Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Being Right...

Managing the things right” or “Managing right things
What do you think is more important?

Generally management lesson we learn in our management schools is all about “Managing the things right”, which becomes our mind set. We tend to do everything right, we design new strategies and develop new skill set to do the things right, and try to make perfect world around us. But, I feel somewhere or the other, we tend to forget to ask a question, “Are we doing right things?”

So, actually one can’t ignore or give more importance to any one of these ideologies.

I won’t go in much detail about “Managing the things right”, as something I am keener to talk about is “Managing right things” as of now. And this is one of the important lessons, I have learnt from my good managers as well as some of the bad managers, to cultivate “Managing right things” attitude. There are various aspects which are required for this “Right thing”. I’ll put forward some of them and you may add on to this collection:
  1. Ethics: I’ll start with ‘Ethics’ as most important factor in managing right things. Ethics drive that a person involved in act, will be responding to certain situation in what manner. If a person gets driven by unethical practices, then he/she is definitely putting efforts in undesired activities, which makes it irrelevant that how efficiently he/she is managing the things right.
  2. Habit of Cover-Ups: I read an insightful article about habit of ‘Cover-Ups’, which leads a person to some unwanted activities which may have been avoided if the cover-ups would have not been done at the first place. Thus, providing more space, time and focus on managing right things. (Refer: http://ymadhuri.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/cover-ups-breed-incompetence/ Read the series…)
  3. Defining Priorities: In order to get the result of managing things right one needs to define the priorities. Defining priorities will lead to managing right things, at right time. Priorities can be defined based upon the effect a particular activity is going to have after completion. If somebody else is waiting for your output, from particular activity to start his/her activity, then your activity becomes much more important. Thus, you can define priorities based upon the end results of your activity and do the right task at right time.
  4. Delegation: In order to get more time to manage right things, you need to perform something very important “Right Thing” of delegating the responsibilities. This activity becomes more and more important as you climb to more responsible role in the ladder. If things are not delegated, then it is never that you’ll be able to accomplish the goal of ‘Managing the things right’. Reason is pretty simple; you are not left with any time to perform the task efficiently. So, identify the person best suitable for the task and delegate it.

    There could be a long list to go with either of the ideologies, but I’ll hold myself for now. I wish to have more suggestion on these ideologies and methodology to accomplish either of them.