Management and Corporate Governance

We are celebrating Republic day of India today and corporate India is agog with one name: Satyam.

We were last discussing about business ethics and ended on the hot-point of dinner table discussions today. The impact seems higher on the public thoughts. Every media entity is trying to churn out its own version of events and every person  has its own point to prove how it can impact to Indian business entities now.

The question that is striking me for last few days is: How it moved along for so many years. Years of that big growth where the world was leading to new heights, heights that were making every balance sheet a smiling face. And what is corporate governance. And where were all these things when all this was happening at Satyam.

Corporate governance, as we all know, is a just a set of policies that sets the order for administration of a corporate, decides the processes that direct a business to progress. Was Satyam really out of it. No……………. Yes…………………. No…………………… Can’t say…. Corporate governance exists to ensure the accountability of certain individuals in an organization. BUT, does not enforces itself upon anybody.

It is one’s inner-self that directs and rules a person to follow or not to follow any such accountability. The rat race and greed being inherent to human nature, one tends to go away from the words like ethics. It is the power of being at the highest order and rule others is deep rooted into the mindset of every thinking human. Is it that easy to go away from them.

Put yourself in the position of a corporate honcho, feel the pressures of delivering profits year after year, display even bigger numbers in your balance sheet every year, the race to lead the charts all the way and see the name of organization there on top…. All  those ethics and governance MAY take a backseat.

I do not confirm that all the business houses would go away with it but one way or the other these pressures could impact.

Back to the hotplate: Is Satyam really that big a name to tarnish the image of Indian business.

Any individual or one entity can never represent the whole world; community or the group of people. This world has been thru many disasters earlier also. It would surely move thru it; off course a few hiccups may hit upon. What you say……..

Ethics & Management

It has always been a dilemma for a budding manager to decide whether he is ethically right in performing his duties. What one should do... look at ethics or P & L A/c.

There is no proof that non-ethical managers are more successful. Still at times, one has to decide if one's personal values & morals can be sacrificed for organizational goals.
First, what is ETHICS?

In straight words, it is learning what is right or wrong. And then doing the right thing.
But is it really so straight to know and do "The Right Thing"? I don't think so. It varies form person-to-person and situation-to-situation. One has to go through a lot before deciding ethical ways of life.

Next come Business Ethics…

Again in straight words, it is learning what is right or wrong at workplace AND then doing the right thing at workplace. We don't have any "Ethics Meter" to decide. What is ethical is completely dependent of one's personal morals and situations around him.
I am not deciding and closing the debate here. It cannot be...

A Pro-Business Ethics link is here for you to know more: http://www.managementhelp.org/ethics/ethxgde.htm

The next link contain comments by a senior industry leader onto the above write-up:
http://www.current.org/ethics/ethics0304dodgen.html

I believe It can't be taught what is ethical and weather to be ethical or not.
What you believe? Send comments.

I understand what is running thru your mind. Just mention business ethics and the world will run across one name: Satyam……

Give a thought and will discuss further.

Management...

What is Management?
Seems easy. Is it really that easy to answer this question?

• It is science.
• It is art.
• It is profession.
• It is a group of people who manage.

Or Simply put, management is the controlling power that handles available resources and guide them to achieve a pre-defined goal.
And Managers: everyone. B'coz everyone manages all his available resources to achieve goals of his life. So one way or the other everyone manages.
So what is the difference? Hmm...Usually, if we do whatever we did earlier, we don't achieve what we achieved earlier. We need a to add a dash of doing same thing differently. And that 'DIFFERENTLY' is what managers do.