THE FIGHT BETWEEN " TECHNOLOGY VS MANAGEMENT "! WHO WINS?

Two types of people?

           In our walks of professional life , we see great variety of people!

           We can broadly divide the into two prominent categories!

            There are "People who believe in technology , and despise management "

            and "the others are who rely on management and hate technology "!

           They run away from  even a slightly critical  technical problem!

           Like Elon Musk had recently said, today there is rampant MBAisation of all the 

            companies.   More time is spent on power point, excel sheets and in board room 

            management!

            By this , the companies lose focus on the shop floor and the most importantly the product.   He says, We must focus on the question whether there is any way to make our product better? Is there any way to make our service more attractive?

             No doubt that he has a point!

           Another most famous case of conflict between management and technology was 

           "the case of Steve jobs and John Scully !!"

           Steve hired John Scully as a top manager ,from "Pepsi company' to "Apple" and found that  Scully threw him out his own company! Then as the legend goes, Steve came 

            back  and took  over    Apple company again. 

            All this dramatic story is well known !

           Funny part is when you read the book by John Scully "Pepsi to Apple", we find that 

           Scully was neither a loser nor apologetic. 

            He has a track record of running the advertising campaign of Pepsi so well, that 

            Pepsi company  overtook the sales of earlier giant Coca Cola!

           Scully tried to bring corporate culture to Apple , but what he failed to understand 

            that the 

           Culture of apple was more inclined towards technology and intuition of the people.

           Many people branded John Scully as a villain ! 

            So what went wrong?

           I take a pride in myself being a hands on technical person , working on shop floor,

           as well as a seasoned MBA , formulating strategies of the companies. I decided 

            to study  the extraordinary story in details!

            Who won in this war ?  

           My observation is that no-one won the war! and no-one can win this war!

            All lost! Apple company lost its important years and the acidic culture created a loss of  much   good talent!

           The only good thing was this :           .

           after Steve took over the apple company again, he was a different person. Before, 

            he was totally autocratic and did not tolerate a person , even slightly below his high

           intelligence scale. He used to give very high position to the ones he liked and used 

            to condescend   all others. 

            He himself admitted later that he gave longer rope to people when he came back.

            He encouraged teamwork  and found miraculous results. 

           Giving respect does not cost anything , but can buy you the loyalty which is priceless!

           Technology takes  you ahead in leaps and bounds, But management is the glue which

            keeps the  people together !

        It gives us methodology to take care of everyday issues through  a system .

        By the management systems , the top talented people and the top management 

           becomes free to tackle the big decisions!    

           Take the simple example of  Management by objectives or KRAs. Since the aims 

            and goals are clear,  the employees can follow them , much without supervision!

           By the research methodologies of six Sigma and root cause analysis , we can reach the  correct way to resolve issues permanently ! 

        So the climax of the conclusion , is probably already clear to all you  gentlemen!

           And it is :: in today's world of extreme competition (and COVID on top of it ,??)

           We have to rely both on technology and the management principles.

           Technology to improve features and quality of our products and services , 

            and management to sustain all the team together!

The most interesting part!         

  Even today , I see many Steve jobs's and John Scully's , shouting and making their case 

            for technology  VS Management , I shout back at them , that " Guys , we have 

            not the luxury of  throwing one thing for the other , We have to stick them together!!"

           And guess what, they don't listen! 

           What is your experience?

        ????