Principles, Practice and Politics Of Management

 Principles, Practice and Politics Of Management

One of the first lessons in management schools is titled Principles and Practice of Management and they form the core basis of understanding how the modern organizations are supposed to be managed based on these core principles and practices. However as one gets into the real work world every student of management and even those who don't have formal management education background soon come to realize that there is one more "P" that governs the management philosophy of our organizations which is not formally stated anywhere. I decided to call it "Politics" of Management.

No management literature ever overtly recognises the existence of this P even though there are several euphemisms used to describe this. One of the papers I came across used a concept called Informal Networks to describe this phenomena. Here the author described how the real power structure in an organisation is dictated by not the formal hierarchy but some informal relations individuals enjoy with the power that be. I came across this first time when I started my career over 37 years ago when I found that the Personal Assistant to the Managing Director who also used to work as an errand boy for the MD's wife once in a way was wielding unusual power over everyone in the organizations including other directors!!.

The politics of management is inevitable in an organisation since by the very nature of its structure the organizations are based on the importance of exercising power through some form of hierarchical  relations between people and when there is power to be wielded there is bound to be some form of alignment around the power structure leading to jockeying for power and control. In a well managed  organisation this politics is effectively directed and controlled for the benefit of the organisation by good leadership. But the situation gets complicated when the politics overtakes the role of management at the cost of the organisation. 

As a management consultant I had several opportunities to have a ring side view of how this Politics of Management works across the organizations. Before I proceed further I must clarify what I mean by Politics of Management. As the word Politics imply it is all about finding ways to capture power and wield it. One of the ways of capturing power is directly bid for it through the hierarchical process with higher roles and responsibilities. This is available only for a few who are good at rising up the narrowing organizational ladder to the top. But for a large number of people this path is closed for a variety of reasons but still they have personal ambition or opportunity arising out of a role to wield power and exercise control. 

My early years were spent working as management consultant for small and family owned businesses. In every one of these businesses I noticed the business owner had one or two individuals working for them for several years and whom they trusted. While the organisation brought in outsiders to man the various roles and responsibilities created due to the growth of the business, these individuals had the "ear" of the owner and by virtue of that proximity wielded enormous power. In some business families usually this person would also belong to the community to which the owner's family belongs. Well there was nothing wrong with this model so long as the owner got good advice and guidance and also "intelligence". However I found in most of the cases where I had been approached for addressing some serious management problems faced by these small businesses, I found that many of their problems were linked to these informal power centers misleading the owner against other "outsiders” who are usually professionals doing their jobs. Thus it became my responsibility to highlight this distortion to the owner without antagonizing these informal power centers to address these problems effectively.

Subsequently when I started working with large corporates I found that the politics of management are in full flow across many levels. There, in several management board meetings where I was invited to attend, I saw how the different functional heads take stand on issues based on the power equations they wielded with the chief executive. In one case I came across a curious situation where one of the Vice President's father was a director on the board of the firm and he was ambitious to take over as the chief executive. During the period when we were working as consultants this individual systematically sabotaged the initiatives of the CEO to set right some major problems under the direct charge of this VP and one day we found the  CEO removed from his job and he was elevated to the CEO position.

In another case we were working for a multi unit business group and our role was to help one of the business units going through serious problems by adopting the concept of Business process re-engineering. The current CEO had recently taken over as the head of this unit and he came from outside this group with very good credentials. However he had to report to the top management group of the multi business group through a Unit Head who was a power center himself. The unit head was an old hand with the group with the ear of the Chairman. Apart from this there were other few employees who were reporting to the new CEO who also had a direct link to the chairman on account of their long association with the group. In the course of our first six months of work the new CEO started turning around the unit by doggedly implementing the BPR recommendations which exposed some of these old timer's wrong doings and ineptness in the past. All hell broke lose and one fine morning the new CEO got a marching order from the chairman after a year on the job. I was witness to the working of Politics of Management here at very close quarters.

However if the CEO is a very strong and focused person he can easily deal with the negative aspects of the politics. In a MNC company we had recommended a change in the way the sales process is handled which effectively reduced the current power structure of the Regional Managers. During the implementation one of the regional managers told his boys that they have to follow his instructions only and not bother about the new way of work approved by the MD and the top management. When the MD got to know of this he immediately called up the Regional Manager and told him that he either learn to adapt to the new model or he can look for another job. 

With the advent of Information Technology and the democratization of information I had hoped that the politics of management should come down. However I have had occasions to interact with some of the recent rising stars of the IT industry and many others who had adopted IT extensively in automating their business processes. To my astonishment I found that the politics of Management instead of coming down is very much there and in many cases it is on an increase as seen by the recent series crashes of global economic power houses. Many subsequent studies have shown that these setbacks are mostly due to management decisions dictated by political considerations rather than good principles and practice of management.

As I said in the beginning this topic is never publicly discussed but it is an undercurrent prevailing in all organizations. In India we have a saying when there are two people discussing a topic they could be friends. But when there are three people discussing the same then they form political parties. It is in the nature of human beings to be political in their social equations. In any group behavior this is very evident when people align themselves to one or the other group. Moreover human beings in my opinion are not capable of equal relationships. In all relationships you either control the relationship or you get controlled. This is all the more so in organizations. Even Late Jack Welch the famous former CEO of GE  used this dictum "Control your Destiny or someone else will" as a management philosophy very successfully. The issue is how does good management practice ensure that this Politics is directed effectively for the good of the organisation.

PS:Title image is copyright of Organisation-power-politics-management.jpg and used from Google images