Radio Riyad
Current Events & the World of Islam

MANAGEMENT

by
Aydın Nurhan
January 2004

My Dear Listeners,
Our topic today is Management.
One of the most expensive arts taught in the elite universities of our day.
The dream of the aspiring global princes, the international meritocracy
of our day.
And knowing this, I will not dare tell you the scientific intricacies of this art.
As an administrator with legal background, or rather an old style man
who has missed the opportunity to have an MBA after law school, I would
like to give you a bouquet of my experiences from the 35 years in business life
starting with government, international corporate business, lawyer practice,
diplomacy and international political organization, as a man in hierarchy who
has taken orders and given orders.
As you work your way up in hierarchy throughout the years, you understand
your lack of knowledge in management and tend to refer to textbooks to do your
job professionally. Doing so, and integrating it with your years of experience,
you may pull yourself up from among the ignorant, oldstyle bosses.
Also, if you are one of those lucky who work for a modern state mechanism,
or privileged to work in modern multinational companies where you get
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continual training and refresher courses, you also improve your management
skills into a bright future. If not, you just squeeze in with the losers, having to
use your oldstyle, instinctive, feudal methods.
Here, I hear you murmuring “there are famous tycoons without much
education”. Correct, but you know that they are exceptions, exceptional artists
of the business world. And their success mostly depends on their wisdom in
choosing the top class business professionals of ivy league colleges for their
executive posts.
Dear Friends,
In business books, you can find various definitions of a manager. My
definition of a good manager, from my own personal experience of 35 years,
is that he is
a professional who solves problems swiftly, without panic.
A skilled manager is someone who breaks down the problems to their
smallest details, analyses them, then gathers them again harmoniously and
intelligibly into sound solutions.
So management is an art. And not everybody can be an artist, no matter
how much science and effort they employ towards it. And a pity that many a
people cannot say, “I am not eligible”.
Many people do not accept their limits…
This mentality, leading businesses into bankruptcy, becomes especially
catastrophic in civil services, leading to grave consequences for the society.
The golden rule for the manager, rather for all of us is, “Know Thyself”.
This universal wisdom, coming through all religions, and philosophers
as Socrates, is in fact the key to a healthy psychology. It comes through
introspection, and further, the education of the soul to know its limits, which
would lead to the control of the very self, the nafs.
Whereas a perfect rule for good governance comes from our religion
Islam.
In Qur’an, Allah orders us to trust the job to the competent. (Ayah 4/58).
And our Prophet PBUH, also admonishes us with similar hadiths, and warns
us with grave consequences if not abided by.
The first handicap of incompetency is lack of self confidence, inferiority
complex, and the anxiety that comes with them. Incompetence brings with it the
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tendency of a slavish devotion to superiors, and to oppress the knowledgeable
subordinates. An incompetent manager may also develop health problems as
ulcers, cancer, and heart attacks.
Uneligible managers, with the negative atmosphere they create around
them, pass their ills to their subordinates and family members, knowingly or
unknowingly ruining their lives, sometimes even to death.
This behavior which we may call incompetency syndrome may lead
to severe cases as paranoia where one may see his boss as an enemy, or
subordinates as fatal rivals in coalition against him.
Many of these troubled managers seek sychopants, flatterers around
them to soothe their troubled souls. And some cunning foxes which are skilled
in getting these types of managers in their spell, can manipulate them into
disasters just by playing the yes man.
As we are all human beings, we can be addicted to these cunning foxes
who soothe our complexes by flattery.
Now, Friends,
Let’s note some of the deficiencies with incompetent managers:
Firstly,
Their greatest concern is failure. Hence, to make up for incompetency,
they tend to entertain their superiors with a slavish devotion, at the expense of
their dignity..
In parallel to this, they also worry about the competence of their
subordinates as potential challengers against them. They would be afraid to get
opinions of powerful aides.
Young professionals, in excitement and enthusiasm to serve their company
or state, may end up in direct confrontation with their superiors, attracting
severe reaction, sometimes hitting the wrong nerve to hatred. Hence it would
be proper, especially in early stages of their career, either to be tacit, or, even if
asked of opinion, not to be assertive, nor confronting in their counsel.
Thirdly, in traditional business, what the ignorant bosses like are statistics
and data to test the knowledge of their subordinates. They, being incompetent,
hate ideas and counsel. So the ladder to success and promotion is memorization
of facts for the boss. Same is true for incompetent teachers who also resort to
the ease of memorization as an education policy.
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Fourthly, the incompetent manager is elated by the quarrels among his
subordinates, sometimes result of his calculated manipulations, who direct
their discontents towards each other rather than to the boss himself.
And when the employees go to the boss for mediation, this means solid
acceptance of the supremacy and legitimacy of the manager, hence easing his
pains of competency. The manager gets great pleasure from this role, sees his
subordinates as little souls quarreling among each other for trivialities, and in a
high spirit, complains to his wife and friends how little people are, around him,
thus elated with the feeling of fictive greatness.
And we may add many more ills born out of the incompetence of a
manager. Yet, it is not so easy to blame them in poor contries, with barely
survival incomes in old-fashioned business practices. In such environments,
when someone is offered a managerial position, it means a few more dollars in
salary, to get a little more bread back home.
Hence, even if a person is decent enough to reject a position knowing
the limits of his capacity, even if he is not power hungry, still, it would be
extremely difficult for him to reject the material privilages.
Yet, the least to be expected of a manager should be honesty. He should
be honest to himself, and to his environment. Then we should expect him to
be just, with commonsense, one who can distinguish the most important from
the important, a good listener, predictable, rational, with sense of emphaty,
optimist, constructive, open to novelties, creative, erudite, etc.
These are what popped in my mind in an instance. And you can enhance
this list with your own observations in your careers, harmonize them with your
experiences, and develop your own methodologies.
And now,
Let us give some humble advice to our manager who has the minimum
qualities we seek in him.
So the first duty of an manager should be to educate his assistants. Both
with transferring his personal experience to them, and scientifically through
training and refreshment courses in business.
To see business life as an unethical race and seeing the young assistants
as rivals, locking documents in drawers thinking information is power, hiding
information from colleagues, are cheap, dirty tricks. Yes, information IS power.
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But that which is shared, and enriched by sharing. Monopolizing information
would be the worst betrayal to job and to citizens.
To memorize laws and regulations to use them as weapons against
colleagues or people, or to gain power, is another sinister behavior.
In short, first priority of a manager is to share information with his
colleagues, and then transfer them to young generations.
My dear friends,
Now, think of our youth, how wrongly we educate them. The day they
graduate from school, they see it as a right to be millionaires, without the
science, effort, risk and sweat of decades it may take. Think of the ethics they
sidestep for the material goods of mundane life… The cunning tricks they try
to play to reach peaks as quick as possible…
Think of our education which makes our youth hate books and burn them
on graduation day. And never to open pages again… Producing generations
who are unaware of self improvement through books, choosing a life idling
with friends in vanity.
And we cannot blame our youth, our very children who see from us, their
fathers and mothers, that our societies eliminate the worthy, and promote the
foxy. It is through this “negative selection” that they see their future. It is us
who are breaking the hopes of our children by being bad examples, and leading
them to tricky, cunning ways for success in life.
In this age of technology, we do not care about the modern methods of
evaluating performance on duty. We avert the science of Human Resources in
modern business. Why are we so?
In fact we are in such an era that all modern technologies are at our option,
ready to be exploited. Many of us send our children to the best schools of
management all around the world. But when it comes to the application of
modern science into our business, our mentality rejects the logical methods.
Why so? Is it our civilization to blame? Certainly not.
Today, as against the wrong belief of the many old style competitors,
those who base success on race and rivalry with peers, modern success is not
based on rivalry with peers. In our postmodern 21st Century, success depends
on our race with our greatest rival, which is ourselves.
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Yes, I can feel you remembering a tenet of our noble religion here… The
Great Jihad. And now, the Great Jihad against the self is what the global
society came to realize for success in business, in family, in sports, and you
name more. Now the world is talking of self-improvement. Libraries are
full of such recipes, so-called New Age books. Now, we have to surpass our
ownselves, perpetually, never fatiguing.
21st Century will not give chance to ones who do not perpetually update
themselves. Static ones, ones who are not changing, creating and renovating
shall be left behind, and collapse.
Look around yourselves..
See people who walk with grave pride,
Who pose serious, but in talent, trivial.
Who pose as indispensable, but worthless..
Thousands of them..
There are some, who give honour to their office, raise its esteem.
And there are some who get honour from the office,
exploit it and defame it.
There are managers who see business as an unethical contest among
peers..
wealth..
Chasing prominence and fame, they climb the ladders of power and
As a side-product, their company or people may also gain some trifle…
And there are managers who work for their people or company,
their people and company prosper,
and if recognized by chance, they may also get a nod of approval,
and that is all the prize to make them merry.
There are managers whose priority is the satisfaction of the boss..
And there are managers who aspire to protect the needy and the oppressed,
and work to earn the warm affection of their people to their beloved state.
A good manager builds a bridge between theory and practice. As he
functions, questions arise in his brain, then he goes and refers to books, and
comes back with sound solutions. Then from experience and applications, he
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creates his own theories. And this enlightened circle is the mother of innovation,
which in the finale, may evolve into a doctrine.
Management in fact, is to rise to see the forest from counting individual
trees. Yes, when needed, nuances, the smallest details, are vital. As the saying
goes, the devil is in details. But a manager spending a lifetime in details,
loses his vision. A good manager is the one who delegates authority and
responsibility to his subordinates in a balanced way, and who does not interfere
except in extraordinary cases.
A good manager asks facts and details from young experts, and opinion
from senior aides. To expect senior aides to master the minor details of the files
of the departments is either not realistic, or not good-willed.
The best capital for a good manager is to have experts who know better
than himself. As you may remember, the question posed to Bill Gates, as if he
felt inferiority complex working among the genius brains of the world, and he
has replied that it was for their genius that he was paying them.
In modern management, bosses pay millions of dollars to consultants to
criticise themselves and their companies. Still yet, as humans, they get upset with
the constructive critique of their brightest subordinates. This is human vanity.
Anyway,
Now let’s look into the manager’s talent in guiding his team. The first
things he needs are sincerety, honesty and justice.
These are the essentials of convincing a team to harmony and success.
And convincing cannot come through a one way monologue. Hence a good
manager knows how to listen. Moreover, he knows how to make his team feel
easy, and speak their mind out to him.
The manager should be wise enough to ask intelligent and learned
questions to pull creative ideas from mouths. He should make his assistants
feel that he listens with full attention and respects their ideas. He does not cut
their words, rather, in the case with inexperienced young officials who cannot
compile their ideas in a sensible way, helps ease their anxiety.
A wise manager, trying to gain insight into his business, can get the best
intelligence at informal social occasions, from the very hearts of the human
beings, speaking their subconscious sincerely, at an eased atmosphere.
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By sincerity, he also convinces every member of his team that they have
a part in the final decision, and feel the pride for it. And making sure that the
team has understood and acknowledged by heart the mission, applies it with
full spirit and resolution, without faltering.
Yet if, for a zealous manager, priority is to satisfy his superiors, then
entertaining clients, subordinates or citizens is secondary in his aspiration to
power. He knows by instinct that if he gives priority to humans at his door,
he cannot rise. For him, clients and subordinates do not seem as humans, but
spiritless letters and numbers as mathematic problems on paper.
And it is a pity that in underdeveloped countries, the human resource
evaluation system assesses subservience to the boss rather than treating clients
or the citizens.
My Dear Listeners,
You may remember that we said, a good manager was a good listener. A
good listener means an enthusiast for learning, yearning for new knowledge.
But what we see around, is that when somebody accidentally becomes
a manager, he thinks he now became the wisest man of the world, that his
colleagues expect him to know all secrets of the universe, hence he is delighted
to preach them in almost every field of knowledge.
In a few days, he builds such a self esteem that he evolves extraordinarily
into a wise man, thinking his subordinates are all but ignorant. First thing for a
bad manager to lose, is the ability to listen with attention and empathy.
An ignorant is someone who does not know he does not know. He does not
take counsel, he rejects new knowledge. And most regretfully, after a certain
age, we lose our chance to learn from others. Because as we grow older, we
learn to accept people as they are, not try to change their faults, we learn to be
politically correct, and not gain enemies. Hence, reciprocally, we all lose the
great opprtunity of being corrected by each other, whereas it is the duty of the
muslim, at any age, to be true to his brothers.
We tend to think, “If this man has not learned until this age, why should
I be the arrogant preacher and insult him, rather than having a sweet chat and
pass nice time with him?” And mind you, this is especially the approach of
subordinates to bosses at ranks of power.
So, a good manager should be very sensitive against this natural
psychology, and try to get as much input as possible from his friends, colleagues,
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and subordinates, provided, not to be seen as too humble and ignorant to be
abused.
Again, to compensate for the reluctance and reservation of the environment
to tell bitter truths, a mature person can take books as true friends. Books
are real friends in need, they teach without insulting and injuring the pride,
and they are good guides especially for those who reflect, and ready to get
lessons.
I think it was in Peter Drucker’s book, that some brains are better on
reading, they can concentrate on pages, and understand better by reading, and
there are some who can better concentrate in listening, and understand better
by listening, rather than reading. Can you imagine someone who can be none?
Not reading, and not listening to others either? What a poor ignorant they
would make…
In reality, as a teacher cannot know everything, and does not have to know
everything, a manager, in the same logic, does not have to know everything.
His subordinates may exceed him in many fields of life, and he should take it
with grace. Yet, it is human weakness, and the greatest war is against the nafs,
the very self, as I repeatedly remind you from our noble religion. Perhaps to
tame the nafs, we should put special lessons in schools as the American army
is doing in a technical way.
Dear Listeners,
The difference of a manager from an ordinary clerk is his ability and
courage to take calculated, realistic risks. We should know that if it is written
for our fate, every bad fortune may meet us some time. And a manager can
never be sure that every single signature he puts on paper, no matter how much
he scrutinizes, is foolproof.
Hence, he must work with aides who have gained his trust in time. An
atmosphere of inconfidence cannot be resourceful. A manager should never
expect loyalty from the people he disrespects and oppresses, and should be on
continual alert for betrayal.
He should always keep in mind that his aides are his best supports. If he
does not respect them, hurts their pride especially in front of their subordinates,
then the junior staff promptly get the message and start disrespecting the second
man. Then the skeleton of hierarchy, the vertical order of command collapses.
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Honor and pride are still sacred values for humans. Attack on these values
cause irreparable damage in the souls, and bring eternal hatred. A manager
who does not want enemies, should be careful in attacking the pride of his
assistants.
Praise may be open, public, but rebuke should be strictly confidential,
personal. A manager should always have emphaty with his subordinates and
say, “How would I feel if my wife, children, or parents watch my boss
scolding me?”
Especially young employees, to have audience with their bosses, get very
anxious, and some try to memorize all their files against the possibility of not
being able to answer questions. A wise manager who cares for the education of
his young staff, eases their tension, and cares not to damage the personality of
prospective bright leaders.
A boss should act as a fatherlike figure to his young assistants, knowing
that if a father oppresses and kills the willpower of his children, they become
weak personalities in life, preys for strong characters raised by wise fathers. the
A manager with self confidence, shows affection to personal and professional
problems of his staff, and where needed, protects their well earned rights even
in cases of dispute with higher echelons of power.
He does not ask the reasons for permissions, not to force the employees
into dishonesty and telling lies. In modern business, it is very proper to cut
salary for short leaves. But a good manager is the one who has not lost his
human side, and knows the human moments of support, without thinking of the
mechanical business laws of modernity.
The first and foremost right of the employee, is his salary. So his salary
should be paid before the sweat dries on his forehead. A manager who makes
his employee beg for his honestly earned salary, is an evil. This behavior has
no place either in religious, or secular ethics. One who does not respect human
dignity, has no right to expect honesty from his counterparts.
One who does favouritism to his flatterers, go for nepotism, divide the
workers as manager’s spy, assistant’s man, superintendant’s boy, and chooses
the policy of divide et impera, cannot get efficiency in such evil atmosphere.
In private business, this is a sure way to bankruptcy. For civil service, it is an
oppression, and again a sure way to earn hatred of workers and discontented
people against the state, but many a case, a manager does not get any punishment
for such devilish conduct leading to betrayal of fatherland.
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Yes my dear friends,
As you see, I am sprinkling my experiences unsystematically, randomly, as
machine gun fire, what I lived personally in different levels of hierarchy, what I
saw around me, what I have witnessed with friends and business environments
through my 35 years in business life.
Jotting down your experiences, memoirs, perhaps one day, you may
also write your own practical experiences as a little booklet, if not for big
audiences, at least for your own children who, if wise enough to learn the
lessons, would not have to live the same hardships in life, gaining perhaps 30
years of experience at a very early age.
Can you start tonight, before you go to bed?
My Dear Listeners,
we can say that a manager should be consciencious and sound.
A desk clerk, is conservative in nature. With his marginal skills and his
marginal budget, he is scared of change and instability. So he rejects change.
So a modern manager seeking continual improvement and change, has to make
a psychological preparation with his workers before launching a novelty in
business.
And in this process, he may have to be ruthless too.
Against Bad Intention.
Workers are not uniform in capacity. Allah has given different skills to
every person. A lowly talented, but sincere, hardworker is much higher in
value than a highly skilled, but lazy and evil character.
Perhaps, here we can make a slogan:
Don’t load a little donkey too much weight,
Load a mule, as much as he can carry.
Pay them justly,
Do not torture your workers overstressing them.
Do not ridicule your good-willed worker for low capacity.
Humility should be your guide, for one day you may lose your intellectual
or physical capacity too. Or your children… They too, may be mentally or
physically retarded. Always remember Allah when ridiculing the weak.
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Yet..
Cut out the cancerous, devilish spirits from your team.
So the cancer would not spread around.
Do not be afraid to cut their bread-money.
If you fire them, another hungry mouth is waiting to take over anyway.
If they do not care about the bread of their children,
It is their own responsibility.
Your duty is just to warn them once.
When grading performance, think wide. There are good bosses, and
there are bad bosses. And there are good workers, and there are bad workers.
Sometimes bad workers are lucky to work for good bosses, and get undeserved
grades, whereas good workers are unlucky to work for bad bosses. Hence, a
good manager should think of the future of his worker and assess him after
comparative evaluation with relative departments.
An experienced manager does not give full score to his employees in
the first year. Because a sudden and big drop the next year would bring in the
question of his consistency in grading.
Be very careful about sensitive characters, especially with female workers.
They break very easily, even your cold look may send them to hospital with
ulcers, or heart attacks. Be afraid of hurting humans. This fear is a sign that
compassion has not died, and is still warm in your heart.
As you leave your office, say a few sweet words to your office boy, he
goes home jolly, spreading positive energy to his wife and children, and you
have made a home paradise that night.
As a young manager joins a new office, some subordinates may try to test
his youth and inexperience. Foreman may test a new engineer, sergeant may
test a new lieutenant. Be patient, take it with grace, do not forget that life is
a continual school. Respect the elderly experts who have given a lifetime to
business, do not scold them. Yet, do not let them ridicule you, keep the magical
distance in between.
Especially if you are a freshly appointed manager, speak little. Do not
crave to prove yourself to your employees, do not go into self praising. Let
them weigh you by what you do. Self praising in front of a subordinate sends a
message of insecurity, and an appeal for approval and legitimacy.
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Yet, it is not a shame to ask subordinates for knowledge. You can never
gain insight by searching data in books. You have your aides to give you their
experience and knowledge. You are trained as an orchestra conductor. Your job
is to lead and keep the tunes in harmony. And to do this, you need legitimacy
in hearts and minds.
A good manager seeks efficiency through harmony. He puts realistic goals,
and works with small, committed, competent teams. He starts harmony with
the selection of new team members. He lets his team members choose their
colleague. He cares for the chemistry among the natures of team members.
He applies constructive, positive pressure on team members, feeds them
with perpetual objective, never let them idle into indolance and corruption.
Management is a science and an art,
oscillating between democracy and despotism,
never one of them,
but approaching one when circumstances call for.
But, even in extreme moments, a manager does not have the luxury of
being brutal and cruel. Politeness and decent distance always brings in respect.
Cruelty calls cruelty and despise.
A good manager thinks much and decides once. Once deciding, he stands
behind it, does not falter changing views every day. Especially people who
can easily be influenced by others, never make good managers and decision-
makers. And nobody takes them seriously.
If a manager shall speak bad, or act bad, he should swallow his word, and
reflect for 24 hours. This golden rule of military, protects a manager from vital
wrongdoings in extreme emotional moments.
Again a golden rule from the military, the defects and deficiencies in a
new environment offend the eye just for the first week in office. If the manager
fixes them then, he is a good manager. After one week, he will get used to
them, and will not be annoyed by them anymore. And the deficiencies may
have to wait years for a new manager to fix them.
Dear listeners,
Success in business life also depends on proficiency. The delay and
indecisiveness of an officer creates a lot of harm and loss in business life. As
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experienced officers know best, among the incoming documents, the first to be
finished are the easiest ones. But if the official does not know what to do, then
documents get delayed, then pass to lower part of the stack, and perhaps, after
some long procrastination, with fear of punishment from the boss, documents
may get destroyed and find the waste basket.
Here, we may safely say that procrastination mainly arises out of
ignorance, inexperience and indecisiveness, not knowing what to do, and how
to do, rather than laziness. Here again come the necessity of lifetime training.
Perhaps a civil servant does not mean harm to people, but his lack of
efficiency harms his performance. But he gets his legitimacy not from the
laws, but from the public conscience. So, even if he is incapacitated, he should
be good-willed. A soul who can not make thrones in hearts, becomes ugly. And
ugly souls do ugly things.
And the teaching of our religion:
Don’t make harder, make easier!
Any better guide to a civil servant?
Yes my dear listeners,
Let us finish this week’s chat with the following yardstick:
The best indication of the civilization and family quality of a manager are,
Cleanliness of the toilets in his workplace, and
Prompt answering of the telephones in his business.
Any person who cannot secure these, should not ever dream of being
managers.
And I would like to finish our talk by asking the question..
Listening to me, did you say “This is exactly what I see in life!”? If so, I
was successful. Because this is the aspiration of a journalist, or any columnist,
because our main duty is to reflect real lives, problems and aspirations of our
people.
Wish you a lucky and wise business life dear friends.
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