By Dr TARCISIUS CHIN

OUR world is changing so enormously that Malaysian managers now
need to demonstrate performance that is holistic and comparable
with international benchmarks. For too long there has been a
perceptual gap between book-smarts and street-smarts. The
book-smart manager is supposed to be good at strategy while the
street-smart manager's forte is in execution.

But for too long the glamour has resided with the book-smarts
whose fascination is with philosophies and plans, while the
difficult job of execution is left to subordinates.

With increasing access to higher education, more managers will
be drawn from the ranks of graduates. The tendency is for the
development of a managerial mind-set that places a premium on
strategy rather than on execution. And this will be our blunder
and our Achilles' heel in developing our managers.
  
Managerial weaknesses
 
Dr Ram Charan: Is scheduled to conduct a seminar targeted at
CEOs and managers

First, we have the tendency to plan too much and to be overly
optimistic with future prospects without giving adequate
attention as to how we will execute the plan. We crunch numbers
that tend to serve the purpose of pleasing our stakeholders
rather than facing reality. Our favourite reply to a challenge
is "no problem".

When yesterday becomes today we see no real results. And yet we
are able to explain away the shortfall and continue to budget
for yet another good year.

Too much of organisational time is spent on looking into the
future and too little in making sure that yesterday's plans are
fulfilled. Just look at how much time is spent at meetings and
how little time is used in getting the job done.

How often have Government Ministries and Departments been
admonished for not having met budgeted expectations, or even to
spend budgeted allocations?

How often have we not heeded warning signs of potential
problems, but have chosen to ignore them?

The recent flash floods at Shah Alam could have been avoided if
there had been strong oversight on potential problem analysis,
ground level action and execution.

Second, we also tend to be too short-sighted. Much energy and
effort is expended on creating value, but we do not seem to be
able to protect value after creation.

We are indeed good at putting up infrastructure, flyovers,
buildings and other physical assets. But we are poor in
maintenance and after service.

In management the easy job is to create; the tough job is to
nurture and deliver continuing customer satisfaction. In any
economic or social project we need to commit to its life cycle
and not just to the initial investment. We need to factor
maintenance and other sustainability costs as key determinants
of the continuing value of the project.

There was a time when organisations had very long-term plans,
spanning five years, even 10 and more. But with contemporary
economic, political and social upheavals occurring almost daily,
long-term planning is just an academic exercise. Indeed, because
of humongous and turbulent change, plans often become obsolete
as soon as they are drafted.

The challenge of modern management is to exploit the
opportunities of today by rapid and effective execution of
immediate and short-term actions. The organisation that can
deliver the next competitive-edge product or service will seize
the market.

That is why the life cycles of cell phones, computers and
communication devices are shrinking so fast. The Apple iPod is
miniaturised and functionalised at such a rapid pace that it has
attracted Microsoft to also enter the fray and exploit the new
market that this new technology is fast generating. And the
energy is not spent on long-term planning as much as on
customer-focused innovation, immediate mobilising of talent and
resources and disciplined execution.

For too long we have focused on deciding what has to be done.
Because we have not really focused on the job of getting it
done, we see around us the consequence of tardy management, viz.
unfulfilled promises, loss of value, waste and disaster, and
deviations from budget.

Developing effective managers

Unlike other professions in which practitioners become
specialists, managers develop from specialists into generalists.
This means that managerial work leverages on the contributions
of many others, including specialists, to produce results.

The key responsibility of the manager, therefore, is to deliver
results that meet the expectations of stakeholders. And the
trigger to achieving results lies in effective execution.

Developing the effective Malaysian manager is to bridge the gap
between the book-smart and the street-smart. We know that the
good manager is knowledgeable and competent in applying rational
analysis. A university degree, if it is of any value, should be
able to transform the individual into a critical thinker, good
in analysis, and able to craft rational responses and implement
courses of action that will contribute to the purpose and
mission of the organisation.

But we also know that the good manager must also be able to get
things done with and through others. A street smart manager will
be more astute in leveraging human capital by understanding the
different idiosyncrasies of people who report to him and
applying discriminate motivators to seek extraordinary
performance.

This means that we will need to have the right persons for the
job, develop them further and have the emotional fortitude to
remove them if they cannot perform. Street learning is therefore
as important as book learning.

Half a century ago, the commonly held perception was that
management could only be learned from experience. In fact most
universities did not have degree courses in management.

Today, the teaching of business and management has become the
core business of most universities.

The MBA, for example, is a highly sought-after product of the
university system. After some 50 years the perception has
changed and the book-smart is generally deemed superior to the
street-smart.

Over the last 50 years we have turned 180°. A more beneficial
model of developing the Malaysian manager is to meet half way at
90° with equal emphasis on book knowledge and practical
experience.

Since most of management literature has been written by
academics, there has been a bias towards management knowledge,
ideas and thoughts. What is lacking is not so much the what and
why of management as the how to manage effectively.

One notable exception is a recent publication Execution: The
Discipline of Getting Things Done, written by Larry Bossidy, a
management practitioner and Dr Ram Charan, a management advisor
and author. Their contribution to the management profession is
to redress the imbalance between strategy and execution.

Dr Ram Charan is also a management guru who addresses seminars
and workshops on strategy execution. He is scheduled to lead a
seminar in Kuala Lumpur organised by Urban Forum in partnership
with the Malaysian Institute of Management. CEOs and those
responsible for developing managers to be competent in getting
things done with and through others should find it refreshing
that management is not so much about esoteric talk as
disciplined action.


·Catch Dr Ram Charan in person at the seminar "Strategy
Execution: Your Competitive Advantage for Surviving into the
Future" in Kuala Lumpur on June 26, 2006. For more information,
visit www.urban-forum.com or www.mim.org.my; or e-mail
malaysia@urban-forum.com or inquiries@mim.org.my
  
· Dr Tarcisius Chin is former chairman and CEO of the Malaysian
Institute of Management.
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