How many people does it take to run a country

Quoted from Management - Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices
 

POLITICALLY, THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH RULE OF INDIA is a history of muddle, indecision, lack of direction and, in the last analysis, failure. What kept the British in control and power for two hundred years was, in part, India’s weakness and disunity. But above all, the British stayed in power because of a supreme administrative accomplishment: the Indian Civil Service. In its greatest period, the second half of the nineteenth century, it never numbered more than a thousand men. Most were very young, mere lads in their early twenties, for life expectancy was brutally short for the white man in India’s hostile climate, in which malaria and dysentery were endemic and cholera an

annual visitor.

Most of these young men of the alien race who administered the huge subcontinent were stationed in total isolation in small villages or on dusty crossroads in which they did not see for months on end anyone who spoke their language and shared their concerns. Only a few survived long enough to retire with modest pensions to the England whence they had come and of which they always dreamed. These young men who administered British India were rather dull and uninteresting. After a short apprenticeship, they were put into an assignment of their own to sink or swim.* These men were younger sons of poor country parsons, with no prospects at home and little standing in English society. Their pay was low; and such opportunities for loot or gain as their predecessors had enjoyed in the swashbuckling days of the East India Company a hundred years earlier had, by 1860, been completely eliminated by both law and custom.

Flag of the British Raj

These untrained, not very bright, and totally inexperienced youngsters ran districts comparable in size and population to small European countries. And they ran them practically all by themselves with a minimum of direction and supervision from the top. Some, of course, became casualties and broke under the strain, falling victim to alcohol, to native women or—the greatest danger of them all—to sloth. But most of them did what they were expected to do, and did it reasonably well. They gave India, for the first time in its long and tragic history, peace, a measure of freedom from famine, and a little security of life, worship, and property. They administered justice impartially and, at least as far as they themselves were concerned, honestly and without corruption. They collected taxes, by and large, impartially and equitably. They did not make policy; and in the end they foundered because they had none. But they administered, and administered well.*

This remarkable administrative achievement, the achievement of a middle management which, for two hundred long years, could in large measure offset the top management failure of the system—or rather, the fact that there was no top management— rested on exceedingly simple foundations.

The jobs the young men were assigned were big and challenging. There was enough scope in each of them to keep even a good man interested and occupied for many years.  The job was the young man’s own job, and not a job as an “assistant to” anybody. He was accountable. He was responsible. And it was up to him to organize the job as he saw fit. Performance standards were high and uncompromising. A young, basically untrained and unprepared amateur was expected to give perfect justice; to be totally impartial; to maintain public order, safety on the roads and in the villages, and religious and civil peace. And he had to do this by persuasion, by the authority of his own person and by his mere presence; to have to invoke force, for instance to call in the military, was considered failure. And while the individual job was anonymous, the Service had high pride in itself and  a deep commitment to standards and mission. It was imbued with the highest spirit.

A manager’s job should be based on a task that has to be done to attain the company’s  objectives. It should always be a real job—one that makes a visible and, if possible, measurable contribution to the success of the enterprise. It should have the broadest rather than the narrowest scope and authority. The manager should be directed and controlled by the objectives of performance rather than by his boss.