Rejection Management

Prof. A N Sadhu
Management is key to handling difficult situations, be at the individual level or at collective level. The strength of management can only be gauged when a complex or an extremely difficult situation is confronted and handled competently to overcome the adverse impacts that would otherwise have been very damaging. Management plays a pivotal role in all spheres of life and in today’s world it is essential to learn the lessons of management and use these skillfully in different situations. Management education did evolve out of corporate concerns but it slowly pervaded in other areas as a kit of skills and tools to transform a given situation into an advantage, not necessarily monetary in every case. The world is now familiar with the concept of stress management which also emerged out of the monopoly and exhaustion of business activities, although it is now universal in all activities, corporate, administration and other tertiary fields. Researchers overtime have successfully developed the techniques to deal with stress management. The need, now has arisen to deal with the Rejection management.
It is likely that individuals, groups, organizations and political parties face rejection at different times and in different situations. Normally rejection is hard to cope with while acceptance gives a sense of achievement as also the pride of competently handling a situation to one’s advantage. Acceptance is a victory for everyone in the group or an organization or a political party- howsoever closely or remotely one is associated with the effort but, on the contrary, the rejection gets attributed to the main architects of the plan and its executors and they find it hard to manage such a situation. The rejection implies refusal of a proposal, non acceptance of a plan or a manifesto, turning down a suggestion or an opinion or rebutting the arguments or an agenda of action.
Faced with a situation or rejection, one needs to sit back, composed and cool, and try to understand and analyse the reasons of rejection while accepting it boldly. The lessons drawn from a state of rejection can help building pillars for meeting with a state of acceptance subsequently.
Rejection is a failure and acceptance a success and both warrant the management to build safeguards against the future pitfalls. Normally rejection generates fear and anger which may at times result into violence. Understanding rejection requires self introspection and an acknowledgement of shortcomings in oneself, or the group or the organization as also the carelessness of not correcting the distortions in time. Many a times, political parties wrongly pivot their strengths either because of a misconstrued feed back or because of the belief that their bluff has worked with the electorate. The rejection of the party in such a situation is because of their own follies but many a time rejection may also result because of a disconnect or lack of adequate effort to pass on the right message. In any case rejection is painful and it does cause stress which needs to be managed.
The Rejection Management requires the analysis of all those factors which cause rejection. These factors involve e, (a) psychology-personal, group or organizational, (b) Ego, (c) False image, (d) Provocation and (e) Depravation
Psychological impulses plays a significant role in decision making. The synchronized psychological impact on the collective level can turn the tide against an established party or an arrangement much to the surprise of the organizers. It happened when India shining campaign failed in 2004 and it also happened in 2014 when ” Sub Ka Saath Sub Ka Vikas” succeeded. Emotions do play a role. Rejection at the individual level may be the outcome of a parson’s ego; though devoid of rationality, it still happens. False image leads to deceptive perception which results into complacency and eventual rejection much to the agony of persons living on fake image. Provocation makes rationality a causality and lands the individuals and groups into losing a situation which otherwise could probably have been retrieved. Depravation is a state of helpness and gets revealed silently in decision making which may send shock waves across, to a very agonizing surprise to those who remain insensitive to people’s concerns. The management of rejection, therefore, demands a serious thought of all the factors enumerated above. Weakness of not managing the rejection causes perennial damage and distances one from the state of acceptance. Relevance of rejection management, both, at the individual level as also at the collective level manifests itself when rejection persists, instead of strenuous efforts to overcome it. The problem arises when those who for historical factors and factors, not in their command meet with accidental acceptance more often than it should have happened, forget that to remain in a state of acceptance demands the sensitivity towards public perceptions and rival’s strategies to exploit those to their advantage.
The Congress party is an instance at hand explaining clearly its failure to manage the rejection it faced at the husting in 2014. You don’t win the hearts of masses by overplaying the negatives of the ruling party; instead of selling your strengths both, historical and contemporary. Not remaining composed and evolving a convincing strategy to win the confidence of the masses, further exposed the party in so far as statesmanship and maturity of leadership is concerned. The other opponents exhibited their intolerance by “Award Wapsi” and beating of the ” hindutva” slogan too hard. They exposed their secular stances, the wrong way by refusing to side with the ruling party to bring the much needed reforms. The BJP is not an exception. It failed to manage rejection of its formula 44 in J&K and entered into an unnatural alliance to its utter disadvantage. During the alliance Government, the state witnessed neither the governance nor the development. The alliance crumbled under its won weight. The NC showed a better temperament to deal with its rejection after the previous elections.
The BJP has to be careful for 2019 elections. People have watched them for four years and they can’t take them for a ride. The doctrine of change gave them a chance and it is doctrine of real development alone that will give them another chance. They better enunciate it explicitly with reference to employment opportunities controlling price rise and improving quality of life.
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