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A Case of 'Bottom Line' Management
by Hamli b. Biha, Bintulu Development Authority
When looking at the profit and loss statement, accountants are
very concerned about the bottom-line of either making a profit
or a loss as the outcome of business transactions over a period
of time.
In today's management, the terminology, "bottom-line", is widely
used and no longer singly confined to accounting.
However, the concept and the meaning of bottom-line used in management,
more or less, bring about similar connotation as applied in accounting.
Similarly, like accountants, managers of today are also very concerned
about the bottom-line of their management styles and approaches.
Many managers these days are so concerned about the bottom-line
that they put less effort and concern about the up-front.
The former General Manager of BDA, Salleh Sulaiman, once said,
"You need to spend (as initial outlays) in order to reap a good
and sustainable return, even if it has to cost more up front."
Along the same context, Roy, the brother of Walt Disney, also
once said, "You get good bottom-line" by doing good 'top-line"
thinking. Top line thinking gets at the causes that create your
bottom line."
What both Salleh and Roy said about the up-front and top-line
basically means management strategies, which include proper corporate
planning and 'top-line" thinking by 'top-liners" or top-line managers.
Today, we need more active thinking top-liners in our organisation.
Top-line thinking helps us to produce better bottom-lines.
In short, up-front approaches and top-line thinking are no take-for-granted
business. Failure to be thorough and tactful up-front by top liners
will create negative effect at the bottom-line.
Garbage in will not produce golden egg; the business will remain
GIGO (garbage-in-garbage-out).
Today, management in our boundary-less culture is the ability
to help employees develop themselves and encourage them to reach
their highest potential through work while having fun.
This is the managing of oneself as well as the managing of others.
This definition certainly contradicts with the old one, which
defines management as the ability to get work done through people.
Management of the past has a strong element of control over employees
and that affects or restricts bottom-line results. Such approaches
kill creativity.
Today, management encourages creativity and the release of human
potentials through facilitating corporations. More work teams
are created with informal leaders. Team champion is appointed
to be the focal person to lead and to keep things moving. With
such a working atmosphere established and developed, it encourages
and stimulates creativity that would foster high achievement.
Such a conducive climate created in the organisation frees and
unlocks people's ability to be counter-productive.
It encourages team champions and creative people to find the best
way to implement their ideas and stay focus on their ability while
doing so.
Good spirit in a management organisation means that the energy
turned out is larger that the sum of the efforts put in. It means
the creation of energy. To get out more than is being put in is
possible only in the moral sphere. This, clearly, cannot be accomplished
by mechanical means.
However, there are bound to be failures in the course of implementing
ideas. It is frustration to fail, but failures should not be blamed
at and neither it is a good venue to reprimand those involved.
We have seen many negative side effects in many organisations
as a result of deploying blame-culture by top-liners. We have
seen the end of a career of people involved in making poor decision
or making mistakes while in the course of work. People turn to
fear instead of dare to fail.
For change to happen in this type of organisation will take more
time. People become discouraged in many ways and eventually turn
up to the boss for ideas, instructions, directions, and even for
simple decision.
Doesn't it become a burden" This is the result and/or rather the
bottom-line when top-liners fail to anticipate the shortcomings
and to appreciate the efforts that have been engaged to produce
results. Yet people will practice the blame-culture and is prevailing
in many organisations.
Yes, reprimand should be viewed and most importantly presented
in a positive manner to bear positive pick-up from the broken
pieces of failure.
One-minute reprimand in the context professed by Dr.Kenneth Blanchard
is preferred and should be sufficient. A longer reprimand does
more harm than good. You can expect a fist clenching hidden under
the prolonged reprimand. Never count on people who tried and failed
but count on those who fail to try.
We often fail to pick the bits and pieces of success among that
debris of failure and to work on them. We easily become the victim
of our emotion of rejecting failure and seem to have forgotten
to read between the lines of the saying 'success breeds success."
A good up-front management when facing failure is to appreciate
those involved for their efforts and time.
They should be given the words of encouragement and to tell them
that success may come later with experience behind them.
Words of encouragement is one way of designing creative environment
that may further encourage willingness and spontaneous participation
of involvement among people for new and future assignments of
undertakings. This is where the fun of working is all about.
History of inventions had taught us how those inventors made successes
and breakthroughs through a series of failures and frustrations.
Thomas A.Edison (1847 - 1931) consoled himself with failures in
his earlier trials as mere education.
For every big success story like Microsoft's Bill Gates in the
United States, there were 5,000 failures. Gates himself dropped
out from college.
The stories of these great man in the march of time tell us that
it is the experience behind, the focus, and the perseverance up-front
that reward the promising bottom-line.
So, never think meagre and give lackadaisical efforts or give
peanuts up-front as your bottom-line may end up with monkeys!
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