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Book Review
Nuggets of managerial wisdom
CHANDU NAIR
AT WORK—A Practitioner’s Guide to Being the Best: S.Ramachander; Penguin Portfolio, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs.350.
The book starts off almost self-effacingly: “How could I, who have spent half his career before these post- industrial changes in India happened, help by saying anything worthwhile or sensible?” If C.K. Prahlad, Ram Charan, Gurcharan Das, perhaps Ramachander’s chronological contemporaries, can keep writing then why such self- doubt, existential angst?
This book is an attempt to put across nuggets of managerial wisdom distilled from his years of experience as a manager, an academic and a consultant, for use by the practising manager.
The key aspects that he premises his book on are: learning is a verb; knowledge is to be acquired and applied in tandem – be a reflective practitioner; successes are stepping stones to failures; treat management themes only as currently useful generalisations; write your own book (in your mind at least) as you go along; business is about building people and brands/reputations.
But it’s not just business writings and thoughts that permeate this book; two other streams of thought have also influenced his ruminations: the science of complexity and chaos, and the paradox perspective. The first says that life comprises “complex adaptive systems” which are integrated and self-learning as opposed to the common linear, reductionist approach favoured by Western science (including management thought). The paradox perspective postulates that all situations are not necessarily problems to be solved!
Therefore, for those from business schools weaned on a staple diet of business cases with a classic, sequential, problem-solution framework, he urges us to very simply “ditch it!” Why? For a CEO’s work is typically highly fragmented, many faceted, sporadic and disjointed. So life does not come in that happy sequential form so favoured by cases. Plus, an increasing international flavour, changing nature of employment, the expanding and more involved role of the customer, the impact of social factors (environment, gender equality, affirmative action) – all these have contributed to changing the context of today’s managers in India.
Innovation originating in India, possibly non-existent till a couple of decades ago, is today a great opportunity for businesses and managers particularly in creating relevant and efficient products and services for low unit price, low volume and culturally diverse customers. But to be innovative means casting off tired old patterns of thinking and fossilised mindsets.
Ramachander does not advocate discarding all of the old. Indian spirituality and thought, in his view, help contemporary Indian managers remain centred even as they grapple with newer and tougher situations. That way, this book remains rooted in the Indian context while drawing upon frameworks developed internationally. Sometimes, though you get a sense of wistful nostalgia for times past, of mores and customs now abandoned, of social graces forgotten, and of an environment less hurried and leisurely. Chapter five, for example, offers fascinating nuggets of managerial life in India of the 1950-60s. (As an aside, perhaps you do have the germ of an idea for a work of fiction here? A sort of managerial “English August” maybe?)
Those accustomed to a more contemporary approach to management writing (with content in byte-size chunks, bulleted, or key elements/aspects in boxes) may find reading this book, virtually all of it in running text, a bit tedious. The book also tends to read more like a series of columns, with sections on markets and brands, people issues, organisational development and the individual. Anticipating this comment, he perceptively states of his endeavour in his foreword, “It is as if you and I were to sit down and share thoughts, one issue at a time.”
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