Deadly Shortcuts

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).

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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

Suspected Conspiracy or Manager’s Wrong Moves?

Shaan Bhatkar was travelling all over the country to recruit managers at different levels under him. He had joined Prestige Motor Company Ltd couple of years ago after having had a great stint with his earlier employer Universal High Tech Products Ltd. He had a well deserved reputation of a high flier executive. After joining Prestige Motor Company Ltd, he expanded his department rapidly within couple of years and his management had sanctioned him additional manpower. So he was looking out for the right people.

Today he was in the city of the corporate office of his earlier employer Universal High Tech Products Ltd. He was conducting interviews with the job applicants at a five star hotel of the city. In the evening, after the interviews, he would still be left with sufficient time before the normal closing time of a typical business day. During that period, he intended to meet up with his ex-boss Ehsan Pasha in the corporate office of Universal High Tech Products Ltd- to pay his courtesies. He telephoned Ehsan Pasha who was overwhelmed by Shaan’s gesture and warmly invited him in his office in the evening.

Now he was with Pasha. After initial exchange of pleasantries, Pasha enquired of him, “Are you here for conducting the job interviews?”

When Shaan nodded in affirmation, he quipped, “Then you are a god sent man. Do you remember one of your colleagues Krish Juneja? He has applied to one of the positions you had advertised and you must select him. Was he interviewed today?”

Shaan Bhatkar said, “I remember Krish very well, how can I forget him. Do you recall that when you were looking out for a bright manager who could run our high precision manufacturing unit; I was the one to recommend him for that position?” After some pause I continued, “No, he was not interviewed today. His interview is scheduled for tomorrow. I would not hesitate to grab him for a job with me, he is good. But I wonder if he would like to work under me. After all he was my contemporary when I was in Universal High Tech Products Ltd.”

Ehsan Pasha paused for a while and mentioned, “But you always ran faster than him. You were always seen as a better leader and a manager than him. He knows that and under the circumstances he is in now, he would not mind reporting to you.”

Shaan asked, “What kind of circumstances you are relating to, in his case?”

He was a bit surprised that Shaan was not aware about the circumstances in which Krish Juneja was. Yet, he clarified, “Don’t you know what arduous time he is going through? The nasty news is all over the place; it is in the newspapers. About couple of weeks ago, one of the workers in his manufacturing unit charged him with molesting his sister. Based on the prima facie investigations, he had to spend couple of nights behind the bars in the local jail. That worker’s sister worked as a domestic help at the residence of Krish Juneja. She is a pretty good looking girl. Juneja’s wife was away from home and the maid was carrying out her daily chores of sweeping and swabbing the house. Juneja was present in the house. It is alleged that Juneja had an eye on that maid for quite some time and that occasion of privacy suited him to force the servant girl into physical intimacies. The worker took up the case not only with the police but also with the union leaders of the factory’s workers union who have threatened Juneja aggressively.”

Shaan Bhatkar became dumb momentarily to listen to what Ehsan Pasha was narrating.

Ehsan Pasha continued without waiting for any comments of Shaan. He wished to get the whole story out of his system. He went on, “The entire top management in the high precision manufacturing unit and few of us in the corporate office, including me, are trying to help out Juneja. He has been instrumental in bringing the high precision unit back on the track because of his deep technical understanding and his courage in enforcing the discipline among the workers. Of course, the workers’ union and the entire work force had not liked the idea of enforcing the disciplinary measures suddenly introduced by Krish Juneja. Among many instances of tightening of the shop floor discipline, this worker on whose complaint and allegation Juneja went through the entire ordeal was twice suspended by Juneja from work on account of the worker’s indiscipline. Due to his suspension from work, the worker had felt highly humiliated as per the workers’ union’s version. But as per the worker’s own statement, he was suspended not because of his indiscipline but because he had warned Juneja not to make any advances with his sister. His sister had told him about Juneja’s attempted misbehavior with her. In any case, on union’s intervention with management, he was reinstated on the job both the times only after he apologized to Juneja. Some people believe that the worker took revenge by maligning Juneja this way. From our private talks with Juneja’s wife, we gather that even she is mighty upset with her husband’s behavior- that’s quite unfortunate for Juneja. From the beginning she did not want to have a beautiful young girl as a servant in the house and she had spoken about it to Juneja couple of times. But Juneja did not think that to be an important issue and dismissed it.”

Shaan was listening to the whole story with lots of concentration but did not speak or comment.

That gave an indication to Ehsan Pasha to continue and complete his narration. He said, “After the management’s dialogue with the workers’ union, an out of court settlement was reached and the case against Juneja was withdrawn from further legalities. I understand that a huge sum of money was paid by Juneja to settle the matter. The union stipulated that none of the workers would like to accept Juneja as their manager here onwards. They would not like to work under a morally degraded person. Management finally deputed Juneja, temporarily, in the corporate office and advised him to immediately look out for opportunities outside the company as well as the city. That’s why you should pull him out of this tricky situation. You will really do a great favor to him.”

Shaan Bhatkar remained non-plussed.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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

Is He Cheating on Me?

On this occasion, the vice president (marketing) demanded money equivalent of twenty million dollars from his company’s president.

This was the highest he had asked for in past five years or so- far higher than in the past.

The company was in the turnkey business. It used to undertake commissioning of the complete projects in several sectors of engineering and construction. The company was a huge conglomerate, highly reputed in the industrial and business circles globally. It used to deal with mammoth projects- each project worth billions of dollars. The decision makers in the client companies (normally they are few in numbers in most of the companies; around couple of them) knew extremely well as to which way they should take the decisions. If everything was more or less equal from the competing supplier companies, the sales order was decided in favor of the supplier who could personally satisfy the decision maker(s) of the client company the best.

By now, you must have known what it hinted at. Yes, it was the under-the-table money or the kick-back that these decision makers in the client company would receive from the prospective supplier company. In a simpler language it is called bribe. In this particular supplier company that is referred in earlier paragraph, the vice president (marketing) was solely responsible and accountable to market its turnkey projects, bag the order from the client and negotiate all the commercial terms (including those pertaining to the kick-back money also).

Bribe has become a standard practice with a considerably large number of people in power when the stakes are very high. Many people who are at the helm of the affairs in the corporate world believe that it is their right to get a fat fee for the power they have and they exercise in affixing their signatures on the dotted lines. As per them, it is obviously reasonable that in lieu of bestowing their favors on to the supplier, supplier should feel only too happy to part with a good percentage of the capital outlay of the project into their personal kitty.

While this model of dealings between companies is acceptable in the industrial and business world, no one acknowledges its existence- they deny it outright. Interestingly, quite a few of these companies (both the clients as well as the suppliers) have their written down flashily displayed corporate values which scream the phrases conveying to the rest of the world that these companies have very high ethical standards and they are driven by their lofty values.

So, the president of this company that used to undertake the turnkey projects of enormity was not any hypocrite. He was a past master in this game himself when about five years ago; he himself was the vice president (marketing). As vice president (marketing) he used to get from his then president, brief-case filled with green currency notes he used to demand from his president for securing a prestigious order from the client. In this game trust between players is very important. So the demanded money was passed on by his president to him without asking any questions or clarifications. The most important thing was to bag the order from the client company- whether by hook or by crook. After receiving the demanded cash in the brief-case, he used to pass on that brief-case to the decision maker(s) in the client company in exchange of the sales order.

But he would not pass on the entire money in the brief-case to the client. He had made a rule for himself to scoop out 10% of what the brief-case contained. He was not greedy- he never needed more than 10%. And the scales of business in his days as vice president (marketing) were pretty moderate.

So when he became president of the company five years ago, he continued with the established system of passing of the brief-cases. He would always hand over the brief case to his new vice-president (marketing) only happily. And he felt that the new vice president (marketing) might not have setup any system of scooping out 10% of the contents of the brief-case as he was in habit of doing in his own days. He assessed that his new vice president (marketing) did not look that smart and capable.

He was sure of one thing- that the latest turnkey project was colossal and as per his experience, he estimated that the decision maker(s) were pretty decent in demanding the bribe of that scale. Bribing in order to bag this huge order was absolutely OK with him; after all that would bring glory to him ultimately. His employees at all the levels and more importantly, his board of directors would be highly proud of him. That will give tremendous fillip to the company’s share price in the stock markets.

Yet, this time when his vice president (marketing) demanded a brief-case worth equivalent of twenty million dollars, a bug of suspicion suddenly entered his mind. He did not commit to the vice president (marketing) immediately which was otherwise the normal practice. He asked his vice president (marketing) to meet up with him the next day morning.

The president went home. All the while, in the car, he was trying to calculate as to by what amount his vice president (marketing) would become rich if he scooped out say 10% of the contents of the brief-case. He was also trying to work out the scenarios at 1%, 3%, 5% and 7%. In his nervousness, he was finding it difficult to calculate manually.

So, as soon as he reached home, he took out his calculator and without being bothered about the tea that his wife offered him, he got busy calculating. He worked out all the figures of profits at these various percentages. Then he took out his secret diary where he had scribbled on one page his entire loot which he had made at his own 10%. He was very shocked and very jealous to see that his vice president (marketing) would surpass him on just this single transaction even at a moderate 1%. But he also hoped against hopes by asking to himself, “But will he do it? Is he in the habit of doing it? Is he really capable of doing it?”

He could not enjoy his dinner that night. Then he could not sleep the entire night. And even by early morning, he was not very sure of what he should do with his vice president (marketing) in his meeting with him at the day-break.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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

Corporate Espionage by Corporate Conspirators

It’s about a country where there were only few automotive companies. Most of these companies had started with technical collaborations with more known and more technically advanced companies of the developed nations. At the conclusion of the period of technical collaborations, these companies had already indigenized the manufacture of those products and had in a way become autonomous.

Since only few companies were in the fray, there was almost no competition among them. It was a seller’s market in monopolistic business conditions. Each had gained a comfortable share of business and each company seemed complacent with its lot.

Among these automobile companies, companies ‘A’ and ‘B’ were manufacturing couple of variants of commercial vehicles (trucks). Whatever they produced was immediately grabbed by the ever so hungry customers and the products were sold at an illegal premium price. Companies ‘A’ and ‘B’ and their top bosses were earning unimaginably large sums of money practically without any need to really manage anything. All of them were enjoying a deep slumber and getting rich while dreaming.

And their deep sleep was shattered by announcement of entry of a new player (the new player was in some other business and was pretty successful at that). The new player, the company ‘C’ had entered into collaboration with one world class company ‘D’ whose commercial vehicles were a rage and could be seen on the roads of most of the countries all over the globe.

The top executives of ‘A’ and ‘B’ had reasons to worry since in whichever nation company ‘D’ set up its manufacturing plants on their own or in joint venture or technical collaboration with any local company, its products had literally killed the other existing products and their producers had to close down their shops. With that kind of reputation of the commercial vehicles designed and developed by company ‘D’, it was reasonable to feel worried.

In the mean time company ‘C’ was recruiting engineers and managers at various levels from other automotive companies of the country, mainly from companies ‘A’ and ‘B’. The construction of new manufacturing plant of company ‘C’ was already in progress and the machines and assembly line were being installed with the help of their collaborator i.e. company ‘D’.

Company ‘C’ commissioned a highly sophisticated security system managed by the country’s top notch security agency. It was necessary for them to do so since the products they were going to manufacture were very different and superior from the existing commercial vehicles being sold by companies ‘A’ and ‘B’. Also, the production processes were unique. Company ‘C’ could not afford their strategic advantage of their differentiating products and processes to be easily passed on to its competitors on the platter. They could not allow a stranger to walk into their factory premises and pick up this intelligence and knowledge. They were 100% on the guard.

Under guidance of its collaborator ‘D’, company ‘C’ had just launched the first pilot production of their uniquely superior commercial vehicles.

While these important project activities were under way in company ‘C’, a secret telephonic conversation took place in one of the offices of the factory. It was the cabin of the senior service engineer. At the other end of the telephone line was the vice president (R&D) of company ‘B’. He was instructing the senior service engineer of company ‘C’ in a hush hush tone, “You are taking too much time in sending the information on the hydraulic system and the engine- you are damn slow. We just cannot afford these delays. We were one up on company ‘A’ till date on understanding the configuration of your trucks but this morning I got a call from our senior designer posted in the R&D department of company ‘A’ that they (i.e. company ‘A’) have already received some very important information about the strategic systems of your truck that you have not been able to send me till date.”

The senior service engineer looked around to see if there wasn’t anyone in his vicinity and continued, “Sir, that’s impossible. The security here is so tight that no bird can fly into the premises, forget about any human being. And I have surveyed each and every person in the employment of our company here (meaning company ‘C’) and I can say with 100% guarantee that no agent of company ‘A’ is active inside our premises here. Company ‘A’ just cannot get any information from here.”

Then, vice president (R&D) of company ‘B’ who was on the other end of the telephone line lost his patience and scolded him, “You are a fool. Don’t underestimate company ‘A’ in these matters. No less than their deputy managing director had already entered your premises yesterday and he was there the whole day studying you commercial vehicle which was lying in the knocked down condition. He went from shop to shop and visited your assembly line and various stores. The huge damage is already done. They know more than us about your vehicle and processes. My boss here is highly critical of our inefficiencies in this matter. Tighten up your belt and send the information in the fastest possible ways. We are paying you the enormous salary and perquisites- what for?”

The senior service engineer enquired hurriedly, “How could the deputy managing director of company ‘A’ enter our factory premises here?”

Vice president (R&D) of company ‘B’ replied, “He came in the disguise of a truck driver. He drove the truck inside your premises after the detailed security checks at the factory gate. He was driving the truck that brought the imported components of your products in semi knocked down conditions. The truck belongs to a truck operator who is providing the logistics to company ‘A’ for past more than 22 years. The truck operator is loyal to company ‘A’ and now also started doing business with company ‘C’ under a different identity of his firm run by his younger brother.”

The conversation ended. No one else in company ‘C’ was aware of this conversation.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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

True Leader Helps Ordinary People Achieve Extraordinary Things

(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.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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

In Praise of Narrative Report and Aide-memoire

(The case study given below essentially deals with “Personal MIS” or “Voluntary MIS for Self”. You may like to read another case study of this genre titled “Boss Saved His Job” at: http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/2009/10/boss-could-save-his-job.html or http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/01/14/boss-saved-his-job/

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

Mr Shaan Bhatkar had achieved the distinction of becoming the youngest “manager” at his age 27. He was the fastest and most promoted person in Universal High Tech Products Ltd. Even the media took notice of him and on his last promotion; many of the local newspapers published the following article. An excerpt from one of the published articles is reproduced below:

“This is the first time in the history of Universal High Tech Products Ltd that someone has broken all the management conventions. Mr Bhatkar has been once again promoted superseding all the first four senior batches of management trainees. He is the youngest head of the department at the age of 27, not of just one department but two very important departments (and simultaneously reporting to two different bosses). It’s a spectacular achievement of Mr Bhatkar, his exemplary leadership qualities have been truly recognized by the company……………”

This kind of publicity did not escape the eyes of the head hunters. The recruitment agencies are always on look out for professionals whom they could recommend to their clients and if the client company recruited that candidate, they would earn a fat commission for providing such services.
Within very short period of Mr Shaan Bhatkar’s publicity in the news papers, he gained status of a celebrity in his own rights and many head hunters started sending feelers to him. It was quite a new experience to him being offered many new opportunities in many of the blue chip companies. He had never looked outside for any opportunity while working in his existing company Universal High Tech Products Ltd since he was already doing so very well there. He was, therefore, not much concerned about changing job at that stage.

He went on avoiding these head hunters for quite some time. But when he got an offer of possibility of a rise in his salary and perquisite by around 60% of his current salary (as against a normal rate of maximum of 15% raise prevailing then in the job market), that too from a head hunter of very high credibility, he could not sideline it.

Series of interviews between Shaan Bhatkar and the new employer company were arranged by the head hunter. The new employer company “Prestige Motor Company Ltd” was the top most company of the country during that period- company with highest prestige and the most respected and sought after employer.

Money offered was unquestionably high. Bhatkar had no qualm with it. Yet, the total package did not appeal to him on one single count i.e. the new designation. The new designation offered was no different from his current designation i.e. “manager”. He was expecting it to be at least “senior manager”. Though he was mature enough to understand that designation of different companies were not comparable, yet psychologically, changing job for the same title was not acceptable to him.

He discussed his concerns with the boss-to-be in the new company Prestige Motor Company Ltd as well as with the HR chief of the company. They appreciated his arguments but put forth their compulsions in not agreeing to his request. They said, “If we select you, you will be the youngest “manager” with us. We have a good number of bright and high profile people like you with us with considerably more experience than you but most of them are “assistant managers” and only a few of them are “managers”. If we bring you in as “senior manger”, most of them will get highly demotivated, particularly when you are an outsider. However, we do not wish to lose you only on this one point. We wish to make an offer to you which is like this- if you can prove yourself in the first one year with us, we will promote you to “senior manager” as a very exceptional case. As per our normal guideline, we do not promote people unless they complete at least two to three years in one grade. But we are willing to break that guideline for you if you come out with flying colors in just one year’s time.”

Shaan Bhatkar said, “Can you please document it in my offer letter?” To which the HR chief regretted, “That will not be possible- that’s against our policies. But do give it a thought. We definitely need you on our team and ours is a gentleman’s promise.”

Before leaving the company subsequent to his interview, Bhatkar made an aide-memoire (kind of minutes of the meeting) on what all went on between him and the interviewers from Prestige Motor Company Ltd. He came home, discussed the entire thing with his wife and after a great amount of thinking about the new job offer, they decided to take a chance. Shaan Bhatkar decided to join the new company.

Within a few weeks of joining the new organization, Shaan Bhatkar realized that the new job was more challenging than what he initially thought. The work environment was highly competitive and yes, his colleagues in other departments were far brighter. Proving oneself just within one year in this kind of setup was an uphill task. He thought, “But I must give it a try.”

He immersed himself in the new assignment fully. Soon he set up a system where his direct reports would give him a monthly narrative report describing the next period’s goals, achievements on the previously decided goals, the financial implications including the financial benefits of those achievements and anything else they thought was important to report. He also got into discipline of making this narrative report for his own goals and achievements right from the very first month. These narrative reports were not part of any organizational formal systems. He had instituted them only for his own department on his own. He used to consolidate the reports from his direct reports and his own narrative reports and send the consolidated narrative report to his boss. He did not know what the boss did of those. He enquired from boss’s personal assistant and he told that boss was passing those reports promptly to him without any comments and he was simply filing them. He even made a sarcastic remark, “No one else reporting to the boss makes these kinds of reports.”

The days became weeks and weeks became months and it was almost the end of the first year in Shaan Bhatkar’s new job. And there was hectic activity of performance appraisal going all over the organization. There was an excitement in the air about the impending promotions and salary raise. Shaan Bhatkar was keeping his fingers crossed.

HR department’s representative was in and out of Bhatkar’s boss’s cabin many times in the past one week. They were jointly finalizing the list of people who would be promoted and who will get the salary rise.

The appointed day came and rewards were declared simultaneously all over the company. Shaan Bhatkar was nowhere in the picture. He met the HR representative for his department immediately and enquired about his own case. HR representative was a bit surprised by Bhatkar’s queries. However, he replied, “Mr Bhatkar, you have completed just about one year in the company. As per our company guidelines, one needs to stay in one designation at least for three years; in exceptional cases, may be two years.” Then he walked away.

Shaan Bhatkar realized soon that the promises made to him were not shared at any level in HR department. His own boss seemed to have overlooked his case, perhaps, in his very busy day-to-day schedules. Or there was a possibility that his work was not appreciated by his boss as anything spectacular. He knew that he deserved promotion only if he had achieved some thing extraordinary- that was their agreement.

Shaan Bhatkar went to his own cabin, pulled out all the twelve narrative reports and the final thirteenth report he had made as a covering report with an executive summary. He wanted to review all of them once more to critically examine whether his achievements in the first year were impressive or not. He also pulled out the aide-memoire where the proceedings of his job interview were documented by him where promise of promotion within first year was also noted down.

He examined his narrative reports as a third person without any bias towards himself. Interestingly, he had some benchmark figures too with which he could compare his own achievements. After half day’s serious and critical repeated analysis, he kept on coming to one conclusion, “Mine has been extraordinary performance in my first year on the job and so, I deserve promotion to “senior manager” as per the promises made.”

Having got satisfied on this cont, he took appointment with his boss for a personal meeting. He wanted at least one hour of boss’s uninterrupted attention. Boss agreed.

Shaan Bhatkar made a very methodical and convincing presentation based on his thirteen narrative reports to his boss. As he went on unfolding the facts and the figures through his presentation, the boss went on becoming more and more interested in his presentation. He asked for clarifications and even made notes. And at the end of the presentation, Shaan displayed the aide-memoire on agreement of condition of his promotion.

Boss did not utter a word. He collected all the thirteen reports, the aide-memoire and also his own note pad where he had jotted down the facts and figures presented by Bhatkar. He wanted to waste no more time and had immediately decided to go to the number one of the organization whom he was reporting. He wanted to impress the number one by sharing with him the kind of contribution his department had made to the organization. He manipulated in his own mind that he could also bask in the glory of his subordinate; after all Shaan Bhatkar had worked under his guidance, he could rightfully claim.

He left Bhatkar in his cabin and dashed to number one’s office with all the papers he had gathered. He asked Bhatkar to wait till he returned.

Bhatkar’s boss met the number one and they had a closed door conference at the end of which the number one thanked Bhatkar’s boss profusely for his contribution and also signed a paper authoring a raise in his salary and he also signed one more paper authorizing promotion of Shaan Bhatkar as “senior manager”.

Bhatkar’s boss dashed with those authorizations to the chief of HR who prepared the formal documents announcing the salary raise to Bhatkar’s boss and promotion to Shaan Bhatkar to the level of “senior manager.”

Bhatkar’s boss, with a grin all over his face, joined Shaan Bhatkar who was waiting for him to return. The boss shook hands with Shaan Bhatkar saying, “My heartiest congratulations to you. I am promoting you to the post of “senior manager”. Keep up the good work.”

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

Read other blogs 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

Dave Ingle mentioned pretty matter-of-factly, “Please do not mistake me when I say that I have been literally forced by my bosses to attend your training seminar. Pardon me to say that these training programs are a waste of time. I have attended several of such seminars and I have not been benefited by them at all. And yours is a six day long program with a much fancier title “personal and professional excellence” and so, that much more waste of time. So, right away I am declaring that I will be physically in your seminar hall but for all practical purposes, my mind will be somewhere else. Do not expect me to take down any notes or ask any questions or participate in any activities here. Just leave me alone- that’s my simple request”.

In our hundreds of seminars where more than 150,000 people have participated from around 250 organizations, it was not a strange or new experience for my wife and me who conduct many of such training programs jointly. We do come across a few participants in our seminars who express such opinions for several reasons. So, like mature people, we listened to Dave Ingle and allowed him his way in our class room. Interestingly, he was sitting around the very first table in the seminar hall, pretty close to us and exactly facing us. We could not fathom this aspect of his behavior; rather we had expected him to be the backbencher.

We started our sessions. My wife and I kept a watch on Dave Ingle though. Dave Ingle was sticking to his promises to us to the letter. He was seated with blank face and did not utter a single word nor lifted his pencil even once to jot down any notes.

Our seminars are normally very participative with short lecturettes and many management games, individual and group exercises, case studies, role plays, discussions, peer group learning, videos, questions and answers etc. Almost every participant except Dave Ingle started enjoying our sessions. The seminar hall was warming up with lots of rich learning experience.

Towards evening of the first day of the seminar, we noticed one small change in Dave Ingle. He had started listening to our lecturettes and discussions etc.

Next day after a session or two, we noticed one more change in Ingle. He was writing something on his note pad. We concluded that he might be doodling to kill time. He had brought a highlighter pen and intermittently, he was using it too, on the paper.

Two more days passed. The seminar was progressing famously. Dave Ingle’s activity level increased. He started solving the individual exercises and started taking part in group activities though always pretending that he was not much serious about them and was involving himself just for the heck of it.

Fifth day’s sessions brought about a marked sobering effect on Ingle, his countenance was displaying a quiet satisfaction and his entire body language was screaming as if to tell us that he was in terms with himself- my wife and I discussed it a bit during our seminar review conference between two of us.

Surprisingly, Dave Ingle met us privately during the lunch break. He requested for an appointment with us at the end of the day if we could squeeze in some time for him. We readily agreed.

Dave Ingle, my wife and I met up in the evening. We waited for him to speak out, “I have been going through a very critical period in my personal and professional life. But I must quickly admit that your seminar has been an eye opener for me. Yours is a very different seminar than what I have attended so far. You do not use the hopeless jargon and your messages are forthright and really beneficial. I have started finding many answers to my various dilemmas. Many of these things that you were telling in your training program are the very things my wife keeps telling me. I never heeded to her, rather I never understood her- I had even serious fights with her on those ideologies. Your explanations have brought home the meaning of all that. I am going to put these things now in practice in my personal as well as professional life. Hope, things work out well for me.”

He then shared with us a list of points he had picked up from our training program and had highlighted them with the highlighter pen he was carrying with him. We are reproducing the points as written by Dave Ingle below:

• 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.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

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/

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

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