The Management of Politics: Some Comments

Abstract

The April-June issue of Vikalpa carried the editorial "The management of politics: Some comments" by Pt;of. P.N. Khandwalla. We give below retorts and reflections by V. V. Bhatt. THE MANAGEMENT OF POLITICS: SOME COMMENTS With all its limitations, there is one fundamental insight underlying management science: an .institution or an organization or a polity is a system whose parts are individuals or groups of individuals with a variety of skills, knowledge, and techniques and who are involved in a joint venture. The main characteristic of such a system is the interdependence of its parts. The primacy attaches to the whole and the parts have to be integrated to form the whole; primary emphasis, thus, has to be on the whole, and the contribution that the parts make to the whole, rather than on the mere technical efficiency of the parts. Technical perfection of a part may sometimes damage the system as a whole. It is a sad irony that in spite of this insight, management science has emphasized the efficiency of the partsprecision of the tools at the expense of the health and performance of the whole. With this characteristic feature of interdependence, a system cannot function unless the parts move in harmony. This implies communication within the system-each part understanding its relation with the others arid with the whole system. Communication does not mean mere provision of information; it has to be meaningful and relevant information that demands action. Information presupposes communication, but there can be communication even without information. Communication as an action-oriented system has to convey signals for action, for decision preparation, and decision making. Each part has to act-make a qecision or communicate the need for decision to other parts or to the centre. These decision signals also function as performance indicators of the part as well as the whole. The test of a good communication system is the economy of information and signals with which it functions. Communication is an interpersonal phenomenal\ that depends not on the communicator but on the recipient. The recipients will not act unless they understand precisely the full implications of what is conveyed. This understanding, this perception Qf the meaning, is not a matter of logic or of information. Rather, it depends on the recipients' range of perception and what they expect to perceive. If the information conveyed is not within the recipients' range of perception or their range of expectation, it has no meaning. Effective