FROM AN ASTEROID LOST IN SPACE
As a child when we 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, buffoons, pirates, kings, we learn to differentiate from a single look at the good from the bad, we dream of enchanted forests and powerful wizards but as we grow 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 nor are enchanted forests and powerful magicians to be found. We learn that everything we want requires 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, contributing their dose of goodness and badness to their lives as individuals and to the groups to which they belong. 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 over time since, in addition to being written for children, allowing them to dream and have fun, they convey useful lessons for life, create imperishable values such as friendship, justice, love of work, imagination that weakly mark us for life. A classic of this type of literature is Le Petit Prince or as we all know The Little Prince, a book published in 1943 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a French writer exiled in the United States, a pilot who died on a war mission on July 31, 1944 at 44 years of age and author of other books such as Nocturnal Flight, South Mail andWar pilot.
The Little Prince is a book that once read, as a child, becomes a magnet for most readers, which forces them to return to reading periodically as a teenager or adult. The secret of this force of attraction lies, in addition to the poetic language with which it is written, and its way of approaching the cleanest feelings of the human being, in the wealth of teachings that it provides. Its magnitude is such that it can make you doubt whether it is a book written for children or for adults. In so few pages so many lessons can be extracted that it is difficult to find a proportion of such magnitude even in the most notorious textbooks.
For administration scholars and lovers of reading, The Little Prince constitutes a kind of connection, and for those who want to understand what to do and how to behave in a book to achieve a first encounter with it.
THE ADMINISTRATION TO THE PRINCIPAL
Administration could be defined as the science that studies the process aimed at achieving proposed objectives through the management of a group of people involved with said objectives and the proper management of scarce resources destined for that purpose. What is analyzed below will try to show how The Little Prince contributes to this science.
From the definition of administration offered previously, it can be said that the study of this science requires a deepening of three fundamental areas referred to:
- The Management of the Human Factor The management of scarce resources The Strategy or way of achieving the objectives.
The little prince makes reference to each of these areas and makes contributions to a greater or lesser extent. To illustrate the above, the content of how and in what way they are treated in the book will be deepened.
THE CONDUCT OF THE HUMAN FACTOR.
The human factor turns out to be the most important of all the elements of the administration process since it is in charge of using the resources and making it possible to achieve the objectives. This, with the passage of time, increases its value with the acquisition of knowledge capable of perfecting the activity it performs.
In the same way that the human factor is the most important, it is also the most difficult to deal with due to its diversity. Each person differs from another because of their responsibility, motivation, capacity, perceptions of life, paradigms, etc., despite the administration, based on other sciences, how many methods that facilitate the study and analysis of man as a member of an organization to be able to adequately handle the generality of personalities that may be found.
The studies of the motivation of man allow to analyze the motives that originate the behavior of the human factor based on their needs and values, and on this basis to design the ways to positively influence this.
From the study of needs as the basis of motivation, the results achieved by Abraham Maslow are known, who 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 needs of pyramidal shape where those of the base have greater weight than those located in the upper part of it. Element that has turned out to be the most susceptible to criticism of this theory because not all people have the same weight ratio between the groups of needs. Simonov in classifies the needs of humans into three groups: the vital ones oriented to survival, the social ones oriented to coexistence and the idealsdevelopment-oriented. For his part, McClelland raises three other groups of needs: that of power with which they want to exert influence and control over others, that of affiliation is determined by the need to belong to a social group and finally that of achievement that is manifested in a desire for success and an equally intense fear of failure.
The Little Prince, though not intentionally, provides evidence for most of the classifications of needs cited above. For example, he refers to physiological or vital needs as a source of motivation when Antoine, the pilot lost in the desert, tells:
While the social or affiliation needs are manifested throughout the book in the different relationships and the expressions that derive from them. Let's analyze the little prince - pink relationship:
In the same way in the relationship between the little prince and the fox when the latter expresses:
Esteem needs are also observed in the character of the vain person who only wanted to be acclaimed and admired, wearing a hat to:
"-Do you really admire me a lot?
The little prince not only illustrates the different manifestations of the categories of needs, but also shows how these influence people's behavior, this is evidenced in the discussion of the little prince and Antoine, for the latter fixing the engine of his plane was a matter of life or death and therefore their highest priority.
“I was very concerned with the breakdown, which was beginning to seem very serious, and the water, which was draining, made me fear the worst.
While the little prince, at that critical moment, gives priority to his desire to search for knowledge and the feelings that linked him to his rose.
“-Flowers have made thorns for millions of years. Sheep have eaten flowers for millions of years. And isn't it a serious thing to try to find out why they waste time making thorns that are useless? "
Later we learn, on the visit to the lamplighter's planet, that for the Little Prince, collective needs were more important than individual ones.
In recent decades, in addition to the state of needs, other factors of social origin that influence behavior have been studied in depth. All 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 face their problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which they find exerted enough influence to be considered valid and, consequently, be taught to new members how to correctly perceive, think and feel 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 the point that today numerous definitions have been used, among which are that Values are nothing more than the essential basis that "guides decision-making and other actions."
An example of the manifestation of values in The Little Prince is the rejection of the discovery of Asteroid B 612 made in 1969 by the Turkish astronomer motivated by his clothing and his acceptance in 1920 by wearing a very elegant suit. But the little prince not only shows values that can characterize a culture but also reflects the existence of conflicts between different values, the little prince was happy that sheep ate baobabs, but he disliked that they also ate flowers, the fox liked the planet of the little prince because there were no 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 able to be examined from the outside. Individual reality: that is everything that a given person has learned from experience and that, therefore, constitutes an absolute truth for that person, however, that truth may not be shared with anyone else.
In The Little Prince there are manifestations of these forms of existence or determination of reality and truth.
The three-petal flower has its own individual reality.
"-The men? 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 ”.
The external physical reality that is evident in your conversations with the geographer.
“The geographer… receives the explorers, interrogates them, takes note of their information. And if the information from one of them seems interesting to them, the geographer orders an investigation to be carried out on the morale of the explorer… Because an explorer who lied would bring catastrophe to the geography books… So, when the morale of the explorer seems good, a investigation into their discovery… the explorer is required to provide evidence. If it is, for example, the discovery of a mountain, he is required to bring large stones ”.
As for the underlying assumptions related to the use of time, there are several allusions in the book.
“Men don't have time to know anything. They buy the things made in the markets. But since there are no friend markets, men don't have friends… It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes it important ”.
The conversation with the salesman of pills that quenches thirst is another example and lesson.
"I, the little prince told himself, if I had fifty-three minutes to spare, I would go very sweetly towards a fountain…"
The business culture is also characterized by the legends, rites and myths that it possesses, which are also contemplated in the work where a rite is defined as:
“… It's what makes a day different from the others; one hour, of the others. Among my hunters, for example, there is a ritual. On Thursday they dance with the girls from the village. Thursday is, therefore, a wonderful day. I'll walk down to the vineyard. If the hunters danced any day, the days would all look alike, and I wouldn't have a vacation. "
For a long time, the human factor was considered as a substitutable and renewable resource, like machines and raw materials, but considering the vertiginous advance of production technology, which is characterized by rapid and constant changes, there has been a change in the use of the human factor. They began to work on their formation and training, the creation of mechanisms that allowed them to participate in the search for alternatives and decision-making in the solution of the problems they faced began.
However, the creative capacity of the human factor has been affected, to a great extent, due to the characteristics of the administrative mechanisms, by the training processes developed among the main causes. It is common to hear sentences such as "follow the instructions to the letter", "this is the correct answer", "that is not logical", "be precise, avoid ambiguities", "being wrong is shameful". Beliefs of this type are the seeds of the absence of creativity.
Training processes tend to accept the erroneous idea that problems have only one 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 corporate culture and that is closely related to training, are the paradigms (pattern or model in the life of each one, which can become laws of society), these act as a data selection filter that come to people's minds. Those data that match the paradigms are easily recognized with great clarity. When the data do not match, it usually happens that they are nullified or distorted without people ever 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 aside the information that does not agree with it, you only see what you expect to see, but you see very little or not at all when the data does not match the paradigm.
In The Little Prince, although there are no direct allusions linked to the way the training is delivered, if it is shown as a belief or the way in which a person has been educated, it affects imagination and creativity.
In this way a child who at 6 years of age was already drawing, growing up and being a pilot lacked this ability.
And when the little prince asked him to draw a sheep for him, Antoine faced his reality.
- Exactly how I wanted it! Do you think this sheep needs a lot of grass? "
It seems clear that neither the inhabitants of the earth nor those of the asteroids escape the effect of the paradigms. A first example is found with the hat - boa, for many it was just a hat, for the author and the little prince it was a boa with an elephant inside. Antoine was surprised by the idea of elephants eating Baobabs.
But the little prince had another teaching for Antoine.
The same thing happened to the little prince who was surprised by the idea of having to wait for a sunset.
Something that differentiates creative people from those who are not is their ability to see the same object in different shapes and edges, to find different solutions to the same problem.
"People have stars that are not the same. For some, who 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 are silent. You will have stars like nobody else has… You will have stars that know how to laugh! "
Another element to highlight is in the way in which people are perceived from the individual paradigm, for the king all men are subjects.
For the vain all men were his admirers.
And for the geographer they were all explorers.
The king based his power on authority using knowledge and reason.
However our monarch acknowledges he makes his concessions.
Obviously no one can give what they do not have and sometimes people wonder why those who have to do do not do and the answer is explained in the above.
It is impossible to ask workers for excellence, leadership, quality when they have not been taught what these words mean when they have become used to working doing the opposite, when they were always measured in a different way. Before asking, you have to give. You have to be reasonable when it comes to handling power.
For his part, the little alien saw the services rendered to others as a source of power. “I have a flower that I water every day. I have three volcanoes that I sweep every week. I also chimney 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 ”.
The true power is that of service, executives are in their positions to serve workers not to manipulate, use, punish them, this is a time when participation opens space in many spheres and that of organizations is no exception.
Sometimes executives suffer from arrogance and this is a good armor, but a bad bicycle makes us go round and round in the same place and leads us to break ties with others. This type of executive thinks he is on top and others are below him, like the geographer.
There are executives who think they can do their homework from their work table and go down to where they can clearly know how their organization is doing. It takes humility to recognize the value of what those below do.
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 due to the different stimuli received from the outside environment is not accepted, but the possibility that this He has, as a superior being, to choose which stimulus to respond to, in what order and with what intensity to do so, for this he must present qualities such as perseverance, proactive choice, the ability to judge and demand himself. Aspects these that are not ignored in the book for example. The little prince never gave up a question, once he had asked it.
“Five hundred million of what? the little prince repeated that never in her life had she given up a question, once she had asked it ”.
The choice to judge yourself more than others and the acquisition of 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 ”.
All this leads us to remember that executives have, like everyone else, two brain hemispheres, one in charge of the creative part and the other of the logic (a question that is not worth discussing from a neurological point of view). There are those who love numbers.
Others love the sheep, like the little prince.
The first were in charge of making the plan, organizing, commanding, and controlling. The latter motivate, envision, establish relationships, study feelings and emotions. Success consists in the proper use of the cerebral hemispheres.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF RESOURCES
If 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. The science of administration is also in charge of studying the management of resources with the aim of achieving effectiveness, efficiency and effectiveness in their use, understanding by effectiveness: the achievement of 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.
Considering these indicators, a process may be ineffective when the set objectives are not achieved or even 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. optimally necessary, and not effective when it is not achieved to be effective and efficient, or even having achieved this, the objectives achieved do not show their highest quality.
In the book there are several samples of processes that are carried out without apparent objectives or with unnecessary objectives.
"The little prince could not be explained what he could serve, somewhere in the sky, on a planet without houses, without inhabitants, a lantern and his lantern."
"The men of your land grow five thousand roses in the same garden….. and they cannot find what they are looking for… And yet, what they are looking for they could find in a single rose or in a little water…"
THE STRATEGIES
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."
The book deals with an interesting and novel idea that borders on a modern theory of administration, the Theory of Constraints, which tells us that an organization must have a Goal to guide its steps.
Later, when Antoine understood what the little prince was saying, he reflected:
Regarding the subject of strategies, the little prince reminds us that we should not only think in the long term, but also in the short and medium term. Executives sometimes spend huge resources designing a strategy for the next ten years, but they don't know how to solve today's problems. When the geographer wanted to know about the planet of the little prince, the following dialogue takes place:
Sometimes we find ourselves giving up the flower for the mountain when the opportunity is in the flower.
It is also a function of these activities to establish towards which objectives to be directed, in general, they can be to maintain the level reached by the organization, that is to say, of the existing conditions and of improvement that are those that are proposed to achieve higher development studies.
In The Prince several examples of actions whose objectives maintenance such as cleaning baobab shown.
A maintenance objective is also the chimney sweep of volcanoes.
Unfortunately, there are no examples of improvement objectives in this work, however there are aspects that always accompanied this type of objectives.
Any improvement involves a risk that most people are almost always unwilling to take. The other element 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 to be assumed that the actions to be developed will also do so, however, this is not always the case, sometimes a rule or procedure is created to achieve an objective and when conditions change we are not able to change that rule or procedure, which is why the lamplighter was unable to rest.
“I have a terrible job. This was reasonable once. It turned off in the morning and turned on in the afternoon. He had the rest of the day to rest and the rest of the night to sleep… the slogan has not changed - said the lamplighter. This is the drama! The planet from year to year has moved faster and faster and the slogan has not changed ”.
In theory, organizations that are not oriented towards improvement objectives should at least do so towards maintenance, however, in practice there are some that move without defined objectives, to the beat of their past and are those that quickly disappear. This situation also occurs in the work in the person of the drunkard.
Or in the analysis of the needle guard, on the trips of the men in train.
“They don't chase anything at all, they sleep in there, or they yawn. Only children smash their noses against the glass ”.
If all the examples that The Little Prince offers on the science of management have not been exhausted, a considerable number of them have been shown.
A FINAL NOTE: CONCLUSIONS ARE ABOVE
Before concluding this little foray into the links of children's literature, it must be said once again that we can always learn from children because all of us, in one way or another, carry a child inside us even though we have generally forgotten it.
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