Learn Managing with McCormack

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle April 2002)


It is very difficult to manage. I think most of you would be unanimous in accepting this statement of mine. Where the difference comes is in responding to the difficult situation. Some of you might say: “Difficult things are difficult. And they will remain difficult no matter what you teach.” If you come with that cloistered mindset, please don’t waste your time reading this article further.

Hope you have not stopped at the end of the last paragraph. Your response I believe is: “Well, difficulties are there. But I’ll try my best to overcome them. Can you help me do that?” Believe me, I can. And I will take you straight to management guru Mark H McCormack.

In his book Managing, McCormack spells out a few core beliefs as a manager. Let us first see them one by one.

1. Work harder than everyone else: Often, the tendency at the managerial level is: “It’s not my job to do work. My job is to get work done. So hard work is not for me. I’m cut out for intelligent work.”

You’re mistaken, Sir! First, you can’t compartmentalise intelligent work and hard work. Quality and quantity both are important. Second, you are the captain. And if the captain himself does not perform well, it sends a disappointing message to the team. You must lead by example.

Haven’t you often heard of how so-and-so company performs badly because it does not have a work culture? Now, where does this work culture come from? It is, in fact, an emulation effect. Trickle-down definitely works here, though the same may not always hold good for the economy.

Yes, your job is do get work done. No doubt about that. But note that this itself is a job. Now, in order to maximise your job utility, you need to do elaborate planning. You have to identify and overcome the obstacles that is keeping your team members from delivering. And all this needs hard work - in fact, harder than any of your team members.
2. Show people, then let them run with it: Don’t see your team as a projection of yourself. Always remember that every person has a distinct identity. Their way of doing things will differ from yours. So never try to impose yourself upon them.

Your role is that of a guide or a coach. Set an objective. See that the means adopted are not improper. But thereafter leave the business not to your clones, but to distinct individuals.

3. Stay away unless you add value: Realise that a good manager need not be a good engineer. And even among engineers, a good electronics engineer will not be a good chemical engineer. Imagine the plight of a cricket team where the batsman-captain steps in after every delivery and guides the bowler.

The point I am trying to make is that a manager should not consider himself a superior being and therefore entitled to poke his nose in everything. This may often create confusion among the team members.

4. Be ruthless about one thing, not everything: Agreed, a manager has to deal with diversity. Yet, it is important that he should not lose focus. The team members work brightly but they do so in straight lines. It is the manager’s job to make those straight rays bend as per requirements and converge so that a proper image is obtained.

The Indian govt has a lot to learn from McCormack. For, I believe, the govt is the manager of the country. In spite of pressure from all quarters, the govt is yet to discover the merits of hard work. The govt also has to find its role as a guide for the economy rather than being a player. As a facilitator, it has to allow the private sector players to do their work without unsolicited bureaucratic interference.

And it has to be ruthless about one thing - good governance. That is, teaching the people how to catch fish. And, of course, seeing that the pond remains clean.