A doctor cannot practice unless he is licensed to do so; a chartered accountant similarly cannot practice until he is certified by the Institute of Chartered accountants; even a lawyer cannot start business until he is given a “sanad” by the bar. A manager can however be in business without waiting for any licenses or permissions. I have often wondered to myself, the significance of this and have always concluded that while these other professionals cannot be “let loose” on the society at large, a manager can be so permitted, probably because he is considered a harmless creature. Does this sound as dangerous to you as it does to me??

A manager can and does cause catastrophes, since he controls not only money but also people. Look at what our political managers have done to our economy!! Imagine the efficiency we could bring about legislating that politicians should be certified by a statutory body before they could practice their art (I am not calling it a “dirty” art since after certification, it would not remain so). A manager working in the private sector is presumed to be constantly on his toes because his employment is not secure but what about those managers who manage public assets. Leave alone re-certification, we do not have a mechanism to even certify them (as competent managers), in the first place.

Should the educational qualifications of a manager be sufficient to allow him to practice his skills or should there be a mechanism to constantly test his skills at implementing what he or she has learnt and to ensure that he is keeping abreast of the latest developments in the field?? If all assets that managers manage are considered as contributing to our national economy, in some way, should this not be our priority, to improve the overall efficiency?? It is not our purpose today to increase the so-called “license raj”, but to seriously discuss if some mechanism to first certify and then re-certify this breed of managers would be productive.

1. Obsolescence of skills learnt long ago.
   Like in all fields, tremendous progress has been made in the field of business management. A manager who might have learnt techniques long ago may find himself hopelessly obsolete, if he does not update himself regularly. A case in point is “I.T. skills”. Just like a surgeon has to know the latest operating techniques, should a manager not be motivated to acquire modern skills which he did not learn, while he was being prepared for his job?? It just isn’t right to say that if he does not acquire these, he will suffer and so why should we bother?? Do we say this to a doctor who may continue to use the same syringe for all his patients, because that is how he was taught at his college??


2. Is the matter keeping abreast of new developments??
   Some concepts which did not merit any study during his learning days or others which probably did not even exist in those days, might have read about these?? Is he equipped with this knowledge so that he can perform his task efficiently??


3. Can experience be a good substitute?? When people talk of their experience, I am always reminded of that TV serial in which Satish Shah says, “I have thirty years of experience”. It is important to assess whether this experience is a one years experience repeated thirty times or a really varied kind of experience which exposed the manager to different situations. While the former would qualify as one year’s experience, the latter could have “taught” the manager a lot of things which classrooms could not.
   I don’t think there is any doubt that if managers were forced to learn new techniques, we will have better efficiency. How does one go about it though??


1. Make it compulsory for commercial organization to have qualified managers.
   Just like chartered accountant firms cannot go on increasing the number of clients unless they increase the number of partners, so should all organizations both in private and public sector (more so in the latter where public money is managed) be made to hire qualified managers based on their sales turnover or other relevant criteria of economic activity. The emphasis here is not on the number of managers as it is on their having qualified ones.


2. Raise the standards of qualifying or certifying managers, substantially.
   While only about 12-15% of those who aspire to become chartered accountants finally, qualify, almost 80% of those who appear for the MBA exams, clear them and get themselves stamped as qualified managers. The mushrooming of factories producing MBAs have multiplied just because running such institutes is profitable and not because more managers of better quality are required. Isn’t it ironical that “maximization of wealth” which is an avowed objective of “business management” should be so successfully achieved by the owners of these colleges, who themselves could hardly be qualified managers??


3. Create re-certification of high quality.
   Re certification need not mean going back to colleges. Well-conducted seminars focussed on imparting special skills can be made compulsory for managers, on periodic basis. Existing educational facilities should be approved for imparting the predetermined inputs in each specialized area of management so that managers in all functional areas would have the necessary opportunities to get themselves re-certified.


4. Re-certification should have an expiry date period.
   The first re-certification could take place, may be 20 years from the original certification and maybe 20 years thereafter. A qualified manager may thus have to undergo two re-certifications in his “managerial lifetime”.





To many of my colleagues, this sounded a bizarre idea when discussed but what clinched the issue, apart from the obvious benefits that it would have on increasing management efficiency, was the good “revenue generating” potential that the exercise has. The re -certifying institutes could make this activity reasonably attractive so that this scheme could be successful from day one. Many good ideas die because they cannot economically sustain themselves- I am sure, my friends, that this won’t, at least for this reasons.




"Mr. Prakash Shesh, the author, has done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad after his Masters in Physics from I.I.T. New Delhi. You may send your feedback to him by choosing an option at the top right corner of this page."