The Secrets of Pure Managers
Sometimes you feel that you are living in a nightmare. You are biding your time in an organization where you know next to nothing, save a few buzzwords. All the people you manage are brighter, more knowledgeable, and more energetic than you could ever hope to be. How are you going to manage? How will you cope? What is the future of your career?
Read on to find the answers…
The Disciple and the Sage
The disciple went up to Gargi Yagnyavalka and offered the sage the customary middle-finger salute.
“Teacher”, he asked, “could you explain the secrets of pure managers to me? I have been a student of the Indian software industry for many years, but I have not been able to understand the role that pure managers played in it. My heart is troubled, and I am unable to sleep at night. I have begun seeing visions of tessaracts spinning in 4-space, and my dreams are full of strings vibrating in Calabi-Yau spaces.”
The sage put down the CD-ROM twirling on his finger and looked at the student over the rims of his spectacles.
“Very well”, said Gargi, looking at the earnest young man in front of him. “First, let us review some definitions. What is a Pure Manager?”
“A manager who manages a team without having a clue about the work that the team does”, said the novice.
“Very good”, said the sage. “And what is a Deliverable?”
“Something of value to a customer, O Sage”, replied the young man.
“Is a Status Report a deliverable?”
“No, O Sage. A computer cannot execute a status report.”
“And what about a Quality Plan?”
“O Sage, a quality plan in itself also has little value to the customer.”
“So what is a deliverable, then?”, asked the sage.
“Something the customer can use to address a real need. A working program, perhaps”, answered the novice.
“Good”, the sage was pleased. “Now, in a project managed by a Pure Manager, who determines the progress of the project?”
“The people working in the team”, replied the novice, “for the Pure Manager cannot determine the correctness of any course of action, by definition, since he hath no clue about the merits of one path over another.”
“So what then does the Pure Manager bring to the project team?”, asked the sage.
The disciple was silent. The sage continued, “Have you spent the necessary hours using the history-scope to study the dynamics of team meetings in the Indian software industry?”
“Yes, teacher”, said the novice.
“What have you observed?”, asked the sage.
“I have observed that Pure Managers sit at their desk, masterfully holding their mice, whilst their techies sit hunched up, unsure of themselves, as if ashamed of their nerdiness”, the student replied.
“And what was the nature of the interactions between the team and manager?”, asked the sage.
“The techies needed frequent reassurance”, said the novice.
“And the Pure Manager provided reassurance?”, asked the sage.
“Yes, teacher, the techies seemed to ascribe great value to his facial expressions.”
The sage was pleased with the student’s perspicacity. “This then is what the Pure Manager brings to the meeting table”, he said. “Engineers, being excessively logical by nature, seek meaning for their existence in this world. On finding no obvious meaning, they panic, and look around for someone to structure their lives for them. The Pure Manager fills that niche.”
The student was silent for a while. “Please tell me more about the secrets of the Pure Managers, O Guru”, he asked.
“Very well”, said the sage. “The only real task for the Pure Manager is to periodically say तथा अस्तु (Tatha Astu) [Sanskrit: ‘so be it’], to his team members. However, some care has to be exercised when doing so. These are the guidelines:”
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The Pure Manager must not say Tatha Astu too often; every once in a while, he should look serious and say ‘No’. Doing so will preserve the apparent value of his ‘So Be It’.
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The Pure Manager should work on his smile every morning.
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The Pure Manager should endeavour to project an all-knowing and sagacious demenour. A facial expression reflecting a state midway between constipation and Buddha-like enlightenment has been found to work the best.
“O Sage,” said the novice, “your description reminds me of the priests in my native land.”
The sage looked with renewed interest at the young man. “Indeed — the similarities are deep. Let us compare the two.”
We have presented the Sage’s comparison in a convenient tabular form below.
| Aspect | Religion | Pure Management |
|---|---|---|
Ritual: visual overload |
Complicated rituals involved objects being burnt and/or manipulated in arbitrary ways. |
Bizare slides. |
Ritual: auditory overload |
Atonal chanting of mantras; singing in an unknown language by a choir; enthusiastic, loud and off-key singing by planted members in the congregation. |
Droning presentations full of unfathomable phrases such a ‘forward-looking progress’ and ‘synergistic competition’. |
Apparent Topic |
Your next life on Earth, or your life in heaven (without there being evidence of re-incarnation or of the existence of heaven). |
The next business initiative, or the next process improvement, (without there being evidence of any initiative, process, or improvement in the organization). |
Actual statement |
Your life will be meaningful if you do as I say (and give me money). |
Your life will be meaningful if you do as I say (and earn me my promotion). |
“I still don’t understand how it works,” said the novice.
Gargi, looked at the earnest young man. “शिष्यः [Sanskrit: disciple], one of the deepest needs of a human being is that the world she perceives be understandable.”
“So, when a believer goes to a priest or manager desiring guidance, and gets in return an almost meaningful string of symbols and sounds, the person has two choices: she has to admit to herself that she has been an idiot to waste her time, or, she can create her own ‘meaning’ for the string of symbols and sounds that she was presented with.”
“In most cases, it is second option that she settles for. Then, since the person now ‘owns’ her private meaning of the symbols she encountered, she becomes even more reluctant to confront reality.”
“Does any meaningless ritual or slide set work then?”, asked the student.
“No, my son,” said the sage, “there is an art to Pure Management too. First, your religous rituals and company initiatives should be within reach of your target population. For example, choose corporate rituals that your believers can do sitting down instead of those requiring energetic physical activity. At the same time, do not make your rituals too easy to do — you should occasionally prolong your meetings needlessly, or schedule them at arbitrary times of the day.[1]”
“Your presentations, meetings or religious rituals need to be almost meaningful, just on the border of making sense. If they are too random then your devotees will catch on to your game. Conversely, if you mistakenly offer your reportees something with real meaning, they will not need you anymore.”
The disciple was silent for a while. “I now understand why the number of priests in India surged after the dot com boom ended in the early 21st century. Thank you, O Sage, for your time.”
Gargi smiled, and went back to spinning his CD-ROM.