How to Postpone Managerial Obsolescence?

Managers and executives, after 20 to 25 years of work experience, often find themselves having reached a plateau where, on the one hand, the prospect of enhanced status, increased pay and perks are no longer motivators enough to work hard; and on the other, they find they are unable to relate to the latest managerial knowledge and skills and feel totally lost. In both cases, these managers cease to be productive and become a drag on the organization in terms of their heavy cost and inability to make meaningful contribution. This is the problem of managerial obsolescence that is when managers become unproductive, or out of date, or both. In the situation where lack of motivation seems to be the cause, the solution lies in redesigning their job content to make it more meaningful. An aerospace company designates its senior engineering managers as consultants to its groups of young engineers, thus providing the right outlet for their rich experience.

Training programs aim to provide or improve knowledge and skills which can help the manager improve his performance on the job. Many companies regularly sponsor their senior managers to attend such training programs. Other companies invite experts to their own company premises to conduct these programs and workshops. Training programs, refresher courses, and basic courses in functional areas are the solution for managers facing knowledge obsolescence.

These training programs are not restricted to senior managers alone. In fact, younger managers can also benefit from these programs, especially those which provide knowledge of other functional areas such as production for non-production managers. Also beneficial for the young managers are workshops aimed at training them for the top level management posts.

How a Manager Can Maintain Balance between Creativity and Conformity?

Developing a new idea, concept or product can be very creative, challenging and exciting. But, that is only one part of the story. The other part of the story, and usually the more difficult part, is to translate this idea into a successful business. This requires detailed planning and organizing of finance, marketing, administration, etc. While new product development involves a high degree of creativity, its transformation into a successful business reality involves carrying out relatively more routine and repetitive tasks. Designing a new high-fashion garment can be very challenging and satisfying work but selling it to boutiques all over the country, and chasing them for outstanding dues hardly offers that kind of excitement, but certainly offers the satisfaction of a routine job well done.

A manager is lucky if he can find elements of both creativity and conformity in the same individual. Usually this is not the case, and most organizations have separate; product Development Groups or Research and Development Division. Creativity can flourish best when allowed full freedom with minimum rules and regulations. Thin most firms allow the product development groups to function in a relatively freer atmosphere. An advertising agency known for the excellent advertisements it produces, allows its creative people, the copy-writers and art-director, the freedom to come into office and leave whenever they please. As long as the work is completed within the deadline, management allows its creative people a great degree of freedom.

In contrast to creative success for which definite output or results cannot be predetermined, business success requires achievement of specific, usually quantifiable targets. In business the best results are usually obtained within the conformity of company policies and rules. However, this is not to say that managing for business results is boring and requires no creativity. On the contrary, succeeding in today's cut-throat competitive world calls for creativity in all the functional aspects of managing, be it finance, marketing, advertising, public relations or human relations.

To succeed, an organization needs both creative people and people who can produce business results. The manager must encourage both kinds of persons in his organization. A new product idea gives a company a rare opportunity to emerge out of the humdrum of competition to the top, but the transformation of opportunity into reality depends on the people performing for business results.

How to Sustain Leadership Effectiveness?

Every manager is a leader in the sense that he has to influence his subordinates to work willingly for achieving the organizational objectives and inspire them to put in their best effort. The only way a manager can be acknowledged as a leader is by continually demonstrating his leadership abilities. If the manager always gives due importance to the welfare and interests of his employees, makes objective decisions that benefit everyone, he will be rewarded by the confidence and trust of his people.

J.R.D. Tata is an excellent example of an effective leader. Appointed Chairman of Tata Steel in 1939 he held this position, performing with distinction and providing admirable leadership, right up to 1985. Even today he is the Chairman of the Tata group of companies, whose name is synonymous with the highest standards of quality and integrity. That all Tata products right from salt to trucks enjoy, the trust of lakhs of customers speaks volumes for the highest kind of leadership provided by J.R.D. Tata. There are equally big industrial houses but how many of them enjoy the kind of customer confidence or have the clean and impeccable record of the Tatas? The beginning is always made from the top-the beginning of rot or excellence that is up to you to choose. Whichever you choose remember that it is a very important choice, because once the momentum builds up it is difficult to stop and reverse the process.

An effective leader must be a man with vision who can think and plan ahead, and also have persuasion to carry along all the people.

How to Retain Talent and Inculcate Sense of Loyalty?

Hiring good people is still a relatively simple task as compared to the task of retaining them; people may join a company because of its favorable image but will stay on only if they find appreciation for, and satisfaction from, their work.

To retain talented people the manager should provide a comfortable working environment which is conducive to work. More important than the physical environment is the degree of freedom which a worker enjoys in making decisions within the defined parameters of his job. When a worker knows that it is his responsibility to produce results and he is accountable for them, he will put in his best effort. On the other hand, if the worker is always ordered to do every single act, and nothing is left for him to decide, whatever little potential exists in him will be killed. A worker should be able to take pride in his work, derive satisfaction from saying 'This is my achievement'. To ensure that work does not degenerate into a boring and meaningless affair, repetitive, dull tasks should be interspersed with tasks which call for some element of creativity. In practice this may be difficult, but the manager must at least give some thought to how best he can make work meaningful. Rotating jobs within the same department at the same level may be one way of making work more interesting and provide opportunity to the worker to demonstrate his professional and technical skill.

The manager must also understand that each individual is unique and his degree of expertise at handling various aspects of works varies from that of another. As an effective manager your attempt should be to pinpoint your subordinates' strengths and give them work in which their skill can be utilized to the maximum. In areas where they feel inadequate, provide them support. A talented, competent man is definitely worth that bit of extra support.

Recognizing, appreciating and nurturing your subordinates' talents will bring you rewards in terms of improved results and loyalty. However, to really earn the loyalty of his people the manager must remember two other key concepts, communication and motivation. A manager who encourages open, direct and frank communication is always able to tackle issues much before they become problems and also take advantage of the creative ideas of his employees.

Opportunity to communicate directly with the top manager enhances the sense of self-esteem of workers and helps create in them a sense of belonging, a feeling that what they think and feel is important to their organization. Such a feeling goes a long way in building loyal employees.

Every individual's behavior is initiated because of some needs, drives, and desires and is directed towards achievement of goals. These needs and drives motivate a man to action. The manager's attempt should be to influence these needs, desires or motives towards the achievement of the organizational goals. The more such motivational factors a manager can incorporate in the work content, environment of work and rewards of work, the more willingly will people put in hard work. Money, power, status, recognition, etc. are all powerful motivators which a manager can use. Under the Employees Stock Ownership Plans in use in many U.S. companies, employees can buy shares and become part owners of the companies for which they work. Recent research reveals that these plans encourage employees to remain loyal to their organizations and stay on with them.

Building Human Organization is a Manager’s Task

Man is by far the most critical resource of an organization. No amount of money, materials and machines can produce results by themselves. Men are needed to manage them. Machines can be programmed to take over routine, repetitive jobs, but only a human brain can design the machines.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere", is the advice given by U.S. President, Ronald Reagan to practicing managers (FORTUNE, September 15, 1986). Certainly useful advice except for the drawback that good people, leave alone the best, are so difficult to find. `I just can't seem to find the right people' is an oft heard lament from many a manager. It is indeed a paradoxical situation that we have so much unemployment on the one hand and on the other it is genuinely difficult to find the right sort of people.

A small consulting firm's experience is that an advertisement for sales representatives in a national newspaper fetches anything up to four hundred applications and you are lucky if you are able to pick up even two or three good people.

This only reinforces the fact that a good worker is a valuable asset to any company. And, every manager must constantly be on the lookout for people with potential and attract them to join his company. A manager with a competent team has already won half the battle. Note that we use the word team, and not individuals. However, competent or brilliant individuals may be, if they cannot work together with each other they are of not much use to a company. It is up to the manager to mesh individuals into a well-knit team. The manager who cannot build his team cannot succeed. Teams should be built on the principles of division of labor, specialization of work and mutual give and take.

Pearl Polymers Private Limited is engaged in manufacturing and marketing a wide range of consumer and industrial thermoplastics under the brand name of PEARL PET. In addition, the group is involved in garment exports, computer manufacturing and retailing and trading in basic chemicals. The top management team consists of four brothers each having a special area of activity. The eldest brother is the overall group in-charge who coordinates and looks after the interests of the entire group besides being responsible for marketing and trading. The second brother, a chemical engineer by training, is responsible for production. The third brother is a chartered accountant and manages the finances and accounts. The fourth brother has a business management degree and is responsible for garment exports. Having clear cut areas of functioning and responsibility these brothers have been able to create the right team spirit and are very successful.

Realizing the importance of creating a team spirit and teamwork for achieving the organizational objectives, progressive companies are trying to build this up in every possible way. Quad Graphics, a very successful print company in USA, calls its workers `partners'. W.L. Gore Associates, an American high-tech manufacturer refers to its 4000 people on its payrolls as `associates". Over 8,000 American companies share part of their ownership with more than 10 million employees through Employee Stock Ownership Plans.

How to become an Innovative Manager? [Innovation Management]

To become a successful and innovative manager you must understand what innovation means for your firm. Innovation is finding new, different and better ways of doing existing tasks. In the context of business, innovation has to be defined in terms of the additional value it imparts to the existing products or services. Value is not expressed in terms of increased cost or price but in terms of the difference it makes to the customer.


A television manufacturing company, after years of painstaking effort, introduced a circuit with a neat and clean layout which was extremely easy to service. The company spent large amounts of money promoting this new circuit and its improved servicing but the customers were not impressed and sales did not pick up as per expectations. Customers were not convinced because they could not really perceive the difference and importance of the circuit since its impact on performance was very marginal. The marketing consultant to the company recommended that instead of using plywood the company should use transparent plastic back-covers for the chassis. This would allow the customers to see the circuit and decide for himself the truth of the company's claim. This is an innovation because it makes a vital difference to the customer, since he can see and understand for himself the improvement.

Very often it is the customer himself who provides the source of innovation. Digital Equipment Corporation, a U.S. company manufacturing and marketing minicomputers, does not spend its own time and money in finding new business applications for its mini-computers. Instead, it maintains close contact with its customers and relies on them to find uses for their mini-computers. A study conducted by Eric Von Hippel and James Utterback on the source of innovation in the scientific instruments business revealed that more than 75 per cent of ideas for innovations came from users.

To plan and manage for innovation as an on-going task, the first thing the manager must do is to maintain close contact and relation with customers. The firm's salesmen provide the most direct link for the company with its customers. The task of the manager is to train these salesmen to keep their eyes and ears open for any type of information, ideas, suggestions, complaints, criticisms, and feed it back to the company. An extensive innovation study conducted by Christopher Freeman has concluded that successful companies pay a great deal of attention to the market. Successful firms innovate in response to market needs, involve potential users in the development of the innovation, and understand users' needs.

The manager can also maintain a direct link between customers and the company. Proctor and Gamble, one of America's largest consumer goods company, put on its packaging a telephone number at which the customers could call at company's expense and give any information regarding the product. In 1979 this company received 20,000 telephone calls, each of which was followed through, and was a major source of ideas for innovation and improvements.

Keeping track of competitor's activities and moves can also be a source of innovation as can improvements in technology. To qualify as innovative, the technology must be market and customer-oriented rather than research-oriented. In most cases, innovation as finally introduced in the market was never originally intended to be so.

You can appreciate the truth of this statement better when you know that xerography was originally aimed at a small segment of the lithography (a special type of printing process) market, it was never intended to be used in making mass copies. Transistors, which, prior to the development of integrated circuits, were used in manufacture of television, radio, etc., were originally developed for military use. As a manager you should keep a close watch on the technology improvements taking place and try to find a customer-oriented application for it.

The manager who has his finger on the pulse of the market can quickly find out under-the-surface changes and shifts taking place and accordingly modify his product to match the customer requirement. It is not the absolute amount of money and effort which a firm invests in research and development but its ability to quickly adapt and place in the market the improved product which accounts for its innovativeness. This calls for flexibility in organizational structure to accommodate the necessary changes. In the final analysis, it is the manager who inculcates and nurtures curiosity and an open mind, and combines it with market feedback, who will emerge as winner in the race in which innovation is at a premium.

How to Meet the Challenge of Increasing Competition?

In today's fast changing world one of the very critical tasks of every manager is to anticipate and prepare for the increasing competition. Competition is increasing in terms of more competitors, more products, wider variety of products, better quality of products and a customer who is, today, better informed and more aware than ever before. The increasing reach and popularity of TV as a means of information has also contributed to the increasing competition. The manager today has more potential customers to sell to and easy access to these customers yet the market is crowded with many competitors wooing the same customers.

Till a decade ago, the Times of India group of newspapers and magazines reigned supreme in the magazine market with its 'Illustrated Weekly of India' being the only Indian family magazine and 'Filmfare' the only notable film magazine. The former could be found in most homes which had a minimum level of literacy and affluence.

And 'Filmfare' was the only magazine for people interested in films. The introduction of 'India Today' and 'Stardust' brought about a radical change. Starting in a modest fashion 'India Today' is probably the most widely read general interest magazine while 'Stardust' has blazed its own unique trend-setting trail of popularity. In the wake of the success of these two magazines, many other magazines followed, such as general interest magazines, film magazines, women's magazines, children's magazines, special interest magazines, etc. All these new magazines have better reading content, more colour, better layout and are very glossy and attractive to look at. Unable to match these new magazines the circulation of the 'Illustrated. Weekly of India' and 'Filmfare' slumped. However, in the last years these two magazines have been attempting to regain the lost ground and have succeeded to some measure. But they can certainly never again enjoy the leading position which they once did. In developed countries the concept of competition is very closely linked to that of obsolescence. Companies keep introducing successively new models of cars, washing machines, refrigerators etc., with minor variations, and persuading the customers to discard their older models for the newer ones.