understanding human behaviour

So, I've been attending emba classes for 3 months.. now the part 1 is over. On top of gaining new knowledge and meeting up new group of people, I am extremely miffed!

On the subject of teacher, a favorite author of mine, Neil Postman. Who in his 1995 essay ‘The error of our ways’ wrote:

“All that is necessary is that at the beginning of each course, the teacher address students in the following way:

During this term, I will be doing a great deal of talking. I will be giving lectures, answering questions, and conducting discussions. Since I am an imperfect scholar and, even more certainly, a fallible human being, I will inevitably be making factual errors, drawing some unjustifiable conclusions, and perhaps passing along my opinions as facts. I should be very unhappy if you were unaware of these mistakes. To minimize that possibility, I am going to make you all honorary members of Accuracy in Academia. Your task is to make sure that none of my errors goes by unnoticed.

At the beginning of each class, I will, in fact, ask you to reveal whatever errors I made in the previous session. You must, of course, say why these are errors, indicate the source of your authority, and, if possible, suggest a truer or more useful or less biased way of formulating what I said. Your grade in this course will be based to some extent on the rigor with which you pursue my mistakes. And to ensure that you do not fall into the torpor that is so common among students, I will, from time to time, deliberately include some patently untrue statements and some outrageous opinions.

There is no need for you to do this alone. You should consult with your classmates, perhaps even form a study group that can collectively review the things I have said. Nothing would please me more than for one or several of you to ask for class time in which to present a corrected or alternative version of one of my lectures.”

Why he said this? Because in his blog- Overcoming bias blog has a post about his favorite professor, who had a habit of intentionally lying in class. Why? To force people to both pay attention and to think critically about what the professor was saying.

:) Interesting. That gives a reason why teacher should lie.

Dysfunctional Management

Like a car with an engine that can't fire on all cylinders, a business that's dysfunctional may move forward for a while. But eventually it stops running.

Companies don't start out maladjusted, of course. It just tends to happen over time.

The hallmark of a dysfunctional organization is a gap between reality and rhetoric.

When resources are not used effectively or fairly, when plans are heavy on talk but weak on action or when barriers to communication cripple performance, you're dealing with a dysfunctional company.

Once diagnosed, the corrosive effects of such problems can be corrected. But make no mistake: It's neither easy nor immediate. You need to be tough-minded about identifying the source, particularly because it often starts at the top, where the power resides.

Here is a good article highlighting telltale signs that your company is unhealthy and some possible ways to get it well again. Do check out this article from business coaching at http://businesscoaching.typepad.com/the_business_coaching_blo/2008/08/dysfunctional-management-when-management-doesnt-manage.html (paste below) as well as another good article http://www.iim-edu.org/dysfunctionalleadershipdysfunctionalorganizations/index.htm from IIM. I love reading HR issues after Ive completed my part 1 of EMBA which exposed me to HR and OB issues.

DYSFUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT: When Management Doesn't Manage

I've seen dysfunctional management a few times and it's never a pretty sight. The senior managers run around like headless chickens coming up with initiative after initiative while team members stand around in confusion.

Working back through my old copies of the Accountancy magazine I found an article by Tom Barry, European managing director of BlessingWhite, a global consultancy firm specialising in leadership development.BlessingWhite have identified four signs of dysfunctional management:

1. Silent dissent: The boss says "Everyone always agrees with me and that makes me uneasy."
2. Facts without meaning or context: "All I get is data, but not much insight."
3. Lack of passion. "We focus so much on competence that the senior team never gets emotionally charged up."
4. Inertia. "All we do is talk about results but we don't change the way we do things."

BlessingWhite deal with big companies so it's inevitable that with my focus on small businesses, I have a different perspective.

No Debate

Certainly the first point is interesting and in the owner-manager businesses the situation can be even worse than in a larger corporate environment where there is a proper board with highly competent individuals.

The article makes the point that highly charismatic and driven executives often cause their own difficulties because of a reluctance to enter into a debate about what they firmly believe to be true. While they may complain that no one challenges their thinking, they make it clear that contrary views are not welcome.

Samuel Goldwyn (US movie mogul) is quoted as saying "I don't want yes-man around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs."

There is also a concept called groupthink which Wikipedia defines as "type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas."

Potentially this will become a much bigger problem as the economy gets tougher and the management teams try to pull together to fight against the world. In the search for a solution in a stressful situation, management teams may rally around one particular idea and unconsciously block out any contradictory evidence.

Irving Janis devised seven ways of preventing groupthink

1. Leaders should assign each member the role of “critical evaluator”so that each member can express objections and doubts.
2. More senior management should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
3. The organization should set up several independent groups to work on the same problem.
4. All effective alternatives should be examined.
5. Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
6. The group should invite outside experts into meetings to hear their thoughts and answer their questions.
7. At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil's advocate, which should be a different member for each meeting.

The Importance of the Numbers

Peel away the layers at I'm still an accountant so I do like to see my numbers but too often with small businesses, the numbers do not exist in any meaningful form.Performance is not measured.The key economic drivers of the business are not understood, monitored or managed and this is why I believe in the concept of part time finance directors.

Lack of Passion = Lack of Direction = Inertia

Lack of passion isn't usually a problem for the small businesses I encounter unless the owners have also lost direction for the business.If you don't know where you are going, it is impossible to be passionate about the future. Yes you can certainly still get worked up about the daily frustrations and irritations but without the vision of the future, the business drifts along.

Don't Want Dysfunctional Management? So What Is Management?

Bad management is usually easy to see so it merits revisiting thinking that comes from a management great of the late eighteenth, early twentieth century - Henri Fayol.

Henri Fayol identified six managerial activities

1. Forecasting - predicting what will happen in the future.
2. Planning - devising a course of actions to meet the expected demand.
3. Organising - mobilising resources, allocating tasks.
4. Commanding - providing direction and motivation. Managers must know the tasks and the people.
5. Coordinating - making sure that resources are working towards a common goal.
6. Controlling - monitoring progress to ensure that plans are being carried out properly.

It sounds as sensible now as it must have done one hundred years ago although we would substitute leading for "commanding". The context may have changed, the technology has changed but these six fundamental principles remain the cornerstones of management.

Applying Henri Fayol's Principles to Dysfunctional Management

A management team may be dysfunctional because it fails to look into the future. It doesn't carry out the strategic environmental reviews that would helps it to see the changes on the horizon, identify opportunities and threats and then take the necessary actions.

A management team may be dysfunctional because it fails to decide what it wants to do or even if it knows where it wants to take the business, it doesn't then translate that vision into actions steps and priorities.

A management team may be dysfunctional if it produces the plan but fails to recognise the resource limitations and constraints it has. Knowing what to do but not being able to do it because of a shortage of skilled resources does not move the business forward.

Even with the right people in place, a management will be dysfunctional if it fails to communicate the direction and strategy to the team, doesn't cascade goals down the business and doesn't provide incentives and motivation to achieve the vision.Sometimes dysfunctional management teams will try to communicate to their teams but the messages are twisted in the process, setting one function against another rather than clearly working on a path to the common goal.F

inally a dysfunctional management team may fail in its control function. Without feedback to reinforce proper action and correct inappropriate action, a check that the intended and implemented actions lead to the expected results and monitor to make sure that the competitive environment remains in line with expectations, there is no certainty that goals will be met or the vision achieved.

As German General, Helmuth von Moltke said "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy". It is the control process that keeps you on track, allows you to adapt and even question whether the objectives of the original plan are still relevant.

Avoiding Dysfunctional Management

Henri Fayol's principles of management may be very old but they remain a great place to start when thinking about the management of your business or reviewing the management practices of a client business.

This is it

This is what i wish to write http://www.gobalakrishnan.com/quit-my-job/

And i pray that i will have the courage and wisdom to do this.

To be brave enough to move forward and not afraid to look back. To be a risk-taker and a true performer to myself, hubby and kids.

The zen of being a corporate slave

I must learn to accept disappointments.

I must learn to accept crap stories, dysfunctional manager.

I must learn to adjust my hearing latitude and let my brain to digest 1 or 2 hours stories about any of their accomplishments and how every single drop of water is coming from their think tanks. No one else's idea is comparable to it.

I must learn the true meaning of management meeting. It’s about spinning stories, endless stories which can be compiled as a research paper. It’s also about sitting down for 1 or 2 hours listening to them discussing about menu, seating arrangement, color of the design, what the people in the poster should wear, instead of what should we do to improve our strategies, what is the decision on this issue, how to improve organization's performance, increase employee morale and satisfaction, create empowerment, and similar to that..

I am still learning all these, and I will never be ever to figure out why. I don't want to know why.

Am I the only one who feels like this? Or are there many others who feel like this.

I feel funny. I am horrified, annoyed and feel like that this is funny. Most things in life are funny. These people look extremely comical. I smirk at the whole situation. They looked serious. But I continue to grin anyway. I feel so pleased with what I've accomplished so far, not much though, but I thank God and pray that I will not end up to be like anyone of them.

Anyway, I haven't blogged anything of substance lately. I'm getting bored of alot of things cause I seem to be on a road that leads to nowhere at work. I'm waiting for something to change my life. Do I wait for something to change my life or do i do something to change my life? Answer is pretty obvious but I'm gonna pretend like I don't know and let it sink in slowly....

I have always dream of a break. Now that I finally have one, I don't know how to enjoy it. Funny right? I am still awake at 1 am, and tomorrow is a working day. If you know me well, I am off to bed as early as 9 pm. Something weird is happening to me lately. I think too much. I should not be thinking. I need this break. I should be enjoying this moment that I’ve been wanting for the last 3 months. What's wrong with me?

I still haven't found my mojo. Assuming I had it in the first place. Please pray for me. I need my mojo back. I need it to gain back my momentum. To those who are happy working, enjoy it while it last.