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

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 He had superseded many brighter and deserving candidates of the company and got elevated to the position of the principal manufacturing unit of the company as the unit chief of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.

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

Boomerang

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.

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

Self and Family Foremost

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.

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

Zero Layoff Recession

Jay Kotnis went numb.

He was sitting in his manager’s cabin. Manager was saying something to him but he did not know what it was. Involuntarily he had stopped listening after he listened to his manager’s first couple of sentences. The manager had said, “Jay, I had no option but to include you in the list of managerial employees to be laid off due to recessionary pressures. You have been laid off with immediate effect. In case we start recruiting again, you may be one of the firsts to be contacted.”

After that, the manager went on telling that the company had downsized company’s employee strength by 35% and many more details regarding recession and its adverse impacts on the company.

However, Jay Kotnis was totally oblivious to his manager’s presence. He went numb.

He felt humiliated.

He felt shocked.

He felt angry.

He felt revengeful.

He felt diminutive.

He felt worthless.

And he felt more emotions but he was not in a position to know what they were.

Slowly the enormity of being kicked out of the job dawned on him. He had invested a good amount of his hard earned savings in buying a new home and a second car for his family at artificially escalated market prices. If he had no income, how was he going to pay back the loan? Would he be able to hold on to his home or will he have to foreclose it? Will he have to sell off the second car meant for his wife and his 8 years son? How will he manage the huge school fee? Can they manage their grocery expenses and other monthly bills?

For a moment he went blank again. Suddenly he went into delirium.

Lots of mixed up thoughts were circulating in his mind, “What will his wife think of him? What will his son think of his dad? I will lose my esteem with them. How will I explain to my neighbors? What will I tell my parents? People are going to mock at me.”

Then suddenly, he felt a bit better thinking that it was none of his fault. He had been giving his best as a competent professional. He did not make mistakes. He did not bring in the recession.

“They were those nincompoop ba----ds sitting on top of these kinds of companies who are messing up with the whole economy and markets and the public at large is badly hit by it. Thousands of families are being uprooted left and right by the actions of these greedy, unscrupulous, corrupt, shortsighted goons. They keep fooling the people by singing songs of inflationary economy, glamorizing the concepts of living for today on borrowed money and many such horrendous ill conceived selfish ideas. They continue drawing the unimaginably disproportionately high, undeserved salaries and bonuses despite the recession and to compensate for it keep kicking out the people who make money for them and keep destroying their families.”

After all these initial outbursts in his mind, he calmed down a bit. His rational mind took over and he got ready to face the new challenges of being a jobless. He thought that like the company he was working, a great number of so called prestigious companies were also laying off their employees in tons. It is not going to be easy to get a decent employment soon. How many months will he have to wait? He was not too sure.

In the silence of the night that day, he sat in his study room and started coining with various possibilities. After thinking about many alternatives, he decided to work as a self employed person. He had sufficient savings to last for 1.5 years after giving away the monthly bills and paybacks towards the loans. He found that he would work hard as an entrepreneur and within 1.5 years, he could start earning a reasonable income with his new venture. He felt somewhat elated and he did not know when the sleep overtook him.

His wife woke him up the next morning and seconded his decision of going ahead self employed. He could sense the genuineness of the support coming from his wife. That filled him up with the kind of mental strength that he needed to start off on his own.

It took him more than 2 years to setup his new venture and decent amount of money started flowing in. It took a little longer that he had planned because of the prevailing recession.

The recession phased out over four painful years. Once again, the things were back on track. Human memory is very short and most of the people in their daily struggle of living do not have time and energy to indulge into the philosophies of recession etc. All they do it to pray that the recession should not occur again.

But when the things are not sorted out from the root levels and only superficial treatment is meted out by the people whose very job is to ensure non recurrence of recessions, the next cycle of recession definitely knocks at the door. So once again after a gap of some 11 years, another round of recession gripped the whole world, this time still more severely.

During these 11 years, Jay Kotnis, with the full active support of his wife, set up his new company. The company grew to a good size. The company enjoyed good reputation as an ethical company, its products and services were rated high by the customers and employees were a highly satisfied lot. It was bound to be so since Jay Kotnis was running his company on following sound principles:

• 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 nothing. 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.

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