Saturday, August 23, 2014

Drucker on Managerial Psychology

I just loved the below paragraph by drucker from his book Management - Task responsibilities and practices ' He has beautifully articulated the role of psychology in managerial task and how it also if used extensively is nothing but X ,albiet camouflaged.  Find below the exact para as mentioned in the book


"To look for a new set of drives to take the place of the old carrot and stick seems not

only rational but tempting. Such replacement drives are indeed being offered managers in

the form of a new “enlightened psychological despotism.”

Most, if not all, of the recent writers on industrial psychology profess allegiance to

Theory Y. They use terms like “self-fulfillment,” “creativity,” and “the whole man.” But

what they talk and write about is control through psychological manipulation. They are

led to this by their basic assumptions, which are precisely the Theory X assumptions: man

is weak, sick, and incapable of looking after himself. He is full of fears, anxieties, neuro173

ses, inhibitions. Essentially he does not want to achieve but wants to fail. He therefore

wants to be controlled. Indeed, for his own good he needs to be controlled—not by fear of

hunger and incentive of material rewards but through his fear of psychological alienation

and the incentive of “psychological security.”

I know that I am oversimplifying. I know that I am lumping under one heading half a

dozen different approaches. But they all share the same basic assumptions, those of Theory

X, and they all lead to the same conclusions. Psychological control by the superior,

the manager, is possible; and psychological control by the superior, the manager, is “unselfish”

and in the worker’s own interest. By becoming his workers’ psychological servant,

however, the manager retains control as their “boss.”

This is “enlightened” whereas the old carrot-and-stick approach may be condemned as

crassly coercive (and is condemned as such by the psychologists). But it is despotism

nonetheless. Under this new psychological dispensation, persuasion replaces command.

Those unconvinced by persuasion would presumably be deemed sick, immature, or in

need of psychotherapy to become adjusted. Psychological manipulation replaces the carrot

of financial rewards; and empathy, i.e., the exploitation of individual fears, anxieties,

and personality needs, replaces the old fear of being punished or of losing one’s job.

This is strikingly similar to the eighteenth-century philosopher’s theory of the enlightened

despot. As in modern organization today, affluence and education—in this case, the

affluence and rising education of the middle class—threatened to deprive the sovereign of

his carrot and stick. The philosopher’s enlightened despot was going to maintain absolutism

by replacing the old means with persuasion, reason, and enlightenment—all in the

interest of the subjects, of course.

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology.

The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not

for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral

sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate,

and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant

form of tyranny. The master of old was content to control the slave’s body.

We are concerned, however, here neither with the proper use of psychology nor with

morality. But can the Theory X structure be maintained through psychological despotism?

Can psychological despotism work?

Psychological despotism should have tremendous attraction for managers. It promises

them that they can continue to behave as they have always done. All they need is to acquire

a new vocabulary. It flatters them. And yet managers, while avidly reading the psychology

books and attending psychological workshops, are shying away from trying the

new psychological Theory X.

Managers show sound instincts in being leery. Psychological despotism cannot work

any more than enlightened despotism worked in the political sphere two hundred years

ago—and for the same reason. It requires universal genius on the part of the ruler. The

manager, if one listens to the psychologists, will have to have insight into all kinds of

people. He will have to be in command of all kinds of psychological techniques. He will

have to have empathy for all his subordinates. He will have to understand an infinity of

individual personality structures, individual psychological needs, and individual psychological

problems. He will, in other words, have to be omniscient. But most managers find

it hard enough to know all they need to know about their own immediate area of expertise,

be it heat-treating or cost accounting or scheduling.

And to expect any large number of people to have “charisma”—whatever the term

might mean—is an absurdity. This particular quality is reserved for the very few.

Managers should indeed know more about human beings. They should at least know

that human beings behave like human beings, and what that implies. Above all, like most

of us, managers need to know much more about themselves than they do; for most managers

are action-focused rather than introspective. And yet, any manager, no matter how

many psychology seminars he has attended, who attempts to put psychological despotism

 

into practice will very rapidly become its first casualty. He will immediately blunder. He

will impair performance.

The work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Psychological despotism is

basically contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does

not assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is healthy

while everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody else is

weak. It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes that

the manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions of foolish

arrogance.

Above all, the manager-psychologist will undermine his own authority. There is, to be

sure, need for psychological insight, help, counsel. There is need for the healer of souls

and the comforter of the afflicted. But the relationship of healer and patient and that of

superior to subordinate are different relationships and mutually exclusive. They both have

their own integrity. The integrity of the healer is his subordination to the patient’s welfare.

The integrity of the manager is his subordination to the requirements of the common task.

In both relationships there is need for authority; but each has a different ground of authority.

A manager who pretends that the personal needs of the subordinate for, e.g., affection,

rather than the objective needs of the task, determine what should be done, would not

only be a poor manager; no one would—or should—believe him. All he does is to destroy

the integrity of the relationship and with it the respect for his person and his function.

Enlightened psychological despotism with its call for an unlimited supply of universal

geniuses for managerial positions and its confusion between the healer’s and the manager’s

authority and role is not going to deliver what it promises: to maintain Theory X

while pretending to replace it."

Saturday, October 12, 2013

The CHild


On a busy bridge,
A child lying stiff and motionless,
A thin veil of cloth
Substituting as a dress

Hardly a limb flutters in broad daylight
So many who pass by,
Most of whom ignore the sight.

A women besides, begging for alms
Using the child as bait
Expecting pity from all passers by
Not realising there also could be hate (towards the woman)

Trampling upon his childhood by controlling when he sleeps
Denying him his mischief , for in business hours
Who wants to manage if he weeps

If only one can stand a moment longer
And not run away from the feelings that arise
IF only one could take a look at the innocent face
And not act as if doesn’t matter
If he was dead or alive

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Homecoming A Novel

There are authors that wish to impress the audience with the verbosity and there are authors who make the reader connect intimately with the characters they portray in their novels in a lucid manner. Shashi Warrier definitely belongs to the second category in the likes of R K Narayan. Homecoming by warrier is wonderful treat to read. TO state briefly, the main protagonist Javed Sharif who visits his home every year in Kashmir gives a surprise visit on his fathers 84th birthday (setting is in the year 2002) The novel captures the moods prevalent in Kashmir and Javed feels like a second class citizen in his own city due to the rights to question anybody with Police and armed forces. Things turn for the worst when his son is arrested as a suspected terrorist on the day of the B’day. The book explores Javed relationship with his parents, two sons, daughter and his politician brother apart from his relationship with a woman in Bangalore.

As the story progresses, Javeds relationship with every other character changes while he is running around to get his son freed from prison. The author beautifully expresses the emotions that the protagonist goes through as these relationships change - The woman who will not marry unless javed converts his religion, the brother who is no separate from his role, the son in Bangalore who feels he should get more share of business than he gets etc leave Javed utterly isolated at a time when men retire from active life. The strength of a relationship definitely gets tested when times are tough and by the end you wonder whether he feels more of a second class citizen in his state or in his family. Perhaps it’s difficult to make other see a viewpoint when the mind is already made.


 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Movement with imperfections

Been a while since I have posted a blog. Somehow, the more I postpone, the more difficult it becomes for me to get back to it, as if length of absence from a task is directly proportional to the difficulty levels of getting back. There have been occasion when I have started writing the blog but not finished and have given it up halfway. This not only applies to my Blog post but inevitably any task that I postpone towards completion beyond a reasonable time frame, be it my personal finances or my learning needs.


This to me is a universal rule of nature. How does this play out in organisations. Somewhere the challenge that I see in the choice between a perfect system/decision and a movement albeit with some imperfections.


I am a great believer in the second choice since movement with imperfections keeps the ball rolling and avoids the trap of nature. The skill is to know that whether these imperfections can be lived/managed with without the system going helter- skelter.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Hanlon's Razor- Version1.1

Hanlon's Razor is a good way to look a events and people

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

A week back it struck me that this razor could be modified to make it more comprehensive to look at events and people and more specifically that the razor cuts through human tendency to malign impulsively rather than to understand. So here goes version 1.1

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by Ignorance.. >

and version1.2

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by immaturity..

Sunday, August 1, 2010

SALES Vs OPERATION

More often than not, Sales and operations are in conflict leveling allegations at each other. Sales alleging that operations do not understand client level issues and urgencies, and operations alleging Sales does not follow the processes laid.

At the heart of the conflict, lies inadequate understanding of each others Role.

Operations is a shared resource. They operate from a underlying approach of

a)serving maximum number of customers in minimum possible time across sales geographies/divisions/regions etc. (within the current capacities).

b) And acting as gatekeepers, guardians of Regulations, Risk etc objectives as laid by business.

Local Sales team (teams/regions/Divisons etc) on the other hand operates in servicing its minimum number of customers (to the company as a whole) in minimum time

To overcome the potential conflicts, SLAs are signed between heads of these department.

But market realities and business objectives dictate that some customers are treated more important than others, hence these SLAs have to be bent.

So Local Sales starts pressurizing ops to bend the rules. What is one exception to local sales team , turn by turn adds to several exceptions to Ops team. For them exceptions become normal routine. Secondly Local sales have their own fires to douse. Hence for them the urgency is paramount although from overall business objectives they may not be of the same importance. Hence pressurize Ops

So Ops find it difficult to judge the genuine from the Non – Genuine exception, hence they react back. Along the way the genuine cases are put with roadblocks.

This leads to Local sales stating that Ops do not understand client issues. Ops in turn states that processes are no longer followed.

The spiral is complete. Is there a way out. Defining Exceptions as laid by Senior Mangement helps. But at the end of the day, a friendly talk with Ops helps understand each other better than any rules laid.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Drucker: Relevant Then , Relevant now

Recently I purchased a book by Peter Drucker “The practice of Management”. Having only read him as a student earlier, and now after professional experience of few years, I have come to respect and realize the simplicity and insight of management that only a genius can provide.

Peter drucker comes across more as a management philosopher rather than an expert. Anyone dealing with the dilemmas of management should visit his ideas, and I am sure they would come up with a clarity that they did not possess before reading.

I particularly liked the chapter on structure where every management should look at three aspects - Activity analysis, Decision analysis and relation analysis.

Surely Drucker is as relevant in 2010 as he was in the 1950s.