Morning radio was buzzing in the car; mad mornings with Shradha on one FM channel & Vodafone Happy Mornings with Prithvi on the other, the RJ’s chit-chat, some good & some not-so-good songs, lots of advertisements, all become my every morning's long-driving company!
Most advertisements (who anyways pay for the radio shows that we tune-in-to) are to be tolerated or skipped. However one such advertisement this morning caught my attention, not for its greatness or novelty but because of something else. Without any further ado let me tell you how the ad went about, that was about some masters diploma in management, offered by a certain college - “...when you are an ordinary employee you receive instructions; when you complete …..Diploma in management from ….. then you give instructions…”
Undoubtedly, the message was one of the crappiest one that I have heard in recent times (Is this the way to advertise for an educational program on offer?); but more than message, it is the mindset that bothered me, the mindset that management is all about giving instructions! This mindset is unfortunately not only of the business college that advertised or of the agency that created the message, but of a large section of people who believe that managing is about controlling people and dishing-out instructions to them.
The command & control structure pervades all societal spheres in countries like ours. At home husband/father is the boss whose wishes must be fulfilled by wife & kids. I have lost count of kids who have told me that they picked engineering or a particular discipline in their graduation because their Dad wanted them to do so! Or girls who can’t take-up a job because their Dad won’t let them be in a particular city! On the home-front for most women, their mother-in-law is the boss. When she sneezes, daughter-in-law freezes! In society, everyone who has some power tries to be the boss! And in organizations manager or supervisor tries to wield the control stick. Giving instructions becomes their sole realization of their existence! Should it come as a surprise that supervisors are amongst the most hated entities in organizations revealed by survey after survey! The control mindset is disengaging and obsolete. Those who try to do it are sub-optimal performers and use it to shield their incompetence.
The point is engagement is largely a design issue. One of such design elements is structure that prevails in an organization. On paper, although, many organizations claim to be ‘flat’ but their people especially the managers & supervisors ensure that structure remain typically hierarchical & pyramidical. Recently a senior leader of an Indian company told me how much difficulty they were having in implementing a truly flat structure, preferred by their European clients, in their organization, largely, because the managers were resistant to the same. The main reason of the opposition was their perceived loss of control!
Such design issues need to be addressed if engagement with its people is anything that an organization is trying to attempt! But then the beginning of structural changes happens from the families & society. Are we getting there? Yes, but we still have a long way to go & the pace is very slow. For now most of us would have to live with our master-blasters & although we refuse to believe Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Markandey Katju’s assessment of Indians, is the truth very far from that? After all CEAT also said the same thing sometime back in their television promotional campaign! Didn’t we agree then?
1 comment:
Interesting Read Professor, I think it is the 'way' Ogilvy put it, so we didn't mind being called Idiots! I believe that the way we give instructions really matters in office and the home front as well. Bad bosses and Katju need to learn the art of putting their message through.
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