Key Words: Business Management, Direction.
Summary:
In this work an illustration is made of the different teachings that the Little Prince can extract from the work for the field of management.
The teachings of the Little Prince, for the modern businessman.
As a child when you have the habit of reading we find books that make us dream and have fun allowing us to be what we may never achieve again, with them we become heroes, swordsmen, archers, jesters, pirates, kings, we learn to differentiate from one Look at the good guys from the bad guys, we dream of enchanted forests and powerful magicians but as we grow older we begin to understand that it is not so easy to be a hero, that the era of swordsmen, archers, jesters and pirates is behind us and that there are no good kings like that neither are enchanted forests and powerful wizards. We learn that everything we desire merits a dose of effort and work, that the bad and the good do not make up isolated and exclusive groups and people, but rather mix, providing their dose in each individual and group.Then the books that were a beacon of our childhood become relics of a happy time.
There are other books that although we read them as children do not lose their validity in the course of time since, in addition to being written for children, allowing them to sound and have fun, they transmit useful lessons for life, they create imperishable values such as friendship, justice, love of work, imagination. A classic of this type of literature is THE PRINCE. book written by Antoine de Saint-EXupery French writer, pilot killed on a war mission on July 31, 1944 at the age of 44 and author of other books such as Night Flight, Southern Mail and War Pilot.
EL PRINCIPITO, published for the first time in 1943, is a book that, once read, as a child becomes a magnet, for most readers, which forces them to return to their reading periodically as an adolescent or adult. The secret of this force of attraction lies in addition to the poetic language with which it is written and that it appeals to the cleanest feelings of the human being, in the wealth of teachings that it contributes is such its magnitude that it can make one doubt, if it is a book. written for children or adults. In only 83 small pages no less than 57 teachings can be extracted, a proportion of this magnitude that is difficult to find even in textbooks.
For students of directing and lovers of reading, the little prince constitutes his first encounter with it. Management could be defined as the science in charge of studying the art of leading a group of people and managing various resources to achieve proposed goals. Below we will try to explain how THE PRINCE contributes to this science.
From the definition of direction offered previously, it can be affirmed that the study of this science requires deepening in three fundamental areas referred to:
• The Driving of the Human Factor.
• Resource management
• The Outlined Strategy.
To each of these areas the little prince makes reference and makes contributions to a greater or lesser extent, to illustrate what has been explained, the content of each one will be studied in depth and in what way the book will treat them.
Driving the Human Factor.
The human factor turns out to be the most important of all the elements of the management process since it is in charge of using the resources and making it possible to achieve these objectives, over time it increases its value with the greatest acquisition of knowledge and experiences. As well as being the most important, it is also the most difficult to deal with due to its diversity, each person differs from the others due to their responsibility, motivations, and capacity. However, the management has created general themes that facilitate the study of this, such as Motivation and Training.
Motivation: through this the motives that originate the behavior of the human factor are analyzed based on its needs and values and on this basis design the ways to influence it.
From the study of needs as the basis of motivation, the results achieved by Abraham Maslow are known, which stated that man moves according to his needs, which could be grouped into 5 categories with different weight in behavior, this author represented the influence of the pyramid-shaped needs where those at the base have greater weight than those located at the top of the pyramid. Aspect that has turned out to be the most susceptible to criticism of this theory because not all people have the same weight relationship between groups of needs. Simonov en classifies the needs of humans into three groups; The Vitals: oriented to survival, the Social ones oriented to coexistence and the Ideals oriented to development.For his part, McClelland raises three other groups of needs: those of Power with which one wishes to exert influence and control over others, of Affiliation is determined by the need to belong to a social group and, finally, that of achievement manifested in a desire for success and an equally intense fear of failure.
THE PRINCIPLE, although not intentionally, offers evidence of most of the groups of needs mentioned above. Thus, for example, it refers to physiological or vital needs as a source of motivation when A
Antoine, the pilot lost in the desert says: “I started to try completely alone, a difficult repair. It was for me a matter of life and death, I had water for only eight days "While the social or affiliation needs are manifested throughout the book in the different relationships and the expressions that derive from them, in the Little Prince relationship - Rosa is found “If you love a flower found in a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are in bloom ”also in the Little Prince-Fox relationship when it expresses“ I am bored, a little, but if you tame me, my life will light up I will know a noise of footsteps that will be different from all the others. The other footsteps make me hide under the ground yours will take me out of my burrow, like music. ! and also look!? You see there the wheat fields don't remind me of anything. ! and that's terrible! but you have golden hair. When you've tamed me. It will be wonderful! The wheat that is golden will make me remember you. And I love the sound of the wind in the wheat". Finally when the little prince sentences “It is good to have had a friend even when one is going to die. I am very happy to have a fox friend. ”
The needs for power are shown in the character of the king for whom the world is very simplified. All men are his subjects, the king had as his basic need that of the mandate "It is contrary to the label to yawn in the presence of a king,…, I forbid you" "For years I have not seen anyone yawn, yawns are curious to me. ! Come on, yawn again. It is an order "" The king wanted above all things that his authority be respected, he did not tolerate disobedience. " Needs of esteem are also observed in the character of the conceited one who only wanted to be acclaimed and admired, wearing a hat to “greet when they acclaim me, Unfortunately nobody ever passes by here” or the one who defined admiration as: “Recognize that I am the most beautiful man, best dressed,the richest and the smartest on the planet "other needs exemplified are the ideals or self-realization that appear in Antoine's dissatisfaction with being a painter" was how I abandoned at 6 years of age, a magnificent career as a painter ".
THE PRINCE not only illustrates the different manifestations of needs but shows how these vary their degree of influence on people's behavior, this is achieved in the discussions of the Little Prince and Antoine, for the latter to fix the engine of his plane was a matter life and death and therefore his highest priority "I was very concerned with the breakdown that began to seem very serious and the water that ran out, made me fear the worst" "I do not believe anything" "I deal with serious things" while that the Little Prince prioritized the search for knowledge and affective feelings “millions of years ago that the sheep ate flowers,? And is it not a serious thing to try to find out why they waste time making thorns that are useless to them? ”.For the Little Prince, collective needs were more important than individual needs. “He is the only one that does not seem ridiculous to me. Maybe it is because he deals with things outside himself. ”
In recent decades, in addition to the state of needs, other factors of social origin that influence behavior have been studied in depth. All of these grouped under the term of corporate culture, which according to Edgar H. Shein is nothing more than "a model of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a group as they learn to cope with their problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which they have exerted sufficient influence to be considered valid and, consequently, to be taught to new members as the correct way of perceiving, thinking and feeling these problems.
Corporate culture presents among its essential components the values, basic underlying assumptions and paradigms. The word value comes from the Latin verb valer which means to be healthy, strong without losing its originality, its meaning has been expanding over the centuries, to such an extent that nowadays many definitions have been managed, among which are that the Values are nothing more than the essential basis that "guides decision-making and other actions". Examples of values manifested in the PRINCIPLE are the rejection of the discovery of Asteroid B 612 made in 1969 by the Turkish astronomer motivated by his clothes and his acceptance in 1920 for wearing a very elegant suit, another value is the love of the figures of the elderly "When you tell them about a new friend,they will never ask the essential they will never say “what is your voice tone like? What are the games you prefer? Do you collect butterflies? "Instead they will ask. How old are you? How many siblings do you have? How much does it weigh? How much do your parents earn? Only then do they think they know him. If you say to the elderly: "I have seen a beautiful red brick house with geraniums in the windows and pigeons on the roof…" ", you will not imagine the house. It will be necessary to tell them: "I have seen a house of one hundred thousand Francs" Then they will exclaim: "! That beauty! ""I have seen a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums in the windows and pigeons on the roof…" ", you will not imagine the house. It will be necessary to tell them: "I have seen a house of one hundred thousand Francs" Then they will exclaim: "! That beauty! ""I have seen a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums in the windows and pigeons on the roof…" ", you will not imagine the house. It will be necessary to tell them: "I have seen a house of one hundred thousand Francs" Then they will exclaim: "! That beauty! "
THE PRINCE not only shows values that can characterize a culture but reflects the existence of conflicts between different values, the little prince was happy that the sheep ate Baobabs but he disliked that they also fed on flowers, the fox liked the planet of the Little Prince because he did not There were hunters but it bothered him that there were no chickens.
Among the basic underlying assumptions are those related to the nature of reality and truth and those related to the nature of time and its use.
The assumptions that every group usually distinguishes about reality include the following areas.
• External physical reality: what is considered empirically determinable through objective or scientific examinations.
• Social reality: it is everything that the members of a group accept as consensus material without being examined from the outside.
• Individual reality: that is everything that a given person has learned from experience and, therefore, constitutes an absolute truth for that person, however, that truth may not be shared with anyone else.
In the PRINCE, there are manifestations of these forms of existence or determination of reality and the truth, both the individual reality that the three-petalled flower perceives. I think there are six or seven, I saw them years ago, but you never know where to find them. The wind scatters them. They lack roots and that bothers them a lot: "like the external physical reality that is evident in his conversations with the Geographer" He receives the explorers, questions them, takes note of their information. And if the information from one of them seems interesting to you, the Geographer orders an investigation into the morale of the explorer… "Because an explorer who lied would bring catastrophe to the geography books" "When the morale of the explorer seems good,an investigation is made on its discovery ”“ The explorer is required to present evidence if it is, for example, the discovery of a mountain, he is required to bring large stones ”.
Regarding the underlying assumptions linked to the use of time, there are several allusions in the book such as the following: “Men do not have time to know anything. They buy the things made in the markets. But since there are no markets for friends, men do not have friends ”“ It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes it important ”.
The corporate culture is also characterized by the legend, rites and myths that it possesses, which are also contemplated in the work where a rite is defined as “What makes a day different from the others; one hour from the others. Among my hunters, for example, there is a rite. On Thursday they dance with the girls from the village. Thursday is, therefore, a wonderful day. I'm going to walk to the vineyards. If hunters danced any day, the days would be all alike, and I would have no vacation.
The human factor for a long time was considered as a substitutable and renewable resource as well as machines and raw materials, but considering the dizzying advance of production technology which is characterized by rapid and constant changes, there has been a shift in the use of human factor. Work began on its formation and training, the creation of mechanisms that allowed it to participate in the generation of alternatives and decision-making in the solution of the problems to be faced began, however, the capacity created by the human factor, It has been affected, to a large extent, due to the characteristics of educational mechanisms, by the training processes developed, it is common in these processes to hear sentences like these:"Follow the instructions to the letter" "This is the answer" "That is not logical" "Avoid ambiguity" "To be wrong is shameful" "I do not want to make a fool of myself." Sentences of this type are the seeds of the lack of creativity in the future. The training processes tend to accept the erroneous idea that problems have a single solution, and thus, for example, at the end of student life, the average student has found no less than 2,600 “unique answers”.The training processes tend to accept the erroneous idea that problems have a single solution, and thus, for example, at the end of student life, the average student has found no less than 2,600 “unique answers”.The training processes tend to accept the erroneous idea that problems have a single solution, and thus, for example, at the end of student life, the average student has found no less than 2,600 “unique answers”.
An element that characterizes the business culture and that has a lot to do with training, are the paradigms (pattern or model in the life of each one, which can become laws of society), these act as a filter for the selection of data that come to people's minds, those data that are consistent with their paradigms are easily recognized with great clarity. When the data do not agree with the expectations of the paradigms, it may happen that they are nullified or distorted without people realizing that they were exceptions to the rule. A paradigm is a double-edged sword, on the one hand it selects information that is familiar in a precise and detailed way, but on the other hand it leaves out the information that does not agree with it, you only see what you expect to see,but little or nothing is seen when the data does not agree with the paradigm.
In the PRINCIPITO although there are no direct allusions linked to the way of delivering the training if it is shown how it affects the imagination and creativity. “Older people advised me to put aside the drawings of Boas snakes, open or closed, and to become more interested in geography, history, calculus and grammar. That was how I abandoned, at 6 years old, a magnificent career as a painter ”, in this way a boy who at 6 years of age was already drawing when he grew up and being a pilot lacked this ability. "At the time I remembered that I had studied Geography, History, Calculus and Grammar and (already a little grumpy) I told the gentleman that he did not know how to draw." However, the little prince who did not know Geography, History, Calculus and Grammar,still living in his imaginary world, he was in a position to see a little sheep in a box with holes drawn on a sheet of paper. "This is the box, the sheep you want is inside" "Exactly how I wanted it. You think this sheep needs a lot of grass. "
What if neither the inhabitants of the earth nor those of the asteroids escape is the effect of the paradigms. Antoine was surprised by the idea of elephants eating Baobabs. "I let the little prince know that Baobabs are not bushes, but big trees like churches, and that if he took a herd of elephants, that herd would not end with a single Baobab" "It will be necessary to put them one on top of the other" "The Baobabs before to grow they start by being small. ” The same thing happened to the little prince who was surprised by the idea of having to wait for a sunset. "I love sunset very much, let's see a sunset" "But you have to wait" "Wait what?" "Wait for the sun to go down" "At first you took an air of surprise then you laughed at yourself and told me" "! I always think I'm at home. "
Something that differentiates creative people from those who are not is their ability to see the same object in different ways and edges, to find various solutions to the same problem. “People have stars that are not the same, for some, that they travel, the stars are guides, for others they are just little lights, for others who are wise they are problems. For my businessman, they were gold but all those stars remain silent, You will have stars as no one has had them "" You will have stars that know how to laugh ".
Another aspect to consider in the management of the human factor is given by the way in which the people in charge of them (Leaders) obtain such power or authority. The sources of power can be various such as the degree of information and knowledge that is possessed or the degree of wealth that is available which allows offering rewards or punishments to the followers or the degree of affection, affection or loyalty that is inspired or Acquire through the disinterested offer of their own services to the majority.
In the work the three mentioned sources of power are presented. The businessman wanted to own the stars for "I manage, count and count them" "I can deposit it in a bank." "I mean I write the number of my stars on a piece of paper and then I lock this paper in a drawer" or "To buy other stars." While the king based his authority or power on knowledge or reason “Authority rests above all, on reason. If you order your people to jump into the sea, it will make the revolution. I have the right to demand obedience because my orders are reasonable ”“ If I order, ”he said frequently, if I order a general to become a seabird and the general does not obey, it will not be the general's fault. It will be my fault. It is necessary to demand from each one what each one can give ”.For his part, the little alien saw the services provided to others as a source of power. “I, then, said, I have a flower that I water every day, I have three volcanoes that I sweep every week. Also chimney sweep one that is extinct. ! You never know!. It is useful for my volcanoes and it is useful for my flower that I possess them, but you are not useful to the stars ”.
In recent years, new theories have emerged about the conduct of the human being where the idea that this is only a being that moves unconsciously by the different stimuli received from the external environment is not accepted, but rather the possibility that this He has, as a superior being, to choose to which stimulus to respond, in what order and with what intensity to do it, he must present qualities such as perseverance, proactive choice, the ability to judge and demand of himself. Aspects that are not ignored in the book for example. The little prince never gave up on a question once he had asked it. "? Five hundred million What? repeated the little prince who had never given up on a question in his life, once he had asked it ”.The choice to judge yourself more than others and the responsibility that this implies. "It is much more difficult to judge yourself than to judge others, if you manage to judge yourself well, it is because you are a true sage."
The administration of resources.
Yes, it is true that the human factor is the most important thing in a production process, it is also true that there is not a single production process in which resources are not needed to a greater or lesser extent. Management science is in charge of studying the administration of resources with the aim of achieving effectiveness, efficiency, and effectiveness in their use, understanding effectiveness as: achieving the objectives proposed for the execution of the process, for efficiency: the optimal consumption of resources in the achievement of the objectives and by effectiveness: the optimal satisfaction in the achievement of the objectives in an efficient way.
Based on these indicators, a process can be ineffective when the objectives set are not achieved or worse, when it is carried out without apparent objectives, not efficient when the objectives are not achieved or when, despite the achievement of the objectives, more resources are used for it. of the optimally necessary, and not effective when it is not possible to be effective and efficient, or even having achieved this, the objectives achieved do not show their maximum quality.
In the book there are several samples of processes that are carried out without apparent objectives or with unnecessary objectives, for example "the little prince could not explain what he could do, somewhere in the sky, on a planet without houses, without inhabitants, a lantern and its lantern. ” Conversation with the vendor of thirst quenching pills is another lesson? Why do you sell that? - asked the little prince- ”“ It is an economy of time (the seller answered) the experts have made calculations. One hour fifty-three minutes per week ”“? And what is done with those fifty-three minutes? ” "You do what you want" "the little prince said to himself, if he had fifty-three minutes to spend, he would go very sweetly to a fountain" another could be his conclusions about train travel "men,…they pile up on the trains but don't know what they are looking for. However, they are agitated and spinning ”or those carried out on the cultivation of flowers“ The men of your land, they cultivate five thousand roses in the same garden…..and they do not find what they are looking for… and, nevertheless, what they are looking for They could find it in a single rose or in a little water.
The strategies outlined.
That the human factor has the necessary resources to carry out a productive process is not enough for it to begin, it is also necessary to know how to use the resources, the most effective way to use it and organize the human factor, in addition the lines must be drawn generals to guide the performance. All this set of actions are included in the outline of a strategy which is nothing more than: "A deployment of actions and resources to achieve full objectives."
In the layout of the strategies, the most suitable moment to initiate the actions is determined, just as the King of asteroid 325 determined the most favorable moment to order the sun to set. "You will have your sunset. I will demand it. But I will wait, with my science as ruler, until the conditions are favorable. "It is also a function of these activities to establish towards which objectives to be directed, in general, they may be to maintain the level reached by the organization, that is to say, the existing conditions and the improvement that are proposed to achieve higher development studies. The PRINCIPLE shows several examples of actions that have the maintenance objectives as the cleaning of Baobabs “Those were the Baobabs seeds. The planet's soil was infected with them.And if a Baobabs is not started on time it can never be started. It covers
the whole planet pierces it with its roots and if the planet is too small and the numerous Baobabs blow it up. " "It is a matter of discipline… When one finishes cleaning in the morning, one must carefully clean the planet. One must regularly oblige himself to clean the planet. One must force himself, regularly, to start the baobabs since he differentiates them from the rose bushes, although they are very similar to them when they are very small, it is a very boring job, but very easy ”. A maintenance objective is also to sweep the volcanoes “If the volcanoes sweep well, they burn smoothly and regularly, without eruptions. Volcanic eruptions are like fire from chimneys. Obviously in our land we are too small to sweep our volcanoes. This is why they cause us so much discomfort. ”Unfortunately, no examples of improvement objectives are found in this work, however, if aspects that always accompanied these objectives such as risk are evident, any improvement objective implies a risk that almost always most people are not willing to assume.. And another is the Change that accompanies the achievement of the objectives. When an improvement objective is established or when the external or internal conditions towards which the action is oriented vary, it is assumed that the actions to be carried out also do so, however this is not always the case, which is why the lamplighter was unable to to be able to rest “the slogan has not changed, express the lamplighter. ! This is the drama! The planet from year to year has moved faster and the slogan has not changed.
In theory, organizations that are not oriented towards improvement objectives should at least do so towards maintenance, but in practice there are some that move without defined objectives, in line with their past and are those that do not take long to disappear. This situation also occurs in the work in the person of the drunk. "Why do you drink?" "- To forget" "- To forget what?" "- To forget that I'm ashamed" "- Ashamed of what?" "- Ashamed to drink" or in the person of the merchant "- And what use are you to possessing the stars?" "- It serves me to be rich" "- And what does it serve to be rich" "- To buy other stars if someone finds them" or in what the needleman said, about the trips of men by train. “They don't chase absolutely nothing, they sleep in there, or they yawn. Only the children,they smash their noses against the windows ”.
If not all the examples that The PRINCIPITO offers on the science of management have been exhausted, if a considerable number of these have been shown, and before concluding this small foray into the links of children's literature
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