>> MIM Speaks
BACK TO BASICS TO BUILD TOP MANAGERS
AUG 27, 1995 -
THE STAR
WE have been fortunate and blessed. Our economic achievements
have been impressive and, compared to many other developing
economies, we have been quite successful in managing our
transition from tradition to modernity.
We owe a debt to the wealth pioneers of the country,
entrepreneurs, leaaers and managers who had the vision and the
wherewith al to translate dreams into reality. The Simes, the
Darbys and the Loke Yews created plantations and townships; in
more recent times the Loh Boon Siews and Lim Goh Tongs created
value from automotive assembly and distribution, property
development, leisure and recreation.
A new group of technocrats is now blazing the trail in
banking, telecommunications, construction, education and
health services.
Our collective vision of a developed society being achieved by
year 2020 is now part of our consciousness. Articulated five
years ago, it precedes Gary Hamel's new gospel of creating the
future through leveraging core competencies.
Competencies are not measured by the physical resources that
we possess. If physical resources are the conditions for
success, then many of the developing world should be
developed.
The observation that they are still developing and that many
de veloped economies have little by way of physical resources
sug gest that competencies are better measured in terms of a
nation's intellectual resourcefulness to assemble and
interplay resources to create wealth and value in the market
place.
Increasingly, the wealth generating capacity lies not in
commodities or even in manufacturing, but in services of which
endeavours relating to intellectual property rights have
probably the highest premium.
The wealth creators of the future and the people we depend on
must be technologically sound.
Fortunately, our emerging entrepreneurs and business leaders
are grounded on strong industry or functional competence, and
are able to harness and marshal appropriate resources,
including competent staff, to translate an idea into viable
business opportunines
For the future, we need more and more competent generational
managers. Today's middle management is in crisis. Higher
mobility and turnover of the thirty something midcareer
manager resulting from rapid economic growth and a competitive
labour market places enormous stress on short term
performance.
Careerpathing through human resource development and care
fully planned for corporate experiences is sacrificed as
employers no longer have assurance that even their fast
tracked staff remain for long. The corporation man famed for
loyalty now sells his professional services to the highest
bidder.
Yesterday's managers were people who grew with their
organisations and the competent individuals with high
potential were selected for deliberate career progression and
given every advantage in personal development.
Datuk Lim Say Chong of ICI, Datuk Sadasivam, former Director
General of Mida, and Mohd Ghaus of MTC belong to this mould of
managers. They were, according to Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew,
"loyal, sincere and honest." And they all have risen to be the
CEOs of their organisations. They represent Malaysian man
agement of the 60s and 70s.
The shift in manager employer. relationship becomes noticeable
in the 80s. This coincident with the period of the MBAs, a
qualification more readily accessible and much sought after.
The essence of an MBA education is to provide participants
with better insights of business operations and to enhance
their ability to perform managerially. In many cases, the MBA
misleads participants to focus too heavily on the technology
of management as the critical measure of success. Nothing
further can this be from reality.
Lim also has an MBA and Sadasivam has a MBA in Business
Administration, but they realise that the crucial element in
managerial success lies less in the tools of analysis than in
the ability to relate with people. And this is the essence of
management. A more insightful word for this is leadership.
Our CEOs and leaders of the business community are strong on
leadership skills. They are comfortable to deal with
politicians, government officials, suppliers, dealers, staff
and customers.
And because they are close to the ground they can sense
problems and smell opportunities rather quickly and proact
rather than react. They have taken Malaysia to where it is
today, and driving it at 9.9 per cent for the first quarter of
the year.
Quovadis the midlevel manager? The 90s have revealed gaps in
our midmanagement. Technologically equipped, the hurry for
material pursuits has stunted the development of leadership
skills. The oldfashioned network of knowing your employees by
name and background, strengths and weaknesses, is now replaced
by faceless name tags remove the tags and it will be no
surprise that the manager may not know who is who. Leadership
skills take time to develop and have to be nourished by
continuing interaction. Technical skills are easy to acquire
leadership skills are derived from dynamic processes. A leader
has to trust his people, delegate authority and empower others
he has also to set the example and set high standards of
behaviour.
How else will people follow him if not by respect. How else to
earn respect if not by doing what he expects of others. Many a
good leader, for example, arrives at work ahead of others and
leaves after others.
The making of a leader is not the easiest process. If we are
born with qualities that help in building leadership skills we
are fortunate; but leadership skills can also be nurtured and
developed.
Many a new graduate entering the job market is deluded into
thinking that what he has learnt at college will see him
through. Naive to the reality of life he quickly learns that
nice and elegant textbook solutions are not accepted, and
support from colleagues, subordinates and bosses is lacking.
Why is this so? Not because the ideas are faulty, but more
likely because he had not reckoned with the human side of the
enterprise; he had not built up a base of influence and
support that can make the difference to the acceptability of
his ideas.
He has to recognise that reality demands teamwork, group
spirit and cooperative effort by all. With increasing
specialisation we have lost control of the fuli range of
processes that are needed to turn an idea into a commercial
proposition.
Building of generational man agers will require us to go back
to basics.
You get to know people as individuals and apply different
strokes to different folk. But the job is arduous and short
cuts only serve to produce less than satisfactory
professionals.
Forging the competence of our managers for the future is to
develop the corporate soldier, with a sense of purpose and
enterprise, within a network of relationships and with
specific technical or functional strengths to contribute.
It demands no less a resurrection of the attributes that drove
a Loke Yew or a Boon Siew to create something out of nothing
coupled with a specific skills and, in creasingly, a
sensitivity to man age within different cultural dimensions.
An ingredient for the success of Vision 2020 is our ability to
serve the global market. The most prosperous countries are
also the most effective trading nations.
Globalisation will require our future managers to be comfort
able to handle business in very different cultural conditions.
It is also likely that to be successful our future managers
have to pick up languages other than Bahasa and English.
Already, a small but growing cadre of Malaysian expatriates
are serving in places like China Vietnam, Australia Europe and
Africa.
Managerial performance is now beginning to be bench marked
against world standards. We will have to develop and grow our
future managers as solidly as through military training.
The naive manager can rapidly regress into a cynic; we need to
intervene to guide, train and help the midlevel manager to be
a leader, manager and entrepreneur so that he can stake a
claim as a contributor to fulfilling Vision 2020.
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