Emad Barsoum writes: Killing the hope…(2)

We have seen how some business owners and entrepreneurs, who lack the perception of the importance of Human assets to any organization, are abolishing the hopes of their human assets for progress and security in their jobs. Yet there are other individuals and factors, who would deliberately or ignorantly assist in creating the sense of insecurity and oppression among the employees, they are the employed top management, and even down to middle one. Before trying to understand the reasons behind such behaviour and approach, we must answer a question that is always apparent but overlooked in the world of management science, and its analysts and consultants. Does the title make someone entitled to behave in a manner that lacks the comprehension of the value of human assets? Indeed, some of those who carry a title of a manager tend to use it to abuse their subordinates, rather than leading fairly and professionally, but mostly failing to deliver the sense of responsibility towards the subordinates, with discipline, yet with compassion. Such approach is a challenge or even impossible to achieve when those with titles lack the competence or the worthiness to carry the title. The choice of an incompetent manager is contributed primarily to the business owners approach, they tend to appoint those managers whom are more trusted rather than who is more fit, due to the business owners’ fear of being deceived by any of their managers, and that is a typical behavior of someone who has been either previously deceived, or he or she has deceived others before. They may also choose those who are adulates, who would fill in their lack of self confidence, and which ironically shows how incompetent business owners could be, to be owners, to build organizations, create jobs and contribute to the economic growth, mostly through their inability to manage their human assets. Managers themselves when they hold the seat, they incline to keep it and protect it aggressively, and in the Mackiavellian way. The first thing they do is to drop their humanity outside the workplace and instead of trying to be more creative to develop their employees and the business, they oppress the human assets, discouraging them and keep them always under the threat. The lack of clear vision of some managers and the fact that they are incompetent in a multicultural society is even more treacherous, where some of those managers believe that their origin or background make them more entitled to overpower the human assets, turn a blind eye towards their capabilities to perform their tasks skillfully, and even those managers exert the effort to try to convey to their human assets that they would never be competent to have a higher position in an organization, and always try to belittle their performance by continuous destructive criticism. Knowledge, culture, education in addition to the experience are the most right ingredients for a competent manager, who can appreciate the human assets and contribute to a continuous prosperity for them and the organization, without such qualities, we are killing the hope of human assets again, burying the elders’ experience and waste their competence, and exterminate the dreams and hopes of the youngers.