Management is about people and relationships. Human management is the primary role of a manager and a decided competitive advantage; it is not individual brilliance, R Gopalakrishnan tells Alokananda Chakraborty
What do you see as the primary role of a manager? With your vast experience, other than technical abilities, what managerial skills would you say are essential for successful management?
Management is about people and relationships. Human management is the primary role and a decided competitive advantage; it is not individual brilliance. Phi Beta Kappa people do not necessarily make great managers. I have elaborated this in the book as the 4 As: accomplishment, affability, advocacy and authenticity.
When compared to hard technical issues considered central to an individual manager’s role, would you say these soft skills are equally necessary?
Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient. Human skills and soft skills generally are the platform on which technical skills have to be mounted if they are to be truly effective. And think of this: it is so difficult to train people in human and soft skills. These have to be learnt all by oneself. Hence, the importance of doing by learning, and learning by listening to other people’s stories. This is the way we have all learnt about whatever we believe in with respect to values and ethics.
A discussion of competency building is often the focus of new manager training, but not a big part of what you share in this book. Where do you see it fitting in?
If you mean ‘technical things’ (finance, operations, project management) by using the word competency, then the omission is deliberate. Anything that can be taught can be learnt. Competencies that cannot be taught then become the differentiator. And that is where my book is focused.
You just spoke of ‘the importance of doing by learning’ but can people actually ‘learn’ how to manage? Given that there are relatively few who can actually ‘manage’—people, tasks, organisational goals—well, how big an impact can they have?
Absolutely! Whatever people need to do, they can learn. But whatever has to be learnt may not be possible to teach. Pedagogy (teaching through a system) is not equally successful when it comes to human skills. Learning by doing and reflecting works better. Everything we learn is not taught, and everything we are taught is not learnt by us. I do not quite recall the physics lectures that my respected teacher taught me, but I remember my grandmother’s stories better.
What are the biggest challenges before managers today? What are the resources and tools that a CEO can offer his manager so that he/she is able to deliver?
There are challenges of a technical nature and of a human/societal nature. The former relates to particular industry segments. But the human and societal challenges are broad: how can I run my business in a way that enhances society? Can I do so without depleting it? How can my company better balance the bottom line in the long term? How can I influence the ‘politics’ of constituencies that express a view on how I run my business — government, shareholders, community, employees, NGOs and civil society?
Given this broad set of challenges as you have just described, is it more difficult to be an effective manager today, why or why not? What is an emerging trend you see around the role of managers in the last five years?
As I have tried to explain in my book, there are 4 As. The core training of a manager is in the first two As of accomplishment and affability. The emerging challenges are more and more in the next two As of advocacy and authenticity. During my career of 45 years, I have seen the shift in the balance accelerating during the last decade.
What is the biggest mistake you see new managers make? What is your message to them?
The biggest mistake managers make — and I have certainly made them — are not recognising and managing their personal derailers, such as arrogance, lack of openness, narcissism and so on. These are good forces in limited doses, but negative in excess or inappropriately timed doses. In other words, we all know the enemy of our careers: it is ourselves.
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What is the difference between management and leadership?
The difference lies not in some pedantic definition but in the reality of perception. Management is perceived and associated with the industrial and business world. Leadership, on the other hand, is broad and is sought in every field, whether business, teaching or government.
What are the new skills a manager needs to acquire at a time of increased stake-holder scrutiny and economic uncertainty?
This is an excellent question because it is futuristic. Compared to when I began my career, entrepreneurs and business managers are becoming more and more key to social and economic development of societies and nations. Their accountability is greater and public scrutiny also increases. Hence, the effects of economic uncertainty and the stakeholder scrutiny are for real, they are not once-off or chancy events. This requires the manager to learn new skills. (I have used the expression “he or his” as a shorthand for both genders. My apologies.)
First, the manager must learn to get things done from people he does not control. In other words, he must learn to influence without any hierarchy or command and control structure. Followers must follow him because they want to do so, not because they need to do so.
Second, the manager needs to learn how to be authentic to a wide array of segments. Otherwise his influence and credibility will get diluted. He needs to be seen as decisive, yet listening to everybody; he needs to be perceived as firm, yet empathetic; he needs to be seen as wise, yet learning all the time. These are difficult things to do unless his self-awareness increases.
Third, he needs to actively work at developing his intuition. All the benefits of analytics and logic cease to flow after a certain stage. At that point, the leader needs to reflect, try new things, learn and try again, the cumulative effect being an “intuitive sense.” The manager has to learn intuition….but all by himself as intuition is difficult to teach!
What effect does the internet have on the expectations of young people entering the work force. The old command-and-control approach to managing won’t work with them. They want to know why. If you explain the why, they will respond.
Your question is incisive. Internet, and technology in general, has done wonderful things for managers but has also shortened attention spans. The power of conversation has lost a bit between boss and subordinate, between husband and wife and between parent and child. Sure, command and control won’t do, but distance and short attention spans prevent powerful conversations! It is a huge dilemma. That is why I have titled my last chapter as “Attention is a precious gift.” And discussed precisely this subject.