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Part - II

Can I say now that working of a human body and an organization is same? There must be some doubts in many people's mind that most of the organization are formed with some mission, they are made to produce something and trade. What about us?

Here, I would say organizations give us tremendous amount of opportunities to learn from them. Every organization likes to have a vision statement for itself to know where to go and mission statement to know the road map for it. Is human life so trifle that we never care about these things in life? Most of the problems, especially professional problems generate from lack of mission in our lives. We take a career decision not because we have skills and aptitude to do it but because trend tells us it's good to do. I would compare this thing to Michael Porter's one of the generic strategies, i.e., Focus. Porter says a company needs to focus a particular market it can be a consumer segment, geographical market etc. A company should never lose focus on its target market. If a company's core competence lies in high-end segment. Chances are company can loose its brand image when it starts catering to lower end of the market. So, what do we learn from it? A person having skills (core competencies) to become a painter can become a good manager, but won't be best in his field. But, just think had the person having acumen for painting joined an arts college and become a painter, his chances for achieving name and fame would have increased, compared to what are now, as a manager. Jack Welch did the same with G.E. wherever the company was not first or second he moved company out of business. It meant that had company had core competencies in that field it would have excelled in it and achieved market leadership. So, it's quite essential for both human body and a company to channelise its skills in right direction to achieve excellence.

Thinking With My Brain: Strategizing in Organization

Our human brain gives us directions to do things in right way. Each and every thing we do has a certain goal. Goals may vary according to our needs but to plan, do, check and act for any thing is performed by our brain only. Our body parts just follow the command of our brain and do the job for us. Same thing I would say is applied to organizations, strategist in organization thinks and provides goal to the organization. Rest of the departments knowing the goal perform their activities to achieve it. Important part is if there is lack of communication between different departments then the organization is heading towards a disaster. Imagine if you cannot perform your daily chores with your limbs because your limbs don't follow the direction of your brain that would mean you have affected your neural system, which acts as a communicator between the brain and different parts. You are paralyzed or heading towards it. Same problem is faced in organization when higher management makes a strategy and middle or lower level don't follow in their work because higher management has not been able to communicate the goal to the lower level. Then organization faces a paralytic attack.

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* Contributed by: -
Tejinder Singh,
MBA (IInd year),
International Management institute, Delhi.