Levels of Management
By Karmayogi
Management means the capacity to
produce profits in a productive venture. In 1985 it was said that each year the
USA alone produced 450 books on management. In 1945 in an international
conference, Peter Drucker was laughed at when he said that management was a
subject. Today the world over, he is known as the father of Management Science.
The wave of Tom Peters eclipsed Drucker for two decades. Management means
technology and finance, nothing more. Just now there are a few hundred
management techniques that are ruling the field. Most represent marketing. All
these principles are summed up in cleanliness, orderliness, the other
man's point of view, punctuality and twenty other things. They can be
further abridged into honesty and reliability.
If you are fond of abstraction, you can call them by one word: commonsense. In
our books we conceive of these innumerable principles at ten levels. I wish to
write about only the two ends here. Talking about cleanliness, an American said
in his country everything is extremely clean. When what is meant by cleanliness
was explained in great detail, he agreed that his country's cleanliness
was only 40 p.c., maybe 50 p.c.
Management is a science. No one approaches it as such. When it was found that
there was a deviation of 43 seconds in a century in the orbit of Mercury,
doubts were raised about the validity of Newtonian theory. When Einstein came
into the picture, the doubts were confirmed and a new phase in physics started.
Management, being a science, demands that same precision. We, being Indians,
know the subtle and spiritual principles of such a life. Should we go back to
such sources and render those principles in terms of today's life, the
whole world would look up to India as a leader of Management.
Suppose a company is making very little profits and it takes up the above
values – punctuality, regularity, customer satisfaction, cleanliness,
orderliness, etc., etc. – and follows them very seriously, its profits will
soar high. Any company where such values are followed, we can see, is making
very good profits. This is only the first level. We have devised ten levels of
the same thing. In the final level, if the proprietor DECIDES to follow all
these values as seriously as any other company that follows them, even for that
thought there will be great results. This is only thought. Actually doing it
will raise a local company into a nationally famous company. As an individual,
one can do so at home. For the first level, his income will double, maybe it
will rise five or ten fold. For the final level, he will rise from being a
nobody to the status of a national celebrity.