A manager by any other name smells as sweet

Management cuts across thousands of industries and means different things to different people. PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK

By CAROL MUSYOKA
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A profession is defined as a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a

formal qualification. It may be tempting to refer to the fact that the world’s “oldest profession” does not necessarily require prolonged training or formal qualifications, but it is telling that the traditionally long defined professions such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and accountants do.

Handling critical client issues from health to litigation to structural soundness of infrastructure to finances are simple examples of why these examples require oversight, standardisation and adherence to professional ethics.

And then there are managers. Thus imagine my bemusement when the “Certified Managers Bill, 2021” landed in my inbox for perusal.

The purpose of the Bill is “to establish the Institute of Certified Managers and to provide for a legal framework for the registration and regulation of the standards and practice of the profession.” You need to pull up a chair for this one!

In summary, the sponsors of the Bill were inspired to put together this draft so that anyone who is a manager should ideally aspire to standards and be regulated by the entity called the Institute of Certified Managers (ICM). Under section 5 of the proposed Bill, the function of ICM is to develop and regulate the management profession.

Yes, just like the accountants have the Accountants Act, the lawyers have the Advocates Act, and medical practitioners have the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act, the sponsors of the Bill have seen the burning platform that has been created by the dearth of a regulatory authority and framework for anyone titled ‘manager’ in this country.

The same section gives the role of ICM as to establish, monitor and publish standards of professional competence, practice and experience in the practice of management.

Further down the Bill, if you’re so inclined to traverse this interesting piece of legislation, section 20 creates an examination board to conduct exams and prepare syllabi for professional exams in managerial practice while section 29 establishes a Certified Managers Registration Committee whose purpose is to consider and approve applications for registration as a Certified Manager.

The final point of note that I want to highlight is section 37, which elegantly articulates how one can be removed from the register as a Certified Manager.

I’m sure you’re catching the drift by now. Essentially, just like the accountants, the lawyers and the medical practitioners, the sponsors of the Bill now wish for “managers” to be certified. Anyango, who runs a kiosk downstairs across from my office, has hired Achieng’, her daughter, to be the “manager” of the establishment. Does Achieng’ need to be a Certified Manager in order to get her job done?

The KFC fast food restaurant on Kimathi Street has a branch manager in charge of the branch. Does he or she require to be a Certified Manager, in order to practice in the profession of “management” and to get the job done?

Safaricom

, which must be the biggest company in East Africa in terms of market capitalisation and revenue, has a managing director. Does he have to be a Certified Manager, in order to practice his profession of “managing” this telecoms behemoth?

What about the managing director of Kenya Railways? Or anyone with the title of manager in the civil service? I had so many questions as I read this Bill, particularly around what mischief the Bill’s sponsors were trying to cure here.

But the more interesting observation is that the Bill’s drafters were rather untidy in their excitement to take it to press.

Section 9 of the Bill requires that the Chairperson of ICM must have been a member of ICM for not less than five years. Section 10 of the same Bill requires that the Executive Director of ICM must be a registered Certified Manager. Yet there are no transition clauses contained in the Bill which would in effect ensure that the initial Chairperson and Executive Director qualify for the role regardless of the requirement for them to have qualifications emerging from an entity that does not exist in the first place!

The private sector, just like nature, abhors a vacuum. In my early banking days, my employer called junior staff “officers” to ensure that they fell outside the remit of the banking union mandatory membership of clerical staff. Hence my first job title was a “relationship officer” because, well, I could be called anything under the sun as what mattered was whether I got the job done.

Private companies will simply change the name of managers if this Bill comes to stupefyingly pass. It beggars belief that someone can purport to regulate a profession as amorphous as that of management which cuts across thousands of industries and means different things to different people.

The good news is the sponsors of the Bill have to “manage” to get a chairperson and executive director first. Based on how the Bill is drafted — and please forgive my atrocious but irresistible pun — that is definitely going to be hard to “manage”.

carol.musyoka@gmail.com. Twitter: @carolmusyoka