Dinosaurs go extinct

As top managers, we give directions from the top (it’s called top down approach as against the more democratic – bottoms up, both having their own merits and demerits) and that, in a manner of speaking, could be the right way to manage by looking at the macro issues rather than undertaking micro management. But, not many top managers, especially in the modern times, are going right up to the top from grassroots through organic time bound growth. Bosses who grow ftom grassroots to the top have usually handled, almost all, if not all the activities that happen in the organisation and are well versed with the challenges posed by each of such activities. For example, such a manager by virtue of his hands on experience on the shop floor would be well aware of the efforts involved and likely snags. Ditto the challenges in departments such as packaging, sales, recovery etc.

But managers of today are young, highly and pertinently qualified, very ambitious, in a hurry and open to accepting all the challenges. Obviously, they want to create deep impression of their contribution in a short span of time and to this end, they can go to any extent, including arriving at certain decisions that may not actually reflect true state of affairs.

The provocation for the above arose from a video I saw on social media, where a very prominent socialite and human rights activist, spoke about our passion or rather obsession for everything big – big plans, big changes ( transformation, the new byword for big change), big numbers- and in the process, we forget scale of what smallness means multiplied many times! There are workers, labourers, messengers, accountants, assistants, line managers, sitting on shop floor, in administrative offices, back offices, head offices etc forming the lifeline of the organisation, and if the management is not holistic, but focused only on balance sheet parameters and investors’ reaction than the effect of smallness multiplied many times can be deemed to be getting ignored. For all such managers and organisations, it will be good to remember the catchline or byword or mool mantra ( the basic tenet), as one may please to call it – Dinosaurs go extinct; small contributions multiplied many times over make the real big!