On Busybodies - Part II

(How wonderful for me that I located my wall magazine posts of 1986-88 while at IIM just as my creative juices were running as dry as the Bangalore borewells! Here is one more of them. Considering that patience to read is a lot lesser than it used to be, I have split it in two)

Businessmen seem incapable of remaining content with what they have.They have to keep expanding their business – maybe to keep pace with their expanding waistlines. Initially, they used to select projects somewhat like this “Hey! I like the smell of cotton. Let us get into textiles.” For some quaint reason, this scientific approach to selecting projects did not find favor with the academicians. So, they developed something called project appraisal criteria. You know how it is. If you give a couple of academicians a line segment AB they can argue at length, in symposia and articles, about whether it starts at A and ends in B or the other way round. So, before you could say NPV (or IRR, for I am broadminded and do not differentiate between swear words), a plethora of models had arrived on the scene to constitute a new subject – Project Appraisal.

Let us turn our attention to the finance division of Cosa Nostra Inc. The GM of this division [Capo(loansharking)], when faced with a working capital problem calls on his subordinates and says, “Luigi! Carlos! We have a working capital problem! Expedite collections from our accounts receivables.” Luigi and Carlos go out and duly collect the money by the judicious expedient of breaking the arms of a few accounts receivables. Ergo, no working capital problem! (It is true that you cannot keep a good idea down. This one saw a recent revival here before the courts played spoilsport!)

If receivables are not sufficient, the Capo(Loansharking) sends them out to get a bank loan. Any bank is only too willing to give an indefinite zero interest term loan to Luigi and Carlos once they display their soft-wear and hardware – stocking masks and guns. Again the working capital problem disappears. You will agree that this is a simple straightforward way of doing business. Naturally, the busybodies are dead against it as they are against anything being simple. First they create something called legal systems to get in the way of honest businessmen. Having created the problem they then put forth the need to understand working capital management as well!

Someone must have thought that it would appease people sweltering in power cuts to know exactly why there are power cuts. Ergo – Energy management! In a bid to pacify irate pedestrians as well as grid-locked vehicle-users, they thought it best to educate them about how little the city designers cared for their needs. So, Transport management! Innumerable such instances can be quoted to prove the pernicious influence of busybodies.

To actually indulge in listing out the comprehensive impact of busybodies would be to reveal all the secrets of my path-breaking research project. That is something I am unwilling to do right away, so you will have to be satisfied with this much now. (Snoring does not help you. I will be done only when I am good and ready!) As of know I hope it has become amply clear that the major impact of Management education is on the management students’ salaries. (Only impact, did you say? I did not say that – not in so many words, anyway!)

With that illuminating thought, I bid you Au Revoir!