What I’ve learned about Management

Management is an art, a science, a philosophy and a doctrine. If it were really that easy to describe it we really wouldn’t need so many books about the subject. I realize that in the most pure sense of the word, management is a discipline that involves a multitude of principles from other disciplines to make it a holistic concept. The greatest lesson learned about management is that it needs to be complex in order to be complete. Not because all these principles are necessary to run a business, but because these principles are necessary to interact with the people who make a business what it is. Human beings are the most complicated species to deal with on Earth and mastering the fundamental elements of management is what is needed if any one person is going to succeed within the realm of everyday life.
Take for example the decision-making exercise that took place after the first exam. It essentially was a free for all battle royale between every individual in the room. But there are important principles of management that could clearly be seen. First and most obvious was communication. Some people failed to communicate effectively with one another in the class which led to unnecessary conflicts. For example, towards the end of the session, a unanimous decision had to be made about whether or not an essay was to be included in the second exam. One individual refused to vote for the proposal because he thought it was something he didn’t like. After further investigation, it turned out that there was a misunderstanding or more importantly a miscommunication in what the actual proposal was about and he later rescinded his original position and agreed to vote in favor of it. Another important element that was clearly seen was conflict resolution, which in itself can only be resolved through effective communication. Some people were so eager to get their own way that they refused to compromise on their position which led to conflict with other members of the class. However, even through these incidents of stubbornness, compromises were usually agreed upon because some members were able to effectively persuade the other parties to see things their way.
This now leads to the type of person who does the persuading. Every single person has a different type of personality. However, some of them are so similar to each other that they could be grouped together. These groups tend to handle different situations in a similar manner. For example, with regard to the DiSC Personality Profile System, the D’s would behave in a similar manner which regards to decision making and handling conflict. When it came time for a ‘leader’ to emerge, the D’s and I’s seemed to take over the floor in order to influence the outcome in a most directive manner. However, the S’s and C’s seemed to interact with those in their immediate surroundings which suggested that they took a more nondirective approach to handling the issues they were faced with.
So what exactly did I learn from this class? Very little I would have to say. Not because it was not taught, but because management is like an elephant and right now I have learned all that I can learn about its left ear lobe. This is because the central focus of this subject is people: the most complex and often misunderstood organism that exists today. You can try to learn all you want about them, but at the end of the day the greatest thing that needs to be taken away is that you don’t know anything at all about how they behave, but it always helps to try to gain as much insight as you can about them. All that can be done for me is to continue to study as much principles of management as I can, and hope that life experience will complement the rest of what I am supposed to know about this behemoth we call management.