Relevance of Modern Management Principles for Government Organizations
“Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.”
Modern day India is marred and plagued by governance inefficiencies and the common man feels the pressure of poor decision making and the life of people like you and me are marred by cruel inefficiencies in distribution of resources and wealth. All around there is a sense of poor performance, complacency, redundancy, lack of decision making skills rather the inability or lack of will on the part of Indian government or elected representatives to take decisions. So called leaders (politicians) of modern day India fail to show any charisma or energy or even a mere glimpse of commitment towards improving the quandary condition of common man or the large part of Indian population. Huge debate that goes around is about sustainability of Indian economy and about our future as a country but somehow it is heartfelt that these burning issues are still manageable if our politicians make an effort to learn and adopt modern management principles and put them to use along with uncompromising commitment to improve the condition of masses in the country.
It is true though seems surprising that the colossal problem faced by such a big country can be resolved with the help of application of Modern Management Principles. Modern Management holds the very essence of building teams, developing organization and sustaining business units it also facilitates development and growth along with assisting the attainment of common pre-decided objectives. A cursory look at the definition of the term management will explain what I want to connote, “Management is the process of reaching organizational goals by working with people and other resources”. It is a commonly known fact in organizational domain that managers must concentrate on reaching organizational goals, and they should use their resources (all available resources) to accomplish those goals and the same common sense is applicable to government organizations in India.
The modern principles of management if once accepted and put to use by our government and government organizations will change the future of India. The Government has to learn to be prudent and start acting like top management or board of directors and keep itself separate from the activities of the bureaucracy. Government has to realize and rationalize that they cannot do all the work by themselves and politicians along with their attachments do not have capabilities and capacities to accomplish all things especially business activities or economic domain essentialities. The principle of Division of work could be applied here and running of big corporations and other public sector undertakings could be left with those who have commercial domain expertise. The decision about what activities government and its ancillary bodies will do or undertake has to be decided by the administration and accordingly the directives are to be issued. This step of separation of government (politicians) and associated committees and sub committees from commercial activities will facilitate government to focus on more important issues and will lend a free-hand to expert business managers to run Public Sector Undertakings as well as to make them commercially viable.
The second principle that could be brought into play is that of authority and responsibility. Since we propose that business managers be given autonomy in operating or running business ventures the government should also hold them accountable for keeping things straight and workable. Government organizations on this day seriously lack authority-responsibility equation. Most of the ministers they have authority to run the state of affairs as per their whims and fancies but once things goes wrong and the questions of accountability rises all look for escape goats so the responsibility can be shrugged off. In recent cases the ministers were so shameless that they did not even bothered to give any explanations rather they stated that they were having all authority to do whatever they did but had no accountability or responsibility commensurate with their actions. Therefore, it has to be mandated that all government officials or those who are trusted with the conscientiousness of running and carrying out the activities of government organizations have to be made accountable or responsible for all of their actions along with providing them with authority to discharge their duties effectively.
The next two principles to be implemented or accepted are discipline and unity of command. Discipline can be accepted as most important ingredient of any success recipe and unfortunately it is grossly missing in Indian public sphere. The office bearers of government organizations have to be disciplined and even those who were involved in corrupt practices in past are to be brought to justice so the signal could be send that better be disciplined or be ready to face consequences. Lately the kind of treatment offered to most of the corrupt politicians cannot be considered exemplary so an effort has to be initiated so as to discipline the officials and personnel involved with government organizations and offices. Unity of command has to be instigated so the interference of politicians can be minimized in government associations or bodies consequently the appointed officials can effectively discharge their duties without any directives or unfair involvement by elected public representatives or local honchos of minor political or regional groups supported by politicians. The transparency in all decisions being taken can be managed and principle of authority responsibility proposed earlier has to be held in totality.
Unity of direction is the next principle proposed for execution as every single effort from all directions is to be channelized for national growth. Personal agendas, schemas or petty objectives of political parties or political figure or other groups have to be scarified in the interest of the nation and all efforts as well as resources are to be directed towards betterment of masses and holistic development of India. Commitment from all stakeholders has to be generated so unified movement can be attained and the house of government organizations seems in order and unified for the effective and efficient attainment of a single objective, “The National Objective”. Vision plus Mission statements of all organizations should only be stating one thing, which is betterment of the poorest of the poor and equity among all sections. Fair distribution of resources and wealth has to be ensured and action should be initiated so as to make sure that, engines of growth work with full force and the economy grows with bursting momentum. The GDP rise so will per capita income in addition to income distribution that will have to be fair and justified resulting into better living standards for everyone.
Any kind of corruption, nepotism as well as redtapism has to be uprooted as they create bottlenecks in creation of social equity. This is the time for our nation to not only think about food security (bill is still pending) or right to education but to ensure that social security is provided to all as it is society’s precious resources and wealth (money collected by the means of taxes) that government organization use to run their old, corrupt moreover inefficient operations. Common man makes compromises so as to allow government bodies and organizations to make money and to keep these white elephants moving. Efforts has to be accomplished towards making government organizations lean along with being effective and efficient so precious national resources could be utilized in a better manner and could be put to best use.
Our politicians need to learn that respect cannot be demanded rather it is to be earned and simply by using your power or clout you could not run things as per your wishes. Coercion is not right and should be avoided similarly accumulation of all authority is disastrous and should be replaced with decentralization and cooperation so others could also prove their worth and deliver in action. Officials of government organizations could take decisions to deliver results beneficial for our country. Government organizations are blemished by the presence of sheer power or absolutism where the ministers and departmental secretaries consider their right to use the assets and resources of a national enterprise for their personal gains. Bureaucrats and managers do not have any authority at all, even an attempt to bring out corruption, fraud illegal activity and illicit behaviour may result into the loss of life of the whistleblower, this is kind of dared activity looked down upon by politico-Mafioso. Coming across this kind of unfortunate state of affairs too often, it is felt that governmental organizations should be completely decentralized from the political clout and influences furthermore should be provided more freedom in their operations.
Flat independent structure represented by well qualified professionals should be created. Most talented and well qualified professional from premiere business schools and esteemed institutions of higher education should be hired and given the charge to run the operations in the manner of running a Strategic Business Unit (SBU). The principle of Equity should be followed and every commendable action should be appreciated similarly every condemnable action has to be renounced. Fair and just treatment has to be the order of the day and a code of conduct on the lines of professional code of conduct has to be drafted and followed to the word. None and that means no one has to be given any kind of privilege or relaxed treatment for any kind of misdeed due to his or her political connections or position. Law has to take its natural course and the justice should prevail.
Stability of Tenure for the employees has to be ensured but not guaranteed. The continuity of job has to be attached along with the conditions of effective and efficient discharge of duties. Performance appraisal at all levels including that of cabinet ministers involved with running of government organizations has to be made mandatory. Career Planning, potential evaluation, succession planning all has to be adopted as integral as well as indispensable part of the system. Mere election as a member of parliament or as an MLA should not guarantee of being given a ministerial berth but the educational qualifications, past experiences, professional accreditations and personal traits along with good performance in psychometric analysis has to be given proper weight-age before being appointed as operational or nominal head of a government organization.
Initiative, innovation, collaboration, Esprit de corps have to be instilled so the petty issues of self interest can be avoided and a collaborative unified approach could be adopted for nation building. Effective Leadership has to be instigated as no team can succeed without effective leadership. The leaders of these organizations have to lead from the front that too by setting examples. It should be remembered that nothing great was ever achieved without perseverance so the leader should set himself on a arduous journey and be prepared to face numerous impediments.
Principles essentially have no minimum standard of practice and can rise over time. Principles work to influence a broad set of practices conforming to a level of expectation by the community at large. The implication being, that if anyone in the community believes your practices to be skirting the issue, or non-genuine, then you have a problem of confidence in your actions and it seems that our modern day politicians are falling prey of the same distrust. Following management principles in best possible spirits could leverage everyone up to a high standard of practice, as minimal compliance with benchmarks and pre-decided standards will not really be tolerated by most of the members of our society.
Management Principles also encourage organizations to start right away at moving their current practices in-line with these principles, though still leaving room for continuous improvement over time. Successful organizations adhere to management principles, and periodically evaluate results to ensure the continuing effectiveness of their systems. Furthermore, the procedures and practices of government organizations should be benchmarked against those of successful organizations. As organizations and their environments change, the government organizations must become flexible furthermore adapt to future opportunities and threats by improving processes and practices.
VIVEK JOSHIDirector
Creative Head Consultants
