GUARDIAN
Wednesday, 17 November 1999
Marabouts as management gurus
By Adolphe Amadi
IN their book: The Witch Doctors, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
dissect the management theory phenomenon, explaining why the discipline is
at once so influential and yet so nebulous. The authors argue that today's
acknowledged legislators of mankind are no longer poets, as once claimed by
Shelley, but management gurus. Names such as Wordsworth and Keats may not
have exactly the same vibrations as Drucker and Peters, hence, wherever one
looks, management experts are skulking around, designing the blueprints,
laying down the rules, reshaping both nations and institutions, and above
all reorganising people's thinking and people's lives.
Thus, when in late 1994 the press reported that Princess Diana had sought
and obtained professional assistance from a business motivation guru,
Anthony Robbins, Fleet Street received the news rather casually. By the way,
Robbins usually encourages his clients to "unleash the power within" by
walking on red hot coals! At about the same period, but on the other side of
the Atlantic, came the simultaneous news that Newt Gingrich, the new
Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, was painstakingly undergoing
a unique self-induction for his new job 'by reading Peter Drucker'. The
information was unanimously greeted with relief by Americans.
Also, across the same Atlantic, the Clinton White House is still highly
steeped in management theories, as manifested in its obsession with
management think-tanks and management renewal retreats on weekends. It was
even reported that Clinton allegedly propositioned Paula Jones while
attending a conference on 'total quality management,' thus reiterating the
fact that Clinton's interest in management techniques goes back a very long
way indeed. In 1995, it was also reported that Clinton had even consulted
not only Princess Diana's mentor, Anthony Robbins but also Steven Covey,
another well-known motivational expert. We have it on good authority that
Hillary Clinton's elaborate health plan was primarily prepared by a
management expert, Ira Magaziner. Al Gore, Clinton's Vice-President, spends
ample time reinventing government, in keeping with the latest management
thinking and recipe. It, therefore can be argued, from the above, that most
leaders in the Western hemisphere, believe in management techniques as
veritable tools of governance.
One of the most intriguing revelations regarding an alternative approach to
governance, however, is the widely reported use of indigenous spiritual
advisers by Nigeria's late Head of State, General Sani Abacha. Newswatch
(July 6, 1998) reported that many of Abacha's marabouts were invited from
far-away nations like Chad, Sudan, Mauritania and Niger. He accommodated
them in Aso Rock guest houses and at the Abuja Sheraton Hotels and Towers.
However, the guru of the gurus and the one who commanded Abacha's blindest
obedience was one Sarkin Sasa, allegedly based in Ibadan. Thus, it has been
suggested that Abacha took his spiritual advisers, his babalawos,
soothsayers and marabouts as seriously as Clinton took his management gurus.
Naturally, a management expert and a marabout have something in common: each
is a guru in his own right. The implication is that management gurus and
marabouts are all conmen, the witch doctors and soothsayers of our time, who
play on people's anxieties in order to sell snake oil and the latest potion
or fad on successful leadership. In effect, modern management theory is not
much more reliable than either traditional medicine or indigenous gurus.
After all, soothsayers, like management gurus, often convince us with their
contrivances, and usually by trial and error, instinct or even happenstance.
When babalawos fail, it is not uncommon, in Nigeria, to resort to
extra-spiritual or other equally dynamic problem-solving interventions, as
the following newspaper headlines would readily confirm: "Milad, Striking
Workers in Prayer War," "Jujuman Warns Obasanjo," "Civil Service Union Asks
Workers to Fast," "Father Kills Daughter for Money Rituals," "Juju at France
'98," and Commissioners Consult Spiritualists to Retain Posts." It is
precisely against this background that in my own management consulting
practice, I routinely remind potential clients that there are at least the
following seven methods for solving problems: appeal to the supernatural,
appeal to a worldly and preferably older and wiser authority, pure logic,
intuition, common sense, the scientific method, and magic. These approaches
are, of course, not mutually exclusive and often tend to overlap. While any
of them may be temporarily helpful, some may indeed be quite disastrous.
What is important to stress, however, is that the client has both a choice
as well as the final word, in terms of what is preferable.
Is it then necessary to speak about charlatans and the rest? A marabout is a
guru, so also is a management expert. However, nothing is far from the truth
than the belief that a specific magic portion or incantation will cure all
ills. Choosing between the soothsayer and the management guru is, therefore,
a herculean task, particularly since the witch doctor's products do not
usually come with any form of health warning. It may thus be wiser to
subject each guru to far-reaching scrutiny before taking him on. The most
critical yardstick for all leaders and managers, of course, is performance
and the extent to which the people's or a corporate body's well-being and
effectiveness are activated.
Paradoxically, the presence of gurus, on both sides, have continued to make
today's contradictory governance imperative much more contradictory still.
Like most successful witch doctors, management gurus continue to predict a
future full of turbulence and uncertainty but where the only lasting source
of advantage is excellent and proactive management.
In essence, beyond the marabouts and other gurus, leaders and others need
better ways to control their destiny as well as human nature. As we nurture
our predilection for magic cures, we shall discover that our penchant
towards superstition will continue to make us susceptible to patronising the
gurus. At the end of the day, however, a creative focus on the fundamentals
will be seen as the best strategy for problem solving, effective governance,
as well as managerial excellence.
Dr. Amadi is chief executive of a management consulting firm in Owerri.
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