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

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

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