MANAGEMENT
This piece is written in a lighter vein and with sincere apologies to my own self and all HR practitioners. However, in humour, there is a lot to think and ponder.
The human resources gurus of the world believe that the universe of managing talent has moved from being mere ‘personnel divisions’ to ‘Human Resources Management’. That’s respectability given to the function by mere change of nomenclature.
Overtime there has been a gradual loss of H factor or humanness in the Human Resources Management. This aspect has been breathed into HR management from theories emanating from across the Atlantic like the validity of the lean and mean organisation where there is an over dosage of ‘mean’! The consequences of such an attitude are far and wide. These are highly intrusive into management function and have been gnawing at the roots of many an institutions leading to its ultimate decay and demise. The trait of affiliation and ownership towards the institution is a major victim of such HR management.
The Dilbert cartoon (comic strip) created by Scott Adams said more truths of corporate environment than any book of management by any renowned management scientists of the world. He coined great lies of the management (The mouth piece of the management is the HR division) that are floated freely, with no sense of accountability across the organisation’s floor. I will list a few, “employees are our most valuable asset; I have an open door policy, we are reorganizing to better serve customers, the future is bright, performance will be rewarded, we don’t shoot the messenger, we will review your performance in six months’ time, our people are the best, and your input is important to us.” I asked a colleague if these lies were true? He said that, “if you promise that you shall not write on my annual review, he is anti-management, I would react to each because overtime capability has been overtaken by belief in process”. I committed. He responded with “employees are an asset yes- a fast depreciating asset, open doors true but with a closed mind, reorganise not for customers but to cut costs for more profits, future is bright but the light at the need of the tunnel is also switched off, rewarding performance part of promises to keep because eternal sleep is more proximate; don’t shoot the messenger; oh yes he is buried alive, the cost of bullet is saved! Review performance in future that never arrives; people are the best indeed, they are when subservient; and importance of input…. most likely the discretion here is shove it…..” I was re-tooled in my thinking!
What arose from comic strip, Dilbert’s 13 great lies of management and my colleague’s truthful response is a realisation that on the corporate platform there is blatant disregard for dignity as human being.
Dr. Ken Blanchard is celebrated for having authored the book ‘one-minute manager’. In an interview his response to a question put me into long hours of thinking mode, he was asked how would you state your mission in life? He remarked, “I want to be a loving teacher and a living example of simple truths…”; and pray what my readers presume were his simple truths? Let me recount in his words, ‘simple truths like the importance of giving positive messages to yourself and jump starting the day with three key questions: what am I excited about today? What am I proud of today? Who do I love and who loves me? The mere act of posing these questions is enough to motivate anyone to the best he or she can. Which human resources division worth its salt does engage in motivating its resources with these simple truths? In fact most HR departments eat into motivation.
Ken identified ego addiction as a major stumbling block in an institution’s progress. It also stifles the environment. Most HR managers are human when it suits to be one. The preference is to be otherwise. Feared and respected for the deadly fangs of retaliatory ability that can cut into a crocodile skin too and make it bleed too, is their lot.
The greatest aide to a ruthless managers are crutches like, ‘policy’, ‘procedure’ and ‘systems’, ‘no such precedence’, ‘don’t make exceptions’, ‘it will open a can of worms’ etc. Personally, I am not against policy but I detest them when they stand out in conflict with humanness in HR management. While being interviewed Ken was wearing a Mickey Mouse watch, which my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson Hamza is also really fond of. Replying to why he was wearing this watch, Ken said, ‘I must remind myself that I must take what I do seriously and myself lightly that I am not larger than life. It is humbling experience that there is something bigger and more significant than me. The mickey mouse watch provides me the proper perspective that a fancy watch like Rolex doesn’t.’ Look at HR teams, who have Rolex attitude, towards the favoured and Jerry the rat to the bosses and Tom the cat to juniors.
After having finished reading the interview, I wanted to trade my branded wrist watch with my grandson’s mickey-mouse watch, but my grandson’s innocence was much wiser than my age and experience. He did not fall for the bait. Innocence in dealing with human resources is far more effective method than ravaging the personality of a colleague with deformed intellect. We are a family; concept is buried in heaps of verbal garbage.
Most HR managers, inclusive of other managers rant about the negative aspects of ego, but on their own they have residing within themselves the most fragile ego…it needs ticketing all the time…. and the large army of courtiers (read desperate staff) who have to visit the HR department as part of their bounden homage, line up to do so; the last being better than the previous one!
In managing human resources, it is important to keep a roving eye to catch people doing something positive; never attempt to treat colleagues as Cinderella and nit-pick wrong doings to suit your tendencies of being in admiration of a frustrated Miss Havisham (Estella’s jilted mother in Great Expectations). HR professionals would do well to discard empty minds and replace with open mind. Empathy lacking responses from HR units are akin to cruelty that has fear in its perpetual attendance. Man is worse than animal when he is an animal, said Rabindranath Tagore. Remarked an HR manager on the departure of a colleague whilst signing his terminal benefits, ‘O! he will need meat scraps, too!’
If individual management on a collective basis is to be referred to as human resources management then the first thing to do is to be ‘human’ and later tackle the ‘management’ aspect. In case of failure to do so it is best to rename, ‘dehumanised resource management division.’
Misuse of the human side in HR management is most likely to happen in our culture. Here truth is a blatant lie and a lie is an unquestionable truth. Therefore, culture is most likely to determine and depend upon to decide how much to ‘humanise’ the human resources job. It is also true that given a choice most prefer to abuse, empathy and compassion, in any HR Manager.
Without sounding to be disrespectful to HR professionals I have since stepping into business world, wondered why ‘sadists’ make it so easily to Human Resources function and survive the longest too? I have found no answer to my quest, for it ‘lies in our stars’.
On the entrance door to the HR department a plaque with Robert Burns words must be placed as a reminder to the inmates, ‘man’s inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn.’
The writers is a freelance columnist
