Getting Rid of the Thorn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ultimately Ray Barry worked out a plan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Barry was smiling all the way.

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

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

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

The Smart Ones

Management trainees of Global High Tech Corporation were like very special types of species. The company had reasons to treat them like that. They were precious. They were recruited from the prestigious engineering college campuses, one batch of not more than 25 management trainees per year. The company was very choosy in their recruitment. If the company did not find the candidates meeting its standards set for the management trainees, the company would not fill up even these 25 seats. Thus the selected candidates were the cream of creams. Global High Tech was seeing them as its future top management- they were to be groomed to become company’s chairmen, managing directors, presidents, vice presidents etc.

The selection process involved a battery of grueling tests. Ordinary candidates got dropped out in the very first test called abstract reasoning test. Then there were technical screening tests, EQ tests, regular group discussions and colloquiums and a series of personal interviews by the interviewing committees and also one on one interview.

It was tough for an ordinary mortal to enter Global High Tech as a management trainee. Job of management trainee in Global High Tech was declared as the top of the line job by the professional experts.

The grueling routine did not stop just at the recruitment time. The regime after the entry into the company as management trainees was still tougher. The training was a year and half long course consisting of following seven modules:

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

Then these management trainees were designated as “manager”.

By now Global High Tech Corporation had recruited 4 batches of management trainees totalling to 85, trained them through the above mentioned training and finally inducted them in the company’s hierarchy as managers.

Since all these 85 persons had passed through a 100% identically common process of recruitment and selection and subsequently the training and they had lived together as a batch for long eighteen months, they had developed a great degree of camaraderie among themselves. As a result, they used to support and cooperate with each other not only in the professional matters but also in their personal matters. They were seen by outsiders, by other employees like a unified clan. They were the blue eyed boys of the organization and others envied them as someone special. Others envied them also for their solidarity.

Two more years passed and things remained great among the management trainees (now turned into managers). The two years passage also made them eligible for their next promotions. Company had decided the policy of promotions based on merit.

Each of 85 management trainees was a gem and each one was highly ambitious. As they started becoming eligible to be considered for promotions, each of them secretly started craving to become the first to be promoted. A strong undercurrent started developing. Many started lobbying with their superiors, other started acting street smart. And in the process instead of cooperating, they started competing against each other in very subtle and sophisticated ways.

While every one of 85 was trying various stunts, two of them were emerging as top management’s pets. Their names were: Raj Badal and Deep Gupta. Both were highly intelligent and smart. On top of these qualities they had one more important quality. Both were great informers. They would meet the members of the senior and top management team from time to time and inform. And mostly they were informing about who was saying what about the management policies and about the top bosses of the company. Invariably all the top bosses liked to get such information; after all information is power, they say. And therefore, they liked Raj Badal and Deep Gupta.

In the process, whenever Raj Badal and Deep Gupta got opportunity to malign their rest of 83 friends of management trainee clan in front of their bosses, they did so pretty artistically.

The management of the company did not want to make any mistake whatsoever in selecting the first management trainee for promotion. So they were watching each one of 85 very carefully and by and large reached a near consensus by short listing Raj Badal and Deep Gupta. The management had yet to choose one from them.

Raj Badal was keeping a close watch on Deep Gupta and his activities.

Similarly Deep Gupta was keeping a close watch on Raj Badal and his activities.

Raj Badal’s marital status underwent change just a couple of months ago. He was a married man now with a beautiful young wife at home. In a way, he was still in his honeymoon period. Raj Badal was not only a married man but he was also a great delegator. He was indeed a great manager. He had trained his subordinates so thoroughly that they were capable of running his department even in his absence. This favourable situation motivated Raj Badal to sneak out of his office and company’s security gate along with the first shift employees whose lunch time was at 11.30 AM. These employees would return at 12 noon after half an hour’s lunch break. But Raj Badal would not. In fact since he was a general shift employee, his legitimate lunch time was between 1 PM to 1.30 PM. But he was not following those timings. So he started using the lunch time of first shift employees instead of general shift employees. Then he would return to the office not at 12 noon or even at 1.30 PM but at 3.30 PM which was the start time of the second shift employees. He would stealthily enter the company premises through its security gate at 3.30 PM. Then he would walk out of the factory at his legitimate close time of general shift i.e. at 5.30 PM. So in effect he was now away from his office between 11.30 PM to 3.30 PM and so practically he was attending the office only for half a day.

Raj Badal’s wife Mrs Badal was a member of the ladies’ club of the company. Innocently one odd day she spoke about her husband’s smart tricks to one of the other newly married ladies of the club. And mysteriously the news travelled to Mrs Gupta and through her to her husband Mr Deep Gupta.

Now, Deep Gupta had his trump card. He literally rushed to a top management member who mattered. He in turn alerted the security officer of the company who in turn nabbed Raj Badal red handed committing the act of indiscipline.

Raj Badal saw his dream of becoming the first promoted management trainee crumbling right in front of his eyes. But he was now more determined not to allow Deep Gupta snatching away that title and glory from him. He must find out some weak spot of Deep Gupta since after this episode Gupta deserved a tit for tat.

That evening, when Raj Badal went home he acted quite composed and he asked his wife if she had noticed the same thing that he had been noticing about Guptas. As per his observations Guptas were leading a life style far beyond their means. Mrs Badal thought for a while and confirmed that she felt the same way too.

Deep Gupta was in charge of outsourcing department. He used to deal with outside contractors. Raj Badal felt that there must be some nexus between Deep Gupta and some of his suppliers. And from those quarters he must be making some extra bucks that made him capable of living a high profile life. And next whole day he was secretly meeting Deep Gupta’s subordinates to find out some clue. Finally he was successful. He came to know that Deep Gupta was supplying some secret technical drawings of some components to one of the suppliers on the platter. As per the company policy the suppliers were supposed to submit their own technical drawings to the company for approval before manufacturing the components.

“Eureka”, Raj Badal cried out in delight. And then he missed no time to go to the same member of the top management whom Deep Gupta had complained. A quick investigation was ordered and Deep Gupta was found guilty of flouting company policy and in turn seeking bribe from the contractor.

Now, with two candidates having disappointed the top management, a fresh search must start to uncover the first management trainee to be promoted.

Rest of 83 management trainees were very happy with the fall of two Goliaths. But there remained other 82 tough competitors for each one yet.

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 Rewards

Lately 500,000 cars manufactured and sold by Olympic Motors were called back. Couple of serious technical problems related to safety aspects of the car resulted in deaths of a few drivers. The owners of the cars created a big hue and cry. As a result, Olympic Motors agreed to withdraw the cars from the roads and promised to replace the defective components.

The work related to rectification of the called-back cars became the responsibility of service department of the company. Vice president (after sales service) John Acer was facing this kind of music for the second time in past two years. John Acer did not like the idea of taking up this responsibility since as per him the problem was the creation of the production setup and production department must be made accountable even to set right the defective cars.

He even sounded his objections to his boss Mike Gilani who was the president (marketing division) of the company. However Mike Gilani did not see it that way. Mike Gilani’s top most responsibility was meeting the sales targets and therefore, as per him, the production guys must produce those many cars. He was firm on his opinion that one should not disturb the rhythm of production by assigning the production division any other work.

The last time when there was this type of recall episode, despite John Acer’s objections even at that time, Mike had finally motivated John to accept the additional responsibility of rectifying the cars. He had told him confidentially, “This is a very critical job. On it depends the prestige and goodwill of Olympic Motors. John, if you could complete this job in time as per customers’ requirements, I will ask our top management to promote you as well give you a fat bonus.”

And subsequently, John had accepted the responsibility on these terms and conditions. He believed that he had his regular and legitimate after sales service assignments and this mass rectification job was an additional massive responsibility thrust on him. Therefore, he must be compensated well for accepting this extra responsibility which could recur in future also.

John had put in extra hours of work then and made sure that the cars were returned to their owners in time after replacing the defective parts. It was one hell of a nightmarish experience for him.

However, he did not get any promotion or any fat bonus. Mike had invited him for an official dinner with him in one of the most expensive restaurants to tell him the compulsions of the top management in not releasing any promotions or bonuses since the company had spent an enormous amount in buying and installing some new pieces of technology in order to eliminate the recurrence of such call-backs.

John was highly dejected to hear that explanation from Mike. John had told his wife about the promised promotion and bonus and both were happy. They had borrowed a good amount of money to buy their new home and they needed that extra money that would come in with the promotion and the bonus. John and more than him, his wife did not like the way Mike had treated them. But then they took it in their stride believing that no one in the company got any promotion or bonus or raise in the salary.

However, later on, John came to know that a few executives in the inner circle of the top management were given some rewards in hush-hush ways. Even Mike was one of the recipients. John felt pretty badly insulted on this account but did not pass on this information to his wife. He did not want his wife to be hurt further. But, John took it to his heart literally, in the sense that all these goings-on left him with a lifelong blood pressure problem. He started taking a daily compulsory dose of the blood pressure tablet on doctor’s advice.

So, this second time when the rectification project of the 500,000 recalled cars was forced on John, he objected quite vehemently. He specifically reminded Mike about the denial of the earlier promised promotion and bonus to him.

Mike put his hand on the shoulders of John and said, “Please accept this responsibility again for my sake, John. Based on your last assignment’s performance and on the anticipation of successfully completing this new assignment, I will make sure that you will definitely get a promotion, raise in the salary and significantly high bonus amount. I had already brought up your case last time itself and so the top management is already aware of your case. So, don’t worry. Simply concentrate on your job right now. Leave the rest to me. Luckily, the company is doing very well financially this year and I do not see any problem at all.”

Mike’s sincerity could not be doubted by John.

John put his heart and soul in meeting the deadlines. He completed the rectification of all the 500,000 cars by replacing the defective components with good ones and testing them and making sure that the cars were returned to their owners in time.

Then he was looking forward to the announcements of the next round of promotions, raises and bonuses.

And the day the announcements came, he was found unconscious in his cabin by one of his subordinates. The doctor came and declared that John had suffered a serious heart attack. He was shifted to the emergency room of a nearby hospital immediately.

The second time too John was denied the much promised promotion and bonus. And due to this shock, he suffered the heart attack.

What happened was that top management had decided to curtail the promotions and raises in the salary and bonuses the second year too because of the extra expenditure being incurred by the company on the repeated recalls of the cars.

In all of these restrictions on promotions and rewards, Mike wanted to promote his vice president (sales) as his first priority. As per Mike, it was his strategic decision and promoting vice president (sales) was imperative to meet his next year’s targets which were recently revised significantly upwards to meet the deficits created by the extra expenditures on rectifying the recalled cars.

But additionally he also wished to promote John as promised. So, when Mike took up John’s case with the top management, he was advised, “Mike, you have the quota of promoting only one person at the level of your vice presidents. So choose any one.”

Mike chose to promote vice president (sales) despite all the promises made to John- his vice president (after sales service).

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