The `here and now' brand of managers flourished in the licence-permit raj. Even with the onset of globalisation, these managers have been slow to change.

They adopt defence mechanisms to keep their hegemony intact. It is perhaps because of such managers that many organisations in the industry are finding it difficult to manage change.

If the management itself adopts "here and now" strategies, managing change can be a miserable process, and the conglomerate can start cracking up.

J.K. Synthetics, for instance, diversified at rapid speed in the 1980s, and incurred huge debts; it could not manage change when economic reforms made the market very complex.

On the other hand, Chennai-based Murugappa group adopted a conservative, yet competitive strategy of consolidating on their core competencies, without incurring any debt, and emerged successful during the changing 1980s.

Only those that stuck to their knitting survived, others perished. One important strategy of changing the mind-set of `here and now' managers is to make them see the big picture.

They should be exposed to cost of raw material, cost of re-work, and such modern concepts as Total Productive Maintenance, TQM, and Six Sigma, so that they gain a perspective beyond immediate concerns of production.

They could be sent to specialised courses on finance conducted by institutions such as the Administrative Staff College of India, or the IIMs.

That will go a long way in helping them develop general management perspectives. Yet another strategy would be to depute them to best-in-class workshops and seminars conducted by organisations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry.

This is now being done to give exposure to managers to best practices in quality, human resources management, etc.

Of course, the CEO himself should constantly keep himself updated on various management concepts.

Organisations such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Steel, Wipro, Bajaj Auto Ltd, BHEL, and Grasim have been able to progress in their respective industries only because they have taken a long-term perspective of their core competencies and re-worked their strategies for effectively managing change.

Managing `here and now' managers and minimising their negative influences is a task in itself.

In spite of sincere management efforts, if they do not change, they should be shown the door. Shape up or ship out is one mantra that is more relevant today than ever before.

(The author is Deputy Manager, HRD, foundry division, Brakes India Ltd., Sholinghur.)

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