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April, 2003 |
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No laughing Matter |
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Faces
of Nepali Managers by
Madan Lamsal At
least one thing is rapidly developing in Nepal - the management
development. There is a continuous management development spree going
around. To see this you just need to look at the half day seminars that
start with a brunch and end with a beer to one month training courses
that begin with a dance and end with a dinner. These
seminars and trainings are producing modern day Nepali managers who are
practicing the ultra modern management. Therefore, it may be worthwhile
to classify them. The
following classification probably cover about 93% of our managers, it
still leaves some managers out. However, it is a good coverage. 1.
Hanumanagers: This specie is found more in the family-held business
houses. Though most of the business houses in Nepal are still managed by
families, they also claim to be corporate entities. Therefore, their
managers claim to be the real managers, though they are practically no
more than Muncees. Sometimes they are also called golden or silver spoon
or the “right” or the “left” hand of the Sahuji who owns the
firm. Their designation sometimes may be as high sounding as Corporate
Advisor, and sometimes Vice President-Technical and so on. But quite
often he is known simply as Laxmanji whom you must meet first before
approaching Ramchandra Sahuji. The
main qualification of the Hanumanagers is personal loyalty (something as
the loyalty of Hanuman to Lord Ram and his spouse Sita). At times he is
expected to carry the shady deals for the personal or the business
benefit of the Shahuji. Therefore, there is very little scope for the so
called modern management concepts like participation, team spirit,
delegation of authority and so on in organizations that has Hanumanagers.
They strongly believe in preserving the traditional management style. 2.
Know-all-Managers: These are the self promoted type of managers. They
never say ‘no’ to any assignment and pretend to know everything
under the sun. They are like today’s young journalists who claim to be
specialists in any subject you may confront them with, though they may
best be the generalists. Their bosses may be trying to explain one
thing, but these Know-all-Managers quickly bring the meeting to a
totally different conclusion before the bosses had time to complete
expressing their idea. 3.
The Jagire Managers: These managers are similar to the Hanumanagers to
some extent as the selection process of these two is almost similar.
They are selected on the basis of their connections, for example,
through the recommendations of some political leaders or some relatives
of the sahuji. The major characteristic of these managers is that they
apply every means to get the job. But after they get it they regard it
is a Jagir which is by definition so permanent that nobody can budge him
from his position no matter how he performs. 4.
The Theory Managers: These types of managers belong to the group who has
just entered the Nepali corporate world after completing the formal
education either in Nepal or abroad. Therefore, their first interest is
to apply the theories they learnt from the textbooks or in classrooms.
But normally what is happening is nobody in the organization understands
these babes. Therefore, some people in the organisation recognise them
as MBAs (mentally below average). Similarly, they also don’t
understand what the people from different departments are actually
saying. Therefore, companies have to spend much money to untrain these
newcomers first than to train the old managers. 5. The Overexposed Officer: You might have generally faced the confusion with some designation such as “assistant manager”. Is he a manager or an assistant to a manager? In many of the cases he is like over-promoted head-clerk or over-exposed officer. When you meet a member of this specie, you will always find them under a stress of over-promotion and thus they always have superiority or inferiority complex. You can always find them feeling not as a part of the management team at the same time he seems to be a hard working person though he is not actually working. |
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