SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said running a government is one of the most difficult management situations observing that the option of working with like-minded persons is limited.
Sangma who is Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Finance was addressing an audience comprising of students at NEHU during the inaugural programme of “shaping of young minds” on Friday where he shared his management mantra on running a government and a national party (NPP).
“Shaping of young minds” was organised by the All India Management Association (AIMA) and the Guwahati Management Association (GMA) was held at the NEHU multi-purpose convention hall.
Revealing his vulnerable side, he said, “I am in the government and I run a state. One of the most difficult management positions you can think of because you cannot even seem to choose the kind of people you want to work with. We have a set of people and we have to work with them.”
He added, “We have to identify the good and the bad qualities, quarantine the bad part and push the good part. Yet you have to run and manage and run an engine which is difficult to run sometimes.”
Encouraging the students, he said that there were certain principles that students must keep in their hearts while their passion and ideologies that will get them through. “There is no compromise to hard work,” he said.
According to Sangma, the youth forms the biggest challenge and the biggest resource and the energy of the youth are to be channelized in the right direction.
Nobody’s a boss: Conrad
Being from the Management background, he said the practical side of management would depend on the situation one is in as he found out that he could not apply the theories he learnt during his Management days as the situation is different.
Evincing the difficulty of being in governance, the CM said that the challenges in the government were to get a team to work together, and said, “In today’s world, nobody is a boss. Remember that we are part of a team.”
Stating that leaders are to accessible and approachable and their presence should percolate down to the grassroots, he informed that he has started the programme called, Block to block with a target to cover 46 blocks in the next two years that requires meeting the people and getting to know about the condition of the villages and frame policies accordingly.
“The situation was different, the technology available in the US and UK is not there in India, the kind of politicians and officials in US and UK were different from politicians in India,” he said.
He said that he was still an entrepreneur, because he is running a party which has become the 7th national party.