That some of the management schools have turned to Shakespeare for learning is no longer news. Our own desi institutes, have been doing this lately as reported some weeks ago in the Economic Times. The bards and stories make good reading and are readymade role-play material that can keep interest levels high and make a deep impression on the mind. Harold Bloom, the literary critic has been quoted in the HBR as having said, "I believe that literature does have a fundamental truth to teach in regard to change……by reading great imaginative literature, you can prepare yourself for surprise and even get a kind of strength that welcomes and exploits the unexpected".

The bard has reportedly moved into the boardroom in the West as reflected in the eye-catching title of The Business Week in 1998 - " The Bard As Business Guru". Kenneth Adelman and his wife Carol have been in the news for carrying bard to top management training - Adelman, a former US Ambassador to UN and an arms control negotiator, found Shakespeare as an effective training resource. Training and development firms have been gradually integrating Shakespeare into their training programs using "Henry V" for leadership and ethics; "Taming of the Shrew" for change management; "Julius Caesar" for corporate succession; "Merchant of Venice" for risk assessment and conflict resolution and "Hamlet" for crisis management. (This should be a good lead for entrepreneurial trainers to look closely at the Mahabharata and Panchatantra for courseware).

Management and the theatre have had a good connection for decades. All graduate and post-graduate programs related to the Theatre carry management modules. The premise has been that management principles and skills will enable the students to handle the stage, theatre and directorial responsibilities effectively. The reverse, i.e., the theatre in management courses, has been recent and understandably created the "man biting dog" effect on the media. Is there a third type of learning flow that we have missed? Possibly, yes.

Apart from some stray effort by devoted researchers, we have not looked closely at the conditions and practices in the theatre that keep the actors excited, motivated, delivering spirited performances repeatedly, and their implications for the industry. A project manager in a software company can possibly learn a lot from the theatre manager or a director than from the long duration general management programs taught by cynical academics with staid lectures and trite cliché.

It was about 25 years ago that I had come across an interesting experiment and a formal module in the U.K to teach managers from the theatre way. It was the combined effort of a couple one of whom was a play-write and the other a management professor. While Dr. Frank Kirkman taught at the universities of Manchester, Leeds and Hull, his wife Joyce was helping the theatre. I recall vividly the distinction he made for me in categorizing the linkages between the theatre and management. I gathered then that there is an obvious connectivity between the theatre courses and management science as theatre business can do with strategy, promotion, pricing, logistics, inventory controls, project management, financial management and the like.

He also told me that management courses could use the theatre courseware replete with scripts, costumes, swords, masks and wigs. This would possibly be less messy and more certain than the outbound training - there will be no mires and muddles or sudden bursts of wind and rain, or charging cheetahs or wild boars. The only care needed is to ensure that the swords are dummy and blunt, that the paints don't cause a rash, that the scripts are not mixed up lest a Rama behaves like a Ravana and vice versa and that there is no over-acting in romantic scenes lest there is a complaint of sexual harassment at unworkable places!

The third category appeared to be the missing Yeti. The learning that Frank was trying to propagate - of the lessons from the behavior of people in the theatre for managers in industry.

The theatre is a fascinating repository of human effort of a perfectly coordinating team to service clients in real time despite low levels of extrinsic rewards. The situation is probably the same in the case of a circus troupe, which has two additional features - the need to deal with dangerous animals and the risk of physical impairment or death in the course of some fetes. The orchestra is also of the same variety even if the cues and the effects are as subtle as the low notes and the twitching eye-brows - Henry Mintzberg had used the orchestra analogy well for strategic management.

The theatre director, like the other two, has a tough HR challenge. He has to go through hundreds of pages of dialogue and organise within a short time and find several human beings who will act and move on the lines dictated.

These people must wear the costumes provided, stinking or otherwise, and accept the script as a given. They have to move their hands, feet and make facial expressions, intricately along the lines and respond to the other cues from the actors on stage as well as those behind. Importantly, they have to put their heart and soul to bring about the necessary emotional content, which indeed is the heart of the theatre. The audience must get emotionally connected, cry, laugh and applaud.

The director should be able to pick up the right artist and get him/her to work hard and perform this intricate task. The director also needs to ensure that the dialogues scripted actually have a smooth flow. For, it is not the script that is important but the messages lying beneath the dialogue - of what the characters say, what it would mean to the audience as it is stated, as it moves, and as the play concludes. The director should organise and ensure that the designer, the technical staff and the entire infrastructure is ready for use. He also needs a back up for each one of the roles, should somebody not turn up at the very last moment. The contingency must have additional dialogues in mind and must be able to play the others` role at a very short notice.

In the world of circus, contingency planning takes the form of a joker. He does silly things and acts a fool, a stupid, a moron and a lightweight. These jokers are probably the most talented and versatile - often, they can perform several roles depending on the need, apart from the most captivating and nerve-relaxing role of the joker. Mera naam may be joker but mera kaam is as masked as my painted face!

The director, the stage supervisor, the circus manager, the orchestra conductor may use Theory 'X, Theory 'Y', Theory 'Z' or their own concocted method. Most successful directors and conductors are bullies, coaches, friends, fathers, brothers, tyrants and doters, all in one day. They probably typify effective leadership to the ultimate, using contingent styles that would suit different demanding situations.

The director is, unlike his title, directing as well as empowering the individual artist to take initiative to improve on the delivery and movements for the best effect possible. Yet, the Director and his artistes are required to be slaves to the script, the characters and improve on it. They are not to go in search of their own egos or ego driven expressions. The director needs a good team of artistes and not a group of disconnected and withdrawn individuals. They may be at each other's throat or after each other's role and yet behave differently on stage - there can be no detraction, no inflexion in delivery or awkward movements.

Often, the director may have to make do with changing dimensions of the stage, colors and furniture. He may have to edit the script to match the physical infrastructure - lest there are references to a bunch of roses in the script while there are only lilies on the stage!

The director and each one of the members of the team, on stage and off stage, know that a wrong move can make the entire effort futile and make them look silly. It is the same as in the trapeze act in the circus. Imagine that the swing is released late from the other end even while the girl has left her support expecting the swing to reach her in time!

The theatre, orchestra and the circus are like a complex assembly line without hardware. Much coordination, contingency actions, competence and personal emotions are involved to bring out a "product" that "delights the customers". The product, as in the case of all service industry, cannot be stored. The defects cannot be rectified easily or replaced. The people consume the product in real time and often the product under goes real time change in the script or delivery depending on dramatic changes in conditions. The audience may applaud with their feet or with their hands depending on the quality. They may throw stones, tomatoes or rotten eggs or else they may come in droves again and again for the same show. The troupe can keep the consumers under a magic spell holding their breath or fidgeting in the seats and boo.

The troupe values this feedback most as it validates their individual and collective efforts for self-expression of competencies and self-belief. They also value the sharing and backslapping by peers, off-stage in the green rooms. The director's feed back comes last. He is required mainly to help in improvement through coaching, providing the solution arising from the feedback.

Those in the theatre, circus and orchestra are amongst the worst paid and yet with unique talents. In the West it is often not the socially deprived or under privileged who opt for a theatrical career. Some come from good middle class families and with university education. Only the real winners earn loads of money while the rest lead unknown lives. They all work and practice beyond set timings - off stage, on stage, awake or sleeping. They have shown that they can assume roles, deliver dialogues and show emotions, which are not extensions of their personality - the villain in the play actually is a very humane person! Remember Christopher Lee or Amjad Khan from the cinema?

Here lies a theoretical problem and issue for management research. Management literature has assumed that manager's personal values must match that of the organisations. People have been trained to look upon work as an extension of life. They keep moving from one organization to the other but keep their personal scripts largely intact, emanating from their own fixed competencies, values and cultures. Yet we need them to act the company scripts, deliver good dialogues, make good facial expressions, have good movements, make a coordinated team and take upon contingent roles that the company wants them to. Is the theatre model an appropriate one to learn from?

Frank Kirkman - he died on his birthday anniversary in 1996 - had concluded years ago "..…University graduates jostle for auditions with ex-dustbin men, public schoolboys with scourers from a Liverpool slum, shop girls with the daughters of judges. Their work, when they work, is physically, emotionally and mentally tiring, their pay, except at the top, scanty, their lodgings frequently unsavoury and their hours of work long. Withal there is no security and they are employed on average for 15 weeks per year. Despite this, the number of actors registered in Equity is several times larger than the most optimistic view of the correct size of the labour force. Despite the awful disadvantages there is something in the life, which appeals, in a way which industry does not. Scholars should find out what it is: industry should learn from the theatre and managers should learn to act." ("Why Managers Should Learn to Act" by Frank Kirkman in Management Education & Development, Vol.14, I, 1983).