管理故事,唔明點解

The statements are intended to explain what "Leadership" and "Management" is, and may be interpreted as follows:

When Noah heard the weather forecast he ordered the building of the ark

A leader is required to -

1. be forward thinking, like Noah paid attention to the weather forecast and believed that the extremely bad weather is coming soon;

2. made important decisions, like Noah decided to build the ark to help his people and animals survive the extremely bad weather; and

3. give commands to implement the decisions, like Noah ordered his people to build the ark.

Noah was not supposed to build or participated in building the ark because his role is to keep paying attention to the future weather, making important decisions and monitoring the progress of the works.

Then he looked around and said, "Make sure the elephants don't see what the rabbits are up to."

A manager is required to -

1. observe his team(s), like Noah looked around but did not engage himself in operations; and

2. identify potential conflicts between team members, like Noah warned his people not to let the elephants see the rabbits.

We do not know what Noah actually observed and why he separated the elephants and the rabbits, but can imagine that he must have found a potential conflict or problem if he let the elephants see the rabbits.

That is good managers are supposed to be good at observing their team members, identifying potential conflicts between them and taking actions to avoid such conflicts.

Note

As leader is the manager of a team and a manager is the leader of a team, their identities are the same in this context.

As Noah heard the weather forecast that there will be a heavy raining, he makes a decision. He has a forward looking or thinking to build the ark and thus make this a forward or strategic policy making to guide the animals.

Once the decision is made and it should be put into operation by delegating the works to rabbits. It is an implementation of the policy so defined. Noah warned rabbits that this action must not be seen by elephants. The elephants may board the ark and, of course, the ark will sink. This is a management guideline during implementation.

These are 2 different roles of management.