BE A GOOD MANAGER BY ADOPTING 3-A STRATEGY

If one tries to only satisfy what boss wants, he may not satisfy the organizational requirements but, if one tries to satisfy organizational requirements, boss as well as interested parties will automatically get satisfied.

A manager is precisely required to satisfy organizational objectives.

It is generally believed that an MBA qualified manager performs better. But many industries cannot afford the luxury of employing MBA candidates. Though there is nothing wrong in promoting existing employee as a manager, it is necessary for such managers to understand
and fill the gaps.

A manager must be prepared to follow 3-A strategy – Adapt [Accept and adjust with the existing situation], Adopt [Follow a systematic approach & Accept and implement good ideas from others], and Adept [be the best in a chosen field]

A business organization has three main objectives –

a) To earn and maximize profit – by improving the performance through visualizing and
eliminating losses –(Efficiency)
b) To earn goodwill & maximize customer satisfaction - through understanding and
fulfilling customer requirements & expectations by following management systems –
(Effectiveness)
c) To be a step ahead of competitors – by improving market leadership
If a manager does not stick to these objectives but follows his own agenda, the result will be
chaos and non professionalism

Adapt the given situation

A manager should take off from the existing situation and further improve the performance of the organization. He must understand what is expected from him by the organization.

Organization and Managers

A professional organization provide its managers –
a) Opportunities, [to show their talent & improve results]
b) Responsibility [ to carry out processes effectively & efficiently]
c) Authority [ to take timely decisions ]
d) Facilities to carry out work [ to make work simpler & stress free ]
e) Training & refresher training [ to improve their competency ]
And expects from them –
a) Accountability – for time, resources under their control and achieving agreed targets
b) Predictability – fulfill your commitments – no excuses!!!c)
c) Creativity - through application of knowledge gained
d) Innovation & small inventions – application of new ideas through Kaizens
e) Continual improvement in everything done – substantiated by data or objective
evidences [ proofs ]

* Who can be a good manager? –

An engineer? An accountant? or a marketing person?

Anybody can be a good manager provided he works for achieving organization’s objectives. A manager may be best engineer, but if gets involved in engineering activities only, he is following his personal agenda. He can at the most be a good “Chief engineer” in his life but can never be a good manager and may have to report to a much younger manager, by virtue of his MBA qualification, who pursues organizational objectives.

Same holds true for a good accountant or a good marketing manager

A good manager understands and realizes that organizational power is given to him to satisfy the needs of the organization and customers and not only to make him feel important in the organization

A good manager aligns his own objectives with organizational objectives and creates a win- win situation for both. He uses his engineering knowledge to apply a systematic approach to all the processes under his ownership including, how to prevent break downs by implementing TPM.

Adopt new techniques

Value adding activities

In an organization, there are several activities. Some are value adding, others are non value adding.

One should ask himself two questions for each activity carried out by them during duty hours-
1. Whether his activity brings profit to the organization
2. Whether his activity is oriented towards immediate customer satisfaction

If answer is yes & yes!!! Then only it is a value adding activity. Everything else is “waste”. In a non professional organization the extent of non value activities may be 70%. A good manager can reduce such non value activities to great extent by following lean manufacturing techniques.

Attitude

It is said that success depends 85% on attitude [approach] and only 15% on aptitude [talent] of a manager

If a manager wants to avoid work, he finds excuses & He becomes contributor to a problem [chaos]

If a manager wants to solve problems, he finds ways & he contributes to solution [improvements]

A manager is neither a person who carries out only assigned work, nor he is a person who only demands work from others.

Systems help managers to find ways quickly to bring solutions oriented culture of continual improvement within organization.

He has to utilize his talent and knowledge gained through education, experience or training to achieve & further organizational objectives and make processes – Cheaper, Cleaner, Faster, Safer, Simpler, Stress free, Shorter etc.

Otherwise, a manager will lose his knowledge and will not be contributing to the organization.

* Manager and his team

A manager should not only understand and realize that it is a teamwork that contributes to
success. His wrong approach even with a better team may contribute to failure.
A manager may have more experience and wisdom than his junior, but a junior may have
latest information and more vitality than a senior.
A good manager should acknowledge this fact and get the best out of his team, and update
his knowledge continuously. TEAM means, Together Efficiently Achieve Mission.

* A good manager values suggestions

A good manager keeps track on developments taking place at competitor’s organization.

A good manager considers suggestions from others, takes corrective and preventive actions, leading to improvement. He sets higher targets, takes his team members in confidence and achieves them to take the organization ahead of competitors.

Adept

In one professionally managed organization, CMD says,
I am not interested in day to day working; my managers are capable of doing it.
What I am interested in is how my industry will be after five years in terms of improvements in technology, cost, quality and customer satisfaction leading to profits, growth and market leadership

A good manager implements performance improvement tools proactively

Today’s techniques if followed repeatedly will give the same result. To do it differently, a good manager learns latest techniques of performance improvements and implements them.

One way is to imagine that within next six months organization would have 10 competitors
in the market and start preparing from today differently.

Time Management

At one professionally managed industry, a manager divides duty hours in three categories –

1. Reactive activities - He uses 40% uninterrupted morning time every day to know what happened during his absence, makes observations of abnormalities during rounds, discusses with concerned people at the place of problems (gemba) and allots work to
respective people
2. Lunch - He makes himself free from routine work and utilizes 10% time for lunch
3. Proactive activities - He uses remaining 50 % time for conducting internal meetings, upgrading knowledge for self and juniors through trainings and seminars, meeting customers and suppliers and planning for next day work. He allocates different week days for proactive activities.

He closes his day tension free and enjoys with the family.

System always provides more free time to a manager and a good manager utilizes this free time to further organizational goals.

Yashodhan Kanade
Lean Manufacturing consultant
E mail: [email protected]