MBA...

Well…I am having my MBA exams on 20th and 27th of this month. This leaves me with seven more days to prepare for my exams. Of course I am tense. I need a lot of good wishes and good luck – both for preparing as well as writing for my exam.

I have been reading my MBA courseware voraciously off late. What I have learnt till now is that management is all about five things – Planning, Organizing, Staffing, leading and controlling. Each of these five fields forms the cornerstone for Management study.

Planning is the phase wherein you plan for your Goals, objectives and mission as an organization. Organizing deals with giving a formal structure to your organization. It involves creating various hierarchy structures of employees, breaking your organization into departments and divisions etc. The main thing here is that your organizing should be in line and complement your plan/goal for the organization. Staffing is the process of putting the right people in the right places in the hierarchy structure developed in the organizing phase. Leading is then guiding and influencing the behavior of the haired employees so that “they” can help you to achieve the goals of the organization. Controlling deals with the various ways in which you have to control you finance, communication, morale etc for the smooth functioning of the organization.

I personally like the leading part of management. The main reason I like this is because in today’s scenario to be become a true leader, you have to truly understand and know people. You have to know what is it that motivates people. Why do people behave the way they do? How to get along with people to achieve a common goal? How to handle conflicts in work place? Etc. It feels good to get into the minds of some of the greatest of Physcology/management thinkers. It’s good to know what their opinions are on these topics (like Peter F. Drucker, Abraham Maslow, Victor H. Vroom, David C. McClelland etc...)

The another reason why I like the literature on leading is because I truly believe that each and every person is a leader in his/her very own way. A father is the financial leader in his home. A mother is the emotional in her home. A teacher is a leader for molding a child’s character. A sweeper is a leader of cleanliness of his area. I am a leader for myself; I am responsible for managing myself. So, I think everyone is a leader in one way or the other. And the literature present in management for organizational leadership can also extended to personal/family leadership. Maybe we will have to modify it a bit to take care of the human element. For example, have a look at Maslow pyramid proposed to know the motive behind people’s work in organization. A look at it and you will know how relevant it is in our personal life as well. We too – maybe unconsciously – Plan, organize, staff, lead and control ourselves in our life.

All said and done, days are slipping by, and I need to write my Exams. Wish me luck :-)