Management by Chasing Behind

By Harsha Gunasena   

Sri Lankan society is hierarchical. The gap between the parents and the children; the  teachers and the students; the political leaders and the General Public; the managers and the assistants; is wider compared to the certain western countries. The technical term used to identify this aspect of national and organizational cultures is Power Distance. According to Geert Hofstede who conceptualized the national and organizational cultures, the definition of Power Distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

In high Power Distance countries like Sri Lanka, the dependency of the less powerful to the more powerful is higher. The children are more dependent on the parents. The parents continue to feed the grown up children. This is a rare phenomenon in low Power Distance countries. Parents try to control the children as much as possible and in turn children are trained to get instructions from the parents. They are not encouraged to make independent decisions.

Once they go to the school the teachers teach them. Students rarely challenge the teachers. They learn to respect the teachers. Even at the higher levels, students are dependent on the notes given by the teachers and independent reading is minimal. In other words in high Power Distance countries, the teachers teach and in the low Power distance countries the students learn. 

They are looked after by the parents and the teachers. When they go to the Universities certain political groups influence them. From the beginning they are trained to accept the authority rather than to challenge it. Different viewpoints and the democratic discussions are discouraged even at the Universities. Therefore these students believe that the ideologies of the dominant political parties are the gospel truth.

When they finish the studies and go to the society they are cheated by the politicians over and over again. They do not stand up for their own rights. That is why the civil society is so weak in this country. There are hardly any consumer societies even. As General Public they do not do any pivotal roll in selecting their political leaders, instead the political leaders should take the initiative and unleash lot of lies to win them over. 

Political leaders also talk about decentralization since there is a dire necessity for the same but the centralization prevails. General Public do not try to pressurize the authorities for decentralization instead they individually try to go up the ladder and enjoy the power. 

When they work at the organizations they are conditioned not to take responsibilities. Instead the managers give them instructions. Their duty is to carry those instructions out. Taking initiative is discouraged. Managers should follow up whether the work is done. If there is no follow up and constant reminders the work will not be done. Management is done by the way of chasing behind.

When they are promoted they turn the tables and start chasing behind their assistants. The assistant expects that the manager should chase behind him. If not he thinks that the manager is not interested of the particular piece of work and the tendency is to neglect that piece of work. 

The organization structures are also hierarchical. The span of control of a manager is limited since he has to chase behind his subordinates. Otherwise the work will not be done. Therefore there are no successful large organizations. Instead there are successful small companies. There are also successful groups of companies comprising of large number of small companies/units. 

There are designations created to promote the ego of the managers. The writer was the Finance Manager of a company some time back and then he became the Deputy General Manager Finance.  Finally he was the General Manager Finance and he was doing the same old job.

The salary structures of many of the private sector organizations are catering to the Power Distance. The gap between the highest ranking officer and the lowest ranking officer is very wide. The gap keeps on widening at the every salary increment. Therefore there is more responsibility trusted upon the higher level of managers and the lower levels of officers are forced to become more dependent. The process of chasing behind is encouraged.

The whole trend can be changed at the organizational level. Several organizations have done it. They have reduced the Power Distance consciously.  Common lunchrooms could be introduced. The ranks of peons could be eliminated followed by elimination of the ranks of clerical staff. Clerical mentality is to get the instructions. The executives with defined responsibilities and authorities could do the same work.

More importantly the decision making process should be decentralized. Juniors should be treated as adults. Adult-adult relationship should prevail instead of parent- child relationship between the managers and the assistants. There should not be staff whose job is just to supervise. Similarly there should not be full time decision makers. Team concept should be built up. In a cricket team there is no fulltime captain. In order to be in the team either he should be a batsman or a bowler. Captaincy is in addition to his role as a player in the selected specialization. Same concept should be there in the team of organization as well. 

Responsibilities should be defined and the adequate authority should be given. Pay should be based on performance and the level of performance should be defined mutually. Eventually the gaps of the salaries also should be reduced. When the culture is created that the follow up is not necessary, management by chasing behind cease to exist.

(Published in the journal-3rd issue 2005- of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka)