appears impossible to achieve, they can bargain, but in the end a consensus must be reached. In this way, if everyone fulfills the individual objectives, the total will be achieved since they have been engineered accordingly. It is almost a sure-shot path to success in management.
However, if we really want our managers to meet their objectives, we must help them specify indicators that are crucial. It should be like we helped the foreigner by giving him directions in four dimensions. The first set of indicators is financials as we mentioned earlier. The second set is customer related indicators since financials depend first on the market. For example, the manager must specify who they should be (target group), how many (sales target), how they should feel (number of compliments or complaints). The third set consists of operational indicators like number of workflow innovations (technology), efficiency, production time, occupancy, delays, wastage, etc. The fourth set is the learning. What learning, knowledge and skills should be acquired by running the operations smoothly? Who already has them? How many employees will be able to get them?
Once a manager gives all the dimensions, his staff can easily get to the desired destination. Thus the mission is accomplished. This comes under the planning function of management.
Hari is a young manager. We worked on a project. He was my manager. His objective was ‘to complete the ten-day training program successfully’. But I helped him make the indicators of what success in fulfilling these objectives meant because if I didn’t, it would be like saying ‘Win the game but I will not tell you whether it is a football match where you need to keep the ball with you as much as possible to score and win or a cricket match where you need to get the ball out as far as possible away from you to get a six and win.’
So, in terms of financial success indicators for him meant expenses not exceeding the budget allocated. In customer related indicators, success meant participants do not go hungry, are not left astray, do not have to sleep in the lobby and they are so happy about the service we provide that they will make positive compliments about the program. In operational indictors, success meant that all activities flow smoothly one after the other without causing any inconveniences to participants, volunteers (employees here) and trainers (suppliers here). In learning indicators, success meant that all the volunteers develop their personalities and leadership skills, that they learn to handle the crowd and how to organize such a program so that they can take over the current manager (Hari) for the next program.
Simplifying his objectives in four types of indicators that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Relevant and Time-bound), I helped Hari succeed as a manager. We, leaders must help our coordinators use the ‘Balanced Scorecard’ approach. MBO is good but not enough. Are you ready for this management breakthrough? So far we have answered Buddhijee’s query to some extent about ‘how to make good coordinators’. Well the first rule is ‘help them plot the right coordinates to success’.
Bhojraj Pokharel impresses me not so much because he is thorough in the planning aspect of his job as much as his out-spoken nature of even making public statements urging for action even those who keep him on the job. It takes guts. A good manager must have courage. To fulfill his mission that his boss has given him, he must be brave enough to challenge the boss himself if he shows the tendency to self-destruction or kill his own baby.
We chairmen, owners, board-of-directors, CEOs and presidents must in turn have the audacity to empower our managers and coordinators to put even us in line if we go out of track. Until we, leaders, dare to take the back seat, leave the wheel to our managers so that we can in turn focus on growing our businesses or institutions instead of playing mother-in-law, Nepal’s economy will not grow no matter what policies we implement or what infrastructures we put up.
Still, there is another danger. What if our managers turn to be fakes or ignoramuses like the salespersons in the construction firm in above example? The blame can’t be fully placed on the employees. And the MD recognized his own mistakes: he should have called me in earlier! But humor aside, he realized that he should have given time, effort and resources in developing his personnel. He sent his staff to the deep end before he checked whether they could swim or not. Many of us are guilty of this sin.
Then our followers must also not be allowed to go out of control like it happens in politics. There is a story of a manager in USA who made a 10 million dollar mistake. The chairman called him in. The manager thought he was going to be grilled. The chairman instead first asked him what he had learnt from this titanic mistake. He explained his learnings. Pierced by the old-man’s intent-full eyes, the manager ventured, “So are you going to fire me?” The chairman with a sly smile said, “You think I am crazy, do you? I gave you a $10M education at my expense. Now you think I will let my competitors take advantage of that. Fat chance! Get back to work and make sure you don’t repeat such a mistake.” The manager became relieved and enlightened.
It is true that our managers and coordinators may break our faith, but we are humans and to err is a curse on human civilization as a whole. What matters is that we build in our organizations a culture of ‘realization’ and ‘learning’ like the chairman in the earlier story did. This is the best control mechanism.
We get frustrated when our employees don’t do as we expect. In such situation, first we need to ask ourselves, “Do they know what we expect of them?” Then we must praise them for correct behavior or good results. I use a lot of chocolate bars while facilitating my workshops. What gets rewarded gets repeated. Next we must reprimand incorrect behavior or unsatisfactory results. Again in my trainings I punish with a stroke from a toy hammer on the head of the culprit or by giving him a chalk. If you have to scold in public make it fun.
Help your coordinators (supervisors) come up with creative ways to praise and reprimand. This will keep your organization always on the alert. In Soltee Hotel, there is a system in which any head of department can give a ‘praise slip’ to any employee who has gone beyond his call of duty. It may be as minor as the engineering guy who helped carry the luggage of a guest while the front desk people were too busy. Each slip is worth Rs.200 and can be cashed anytime.
A country is developed if its GDP is high. GDP is high if its economy is booming. Economic vitality depends mainly on businesses. If we want to increase GDP then we need to increase economic activities. For that businesses must grow. Without proper management and leadership tools, without every employee well versed in their fundamentals, businesses will grow but like a house of cards. In Nepal, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have still got to put management systems in place. The big corporations like banks and hotels have state-of-the-art management infrastructures (really, I am impressed). However recent exodus of top-notch managers from banks to new competitors point to a weak leadership culture in established organizations. Business must be built to withstand weather changes (peak seasons and off seasons), climatic changes (diminishing markets and new markets), earthquakes (political instability) and floods (conflicts).
Combined such businesses will transform Nepal into an economically vibrant nation. Politicians are working on their front to make Nepal the heaven. Let us, non-political or business leaders, produce the great managers to win the war against mediocrity, shortage and chaos. As for myself, I aspire to be the Nepali version of Peter Drucker contributing to the metamorphosis of management and leadership in Nepal from caterpillar to a butterfly. What is your aspiration? Keep your dreams alive.
(Shrestha is Senior Trainer & Advisor of Standard Icon Pvt. Ltd.)
Six Sigma Leadership
‘A foolish consistency is the bobgolin of little minds’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
By Sujit Mundul
It is believed that Six Sigma Leadership is difficult to define instantly, but easy to understand. Challenging to master, but simple to apply to what one does as a leader every day.
Six Sigma Leadership is about practicing principles that most of us would agree make up a better way of leadership than what we often get to see. This is what is called “new standard”, but little of what makes up Six Sigma Leadership is likely to be controversial. The underlying concepts that we would be considering could appropriately be called ‘applied common sense’ – not really earth shaking nor mind-bending, just smart and practical guidelines for being a better leader.
One needs to be alerted to the fact that Six Sigma Leadership is not about absolutes or defined set of steps. There is no formula – it is difficult to say “do this and you will be a Six Sigma Leader!” With a few hard and fast rules, the definition of Six Sigma Leadership can appear a bit squishy.
But let us not lose faith! Just because it defies narrow definition, does not mean Six Sigma Leadership is a vain attempt to make one into some legendary leader. As opposed to concentrating on traits like brilliant intellect or charisma, the essence of Six Sigma Leadership is about practical skills that relate directly to how well you help your business grow successfully. These are the skills that any individual can probably apply. They help you to build on your existing strengths.
Peter. S. Pande in his book “The Six Sigma Leader” has beautifully described Six Sigma Leadership. In his words “The essence of Six Sigma Leadership can be described in two words: balance and flexibility. It’s this combination of stability (balance) and responsiveness (flexibility) that gives Six Sigma Leadership its power. It argues against those who favor a particular leadership style or who exercise their own leadership approach – even when it’s not working – by saying, “that’s just how I am”.
In our journey we will encounter how lack of leadership and flexibility leads to poor decisions resulting in colossal loses to businesses. It also creates skepticism in followers about one’s ability to lead and its devastating effects on the customers and shareholders. On the positive side, a good understanding of balance and flexibility can make one a significantly better leader – and help fostering better leadership throughout the organization one drives.
Returning to the big question of defining Six Sigma Leadership I would again go to Peter S. Pande and give his quote: “Six Sigma Leadership is a set of principles that can be applied to create greater success and sustained results for an organization. It’s based on the idea that outstanding leadership is an artful, but learnable, combination of skills that combine balance and flexibility to drive goal and performance.”
This is the starting point – a good long journey is awaited.
(Mundul is CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd.)
