Friday, July 30, 2010
At the very top, expect to get shat on
In one of my carnations I lived in the sub continent for a while. The company was a hugely successful one, by local standards, but they were seeking to leap on to a band wagon they knew nothing about.
At the centre of this sprawling corporate empire sat Lord Muck himself, the Emperor over all he surveyed. In his gilded down town office where the lift needed an operator or at one of his houses where it was sometimes easier to communicate by text message he would pass edict or judgement as he saw fit.
Each instruction from his was eagerly lapped up by servile minions who hung on his every word and they would bow and scrape their knuckles along the ground as they escaped his august presence to rush and carry out the latest law.
And that was it.
When someone had the temerity to actually point out that the commandment he had passed in stone had not been carried out, why guess whose fault it was? Yeap, the complainant. Throw him to the ground, centurion.
Hold your ground and he would be gob smacked that his imperial edicts weren't being carried to the letter out as he had instructed and as he had majestically assumed.
Then we would have the daisy chain as the original groveller, who had received the instruction, pass the blame on to his underling who in turn passed it on to his underling who in turn and la-di-da-di-da down the line till usually some poor foot soldier was given a royal summons and carpeted for not carrying out his lord and master's wishes to the later. Whether he knew them or not.
Now there is someone I know, a few years younger than me, who gave me some pretty useful advise many years back and it's advise I have carried with me all along the line.
As boss first you pass on the instruction. Most people can handle this part OK, for whatever people love to feel they are in control and can boss people around and for them that's enough. Indeed I seem to recall a Swedish proverb along those lines.
Second, make sure the instructions are understood. This of course is where things often fall apart. Big powerful men, at least big, powerful, in their own minds, assume the world understands every word of their incoherent ramblings and is ready to jump into action once they say jump.
At the third stage some would like to be in karaoke bars, massage parlours or on the golf course by now, or the pious praying, there needs to be checks that the task is being carried out as per the original instructions.
Stage four there needs to be a verifiable conclusion. What this means to knuckle draggers and and bureaucratic simians is you get off your comfy chair and find out what the hell is going on.
The final stage of course is a performance review.
This doesn't come from an expensive MBA programme but from a highly successful businessman who learnt the hard way in this part of the world. And is now retired subject to controlling his pan Asian empire by email three or four times a day.
How does this translate into football?
How many times has the final decision maker taken the rap for anything in this part of the world? Scotty on the Starship Enterprise would be thrilled to bits at the deflection mechanisms the great and good deploy whenever they feel any kind of blame gets near them.
# posted by Me @ 6:24 PM 
