A HANDBOOK IN MANAGEMENT FOR CORPORATE TRAINING

corporate training of

middle management officers

Norman Sike Institute

Prepared by

Bruce Copeland BA BEdSt

2015        

Bookings for presentations of 2 hours duration can be made by companies in Port Moresby. It will be an interesting experience for middle management officers. 

They will gain an understanding of management and a view of the world in modern times and past years. Nations move on a line between democracy and dictatorship, some more than others. Phone 72153255.

                  

Chapter 1:  A broad view of Papua New Guinea as a democracy

This chapter has been prepared for a course in Management for the middle ranking officers.  Papua New Guinea is a nation that shares a broad reputation in the world.

It is a democracy with a legislature, independent judiciary and an executive. The mechanism is there for democracy but there is a broad scope for corruption and lawlessness. Recent media reports state that the nation has a high place among corrupt nations.

This is a situation that places stress on Government departments and businesses in the country. Recent times have seen highly placed officers before the Courts before being sentenced to prison for corruption.

No nation is without corruption and this has impact on the national development and the organizations that operate. The time may be coming when the Government of this country sees a clean-up of corrupt practices. 

History shows us that corruption at high levels will find its way down through the ranks. An Adolf Hitler at the top will breed dozens of junior Hitlers who work to gain favour with their Fuehrer by being cruel and oppressive on their workers.

These days there has been research done on cruel, unkind, oppressive, cheating, disloyal managers with the finding that they may be psychopathic.

They cannot feel the pain of other people and feel it is their place to inflict pain on others. They work for themselves alone not the company. They pretend to discipline others for the company but are really doing that for their own job security and sadistic pleasure.

They sack people not for being incompetent but for being clever and showing they are more competent than their junior Hitler manager or supervisor. Stalin killed all his colleagues who shared leadership with him in 1925.

We have to know that Papua New Guinea has come a long way since independence in 1975. There is mismanagement and corruption but there is still the democratic capacity to rectify the situation, perhaps in a decade or two.

There is the need for accountability with public monies. More and more investigations need to take place and officers brought before the Courts for embezzlement.

Bank officers have unlawfully withdrawn money and allowed customers to divert money from schools, clubs, hospitals, provincial governments, trust accounts and Government departments.

But there is an amazing path to modern Management that takes us back to the beginning of the human race. So that is what will be the focus of this short course. Effective management follows the path of democracy and human rights.

In the modern western world, Management relates to human rights. People are no longer rubbish to be used and disposed of by management in government and business. They are voters in the parliamentary process.

Workers can complain to police and take management to Court for wrong doing. They can be awarded compensation for injury. Women can take legal action for sexual harassment by management and fellow workers.

The purpose of this small course is to prepare middle management officers for a positive view of management and the practice of democracy. But first of all, let us view the history of dictatorship in the world from early times.

Chapter 2 – history of dictatorship in the world 

In industrial England and Germany, the factory owners were often the upper class gentry while the workers were of peasant stock. The owners were in a class higher than their workers and could give punishment to workers and families for any problems at the workplace. They would be on the street with no home having been evicted.

In the 1800s, women and children worked in the factories and mines. If they were sick, they were sacked and removed. If they died by sickness and injury, their bodies were removed and piled in a heap to be taken away. If they fell into a machine, the bloodied parts of the machine will be cleaned with a bucket of water and the factory would continue operations.

In World War1, the soldiers were of the working class while their officers were of the upper class. During the battles in the trenches of Europe, soldiers on both sides were bombarded by heavy artillery day and night for months.

Some soldiers became brain damaged and “shell shocked”. Many ran away. If arrested, they were not taken to hospital but shot for cowardice. This is the lowest level of Human Resource Management. Working class soldiers were just rubbish to be piled up before enemy guns.

In one night in the ANZAC attack on the Turks, 5000 Australians were killed. That meant that officers and men of whole battalions were just wiped out by useless advances and cruel enemy fire. In old time war, human resources were to be killed under orders of uncaring and foolish generals.

But the slaughter of soldiers goes back further than that. There was no medical support for soldiers injured and dying on the battlefield until the Crimean War in the 1850s.

That was when Florence Nightingale brought nurses into the battle area and tended wounded soldiers in a special hospital. Care for wounded soldiers is only 160 years old.

In the days of Imperial Rome, soldiers who failed to win in battle could be sentenced to decimation. That was punishment for cowardice. The battalion would be lined up on the top of a cliff. The officer would walk behind and push every tenth man off the cliff to his death.

There was anger in the office of General Douglas Macarthur who had great criticism of the Australian soldiers on the Kokoda Track. They were retreating before the advancing Japanese. He considered that since there were only less than 200 killed, they were not fighting hard enough and were cowards.

The deaths of workers and soldiers of England was all part of the fact that England was not a democracy. People had no rights but only a future to die in mines, factories and battlefields. There was no support for families who starved.

If the mother stole bread for her child, she could be arrested, found guilty and sent to the convict settlement in New South Wales. That was after spending months in a rotting ship used as a gaol in the Thames River of London.

Chapter 2.  Management in German Dictatorship

The world has suffered from cruelty to citizens in the last century. During the 1930s, Germany faced Adolf Hitler as their Fuhrer. He was the ultimate cruel genocidal dictator in modern times, apart from Joseph Stalin of Russia.

The German people had suffered greatly from the defeat in World War One. They faced unemployment, massive tuberculosis from the war, hyper-inflation as money was printed with no value. Poverty was part of German life and the people were angry.

Control of the German economy was in the hands of the Jews. Since the 1400s Europe was being divided into nation states. The main trading nations were in northern Germany.

For successful trading, there was needed skilled and experienced businessmen. So the Jews were welcomed into European countries. Poland allowed thousands of Jews to become the business elite. The Jews financed the German industrial expansion in heavy iron industries. They also financed German involvement in World War 1.

But they could not finance the war forever and were accused of cutting off funding to the German Government. They were blamed for the German defeat and the Depression that followed in 1930-31.

Hitler told the German people that the nation could only advance if the Jews were removed. This was a massive error in Human Resources Management.

The business class was destroyed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka and others. The Hungarian Jews were in greatest number and died in the hundreds of thousands in the gas chambers.

Hitler had set up a dictatorship. People had no rights except the responsibility to die for the fatherland. Human resources management did not exist. Millions of Germans died in the armed forces. Many died of cold in the retreat from the Russian winter.

With the allied bombing of Germany in the war, the economic and political infrastructure was destroyed. It took the German people 30 years to build up after the war which they did with the economic support of the United States.

Now the business world of Germany is able to follow Human Resource Management with a democratic infrastructure and human rights for the German people.

Chapter 3. Management in Russian Dictatorship

The end of the 1800s saw massive poverty in Russia made worse during World War 1 with the invasion of the German army. The peasants were in poverty and blamed the Russian Tsar Nicholas 2 for not caring about them.

But there was a secret movement in the country put in place by Lenin who had been exiled from Russia but brought back by the Germans in a secret train. There is a famous painting of Lenin addressing people as he got off the train.

He started the Russian Revolution in 1917 with his group of socialists. The Tsar was arrested with his family and kept imprisoned in a forest. There they were shot and their bodies buried.

Lenin became the leader and found that the country was in an economic mess. So he allowed a brief period of private enterprise before he died in 1924. His place was taken by several senior leaders including Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Stalin had them all killed and took over.

Stalin was to lead the country from 1924 to 1953 when it was believed he was poisoned. He faced the German invasion and worked to build up heavy industry. Tractors were produced to work on farms and pull guns in the war.

In 1931, Russia was slowly coming out of the Depression with all the other countries of the world. Stalin decided to increase food production by lowering the price of wheat for bread. But the prosperous middle class farmers Kulaks did not accept the drop in wheat and went on strike.

Stalin had 1 ½ million Kulaks killed on their farms. Not good HR management. But before they died and could see the army moving through their valley, they burned all their wheat fields and destroyed all their livestock.

Stalin was a dictator who killed any possibility of HR Management. As a dictator he supported dictators in farms and factories. They treated the workers with cruelty. People were more interested in surviving than building the productivity of the factory or farm.

The factories and farms were taken over by the Government. All planning came from orders from the Government not strategic planning by factory managers. There was no HR management which may well still be a problem in Russia. Factories have poor planning and poor skills of workers.

Chapter 4 Management in Napoleonic Dictatorship

After the French Revolution, a whole class of French nobles was killed by guillotine. There was a new lifestyle that was to come based on Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite –liberty, equality and brotherhood. 

The people were in poverty. The nobles had rich palaces with rich food and the best of chefs who were now unemployed. They set up new eating houses called restaurants which spread through Europe. The restaurant tradition came from the French Revolution 400 years ago.

Out of the Revolution came Napoleon Bonaparte who overturned the aims of the revolution and set up a cruel dictatorship. HR Management was still dead. He planned to take over Europe and put his brothers in charge of each conquered country as Governors. They became national dictators.

His big mistake as followed by Hitler was to invade Russia which was damaging to the nation in soldiers who died in the Russian winter. The Russians retreated east, east, east waiting for the onset of winter.

The French had advanced a thousand kilometres with summer uniforms. When the winter hit, the Russians advanced. When will they ever learn?

Chapter 5. Dictator Errors in Management

We now understand that organizations work well when there is a spirit of democracy. People are focussed on making the organization work well with shared ideas and not much cheating and jealousy.

They are chosen for their ability in specific skills. They seek to pass the skills on to other workers. They want to try out new ideas to improve the product or service. Communication is up, down and sideways.

But with dictators that never happens. They are interested only in their own plans even if the plans do not work. People are afraid to tell them this. They fear the dictator will regard them as enemy and have them and/or family killed.

So they tell the dictator lies. Of course it will work, my Fuhrer. Heil Hitler. They hope they are somewhere else when the plan fails.

At briefings Hitler would shout at his generals. He would not listen to any view that his orders could not be obeyed. You are traitors. Corporal arrest that general.

Stalin shared another problem with Uganda leader Idi Amin and several Caesars. That was that he would be poisoned or killed. Every senior officer was afraid to be near him. How do you know I am here? Who gave you the phone number?

Idi Amin would leave his headquarters in a convoy of several cars with tinted windows. He was in one car perhaps. All cars would head in different directions for the day. No one would know where he slept. If they did and Amin found out, they were on a death list.

As it was Stalin died in 1953. There is a strong suspicion that he was about to purge the upper leadership by having them killed. But someone poisoned him. He doied with his Intelligence chief Beria.

HR Management is impossible when there is no communication between the leader and senior officers. No one wants to tell the leader bad news.

A major problem for Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler was that they wanted to take control of too many countries. It just got too big. Every empire has the seeds of its destruction already within it from the beginning.

The dictator has to push each country down to stop it from making too many demands. Raw materials are to be taken as much as possible. Imported goods are to keep the country in poverty. Independence movements are to be stopped and members arrested.

But every invaded country has citizens that are building strength. They will soon demand independence and have the capacity to force their will. Papua New Guinea had a peaceful transition to independence through Somare and Whitlam.

The Indians had a bloody transition to independence with British soldiers opening fire on demonstrators several times. We saw in the movie Gandhi the shooting of hundreds of Sikhs at the Amritsar temple by a company of British led Indian soldiers.  The worst that the British ever did in Papua and Solomon Islands was to exile national trouble makers to outer islands.

Chapter 6. Democracy and Dictatorship in Management

Management can only succeed in nations that have democracy and rights for every man, woman and child. Every person has the right to earn a living by honest means and supported by the Government as much as possible.

Every race in a country has the right to exist and where possible to live on traditional land. They have the right to grow gardens and produce crops for sale in the markets and consumption by family.

They have the right to be protected by police and the armed forces from the actions of terrorists and criminals. Children have the right to go to school and study until they find a living for themselves and families to come.

There should be effort by Governments to provide employment to reduce poverty through unemployment and underemployment. This is pure Human Resource Management on a national scale.

Effort has to be made to help citizens with informal marketing throughout the country. This can only be achieved through maintenance and repair of roads, bridges, airstrips and wharves. Police action is necessary against the activities of criminals.

Dictatorships destroy Human Resource Management. The decisions of the dictator are paramount. People have all responsibilities and no rights. They can be gaoled and executed for criticizing the leader. The leader has full rights and the responsibility only to himself.

Hitler came to power protecting the family but soon showed that the family were the work horses to building the nation with the duty to die in the effort. The Jewish race had no rights whatever and suffered extermination in gas chambers by the hundreds of thousands. Their only crime was to be Jewish.

In dictatorships, the police are given full power to arrest and kill. People can be arrested in their homes in the middle of the night and never seen again. This is happening in South American nations at the hands of the drug lords.  Police and private thugs are not bound down by the judiciary and the Courts.

In Moslem countries, terrorists are proclaiming that girls should be in the home and not being given an education. In Africa, the Moslem terrorists have been attacking schools and kidnapping girls. Human Resource Management is only possible when there is gender equality. This is being practised in the western nations.

Chapter 7 Left and Right Wing Dictatorship

There are two extremes in dictatorships. There are the left wing and right wing systems of government. Karl Marx explained the difference in his statement that those forces that control the means of production also control the relations of production. In other words, the groups of people who own the factories also control the government.

In the 1800s in Germany and England, the mines and factories were controlled by private owners who were millionaires, lived in luxurious houses and had many servants.

They often found themselves in parliament and controlled all forces of industry such as the prices of goods, importation of raw materials and even control of the colonies. They controlled the Courts and police. They were the leaders of an extreme right wing Government.

In Germany, there was control by the major factories. The factory owners agreed to make guns, tanks, aircraft and bullets for the Government. The factory owners expected that the Government used the armaments to invade other countries, supply iron, coal and oil for the factories.

The aggressive policy of the Government and factory owners produced an extreme right wing government.

In the early 20^th century, the Government and monarchy of Russia was taken over by communists who set up a dictatorship of the proletariat. That was the Government of the workers. All farms, mines and factories belonged to the people. There was to be no private ownership.

All countries in the world now see that private ownership is important. Communist China is now a nation of private enterprise still with a communist political structure. In the 1960s, Mao Tse tung punished any person following the capitalist road. Now private enterprise is seen as the key to China’s growth.

A major problem in China is that capitalism has brought corruption. Factories produce contaminated food, pollution of rivers and soil and deep air pollution. This is alarming the people and Chinese Government. The life expectancy of Chinese people has dropped in the last 60 years.

There are hundreds of Chinese people executed every year for corruption in industry and government.

HR Management is difficult in China with the huge population approaching 2 billion. There is the problem of employment and underemployment. Many Chinese are moving overseas to set up businesses in developed and developing counties.

A major problem is the corruption in business through nepotism. This is  practice of employing wantoks in selection. People who are not necessarily qualified may be given employment over applicants who are highly qualified.

Chapter 8  Modern Management Vs Dictatorship of the past

We have much to learn from the dictators of early years. They set the injustice in the nation. They suppressed men, women and children and gave them only responsibilities but no rights. 

People had a responsibility to the leader and nation. They would be punished for treason if they criticized the leader. Napoleon once said I am the State. To criticize him was to be guilty of treason with the punishment of death to follow. He was not the state in a democracy but only the senior servant.

In a modern democracy, there can be injustice in the Government and business depending on the corruption that exists. We have seen injustice in the Department of Education with the leave fares not paid to teachers. In the Correction Services, retired officers did not get a pension that was cut off and never returned.

Not all officers are promoted to higher rank through honourable means. Senior officers can appoint their wantoks who may or may not have qualifications and experience.

In all organizations there has to be a rule of law.

There should be adherence to the Constitution in relations to rights of workers. Every company and Government Department has regulations on the rights of workers and a vision statement for support to customers.

All workers are to be treated fairly, recruited fairly, given work appropriate to their qualifications and experience, counselled in an ethical way and given the chance to defend themselves.

They should be sent on courses to improve their job efficiency promotion and be free from harassment, discrimination, stigma and violence. Women should be free from sexual harassment and violence.

Chapter 9  Status of Women

Over the millennia, the status of women has remained largely unchanged with the modern approach lifting women to the status of men, in theory at least.

Women have always been seen as the home makers whose role was to bear children, look after the house and have sexual relations with her husband.

We read in the Old Testament of the woman in the home, looking after the sheep, goats, chickens and children. They erect tents in the desert sand.

Through the centuries in Christian Europe, the role of women remained unchanged until the 20^th century. In England, a woman did not receive a share of the inheritance of the father upon his death.

The inheritance went to the sons. The woman’s job was to marry and be looked after by another man. Should there be no sons and the woman received the inheritance, the estate and money would become the property of her husband upon marriage.

The role of women changed in the late 19^th century with the movement of women demanding political rights. It was generally believed that women should not vote as their brains made them too emotional, making them vote for the wrong person.

I voted for that man as he wears nice clothes. Women were not a stupid as that. The status of women rose before the First and Second World Wars when they went to work in the factories while the men fought in the battlefields of Europe and Asia. They assembled guns, artillery shells and ammunition.

The role of women was never the same. They were not having babies and knitting for their families but working to support the war effort. After World War One, the women refused to go back to their domestic role.

The activists or suffragettes demonstrated in the streets demanding the right to vote. One well known leader was Emily Pankhurst who led women and ended up being dragged into police wagons kicking their long black dresses and boots.

Women were given the right to vote. The race had now started for women’s rights. The women went back into the factories at the start of World War 2. Many went to the battle front as nurses and entertainers.

Already the way had been paved by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War in the 1850s when they became nurses caring for wounded and dying soldiers.

We recall the women nurses who went to the Asian theatre of war and were captured by the Japanese and placed in a prison of war. One group led by Sister Vivian Bullwinkle was called White Coolies. Many died in captivity.

The big change in the role of women came with the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam who moved to bring many changes to women’s rights. Up to that time, women were paid a salary less than men. That changed as late as the 1970s. Women had to resign if pregnant and about to give birth.

In the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam war protest led to the Women’s Liberation movement who took the fight into schools, universities and parliament. The University of Queensland defined Women’s Rights as a political ideology.

The next generation took the women’s fight further with involvement in the HIV/AIDS pandemic across the World. Women set up rights organizations in support of gay and lesbian rights.

They sought legalization of gay and lesbian sex across the world with several collateral aims such as adoption of children, gay and lesbian leaders in the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts and a gay and lesbian curriculum in schools.

There has been a failed effort to decriminalize gay and lesbian sex in the PNG parliament.

There has been a fierce opposition to the western gay and lesbian rights from the Moslem nations. Several nations in sub-Sahara Africa have legislated to make homosexuality a crime punishment by imprisonment.

We saw the legal action taken against the former leader of the Malaysian opposition Mr Anwar charged with sodomy. The gay and lesbian movement across the world has polarized the Christian opposition and homosexual political pressure.

In Australia over the last decade, the gay and lesbian movement has had a balance of power in the Australian parliament as members of the Greens movement.

There have been accusations on both sides. Gays and lesbians talk of stigma and discrimination. The opponents talk of infiltration of business and Government employment.

Gays and lesbians talk of rights of women and violence of men. Opponents accuse them of gross exaggeration and refer to violence of women. Gays and lesbians talk of rights of children.

Opponents talk of paedophiles preying on children and destruction of family as a unit and of family values. They talk of the homosexuality in Scripture.

Chapter 10 - Role of Women in Papua New Guinea

But there has been a change beginning in the role of women in Papua New Guinea over the last decade. Women have long had a role primarily in support of the family.

But we have to understand that before coming of the white man, people lived in village areas afraid to venture into enemy territory for fear of being killed and the women taken. Women stayed in the village areas for their own safety and security of children.

Much has changed since colonial times. People now venture away from their areas with building of roads, road transport, air strips and wharves for coastal shipping.

People work in the urban areas beside others whose ancestors used to be their enemy. Tribal war still continues in this country though not on the same scale as before. Spears and shields have been replaced by automatic weapons.

In the past there was bride price. Big men who could afford more than one wife would do so, at times to forge friendship with neighbouring clans. It was generally accepted that a big man would care equally for his wives and children.

Today we see men who marry more than one wife and are unable to support the first wife and children. Both wives and children starve.

More than before, we find incidence of domestic violence between husbands and wives. We read in the media of women being killed by their husbands. There are occasionally incidents of wives injuring or killing their husbands.

The women’s prison in Bomana is full of women who have killed or injured other women whom they accuse of relationships with their husbands.

But there have been organizations set up in this country to support the empowerment of women. Women are a huge human resource that has to be managed effectively.

There is a bank now set up to help women in business and to train women to be empowered to help themselves. There is now legislation against violence towards women  in the home. A police unit has been set up to act in support of women.

The Lukautim Pikinini act of parliament was made to protect children. Children are also a massive human resource that has to be managed effectively. They have to go to school and be educated.

There has been deep controversy over the Outcomes Based Education and the need to develop the ability of children to read and write.

But the problems are still massive with universal basic education and the pressure to put children through school and on to university. There are not enough spaces and not enough jobs.

There are great differences between women in western nations including Papua New Guinea and women in Moslem nations. Islam follows the Koran that is based largely on the same Arab culture as the Old Testament.

Women are still to be very much in the home. They cannot work outside the home without permission of the father or brothers. They may not study subjects at school without approval of men in the family.

In some Moslem countries, there is the regular incidence of honour killing of women by family men because they have been seen to shame the family.

A woman in one country became a widow and married another man without permission of the family of her dead husband. She and her new family were slaughtered 29 years later.

Chapter 10   How do managers and supervisors run an organization?

So much is out of their hands. The company or Government departments exist in a political scene that influences the operation of organizations. Corruption spreads from Government down the line to Departments and companies.

Let us suppose that an efficient and honest organization exists. Recruitment from the General Manager to workers has been made on merit. The person has appropriate qualifications and experience for the job.

Top managers are friendly and approachable. Their doors are never locked. They may be approached for work or workers’ personal problems.

But there is a hierarchy of managers who have the job of meeting with workers for daily tasks and helping them with their problems. Workers know that it is not wise to go over the head of the manager or supervisor directly above them.

Managers support communication in the organization. This means that all workers are kept informed except of confidential company business. This can be achieved through regular meetings of staff, newsletters, notices on notice boards and memos. All workers are encouraged to pass information on to supervisors. So the flow of information needs to be top-down, bottom-up and horizontal.

Discretion needs to exist on reports of misconduct of workers. There should not be a practice by which workers are encouraged to adversely report on their colleagues.

Managers and supervisors have the responsibility to ensure that work practices are followed and that action is taken when company rules are being ignored by workers.

There should be fairness in all processes in an organization. Advertisements for positions should be processed fairly. Job requirements need to be adhered to in selection of candidates. All new workers have a probationary period.

Workers need to be tasked according to their qualifications and experience. Promotion and selection for training courses needs to be fairly applied so that the best workers are trained for higher positions and promoted.

All workers need fair annual performance appraisal that becomes the basis of their employment continuity, training and promotion. They should be advised by their manager conducting the appraisal of their strengths and shortcomings.

Workers should not be penalized for shortcomings of which they have never been advised. Performance appraisal is one area that a manager can use against workers.

There needs to be fair response of the organization to retrenchment and retirement of workers. A work lifetime of loyalty should not be betrayed by the organization if the retrenchment and retirement payments are not made to the workers.

There can be situations in which a loyal worker and family suffer right to the point of the death of this elderly person. Pensions and retrenchment payments are not made.

We have so much to learn about workers rights and responsibilities in the study of dictatorships and democracies. The key organ of society is the state which consists of the combined citizens living in communities organized and regulated by Government bodies.

In a democracy, the people make up the state. They have rights and responsibilities to live a productive and happy life within family, church, employment and community groups.

All people have the right to work in an organization and receive a fair pay. They have the right to be supervised by managers who support justice for all. They have the responsibility to contribute to the welfare and prosperity of the organization through times of plenty and need.

In a dictatorship, the state can be made up of a group of faceless people who claim full rights and membership of the state. All people are workers who have only the right to live and die in support of the state. All managers in organizations support the elite at the top calling themselves the state.

We saw the operation of the state in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. There was an elite at the top with millions of workers to be controlled and punished. They worked in factories and farms and died as soldiers.

The people of Papua New Guinea should be proud of the fact that Papua New Guinea has the framework of a democracy. The strengths should be cherished and weaknesses rectified whenever possible. But the mechanism is there for the weaknesses to be addressed in the future.

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