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EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
(MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS, IDEAS AND PRACTICES)

BY

ODEWOYE FRANCIS SUNDAY

1

CONTENTS

Chapter

Page

Preface --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5

1
...
INDIGENISING MANAGEMENT, CONCEPTS AND PRACTICE
- Non-western countries with conditions viable for selective adaptation
...
---23-24
- The phenomenon of Ethnocentrism--------------------------------------------------24-25
- Modernization and Structural Differentiation Process --------------------------- 25
- Modernization Defined ---------------------------------------------------------------- --25-26
- Post-Independence Strategies on National Modernization ---------------------- 26
- Political Modernization ------------------------------------------------------------------27
- Indigenous Business Concerns---------------------------------------------------------27-28

3
...
EFFECTIVE MANAGERIAL APPROACHES: THE PRIVATE SECTOR EXPERIENCE
- Know Who You Are -----------------------------------------------------------------------37-38
- Know your Strengths…
...
EFFECTIVE MANAGERIAL APPROACHES: THE PUBLIC SECTOR EXPERIENCE
- Origin and Growth of the Public Sector -----------------------------------------44-45
- Deficiencies and Poor Performance of Public Enterprises ---------------- 45-46
- Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47-48
References -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

49

Author’s Profile -----------------------------------------------------------------------

50

4

PRRFACE
Effective Management (Management Concepts, Ideas and Practices)
...
The book will also be useful to those preparing for Professional
Examinations and Master’s degree programme in Business Administration
...

All topics have been treated in details and made as practical as possible
...


5

CHAPTER ONE
THE CONCEPT OF MANAGEMENT
Management is as old as mankind
...
The concept of management has been variously
defined depending on the author’s needs and orientations
...
It has also
been called the “main organ of the organization that activates its wealthproducing resources for the attainment of the organization’s specific objectives”
...
One of the main tasks of management, therefore, is to organized human
efforts and husbands other resources to achieve the objectives of the
organization
...

One is that it is a process of getting things done through people
...
Attention
here is focused on the concept of management as a process of getting things
done through people to attain set organization objectives
...
In managing,
therefore, the critical task understands how the pieces balance off one another,
how sequencing and pacing affect the whole structure
...
John
Humble has defined MBO as a dynamic system which seeks to integrate the
6

company’s need to clarify and achieve its profitable growth with the manager’s
need for personal development
...

MBO’s first step as a managerial approach is to attempt to clarify the goals of
management activity, to see that responsibility for achieving these goals is
reasonably distributed among the various managers
...
The
significance of key result area lies in the fact that they represent the most
important activities and task which the manager must undertake during a
particular period and these represent the set standards of success on which he
will be judged
...
Therefore, it is desirable to have a system of controls
that is sufficiently accurate to compare actual performance with the plan and this
needs to be acceptable to both the manager and his superior
...

Although the main report of the Udoji Commission in Nigeria is replete with many
recommendations on how to restructure the public bureaucracies to make them
more efficient and effective, the most significant for our present purpose are
what the authors termed their “major recommendation
...
Project Management
2
...
Programme and Performance Budgeting

7

“Management by Objectives and Programme and Budgeting (PPB), has
particular relevance to all categories of the public enterprises, but especially
to the industrial and commercial companies
...
We are confident that they would
succeed “
...

J
...
Wickens (1968), in an article entitled “Management by Objective: An
Appraisal” showed very clearly how two factors completely ignored by the Udoji
Commissioner in Nigeria as an example may make or mar any attempt to use
MBO and corporate planning in any organization
...
The position of the firm’s primary production on the process on Joan
Woodard’s Scale of Technical Complexity
...
The modal personality needs of the individuals working in groups in the firms
...
After a
detailed consideration of several reasons, we do not need to go into here; he
concluded that we “expect MBO to be most successful in-process and mass
production industry and least in small-batch and unit production
...
Drucker’s
coupling of these two concepts underscores his belief that MBO by itself is a
necessary, but not sufficient condition of effective management
...
Without an appropriate measure of self-control
by management personnel, MBO would be no more than a new name for
Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management
...

The first of these foundations is the need for any business enterprise to build a
true team and weld individual efforts into a common effort… Emphasis should be
on team-work and team results
...

Thirdly, it rests on the assumption that motivation to achieve objectives could be
strengthened by

1
...
My perception of one’s efforts as contributing to the success of one’s
group of organization
3
...

And fourthly, it applies to every manager from the ‘big boss’ down to the foreman
or the chief clerk and not only to the factory hands:
According to Wickens, the four types of a person namely,
1
...
Social man
3
...
Complex man
Ideal typically found in organizations, will because of their need position respond
differently to an MBO technique of management
...
The type of manager who will find
MBO most congenial to his need-disposition is the ‘complex man’ who is “capable

9

of acquiring new motives in new situations of satisfying many different kinds of
motives in different parts of his total situation…”

David McClelland’s Identification of the “Good Manager”
About eight years after Dickens made the foregoing observation about the
personality system of managers required for successful application of the MBO,
David McClelland and D
...
In that article, the authors
using some of the most scientific methods available in social science described a
motive pattern that empirical quantitative research had discovered most good
manager’s share
...
In other words, a good
manager wants power
...
”
They go on to point out that the kind of power good managers want is not the
type that could lead to authoritarianism, but the type that: “ needs to be
tempered by maturity and a high degree of self-control”
...

As defined by him in his path-breaking book, The Achieving Society (1961), the
need for Achievement
...
”
N- Power was also carefully distinguished from another motive known as Need
Affiliation- a need to be liked
...
The manager with high n Affiliation is not likely to be able to exhibit what the great German sociologist,
Max Weber describes as the distinguishing characteristic of fully developed
10

bureaucracy that is the ability to operate
...
It
might take the form of n- Institutional or n- Personal Power
...
Being more organization minded;
ii
...
Willing to sacrifice some of their own self- interest for the welfare of
their organization;
iv
...
A willingness to seek advice from experts
...
When a personal manager leaves, disorganization often follows
...

The methods used in collecting data in the survey were:1
...
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
...
They were also asked questions on how
they would deal with various realistic work situations in office settings
...

The information supplied by the subjects in the questionnaire and TAT were
coded for the degree of achievement, affiliation and power needs together with
the self-control or inhibition revealed
...

To determine the relationship between managers’ motivational needs and
management effectiveness, a participants’ subordinates’ survey was also carried
out
...
The account of conformity to rules required;
2
...
The emphasis the department places on standards of performance;
4
...

5
...

The result of the workshop participants’ subordinates’ survey shows that the
subordinates of the managers with n- Institutional power gave their supervisors
the highest moral scores
...
It was found that the attendance of
the workshop led to an increase in effectiveness among the managers
...

12

Propagating the Good Manager Syndrome
In their study described above McClelland and Burnham showed clearly that a
good manager’s syndrome did exist empirically, but they did not show the
syndrome could be diffused and propagated
...
C
...

The realization of this will require relatively prolonged and active training
workshops
...
Arising from this, the leadership
will have a well-defined strategy for the organization
...

The idea is that leaders need to energies their organizations to meet the
challenges posed by the environment and competition, and they can do this by
finding ways to overcome factors which limit information and prevent innovation
which are vital factors for business success
...


13

Target Setting or Target Management
Simply put, “target management” requires each unit of the organization to justify
its existence by comparing performance with some bench-mark which for a
business organization can be an absolute profit target or other intermediate goals
such as percentage of market share, sales, revenue growth, percentage of
expenditure to sales revenue, product quality, volume growth, etc
...

A manager is responsible for his unit’s targets and is given sufficient authority and
resources to enable him to arrive at them
...

The picture that emerges from the foregoing is that targeting or target
management only differs from MBO not in details, but in the ways and processes
in which targets are arrived at
...
Those who oppose the target management approach
accused it short term vision, that is, it encourages the practitioners to think only
of each year’s target rather than long term strategic direction of the organization
...
It should achieve long term as well as short term
goals
...

Management Science (MS) is an approach to management problems solving and
there are many dimensions to it
...

When an organization’s targets and goals have been clearly defined in the form of
plans, these are normally seen as the inputs in the system while the results of
performance and goal attainment are the relevant outputs
...

The various techniques of management science offer managers an analytical
objective and quantitative basis for making better decisions
...

The various techniques are applied to ensure balance
...

Examples of these techniques include Network Analysis, Modelling and
Forecasting
...
It often includes time study which has to do with setting fair
allowances for the time which should be taken to do a piece of work
...
Because of its sensitivity and technical nature,
work-study practitioners must be of high ability, well-trained and well-paid
...
Work-study is a versatile tool which need not be restricted to
studying existing departments and products
...

Organization and Methods (O&M)
This technique is sometimes called work-study in the office
...

Its origin can be traced to the British Civil Service, where a senior treasury official
was asked to study the way some of the clerical work was done in government
departments
...

His early recommendations were so successful in achieving greater efficiency that
his study was extended to other activities
...

Few people realize the extent to which greater use of O&M could add to national
productivity
...

Some Useful Tips in Management
It is relevant to briefly consider some of the key factors which are useful in
determining the competence of a successful manager
...
They are no substitute for good management
...

i
...
Whether in government or the private sector, it is
helpful for the manager, particularly the top manager to have an idea of where he
wants the organization to be as well as the ways and means to get there
...

ii
...
An
effective manager should be able to analyze the problems critically and have a
clear practical solution to the issue and what needs to be done
...
Ethics, Integrity, Self-Confidence and Accountability
...
They out
to be guided by the need to be fair and just in their dealings with subordinates,
especially when it involves issues like performance appraisal, training and
development as well as appointments and promotions
...

It is not entirely strange that because of the ethics, religious and many other
differences that exist in our society
...
However, the manager
who is conscious of our traditional values or who emphasizes the virtues of
fairness, personal honour and integrity is likely to be more successful at adroitly
applying the approaches we have examined thus far in the day-to-day
management of his organization
...
Bench Marking
Benchmarking is an on-going investigation and learning experience which ensures
that the best industry practices are uncovered, analyzed, adapted and
implemented
...
We are a member of the world community and if we are to
compete favorably, we should aim at nothing but the best
...

v
...
It is important
that a company’s objectives, goals and aspirations are properly communicated to
those who are to assist in achieving them
...
It means preparing
the players, understanding what they do and do not know; working effectively
with them; watching their performances; giving them honest feedback and
creates an on-going dialogue with them
...
By doing so, we have commitment and loyalty
...
Rewards and Sanctions
Employees should be adequately rewarded to reflect the efforts that they need to
put in to achieve set targets
...
Likewise, appropriate
sanctions need to be imposed when organizational rules and norms are violated
and such sanctions ought to have direct bearing with the act which has been
committed
...
People Orientation
The manager must make a special effort to manage people successfully and this
means effort needs to be made to understand the nature of human beings in the
workplaces
...
A good
understanding of the value systems of employees and their dynamics backed up
with appropriate responses by the organization is also essential
...

viii
...
A manager, just like a leader in any other setting needs to live by example
which must of necessity be up to the required standard
...
It is known that this is one of the easiest ways of
effecting changes in attitudes, norms and behaviours of subordinates where
deviations from establishment standards have been noticed
...

ix
...
Experience has proved that most of the
effective and efficient organizations are those where the layers are between 4
and 6
...
The line of communication and levels of authority are short
...
The reaction time is also shorter in leaner organizations; hence the speed in
responding to the customers on reacting to inquiries is faster
...
Cost is generally reduced
...
One over one
situation should be avoided as it is expensive, ineffective and inefficient
...

x
...

This is an important attribute for managers
...
The conditions are perhaps more permissive for use of such
approaches as Strategic Management, MBO and other variants of target setting
...

The public sector still has a long way to go
...
,
the sector, particularly the civil service needs to be restructured or re-engineered
with emphasis on proactivity and customer orientation
...

Lastly, effective management can only be firmly embedded in our society against
a background of macroeconomic stability and firm direction which only the
government can provide
...

The government should consider reducing the social service burden on organized
and successful companies
...

19

CHAPTER TWO
INDIGENISING MANAGEMENT, CONCEPTS AND PRACTICE
The problem of indigenizing management concepts and practice is capable of
numerous conceptualizations
...

Secondly, it could be seen as an issue requiring systematic scientific inquiry into
the modifications which must be made into the various components of the
cultures of the non-western societies into which these perspectives have been or
are being diffused to accelerate the attainment of the goal of modernization
which their leaders have set for these societies
...
The modes of cognition in question are:
i
...
Uncontrolled observations and comparison and from which
iii
...

This article will utilize data and other facts based on empirical, objective,
experimental and statistical methods of cognition to indicate some of the
modifications which must be made into the various components of the cultures of
the non-western societies, such as Nigeria, to meet the management challenges
which their efforts at modernization have posed for them
...

Firstly, there is the impressive and overwhelming evidence provided by the work
of the comparative historian, Cyril
...
Black (1966), to show that only a minority of
non-western societies have the traditional, political and socio-cultural conditions
for them to follow a policy of selective adaptation of their indigenous institutions
meet the challenges and functions of modernization
...

The main difference between these latter societies and the former in the
distribution of these value-attitudes is not in their absolute presence or absence
but their proportionate distribution
...

Thirdly, there is the well-known fact, from comparative entrepreneurial studies
that even in the western societies, modern management concepts and practices
are not the creation of the whole societies but those of an infinitesimally small
number of creative and innovative personalities
...

This article plans to show that for a vast majority of non-western countries,
including Nigeria, that a policy of selective adaptation of their socio-cultural
institutions rather than a wholehearted adoption of many concepts and practices
of modern western management may be unviable and even counterproductive
...

Cyril E Black in his managerial work entitled “The Dynamics of Modernization: A
Comparative History (1966), classified all the roughly 170 countries in existence in
1960 into seven categories on the dimensions of when, and the extent to which
they had started begun and /or completed the following tasks/ prerequisites of
modernization
...
“The consolidation of modernizing leadership”
2
...
“The integration of societyIs a phase characterized by the transformation of “ the structure of society such
that the individual ties with local, regional and other intermediate structures are
reduced at the same time that his ties with the larger and more diffuse urban and
industrial network are strengthened
...


Fifth Pattern of Modernization
Consolidation of
Economic and social
Modernization
Transformation
Leadership
Russia
1861- 1917
1917Japan
1868- 1945
1945China
1905- 1949
1949Iran
1906- 1925
1925Turkey
1908- 1923
1923Afghanistan 1923Ethiopia
1924Thailand
1932Source: C
...
Black: The Dynamic of Modernization
...
The immediate political challenge of modernity to the traditional leaders was
internal
...
They enjoyed a continuity of territory and population during the modern era
...
They were self-governing in the modern era; they did not experience a period
of colonial rule
...
They entered the modern era with relatively developed institutions that could
to substantial degrees be adapted to the functions of modernity and

5
...


Non-Western Countries Lacking Conditions Viable for Selective Adaptation
...
All of these
societies except the Union of South Africa were in sub-Saharan Africa
...

None of them had started the processes of economic and social transformation or
the integration of society
...

The crises manifest themselves in the form of three types of political instability
identified by Morrison and Stevenson (1972), as plaguing the vast majority of subSaharan Africa, including Nigeria
...
Elite instability
2
...
Mass instability
Apart from the preceding situation of the form of instability, the countries in the
Seventh Pattern of Modernization including, the factors which make Nigeria, a
23

policy of selective adaptation not only unviable but also counter-productive are
the following characteristics:1
...
Their colonial powers pursued limited and belated programmes of
modernization and preserved the status quo through their policies of indirect
rule
...
The countries lack a common traditional culture sufficiently developed to be
capable of selective adaptation to any significant degree to tackle modern
functions
...
The leaders of these countries and many of their followers have been
experiencing a revolution of rising expectations and a mounting sense of relative
deprivation when they compare their lot with those of the people of the relatively
modernized societies
...
As understood by
social scientists, ethnocentrism in the partly conscious and partly unconscious
tendency to take the aspects of the culture of the group into which one was born
and socialized, as the standard against which one judges, negatively or evaluate
as inferior, the aspects of the cultures of the other ethnic groups
...
In ethnically homogeneous
communities, living in relative and in most cases, complete isolation from
members of differing ethnic/tribal communities
...

Thirdly, that commitment to and positive affirmation of the beliefs, values, norms
and practices are shared by persons that the individual spends upon for meeting
his/her pan-human needs and who one, therefore, owes an obligation of social
conformity and reciprocity
...

Modernization and Structural Differentiation Process
...

Modernization Defined
According to the eminent sociologist
...

Historically, modernization is the process of change towards those types of social,
economic and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North
America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth and have then to other
European countries and South America, Asia and African continents
...

The process of diffusion began under the aegis of the colonial powers and their
agencies and later continued by indigenous leaders of colonies-turned states
which emerged in Africa, most especially, since 1960
...

i
...

ii
...
The age-sex composition of the people affected
...

Post-Independence Strategies on National Modernization
On the attainment of political independence, African political leaders were, unlike
the British colonial bureaucracy, determined to modernize every aspect-political,
economic, social, educational, medical- of the country’s national life, partly to
relieve their feeling of relative deprivation vis-à-vis the foreign business concerns,
and partly from a desire to relieve the same feeling when they compare the level
of development in Africa with that in developed Euro-America societies
...
State building
ii
...
Political Participation
iv
...

Indigenous Business Concerns
Although no recent scientific study available to assess the performance of the
indigenous business, which the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decrees of 1972
and 1977 as a case study were created to assist, it is doubtful if they had achieved
better results than similar businesses which received assistance during the period
1955-1966
...
The problem of inadequate absorptive capacity can be
restated as the problem of deficient management capabilities”
In support of his conclusion, Kilby cited the following findings of a 1965 survey of
268 of the largest indigenous industrial firms carried out by Harris and Rowe
(1966)
...
Substantial
increases in output could be achieved without additional investment
...
Low levels of capacity utilization are
largely a result of management deficiencies”
...
The general standard of financial management was very low in most of the
firms: A considerable proportion of the entrepreneurs did not have an adequate
understanding of basic financial control principles and methods; and
ii
...

Some of the reasons that were adduced for the relatively poor performance of
the indigenous business enterprises were:
i
...
Lack of innovation;
iii
...
Refusal to acknowledge owns managerial limitations or inadequacies and the
tendency to attribute difficulties to external factors;
v
...
Dishonesty and lack of trust between business partners
...
This has
also led to the erroneous conclusion that “leaders are born but not made”
...
It all depends
on the situation
...

At its best, leadership touches and releases the potentials in human beings when
faced with a crisis; and crisis necessitates a change
...
In contrast, managers run
organizations as machines and they are happiest in a steady-state environment
when nothing is rocking the boat
...
The managers constitute the administration and the leader leads that
administration
...
Emphasis over the years in Africa
has been on the acquisition of academic qualifications to qualify for appointment
to top management grade and /or to a leadership position
...

What this situation has revealed is that I am good people, but not educated
people that are short in supply
...
The masses of this country are suffering
because we do not have enough well-qualified people
...

Experience in African’s Countries has shown that military rule has some
management abuses
...
These people have
been elevated to take charge of strategic positions in Government
...

What happens then is that all the noble ideals of the new leader are punched with
holes and frustrated at the implementation level of government
...

When the outside advisers persist, the bureaucrats often succeed in making the
leadership see advisers as cynics and pessimists who want to ensure that he fails
...
These include friends and fellow generals, confidants, natural
rulers, religious leaders, captains of industry, trade union leaders, IMF and World
Bank officials
...
Outsiders do not know organizational goals and
have no reason to have respect for them
...
The strategy was to develop the industrial sector
to replace manufactured imports and reduce reliance on primary exports
...
Accordingly,
domestic industries were regarded as infant industries and were protected by
30

high tariff and out-right prohibition in some cases
...
Consequently, the Government
created economic enterprises to solve critical supply problems and to accelerate
industrialization
...

The anti-export bias of the policy reduced the growth rate of exports
...

The leadership style of the 60s through to 1985, gave the impression of uniform
expansion policies, instead of a transition from traditional to modern forms of
economic organization
...

Military Administration and Africa Economy
The problem that arose in the government’s efforts to co-ordinate liberalization
with micro-economic stabilization policies lay in the right order of liberalization so
as not to create further distortions in the economic system
...
What was required was the need for liberalization agenda to be
enhanced by a more positive vision of government policy through
...
Realistic Exchange Rate
ii
...
The distinction between primary export and manufactured export;
iv
...

The success of Turkey since 1980 in adopting this approach is a striking example
...
Their strategy was a combination of import substitution and export
promotion than out-right liberalization
...
They used their programmes to enhance domestic production and
made their monetary and fiscal policies and wages to be consistent with their new
non-inflationary equilibrium
...

Consequently, they successfully secured their economy’s agricultural base and by
so doing were able to encourage the development of industry in part through
export promotion
...
The
reason is that interest payments on debts are always due, while those on equity
are payable when an investment earns a positive return
...

Unfortunately, the statistical information and centralized control over external
borrowing that ought to form the concrete base for policy were lacking
...

The growth of short-term interbank and trade credits further imposed great
strains on debt control and monitoring
...

To salvage the situation, African’s countries made an application for IMF loan to
bridge the gap between domestic savings and investment, between exports and
imports of goods and services
...

Foreign Debts Management
Accurate statistics must be submitted at all times to be able to effectively and
efficiently manage the economy out of the present debts situation
...

What has landed some African’s countries into the present debts predicament
that has been identified in addition to faulty statistics includes the following:
i
...
The increase in foreign revenues was not used as they
should have been to reduce deficits or to pay off past debts by running surpluses;
instead because of political pressures, the government used them to increase
public spending
...

ii
...
As a consequence, exogenous
inflationary shocks, regardless of their origin, tend to reduce the ratio of taxes to
Gross National Product (GNP)
...

iii
...
without regards to productivity
...
Creditors have not been reluctant to extend spontaneous new loans
to countries with debts reduction programmes in place
...
The emphasis here is
on those approaches which are likely to guarantee the effectiveness and
efficiency of the organization
...

There is no denying the fact, however, that there are some approaches which are
commonly employed in management both in the private and public sectors
...
There are three basic ideas under the
approach
...
Expenditure programmes may overlap agencies; therefore, there is a need to
look at the programme and planning unit as a whole
...
A proper evaluation of the expenditure programme requires scrutiny of more
than one time period
...


iii
...

Its overall objective is to make as explicit as possible the costs and benefits of
major choices in expenditure and to encourage the use of this information
systematically in public sector decision making
...


35

Given such a total programme evaluation, a better basis is provided for analyzing
the comparative merits of the alternative programme and possible trade-offs
among them, according to the Planning Programme and Budgeting approach
...

Today more than ever before, some of the African’s countries and their
institutions are beset with a bewildering array of problems that have proved
intractable and unsolvable
...

Their industries uncompetitive abroad, are now on the verge of collapse
...
Their education system is bankrupt
...
Their output as people is
dismal
...
Despair, visionlessness and
therefore loss of direction, decline, suspicion, loss of faith in government and the
polity in general- these are now the dominant features of our social relations
...

It will be the wrong diagnosis to conclude that the problem is politics and political
and therefore to be left to civilian politicians and the government to resolve
...

A starting point in considering effective managerial approaches in the private
sector is to examine why the organizations that make up the private sector come
about
...
Companies, therefore, hold societal resources in trust for
36

the society and in this fiduciary capacity, companies are accountable to society for
the way they use its resources for the decisions and actions they take, and for the
externalities of such decisions and actions
...

Because companies are chartered by society and empowered to use societal
resources in trust and are accountable to society, society has the right and the
power to revoke the charter whenever it finds corporate behaviour inimical to
society’s interests
...
Thus, the owners of the business (Shareholders) appoint a
management team and empower it to manage the business on their behalf
...
If
the management team meets the output objectives of the company (i
...
If not they are
fired
...
For corporate managers, this imposes an
onerous responsibility to perform and achieve and to be accountable
...
In this situation, akin to welfare,
business becomes zero-sum; the gains by one competitor are achieved largely at
the expense of another
...

Know Who You Are
Knowing who you are is important for effectiveness
...
Private sector organizations invariably have a good, at
37

worst, a fair idea of who they are and/ or who they want to be
...
In some companies, who they are is not written
in any document but there is nonetheless a consensus among the senior
managers, if not all staff, as to what the company is all about
...
Known as the Mission Statement, it defines the basic
purpose or purposes of the organization-why the organization exists; its raised’
etre
...
This enables the company to gain sufficient
knowledge of the kinds of resources it needs to compete and serve its markets
effectively
...
and Weaknesses
This kind of self-examination is a strategic canon of effective management and
must never be taken for granted, any company that enters any market without
first assessing its capability counts defeat
...
Managerial effectiveness that leads to corporate success thrives on
the identification of the company’s core strengths and systematically building on
those strengths
...
Knowing the company’s weaknesses enables the management to do
something about them; either to eliminate them or to minimize their impact
...
The
rationale is simple: you cannot succeed in your current or future market without
knowing everything there is to know about your competitors
...
Or you
may be the one copying the leader
...
Knowing them entails knowing their
strengths, their weaknesses and being able to anticipate key moves they can
make and having strategies in place to respond to these moves
...

Know Your Customers
This is, without question, the most important prescription for corporate success in
the private sector
...
The customer is
the reason for any company being in operation
...
It is in satisfying the customer
with products that address his or her needs that companies make a profit and
grow
...
Theodore Leavitt summaries as follows:
i
...

ii
...

iii
...

Every key decision and activity by private sector companies revolve around the
customer from research and development, procurement, production to
marketing, sales and advertising
...
This activity keeps every effective corporate
manager on his /her toes, pursuing demographic and psychographic trend and
positioning or repositioning the company to capitalize on them
...

These could be in form of production volume, turnover, profit, market share, cost
management, earnings per share, etc
...
And this leads us to the next
imperative for managerial effectiveness
...
There is no running away from
that
...
You
either shape up or ship out
...
e
...

Culture of Innovation
This is a crucial component of the private sector managerial approach
...
This could be new product development,
service delivery, process and productivity improvement and the like
...
It promotes creativity and imagination, which, in turn, are promoted by
appropriate recognition by management
...
This entails
adhering to high standards in recruitment, continuous training and retraining
based on identified needs, the offering of competitive schemes of remuneration
and incentives that reward performance while challenging non-performers to
40

either shape up or ship out, and a clear-cut succession plan administration
...

Market Discipline and Integrity
There is a certain kind of discipline imposed by the market which conditions
managerial behaviour in the private sector
...
Or the
conditions a company must satisfy if it has to raise funds from the capital or
money market
...

Saving the Goose
Nothing I have said implies that the private sector in Africa has reached a peak of
effectiveness or efficiency
...
Some see the
private sector as not doing enough to facilitate the country’s economic and
industrial development
...
Much of the criticism is without foundation
and largely unappreciative of the constraints which the instability in the macro
economy imposes on the sector
...

But we must not continue to take this for granted
...
Unless we move very quickly to change things, the
collapse of the productive sector of our economy will be inevitable, sooner or
later
...
More so over the past years have clearly shown
that political stability is a sine qua non for sustained business activity and
41

economic development
...
Our
political and military leaders need to imbibe and practice those values upon which
democracy thrives; dialogue, tolerance, and the sanctity of the democratic
process based on the people unfettered right to choose their leaders in free and
fair elections
...

We need to commit the nation to a well-articulated, realistic and durable
industrial policy
...
A stable industrial
policy will help to put an end to our preoccupation at macro and micro levels,
with short-term goals and plans
...

More so, a returning to market-determined ex-changes in all its ramifications
offers us the best chance of moving our economy forward and effecting real
improvements in the standard of living of our people
...

We need to create a supportive macroeconomic environment that would
encourage the private sector to commit to modernizing their factories and types
of machinery
...

Lastly
...
They have to
wade through an avalanche of red tape as they contend with a multitude of task
forces set up ostensibly to make things easier for them
...
The incentives
meant for them are doled out piecemeal to be of any material use
...
They exist primarily to administer government policies and
implementing programmes for the provision of social and economic infrastructure
for national development
...
While economic infrastructure includes public utilities ( like
power, piped gas, telecommunications, water sanitation and sewage, solid waste
collection and disposal), public works ( like a major dam and canal works, road
and other transport works ( like railway, urban mass transport system, ports,
roadways, waterways and airports)
...
The term Public Sector, in my view, should
be applied to all the statutory corporations, parastatals and extra-ministerial
organizations that were created by the Government to provide economic
infrastructure and services for national development
...
This approach was adopted because:
i
...

ii
...

iii
...

The expansion of parastatals in Nigeria reached its peak in the 1970s when the oil
boom provided investible funds for the Government, whose involvement in the
economy had become very pervasive
...

Deficiencies and Poor Performance of Public Enterprises
The performance of most of the public enterprises in the country leaves much to
be desired
...
Many of them were fact-finding
whilst some were established for specific policy reforms
...
The long-term
non-profitability status of the ventures was also highlighted
...
For example, their access to government was usually
through their parent ministry which consisted of the civil service bureaucracy
...

This was because the original ideas of autonomy and flexibility that were
canvassed in running the affairs of such parastatals were often undermined by
too much red tape and undue ministerial interference in their day-to-day affairs
...
Lack of accountability as the financial accounts of many public enterprises was
left unaudited for years
...
Lack of managerial autonomy and flexibility in pricing and investment decisions
...
Over-protection by government, for example by perpetuating the monopoly of
the product or services that parastatals provided to the public
...
Relatively easy access to capital as the government either provided loans or
subventions or thus did not subject public enterprises’ loans applications to any
rigorous evaluation
...
Lack of commercial pressures because there was no threat of bankruptcy
...
Lack of competitive remuneration or adequate incentives to promote
innovation in planning and implementation or to introduce cost-saving measures
...
Political interference which turned public enterprises into employment
agencies for political patronage and

viii
...


46

Furthermore, some reasons for the poor performance of public enterprises which
are specific to the industrial sector were identified as follows:

i
...
Wrong decisions on the location of industrial plants, often motivated primarily
by political considerations

iii
...


iv
...


Conclusion
It should be easy to distil from this narrative so far of management in a public
sector organization, all the managerial approaches that do not make for corporate
effectiveness
...
From the limited success, we achieved so far the following are
approaches towards achieving managerial effectiveness:
i
...


ii
...


iii
...
In other words, opening a
47

window on the world
...


iv
...


v
...


vi
...
The tendency is that these
functions rapidly get over-blow in size, budget and expenditure, to the deferment
of the core business of the company
...
Promptly implementing, appropriate open and fair disciplinary measures at all
levels of the organizations
...
Training and development of in-house experts, especially in the disciplines of
strategic planning, troubleshooting and problem-solving
...
Timely review of performance-related remuneration package to ensure that
the company’s compensation system is fair and realistic in light of rapidly
changing circumstances
...


48

REFERENCES
1
...
C (1961), The Achieving Society,
Van Nostrand, Pricaton, N
...

2
...
C & Burnham, D
...
(1976)
Power is the Great Motivator’ Harvard Business Review,
March-April, pp 100-110, 159-166
...
Hopkins
...
G
...
An Economic History of West Africa
Longman Group Ltd
...
Kilby
...
Industrialization in An Open Economy:
Nigeria, 1945-1965 Cambridge University Press Cambridge
...
From Nigeria, married, writing Research,
Educational and stories books are my work
...

Also Obtained Advanced Diploma Certificate in Community Health Science
and Masters in Business Administration

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