You've got to be really well-prepared for your exam, or else really sure that you're beyond damage control, when you sit and ponder management theories a day before your Compensation & Benefits paper instead of dutifully revising Dessler and labour laws. And when you're cooking Maggi and writing this at the same time, you are beyond any help whatsoever, which is why you also grin like I am, and check your saucepan to ensure the seasoning is right.
But when I was boiling water for my coffee ten minutes ago, I hit upon some cardinal truths that I thought I must share. At this point, I must request all management purists and aficionados to exit the blog. I can feel irreverence bubbling over in me, and you are not going to be pleased. At the very outset, I remind you that I am a half-baked management graduate with very little knowledge to call my own. That probably explains the irreverence.
- More than once in the last eighteen months, I have found that most management theories are essentially common sense packaged in a fancy framework. Not to take away at all from all the contributors to the field, these are facts that have always, well, existed. That said, I do recognise the importance of realising that these facts exist, gleaning them from the everyday and the ordinary through intensive - and extensive - research, and presenting them to the world in a format that makes sense and is applicable, by and large, to most scenarios. As someone who intends to get into research herself eventually, I'd be the last to say that research in the field is irrelevant (why would I want to devote my life to something I don't believe in, now?), but there is also something to be said for the number of times I have heard people say (and felt myself), "Eh, this is what they're talking about? Of course there will be dissatisfaction if I pay one guy less than his counterpart doing the same work." Or "If you occupy a chunk of someone's mindspace for a reasonable while, he will, more likely than not, buy whatever it is that you're selling him". I could probably be charged with over-simplification. I'll cheerfully concede to the charges. :)
- Ever notice how most revolutionary concepts come from the same set of countries? Japan, the U.S. and the U.K., among others. Japan has practically cornered the market on contemporary management practices. I'd give anything for a peek into the average Japanese brain. Those people astound me. I haven't heard of too many theories coming from, say, Italy or Spain or Russia. I wonder why. Of course, there are studies carried out by researchers from scores of countries. What makes it to most standard textbooks (not that that alone means that the research was any good), though, comes from the same handful of countries. I seriously wonder why.
- We in India have an inexplicable affinity for books and theories that originated abroad. There's nothing wrong with that. Management is about people, and people are - cultural and organisational and economic differences aside - essentially the same everywhere. So whether we use Blum & Naylor or T. Rao to aid our understanding of how they can be "managed" (I've never been very comfortable with the connotation) is not - or shouldn't be - so important. But the problem lies somewhere else. The problem lies in assuming that your education is incomplete if you studied only out of Indian authors' works. Sure, it is...but isn't it equally incomplete if you study only out of McGraw Hill and Prentice Hall versions of foreign authors' books? Why can't we study theories from wherever they are explained best, and allow ourselves the privilege of reading what people from our country have to say about people from our country? And I mean this not just individually, but also from our universities' point of view.
My coffee mug is empty, my Maggi cold, and I am beginning to panic slightly about Comp & Ben. Cheerio, then. And I wish Blogger would behave better on my computer. I can't italicize words, the spacing is awry, and my paragraphs refuse to be disciplined into justification.
But when I was boiling water for my coffee ten minutes ago, I hit upon some cardinal truths that I thought I must share. At this point, I must request all management purists and aficionados to exit the blog. I can feel irreverence bubbling over in me, and you are not going to be pleased. At the very outset, I remind you that I am a half-baked management graduate with very little knowledge to call my own. That probably explains the irreverence.
- More than once in the last eighteen months, I have found that most management theories are essentially common sense packaged in a fancy framework. Not to take away at all from all the contributors to the field, these are facts that have always, well, existed. That said, I do recognise the importance of realising that these facts exist, gleaning them from the everyday and the ordinary through intensive - and extensive - research, and presenting them to the world in a format that makes sense and is applicable, by and large, to most scenarios. As someone who intends to get into research herself eventually, I'd be the last to say that research in the field is irrelevant (why would I want to devote my life to something I don't believe in, now?), but there is also something to be said for the number of times I have heard people say (and felt myself), "Eh, this is what they're talking about? Of course there will be dissatisfaction if I pay one guy less than his counterpart doing the same work." Or "If you occupy a chunk of someone's mindspace for a reasonable while, he will, more likely than not, buy whatever it is that you're selling him". I could probably be charged with over-simplification. I'll cheerfully concede to the charges. :)
- Ever notice how most revolutionary concepts come from the same set of countries? Japan, the U.S. and the U.K., among others. Japan has practically cornered the market on contemporary management practices. I'd give anything for a peek into the average Japanese brain. Those people astound me. I haven't heard of too many theories coming from, say, Italy or Spain or Russia. I wonder why. Of course, there are studies carried out by researchers from scores of countries. What makes it to most standard textbooks (not that that alone means that the research was any good), though, comes from the same handful of countries. I seriously wonder why.
- We in India have an inexplicable affinity for books and theories that originated abroad. There's nothing wrong with that. Management is about people, and people are - cultural and organisational and economic differences aside - essentially the same everywhere. So whether we use Blum & Naylor or T. Rao to aid our understanding of how they can be "managed" (I've never been very comfortable with the connotation) is not - or shouldn't be - so important. But the problem lies somewhere else. The problem lies in assuming that your education is incomplete if you studied only out of Indian authors' works. Sure, it is...but isn't it equally incomplete if you study only out of McGraw Hill and Prentice Hall versions of foreign authors' books? Why can't we study theories from wherever they are explained best, and allow ourselves the privilege of reading what people from our country have to say about people from our country? And I mean this not just individually, but also from our universities' point of view.
My coffee mug is empty, my Maggi cold, and I am beginning to panic slightly about Comp & Ben. Cheerio, then. And I wish Blogger would behave better on my computer. I can't italicize words, the spacing is awry, and my paragraphs refuse to be disciplined into justification.
P.S.: As on November 30, I've had a decent C&B paper, have also spun yarns on Organisational Psychology...and am really kicked because Blogger is back on its best behaviour. As you can see, my friend, my posts are all justified in alignment...again! :)
5 comments:
ya its funny isnt it ? I like to call it the slave mentality. Believing that we can never be as good, as the outsiders, and that we are good or worthwhile learning from , only if we get outside approval. Taking pride in our own cult, is something we have yet to learn.
But I also remember how, back in school some of the best indian author texts were modified versions of some foreign author texts. So my dad suggested just getting the original. I guess its different for management ?
No, I wouldn't call it different...you'll notice I didn't mention India among the countries that new concepts and practices consistently come from. That's sad, because Krishna is considered the earliest and best manager India has known...his tactics and strategies are the stuff great management literature is made of. Then there's Chanakya, there's even Gandhi, closer to our times. But the same story carries over to our textbooks - a major fraction borrow generously from foreign author texts. But if *original* management has been done here in the past, surely it can be done again, is what I think. And that's why I wonder why we don't read the few Indian authors who have actually done some original work. Gosh, I must feel more strongly about this than I thought...look at the length of my reply!
I forgot to mention C.K. Prahlad and his ilk. That's blasphemy of the first degree!
its good to feel strongly about this. may be some day, it will motivate you to write a text on management, something much better than what is out there currently :)
Sure hope so :) I hope my research will be some use, that I'll be able to write a book with it...that it'll happen, in the first place :)
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