Managerial skills

An attendant employed in a Government undertaking can teach us a lot about Delegating authority, Supervising, Trouble shooting, Effective communication, Managing superiors, Whistle Blowing, and Personality Development!   

One such person, Hiralal starts his daily routine upon reaching office, by mobile-calling the canteen contractor’s boy to whom he has delegated his own duties. The canteen boy confirms that he has dusted the allotted five HR officer’s cabins and filled their flasks with cold water. Hollering loud instructions to ensure delivery of steaming hot coffee, to all the officers at 10 o’clock sharp, Hiralal relaxes a bit, stretching out luxuriously at his desk. He then calls home to get an update, after which its time to review the newspapers, one Hindi and one English. He then fishes out a Fifty rupee note for the canteen boy, and rewards him, dropping bits of praise too. That job done, he saunters lazily into the HR Chief’s room and enquires directly about his wife’s health, something which the petrified officers have never dared to ask. The Chief warms up to the bright eyed attendant, and starts appreciating his concern…twenty minutes later, after having discussed medical issues, property-purchases, personal matters, personnel matters, discipline aspects and the profitability position, Hira strides out purposefully and confidently. Chief knows that here is a dynamic man who can get any type of job done, from any office, and that he’s very useful. He is at once a Live-wire, Whistle-Blower and a trouble-shooter!

Switch now to the officers, who are obsessed with  avoiding transfers,  getting timely promotions, securing good CRs  and generally ingratiating themselves with superiors. Quite often their fears, complexes, aspirations and apprehensions don’t let them perform freely and communicate effectively with their seniors. Getting along with their bosses often becomes a problem. Sandwiched as they are between authoritative superiors and assertive juniors, they become reserved, caustic and under-assertive all of which affects their officer-like qualities, making them retreat into a shell. They come to believe that inspite of being managers, they are now good only for taking orders, typing, getting photocopies and carrying files. Their Chief also starts thinking that they deserve kicks for being so inactive. He wishes they could be more pro-active like Hiralal. He starts scolding them as if they were mere errand boys..

One such officer even goes so far as to say that attendants are the real work-managers of today and officers are, in reality, attendant-boys only.