Management by magic

The subordinates go rushing to a boss who can resolve their problem. What is that extra any boss is having over his subordinates? It is the designation and that gives power over the individuals but it does not enable him with the problem resolving knowledge.
Once it becomes known that the boss does not solve the problem, rather becomes a part of the problem then subordinates stop dealing the problems. Then the problem becomes a tool for blame game. This starts the all time favourite “not me, he” syndrome in the organization. Some smart operators even pick up external agencies to pass on the blame.
This is the tale of a company which got its new CEO.
The old CEO while handing over the charge to the new CEO gave a sealed envelope to the incoming CEO with an advice to open that after he left the organization.
The new CEO without demur opened the envelope after the departure of the old CEO.He found three advises written on a slip of paper.
1. During your first year blame every failure to me.
2. In the second year comprise a committee to look into the problems.
3. If the problems still persist it is time for you to go and pass on this slip to your successor, good luck to you.
That is one way of looking at the situation in hand. My potion is to follow the basic principles of Magic ,avoid taking responsibility and enjoy life.
1. Sleight
2. Illusion
3. Escape
4. Diversion or misdirection
5. Ventriloquism
Let us examine the above from the management point of view.

SLEIGHT
This is the magic performed by two hands, like card and coin tricks, jugglery, vanishing objects of size smaller than the palm etc.
The organization consists of people, departments, office space and the facilities to juggle. The trick is now to shake all of these four ingredients in such a manner so that the participating individuals don’t know whether they are the audience or the participants. By this method every one is kept on toe. They are kept guessing about their future. Though the modern management gurus may differ as the accountability is not fixed.Dont bother about that as at the end of the day it is your ass which is on the string and you are accountable to the stakeholder and the corporate bosses.
Just imagine the fun when an individual walks in his office next day and finds someone else is occupying his seat. A situation may arise when the individuals will stop availing leave and also will leave the office late. They don’t want to loose their coveted place. Having created this uncertain situation by sleight of your hand, now use them as you like. They are now under your spell.So, your magic has worked. The problems will not travel to you; you are now free to work on your personal agenda.

ILLUSION

The illusionist plays with the mind. The illusion is all about creating diversion. Even by doing routine you can create the illusion of non existence. In Africa, the tribes make themselves invisible by standing still at one place, thus they merge with the environment.
Similarly a leader has to produce the effect of invisibility. This will create a fear psychosis in the mind of people working under you. You are omnipresent, something like ORWELLIAN situation as described in the book 1984,”The big brother is watching you”. For creating this illusion you have to play with the mind of the people. You have to closely study their body language, use of words and facial expressions. You may have to conduct some mock trials. Like drop a word with one person and wait for it to reappear from some other place. Your side kicks have to be smart as your invisibility will depend on their intelligence. Once you have set this system in motion then you will notice that the people will not know whether you are in the office or outside the office. The work will go on as you are omnipresent now. That is the ultimate illusion. Now you can relax and pursue your personal agenda.

ESCAPE

The escape artists can escape from any situation. They are handcuffed and put in a box but still they manage to escape. Houdini was the best escape magician. The secrets of escape are the special handcuffs having clasps, the boxes having sliding bottoms etc.
As explained earlier in the article you can work for a change of place the moment you are in a tight position. But that will be treated as running away. The question is to escape and reappear. One wants to escape responsibility .The best method of escaping responsibility is to feign busy. To keep oneself busy without responsibility is a difficult proposition. For this type of situation my suggestion has been to encourage holding regular meetings for all kind of subjects under the sun. These meetings are your weapon of escape, like the secret clasps in the handcuff. You calibrate the meeting in urgent or non urgent category as per the prevailing situation which you want to escape. I have found that the Indian managers are past master in this meeting methodology. Whenever a serious situation arises immediately form a committee and then ask the committee to fix up meeting. Though you may know the solution but why volunteer your neck, let the committee hold its endless meetings. Thus you escape the responsibility.
Two important decisions of the meeting will always be made by you. These are menu and venue. By using your ingenuity in these you can make the corporate life exciting. Sometimes the venue can be shifted to a hill station as well. The people will love you. When the meeting is on then pose as though you have received an important call on your cell phone and then excuse yourself out to your chamber. Now the situation is like this, for rest of the world you are in a serious meeting, for those attending the meeting you are attending an urgent call. So you have neatly escaped and now you are free to follow your own personal agenda.

Diversion or misdirection

Magicians keep on chattering endlessly and do lot of hand movements. They are also constantly moving on the stage. The attention of the audience is riveted to the talk and movement but assistants are not watched closely. In most of the tricks the assistants play active role. If there is fire on the stage or sudden illumination then attentions will be diverted towards that.
Let us say that a customer has been dumped on you, you have to now come out of this ticklish situation. As you are a modern manager so you must have read “The seven Habits of highly effective people” by Steffen Covey. Your customer is a modern guy so he must have also read the same book. Now the trick will be how to put him in your shoes (reverse of 7 habits), you start diversion by talking about your woes and he will walk into the trap and will start sympathizing with you and thus he will try to put himself in your shoes as per the book. You have successfully reversed the situation and go on talking about your problem so that there will be hardly any time left for him to talk about his problem. This diversion trick is useful for one to one situation.
Now if there is a generic kind of administrative problem then how to deal. Again use misdirection. Engage one of those high flying management companies (preferably MNC) to examine the organizational problem and give recommendation. This is my personal favorite as this gives you a chance to hone your management technique and at the same time the subordinates are awed. Those boys in black with matching tie, lap top talking gibberish in clipped voice known as management jargon will make your people scurry for cover. Hold regular communication meetings and unleash these men in black on your unsuspecting subordinates. So the game of “catch me if you can” start, you are now free to pursue your own agenda.

Ventriloquism

This is a science of throwing sound. A magician holds a doll and the doll talks. You see the doll, the lip of the magician does not move but you get the impression that as though the doll is talking. As you are watching the doll so you don’t see the movement of the vocal cord of the magician.
This is a very useful method for you to use. You form a close coterie, they become you. Now these side kicks of yours will do all dirty job in order to remain close to you. Sometimes they are known as “his master’s voice”, so you have now multiple puppets to disseminate your thoughts. As each member of the coterie will try to prove that they are influential so now rest of the people will be watching them and not you. So you have used ventriloquism effectively and isolated yourself apparently though you are in absolute control like a puppeteer.
As per the Indian philosophy everything is MAYA, you simply spread the Mayajal.Indian philosophy believes in the theory of moment, every moment it is changing, no two moments are same. The past is a memory and the future is imagination, so the life is in reality an illusion. What you are doing is just trying to be a true Indian by shedding all responsibilities and striving to achieve Moksha.
Many of the senior officials have been switching their role successfully between Yogi and Bhogi by following my potion. My good friend NRY has successfully used Sleight of hand and mesmerized all his subordinates, Tipu uses the Escape potion for shifting responsibility and I know of a director who used to use Diversion or misdirection in order to avoid taking any decision. The readers are free to use my suggested magic formulae by acknowledging the source.

NOte: This article i wrote by observing some of the dodgy managers in Public and Private sectors. My advise is to take responsibility and imbibe trust .