Management literature is full of new concepts, theories and the academicians and the management practitioners are blindly after them, irrespective of their relevance in a particular content and context. The book is somewhat iconoclastic as it suggests a deviation from the current thought processes. It argues powerfully that instead of running after the current and emerging management buzzwords and jargons, the managers need to seek solutions to their organizational problems by getting back to the basics.
Back to Basics in Management examines how management fads come and go but the enduring and reliable way to manage organizations is by the basics or management by first principles. It advocates a basic commonsensical approach to the understanding and use of management tools and solutions. The book suggests that:
All management mantras are not new' - they are often just regurgitated
Organizations need to have self-confidence and have to go back to the basics, understand the root of each problem
There is no short-cut to success'
You need to build your own model and advocate a unified and holistic approach to problem solving in business.
Most of the management tools and techniques we studied had no direct causal relationship to superior business performance. What does matter, it turns out, is having a strong grasp of the business basics. It matters little whether you centralize or decentralize your business as long as you pay attention to simplifying the way your organization is structured.
According to the authors, there are a plethora of management theories and ideas operating in the field. Some of them are Total Quality Management (TQM), Strategic Planning, Core Competence, Economic Value Added (EVA), Learning Organization, etc. The authors feel that none of these ‘packaged solutions’ helped either to turn around organizations or provide them with sustained high level of performance. Many of these concepts suggest useful ideas but do not provide complete solutions. If managers use them to reinforce their common business logic, it is all right. But the trouble starts when organizations discard their collective common sense, shirk the tough tasks of searching for solutions to difficult problems and embrace these concepts as divine mantras for salvation like blind devotees.
The authors analyze the real worth of these popular management concepts and the theories and show why several organizations have failed to derive much published “magical properties” out of this concepts. Instead of that, they argue that organizations must concentrate on developing their own fundamental capabilities, create new frameworks within the organization and continuously test their strategies, policies and decisions; the authors further suggest some guiding principles for success:
There can be no single theory or approach or even a combination of them that can succeed, if managers do not use their own thinking capability before applying them.
Managers may accept the best ideas from the existing concepts but they should do that after due scrutiny. Those approaches should be suitably modified before being applied to their own organization.Managers must have an intimate knowledge about their own organization, its needs - both short term and long term.
The theory building exercise must not become an intellectual exercise and taper off as an academic exercise. It must result in practical application grounded on the hard realities of organizational life. It must be flexible and able to adapt to the changing competitive environment.
Learning about managing through the study of basic principles is not an easy task. It requires planned effort. You have to enlarge your perception, develop clarity of reason, examine your own thought processes, create a positive attitude, and give free rein to imagination and creativity. Management by basics, therefore, ultimately boils down to attitude: the more positive the attitude, the better the results. Let it be clear that there are no shortcuts. Once perception and attitude are clearly developed, the basic perspective also gets developed. Anomalies and conflict may be there. But they can be resolved.
Your humility increases and in that humility you discover wisdom. Managing by basics is not an airy concept but a concrete reality. It requires courage to shun short cuts and practice inherently difficult methodology. Once adopted, the outcome starts pouring in—is enduring and rewarding. The authors claim that in the near future, they will come up with more detailed documentation dealing with ‘exact steps’ for —and ‘illustrations’ of —managing by basics.
The book is well written. It sends out at least one message or caveat to those academicians, consultants and practicing managers who blindly run after untested ideas, concepts and models without evaluating their use and utility in a particular organization. It also gives much needed reminders to such people to revisit the fundamentals which are required to run the enterprise. The book provides occasion for pleasant reading as well as real and useful insights.
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