Management Case Studies

Bribe Me

2011-12-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Bribe Me

The chief engineer Alan Abraham had been waiting outside the office of the minister, now almost for over two hours.

The energy minister was his boss's boss. Normally his boss, the managing director would call on the minister in connection with the business of his organization. His organization was a state owned company. It was responsible for producing and distributing electricity (power) to the state. However, as the managing director was retiring and was on a long vacation prior to his retirement, Alan Abraham was acting in his place. Chief engineer was the senior most officer on the board after the managing director.

The energy minister Chunni Bhai was the supreme boss of all the power generating and distribution companies run by the government. He was awarded this technology portfolio because he was the only engineer among all the ministers of the government and that too an electrical engineer . It was another matter that he took some ten years instead of the regular four to graduate from the university. The university authorities got so fed up with his long stay with the university that finally they pushed him out as a successful engineer with the minimum pass marks. Rumor has it that even today he cannot tell you the difference between voltage, current and resistance or between a generator and a motor.

He had already started his political career as his engineering college's student union's president at a very young age. Soon he jumped into active politics of the country after his farewell from the university. So in a way he was a veteran politician and a dim-witted individual. Current democratic processes easily welcomed such people in the country's parliament.

Many of the senior students, his own class-mates and even the juniors of his university had joined the state owned companies. Most of them were merit holders and brilliant engineers but they were his assistants now. And he used to take hell of a lot of pride and pleasure in treating them like pet dogs. He would give them appointment for meetings with him and then make them wait for hours outside his cabin. The chief engineer Alan Abraham was no exception.

When the energy minister was sure that he had made Alan Abraham wait for sufficient amount of time, he told his secretary on the intercom, "Send the Chief Engineer in." Alan Abraham entered the minister's cabin but Chunni Bhai did not offer him a seat. He liked his senior executives to stand while he sat.

Alan Abraham said, "You called me?"

Chunni Bhai affirmed using his grunt and body language. After a long pause he asked, "Abraham, do you remember how you had refused me to copy your answer sheets in the university examination? Now the time has come to refuse you the promotion you are entitled to. You are the senior most officer in the company and are the natural successor to the post of managing director. But I can stop it. Yet, let me tell you, I am not the one like you."

Alan Abraham had worked all these years with the hope of becoming the managing director of the organization one day. He had even told his wife, "Now that managing director is retiring and I am the next in line, I will get that post as a matter of routine. We will soon celebrate our promotion." He did not want any hurdle in his impending promotion. He did not wish to argue and annoy Chunni Bhai. Chunni Bhai had the formal powers to sign his promotion letter. So he played submissively and did not react.

Chunni Bhai easily won his first point over his intelligent and smart chief engineer. He then went on to his second move, "You see I am the king maker now. And I want to see you directly reporting to me as my subordinate. You can be my next managing director despite your nasty behavior with me in the college days. All you have to do is to pay me 5 crore rupees (one million dollars). My party needs the money for elections. Some money will flow to my party chief's family. Of course I will keep some for my family too."

Alan Abraham was stunned to hear this. Though he had heard from various sources that some ministers traded the promotions and transfers of the executives under them, he never could imagine the blatant way in which it was actually done. So far it was all hearsay, but today he was experiencing it. He thought to himself, "So what I had heard was true."

He opened his mouth after a long silence, "How can I ever collect such a huge sum of money? My entire life's savings are no where near this amount. And why should I pay? I am the senior most person in the organization and as per the rules I am entitled for the post of the managing director. You signature can only be a formality. Don't you think you can do it easily without the money?"

Chunni Bhai laughed loudly as if he was highly amused by the chief engineer's statements. He spoke with a hint of ridicule, "Oh, you are one of those few puritan types. I have heard about your clean image. So what I heard is true. Yet, my guess was you already might have amassed crores of rupees by now. After all you had been holding a higher post for quite sometime now; it was very easy for you. There is ample scope for earning the 'under the table money' in your setup. Every Tom, Dick and Harry is minting, god knows how much, money. But do not worry. I will make you the managing director and in your tenure of three years on this post you can still make tons of money. Only don't get caught while making the extra buck. I normally allow full freedom to officers at your level. All I expect is the initial fee and then the occasional demands I will make on you from time to time. That's all."

Alan Abraham could not believe what he heard. He was literally frozen. He was in no position to utter a word.

The minister sensed Alan Abraham's hesitation and so counseled him, "Well, I give you a week's time. We have to fill in managing director's position soon; its overdue already. So, bring in 5 crore rupees and I will issue your appointment letter. You are the senior most officer and I will prefer giving the post to you because it will not involve any twisting of the rules. But if you are unwilling to toe the line, I will appoint your colleague Das Babu as the next managing director. I had heard already about your clean image and therefore, I have already conferred with Das Babu in anticipation of your refusal to my proposal. Das Babu has accepted my proposal in toto. Das Babu is quite an understanding type and a willing horse. A clean gentleman. I like him."

A week later every employee of the electricity generation and distribution company read the circular letter issued by the office of Chunni Bhai (the energy minister) with the following contents:

"Mr Alan Abraham, Chief Engineer, who has not been keeping good health for quite some time has proceeded on a long medical leave prior to his retirement from the Company. In view of this, Mr Das Babu, Additional Chief Engineer is being appointed as the Managing Director of the Company. All the employees of the organization are requested to extend their full support and cooperation to Mr Das Babu."

If you are interested in "Training Games", refer: http://training-games.blogspot.com/

The Super Mart

2010-07-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

The print of case studies/management anecdotes in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

You can order the same book online titled as "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" in print format and also as an eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sensitive+stories+of+corporate+world&x=10&y=23

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Super Manufacturing Inc, abbreviated as SM, is a very huge organization by any standards. In its one and only factory, it employs more than 25000 employees under one roof. The company is a seat of tradition and culture since it has already existed for more than 80 years. Not only it embraces all kinds of manufacturing activities, it also envelops within it various other colorful human transactions. The large employee strength of 25000 people produces a very conducive environment for these colorful human exchanges. And for that reason, the insiders- its employees call it as SM- full form being Super Mart.

An early morning exchange of dialogues between the husband and wife at many homes of the employees of SM is typical representation of one of the several human transactions that take place within the premises of SM- the Super Mart. Here is an example:

Wife says to husband (employee of SM), “I am making pan cakes for the breakfast today. Today’s item in the menu of the breakfast of your factory cafeteria is all rubbish, you were telling. And they make it no good.”

Husband replies, “Do not take the trouble. Today my friend who runs his own regular and private breakfast counter for the first fifteen minutes at the start of the shift is introducing a new item- the north Indian samosa. It is a spicy delicacy. He promised all of his regulars that samosas made by his wife are brilliant. I overheard it and I am going to patronize him today. So, skip the pan cake, I will relish the yummy samosas and I promise to get couple of them packed for you too.”

Wife comments, “Hey, you are a darling. And I must say that you do have talents in your factory. Great. Do give them enough business so that they keep making and selling such wonderful eats in the factory.”

Now, let us turn to one of the scenarios within the factory:

A senior manager has to surprise his better half on her birthday which he had forgotten about totally till this afternoon. For past few years, after being together in the wedlock for more than 25 years, this senior manager often forgets his wife’s birthday. But since one of his younger assistants wants to go home early today to celebrate his second marriage anniversary, this senior manager remembers about his own wife’s birthday. So, he wants to surprise his wife by presenting her a gift.

He dials a number on his office intercom and speaks to Peter. Peter is the master craftsman on one of the shop floors of the factory who sells various dress materials to the employees of the factory including the managers. Subbaramani is Peter’s regular customer and calls him directly only when he is need of the wares sold by Peter. He asks, “Peter, is that you?”

Peter asks, “Is that Subbaramani sir? Good afternoon sir. Sir, why did you take the troubles to ring me? I myself was about to telephone you to give you the good news that the new stock of dress materials has arrived. Will you come to my department please to have a look at them? I have all of them in my cupboard. Sir, please hurry up before the fresh stock gets sold out- there is a big demand in the factory.”

And then, without any further delay, Subbaramani walks to Peter’s department and buys an expensive piece of dress material as a gift to his wife to surprise her.

Here is one more scene from the premises of the factory:

The general manager of production department is one of the busiest senior executives. He spends some 15 to 16 hours of his day in the factory on the production shop floors. Some employees gossip, “His wife is not all that attractive, that’s why.” So this general manager does not find time even to file his income tax returns.

But he is not much worried. Exactly before 15 days of the last date for filing the income tax returns, one of his able assistants who carries out a side business of filing income tax returns of all the senior managers of the factory comes to his office and does that job for him. The general manager willingly pays him the professional fee as demanded by him.”

This able assistant of the general manager does not encroach the territory of other two employees of the factory working in some other technical departments. As far as their private business in the factory is concerned, they also act as income tax return specialists but who specialize in filling the income tax return forms for junior managers and workers respectively. The three have a good understanding among themselves and have demarcated their areas of operation quite well.

While some of these employees of SM turned part time businessmen within SM charge for providing their expert services at the door step, the chief of quality assurance department, quite senior in age, does it free of charge as a fatherly gesture and as a philanthropist. He is an avid student of astrology, horoscopes and palmistry. Every day, at the beginning of the day, he calls his test pilot over the phone and warns him about the inauspicious time slot of the day during which the pilot should not undertake the test flight of the small and light passenger aircraft the factory produces (aircraft is one of the several products the factory produces). The test pilot abides it truthfully.

Some of these intrapreneurs (internal entrepreneurs) have seasonal business loads. For example, Raj- the personal secretary of head of human resources department- takes the bookings for renting out the seven taxi cars of different descriptions he owns. He uses the factory’s intercom system without any hesitation to take these bookings from the other employees of the factory. His own boss also hires his cars when needed. Raj is extremely busy scheduling his seven cars on various holiday tours particularly during the summer months.

He receives a call from one of the employees of the factory, “Raj, is your air-conditioned luxury car available for a week from 15th April? I am going on a holiday with my wife and kids and this time I want to give them a real luxurious treat. So I want only that car.”

Raj replies, “Just give me a sec. Let me check the allotment of cars on the spread sheet.” (Raj uses factory’s computer for this purpose). After checking, he resumes, “I must say, you are lucky. That car will be back from another trip on 14th April late evening. No problems. So, I am taking your confirmed booking. Enjoy the holidays, buddy.”

Then there are employees who are life, vehicle, property and health insurance agents. They have a ready captive customer base of 25000+ people right inside the factory premises. Barring a few, all the employees have bought one or the other insurance policy from them. Good show.

Recently a management consultant was contracted by the management of the company to study the human resources practices being followed in the company and to suggest further improvement measures.

The consultant studied the things pretty thoroughly observing various aspects of human resources in the factory. Apart from using his usual management models and techniques, he also used his innate wisdom of a detective for carrying out in-depth and confidential investigations in certain areas which he perceived as extraordinary areas after completing his study. These areas particularly belonged to the areas of operation described earlier. And he said to himself, “Aha, eureka!! Now I do have some stuff to impress my client.”

Then he was ready to make his interim presentation of findings and recommendations to the executive director in charge of the entire factory operations. The executive director was a veteran of the organization.

He met the executive director and told him, “I have some very startling and disturbing facts to share with you in the matters of certain extraordinary activities being carried out by many of your employees which are of extraneous nature in relation to their specified duties and responsibilities within the organization.”

The executive director retorted, “What do you mean by that? Can you put it to me in simpler and direct terms?”

The consultant answered, “What I mean to say is that many of your employees secretly run their private businesses within the factory premises. Not only the workers but even the managers are patronizing these activities. The organization is losing a large number of man hours because of this apart from the indiscipline it has brought inside the factory. You may like to take a serious view of it. I have some very specific recommendations for tackling this problem. I will like to present them to you now.”

The executive director himself had been the beneficiary of these extraneous activities of his various employees. And every time he used those services, he had felt relieved, relaxed and comfortable. And he thought quickly to himself, “Come to think of it, has all of this behavior of my employees adversely affected the bottom line of my company? Certainly not.” So, he had a hearty laugh within his own mind. That could not have been seen by the consultant.

Apparently, the executive director was composed and in a pensive mood said, “Skip that for now. Do you have any other things to share with me? Then please go on with the rest of your presentation. I will be more interested in them.”

The consultant remained puzzled and stunned over the super cool behavior and reactions of the executive director on the revelations which he had just made and which he thought were like bomb shells.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

The Perfect Recruit

2010-07-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

The print of case studies/management anecdotes in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

You can order the same book online titled as "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" in print format and also as an eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sensitive+stories+of+corporate+world&x=10&y=23

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Keshav Tharur was quite upbeat this morning. He was humming and whistling the tunes of his favorite songs all the morning and was utterly jubilant. This did not go un-noticed by his wife.

For past few weeks Tharur was quite downtrodden and downcast. His wife had noticed that also. So, she was a quite surprised at the dramatic change of mood of her husband. His wife knew about why her husband was upset for the past few weeks. Keshav Tharur had told the reason himself to his wife. Wife was quite an understanding type of woman. She appreciated Keshav Tharur’s view point in getting upset after his recent transfer from his original department to the new department. It was a matter of loss of identity and substantial earnings for her husband. While she was not particularly concerned about the possible loss of identity of her husband, she surely did worry about the loss of earnings.

It was not a case of transfer from one department of the factory to other department on demotion resulting in loss of salary or designation or grade. But, after Tharur was transferred from civil engineering department of the biggest factory of High Tech Specialty Products Limited (HTPSL) to its internal audit department, he was quite worried whether it would adversely affect his established practice of palmistry and horoscope reading. His clients for palmistry and horoscope consultations ranged from the workers and supervisors to middle and senior managers of the HTPSL’s biggest factory employing more than 10,000 employees. And he used to carry out this practice from his cubicle (his office) in the factory. With 10,000 employees in the factory, he had a very large captive client base. And he was doing it for nearly more than fifteen years now.

Tharur was a well qualified civil engineer and had pretty good experience in palmistry and horoscope reading and much less in civil engineering. Now, you will definitely ask a question, “If Tharur is a well qualified civil engineer, how come he has more experience in anything other than civil engineering and particularly in something like palmistry and horoscopes that has no connection with civil engineering?” For that we will have to trace back the history.

Tharur was recruited in the company from a fairly reputed engineering college campus through a campus recruitment procedure. On his curriculum vitae, Tharur had proclaimed his grasp over palmistry and horoscopes in the “hobbies and interest” section of his bio-data form.

The chairman of the recruitment committee and head of the civil engineering department of the largest unit of HTPSL, Shankit Sarma was a god fearing man and used to take every step of his personal, family and professional life based on the predictions based on palmistry and horoscopes. For that, he was constantly in touch of a palmist here and a horoscope specialist there and that was a quite a drain on his pocket since these professional palmists and horoscope experts would charge pretty good amount as their professional fees.

When he read on the resume of Keshav Tharur that he was quite adept at palmistry and horoscopes, it injected a kind of respect in the heart of Shankit Sarma towards this boy Tharur. He manipulated in his mind, “If Keshav Tharur was worth his salt in palmistry and horoscopes, I will recruit him and that will save me the trouble of going to other palmists and horoscope readers and more than that I will save the drain of lots of money that I spend in hiring them. Tharur will be at my beck and call being my assistant and I will not have to pay him (after all salary paid by HTPSL to Tharur will be quite decent).”

Other than Shankit Sarma, the recruitment committee consisted of one technical expert and one HR expert, both junior to Shankit Sarma in status. Shankit Sarma had almost decided to select Tharur and since he was senior to the other two members of the interview committee, he was confident of bulldozing them in case they objected to the selection of Keshav Tharur on technical grounds. But before all that he wanted to be sure of the expertise of Tharur in palmistry and horoscopes and so he asked the engineering college’s placement office to send Tharur to his room in the guesthouse of the college where he was staying. He thought that he would not get a chance to ask many questions pertaining to palmistry and horoscopes during the interview in presence of his two junior colleagues- it would not look nice.

And Shankit Sarma was privately and confidentially interviewing Keshav Tharur in his room that evening on palmistry and horoscopes. During the course of the interview, Tharur took the palm of Sarma in his hand and asked Sarma to keep silence. Tharur had brought with him a magnifying glass which he used to read Sarma’s palm. Then examining his palm from various angles and after brooding over it for a considerable period (during which Sarma got very anxious), Tharur gave a broad smile.

Sarma was quite jittery. He said, “Tell me Tharur, what you saw in my palm? Is it something that I should worry about?”

Tharur felt that he had an upper hand over Sarma in this interview, “No sir. Nothing to worry about at all. It says that you will recruit a bright engineer as your assistant shortly and you will get a promotion soon. However, the two events seem to reflect on each other. Sir, please do inform me about your promotion as soon as you get it so that I will get some confidence in my prediction capabilities.”

Shankit Sarma was pleased with himself as well as with Keshav Tharur.

Next day the interview committee interviewed several candidates from the engineering college campus who could answer the technical questions far better than Keshav Tharur. But Sarma was sure that he must recruit Keshav Tharur since his own promotion depended on it- after all Tharur had predicted that. As per the prediction made by Tharur, the two events were interdependent- only if he recruited Tharur, he had a chance of getting promoted. And also, he wanted a palmist and horoscope consultant on 24 X 7 basis free of cost.

Sarma’s two junior colleagues in the interview committee showed some initial resistance in the selection of Keshav Tharur but finally yielded to Shankit Sarma. They thought, “After all its Sarma’s funeral if he wanted to select a duffer like Keshav Tharur. How does it matter to us?”

Sarma selected Tharur provisionally to satisfy his other interview committee members because of their initial objections. He thought that he should not be seen as favoring some particular person. However, his real reason for the selection to be kept as provisional was different and only known to himself. He thought to himself, “I would firm up Tharur’s selection only if his prediction about my promotion comes true.”

And as luck would have it, the much awaited promotion came to Sarma (Sarma had missed this promotion on last two occasions). Sarma’s respect for the boy Tharur took a high jump and he signed Tharur’s appointment letter.

Since then, Tharur has been using his cubicle (his office) in the biggest factory of HTPSL to practice palmistry and horoscopes with a prospective captive client base of more than 10,000 people.

Initially Sarma used Tharur’s expertise of predictions based on palmistry and horoscopes solely for himself and his family members but soon he thought of favoring his two immediate bosses (for obvious reasons). He mentioned to them about the Tharur’s gifted talent in palmistry and horoscopes and then they invited Tharur through Sarma to their cabins from time to time for palm and horoscope reading and consultations.

And all of us are aware that word of mouth publicity spreads like wild fire. In a very secretive manner, the numbers of managers consulting Tharur went up astronomically. Sarma took a lot of credit for this phenomenon. People who knew about Tharur being Sarma’s find, were grateful to him to install a palmist and horoscope consultant within the very premises of the organization who charged very reasonable consultation fee. And this whole business was conducted during the office hours. They did not have to use their personal and private time for this.

A few weeks ago, Shankit Sarma retired from the services of the company. A new boss, Prashna Prakhar took over. He was a no nonsense boss, a hard task master and a rationalist. He was intelligent and soon found that Keshav Tharur was the most popular person among many of the top bosses of the organization though he was almost a zero in civil engineering work. He hardly found Tharur on his seat in the cubicle. Most of the time he was on his prediction consultation rounds throughout the factory. If at all he was found on his seat in his cubicle, he was always consulting with one of his clients.

For quite a few days, Prashna Prakhar just could not make out as to what to do with Keshav Tharur. Keshav Tharur was not only not doing anything worthwhile for his department; he had even spoiled the work discipline of the entire department. Other members of civil engineering department had started whiling away their time too taking clue from the honorary treatment Keshav Tharur was enjoying in the organization for doing nothing. Prashna Prakhar wanted to get rid of Keshav Tharur from his department.

And the right occasion came up. The internal audit department wanted to speedily fill up a position of an experienced civil engineering expert who could perform pre-audit of all the construction activities of the company. Lots of scams were uncovered lately by the external auditors of the company in the construction activities undertaken in the organization and so, they had recommended a tight internal control by way of having an internal civil engineering auditor to prevent such scams in the future.

Due to embargo in recruitment from external sources, it was necessary to find out an able person to fill up this position from internal resources. The civil engineering department was the obvious hunting ground. Prashna Prakhar wasted not even a day and recommended Keshav Tharur’s name. Since Tharur was in the good books of many of the important senior members of the factory’s local management team (due to excellent palmistry and horoscope services provided by him), they seconded Prashna Prakhar’s recommendation for Keshav Tharur’s transfer to the internal audit department on promotion.

Though it is a normal sentiment of ordinary human beings to rejoice over a promotion in the organization, Keshav Tharur proved to be an exception. He did not look at the promotion part seriously but he looked at the transfer part seriously and became very sad. He was getting transferred on promotion to a department called internal audit department which was outside the ambit of the factory’s local management. This department was called the head office department or corporate department and its head of the department used to report directly to the CEO of the company in the corporate office. And these gentlemen and ladies of the corporate departments were least aware of the exciting talents of Keshav Tharur. Plus, his existing clients in the factory would be very apprehensive in contacting a corporate official, that too from the internal audit department for consultations in palmistry and horoscope reading. Thus the whole clientele of Keshav Tharur crumbled right in front of him due to this transfer and equally bad, he lost his total identity.

And after being barely a week in the new head office department, yesterday evening, he got a call from the private confidential secretary of the CEO of the company. Tharur was quite nervous to start with as he listened to the voice of the confidential secretary of the CEO over the phone. After all, private confidential secretaries are almost treated on par with the CEOs in most of the companies.

She said, “Is that Tharur I am speaking with?”

Tharur said, “Yes madam.”

She said, “I understand that you have recently been appointed as the civil engineering auditor. The boss (CEO) will like to brief you personally. As you are aware, you are now holding a critical position and you should not let down the boss in front of the external auditors. So come prepared. I am telling your head of the department to depute you to the corporate office for a couple of days. It will be your first official visit to the corporate office.”

Tharur said, “OK madam, I will be there.” And before he could complete his sentence the phone connection was snap cut from the other end.

Even before Tharur could settle down, the telephone rang again. He lifted the receiver. It was the personal confidential secretary again. This time she was reasonably polite and sweet, “Hey Tharur, I understand from a friend of mine working in the factory site that you are a palmist and a horoscope reader. So when you come here for the meeting with the boss (CEO), please bring along with you all your horoscope charts and your lap top with the necessary horoscope software. I have recommended your name to the boss who was looking out for a horoscope specialist in the city. He is getting his daughter married and he wants to match her horoscope with the possible bride groom. I told him that you are the new recruit in the audit department and you are pretty good at horoscope matching etc and that you have already made an impression on the factory’s managers. Boss was happy and expressed that a known devil from inside the company is always better than outsider particularly for such a critical business. So come prepared to spend an extra day with the boss. And promise, you will not let me down in the eyes of the boss. And you must keep some time aside to read my palm too, but free of any charge- I am already telling you.”

And before Tharur could complete his sentence, “Thank you madam, I will not let you down and I will……..”, the other side snap cut the telephone connection.

So, this morning Keshav Tharur was humming and whistling the tunes of his favorite songs not for no reason. He had a solid reason. He was once again reinstated on his prestigious seat of power; no less than the CEO of the company had sponsored him. He did not tell about it to his wife yet. He decided to surprise his wife with this great news after the mission was completed successfully and he was home from his corporate office sojourn.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

How to Win the Title “Business and Industry Icon of the Decade”?

2010-06-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

The print of case studies/management anecdotes in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

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For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

With the help of Lalu Chaplus, Tivra Utkarsh, the rapidly rising industrialist, had scaled great heights in the business and industrial world.

But it was public knowledge that Lalu Chaplus used to use all the possible unconventional methods bordering on unethical or even illegal practices and they were mainly responsible of his boss Tivra Utkarsh’s phenomenal rise. However, it had been quite impossible for anyone to prove that Lalu Chaplus (and so, Tivra Utkarsh) were using really any unethical or illegal practices. Tivra Utkarsh’s company Soaring Heights had hired the top notch law pundits to make sure to utilize the grey areas of the law so that the methods adopted by Lalu Chaplus always fell into these grey areas and could not be proven as unethical or illegal. And in turn, they brought maximum gains for the company the easy way and in turn to Tivra Utkarsh (and so, to Lalu Chaplus) without being caught by the laws of the land.

The execution was always done by Lalu Chaplus and Tivra Utkarsh was always kept in the background by Lalu. Lalu always made sure that his boss was well protected from the law and projected as Mr Clean. So Utkarsh depended on Lalu fully. This way Lalu became the right hand as well as the left hand man of the industrialist Tivra Utkarsh for which he was being compensated more than sumptuously. Also due to this kind of proximity with the top most boss, Lalu became one of the most feared top level executives and all the people in the organization had to obey him if they wanted to safeguard their jobs. They dared not question the righteousness or otherwise of the diktats of Lalu. His orders were the last words in the company.
Despite becoming stinking rich, Tivra Utkarsh could not get the respectability either within the industry, business and political circles or with the general public. Lalu Chaplus assisted him in buying the respectability he craved for by some means or the other but so far the efforts had dismally failed. So while Tivra Utkarsh amassed tons of money, he just could not buy or earn the respect of the society.

Then one fine morning, an announcement of Business Universe- a prestigious world class business magazine attracted the attention of Lalu Chaplus. In essence, it read like this, “Business Universe wishes to choose the business and industry icon of the decade based on the public opinion of the entire world’s population. Each person can cast only one vote. Multiple entries by one voter will become invalid. The candidate receiving the highest number of votes will be chosen as the business and industry icon of the decade.” He brought this news item to the notice of Tivra Utkarsh.

On request of Lalu Chaplus, that evening Tivra Utkarsh and Lalu Chaplus had a secret meeting in the confidential sound proof home office of Utkarsh.

Utkarsh asked Lalu, “What was the meaning of showing the announcement of Business Universe magazine?”

Lalu replied, “Mr Utkarsh, today you are one of the top twenty richest people and businessmen on the earth. I wish to see you emerge as the business and industry icon of the decade. So far we have wasted our efforts to win the hearts of the people around us by adopting many means but that did not work. Now, if a highly reputed and serious magazine like Business Universe declares you as the business and industry icon of the decade which you definitely deserve, the whole world will start looking at you that way. You will get tremendous respectability in every strata of society overnight. The magazine Business Universe has great reputation not only among the people connected with industry and business but in the human society as a whole and people take everything published in the magazine as truth and very seriously whatsoever worth that might be.”

Utkarsh interrupted Lalu, “But Lalu, that’s next to impossible. So many industrialists and businessmen of the world who are already more established and more known by the people will always take away the title. It’s absurd. Come on, let us forget it.”

But Lalu was insistent, “Mr Utkarsh, please leave it to me. The greatest satisfaction in my life will be to see you getting installed at the top of the world. And I shall do anything for that. Just leave it to me and don’t ask me questions. Hope, you have always believed in my capabilities and approaches. Believe in me this time too. Do not ask me anything about it till you get crowned as the business and industry icon of the world for the decade.”

Tivra Utkarsh raised his hands in defeat and said, “OK Lalu, I cannot argue with you. I have to give in as I always do where you are concerned. Make sure not to get me into any trouble and then do anything that pleases you. Good luck.”

Then Lalu got into severe action.

He called an emergency meeting of all the heads of I.T. (information technology) departments and administrative chiefs of all the 31 companies of Soaring Heights spread in 9 countries in 4 continents.

Everyone attended the meeting setting aside all the other important pieces of work. Most important work for all of them was to obey the super bosses like Tivra Utkarsh and Lalu Chaplus.

Lalu Chaplus chaired the meeting (Tivra Utkarsh absented himself as a grand strategy). Lalu instructed all the I.T. managers and administrative managers to listen to him with utmost care and attention and not to interrupt him till he finished.

He addressed the meeting by saying, “This is a top secret confidential project of the highest importance to our group. It will be in the interest of you all to make this project a sure shot success. The project is to make sure that the group emerges as the most respected business group in the entire world. For this, first your super leader Mr Tivra Utkarsh should be seen and accepted by the world as the most respected industry and business leader. The famous industry and business magazine Business Universe has organized worldwide contest to choose the business and industry icon of the decade. Who else deserves this title but our super boss? Now, you guys tighten up your belt and start off with what I instruct you. Set up hundreds of kiosks and offices all over various cities and towns of various countries in all the four continents. Equip these kiosks and offices with large numbers of the latest computers and internet connections and the software. Staff them with people who are computer literates on three shifts basis. These temporary employees will cast their votes by using computers and internet in favor of our boss day in and day out under different names without stoppage of even a minute. Hand over these kiosks and offices to our various contractors who will take the responsibility of owning them and supervising their operations.”

Then Lalu Chaplus paused, looked at the attendees of the meeting and was satisfied to see on their faces a weird quizzical look. Then he continued, “As per the magazine Business Universe’s recent announcement the magazine wishes to choose the business and industry icon of the decade based on the public opinion of the entire world’s population. Each person can cast only one vote. Multiple entries by one voter will become invalid. The candidate receiving the highest number of votes will be chosen as the business and industry icon of the decade. So your job is to install all these offices and kiosks within next one week, staff them with employees, hand them over to the contractors and train the contractors on how to conduct the entire operation. The most important thing is that the magazine or their computer software should never suspect that the votes in favor of Mr Tivra Utkarsh are being cast by the same people repeatedly and that the entire operation is being masterminded and managed by us or by the companies of our group Soaring Heights.”

Then he wanted to dismiss the meeting. But one I.T. manager gathered courage to speak out, “But how’s that possible? Such repeated clicks by the same people again and again can be easily caught in the computer system since each such entry leaves a trace behind and we might be caught.”

Lalu was very angry at this I.T. manager’s question which he thought was quite stupid. He rebuked, “Well, any fool understands that. That’s why you have been called to think of all the means to make this whole thing look very genuine and well above any suspicion. And we are paying you the fat salaries to work out whatsoever it requires to achieve it. Write suitable software and do any other damn thing to make sure that the entire plan of ours is finally 100% successful in choosing Mr Tivra Utkarsh as the world icon of business and industry of the decade. The whole thing should look natural. Now get started without wasting a single second.”

Not a single I.T. manager and administrative manager wanted to get fired. No one questioned or talked about the ethical side of this project. They got busy discussing the working details of the entire project. Once they chalked out everything to its finest points, they returned to their respective offices in various group companies of various countries of the four continents.

The contest to select the world icon of business and industry of the decade took place as scheduled by the magazine Business universe.

The results of the poll were declared recently.

And right now the celebrations are on and are being telecast live all over the world and millions of people are watching on their television sets. Business Universe has organized a gala party at a seven star luxury hotel to felicitate Tivra Utkarsh as the world business and industry icon of the decade. A few thousand dignitaries are present in the party and Tivra Utkarsh is the center of attraction and the star of the evening.

It is understood that Tivra Utkarsh got the maximum votes of the public and he beat the runner up (who is one of the most respected and most known business wizard in the world) by around twelve million votes.

All the contestants are still scratching their heads to wonder as to what tricks Tivra Utkarsh played on them that they were unable to conceive and apply to win the crown.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Profit in Taking the Blame

2010-06-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

This was seen quite a departure from the usual protocol. And that’s what made funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh a big affair. Normally the family members who promoted and literally owned the company never attended the funeral of any professional employee of the company howsoever highly placed the dead person might have been in the company. Now, Dhanichand Boman and his son Ajinkya Boman who were the senior most members of Boman family- the promoters of the company, were themselves attending the funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh and it was absolutely unusual. Hoshiyar Sinh was a professional manager and had no relationship with Boman family. Therefore, everyone in the company was astonished.

But one employee named Tariq Doshi- an old employee of the unit was not at all surprised. While majority of the employees were new and young in this unit and almost every one of the old employees had either retired or died, Tariq Doshi had been with the company for past more than thirty years. He had joined the company when the company had just started and had just about one small manufacturing unit. At that time he was working in company’s head quarters. After the company grew and had launched this second and the biggest unit of the company he was transferred. He claimed to have seen the entire history of the ups and ups of the company. And he also knew a few inner secrets. And one of them was the reason why Dhanichand Boman and his son Ajinkya Boman had attended Hoshiyar Sinh’s funeral.

When Tariq Doshi returned to his home after attending the funeral, he was in a very pensive mood. It did not go un-noticed by his wife. She coaxed him to release his tension by sharing his worries with her. And Tariq Doshi finally shared with his wife that one secret that was disturbing him throughout the day and even during the past many years.

He said to his wife, “I have been carrying a huge burden on my mind all these years. But with the death of Hoshiyar Sinh, I can share it with someone and unburden myself so that when the death comes to me, I can die peacefully. But, please keep this to yourself and only if you promise to do so, I will tell you, otherwise not.”

His wife was very worried about her husband particularly after listening to what her husband had just told her. So she assured him, “I promise not to divulge a word of what you are about to tell me. But do tell me everything so that you are free of your worries.”

Then Tariq Doshi narrated the following story to his wife:

Dhanichand Boman was a highly ambitious person despite the fact that he could not go past the primary school education because of the dire poverty of his father. He needed to work and earn money. So he left studying at school. Since he was educated only till primary school, it was impossible for him to get any decent employment other than that of a menial laborer. A few times he suffered utter humiliation while on the job. And when he could not bear any more humiliation, he decided to start his own business howsoever small it might be. He thought, “After all in my own business I would be my own master and will save myself of any humiliation from any Tom, Dick and Harry.”

He also thought, “I will get more opportunities for business in a city rather than in my own village. So I must shift to a big city.” So, he shifted to the nearest city from his village along with his wife, his small son Ajinkya and Hoshiyar Sinh- his best friend in the village. Hoshiyar Sinh was also a drop out of the primary school just like Dhanichand.

After going to the city, Dhanichand tried his hand at many types of small businesses using his native wisdom. He knew how to count money and how to count the profits. He also took risks; he had nothing to lose since he was already at the bottom most levels of life. And yes, Dhanichand was a very hard working man and soon he also learnt the street smartness while doing many odd businesses. With this kind of combination of his traits, he met with success in every business he took up. It took him some ten to twelve years before he could save enough money. On the strength of the saved money, he borrowed more money and built up his first unit- a small manufacturing unit.

Soon his first unit made him a mini industrialist in his own right. He thought of becoming a bigger industrialist and soon he expanded the operations and his products became very popular with the customers. He soon developed the brand name and listed his company as a limited company. The share value of the stocks of his company in the share market was progressively going up.

On the home front too Dhanichand was quite successful. With the new found wealth, he was providing his son and his wife all the comforts of life. He enrolled his son Ajinkya in city’s most reputed school and then in the most reputed college. He pampered his son like nobody’s business. Now, his son was almost getting ready to join his business. And one fine morning Ajinkya Boman was installed as the managing director of the company.

Hoshiyar Sinh, Dhanichand’s friend from the village who accompanied him to the city proved to be great help to him in his various businesses. Hoshiyar Sinh was like his man Friday. He was there everywhere with Dhanichand, doing all kinds of odd jobs for him. However, as Dhanichand started flourishing in his business he started keeping distance from Hoshiyar Sinh. Though he still used him for all the odd jobs, his friendship became lukewarm. Hoshiyar Sinh sensed this change. While Dhanichand started becoming richer and richer and prided himself as the chairman of the company, Hoshiyar Singh was given just about a decent salary without any particular title in the company. Hoshiyar Sinh felt hurt by this treatment.

And then that incident took place that catapulted Hoshiyar Sinh’s life and the lives of Dhanichand and Ajinkya topsy-turvy. I know it because I was the only eye witness to the entire happening. I was watching through the peephole of the room where the incident took place.

It took place in Ajinkya Boman’s cabin. Since I had joined the company at its inception, the Bomans knew me quite well and I had an easy access to their offices. So, for some official work I had gone to Ajinkya Boman’s office. When I reached the door of the cabin of Ajinkya Boman, I heard heated exchange of words between some people inside the cabin. My curiosity got aroused and I looked through the peephole.

The overdose of pampering of Ajinkya by his father Dhanichand had made him a spoilt brat. In the process, Ajinkya had become an angry young man- he was short tempered and shouted and insulted the employees for their small little mistakes. He used to throw the files or anything that was handy at them in the rage of anger. He was a poor listener and non-tolerant of people in general.

Knowing this weakness of his son, Dhanichand had deputed his mature friend Hoshiyar Sinh as his son’s assistant like a private secretary to him. But Ajinkya would not spare Hoshiyar Sinh also. Getting insults from Ajinkya and feeling distanced from Dhanichand, Hoshiyar Sinh was a very unhappy man.

Yes, coming back to what I saw through the peephole. I saw Ajinkya shouting at an employee, “Your irresponsible actions have resulted in loss by millions to the company, do you understand? You must die in shame.”

The employee being shouted upon protested, “Sir, you cannot blame me. You only instructed me to do what I did.”

Ajinkya got wild on him, “Hey, you liar. Don’t say that again. I can even kill you for that.”

And then Ajinkya was groping to search something that he wanted to throw at the employee. He did not realize that what came in his hand was a knife and he threw it at the employee with great force. It hit the employee at some delicate part of the body and the employee fell down and soon breathed his last.

That startled Ajinkya and Hoshiyar Sinh and me. Then I heard the voice of Hoshiyar Sinh.

Hoshiyar Sinh took the lead and said, “Ajinkya, just sit down. Don’t move. Let us sort this thing out with a cool mind. First of all I am the only witness to this bloody affair. I can ruin your and your father’s life just the way you have ruined mine by neglecting me and insulting me. You guys have become rich by my support and hard work at all the odd jobs that your father and you could not have done. But what did I get in return- a meager salary and no designation. Now is the time to strike a deal. I am used to all the odd jobs and I will do this last one too. But on my terms and conditions. You guys are going to launch the new unit in the near future, your big manufacturing second unit. You must make me the whole sole in charge of that unit as its president after I come out of the jail. I am willing to take the blame of what happened in this room. You will be a witness in the court proceedings to say that it was an accident in the self defence. To save ourselves from the insane employee who wanted to hurt us, I intervened and by sheer accident the knife went through the body of the employee causing him instant death. For that I will get the jail sentence of not more than couple of years. After I am released from the jail, you and your father will install me as the president of the new unit with all the powers bestowed in me. If you agree, I will call the police and surrender myself and you and your father will make sure that the best lawyer is recruited to handle the case and I get the minimum sentence. If you do not agree with this proposal of mine, I will still call the police and charge you with the murder.”

And then the rest we know. Hoshiyar Sinh made sure that he became the president of the biggest unit of the company. Many more units were added to the company later on but Hoshiyar Sinh took care to see that his unit remained the biggest and he had a say in the corporate affairs of the company by becoming head of corporate affairs department in the head quarters in addition to becoming the president of the biggest unit.

His death took away with him the secret that Dhanichand and Ajinkya think only Hoshiyar Sinh knew. So, Dhanichand and Ajinkya wanted to be sure that Hoshiyar Sinh really got cremated in front of their eyes along with that secret and that’s why they attended the funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

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What Is the Limit?

2010-06-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

Then one evening while he was attending a social get together, he met one of his old friends after several years. They celebrated their meeting. They had drinks together and started catching up with the events of intervening period. When both of them consumed a good amount of hard liquor, they started talking more intimately and about the secrets of business.

In the process of this exchange, Ambalal Patel opened up his heart and shared with his friend about his disappointment in not doing the kind of big business that would bring him enormous money. He said, “Despite my best efforts I am not getting any sizable order for supply of my materials. For some reason or the other, the competing suppliers walk away with the plum orders from my clients and I am left high and dry.”

On the other hand, his friend declared, “I was also struggling for a good number of years like you. But now I am very successful after painful initial twelve years. I have earned more money in just past two years- much more than what I could not earn even in the first twelve years of business”.

When Ambalal Patel got curious to know the secrets of his sudden success, his friend assigned it to joining Regent Club whose members mostly consisted of corporate executives and businessmen. He advised boastfully like a big brother, “Ambalal, you must have the right contacts. Regent Club is the answer.” Then after blurting out this much involuntarily in his intoxicated state, he stopped this topic here itself and turned to other gossips. He soon realized that he was making mistake by giving out his secrets of business to Ambalal Patel on the platter. Possibly, Ambalal Patel might become his competitor if he knew more about his business secrets. And he would not like it.

However, Ambalal Patel was quick to retain in his memory the name Regent Club. Next morning, past last night’s hangover, Ambalal Patel developed a terrific craving to visit Regent Club that brought money to his friend. He wanted to explore the possibilities for himself by knowing more about the club.

He met the manager of Regent Club. Ambalal asked him, “Is the membership in the club open? And if yes, what will be the membership fee?”

Manager gave him all the information of the club and also emphasized, “Mr Patel, people like you and many corporate managers primarily are the constituent members of the club.” Then, he gave the details of one time entry fee and other annual fees of the club.

Ambalal Patel was shocked to hear the astronomical fees of the club. He mumbled, “I say, the fees are too steep, far higher than many other clubs of the city. Its an unaffordable expenditure even for a businessman like me.”

To which the manager replied, “Mr Patel, do not call this as expenditure. Call it investment instead. You will recover the entire fee of the club in just about an year or little over the year and after that, its all profit. This is not my version; this is the version of the members of this club. I hear many of them say so from time to time. I understand from them that the club provides an excellent meeting point to develop business and social networks.”

Ambalal Patel remembered what his friend had mentioned the previous evening. This Regent Club was responsible for his sudden prosperity. Ambalal Patel did not wish to waste a minute; he was in a real hurry to make lots of money. He joined the club by taking loan from his bank and giving the membership fees to Regent Club.

To start with, Ambalal was not quite comfortable with the secretive environment of the club. But soon he got introduced to a senior purchasing executive of a fairly big chemical company. The senior purchasing manager’s name was Partho Dey. They struck chords with each other since both were having one thing in common in a big way. Both had insatiable capacity to hold the drinks. Soon they became company to each other, though most of the time Ambalal paid the bills for their drinks and dinner. He remembered the club manager’s words, “Mr Patel, perceive this expenditure as an investment.”

And soon it worked. Ambalal Patel found an occasion to offer to supply to Partho Dey’s company. When one day, during their drinking time conversation, Partho mentioned that his company was looking out for a reliable source to buy a particular type of chemical material, Ambalal Patel spoke without wasting a minute, “Sir, why do you have to search for a source? The source is sitting right in front of you. I am in the business of supplying the very material you mentioned. I am capable of supplying any amount of it regularly and with 100% reliability.” Partho Dey nodded. Patel thought that to be a good sign. He worked out in his mind, “If Partho Dey places this order on me, it would mean a huge order in terms of volumes and money. And that’s what I need at this point of time.”

Why was Partho Dey willing to consider Ambalal Patel’s offer? The reason was that Partho Dey was not very happy with his existing supplier since the existing supplier was not meeting the terms and conditions set out by Partho Dey. The existing supplier was not willing to increase the bribe percentage that Partho was demanding now. Partho had raised his expectation of bribe from his current rate of 15% to 25% which the supplier thought was obnoxiously high. He mentioned to Partho that he was willing to stretch up to a cut of maximum of 20%- the going rate with many of the purchase managers of many of the other companies where he was the supplier.

Now Partho Dey was not much worried about losing his current supplier of many years since he had in front of him a new and hungry supplier- Ambalal Patel who, in his assessment, would be more than willing to grab that huge order on the terms and conditions of 25% bribe amount set out by him. He had gathered that Ambalal Patel was in a hurry to become rich overnight. So, he opened up his cards in front of Ambalal Patel and as expected, Patel readily agreed for 25% kick back demanded by Partho.

All of this happened over the sixth peg of whisky in the company of Partho Dey that night; Ambalal Patel got the much needed break. He had finally bagged a very big order from a big chemical company. Silently, he thanked his friend who gave him the tip to join Regent Club. He thanked the club manager for sharing his wisdom with him. He thanked Partho for giving the order at 25% kickback (he calculated quickly that despite this kickback he could still make lots of money for himself). He thanked Regent Club.

He started supplying the material.

An year went by.

During this period Ambalal as well as Partho made lots of money.

Partho and Ambalal also continued maintaining their team spirit over the spirits they consumed together at Regent Club regularly. Of course, Ambalal continued booting the bill.

And one night, after they had several pegs of whisky, Partho opened up his heart. He put up his cards in front of Ambalal, “Ambalal, you will appreciate that the year went by smoothly for you because of me.”

Ambalal nodded in affirmation.

Partho continued, “I wish to further add to your kitty and this time at a very fast rate. You had mentioned to me on several occasions that your main aim in life has been to make huge amounts of money real quickly. Now I wish to help you once more to fulfill that dream of yours. Are you with me?”

Ambalal Patel was like a mouse in front of the cat. He mumbled, “Sir, can I ever dare to go against your wishes? Please tell me what do you have in mind?”

Partho said, “To start with, for the next six months, my cut will be raised to50%. We need more material in the company and so the quantity on order for you will be doubled. After six months we will review and work out suitable terms and conditions. Is that OK with you?”

Ambalal was puzzled. He thought how he could make money if he had to give away 50% of his earnings to Partho. But he did not wish to contradict Partho and annoy him. He remained silent.

Partho watched Ambalal keenly and patronized by saying, “Look, we are onto experimenting a new thing as a part of our association. That will make you very rich in just about six months. You must be wondering how it can happen when you have to shell out your 50%. I will tell you how. In reality, you will not supply the quantity of material on order. You will physically supply only 50% of the ordered material and yet bill the company for the full amount. I have my boys in the stores department trained in taking care of all of this. So don’t you worry at all and just do as I told you. OK?”

Ambalal had become a past master in bribing by now but this new proposal coming from Partho was quite startling for his brains. A shiver of great fear ran through his spine. His mind and heart and conscious (?) were not allowing him to go along with Partho on this.

Partho was an intelligent man. He could sense the legitimate hesitation of Ambalal. He said, “Ambalal, I cannot wait for long but you being my drinking partner, I will give you time to think till tomorrow evening. Give me your consent by tomorrow evening here in the club. Then we will drink to our continued business association. But if you are not willing to be a part of my proposal, do not fear that we will break our drinking association. It will still continue but for the next six months at least, you will not be in a position to be a supplier to my company. You will definitely lose a lot. Also, I cannot guarantee what will happen after six months. I have spotted a new supplier who has just joined our Regent Club and who seems pretty much promising to me. He needs some business urgently. You know that I am willing to help such people.”

Ambalal Patel tossed and turned in his bed the whole night without getting a single wink of much needed sleep. He was still very afraid to say “yes” to Partho’s proposal.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Three Drawer Management

2010-05-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

The print of case studies/management anecdotes in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

You can order the same book online titled as "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" in print format and also as an eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sensitive+stories+of+corporate+world&x=10&y=23

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Victor Benjee got an offer of appointment from Traditions Galore Ltd. The offer was undeniably very attractive in terms of money and position offered. He started contemplating in terms of the change. However he was not very sure whether the change would be a right move in his career growth.

He was quite in friendly terms with his existing boss Jawahar Kurios in his present company Genuine Systemic Ltd. So he could discuss his personal matters with Jawahar Kurios. While generally changing a job is kept quite a secret by almost all the people, Victor found it OK to confide such things in Jawahar. He trusted Jawahar fully in such matters too.

Therefore, one evening when Jawahar was quite free from his work and was resting in his cabin, Victor dropped in.

He asked, “Jawahar, do you have about an hour to spend with me? I wish to discuss something personal. Do you remember that you had given me a good reference while I was applying for a senior position in your previous company Traditions Galore? I want your advice in that connection?”

Jawahar got curious, “Can I congratulate you? I guess they have offered you a job.”

Victor said, “Yes, they have. And the offer is brilliant. I will get some 55% more money than what you give me here. The designation is more appealing and I stand to get a bigger house, car and cabin.”

Jawahar laughed, “Then where is the problem? Jump in.”

Victor said, “But I am not sure about the culture of Traditions Galore Ltd. They say that it’s quite different from Genuine Systemic Ltd. One could find it difficult to work in this new company after having worked for a more professional company like Genuine Systemic. Now you have worked for Traditions Galore for quite some years and you have the first hand information about it. Then who could be a better person than you to guide me on this change?”

Jawahar replied, “OK. OK. I will tell you all. But that’s based purely on my observations and experience. I will not tell you whether you should leave Genuine Systemic and join Traditions Galore. That will be strictly your decision. But surely, I will fill you with some data.”

Then Jawahar went on to elaborate, “What you heard is correct. Though it’s huge company by all standards but it is one of those family owned types where family members or their inner circle people have strict controls over all the company activities. In nutshell, Traditions Galore’s Culture is almost opposite of what we do here. For example, our company believes lots in processes and systems where as in Traditions Galore most of the decisions are discretionary. While we have at least some semblance of delegation of power and one can take decisions at different levels, in Traditions Galore the decision making is highly centralized. We are more transparent here but Traditions Galore is full of secrecy. Yet let me hurriedly say that they have their own brand of systems too and they too make huge profits.”

Victor interrupted, “Jawahar, can you give me some examples from your own experience?”

Jawahar said, “OK. I will tell you this one experience and you may get a lot of insight. I had joined Traditions Galore after working for a good length of time in a professional multinational company. This multinational company had everything defined on paper and things went strictly in accordance with those things. For example, if I wanted to buy some material or some equipment, the system was very transparent. If I gave convincing justifications for the purchase, I was sure to get it or the sanctioning authority will seek further clarifications from me. And timeline for this type of decision-making and execution was clearly defined. So it was that simple and straight forward.”

Jawahar took a pause and then continued, “So after joining Traditions Galore, I tried to follow the same system in absence of any systems manual telling me what to do. The CEO of the company had given me a mandate to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing departments by a certain percentage within an year’s period. For achieving this, I needed to induct some specific equipment of the latest technology in the organization. So I made a justification note, attached it to the purchase requisition form and sent it to the CEO. After a week or so, the justification note with the purchase requisition was returned to me via company’s finance department.”

Victor asked, “Why, did not you have an approved budget for it?”

Jawahar replied, “I had made provision for it in my budget but finance people used to revisit the budget provision once more on case to case basis when the actual purchase was about to be made. As per them the budget was just a rough guideline. Now this was quite different from my previous organization. In my previous company once a budget was sanctioned, it became sacrosanct for all purposes. But here the CEO passed on my requisition to finance department without even informing me. It was quite strange for me. I had to spend many hours spread over many days to satisfy finance chief. Finally he signed on the dotted line. After this I sent the whole thing once again to my CEO. I waited for almost two weeks but I did not get any approval of the CEO.”

Victor was surprised, “Then, when did you get the approval?”

Jawahar replied, “I did not get it. Couple of times I reminded him about my requisition but he posed very busy. Then after repeated follow up from me, he asked me to meet him and explain my plans on how I aimed at increasing the plant efficiency with the new equipment. But every time I requested for his time to do so, he made some excuse or the other and kept on postponing our meeting. Then I got fed up. I was already running out of time and being the first year of my employment I could not risk not achieving the mandate given to me. So I worked out some alternate plans without this technologically advanced equipment and somehow started implementing efficiency improvements.

Victor got puzzled, “You mean to say that you stopped sending all of your proposal to your CEO and still worked.”

Jawahar replied, “No, later on I knew the trick of how to get my proposals passed. Somehow with my keen observations I came to know about my CEO’s "Three Drawer System" which in fact was a top secret. Only intelligent people like me could decipher it. I told you earlier that even companies like Traditions Galore have their own brand of systems. My CEO there had a system which I branded as “Three Drawer System”.

Victor mentioned, “Jawahar, can you throw light on this ‘Three Drawer System’ please?”

Jawahar said, “I am coming to that. After getting clearance from finance your proposal goes to CEO. The scrutiny by finance itself is the first step of control on the expenditure proposed by you and wasting a couple of weeks. You have to explain a lot to finance people. Only if you are serious about your plan, you will take pains to convince finance department or else you will give up. So finance tests your patience and your seriousness about your proposal. Then your proposal goes to the CEO. Immediately on receiving the proposal, without even looking at it (forget about reading it), he shoves it into the top drawer of his table. Then as I did in my first encounter, you start reminding him about it. He tells you to meet him and explain the whole thing but for a few weeks or sometimes even for a few months he does not give you any time slot for the meeting. At this stage if you go slow on seeking his appointment, then after a few days he transfers your proposal papers to the second drawer (the middle drawer). Then he waits for you to push him for a meeting with him or convince him to give approval without the meeting. For some reason if you shy away from meeting him or you are incompetent to get his ears and convince him, he transfers your proposal to the third drawer (the bottom most one). In fact, since you have already waited all these days, weeks and months getting nothing, most people may totally give up. However few people still may try hard with him and in such a case the proposal papers may start a reverse journey through the drawers. However if you are not able to achieve this, you papers stay in the third drawer and soon find a way in the waste paper basket or the trash bin.”

Victor was amazed to hear this story, “My god, what an amazing control system! I could have never believed it unless it came from you. So, should I drop the idea of joining them?”

Jawahar said, “Why, are not they offering you 55% more salary; it’s quite high, one cannot ignore it. And what about the lucrative designation and bigger house, car and cabin? If you refuse, your wife and kids will miss all the fun. You already tasted this culture, why not taste the other culture too? Won’t it be fun for you too?”

Victor threw up his hands in desperation, “Jawahar, aren’t you joking? Damn it, I am totally confused.”

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Fifty Percent Cutter

2010-05-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

The print of first 34 case studies/management anecdotes (published till April 21, 2010) in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

You can order the same book online titled as "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" in print format and also as an eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sensitive+stories+of+corporate+world&x=10&y=23

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Babu Kutter got the fame as “50% cutter” in the new unit of Famous Expo Industry. The new unit of this company was in its project stage and obviously it had yet to breakeven and to start making profits.

The President of the unit was indoctrinated into Famous Expo’s very important dogma of thrift. Famous Expo was famous for its economy initiatives and managers of other organizations were deputed to Famous Expo to learn those tricks of the trade which saved enormous money for Famous Expo and earned for it one of the best profit figures in the industry.

The President of the unit had come up from the ranks in the company and swore by its principles of frugality. The motto of the company was, “Save wherever and whenever even remotely possible”.

The new unit of Famous Expo which was in its commissioning phase had employed people from various outside organizations. Therefore, they were yet not so conscious about the economy principles of the company.

Being a new unit, the activity of purchasing this thing or that thing was one of the highest order activities. All kinds of employees from all kinds of departments of the unit used to raise purchase requisitions for various materials required for the completion of the project. Absence of a budgeting system (the unit being new, this system was yet to be formulated for implementation) and absence of consumption norms (again, the unit being new) made it difficult to find out a basis for approval or disapproval of the quantities of materials requisitioned.

Yet, the President found out a way of controlling the incessant purchases by installing Babu Kutter in the unit’s budget control department. Babu Kutter was a carbon copy of the President at least in the matters of respecting money. He had earlier worked under the shadow of the President in company’s other units. The President was confident that Babu Kutter was a system in himself and that system had a way of controlling the expenses. The President himself did not know exactly how Babu Kutter used to control expenditure in the company; but he knew for sure that it worked thoroughly though it always remained an enigma to him. Yet…….

As soon as Babu Kutter was brought in the saddle, all the purchase requisitions started getting routed through Babu Kutter before they landed on the desks of the buyers of the unit. Babu Kutter invariably slashed down the quantities on the requisitions. For example, if a user department’s manager asked for purchase of say 100 kilograms of some material, he invariably was made to get a surprise by receiving only say sometimes 70 kilograms or other times say 65 kilograms. When enquired about the short purchases, the buyers would direct their fingers at Babu Kutter of budget control. When they asked Babu Kutter about it, he simply used to say, “Start working with 70 kilograms. Right now the funds are a bit of a problem. Whenever and if you feel the necessity for the rest 30 kilograms, you can always raise a supplementary purchase requisition.”

The user department’s initial reaction to this was, “Fair enough.” But soon they realized that this story of Babu Kutter was going on and on; short purchases became a rule. Short purchases were creating problems in the expeditious completion of their work. On the other hand constant pressure was created by the President all the time to expedite the project.

Whenever, the user managers took up this case of short purchases pointing out to Babu Kutter as the reason, the President used to laugh out and say, “Come on. He is doing his job. You should do yours.” And the matter died there.

Soon user departments learnt a new trick. They would inflate the figures of materials to be purchased by around 25% to 30% over and above what was actually needed, on the purchase requisition slips. And after the cut by Babu Kutter, they would finally receive exactly the quantities of materials they needed. Soon, people stopped complaining to Babu Kutter or the President.

Babu Kutter and the President were no fools. Stoppage of complaints from user managers alarmed them. They conferred with each other and secretly worked out a new system of budget control.

From that day onwards, Babu Kutter started cutting the quantities on the purchase requisitions by exactly half. He started applying his well tested formula of 50% cut. Babu Kutter’s job became simpler and more effective. He did not have to think about whether to cut 20% or 25% or 30% or any other percent, he had just one figure to apply i.e. 50%.

It created havoc amongst the user managers. But they could not do much about it. They had played a trick and now Babu Kutter played a trick. Tit for tat- nothing wrong about it. So, they ganged together to teach Babu Kutter a lesson. And soon an opportunity came their way.

The President had decided to shift from his make shift city project office to his new permanent factory office. The office needed furnishing and decoration befitting a president of a highly reputed and huge organization of the scale of Famous Expo. Unit’s administrative manager was in charge of this.

Administrative manager performed his job of furnishing the new factory office of the president meticulously.

And one fine day, the President wanted to inspect his new factory office and also inaugurate it formally before physically shifting there. All the heads of the departments of the unit along with their key subordinates including the administrative manager and Babu Kutter were invited to attend this inaugural ceremony.

The president cut the ribbon. Everyone present clapped. And the president entered the office along with all the invitees. The curtains in the office attracted his attention first before he could look at anything else. He noticed that all the curtains were half in length of the standard length really required of those curtains. All the curtains started from the ceiling alright but invariably abruptly ended somewhere in the middle of the window or middle of the wall. They looked like rags and incomplete.

He was furious. He was fretting and fuming. He looked at the administrative manager accusing him with his eyes gone red and watery, “What’s this joke?” He could not speak any more; he was feeling so very humiliated in front of so many of his subordinate employees.

The administrative manager said with a calm and quiet disposition, “Sir, I had asked for the full length curtains on my purchase requisition alright but I understand that Mr Babu Kutter cut it by 50% as an economy measure. That’s why.”

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Cool Initiative

2010-05-15T01:12:00.000-07:00

The print of first 46 case studies/management anecdotes in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

You can order the same book online titled as "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" in print format and also as an eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sensitive+stories+of+corporate+world&x=10&y=23

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

During the worst worldwide recessionary time, lots of pain was felt by lots of people though some rich and famous were unaffected by it as usual since they had already transferred lots of money from others in their coffers through various creative means.

And in the plethora of pains among majority of people, the specks of funny absurdities could surely make one laugh occasionally and forget the pain momentarily.

This is what exactly happened in the Ultimo Efficacy Inc.

Ultimo Efficacy was doing pretty well and making good amount of money even in recession. But recession provided a great and valid excuse to many companies including Ultimo Efficacy to cut out even on the otherwise normal expenses of the corporation and get the employees at various levels to work in highly constrained conditions. Idea was that they would easily accept such a thing under the hoax of recession. Rather they would be happy doing it, feeling all the way like martyrs and would soon get habituated to it. That way even after the recession was over; they would not grudge the absence of perquisites, facilities and money withdrawn from them during recession.

So, Ultimo Efficacy which was already adept at converting threats into opportunities, used recession to suddenly impose one of the most important management principles i.e. cost reduction or cost control. Though they could have very well used cost reduction to their advantage even in non-recessionary or normal times of business but did not do it because at that time they were soaked in unimaginably high profits and cost control was thrown out of the windows as an obsolete management principle or unnecessary distraction.

They got reminded of cost control mainly to achieve the objectives enumerated in one of the earlier paragraphs. So, top management of the company issued out a circular to each and every employee which read as follows. The measures contained therein were addendum to the cost control that was already being exercised by the company through the customary layoff of employees practiced as a part of recession time ritual. The contents of cost control circular issued in Ultimo Efficacy are given below:

Under compulsions of difficult circumstances of recession, all the employees at all the levels are requested to concentrate on cost reduction throughout the organization.
In view of this company has decided to go slow on promotions and salary raises for the next two years; the budgets on this count are being slashed by 75%. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management got away with bigger packets of fat (underserved) salaries and obscenely high bonuses during these two years later on).
Avoid travel. All the employees will travel by the cheapest modes of travel if travel is at all essential. It will be in the interest of the employees to walk if the distance travelled is at least 5 miles or below as you may be aware that walking is the best exercise to keep oneself fit and healthy. If any employee wishes to walk for over 5 miles, it will be highly appreciated. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management continued with their earlier habits of traveling by private or chartered aero planes or by the first class in commercial airlines and using limousines).
Everyone will start using both the sides of the paper for writing. Pencils should be used to write rather than pens. The advantage of using pencil is that you can erase what is written by it and thus use the paper again and again. Company is glad to provide a pool of erasers for this purpose as an extra facility.

And the instructions in the circular went on and on.

Employees had a fun-day reading the circular and savoring its contents. It brought to them some momentary pleasure amidst the pain created due to bleak recessionary environment.

A particular junior officer Simple Simpson in company’s purchase department got hyper after reading the circular. He decided to contribute his might to the laudable company wide cost control efforts.

It was summer time and the region where Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s offices and factory were located; the summer could be very severe. So the employees were provided cool water to quench their thirst in such severe summer. The company used to provide many water coolers at different locations in the offices and factory premises. Every year company used to replace the worn out water coolers with the new ones. The purchase requisitions for replacement water coolers were made by the user departments and sent to purchase department. Simple Simpson in purchase department used to process the purchase requisitions of water coolers, contact the water cooler manufacturers and buy them.

However, in view of the cost control measures, Simple Simpson suggested to the user departments that instead of water coolers he proposed to buy the earthen pots. He had seen such earthen pots being used by the people who could not afford to buy refrigerators or water coolers, particularly in the poorer countries. The water filled in the earthen pots got cooled pretty fast and remained cool for unlimited period.

User departments were too happy to go along with this proposal of Simple Simpson. They thought that in doing so they too would thus contribute towards top management’s cost reduction plan. If price of a water cooler was equivalent of $350 to $400, price of an earthen pot would be mere $1 or so. The proposal had tremendous potential of cost reduction.

A total of 100 earthen pots were requisitioned. Simple Simpson started processing this requisition for purchase of earthen pots. He sent out enquiries, got the commercial terms from the makers of earthen pots, compared various quotes thus received and finally zeroed in on one supplier who offered the minimum price per earthen pot.

As per the formal authority delegation chart of the company, a junior officer at Simple Simpson’s level was not authorized to negotiate with the suppliers. Only his boss was authorized to do so. But Simple Simpson wanted to be true to his salt at least on this occasion. He wanted to respond to the call of cost reduction of top management all by himself. After all it was his suggestion to buy earthen pots in place of water coolers and save for company thousands of equivalent dollars. So, he decided to stick his neck out and decided to negotiate with the shortlisted supplier of earthen pots to get a still better deal from him.

The maker of the earthen pots did not reduce the price further but agreed to give away 20 earthen pots over and above the 100 on the purchase order. He mentioned that he had no use of those 20 pots and could as well give them away to Simple Simpson. Simple Simpson was mighty happy with his first stint at negotiations.

The 120 earthen pots were received by Simple Simpson and he got them positioned inside Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s premises. People liked the cool water of these earthen pots and employees at grass root levels appreciated the creative brains and efforts of Simple Simpson and the resultant enormous savings. Simple Simpson became a hero for the time being.

But his glory did not last long. The period during which these 120 earthen pots were purchased was the physical inventory checking period of the company as per its laid down systems. A sharp young auditor did an audit on the earthen pots. He had the numbers on the earthen pots on the material requisition slip reading at 100 and the same 100 number was found on the purchase order. But despite physically counting a number of times the physical inventory of earthen pots came to 120 on every count. Several hours over a few days were spent by the auditor in counting the earthen pots again and again because the physical count was not tallying with the numbers mentioned in the documents and he thought that he was making some mistake in counting. Finally he decided that the physical count did give him a figure of 120 earthen pots and he was not making any mistake in counting. As per him it was a serious audit discrepancy- how the company could have more material than what was ordered? That showed slack internal controls. Then after doing a detailed research on the causes of this discrepancy, he ultimately stumbled on the fact that the discrepancy was the outcome of the negotiations carried out by Simple Simpson. And that was another serious violation of internal controls since Simple Simpson had no business to negotiate with the suppliers as per company’s policies.

As per the auditor a number of violations of systems and procedures of the company were found in the transactions of earthen pots. He documented them in his formal written report as follows:

As per the company requirements and budgets approved, water coolers were to be purchased and not the earthen pots. No approved or otherwise budget was available to purchase earthen pots. And there was no written authorization of any competent authority to authorize the purchase of earthen pots.
Discrepancy was found in the number of earthen pots actually physically found in the company’s premises as against the ones requisitioned and ordered. It was a grave violation of the internal controls.
On enquiry we found that Mr Simple Simpson who was in charge of processing the requisition insisted that he took all these actions as per the management’s directive of cost reduction. Therefore, he took initiative even to negotiate. This again is another violation. Company’s formal delegation of authority does not permit employees at Simpson’s level to take such decisions of purchase of earthen pots in place of water coolers on their own and also to negotiate, all by themselves, with the suppliers.

The audit observations were forwarded to the top management of the company. Top management was not used to getting such sort of audit reports.

Top management of the company felt terribly offended by such irregularities committed by its employee and ordered an enquiry against Simple Simpson. He was wondering as to what wrong did he do in saving such a lot of money for the company- he did not commit a fraud, he did not commit a crime, he did not squander company’s money, he did not take bribe- all he did was to take initiative and save money. And for this was he being pushed in front of the firing squad?

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Screwed-up Thinking Patterns

2010-05-14T01:26:00.000-07:00

The print of first 34 case studies/management anecdotes (published till April 21, 2010) in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

Mahima Styler was excessively high in her ambitions to become rich and famous in a very short time. Her formula to achieve her objectives was: “do it by hook or by crook”. She had very low opinion of the people who advocated the so called “value based” life and she hated them. For her, the new mindset was “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life”.

Her new mindset started getting firmed up when she did not get the grades she deserved in her undergraduate school days despite her being the most intelligent and diligent student in the class. Another classmate of hers who was definitely inferior to her in studies and intelligence overtook her when it came to getting awarded the final grades by the professors. This classmate of hers knew how to impress the professors by other means; she had a way to charm the professors who were mainly of male category of human species. And so, Mahima experienced this kind of failure in her undergraduate school time repeatedly. And then she migrated from “value based” paradigm to the new paradigms of “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life” and “do it by hook or by crook”.

Intelligent and hardworking she already was and now coupled this, were her new mindsets in action. She felt that now with her new approach towards life, she had started meeting successes after successes, pretty easily and with more surety. She had learnt the art of charming the male population around her in different ways and reaching her destinations faster than anyone else. And she was intelligent and hardworking, no doubt.

Her excessive ambitions did not allow her to start her professional career in a normal way, i.e. starting at a lower rung and then stepping up the higher rungs gradually. She wanted to reach the top of the ladder in just one high jump and sit there and rule.

So she took the route of doing MBA from a famous management institute whose ex-students were holding powerful positions in various reputed companies. She took a huge loan from a bank and sought admission by paying a very heavy sum towards the capitation fee required by the institute for the out of turn admissions. She did not want to go to a run of the mill school. She knew that an MBA from only such a famous institute would land her in a very high profile job with very handsome salary and she could pay off the loan in no time.

With her newly acquired beliefs, she could work out her charms and made sure that she topped her MBA batch leaving behind a large numbers of better than her students. While doing her MBA, rather than just wasting her time only on curriculum, she used her time networking with professors and ex-students of the college who were now the powerful men of various industries. That helped her in getting the highest grade in MBA and also bagging a prestigious job with an extraordinarily high designation and salary in a company of high repute.

People around her congratulated her on getting such a lucrative offer. She joined her new employer immediately after completion of her MBA course. Her very first job gave her a spacious cabin type office and even a personal assistant of her own. She was definitely an upstart the way she had dreamt of it all along. She got on famously with her boss who was an ex-student of her MBA school. He had also interviewed her in the school campus and apart from professional relationship, soon they developed an intimate personal relationship too.

However this association did not continue for a long period because her boss got transferred to an overseas assignment. That put a stop to their personally intimate association but they kept in touch via other communication channels .

A new boss took over. His name- Tez Dev. Well equipped with engineering and MBA degrees from moderately well known institutes, not necessarily the most reputed ones, he had climbed up the hierarchical ladder in the company starting as a junior manager and working his way pretty rapidly by his sheer intelligence, smart and hard work and value based working. He was a no-nonsense manager, quite demanding as far as the results were concerned and appreciated people if they followed value based clean business processes. He could not be easily tricked by sycophancy or by street smartness.

Mahima Styler found her new boss Tez Dev quite interesting and set out to win him more with her charms and also with her sharp mind though to a limited degree.

Tez Dev assessed Mahima to be a very capable lady. However, it did not take him many days to realize that Mahima was spending too much of her time in trying to please him by many other ways which could not be strictly called the professional ways. In the process, she was slipping on the work targets given to her.

As per her own assessment Mahima thought that she was progressing towards putting Tez in her pockets but the progress was far slower than what she had achieved with her earlier boss.

Days, weeks and months passed and Tez was pushing Mahima to the deadlines and results and Mahima was pushing him to start liking her as a person more than as a professional. Both were finding it hard to move forward in their efforts. Two years passed.
The promotion time came and Mahima was not promoted by Tez Dev. She was highly disappointed. Yet she continued with her efforts to please Tez Dev in her own ways. Tez Dev did not buy that nonsense.

Another promotion time came and Mahima lost out again. She was furious with Dev this time. People who she thought were inferior to her were getting promotions and she did not get any. She felt humiliated. How come Tez was ignoring her when every other male was always influenced by her positively? She decided to teach Tez Dev a lesson of his life.

Two years went by and this morning the police were handcuffing her in her own apartment. They had a warrant to arrest her for committing industrial espionage.

In these two years many significant events took place which finally led to the arrest of Mahima. Her earlier boss had joined the competitor company whose line of business was the same as his earlier company where Mahima Styler continued working. Rejected by Tez Dev, Mahima set out her new mission of teaching him a lesson. She wanted to destroy Tez professionally and personally. She needed to work closely with her previous ex-boss to achieve this. So she met her ex-boss and started intimate association with him once more.

Of late Dev was working on a top secret project of the company. It was related to the product development of a revolutionary new product from the company. Mahima got the hang of it. And soon she started passing on all the secret information to her ex-boss with whom she had re-established her personal intimate relationship. Her ex-boss was mighty happy- he was getting very valuable information from the competitor company and he would use it to his professional advantage in his new company plus he had Mahima for the bonus; he was a much married man though. So, he went along with Mahima; he had nothing to lose. This continued for nearly two years. The company secrets were being transferred to the competitor by Mahima Styler.

Tez Dev was a very observant person. He felt that someone was shuffling the papers in his office in his absence from the office though very carefully so as not to leave any trace of it. So, his sharp mind made him to probe into it further. He alarmed the senior company security officers to be on the alert twenty four hours. And one night when Mahima was going through the secret papers in the cabin of Tez, she was caught red-handed by the security chief. With adequate proof of charge of industrial espionage against Mahima, the company lodged a complaint with the police authorities.

And this morning Mahima Styler was arrested.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Grandeur of a Strategic Plan (The Sabotage)

2010-05-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

The print of first 34 case studies/management anecdotes (published till April 21, 2010) in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

It’s about Youngistan. It’s around the time when Youngistan- a developing nation- was making remarkable progress economically. Eyes of the whole world got focused on this country. It was fast emerging as the new and dominant player in the world economy.

The country had the highest population of young people on the earth, percentage wise (though the name Youngistan was given to this country hundreds of years before this phenomenon actually took place). The new generation people of the country were enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and creative. They desired to conquer the world. They were setting up for themselves lofty ideals to achieve.

One such young generation leader and dreamer was Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation, one of the few automotive companies of Youngistan. The company was engaged in manufacturing and selling various variants of cars and trucks. He set out a brand new vision for his organization. He wanted the company to design a people’s car that everyone on the earth could afford. As per him every family on earth should possess a car just like everyone should possess a graduate degree and a mobile phone.

With the existing designs of cars and the price tags on them, it felt as if cars were meant only for some limited classes of human beings. And others who were not a part of those classes of human beings should not be able to afford to buy and maintain a car. It was one important strategy adopted by those shrewd people of the world who wanted to make sure that the class differences are maintained so that one class of people always remained superior to others and always ruled the inferior ones.

But CEO Yul Bright was made of different and brand new cerebral material. As soon as he took over the reins of Auto Delight Corporation, he started using his unique cerebral elements. He put forth his ideas to the heads of the departments of his company, “Our company will do a great service to the entire humanity of this earth if we can give to each family on the earth a right to buy a four wheeler which can be used for the entire family. That will increase the safe and fast mobility and therefore, comfort, effectiveness and efficiency of each family. It will also give them a sense of moving to places together as a family. It will facilitate growth of those people who are deprived of all of this because they cannot afford to buy and maintain the existing types of cars. If you agree with me, put together your minds to conceptualize, design, develop, manufacture and sell such a car. It should be damn good in efficiency, functionality, looks and most important- it should be easy on pocket- it should be dirt cheap. We will meet here in this conference room at the same time exactly after a week. Please share your ideas with me then.”

And then they met and set out the objective of giving such a gift to the people of the world. They set out a period of three years to achieve it.

Within one year, the blue prints of the wonder car were already shaped into a prototype. The prototype was thoroughly tested for all the standard and mandatory parameters in the company’s test laboratories and test tracks and also on the real roads against all types of terrains, loads and distances etc. The prototype was certified as fully capable and successful. It was ready to be mass manufactured.

Under the guidance of Yul Bright, the company decided to set up a brand new factory to roll out these cars. Around this time Bright made the formal announcements about bringing out such a car in the world market within next eighteen months. The press lapped up the news and it spread as breaking news in all kinds of media all over the world. The car’s price was fixed marginally more than a two wheeler’s price. It was declared as the cheapest car of the world that every family on the earth could afford to possess. It was termed as “car revolution” by the automobile experts.

That evening four sets of people got busy.

First set of people, obviously, consisted of the potential customers of the cheapest car and their families who got busy dreaming about possessing the car. Otherwise, they could have never dreamt of possessing a car in their life.

Second set of people were the politicians in power in each state of Youngistan. They started working out strategies to woo this project for their states. They were busy working out the allotment of land for this project in their state and offering various attractive business incentives to Auto Delight Corporation. Each head of the state wanted to have this new factory of the cheapest car of the world in his state. It would definitely benefit the people of that state and more important- also the politician and his political party.

Third set of people were the local automotive companies of Youngistan- the local competitors of Auto Delight Corporation. Their top bosses’ first thought was how to meet the competition thrown up by the people’s small car project and the second thought was soaked with sinister intentions of how to sabotage the project of Auto Delight Corporation.

Fourth set of people were the international players in the world’s automobile business. They too were busy thinking seriously. Their smooth sailing dominance of so many years was suddenly threatened by the advent of this cheapest car of the people. They were quite disappointed with themselves realizing why they could not think of such a project beforehand? And their line of thinking of how to meet the competition and how to sabotage Auto Delight’s plan was no different than the line of thinking of Youngistan’s other local auto manufacturers.

And the most sinister plan developed.

A smart top level executive of one of the local competitor companies started coordinating with all the interested agencies. We will call this smart top level executive “Mr X” in order to keep the secrecy. Willy-nilly, Mr X also became the leader of the crusade whose objective was to stall the cheapest car of Auto Delight Corporation. He contacted many multinational automobile company CEOs and also the CEOs of the local automobile manufacturers. Likeminded they already were and so, it was easy to form a cartel between them. A huge pool of money was created by the contribution of all the members of this crusade. There would be heavy expenses involved in this kind of sabotage and they soon got ready with the required finances. Mr X was also coordinating in a very secret manner with the political chiefs of various political parties of Youngistan. The plan could not have been executed without the active support and involvement of local politicians.

The central theme of the plan to be developed by the cartel was that every member of the plan as well as the participating politicians must get benefitted in enormous proportions either in kind or in cash. And the entire plan must be kept a top level secret.

The plan worked out with finesse and perfection.

As per the plan, the chief of one political party had a meeting with Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation and invited him to commission his new factory in his state. He offered him as much land as he needed for the factory and also extremely attractive business incentives that no other state could even think of offering. In turn, the political chief of the state was enormously compensated in cash and kind for his this act of benevolence from the cartel’s common finance pool.

The construction of the factory started and was completed within fourteen months.

In this intervening period local and international automobile companies of the cartel had aligned themselves with each other to form alliances and collaborations and thus they got themselves organized to bring out their own small and cheap cars of the people. The competition among them was kept to the barest minimum. But they needed some more time to design and manufacture their respective wonder cars.

So around the time Yul Bright was ready to start rolling out the small cars from his newly commissioned factory, as per the master plan of the cartel, Mr X got the chief of the opposition political party in the state to start and lead an agitation against the production of the cars from the factory. The chief of the opposition political party was enormously compensated in cash and kind for leading the agitation from the cartel’s common finance pool. The opposition leader alleged that the land was forcibly grabbed from the residents of that place and allotted to Auto Delight Corporation under false promises of good amount of compensation against their lots of land and an assured employment to the members of the families who originally owned the lots of land. However, in reality none of this was happening; none of the promises were being executed. What was being offered to the local residents in lieu of the lots of their land was pittance. They wanted much more. Massive support to this agitation was bought by Mr X by paying very decent amounts to each of the thousands of agitators. Agitators under the leadership of the political chief of the opposition party became violent and physically manhandled many of the executives of the factory and made sure that they could not enter the factory premises. The work inside the factory came to a complete halt. Not a single car got produced.

Yul Bright got a shock of his life. He conferred with the political chief of the state to solve the issues and problems. It was state’s responsibility to deal with the local residents as per the agreement between the state government and Auto Delight Corporation. But Yul Bright found out soon that the state’s political chief’s approach towards solving this suddenly created problem became quite lukewarm; now he was not demonstrating the kind enthusiasm that he had displayed while inviting Bright to build his factory in the state. Yul Bright was highly disappointed by his reactions. The chief of the state said, “I am really very sorry Mr Bright. Someone in my administration has goofed up badly. In the larger interest of my state now, I may not be in a position to intervene as forcefully as I would have done otherwise.”

The agitation continued for two long months. Factory remained closed. Life of the executives of the factory was constantly under threat from the local residents- the agitators. Not a single car got assembled.

Having waited for two months without getting any satisfactory solution, finally Yul Bright took the toughest decision of his life- close this plant in this state and look out for another venue either in other states of Youngistan or even in any other country. He mentioned that it would mean delaying the project of the cheap wonder car by some eighteen months. He announced it formally. It was breaking news in the entire media of the world.

That evening members of the cartel were enjoying a gala party in a seven star hotel with abundance of finest wines flowing recklessly. Now they would be in position to roll out their versions of the cheap cars ahead of the cheap car of Auto Delight Corporation. They had bought sufficient time for it. Their businesses were saved; nah, their businesses would now flourish like nobody’s business.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Ethic, Human Beings and Corporate Exploitation

2010-05-06T03:56:00.000-07:00

The print of first 34 case studies/management anecdotes (published till April 21, 2010) in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Sandy Grover started her company Interior Designs and Decorations to prove something to her husband Joe.

Joe Grover was a brilliant electronic engineer and after working as a senior executive in a well known automobile company got laid off during the recession. He applied to several organizations for job but could not get any. Recession was too severe and rather than getting jobs, even bright professionals were being laid off in hundreds.

Having tried his hand at seeking job and seeing no scope of getting one till the recession was phased out; he decided to go on his own. With his decent savings during the first twelve years of employment, he could think of starting his business. He had the seed capital and additionally he borrowed money from his bank. He set up a small electronic factory to manufacture and supply components to the larger corporate companies in diverse industries. Electronic components were needed everywhere. Joe Grover was an ace designer and he could easily customize his products to his customers’ requirements.

We all know that any big business starts with it being small to start with. And there are always initial teething troubles. First few years of inception can be very trying both from work point of view and also from the revenues point of view. Joe Grover was no exception.

As the days passed, Joe Grover’s business started growing but only at snail’s pace. The income was not much. Joe’s strength was electronic design and his designs were robust. That did create interest in many prospective customers but still the orders were not coming in bulk; they just trickled.

Sandy Grover was watching the progress of Joe but was not very happy with it. She was not happy with the rate of growth and more particularly with the income- the income which was far lower than the salary Joe used to bring home when he was a senior executive.

Sandy concluded that it was a hopeless sign. She anticipated that the financial burden on her family would start mounting in the near future and soon enough she might be forced to accept a situation when the income would not be enough to take care of even the monthly installments of repayment of loans as well as to pull on with family’s day-to-day expenses.

She needed money to take care of the bills towards grocery, electricity, gas, telephones and school fees of their two children and what have you. Plus Sandy had got used to the standard of living that they could easily afford when Joe was employed as a senior executive. It was not possible for her to get used to the new idea where now Joe was self employed and at least for the time being the income had dwindled and she saw no signs of it increasing in the near future.

If that kind of scenario continued, she thought that they might not be left with any alternative but to dip into the savings of all these years. And that wasn’t proper. She just couldn’t allow it to happen. She thought to herself, “I must start thinking to make sure that such a thing does not happen. I must involve myself more seriously into saving the family from it much earlier than it would finally happen.”

So, Sandy started complaining. She said to Joe, “You are not getting enough orders. You must concentrate on marketing rather than on designing. I understand that designing is your favorite area but you should spend less time there and spend more time in building up a good customer base. You must develop more contacts and build up your network. I hear that it is the networking and personal contacts that really help getting the business. You seem to be doing nothing about it. I have seen some real smart people who started their own businesses and within a very short time they have flourished. I see them throwing parties, meeting various people in the clubs and playing golf and they are busy developing contacts and making friends. Now I call that as real marketing.”

Joe replied, “I fully appreciate what you are suggesting. But the competition is quite severe and after entering into business field I can see that the corruption is a real phenomenon. For getting a break with big sales orders, the outsourcing chiefs of some of our client companies are demanding kickbacks. The kind of networking and personal contacts you are talking does help in breaking the wall that the buyers build around them but for making them to sign on the dotted line for placing orders on us, they expect from us more than a clean business; they want the money under the table and I do not wish to compromise this way. My product designs are perfect, our manufacturing quality is superb and we have reached a large number of clients through various means that are pretty effective. Do not say that I am not marketing at all. I am doing a pretty serious marketing too. But the true story is that if you wish to get a quick bulk order and make quick bucks, you have to learn to compromise. You may call that as my weak point- I cannot learn to compromise.”

And then these arguments became more frequent and always ended with a fight between Sandy and Joe.

That is when sandy thought of starting her own business. She just could not see all of their savings go away before Joe really started earning the real money. And as per the serious assessment made by Sandy, Joe was not smart enough to do business. She concluded that he would remain where he started and with Joe’s ways of working he would never be able to make money. She branded him as incompetent in her own mind. She was losing respect for him and also her love for him.

She thought that she was an interior designer and decorator and she would launch her own business immediately. They still had more than adequate money in their savings right now to launch such a business and soon with her ideas on how to acquire big business in short time she would multiply the money in no time, she was very sure of it. She was also aware that she was quite attractive and that too was her plus point and in men’s world it mattered.

So, she started off. She opened her office in a plush location and inaugurated it by throwing a huge party. Among many people she met in the party, one gentleman influenced her a lot. She particularly liked that person since she knew that he was a very successful builder and owned an enormous real estate and construction conglomerate. She took initiative to get introduced to him and made him to agree for a meeting with her in his office.

She said, “So, I will see you in your office the coming Monday. Mr Jay Robbins, you must not disappoint me when I meet you in your office. I am looking forward to long term professional association with you and your company.”

Jay Robbins said, “Please call me Jay. I look forward to our meeting Mrs Grover.”

Sandy Grover said, “Please call me Sandy. I will be there pronto.”

Monday came and Sandy Grover was with Jay Robbins discussing business propositions.

Jay Robbins made a remark, “Sandy, your timing has been perfect. I have launched a project of gigantic proportions and we are at the stage of doing the interiors of these luxury apartments. My present interior decorator has not been quite up to her mettle and I was seriously looking out for her replacement. You will have to meet me couple of times to understand my requirements and then you can start off with interior designing and decoration of the apartment houses. Why not meet tomorrow evening in my club?”

Then there were series of meetings between Sandy and Jay and they went on getting closer and closer with each other not only professionally and business wise but also personally and as a result, very intimate relationship started growing between them. Sandy got an enormous business contract from Jay Robbins and within a period of an year Sandy’s monthly income soared very high. She was becoming rich literally overnight. She found no need to develop any new clients. Work coming from Jay’s company kept her and her ever growing staff fully busy.

As Sandy and Jay started getting more and more intimate, Joe and Sandy started falling apart more and more. Sandy thought that Jay was smart and competent and she also thought that Joe was dull and incompetent.

Joe noticed the changes in Sandy and their relationship with each other and he was intelligent to understand the reasons. Yet he put in his efforts to save his marriage, to keep the family intact; he loved his two kids lots and he also loved Sandy as his kids’ mother and his wife. He decided to hold his family together despite the pain he was suffering because of Sandy’s fling. He was sure that she would get over it in due course.

In the mean time Joe was gradually gaining fame due to his creative designs, excellent quality of manufacture and his professional marketing and also more and more clients started placing more and more orders on his firm. Yet his income levels just could not reach anywhere near the income levels of Sandy.

Eight years went by. Through this period Joe was sad, Sandy was jubilant. Sandy and Jay continued with each other; Joe was lonesome.

Then, one evening when Joe returned home from his factory, he heard Sandy’s uncontrollable sobbing and hiccups. He sat near her and held her hand in his. Sandy dropped her head on Joe’s shoulders and spoke out incoherently with lots of effort, “……Jay Robbins has cancelled all my contracts with his company and he has found out a new and younger interior designer and decorator and he has now placed all the contracts on her firm. He says that I have been messing up with things lately and he suffered huge losses due to it and so he cannot continue with me. He had done the same thing with the earlier interior designer and decorator when he had fired her and took me instead. Now the history is repeating. He has also replaced his old secretary with a much younger and more beautiful girl. The older secretary was hysterical and was blurting out that Jay is a play boy. He likes only younger women…..”

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Getting Rid of the Thorn

2010-04-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

The print of first 34 case studies/management anecdotes (published till April 21, 2010) in book format is now available at a price. Send your order for the number of copies of the print to prodcons@prodcons.com

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

In the corporate world some news items travel at the speed of light.

The moment Sam Jessop decided to quit as the deputy CEO of Teknology Supreme Ltd, a premier engineering company of the country, the news spread like wild fire. His name and fame as a capable engineer and manager had touched all nooks and corners of the engineering industry. And as the bigwigs of the engineering industry came to know about it, they were ready to woo him for their own companies with open arms, now that he was available as the most suitable and eligible bachelor around. Sam Jessop was after all a very successful person in the eyes of the entire world.

Yes, Sam Jessop was after all a very successful person for the entire world but his existing company Teknology Supreme did not think so. That’s the reason, finally, when it came to select the next CEO of the company, he was bypassed and his contemporary was chosen as CEO of Teknology Supreme. No one knew the exact reason. To everyone in Teknology Supreme, Sam Jessop would have been the obvious choice for the CEO’s position. But, things happen queerly in corporate sector. The outcome- Sam was quite unhappy and resigned from the company in protest. Teknology Supreme decided to let him go without much of melodrama.

Many companies now wished to grab him. He was a hot property. Sam got some three or four good offers. Finally, he decided to join the number two engineering company of the country “Boundaryless Engineering Corporation”.

He joined them as an engineering consultant by the title “chief technical adviser to the chairman” of Boundaryless Engineering Corporation. He was meted out the hierarchical level, fees, perquisites and everything else exactly on par with the existing CEO of Boundaryless Engineering. And he was given a big cabin next to the cabin of the chairman of the corporation. The CEO used to have his cabin away from that of the chairman. This nearness of cabin of Sam Jessop created a bit of a stir in the entire higher echelon of the company. The CEO Ray Barry’s sentiments did not go untouched by this. He felt a bit let down by this type of induction of Sam Jessop. However, he consoled himself by thinking that after all Sam was brought as a consultant- as adviser and not as an executive. All the powers ultimately rested with him only.

Soon Sam Jessop was attending all the strategic meetings of Boundaryless Engineering Corporation. Initially he was quite a spectator in the meetings but within a month’s time, he started opening up his mouth in these meetings. And what he spoke was not always liked by many attendees and particularly the CEO Ray Barry. The things used to be more critical when the chairman was also around in the meetings. Many decisions were shaped by the advice of Sam Jessop and Chairman invariably saw a point in the advice of Sam. There was always something value adding in his remarks. Not to be seen as a threat to the executives and CEO of the company, Sam Jessop had picked up a habit of concluding his remarks by saying, “This is what I can advise in the best interest of the company. If you gentlemen think it fit to give consideration to my suggestions, it will be good. But that decision rests entirely with you. My job is to advise and your job is to execute.”

Ray Barry was quite uncomfortable after the arrival of Sam Jessop. His managerial designs were being constantly questioned and put to test due to involvement of Sam. He saw these involvements as interference in running the company. He hated this situation, He thought to himself, “I must soon find out some solution to this problem. I don’t want Sam hanging around my neck.”

Ultimately Ray Barry worked out a plan.

First he put few of his confidants to carry out an elaborate research work on the background of Sam Jessop. Main agenda of the research was to find out the specific reasons for the indirect ouster of Sam from his previous organization Teknology Supreme Ltd. That would uncover the yet unknown weaknesses of Sam. “Every person on this earth has weaknesses. Sam too must be having some”, thought Ray.

Ray also started to interview some of the persons who had migrated from Teknology Supreme and joined Boundaryless Engineering at senior management levels. He used to ask them pretty searching questions to get some clue about the working style of Sam, his strong points and mainly his weaknesses. And this way he did gather some very important pieces of information that would help him to draw out his strategies to minimize the interference of Sam in his ways of running the company.

His confidants of the research project also brought in a number of very significant details about Sam’s weaknesses which were also probably the major most reasons for denial of CEO position to him in his previous organization.

One evening Ray Barry sat down in his home office and pondered over all the information and tips he had collected from various sources about Sam. Out of all of them, two things or two facts were glaring at him prominently. First fact pointed to the first major weakness of Sam. Sam had weakness for alcohol. The second fact pointed to the second major weakness of Sam. Despite having a beautiful wife at home, Sam was fond of company of other women. Ray did not waste his time in registering other weaknesses of Sam. As per Ray, these two weaknesses of Sam were his “A” class weaknesses and he must concentrate on them and use them intelligently.

This was the third month of Sam Jessop’s contract as adviser to chairman. Within these three months he had done a good degree of damage as per Ray. He would not allow him to extend it further- he was determined.

As per the contract, Sam used to visit the company only on the days when there were important meetings. Sam continued living in the city of the head quarters of his previous company and used to fly to this city of head quarters of his new employer Boundaryless Engineering on these days. On such occasions the company used to make five star arrangements for his stay.

Sam Jessop was scheduled to arrive for the next meeting in a couple of days and he would stay in a five star hotel for about a week. A few days ahead of his arrival, Ray Barry called his administrative chief to his cabin and said, “I wish to review the arrangements of stay etc of Mr Sam Jessop. I want you to upgrade his stay into the best suite available in the hotel now onwards. He should not stay in the regular rooms of the hotel- that is below the dignity of a person of Mr Jessop’s stature. And you guys have never looked after him decently in the past three months. He spends his evenings alone here, away from his home town and away from his family. Please do think in terms of how to entertain him in the evenings. Organize a few parties when he is around. To compensate for our failure in this aspect, please set out a party this time on the very first day of his arrival. It should be a great party. Nothing should be missed out. The menu of the dinner should be first class and the drinks should be top rated.”

Then Ray Barry handed over the list of invitees for the party. In the list of invitees he had included the names of couple of top notch socialite ladies whom he knew as great company to any male connoisseur seeking a female company.

And Sam Jessop fell for each of these arrangements head over heels. He indulged himself. He drank to the brim. Soon he was also enjoying the female company. And he had a luxurious suite to himself.

Next day in the meeting where even the chairman of the company was present, Sam Jessop just did not open his mouth, made no comments and released no advices. He was suffering from a serious hangover and lack of sleep.

Ray Barry was smiling all the way.

Chairman was not very happy at the silence of Sam Jessop. After all, he was paying heavy sum of money for each minute of Sam Jessop’s presence (and his words of wisdom/advice) in the meeting.

(We learn that this trap was repeated several times by Ray Barry and Sam Jessop became its victim every time. The latest grapevine is: the chairman of the company is seriously considering terminating Sam’s contract).

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

The Smart Ones

2010-04-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

Six months course, in the technical institutes of highest renown, in the latest and emerging engineering and technological principles and practices. The course ended in awarding the trainees equivalent of an MS degree.
Compulsory break of one week: rejuvenation break.
One week’s preparatory applied psychology tune up course in a reputed business school. The course prepared the trainees to understand and appreciate the realities of the corporate life.
Enter the company’s factories and work on shop floor machines along with the workers to develop dignity of labor and to get the first hand feel of the grass root level. Duration 1.5 months.
Three month rotational training in all the departments of the company to orient trainees to various business processes.
Four months intensive management development course in company’s staff college. It was tougher than the full time MBA programs of the best business schools.
Allotment of the departments to the trainees as their first formal placement in the organization as a manager. Undertake a three month’s project work in the allotted department as the first assignment.

Then these management trainees were designated as “manager”.
By now Global High Tech Corporation had recruited 4 batches of management trainees totalling to 85, trained them through the above mentioned training and finally inducted them in the company’s hierarchy as managers.
Since all these 85 persons had passed through a 100% identically common process of recruitment and selection and subsequently the training and they had lived together as a batch for long eighteen months, they had developed a great degree of camaraderie among themselves. As a result, they used to support and cooperate with each other not only in the professional matters but also in their personal matters. They were seen by outsiders, by other employees like a unified clan. They were the blue eyed boys of the organization and others envied them as someone special. Others envied them also for their solidarity.
Two more years passed and things remained great among the management trainees (now turned into managers). The two years passage also made them eligible for their next promotions. Company had decided the policy of promotions based on merit.
Each of 85 management trainees was a gem and each one was highly ambitious. As they started becoming eligible to be considered for promotions, each of them secretly started craving to become the first to be promoted. A strong undercurrent started developing. Many started lobbying with their superiors, other started acting street smart. And in the process instead of cooperating, they started competing against each other in very subtle and sophisticated ways.
While every one of 85 was trying various stunts, two of them were emerging as top management’s pets. Their names were: Raj Badal and Deep Gupta. Both were highly intelligent and smart. On top of these qualities they had one more important quality. Both were great informers. They would meet the members of the senior and top management team from time to time and inform. And mostly they were informing about who was saying what about the management policies and about the top bosses of the company. Invariably all the top bosses liked to get such information; after all information is power, they say. And therefore, they liked Raj Badal and Deep Gupta.
In the process, whenever Raj Badal and Deep Gupta got opportunity to malign their rest of 83 friends of management trainee clan in front of their bosses, they did so pretty artistically.
The management of the company did not want to make any mistake whatsoever in selecting the first management trainee for promotion. So they were watching each one of 85 very carefully and by and large reached a near consensus by short listing Raj Badal and Deep Gupta. The management had yet to choose one from them.
Raj Badal was keeping a close watch on Deep Gupta and his activities.
Similarly Deep Gupta was keeping a close watch on Raj Badal and his activities.
Raj Badal’s marital status underwent change just a couple of months ago. He was a married man now with a beautiful young wife at home. In a way, he was still in his honeymoon period. Raj Badal was not only a married man but he was also a great delegator. He was indeed a great manager. He had trained his subordinates so thoroughly that they were capable of running his department even in his absence. This favourable situation motivated Raj Badal to sneak out of his office and company’s security gate along with the first shift employees whose lunch time was at 11.30 AM. These employees would return at 12 noon after half an hour’s lunch break. But Raj Badal would not. In fact since he was a general shift employee, his legitimate lunch time was between 1 PM to 1.30 PM. But he was not following those timings. So he started using the lunch time of first shift employees instead of general shift employees. Then he would return to the office not at 12 noon or even at 1.30 PM but at 3.30 PM which was the start time of the second shift employees. He would stealthily enter the company premises through its security gate at 3.30 PM. Then he would walk out of the factory at his legitimate close time of general shift i.e. at 5.30 PM. So in effect he was now away from his office between 11.30 PM to 3.30 PM and so practically he was attending the office only for half a day.
Raj Badal’s wife Mrs Badal was a member of the ladies’ club of the company. Innocently one odd day she spoke about her husband’s smart tricks to one of the other newly married ladies of the club. And mysteriously the news travelled to Mrs Gupta and through her to her husband Mr Deep Gupta.
Now, Deep Gupta had his trump card. He literally rushed to a top management member who mattered. He in turn alerted the security officer of the company who in turn nabbed Raj Badal red handed committing the act of indiscipline.
Raj Badal saw his dream of becoming the first promoted management trainee crumbling right in front of his eyes. But he was now more determined not to allow Deep Gupta snatching away that title and glory from him. He must find out some weak spot of Deep Gupta since after this episode Gupta deserved a tit for tat.
That evening, when Raj Badal went home he acted quite composed and he asked his wife if she had noticed the same thing that he had been noticing about Guptas. As per his observations Guptas were leading a life style far beyond their means. Mrs Badal thought for a while and confirmed that she felt the same way too.
Deep Gupta was in charge of outsourcing department. He used to deal with outside contractors. Raj Badal felt that there must be some nexus between Deep Gupta and some of his suppliers. And from those quarters he must be making some extra bucks that made him capable of living a high profile life. And next whole day he was secretly meeting Deep Gupta’s subordinates to find out some clue. Finally he was successful. He came to know that Deep Gupta was supplying some secret technical drawings of some components to one of the suppliers on the platter. As per the company policy the suppliers were supposed to submit their own technical drawings to the company for approval before manufacturing the components.
“Eureka”, Raj Badal cried out in delight. And then he missed no time to go to the same member of the top management whom Deep Gupta had complained. A quick investigation was ordered and Deep Gupta was found guilty of flouting company policy and in turn seeking bribe from the contractor.
Now, with two candidates having disappointed the top management, a fresh search must start to uncover the first management trainee to be promoted.
Rest of 83 management trainees were very happy with the fall of two Goliaths. But there remained other 82 tough competitors for each one yet.
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Corporate Rewards

2010-04-21T23:09:00.000-07:00

Don’t be an Emotional Fool; It’s a Ruthless World

2010-04-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

That morning Naren Moorthy was in a jubilant mood. He had superseded many brighter and deserving candidates of the company and got elevated to the position of the principal manufacturing unit of the company as the unit chief of finance and information technology.

This story relates to a bit older period when finance and information technology went hand in hand. Since during the early days of computerization, the accounting and payroll systems were the first systems to be computerized, the information technology department was invariably organized under the chief of finance. Though Naren Moorthy had no background in finance (he was information technology man), yet he needed to be promoted as a reward for his excellent personal services (in unsophisticated language it is called sycophancy) to the corporation’s group chief of finance and information technology Ashish Chandok. Naren Moorthy had played a great political role in supporting Ashish Chandok in his bad days in the company and Chandok owed one to Naren Moorthy.

Now that Ashish Chandok was once again in the saddle in the top management politics of the company and regained his powerful position, he wanted to return the favor to Naren Moorthy. So he promoted Moorthy out of turn and sent him to company’s main manufacturing plant which was located in another town nearer to the city in which corporate office was located. Chandok always wanted Moorthy around him and not too far from him.

Naren Moorthy was young, as compared to others, for the position he got now. He knew it and he prided himself for that. He was an ambitious person and this out of turn promotion convinced him that anything was possible for him if he hitched himself to the right people in the organization or even outside the organization.

He barely settled in the new job and soon one day he got an urgent phone call from Ashish Chandok from the corporate office.

Chandok said, “Moorthy, find out someone who is really good at system design and manpower planning functions. I am sure that there must be someone like that there in your department or elsewhere in the plant. Depute him immediately to Universal Finance Corporation- two blocks away from our corporate office. Ask him to meet the chairman of Universal Finance Mr Putli day after tomorrow at 10AM sharp. You must know that he is on our board of directors since his company finances our company in a big way. He is very important for our company and the board. He has a serious industrial relations problem in his own company. His workers union has threatened to go on strike if he does not sanction extra manpower to manage the new scheme he has recently launched. And they are asking far too many additional people which he does not wish to sanction because he wishes to computerize that section soon. He thinks that an outsider can study the requirements of extra manpower and quickly suggest a computerized system. That is why I am particular about the type of person you depute to work with Mr Putli. And Moorthy, I don’t want any delay since the appointment is already fixed.”

Moorthy, the genuine yours truly, affirmed the arrangement by simply saying, “Yes, sir.” He was mighty happy to think that he would get a chance to get closer to Mr Putli through this new God sent assignment. After all Mr Putli was such an influential man in the corporate circle and if he could please Putli by hitching him the way he did with Chandok, only sky could be the limit for his progress in the corporate world.

Moorthy did some serious probing very fast and found a senior manager named Jeet Gavkar who fitted the profile Chandok had asked for. Jeet Gavkar was working in information technology department and he had an earlier experience in manpower planning too. Jeet was working under the chief of information technology of the plant Raj Cowra. Raj Cowra was a seasoned elderly person. Moorthy though much younger, was now Raj Cowra’s boss. Raj Cowra detested this. Moorthy was no match to Raj Cowra in technical expertise and so Moorthy also avoided him as much as possible.

So, Moorthy, as usual, bypassed Cowra and directly contacted Jeet Gavkar. Jeet Gavkar met Moorthy in his cabin. Moorthy instructed, “Day after tomorrow at 10AM sharp you have to meet Mr Putli, the Chairman of Universal Finance.” And then he rattled all the details that Chandok had given him about the assignment.

Jeet Gavkar said, “You may know that I am right in the middle of launching the new production scheduling system that cannot be delayed. Raj Cowra is directly supervising it. Can you please keep Cowra informed about this new assignment at Universal Finance that you want me to additionally take up?”

Moorthy said, “Look Jeet, if you wish to rise in my department you must be prepared to undertake additional special assignments from me and it is up to you as to how you deal with Cowra for your other work. Manage Cowra as well as his work in your own way. I am out of that picture. Is it OK?” Then he got busy with other things indicating to Jeet Gavkar that the meeting was over.

As luck would have it, that evening Jeet Gavkar met with an automobile accident. It could have been a near fatal accident. He got hurt very badly. His right leg got twisted and was in ferocious pain. He suffered bruises all over his body particularly on the temple and just above the eyes. He lost a lot of blood and became weak.

All of this and the meeting with Putli of Universal Finance the day after were staring at him mockingly. Jeet mentioned about the impending meeting to his wife, “Are you a fool? How can you even think of a meeting when you are so badly hurt? The doctor has advised complete rest at least for the next three to four days and you are looking so funny with all those bandages on you. You can’t even wear your shoes; the legs are all bruised. Just ring Moorthy and Cowra and get the meeting postponed by a couple of days.”

That day after the meeting with Moorthy, Jeet kept Cowra informed about the assignment Moorthy had given him to which Cowra shrugged his shoulders.

On advice of his wife, Jeet Gavkar first called Cowra and requested him to request Moorthy to postpone the meeting. Again Cowra showed the same indifference and said, “Well, though I fully sympathize with you, I am really not in the picture. I just don’t know anything about this assignment that Moorthy gave you directly. So I suggest you to directly contact him. And get well soon. The production scheduling system needs you too.”

Jeet felt greatly cheesed off. He had no choice but to speak with Moorthy now. He rang him, gave him all the details of his automobile accident and said, “Therefore, Mr Moorthy, may I request you to talk to either Mr Chandok or Mr Putli and get the meeting postponed. As soon as I pick up a bit, I will meet Mr Putli?”

Moorthy retorted, “Jeet, you told me that you are not totally bed ridden. Right? And with some difficulty and with the support of a stick you can still move around. I suggest- don’t press me to change the date of the meeting. Chandok and Putli have fixed up the date and time of the meeting after lot of planning. They are the directors of two huge companies and their time is very precious. Plus, it is a union matter- may lead to a strike by the workers. No, I cannot even suggest postponement. I don’t have any other person here in the plant who can replace you. Take full rest the whole day tomorrow and charge day after tomorrow. OK? Keep me informed of the happenings.”

Jeet Gavkar said, “I understand your compulsions but please try to understand my compulsions too. Doctor has advised me rest for three to four days and I am on heavy pain killers.”

Moorthy rebuffed, “No, I do not buy it. Do keep the pain killers handy with you and you are saying that pain killers keep down the level of pain. So you can still make it……take rest full day tomorrow; do not come to the office tomorrow- that much I can do for you. And Jeet, if you wish to progress in the corporate world, you got to be tough. You cannot put off your work just because of some little ailment here or there. And now I leave it you. You decide and also be ready to face the repercussions if something goes wrong because of your decisions and actions.”

With this, Moorthy hung up the phone.

Jeet Gavkar had a brief conference with his wife that day and then, decided to attend the meeting in his all bandaged condition using a stick to support and gulping the pain killers. He decided to hire a luxury taxi the day after so that the journey could be less tiring. He decided to bear the extra expenses for the hiring of such a taxi since the company would pay him only for an ordinary taxi as per company’s travel rules.

He entered the office of Mr Putli at Universal Finance the day after. Putli’s secretary announced his arrival to Putli. Jeet entered Putli’s cabin. Putli saw Jeet in all bandaged condition and limping.

He showed some curiosity, “Hey, what happened. Chandok did not tell me about it. We could have fixed up another date. Why, even your boss Moorthy rang me only yesterday and confirmed the meeting, gave your background and the name. So, he knew about your accident. Then I suppose it may not be such a serious thing after all though from the first looks of it you look pretty bad.”

Putli continued, “And now that you are here, why not get started with the business. I am in a pretty bad soup and Chandok and Moorthy promised me to take me out of it. So, first let me fill you up with some details.”

And then Putli continued with the meeting while Jeet was suffering great pain.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Boomerang

2010-04-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Lately Mrs Shalini Bhatia was mighty deranged. All the time she was feeling somewhat let down.

Even in the ladies’ club parties she had suddenly started feeling pretty left out. The ladies club mainly consisted of the wives of the senior executives of the company Victory Incorporation. The importance of the members of the ladies club depended on the importance of their husbands in the company. The annual promotion time of the husbands used to present the most trying time for their wives. If the husband got promoted, the wife of that executive used to feel elated and her status in the ladies club would soar high all of a sudden. And the lady whose husband did not get promoted used to feel ashamed of herself (and her husband) and was treated lowly. In short, the hierarchical level was very important for these ladies and that squarely depended on how much promotion potential their husbands had.

During past couple of seasons, Mrs Shalini Bhatia’s husband could not impress the top management of the company and was left behind as compared to his contemporaries in the company who got promoted faster than him. Earlier times, it used to be the other way round. Mr Anubhav Bhatia was the star of the sales division of the organization. And therefore, Mrs Shalini Bhatia was a star too.

Mr Anubhav Bhatia was personally picked up from an outside organization by the managing director Mr Victor Darbari. Anubhav had impressed Victor Darbari in his employment interview and was taken in the company some eight years ago as a sales engineer. Within a short span, he got promoted to various senior levels and his present designation was deputy general manager (sales). But after reaching at this level a couple of years ago, his progress experienced a brake. And subsequently for consecutive three promotion seasons he did not get a promotion and not even a raise in the salary.

He had obviously fallen out of Victor Darbari’s favors. He and his wife were trying to research into this stalemate. Anubhav felt that he was meeting the sales targets assigned to him though could not go beyond them as per his earlier reputation. But then couple of others in his division had got promoted despite their similar performance. So, he was bit confused. Then Mrs Shalini Bhatia came out with her theory. She thought that she was one of the most presentable and beautiful lady of the ladies club and many ladies including Victor Darbari’s wife used to feel threatened due to this fact. Shalini pouted and said, “Now how can I help? I am made this way; it’s none of my fault. If others feel jealous, it’s their problem.”

Anubhav replied, “But darling, others include managing director’s wife- you got to remain close to her.”

Shalini was pretty street smart types and she understood what the husband hinted. She agreed, “Yes, I appreciate what you say. Here onwards, I will try to get closer to her. But that’s only half the story. You will have to work on Victor also. Your relationship with him has been pretty intimate. After all, as per Victor’s claim it is he who found you and he has enjoyed many accolades due to your performance in the past.”

Anubhav suddenly felt enlightenment, “Oh, that’s that. I have not been giving that kind of enjoyment and pleasure to Victor lately for past three years in succession despite his several hints to me and so, others in the division have taken my place and pleased Victor. And worse- whenever Victor hinted at me, I ended up arguing with him as to why sales could not be stepped up with the current product mix. Victor does not like my arguments; he gets cheesed off. And that has been happening for quite some time now. I never realized but now I guess that my questioning him has not gone on well with him; after all he is the managing director and I am just a deputy general manager. I should have remembered that. No one else argues with him but me. Since we had developed an intimacy of sorts and had worked together so closely with each other over many years, I have been pretty open with him in my discussions. I am a fool; I should not have done it. And on top of that you have been acting like a beauty queen in the ladies club. Victor’s wife must have definitely mentioned about it to Victor.”

Shalini was quite unhappy, she complained, “OK. OK. But all of this has created problems. These others have been promoted as general managers and let me tell you, that’s the real level in this company. They have been allotted company’s palatial bungalows and we are stuck with this rented apartment. They have recently upgraded their cars too. Our car is too small and old fashioned. They have been given the latest mobile phones and you are still carrying something that even our maid servant possesses. Frankly, I have started feeling too small these days. You must work on Victor. You are still on intimate terms with him. Why don’t you meet him when he is in a relaxed mood outside the office and have a heart to heart chat with him. For what all you did for him all these years, you can always demand a promotion to general manager’s level as a return favor to you, just one promotion. Tell him that you will not ask any more promotions from him. But he must promote you to general manager designation this coming season which is just around the corner.”

So, Mrs Shalini Bhatia and Mr Anubhav Bhatia strategized.

And finally Abubhav found an occasion when he thought that Victor must be in a real relaxed mood. He was at the airport waiting for the announcement of his flight. And he found that Victor too was at the airport. He prayed for Victor to travel in the same aircraft with him. Then he could find lots of relaxed time in the business class with him.

To his luck Victor boarded the same flight. As they settled down in their seats, Anubhav got up and went up to Victor and said, “Hi, what a surprise, you are on the same flight.”

Victor said, “Yes, my program always gets formed at the last moment.”

Anubhav lost no time and announced, “Can I have a personal chat with you? It’s pretty personal and I could do so here without taking your time in the office.”

Victor hesitated a bit but he had no alternative but to accede to Anubhav’s request. Seat next to Victor’s was not occupied and so he sat down there. After a few minutes after the take off, he started talking with Victor.

He rattled out everything the way it was planned between him and Shalini.

After he finished, Victor showed a surprise, “I never ever thought that you and Shalini were so hard up to get that blessed general manager designation. You definitely must be knowing that I cannot deny your personal request any time and now particularly coming out to me with so many emotions. But it’s going to upset my organization structure and division of responsibilities quite a bit which I just don’t like; I hate it rather. But on the other hand I cannot upset you and Shalini. So, have your way. Congratulations; I promote you as general manager. I will instruct HR division to do the paper work.”

Anubhav was in seventh heaven already. He was the general manager now and would soon get company’s palatial bungalow, upscale car and the brand new latest model of cell phone and many more perquisites. In this excitement he could not fully fathom the seriousness of the undertones of Victor’s communication with him. Victor further expressed it in terms of his body language that he was not interested in any further communication with him. He just closed the eyes pretending that he went to sleep.

As soon as the aircraft landed at its destination, Anubhav rang Shalini and congratulated her. She started dreaming of her new hierarchical position in the ladies club.

After that the things started toughening up for Anubhav. Victor promoted him as general manager alright but in doing so, Victor had to disturb his plans significantly which he did not like. As a fallout of all this, he allotted Anubhav a very small portfolio of selling some new trial products of the company (which was a very tough job and Anubhav just did not have any experience in it) and gave him a small contingent of manpower. He set pretty ambitious targets for Anubhav for the next three years.

Anubhav could not meet the targets the first year, he was way below them. Victor called him and reprimanded and reminded him that he expected lot more at the rank of a general manager. The second year was not any good for Anubhav. Victor repeated his reprimand and the reminder about his general manager position and the expectations attached to it.

Anubhav realized that though he had a better designation, better salary and perquisites, he was totally on an unfamiliar territory and his span of operation and control had reduced dramatically. He was not quite satisfied with the situation despite getting the designation he and his wife had chased.

Before the end of third year, Anubhav knew that his ouster from the company was imminent and he started the job hunt for himself very seriously.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Self and Family Foremost

2010-04-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

With great difficulty, HR chief Harry Roman managed to get company’s Sales chief Sunny Omar’s agreement to meet up with him. And Sunny knew that it was the only way to decide about the annual rewards to his employees. It was the annual performance appraisal time and without this meeting with Harry, his recommendations to promote or raise the salaries of many of his important staffers could not be forwarded to the top management for approval.

Yet, Sunny had been postponing the meeting with Harry. He just did not have time for any meetings. Sunny Omar was enviably the busiest guy of the company. In a competitive market in which he was, selling his company’s products was an uphill task. The company was not doing all that great on product development front and so, also on the sales front. Therefore it will not be an exaggeration to say that the company was keeping a track of sales performance on hour to hour basis. Company’s every top shot’s performance was largely dependent on the performance of Sunny Omar. Everyone’s eyes would finally be set on what kind of sales figures Sunny reported day after day. And obviously he had many bosses in the company. Organization charts constructed based on the much talked about management principle of unity of command rarely worked under such situations. Here one person had many husbands. And Sunny’s every day was torn serving all of them.

He constantly was at the beck and call of all of his numerous bosses. The first boss was the family chief of the main promoter of the company who was the chairman of the company around 8 years ago but even after retirement believed that he was the supreme boss. He could not be satisfied without getting informed on the sales figures every 4 hours of the long 16 hours work day. He genuinely expected his executives to work 16 hours a day.

His second boss was the son of this ex-chairman, now the current chairman of the company. Being slightly younger and modern, he expected Sunny to report to him on the sales figures at least two to three times a day.

His third boss was the CEO of the company, his real legitimate boss as per the organization chart. He too was demanding but having risen to that position via the route of sales chief of the company, he fully empathized with Sunny.

His fourth boss was the chief of finance. This chief of finance is always considered to be the most dreaded person of any family run company irrespective of how so ever big the company may be. He is considered to be very close to the top most people of the company and a great informer. Even CEO of the company (if he is a professional and most of the family oriented companies appoint an outsider professional as the CEO for obvious reasons) has to beg from the chief of finance the much needed money to run a company. The chief of finance of this company was a tough nut too and would demand information on sales figures and more importantly the collection figures every two hours.

He had a few more bosses like chief of manufacturing etc, though less devilish but he could pay attention to them only if he was left with any time after keeping the above-mentioned four bosses humored hour after hour and day after day.

Apart from serving all these bosses he had his own work to accomplish every day- the main work of selling the products. He had to manage his department and the numerous dealers etc. So, he ended up doing overtime every single day.

And what do you expect this will do to any healthy person? Yes, you guessed right- high blood pressure and start of the heart ailment. Sunny Omar embraced both of them. And once you get them, you have to live with them over whatsoever little life is left with you. In addition to getting habituated to reporting daily figures many times to many bosses, he had also become habituated of gulping many medicinal tablets many times a day.

Now you can understand why Sunny Omar was not in a position to meet the HR chief Harry Roman. He selected a day and time for the meeting very carefully, the day when the ex-chairman and the chairman were away from their offices and were attending a family function somewhere abroad. He expected no disturbance from them at least.

But it was not to happen that particular day. As soon as the performance appraisal meeting started between Harry and Sunny in Sunny’s office, the chairman rang from wherever he was enjoying the family function and the family lunch. Sunny guessed that chairman could not have started his lunch. The first course of the lunch for him was knowing about the sales performance of the company. That call lasted for over 25 minutes.

Then chief of finance rang him as soon as Sunny was done with the chairman. On the days when chairman was away from office, chief of finance’s main job was to keep a track of who all from the corporate office were speaking with the chairman and what was it they were speaking about. He had his own way of knowing this. So he rang Sunny to know as to what the chairman wanted. The idea was to keep himself ready with all the information on all the fronts so that if the chairman or his father rang him, he was prepared for it. So Sunny got busy with chief of finance for the next 45 minutes.

After that, Sunny resumed his meeting with Harry only to be interrupted by the ex-chairman (the current chairman’s father). He asked more or less the same information and questions which the chairman had talked about just some time ago. Sunny cursed him silently, “Why the old man could not have got that information from his son, after all they were having their lunch together in the same room?”

By this time he was exhausted and in these back to back meetings with his three bosses, he just did not have time to take his medicines. Doctor had advised him to be very regular with his medicines but invariably he would miss the timings and sometimes, even the medicines.

Sunny excused himself for few minutes and swallowed a couple of tablets. Harry was patient with him.

Sunny said, “Where were we? Yes, I am exceeding my budget but if the company wishes to meet its sales targets, you may have to convince the management to promote these guys whom I am recommending. They are the pillars of sales department. Please get the approval for exceptional budget for this.”

He had barely completed his sentence, then, he was called by the CEO Jim Barker. Jim Barker would not tolerate any delays. So, without any delay, Sunny excused himself once more and dashed to the office of CEO Jim Barker. It was two flights up and he took the stairwell rather than waiting for the elevator.

By the time he reached Jim’s office and sat down in the chair in front of him, he was profusely sweating and panting. He was about to collapse and faint. Jim asked a few questions related to work but Sunny just could not manage to speak.

Jim knew a bit about the health conditions of Sunny. Jim was an experienced person in the sense that he was also a patient of high blood pressure. He could understand what was happening to Sunny. Jim asked Sunny if he had taken his daily blood pressure pill to which he said, “No.”

Jim asked, “Which one your doctor has prescribed?” Sunny gave the name of the pill. Jim was happy to know that it was the same tablet that he was also prescribed and so he searched his cabinet and administered that to Sunny. He immediately called the company doctor and arranged for his electrocardiogram (ECG) in his own chamber. Luckily ECG had not worsened. Doctor advised sunny to take rest for half an hour in Jim’s chamber and went away.

Jim did not disturb Sunny for nearly one hour since he had dozed off. After about an hour when Sunny woke up he started to apologize and said, “I am OK now. I am ready for work.” But Jim would not allow him to work.

He asked sunny to relax and said, “Sunny, today I wish to give you a very important advice. Please do not ignore it. I am speaking with you not as your CEO but as Jim and as your friend. Listen to me carefully.”

Then Jim continued, “I have been observing you pretty closely for quite some time now. You are a very sincere, honest, loyal and hard working person. I wonder if you are this sincere and loyal to your wife and your kids. Apparently you are not. The way you are burning yourself from both the ends, you are cutting your life span. You will be on the verge of a serious breakdown that might fall on you much sooner and without any warning. Please remember, you are mainly working for yourself and your family and not for any inanimate company. God forbid, if something serious happens to you because of your over indulgence with the work here and you die, let me tell you frankly that no one from this company is going to look after your family after you are gone. At best, a senior officer of HR department would represent this company on your funeral as per the HR manual of the company and hand over to your wife a check of your pension fund. And that’s it. They will sympathize with your family for a day or two and after that everything will be forgotten. Real life is like that. None of us, our chairman or his father or our finance chief or even me will be of any use to your family after you are gone, all of us have our own problems and all of us are busy with them; where is the genuine time and concern for others?”

Sunny Omar felt different from any of his usual office days. He was more relaxed. He got introduced to a new and important dimension of life.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Zero Layoff Recession

2010-04-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

Eye on long term keeping short term interests as important.
Effective and efficient running of company resulting in minimum wastage and minimum overall costs.
Pricing structures more guided by the overall costs of providing products and services and not necessarily being dictated by the market price trends. (It was possible because the company constantly kept a close watch on its overall costs).
Not being a greedy organization. Aim at only reasonable profits.
Increase the market shares on sound principles of winning customer loyalty.
Constantly build up the company reserves. The company reserves will be maintained at levels where even in rainy days, the company will have sufficient funds to look after the interests of all of its stake holders, the most important being the employees and also, the interests of the customers.
Build up the manpower in the organization in a sensible way.
The highest salary will be within a maximum of ten times that of the lowest salary in the company.
Remain a zero lay-off company even in the trying times.

And after a gap of 11 years the recession was haunting everyone once again.
Jay Kotnis’s company was not left untouched by the onslaught of recession. This was confirmed by the vice president (finance) who conferred with Jay Kotnis one gloomy morning.
He said to Jay Kotnis, “Mr Kotnis, we are in a very tight situation. I have worked out various scenarios. And though, I know that you are not in favor of lay-offs and it’s like our company’s policy, I do not see any other alternative. We cannot carry all of our employees with us during the entire recession span with the kind of reserves we have built up. They are good by any standards but with the existing salaries we cannot sustain beyond 2 years. We must consider laying-off at least 40% of our employees right away if we wish to continue running this company.”
Jay Kotnis thought over the matter for a good length of time. His thoughts took him back in time by 11 years. He saw a clear picture that he was being fired from his job ruthlessly by his earlier employer where he had worked so very professionally. He shuddered once again with the trauma he had experienced while being kicked out of the job in the last recession. He could imagine that his company’s employees and their families would experience the same trauma if he fired them from their jobs which they did so diligently day in and day out.
Jay Kotnis decided, “No one will be out of this company. We will meet up with all the employees batch by batch and speak with them.”
Jay Kotnis spoke with each batch of employees, “We are reeling through recession and its negative impacts on all of us. Our financial analysis says that despite our decent reserves we cannot pull on for next 4 years which is the estimated time over which recessionary trends will prevail. We have been doing our best on all the cost reduction fronts. We are already good on other fronts like prices and quality of our products and services. We will be able to run the company at the existing salary levels for a maximum of 2 to 2.5 years. Cutting the salary costs is being achieved by a very large number of reputed and not so reputed companies by way of laying-off their employees though their top managers and CEOs still enjoy unimaginably fat salaries and perquisites and bonus. Our company policy does not believe in laying off the employees who work so hard and sincerely for the company. But we can still reduce the costs without any lay-off if all of us agree to take a cut in our salaries. We will need to take a 50% cut in the salaries if we wish to survive as a company. I am willing to take 50% cut in my salary and so also all of my heads of the departments. I request all of you to think over, consult with your family members and give your decision within a week. Thanks.”
A week passed. The employees were consulting with each other. Some even checked company’s financial position and its reserves. The employees also consulted with their wives and other members of their families. They were observing the people who lost their jobs in other companies. Soon they were getting acquainted with the harsh realities of life without a job. Most of them were getting convinced that they would be much better off with 50% of their existing salaries rather than some of them getting noting. They were also appreciating the genuineness of the top management who had volunteered to declare their decision of taking 50% cut in their salaries. They also knew that their top bosses were not drawing obscenely vulgar levels of salaries as other CEOs were doing in other companies. They decided to cooperate for their own good.
The employees gave in writing to Jay Kotnis their desire to cut their salaries by half and continue to work in the company.
Jay Kotnis implemented the decision. He and his wife were very happy that day.
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Here is your chance of buying the book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)"(at price slashed by around 50% till end December 2011):

For owning your copy/copies of the book, visit the following Amazon.com sites:

For eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

For book in print form: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324017641&sr=1-1

Deadly Shortcuts

2010-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

A news item was flashing all over the newspapers, news magazines and various channels of television screen. It read like this: “Finally, the local sleeping elephant has woken up and decided to venture into the rapidly expanding car market of the country. It’s very ambitious entry of Supreme Motor Company Ltd into a market that has already been captured by the foreign multinational companies. Their cars embody latest world class technology, contemporary style and excellent finish. Why should anyone buy the cars of Supreme Motor Company who has decided to make the cars totally indigenously?”

Only the hard core specialists knew that the only local company of the country that was capable of manufacturing the cars as good as the foreign cars was Supreme Motor Company Ltd. And the chairman of Supreme Motor Company carried this conviction too. But no one else did.

After a few months of this news, another news was flashed as breaking news: “Supreme Motor Company breaks all the previous records. It is going to launch the car four months ahead of the scheduled date. The company’s “time-to-market” a car is the new benchmark. The company has already opened up the bookings. Customers can book the cars of Supreme Motor Company right away by paying the booking amount.”

Another news item came in soon. “Unprecedented booking amount collections by Supreme Motor Company for their soon to be launched all indigenous car.”

Finally, the final day came and the cars were rolling out of the assembly line of the company’s car unit. The first customers felt proud of their prize possession.

But their joy and happiness of possessing the car lasted only a few days.

Very disturbing news of accidents of the cars just sold by Supreme Motor Company started appearing in the news columns. Automotive analysts were reporting car’s various defects by the day. They found that the car was infested with serious technical bugs- some of them even endangering the safety of car. The awful news and along with it hundreds of gossipy stories started circulating far and wide very rapidly.

And it all ended soon with one more breaking news: “Supreme Motor Company has refunded the entire booking amount to the customers who had booked the company’s car. The company has stalled the car’s production and sales. It will announce its further course of action later on.” The news editorials added: “In view of the heavy investments made by the company through various borrowings, the company is expected to reel through pretty good degree of losses for several years to come. The exact damage is yet not known. It was a bad dream of the chairman of the company.”

What led to this dismal disaster of an ambitious project of a competent local automotive company? Let us turn back the pages and read below the events that led the company to this type of catastrophe. Read on:

It all started around the time a couple of years before the above-mentioned fiasco took place when the world economy took a turn to globalization and liberalization. This particular country where Supreme Motor Company Ltd was located had no choice but to join the circus. So, the country was undergoing metamorphosis.

Many multinational companies or foreign companies had already an eye on this country for quite some time. They were already seriously planning to make inroads into it. This country provided them a promise of making enormous money for them due to various reasons. Now the opportunities had opened up. The initiatives taken up by the already well-to-do nations for free world trade had already resulted into opening up the doors of many countries of the world which were otherwise closed to them. So they started flowing into all those countries including the country we are talking about here. They made the entry via various economic propositions of producing and selling their goods and services in this country. They emphasized that it would create great employment opportunities for the citizens of the country.

Within two to three years, the markets of this country were glutted with foreign companies, multinational companies and their products. Brand new products started flashing in. These new products included cars, scooters, motor cycles, mobile phones, computers, refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, microwave ovens, fashion garment, beauty aids and what not.

With the advent of new investments by the foreign companies, the employment opportunities in the country increased significantly. More people got employed and the salaries shot up too. It created a new buying power that was never ever seen before.

A sense of competition could be felt everywhere. Consumers started having choices of products and services that were totally absent previously. Suppliers’ market turned into customers’ market. The monopoly of the local companies was rapidly petering out. They were left with no choice but to compete with the new entrants into the market if they had to survive. In the process many of the local companies fell by the side, many were limping and a few came out strong.

Considering this, one of the local companies was keenly studying the possibility of steering itself into this scene. This company was Supreme Motor Company Ltd. So far, it was into manufacture of commercial vehicles and it enjoyed a strong presence in that market. The chairman of the company assessed that the company should start manufacturing cars because the people were becoming more prosperous and they would need cars; it presented a big market for the cars. And he assessed that they should do so soon before it is too late since already couple of foreign companies had established their roots in the country and customers were already getting used to the cars produced by them. Their cars were like chick and smooth apparently with no flaw and incorporated the latest technology.

The chairman of the Supreme Motor Company was looking out for a right person as a leader to head the new car project. And who could have been the better choice than his deputy managing director Joe Peterson. He was considered the most devoted employee of the company. It was famous knowledge among the most insiders that he would go to any length to produce the existing products i.e. commercial vehicles well ahead of production and delivery schedules. Joe Peterson was heard many times saying, “I will do anything for this company. I am capable of murdering those who will come in way of production of the vehicles. People were in his awe and used to fear him a lot. He had also become management’s pet.” Since it was a sellers’ market, timely manufacturing or production was the focus of every organization and Peterson was achieving it. Nobody bothered whether he did so by hook or by crook- after all, it was immaterial in sellers’ market.

Due this very quality of Peterson, year after year, he used to complete the yearly production target well ahead of schedule and used to allow merry making to his workers right in the assembly line for two to three days at the end of every year. And for himself, he used to collect a very special award at the hands of the chairman of the company every year in addition to the frequent promotions he had got used to. He was the most and the fastest promoted employee of the company. Starting as a junior supervisor on the production shop floor, after taking a mere diploma in mechanical engineering from a non-descript institution, he rose to the level of deputy managing director in less than 20 years. People used to marvel at his meteoric growth in the organization.

So, Joe Peterson was the obvious choice of the chairman of Supreme Motor Company when it came to decide about the new leadership of the ambitions car project. Peterson promptly agreed; his eyes were fixed on taking over as managing director and he thought that it was the best route to reach there.

On the very first day of his appointment, as the head of the car project, he got busy and started slave driving his staff as per his native style. He was an out and out autocratic manager with a stick in his hand most of the time. Occasionally, at other times, he would patronize and distribute bribes to the people in his coterie- yours truly types. He sang songs of high class discipline and to him discipline meant total obedience. Those who asked questions or gave unsolicited suggestions, howsoever brilliant and creative, were the targets of his ire. Due to this many competent engineers and managers left the organization or took transfers. He was mostly happy dealing with the sycophants in his coterie who were by and large mediocre.

Joe Peterson committed a date of launch of their new car to his chairman. He wanted to maintain his reputation of delivering things ahead of schedule and made an announcement of that sort to the media.

He started exercising undue pressures on his suppliers and vendors. Under pressure, they started making deliveries of outsourced components in time but compromised on quality standards. Joe Peterson knew about this lacuna in quality but he was a past master in this game and closed his eyes to it. He was extrapolating his experience of the environment of sellers’ market of commercial vehicles into making of the cars. He ignored the fact that the car market was no more a sellers’ market. And customers demanded world class safety and quality standards in their cars and they were already getting them from the existing car manufacturers of the country by now.

One more thing he did was to bring in few of his relatives and friends as the vendors and obliged them though they were novices for the automotive industry He even financed them from Supreme Motor Company and that was not ethical. These vendors were utter failures.

In addition, he was not allowing adequate time for testing of the components, sub-assemblies, assemblies and the complete car. He just did not have time for complete and elaborate testing procedures that a car needed before sending it to a customer. His top most priority was meeting the deadline announced by him to his chairman and to the press so that he could steal the lime light as per his usual habit. So he started cutting corners on testing.

He started making all the people in the car team to work over time. They were made to work 12 to 15 hours a day and they were getting tired and making numerous mistakes. It resulted in heavy rework and the quality suffered seriously further.

And he rolled out the first batch of cars from the assembly line four months in advance of the official scheduled date. Among the thunderous applause from the audience consisting of the chairman of the company, guests, suppliers, vendors, employees and journalists, Joe Peterson's photographs were clicked a thousand times and he was all over the television and newspapers within no time. He had turned into a hero, a celebrity overnight.

And the bubble burst when this hour of glory was followed, after a few days, by this breaking news: “Supreme Motor Company has refunded the entire booking amount to the customers who had booked the company’s car. The company has stalled the car’s production and sales. It will announce its further course of action later on.” The news editorials added: “In view of the heavy investments made by the company through various borrowings, the company is expected to reel through pretty good degree of losses for several years to come. The exact damage is yet not known. It was a bad dream of the chairman of the company.”

Soon a high level task force was set up by the chairman of the company to find out the root causes of failure of the car project. Within a week the task force submitted a confidential report to the chairman with its detailed findings.

The next day morning, Joe Peterson was not allowed to enter the company’s entrance gate by the chief security manager of the company. He gave Peterson a formal letter of the company dismissing him from the services of the company. He got one more packet containing some more related documents and a check towards full and final settlement to him from the company. He did not utter a word and retreated towards his home.

(The company kept up its work of eliminating all the bugs in the car. That took the company some two more years. During this period, the company suffered huge financial losses. After perfectly testing the car for safety, overall quality and performance, it was re-launched and it became a big success and paved the way for its future cars).

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Suspected Conspiracy or Manager’s Wrong Moves?

2010-04-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Is He Cheating Me?

2010-04-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Corporate Espionage by Corporate Conspirators

2010-04-21T04:18:00.000-07:00

True Leader Helps Ordinary People Achieve Extraordinary Things

2010-04-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(The case study presented below deals with “leadership”. It emphasizes one particular aspect of leadership and that is: “leadership means making ordinary people do extraordinary things”. Refer: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/02/03/leadership-means-making-ordinary-people-do-extraordinary-things/ or http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/leadership-means-making-ordinary-people.html. This case study reflects similar sentiments).

For many other management case studies/management anecdotes, read at: http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/ or http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/)

Shaan Bhatkar had truly earned the reputation of being the fastest and also, most promoted manager. First, his first employer “Universal High Tech Products Ltd” and now his second employer, one of the top most ranked companies of India, “Prestige Motor Company Ltd” had recognized his learned as well as innate leadership qualities.

While he had broken all the management conventions by becoming “manager” at a very young age of 27 in his first company, all and sundry used to go to visit his cabin in his second employment with some excuse or the other to peep and have a look at the person who had joined them from outside and was promoted just within one year to the position of “senior manager” at the age of 29 or so, overriding company’s guidelines on promotions and salary raise. He had turned into an enigma. This was perhaps the first such incident in Prestige Motor Company Ltd.

Within a very short time of joining his second employer, Shaan Bhatkar expanded his work and inducted more than 20 new people taking the strength of employees in his department to 26. He formed a formidable team whose presence was being felt throughout the organization. Shaan was head of “systems department”. It was a new concept introduced by him. Systems department would work as a very strong interface between the various line departments of the organization and the computer programming department (these days we call it “information technology” or I T department).

It was found earlier that in absence of creation of “systems department”, the user departments used to directly interact with the computer programming department. Though computer programming department was manned by brilliant programmers who were highly educated engineers of various engineering disciplines with excellent grip on programming, their very nature of programming work would not allow them adequate time and inclination to understand the exact requirements and intricacies of the user departments. They dismally lacked the appreciation of the various domain areas or the functional aspects of the organization. The result was invariably a half cooked; user unfriendly, computer system full of problems as far as the user departments were concerned. It had a significant negative impact on the promotion of computerization in the company. Management of the company got concerned about it.

Around this time, Shaan Bhatkar proposed creation of the new “systems department”. Management liked the idea of this department being responsible to define the system requirements, carry out the system design work, get it programmed by the computer programming department and also assist in implementing the system in user locations. The persons to man this department would have in-depth knowledge of the domain areas or functional areas for which they would define the systems and additionally, they would also have a decent grip on the computer programming requirements, the hard core technical aspects of computerization.

His team was mix of two kinds of people- at the higher end, he had functional experts with impressive, high end, formal qualifications and with long experience in various domains and at the lower end, he had implementers with just about any low end formal degree in any discipline who would iron out all the kinks that would be faced by the user departments in implementing the computer systems so designed, programmed and implemented. The persons of this section had flair for the hands on field work and had great service orientation and they were very user friendly. They would hand hold the users in implementing the computerized systems. However, due to the nature of their work, they were placed at the lower rungs of the hierarchy.

Shaan Bhatkar had augmented this second section of implementers by one young boy Anant Joshpura who had just become eligible at an age of 18 (minimum age criterion for employment) to be able to join a corporate organization. Shaan had reasons to recruit Anant. He had seen in him the qualities like enthusiasm, sincerity, service orientation, analytical capabilities, eye for details and hunger to learn though Anant was just about a commerce graduate with a poor second class- academically not much to talk about.

Shaan’s assessment of Anant Joshpura proved to be correct.

Then among the routine, there came a day of excitement. The first PC (personal computer) of the country was bought by Prestige Motor Company Ltd and it was installed in Shaan’s department for exploring its capabilities etc. For computer programming department which was manned by highly qualified professionals and who were used to work on the main frame computer systems of that era, the PC was thought to be a toy and that’s how it was bypassed to Shaan Bhatkar.

Shaan had no particular man to work on the PC. In his free time he himself used to fiddle with it and he soon realized the potential of a PC. He wanted to put it to real use in the organization. He pulled out Anant Joshpura for this purpose.

He called Anant and asked, “Do you know COBOL language?”

Anant Joshoura got scared, sheepishly he answered in his broken English mixed with his mother tongue Marathi, “Sir, I know only two languages, Marathi and a bit of English. I have not heard about COBOL language.”

Shaan realized his mistake. He then explained to Anant about the new PC and also explained that the programs on that PC were to be written a computer language called COBOL.

Shaan then said, “Anant, I want you to learn to work on this PC under my guidance. You have excellent analytical capabilities and therefore, you will be able to learn computer programming quite easily and fast. I am deputing you to learn programming and COBOL with an outside training institution for a period of two to three months. Our company will foot the bill.”

Anant was very apprehensive initially. He was scared that if he did not come up to the expectations of Shaan in learning programming and COBOL; he might lose his job from the company. He sounded his concerns to Shaan.

Shaan assured him, “If you fail in this, you will revert to your earlier assignment of system implementer. But I am sure that you will succeed. Every day I read in the magazines that the PC is the future of the computers and if you get a grip on it early on, that much better for you. You will retire at a junior position if you continue as the system implementer but as an expert on PC, only the sky will be the limit for you.”

With this assurance from his leader, Anant plunged into an entirely new territory. And he was smart enough to pick up everything that was expected of him. By the end of three months of training, he started writing programs in COBOL quite proficiently.

On Shaan’s recommendations, the company decided to induct more and more PCs in the organization in the planned and phased manner. Shaan proposed an awareness training for the future PC users of the organization. He assigned Anant the new responsibility of training the people at various managerial levels in the working of PCs. Anant hesitated a lot to start with. How could he face the seasoned managers who were much experienced and older than him and were at the hierarchical level far higher than him?

Shaan advised him, “They do not know a naught about PCs. You are the most educated person on PCs right now. So….”

Soon, Anant Joshpura was not only knowing most about the PC, he was even recognized as a good COBOL programmer even by the highly educated and experienced programmers of the hard core computer programming department who were writing the programs on the main frame computers. Anant started mingling with them pretty freely and learnt lots more about computers and programming. He learnt a few more computer programming languages.

One day he approached Shaan and requested, “While I am formally assigned to working on PC, I would love to work with the main frame too. Can you formally assign me to do that?”

Shaan was convinced that Anant must make his future career in hard core “information technology (I T)”. He recommended Anant’s transfer to the computer programming department through the chief of company’s HR department. The chief of HR declined saying that the company rules did not permit an ordinary commerce graduate to be a part of highly technical computer programming department. As per company rules, only engineering graduates or postgraduate with first class could work in that department. Anant was not eligible.

Shaan wished to recognize the contribution of Anant and since the doors to computer programming department were closed to him, all Shaan could do was to promote Anant by one grade. But that would still put him in a junior hierarchical level. Shaan believed that Anant’s caliber deserved much higher position in the organization. But company’s red tape would not allow this.

Anant sought advice from Shaan, “Now that my future here is almost sealed, what do you suggest?”

Shaan said, “The IT (information technology) area is going to explode in the entire world like nobody’s business. IT is the future. Keep an eye on the prospects in other companies. They may need a person like you as an IT specialist. If you had any chance of faster progress in our own company here, I would not have suggested you to look out for a job. But now it makes sense. You are just about 20 and you have more than 40 to 45 years ahead of you. Yet must build up your computer software skills at the best possible levels while you are here. I will allow you to work with computer programming department informally though you will be at same junior level getting same salary.”

It seems that Anant took the guidance of Shaan to his heart. He went on improving his IT capabilities.

And the Y2K fever attacked the world. As compared to other countries, United States of America needed the maximum number of computer professionals, literally thousands of professionals who could go through each and every computer code that was mostly written in COBOL and fix up the Y2K bug.

Who else were the better people for such a job than those in India- the ones who had a deadly combination of knowing two most important languages: COBOL and English?

Anant Joshpura was not to be left behind. He soon shifted to USA along with one of the many Indian companies who got contracts from companies in USA to fix up their Y2K problem.

Then onwards no one could stop the progress of Anant Joshpura. He went up from strength to strength and the last news from him to Shaan Bhatkar was that he had just taken over as Vice President (Global Software Delivery) of a startup.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Then, Dave Ingle Lived Happily with His Wife Ever After

2010-04-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

Make yourself capable of managing things independently by imbibing and practicing correct values, knowledge, paradigms and will power to execute. And so, shun the need to be dependent on any kind of crutches.
Yet, despite this, one should remember that human beings at home, society and profession live interdependent of each other. So, better take cognizance of it and maintain appropriate relations with others.
Every person is a bundle of strengths and weaknesses. It is easy to spot the weaknesses in others. But if one starts seeing and appreciating the good points of others, things become that much easier for self and others. Every human being has some definite strong points.
Therefore, one should always communicate with everyone else and that too, respectfully. Communication without due respect is no communication.
Listening with empathy is the core of any communication.
One should not be reactive. There is always space and time available to everyone subsequent to receiving a stimulus. Using that, one can appropriately respond to a stimulus without need to give a thoughtless reaction.
Win-win approach is always beneficial in the long run as compared to win-lose approach.
Therefore, you can always sort out any kind of conflict with others by using the process of collaboration.

Dave Ingle told us that these were the golden guidelines he got from our training program and he had decided to follow them in all the aspects of his life. We wished him good luck.

Later on, from some other quarters, we came to know more about the family life of Dave Ingle. Around the time he was attending our training program, he was almost on the brink of taking divorce from his wife who was a lawyer by profession and was a sophisticated lady in her own right. Dave Ingle himself was a post graduate in engineering from a reputed institute. But Dave Ingle carried pretty wrong notions on how to lead personal, family and professional life. And so he was quite a misfit.

After an year or so of this incident, we met Mr and Mrs Ingle in a social party at a common friend’s house. From the looks of them, they seemed very happy together. The person who had given us the news of their divorce also confirmed to us that Mr and Mrs Ingle did not proceed with divorce and had sorted out all of their marital discords. They were an ideally happy couple now.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

Time Management Is about Doing Important Things in Life

2010-04-21T03:41:00.000-07:00

Creativity Unlimited: Creativity Unleashed

2010-04-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

Management Anecdotes http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/
Training Works http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/01/15/training-works/ or http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/01/15/training-works/
Johari Window in Action http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/01/23/johari-window-in-action/ or http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/2010/01/johari-window-in-action.html
Leadership Means Making Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/02/03/leadership-means-making-ordinary-people-do-extraordinary-things/ or http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/leadership-means-making-ordinary-people.html

This particular case study belongs to the similar genre.

You may recall a few things about the concept called “Johari Window” propounded by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. My wife and I were explaining this very concept in a six days long executive development training program in one of the units of one huge conglomerate. We are management consultants of pretty decent repute and therefore, often called upon to conduct various training programs for the executives of a large number of corporations. That keeps us pretty busy.

So, in one of such sessions, my wife whose treatment of “Johari Window” is excellent, explained as to how a human mind is described in “Johari Window” as a window with four types of compartments. She mentioned that these compartments are termed as:

Open self (or arena)
Hidden self (or facade)
Blind self (or blind spot)
Dark self (or unknown)

While these four compartments of the mind present a very potent aspect of creativity of human mind which in a way is “unlimited”, the pity is that average human beings do not use even 2% to 3% of the capabilities of the mind. And it is true that either you use it or lose it. So, most of the people lose it. It is often quoted that creativity of seminal order gets unleashed from the human mind, at just about 15% to 16% usage of the human mind.

In order to increase the usage of human capabilities and creativity, we, in our training seminars, advise the participants to open up their hidden talents (those that are kept hidden in the hidden compartment of the mind and never used). We advise them to explore within themselves their hidden talents and scoop them out into the open compartment of the mind where they can then be used. This process is called “disclosure” of the hidden talents to the entire world.

We also advise them to constantly get the feedback of their talents and creativity from other people. Often times, the person himself may not be aware of many of his talents, in a way he is blind towards them. Many a time, these talents lying dormant in you are seen easily by the on-lookers. So, through a process of explicit and implicit “feedback” from others, you are likely to identify your talents towards which you were blind earlier. Now, having got them from the other persons, you can bring such talents in the open compartment of mind and start using them.

These explanations are quite revealing and create a positive stir and tension in the minds of the participants of our training seminars. They trigger their adrenaline flow and suddenly they feel motivated to embark on something that they never did before.

This is what exactly happened to Vishnu Jadhav who was sitting right in the front row in the seminar hall.

At the conclusion of the session, he met my wife and me privately and made an unusual request, “I am enlightened by what madam explained. As a result, I was introspecting myself throughout your lecture, particularly about my hidden talents. I think that I can become a very good artist. Like, I know how to sing, do a one act play, can be a good standing comedian. I think that given an opportunity, I can be a good entertainer. But till date, it has all been about only bath room singing. I never came out in the open to display these talents of mine. Madam mentioned that one should start using one’s talents soon after he realizes their existence within. And to start with, you advised that one should test these talents preferably in front of the known devils. Even if you make mistakes, the known audience will understand you better and good humouredly laugh it out. I, therefore, request you to give me about half an hour of your seminar time tomorrow morning. I wish to present a variety entertainment program tomorrow morning in this same conference room and experience for myself as to how it feels like coming out into the open.”

My wife and I looked at each other. It was quite an unusual request. We were retained by our client to run a training seminar and not organize an entertainment event. Initially we thought that it might not look professionally appropriate to allow Vishnu Jadhav to carry out this kind of entertainment program. Then both of us conferred with each other and came to the conclusion that if we denied this opportunity to Vishnu Jadhav, the spark that was created in him due to our coaching might die out. Why not take a bit of risk and allow Jadhav to present his entertainment program? We gave our positive nod to him. He was highly thankful to us.

We came to know later on that Jadhav took it very seriously as if it was a matter of life and death for him. He did rehearsals and even dress rehearsal throughout that night so as to present an impeccable entertainment program. And he did so. He gave a flaw less variety entertainment and kept the audience enthralled- to the extent that he got a standing ovation from the audience who spoke out saying that they never knew this hidden talent of Jadhav. They knew him as a diploma engineer of the organization and not an artist of such high caliber.

And that proved to be the starting point of the long journey Vishnu Jadhav embarked on as a first class entertainer. From time to time, he reports his progress to us by making it a point to meet us whenever we visit this client company. Also, we get the reports of his progress from other participants.

At this stage, he has organized his entertainment group on a professional footing. He advertises in the newspapers and gets invited to present his variety entertainment programs in different towns and cities. He and his group are becoming increasingly popular. He has started writing lyrics of his own songs. He has also become a news reader on one of the local television channels of the city where he lives. And he told us in his last meeting with us that he had many more things up his sleeves.

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/

How Bosses Impress Their Subordinates: Lessons in Leadership

2010-04-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

Leadership Means Making Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things

2010-04-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

Massacre of Customer Service

2010-04-21T00:49:00.000-07:00