(The case study given below essentially deals with “time management”. You may like to read another case study on “time management” at: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.net/index.php/2010/01/15/training-works/ or http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/2009/12/training-works.html
For many other management case studies/management anecdotes, read at: http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/)
Peter Gonzales was quite a frustrated soul. His organization had a funny rule that denied promotions to the designation of “manager” and upwards in each one of its technical departments to any person who was not an engineering graduate. Peter Gonzales had stopped his studies after getting a diploma in mechanical engineering. He had believed all along that his industry and hard work could take him to places despite his modest formal qualifications. He never imagined that his lack of education would come in way of his promotions to higher levels in the hierarchy of the company he was working for.
Around this time when Peter Gonzales was highly frustrated, this company contracted me for an assignment of mentorship to the employees of the company. So, he was one of my earlier subjects to mentor.
“Thrice my boss has recommended me to the position of “manager” based on my performance appraisal but every time it has been rejected. The HR department puts forth the rule book of the company and my case gets sidelined.” Peter poured out his heart to me in our first meeting. He told me that he had even contemplated leaving the organization but it was not easy to get another decent job in that region due to paucity of industrial firms in that region. Plus he had some family compulsions. His ailing old father and mother used to stay in a nearby town and he was required to be around to take care of them. So, he preferred to stay in the township of the company that was close by to the town where his parents resided.
Thus, in a way his fate was sealed if he had to continue in this organization. Did he really have a choice?
After considerable discussion with him, I proposed to him, “If your formal qualifications are coming in way of your progress, why don’t you think of getting an engineering degree by joining an evening course in a nearby engineering college or join a distance learning program that might be available somewhere. He had thought about it but there was no engineering college in that region and only distance course available was AMIE (that was considered equivalent of an engineering degree and was also recognized by his organization). However, as per Peter, AMIE was a very tough course and needed one to work very hard and without much guidance from anyone. It needed lots of spare time too- that’s most important requirement for completing AMIE. Now that he was a family man with a wife and two kids and most of his time is taken away by them, he just could not take up AMIE course.
I said, “I agree with you that for every person, time has always been a constraint. No one has unlimited time at one’s disposal. But if one can do a good “time management”, it was possible to find out time particularly for those activities that are important in one’s life. Many people spend lots of their time on unimportant activities and thus do not find time to do the important activities”.
Peter became a bit defensive, “Do you mean to say that I while away my time on unimportant activities? After coming home from office I have scores of errands to attend to. I need to do grocery, go to bank, go to post office, attend parent-teacher meetings in the kids’ schools and so on. Are they not important jobs? And we need to do a bit of socializing- after all we are living in this small township and we need to maintain relationships with our co-dwellers”.
I enquired, “But all of this cannot consume your entire evening. And why don’t you train your wife to do most of these things? She can surely handle all these jobs on her own with a little bit of hand-holding in the beginning but will become quite independent after some time. Then you will have good amount of free time on hand to concentrate on your AMIE studies”.
Hearing this, Peter did some mental calculations and said, “But we spend some family time together watching the television (TV)- only entertainment in this township”.
I asked, “How much TV do you watch every day?”
His reply shocked me, “At least 3 to 4 hours every night- that means at least one movie a day”.
I argued, “But that’s an overdose of entertainment by any standard. If you insist on watching so much of TV and indulge in so much of entertainment, you can be satisfied with the success story of entertaining yourself throughout your life but I can give you in writing that you will retire only as an “assistant manager” while all of your colleagues will climb the hierarchical ladder. You may not like that situation. More than that, your wife and kids will not like being left behind. You are still very young, just about 35 years and you have another at least 25 years of professional career. So think about cutting down on your entertainment and easily save 3 to 4 hours of you precious time. Use that for completing AMIE. It’s just a matter of 2 to 3 years. After you achieve AMIE, do spend some of your time in entertaining yourself.”
It seems that my constructive criticism of him worked positively on him. He realized that doing AMIE was by far the most important thing in his life at that juncture. For this, he felt convinced that he needed adequate time to study the various difficult courses of AMIE. He understood that he could manage this time for himself for AMIE by training his wife to do the chores like bank, post office, grocery, parent-teacher meets, socializing etc thus delegating all of this work to her. They can cut down on watching TV thus freeing all of them to divert their attention on more important things in life.
He wrote to me later on that he had finally enrolled himself for AMIE course.
After a gap of around 3 years, I got a phone call from Peter Gonzales that he completed AMIE successfully, got promoted to the position of “manager” and the company had allotted him a higher category of house in the township.
I congratulated him on his excellent demonstration of “time management” in action.
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.
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
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