Managing Is Easy!

Over the years, I've read quite a few business management tomes by quite a few management guru' s who each have made quite a bit of money making management quite a bit more confusing and difficult than it needs to be.

Here's secret that few of these charlatans will share with you: Business is easy. Management is easy.

Both these disciplines have been around since the dawn of recorded history and the basic principles that make successful businesses and successful managers today are no different than what made successful businesses and managers 6,000, 8,000 or even 10,000 years ago.

Case in point: virtually every over-paid, under-worked management guru in the market today makes some lesser or greater use of Sun Tzu's “The Art Of War” is referred to by virtually every one of those (in)famous, over-priced management gurus who've worked to make the “Art of Management” more complex and confusing over the last 30 years.

The Art of War, for those who might not have heard about it yet, is a book written by a Chinese general (Sun Tzu) about two hundred years before the birth of Christ. While written for and well known among military audiences for centuries, in the last 30 years, it's become the guidebook for anyone looking to make millions off the ignorance and fear of the business management masses.

People have been planning, implementing and successfully managing businesses, companies, governments and armies for thousands of years. The basic principles of management haven't changed in all those thousands of years. Managers must still do the same basic tasks; they use the same basic processes; and they encounter the same basic problems they've been encountering since the dawn of time.

About the only thing that has changed in all these thousands of years is the context in which we practice our craft. Obviously, technology today is vastly different than technology then...but, really, that's about the the only part of the job that's different. The most valuable (and most difficult to manage) tools in a manager's arsenal – People - haven't changed in that time.

People today are pretty much the same as people two, three or four thousand years ago. We have the same foibles, faults and failings today as folks had back then. And we have the same capacity for caring, compassion, and chivalry, too.

And that's why writings like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince and God's Bible are as relevant today as they were when they were first written.

That means, too, that the skills we'll need for managing tomorrow, next year or even next millennium probably won't be all that much different than the skills we need today or the skills Sun Tzu needed twenty-two hundred years ago.

Keep this in mind as you read the next few postings, where we'll look at some simple, but effective “uncommonly common-sense” things you can do do be a more effective manager.


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Got questions about this posting? Post them here or e-mail me at: TomFawls@Council4SmallBiz.com.