Simeon Mpamugoh
The outgoing president and chairman of council, Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM), Olukunle Iyanda, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare November 19 as Management Day in Nigeria.
Iyanda at this year’s Management Day lecture series of the institute in Lagos said such proclamation by the Federal Government would provide a diplomatic leverage to the efforts of the institute.
He said, “Management Day is a platform the Institute uses to celebrate the ideals and tenets of the Management profession. It also presents us the opportunity to appreciate the role of professional managers in the workplace and their contributions to the development of the profession and the nation.
“It has equally been an avenue to diagnose the challenges of management practice and proffer solutions in line with international best management practices to achieve management excellence.
“We have also selected today, (November 19) as the date for this lecture as a mark of honour to Prof. Peter Drucker, globally recognized as the “Father of modern management”, whose birthday is November 19. We keep intensifying our effort to get this date recognized and accepted by the United Nations as “World Management Day,” he added.
In a speech tagged; ‘Managing from a Distance,’ Iyanda further said, “On a day like this, we would be derelict in our mission if we turn a blind eye on a strange management concept or doctrine being propagated in Nigeria: that a manager can perform his role effectively even when physically absent from his organization for a period of time.
“It is our strong belief that this concept negates the management principle of delegation and can only be justified by those who perceive management position as one of exercise of power and authority rather than of responsibility for effectiveness, efficiency and corporate well being.”
He explained that the principle of delegation enjoins a manager, while he is going to be away from his organization for a while, to transfer his responsibility and the enabling authority to discharge those responsibilities to a subordinate.
He added, “Can a Captain steer his ship while he is on another ship far away from his? a corporate organization that is left for a period without a designated leadership is like a ship without a captain.
“A manager is a trustee of corporate or public resources. The manager is thus bound by a code of conduct that enjoins him to put service to his corporate body above his own personal or his subgroup objectives. If Nigeria is to derive optimal benefits from its enormous resource endowment, we must imbibe and adopt global best practices in corporate and public management.”