The ACE and the ACRE! Concept of management

Happiness, if it exists at all, is directly co-related to a person's outlook to a problem. The latter being available abundantly in each person's life. I have observed the happy people around and they seem to have two distinct characteristics:

1. Uncanny knack of maintaining composure and getting around the problem.

2. The optimism required to make point no.1 happen

Those are the people with solutions. And the word "Solution" has an innate charm to it as it addresses the problem.

For a school going student, Mathematics could be the world's most serious problem, to a college going student - attending lectures could be, but in the corporate world - It is the task of handling people.

I have heard most problems in professional and personal life has been due to the inability to adjust with the people around. The two pronged approach to solving this seems to be - ATTACK(A) or ESCAPE(E). If its a sub-ordinate or someone at your level, you go for the former. For someone in an advantageous position, you choose the later (though you desire to take the former route).

The mid-way is almost often never given a thought. The idea is to CONFRONT(C). I have had innumerable people telling me of the problems they have with their bosses, spouses, friends etc.. Solution is to confront the concerned. The best way out, probably, is to CONFRONT before taking the ATTACK or ESCAPE route. This forms the ACE concept... (might make an ACE out of you for handling people/situations).

CONFRONT also might not work if the person you confront isn't giving you a patient hearing. There is no point stopping the process mid-way. A wise idea might be to REASON(R). Add that to the ace and it becomes ACRE. Akin to acquiring ACREs of land, you might win over many people with this approach. This might be the key to handling teams, handling people.

The notion to write this article came to me when I was talking to a manager in my firm who was telling me about the difficulties of handling a challenging team and a difficult boss. During the chat, to raise his morale, this is what I could dish out.

It might seem crap to some and might make sense to some. If it seems crap, I am sure I can apply to make it a MANAGEMENT THEORY because that's what they all are. (This is a personal opinion. I have utmost respect for the Maslow's of the world who make such theories).

I would love to hear comments telling me that this is crap and letting me know that I have it in me to be a Management Guru.