mahabaratha and the management

*** (Non) Statuatory Warning***

This blog is quite long and will be interesting for managemnt freaks. stay off if u r not one of this kind :)

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I t was one of the pleasant Tuesday evening, i shud say... was a pretty long day for me with burden gettin heavier smoothly... it was our department Q3 startegy meeting ( a summit, precisely)

My department vice president is organizing this and I was thrilled as I never attended this on previous quarters… however, I was anticipating a boring lecture thaz gonna make me doze away… The meeting started and I liked the way my VP done wth his presentation (im not elaborating on this as this is not my concern of this blog ;))

Ther was a short 10 mins break and I was aware that therz gonna b a 1 hour presentation from a professor of IIM – B about “Unbundling Managerial Potentials” … by that time I was sure this is gonna b totally an alien concept for me… also therz gonna b a grand dinner after that (do u still think I will b lookin forward for the presentation) I made up my mind to sit for an hour by keeping eyes open and switch off the rest….

The professor had a typical geek look on him… with long hairs tied, French beard, pot belly that bounces often, bla bla bla…. He started and I thought I cud lend my ears for a couple of mins (before I switch off myself) he started in an abslte grace ,

“Iam Ramnath Narayanswamy, and I am here to talk about some management stuff that will let u go away with some value”…

this still doesn’t appeal much to me… then he started with this question

“Tell me my friends, what is management?”

very apparent … any one will ask this before they start any kinda discussion regarding management… (but I din kno the exact anser…very ironic!!! Ain it?? ;)) a manager geek in the crowd (of 100 odd people) answered…

“Doing the right thing at the right time”, he sed with fulla bliss all over his face (finally he gotta chance to answer some one in a crowd)

“May I add……at the right place as well???” , he placed his request in a more lucid manner… I am impressed with his communication …. Very much anticipated reaction from the geek… “Yes…I guess u can” I was LMAO (What else he cud say) …”But I have to tell this, the whole definition is not completely acceptable” …every one wowed at this …he gave a lovely explanation for why this cant be the apt anser… later he defined the management as follows…

“Management is a creative response to a set of contradictory constraints”

…. Some body kill me ..i don have any clue about how to understand this definition, later he added.. “Those contradictory constraints are SWOT (Strength, Weekness, Opportunity and Threat)”…is it???, “When you putting a step ahead you have to parallely work on all these four major factors”… impressive, I thought (I cant explain about how to work on all these factors due to severe time constraint )

Any one who is old, experienced and confident will keep telling one or the other contradictory descriptions… so im not surprised any way…later he was explaining about his attempt to map the epic (Mahabaratha) to our management …he compares the management life as a war and he quotes 3 key factors thaz needed for a good manager (warrior) as

· Analytical Intelligence – Your actual technical skills that u put on yr work… This forms the actual ‘SCIENCE’ of war.. In Sanskrit he defines it by the word “Shradda”
· Emotional Intelligence – your leadership, interaction, attitude, etc.. at yr work place… This forms the actual ‘ART’ of war.. In Sanskrit he defines it by the word “Viveka”
· Spiritual Intelligence – this is the main part where Indians are absltly amazing and this is the key factor that puts India at top in many MNC’s … This forms the actual ‘CRAFT’ of war.. In Sanskrit he defines it by the word “Vairakya”

So to win the battle one needs the above skills and fight wth determination….

Later he was discussing the pro’s and con’s of all the 6 pandavas (including Karna) and how a guy like each would actually be in the management world … at the end he beautifully concluded by quoting “you have to be like Krishna and use all these 6 character’s attributes to win the game” this impressed us a lot and we all din aware of the fact that the clock was running fast and we crossed the time bar… we actually wanted to know more but schedule is a schedule….

Later Im back to my desk to know mre about this amazing piece of gods creation (I mean the professor) … gotcha!!! He is quite popular in google search.. he got his own website as well its http://www.ramnathnarayanswamy.com im amazed to look at his profile and found completely demotivated by this as I find myself not even a fraction of his achievements….. I liked his attempt of mapping spirituality with management and I even mailed him my appretiation with my doubts…. Surprised to see his reply with in an hour wth my doubt got clarified….

This speech however is motivational one for a ordinary developer like me but indeed a usefull one to our managers where I can find thick difference between how a manager is suppose to be and how they are actually now… pathetic… I am now quite curious to face the challenges in the management world …would like to be a manager at some point in my future and see how challenging will the tasks be, equally balancing with my personal life J