NASSCOM, is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPO industries in India. It recently held a conclave for the SME segment and I was privileged to be a part of it. It was a great learning experience. One speaker gave a very interesting comment that most business leaders give a thumbs down to our politicians, but could if they tried to, learn a couple of lessons which could be applied in their everyday work life.
The Five Mantras, a Manager could learn and my interpretations of them are:
Play to the gallery
This is one of the strongest abilities of a politician. This is an ability to get the approval of the majority of elements in a group or team. Good PR and man management skills and an ability to bring about consensus is a sure way to get work done. This is very important in a world of conflicting demands and interests.
Most Attractive Position
The politician has the innate ability to place himself in a position to derive maximum value at the lowest cost. This is a very useful lesson for the marketing man, where the whole essence of marketing is to gain a decisive advantage over business rivals. The ability to understand and place oneself and his organization in advantageous position is the key to success.
No Ego
The Ego is the “I Factor”. They say in politics “there are no friends or enemies only permanent interests”. Most politicians will carry out their strategies focused only on objectives and do not let their ego come in between. One has to only read the papers these days to understand this.
Maximize Value
In the business sense you can relate it to ROI. ROI or Return On Investment; is a performance measure often used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. In business while calculating ROI the return of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment.
Realize their weakness
Most managers would be challenged to recognize their weakness, for a variety of reasons, ego being one of the biggest. If you can not recognize your weakness how will you take corrective actions to improve? Today the world is littered by companies which are teetering on collapse because they could not recognize their weakness.
The Five Mantras, a Manager could learn and my interpretations of them are:
Play to the gallery
This is one of the strongest abilities of a politician. This is an ability to get the approval of the majority of elements in a group or team. Good PR and man management skills and an ability to bring about consensus is a sure way to get work done. This is very important in a world of conflicting demands and interests.
Most Attractive Position
The politician has the innate ability to place himself in a position to derive maximum value at the lowest cost. This is a very useful lesson for the marketing man, where the whole essence of marketing is to gain a decisive advantage over business rivals. The ability to understand and place oneself and his organization in advantageous position is the key to success.
No Ego
The Ego is the “I Factor”. They say in politics “there are no friends or enemies only permanent interests”. Most politicians will carry out their strategies focused only on objectives and do not let their ego come in between. One has to only read the papers these days to understand this.
Maximize Value
In the business sense you can relate it to ROI. ROI or Return On Investment; is a performance measure often used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. In business while calculating ROI the return of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment.
Realize their weakness
Most managers would be challenged to recognize their weakness, for a variety of reasons, ego being one of the biggest. If you can not recognize your weakness how will you take corrective actions to improve? Today the world is littered by companies which are teetering on collapse because they could not recognize their weakness.
3 comments:
Well, managers can certainly learn from politicians - especially in the domain of marketing. Take the example of Brand Rahul Gandhi - few other brand has indulged in such intelligent PR in the last 12 months - being at the right places at the right time and touching the right cords by speaking the right words - the emerging strength of this brand has been analyzed threadbare by the media and the result is there for all of us to see. The last two elections has seen the various parties innovatively tapping traditional and new media with 360 degree communication campaigns.
Although Lalu has been eulogised for the turnaround of the then-hopeless Railways, I can't help but admit the fact that he atleast put the right resources (talent/people) at the right places in the Railways - Management is also about recognizing potential talent and then optimally harnessing those resources. Excelling in negotiations is another key managerial skill which the parties/politicians have mastered.
Last but not the least, politicians never say die - even after getting annihilated in the current elections, I am sure that BJP (or even CPM, for Assembly Elections) will analyze their output threadbare - almost an entrepreneurial spirit!
My belief is there is a lot in learning from the politicians for the Manager. Politicians post the 2k era could have been associated with nepotism but the current day politician works at the grass root level, knows the workforce that works for him/her, knows the customer/eletorate their needs vs demands. The electorate is very mature to cast their votes and politicians who have won the current elections have done their analysis well to be elected. In six sigma we do a root cause analysis, my strong belief is politicians to date have to dig deep to understand same applies for the managers. Gone are those days when managers orders were subordinates command and links to highflying political honcos.... Rahul Gandhi's example which lead to a thudding victory of the congress has been at the roots at which Rahul Worked. So yes i opine the same when it comes to our managers.. and a lot yet needs to be learnt from politicians.
Sunil
I read your article. It is very nice.
2009 general elections are good lesson for all political parties as well as public.
People voted for those who has given stability.
There is a lesson every manager has to look from the elections Results.
I am writing some cases exclusive to AP polls
- People who change parties every 5 years were totally rejected. Lesson for IT people who change jobs very frequently
- Cinema Glamor did not work at all. Chirajeevi who started the political party by selling the party tickets and shown a differnet culture was totally rejected.
- Region/ Cast based politics were rejected. TRS got just 10 assembly seats.
- Youth prefers to come to politics
there are 40% of the elected are between 30-40 age group.
There was 80-80% voting recorded despite of hot summer in some Areas
. Politics are also changing. Transparency is also coming to picture.
- Loksatta which worked as a voluntary organisation now turned as political party leading by an Ex. IAS officer Jayaprakash Narayaana won an assembly seat in Hyderabad.
Booth capturing/ rigging were reduced by 50%, due to technology implementation.
by 2014 the politics will be more clean and good
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