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Kerson Naik and zara abbas walked out of the yoga class mechanically. Urgently switching on their phones, they fell headlong into a world they had shut off for 45 whole minutes. As normalcy returned, they took the overbridge to the next building and thence the lift up to their office on the 23rd floor.
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Be Yourself. Everyone else is taken — Oscar Wilde A look at Indians' affinity for foreign brands and gloabal branding.
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Subeer Bhattacharya grabbed his mobile phone and peered at who was calling. It was 4.40 a.m. The name was not clear. He reached for his glasses. It was Arundhati Raina. So early? People have gone mad. Maybe she was still in the lab? “What happened?” he asked worried.Arundhati: Harry has called for a video conference at 5 a.m. our time. Be there!Subeer was confused. Why an unscheduled meeting? He opened his mailbox on his phone and saw an invitation from Harry Sugarman, Luxetta’s global head of Product R&D (research & development). The meeting would start in 20 minutes, and the entire global R&D team was invited. He dialled in and saw that very few of the Indian staff were on the call. After all, there was not much notice given…A few desultory side chats started up, as they waited for Harry to come on and start the meeting. No one knew why this meeting had been called and at such a time. There had been rumours of a management change. There were rumours that a few people would be laid off. A few product developments had gone awry or at least that was the verdict. The entire energy was negative, there was a lot of tension in the air. The annual R&D team meeting had not been held this year. Budget cuts, they said. Vacant positions had not been filled for over a year and everyone was stretched. Often they did work that they were not actually qualified to do….Subeer yawned. He had come home at 3 a.m. after an R&D audit — an accessory on a home appliance had been found to be faulty after the launch and the heat had been turned on by marketing. If it was not rework then it was because ‘technology changed while you were brushing your teeth …’The entire R&D team at Luxetta had been living on the edge for over a year. New technologies were coming at R&D every day. Jamie from the European region was yawning too as he said, “SOS meeting was called last night; someone in the auto industry invented something and suddenly there was this idea that ‘it could be borrowed into one of our products to make it more interesting’. (Others laughed) Seriously! None of us knew what it was about and yet, we were all giving an opinion about it. We were all having these conversations and getting super worked up about it, and reading up on it. But seldom do we pause to ask the question, ‘Is it really necessary to load more features onto a refrigerator or microwave oven, even if it sounds like a grand idea?”Subeer: Crazy times. Our managers are being pushed to squeeze more productivity out of all of us, so working in areas that were not our specialisation. We would be passed off as experts to the 3P vendors to give them specifications for product design. No idea what they were asking about but we would emphasise the learning and then brainstorm with friends in industry, old colleagues, classmates, whoever we could find.Of course, sometimes this resulted in hilarious situations like when Govind got some numbers mixed up and blew up the prototype of C16-8X that was nearly ready for marketing to comment on. We lost weeks of work and, of course, the frustration got to all of us.Nalpat: Oh, yes, there was even this time when someone sabotaged the computer that Andre was working on. We were all very stressed.Graham: And John (Kramer, head of Europe R&D), the star of the organisation in the eyes of the CEO, was turning cartwheels trying to meet the growing and larger than life global expectations. It is absurd. But super hero that he is, he made no mistakes.Bill Denver (Florida, USA): Not a good super hero though. I had heard from his previous team in the US that he passed on most of that stress to them, asking them to perform unrealistic tasks in unrealistic time frames, asking them for answers to questions that they had no idea about, and all that “in the next two hours”. He has been pretty manic.Subeer heard them through his half sleepy state. He did not think John passed the buck. He liked John. On impulse he said, “We like John. He is going to spend three months in a year in India. He has spunk.Arundhati (interrupting): …and the raw end of the US’ convoluted strategy…Bill: How do you mean? I am US …Arundhati: HQ expectations have been rising higher every quarter. We are working odd hours to keep pace with work. We have to work with teams in other parts of the world in order to help them meet those tough deadlines. Come on, what is all this if not convoluted?the announcement had come a week ago. John was moving to Asia. John Kramer, head of Europe region’s R&D, was moving to Asia. (but John was the rope in a tug of war … More on that later). He had chosen Indonesia as headquarter, but was toying with India too. He loved India, really loved India. But the clutter was insane he said. Just too much of everything and the traffic. But he would work summers in India when most people went away on vacation. The load will be less, he had laughed. Jenna in New Delhi was already talking to some real estate chaps in Vasant Vihar and Gurgaon. John had said he would like to be close to a golf course.So, what did John’s move herald? Someone said John was likely not happy with the move. More speculation flew around.The call started and Harry Sugarman thanked everyone for being on the call. He then broke the news: John, the new Asia regional head, had died a few hours ago following a massive heart attack.A chorus of gasps left the 11 who were online and for some time there was chaos. Harry had expected this. He waited as the incredulous teams expressed shock in turns.Subeer sliced the cacophony when he said, “I don’t believe this at all! Just last week we were talking. He had seemed so excited to come to the region from the US. He had never lived in Asia before and the variety of the work we were doing seemed to interest him a lot. He would be moving over in about 20 days’ time and had discussed with the local staff the various possible housing options before him. And here … O boy!Jamie: What happened? How come … I mean, what happened?Harry: A sudden heart attack, a massive one. Not sure what led to it. May be runs in the family…Joshua: Brought on by work-related stress, clearly.This was the first thought that had come to Subeer too. John was hit by a silent killer. But Madhav? Was Madhav’s paralysis also a silent stalker that pervades some stressed out lives?Harry said the entire region in Europe was overcome. They did not want John to go and he had said they should try and hold him back … he was being funny.Or was he? The many computers that held on to Harry’s had one question, “Did you not see it coming?”Harry took a deep breath and said, “John had seemed so enthusiastic about his move to Asia, how could you not believe him? He has been nuts about Indonesia all his life and here it was coming true. He had turned some brilliant work for Kitch (Luxetta’s home appliances product division) in the last two weeks, that our CEO Marcus Marsh had commended — you should watch the video of John’s wonderful presentation at the worldwide conference last month — he was in form! And all in all, he seemed to have an infinite amount of energy to do all the things he was doing. He did not look like a man harbouring any illness. What happened was sudden, he had not complained of any symptoms until then.”Subeer thought. A massive heart attack happened because of some neglect. Either knowingly or unknowingly and both were controllable factors to a very large extent, he thought. But there must have been some symptom, some prelude…The funeral took place the next day with a whole lot of people from the company attending. News filtered in from some colleagues who had met John’s wife Mariann. She told them that John had been having occasional discomfort in the neck and jaw and there had been shortness of breath after some soccer games he played with the boys. “But we never once thought he was ‘unwell’ or needed help. Rather unusual for him,” she had said and added, “I wish I had taken that seriously.” But because John was 6’7, he alluded that to his cervical pain brought on by too much work in the lab. “He told me he would be better once we moved to Asia,” said Mariann. “I just had not shared this with his co-workers, after all any admission of sickness would be a wimpish thing to do. Moreover, the CEO had said he depended on John to turn things around at Kitch, which was facing so much competition — John was telling me. And this high visibility event at which they both presented the latest breakthrough idea, meant so much to John. He kept telling me that the idea launch could not wait as ‘we have to be the first to enter the market with the idea’.”Mariann’s words held some pointers to the pressures on John but they were pressures in the course of business, most felt.Luxetta Worldwide had been experiencing a churn for some time. The Chinese market had put paid to some of its key initiatives or so Luxetta bosses claimed in conferences. Last year, Luxetta’s competitors from China had stolen a march over them. “Someone even said that the Chinese competitor had simply hired our entire senior research team, leaving us high and dry just as we were getting close to the end product,” Graham had told Subeer. “We were under pressure from our shareholders and board to show some quick results.”That situation had soon resulted in the entire global company becoming one large pressure cooker. Tempers flew, global R&D head Harry had a tiff with CEO Marcus, he was sidelined for a few months, which then gave rise to rumours that the new R&D diagnostics division would be shut down. Luxetta had set up a new diagnostics R&D division to include new product development diagnostics, which also examined post-purchase usage, consumer disappointment and particularly usage situation behaviours.A flurry of activity got generated by the seeming fluster and frustration hitting Luxetta. Unproductive conversations, pointless speculations … and some of the younger folks started scanning job sites for newer opportunities. Some in R&D also moved to sales in sheer desperation. It was sad, because some were thorough misfits in the sales organisation, and the stress quotient shot up carrying the ripple all over the organisation.Luxetta was hurting everywhere. The China bogeyman reared its head up every now and then. So every meeting would have flavours of : ‘Now China has launched it but in a shorter time. So we must cut short our development time and R&D must also take responsibility for quality.’This had been John’s nemesis — speed versus quality.Everyone wanted new packaging, new product, and they wanted it ‘now’. And if you delivered ‘today’ but your product failed on quality, then you were told you are a hard worker but not a smart worker. It was funny how nobody was willing to face failure. Subeer told Graham, “I know we work for success, sure. But if something fails, we have never been willing to examine and study the failure. It is absurd how people go off the handle! Nobody wants negative fallout on a brand. Do you know our noiseless juicer failed in three markets rather badly and was withdrawn from the market but marketing carried it on the website anyway? Because we were in denial, we did not want to admit our juicer had failed.”Technology was changing so fast that it had them gasping. Technology was not just ‘convenience’; that was primitive and ‘old fashioned village talk’. Technology was deconstructing existing businesses and in some cases demolishing them. No doubt it was also creating new markets as in the case of cell phones, and naturally a crazy, large segment of new users, which is what made business even more efficient and lives more productive, but then looking at some of the debris, John and his team had been aghast and often floundered when they had to recommend new product ideas because even as it remained in research, chances were somebody was already standing there with a hammer that would come down heavily as soon as the next technologically fabulous product was in the market.For example, just yesterday in India, exactly this played out much to the confusion of R&D. There was this fabulous five-door refrigerator which John and his team had kept in research for three years. In 1980, ‘three years in research’ would have won them bonuses and gold medals. In 2013, John nearly lost his job for not pulling the refrigerator into the market faster.So the Liza Extra, the fabulous multi-door with a central panel that stored wine, which was meant to knock the winds off the sails of three competing brands, failed in the test round as the through-the-door ice and water dispenser feature failed again and again…and again. John had been unhappy with the failures but he was unwilling to push it into the market. He had said that this one feature would ruin the brand name as these were the most repair prone parts of the fridge. And there had been an argument over whether the ice-dispenser was a male thing or a female expression of convenience too and many veered to the view that ice-through-door was the cool-factor that men sought for it allowed them to enter the kitchen and seem like self-help kings which they were not.John had laughed then. He agreed. His footfall would increase in the kitchen as a result but, jokes aside, he didn’t want the product to be declared a failure as a result. He had explained to marketing that if the door dispenser failed as it was prone to, the whole contraption on the door was going to be the ad for the fridge. “Imagine your young lady friend walks up to the fridge to shake some ice into her glass and you say, Oh-oh, honey, the ice thingy is temporarily out of order…. And her eyes go straight to the brand name…. you want that?”Marketing had said he was overstating a small feature problem but when John took it to his team they were angry.John’s Europe team — Joey, Sally, Theo and Larry — was indignant. Graham, part of the support team of this same team shared with the rest on Hangout: “We had worked on this thing for months and were proud of it. We wanted to see the product succeed. Every time I see a Kitch product in the multi-brand stores on my way home, I swagger just that little bit. I know my department has had a role to play in creating those beauties.... So, when John came back and said that marketing wanted to get the thing into production right away, we were mortified. ‘How can you allow this to happen, John?’ everyone yelled. John explained the importance of getting it out — the MR team had intelligence that showed at least three other brands were about to announce their products this year-end and our company was behind on schedules. No, the problem had to be fixed. But Sally and Theo were certain it wasn’t a design issue. It was in engineering and production…”Raul Magor from the Washington team had also been at John’s funeral. Raul now shared the discussion he heard the others have, as he stood by politely. There had been Mariann, John’s wife, Harry and Sara Woods from Operations. Mariann was saying, “He never talked detail, he was always a smiling, ‘Hi honey’ kind of person, loved the kids to distraction, took it to heart when he missed their soccer game… so he was not going to sit and tell me this went wrong or that. But he asked me if I cared about an ice dispenser on my fridge...Later, you Harry, told me there had been a battle over the ice dispenser?”At another web meeting three days after the funeral, people had the same questions. Today Nalpat from India asked, “Harry, never mind the ice dispenser. Are we saying John was under stress? Are we saying the ice thing built his blood pressure upwards? Or are we saying he had a proneness to hypertension? Which one is it?Harry: His last medical tests had shown his BP was erratic. So, he was on mild medication.Jaffer Nenzee: It had to be much more to knock him out for good.But they sat alone in their work stations after the lights on their laptops had been shut… each one roasting in the confusion of John’s sudden passing. What the hell, they thought. It is not that they did not know of life’s unpredictablility but they knew that some things were so easily predicted. Such as their own product sales. Such as stress and the heart’s response. Then what was a company like theirs, that was known the world over for its technological greatness, limply falling prey to a cardiac arrest? This was immensely stupid.Jaffer called his doctor Dr Nathani, “Doc saab, our boss who was to move to Asia and who has been in touch with us almost round the clock, just died of a massive heart attack. Are these things so silent and secretive?”Dr Nathani: In today’s day and age to die of cardiac conditions is easy and difficult as well. Easy, if you are a careless idiot. Difficult if you know the simple rules of the game. There are rules of diet and discipline and respect for the body machinery. It is as simple as that. But it demands discipline.Jaffer: That is what is tough. Work keeps me till 9, 10 p.m.… I eat dinner at 11… what should I do?Dr Nathani: I can tell you, but will you do it? Quit your job!But John had instead quit life ….. no, this was not as simple as that, felt Jaffer. To be continued...casestudymeera@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)
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Subeer Bhattacharya grabbed his mobile phone and peered at who was calling. It was 4.40 a.m. The name was not clear. He reached for his glasses. It was Arundhati Raina. So early? People have gone mad. Maybe she was still in the lab? “What happened?” he asked worried.Arundhati: Harry has called for a video conference at 5 a.m. our time. Be there!Subeer was confused. Why an unscheduled meeting? He opened his mailbox on his phone and saw an invitation from Harry Sugarman, Luxetta’s global head of Product R&D (research & development). The meeting would start in 20 minutes, and the entire global R&D team was invited. He dialled in and saw that very few of the Indian staff were on the call. After all, there was not much notice given…A few desultory side chats started up, as they waited for Harry to come on and start the meeting. No one knew why this meeting had been called and at such a time. There had been rumours of a management change. There were rumours that a few people would be laid off. A few product developments had gone awry or at least that was the verdict. The entire energy was negative, there was a lot of tension in the air. The annual R&D team meeting had not been held this year. Budget cuts, they said. Vacant positions had not been filled for over a year and everyone was stretched. Often they did work that they were not actually qualified to do….Subeer yawned. He had come home at 3 a.m. after an R&D audit — an accessory on a home appliance had been found to be faulty after the launch and the heat had been turned on by marketing. If it was not rework then it was because ‘technology changed while you were brushing your teeth …’The entire R&D team at Luxetta had been living on the edge for over a year. New technologies were coming at R&D every day. Jamie from the European region was yawning too as he said, “SOS meeting was called last night; someone in the auto industry invented something and suddenly there was this idea that ‘it could be borrowed into one of our products to make it more interesting’. (Others laughed) Seriously! None of us knew what it was about and yet, we were all giving an opinion about it. We were all having these conversations and getting super worked up about it, and reading up on it. But seldom do we pause to ask the question, ‘Is it really necessary to load more features onto a refrigerator or microwave oven, even if it sounds like a grand idea?”Subeer: Crazy times. Our managers are being pushed to squeeze more productivity out of all of us, so working in areas that were not our specialisation. We would be passed off as experts to the 3P vendors to give them specifications for product design. No idea what they were asking about but we would emphasise the learning and then brainstorm with friends in industry, old colleagues, classmates, whoever we could find.Of course, sometimes this resulted in hilarious situations like when Govind got some numbers mixed up and blew up the prototype of C16-8X that was nearly ready for marketing to comment on. We lost weeks of work and, of course, the frustration got to all of us.Nalpat: Oh, yes, there was even this time when someone sabotaged the computer that Andre was working on. We were all very stressed.Graham: And John (Kramer, head of Europe R&D), the star of the organisation in the eyes of the CEO, was turning cartwheels trying to meet the growing and larger than life global expectations. It is absurd. But super hero that he is, he made no mistakes.Bill Denver (Florida, USA): Not a good super hero though. I had heard from his previous team in the US that he passed on most of that stress to them, asking them to perform unrealistic tasks in unrealistic time frames, asking them for answers to questions that they had no idea about, and all that “in the next two hours”. He has been pretty manic.Subeer heard them through his half sleepy state. He did not think John passed the buck. He liked John. On impulse he said, “We like John. He is going to spend three months in a year in India. He has spunk.Arundhati (interrupting): …and the raw end of the US’ convoluted strategy…Bill: How do you mean? I am US …Arundhati: HQ expectations have been rising higher every quarter. We are working odd hours to keep pace with work. We have to work with teams in other parts of the world in order to help them meet those tough deadlines. Come on, what is all this if not convoluted?the announcement had come a week ago. John was moving to Asia. John Kramer, head of Europe region’s R&D, was moving to Asia. (but John was the rope in a tug of war … More on that later). He had chosen Indonesia as headquarter, but was toying with India too. He loved India, really loved India. But the clutter was insane he said. Just too much of everything and the traffic. But he would work summers in India when most people went away on vacation. The load will be less, he had laughed. Jenna in New Delhi was already talking to some real estate chaps in Vasant Vihar and Gurgaon. John had said he would like to be close to a golf course.So, what did John’s move herald? Someone said John was likely not happy with the move. More speculation flew around.The call started and Harry Sugarman thanked everyone for being on the call. He then broke the news: John, the new Asia regional head, had died a few hours ago following a massive heart attack.A chorus of gasps left the 11 who were online and for some time there was chaos. Harry had expected this. He waited as the incredulous teams expressed shock in turns.Subeer sliced the cacophony when he said, “I don’t believe this at all! Just last week we were talking. He had seemed so excited to come to the region from the US. He had never lived in Asia before and the variety of the work we were doing seemed to interest him a lot. He would be moving over in about 20 days’ time and had discussed with the local staff the various possible housing options before him. And here … O boy!Jamie: What happened? How come … I mean, what happened?Harry: A sudden heart attack, a massive one. Not sure what led to it. May be runs in the family…Joshua: Brought on by work-related stress, clearly.This was the first thought that had come to Subeer too. John was hit by a silent killer. But Madhav? Was Madhav’s paralysis also a silent stalker that pervades some stressed out lives?Harry said the entire region in Europe was overcome. They did not want John to go and he had said they should try and hold him back … he was being funny.Or was he? The many computers that held on to Harry’s had one question, “Did you not see it coming?”Harry took a deep breath and said, “John had seemed so enthusiastic about his move to Asia, how could you not believe him? He has been nuts about Indonesia all his life and here it was coming true. He had turned some brilliant work for Kitch (Luxetta’s home appliances product division) in the last two weeks, that our CEO Marcus Marsh had commended — you should watch the video of John’s wonderful presentation at the worldwide conference last month — he was in form! And all in all, he seemed to have an infinite amount of energy to do all the things he was doing. He did not look like a man harbouring any illness. What happened was sudden, he had not complained of any symptoms until then.”Subeer thought. A massive heart attack happened because of some neglect. Either knowingly or unknowingly and both were controllable factors to a very large extent, he thought. But there must have been some symptom, some prelude…The funeral took place the next day with a whole lot of people from the company attending. News filtered in from some colleagues who had met John’s wife Mariann. She told them that John had been having occasional discomfort in the neck and jaw and there had been shortness of breath after some soccer games he played with the boys. “But we never once thought he was ‘unwell’ or needed help. Rather unusual for him,” she had said and added, “I wish I had taken that seriously.” But because John was 6’7, he alluded that to his cervical pain brought on by too much work in the lab. “He told me he would be better once we moved to Asia,” said Mariann. “I just had not shared this with his co-workers, after all any admission of sickness would be a wimpish thing to do. Moreover, the CEO had said he depended on John to turn things around at Kitch, which was facing so much competition — John was telling me. And this high visibility event at which they both presented the latest breakthrough idea, meant so much to John. He kept telling me that the idea launch could not wait as ‘we have to be the first to enter the market with the idea’.”Mariann’s words held some pointers to the pressures on John but they were pressures in the course of business, most felt.Luxetta Worldwide had been experiencing a churn for some time. The Chinese market had put paid to some of its key initiatives or so Luxetta bosses claimed in conferences. Last year, Luxetta’s competitors from China had stolen a march over them. “Someone even said that the Chinese competitor had simply hired our entire senior research team, leaving us high and dry just as we were getting close to the end product,” Graham had told Subeer. “We were under pressure from our shareholders and board to show some quick results.”That situation had soon resulted in the entire global company becoming one large pressure cooker. Tempers flew, global R&D head Harry had a tiff with CEO Marcus, he was sidelined for a few months, which then gave rise to rumours that the new R&D diagnostics division would be shut down. Luxetta had set up a new diagnostics R&D division to include new product development diagnostics, which also examined post-purchase usage, consumer disappointment and particularly usage situation behaviours.A flurry of activity got generated by the seeming fluster and frustration hitting Luxetta. Unproductive conversations, pointless speculations … and some of the younger folks started scanning job sites for newer opportunities. Some in R&D also moved to sales in sheer desperation. It was sad, because some were thorough misfits in the sales organisation, and the stress quotient shot up carrying the ripple all over the organisation.Luxetta was hurting everywhere. The China bogeyman reared its head up every now and then. So every meeting would have flavours of : ‘Now China has launched it but in a shorter time. So we must cut short our development time and R&D must also take responsibility for quality.’This had been John’s nemesis — speed versus quality.Everyone wanted new packaging, new product, and they wanted it ‘now’. And if you delivered ‘today’ but your product failed on quality, then you were told you are a hard worker but not a smart worker. It was funny how nobody was willing to face failure. Subeer told Graham, “I know we work for success, sure. But if something fails, we have never been willing to examine and study the failure. It is absurd how people go off the handle! Nobody wants negative fallout on a brand. Do you know our noiseless juicer failed in three markets rather badly and was withdrawn from the market but marketing carried it on the website anyway? Because we were in denial, we did not want to admit our juicer had failed.”Technology was changing so fast that it had them gasping. Technology was not just ‘convenience’; that was primitive and ‘old fashioned village talk’. Technology was deconstructing existing businesses and in some cases demolishing them. No doubt it was also creating new markets as in the case of cell phones, and naturally a crazy, large segment of new users, which is what made business even more efficient and lives more productive, but then looking at some of the debris, John and his team had been aghast and often floundered when they had to recommend new product ideas because even as it remained in research, chances were somebody was already standing there with a hammer that would come down heavily as soon as the next technologically fabulous product was in the market.For example, just yesterday in India, exactly this played out much to the confusion of R&D. There was this fabulous five-door refrigerator which John and his team had kept in research for three years. In 1980, ‘three years in research’ would have won them bonuses and gold medals. In 2013, John nearly lost his job for not pulling the refrigerator into the market faster.So the Liza Extra, the fabulous multi-door with a central panel that stored wine, which was meant to knock the winds off the sails of three competing brands, failed in the test round as the through-the-door ice and water dispenser feature failed again and again…and again. John had been unhappy with the failures but he was unwilling to push it into the market. He had said that this one feature would ruin the brand name as these were the most repair prone parts of the fridge. And there had been an argument over whether the ice-dispenser was a male thing or a female expression of convenience too and many veered to the view that ice-through-door was the cool-factor that men sought for it allowed them to enter the kitchen and seem like self-help kings which they were not.John had laughed then. He agreed. His footfall would increase in the kitchen as a result but, jokes aside, he didn’t want the product to be declared a failure as a result. He had explained to marketing that if the door dispenser failed as it was prone to, the whole contraption on the door was going to be the ad for the fridge. “Imagine your young lady friend walks up to the fridge to shake some ice into her glass and you say, Oh-oh, honey, the ice thingy is temporarily out of order…. And her eyes go straight to the brand name…. you want that?”Marketing had said he was overstating a small feature problem but when John took it to his team they were angry.John’s Europe team — Joey, Sally, Theo and Larry — was indignant. Graham, part of the support team of this same team shared with the rest on Hangout: “We had worked on this thing for months and were proud of it. We wanted to see the product succeed. Every time I see a Kitch product in the multi-brand stores on my way home, I swagger just that little bit. I know my department has had a role to play in creating those beauties.... So, when John came back and said that marketing wanted to get the thing into production right away, we were mortified. ‘How can you allow this to happen, John?’ everyone yelled. John explained the importance of getting it out — the MR team had intelligence that showed at least three other brands were about to announce their products this year-end and our company was behind on schedules. No, the problem had to be fixed. But Sally and Theo were certain it wasn’t a design issue. It was in engineering and production…”Raul Magor from the Washington team had also been at John’s funeral. Raul now shared the discussion he heard the others have, as he stood by politely. There had been Mariann, John’s wife, Harry and Sara Woods from Operations. Mariann was saying, “He never talked detail, he was always a smiling, ‘Hi honey’ kind of person, loved the kids to distraction, took it to heart when he missed their soccer game… so he was not going to sit and tell me this went wrong or that. But he asked me if I cared about an ice dispenser on my fridge...Later, you Harry, told me there had been a battle over the ice dispenser?”At another web meeting three days after the funeral, people had the same questions. Today Nalpat from India asked, “Harry, never mind the ice dispenser. Are we saying John was under stress? Are we saying the ice thing built his blood pressure upwards? Or are we saying he had a proneness to hypertension? Which one is it?Harry: His last medical tests had shown his BP was erratic. So, he was on mild medication.Jaffer Nenzee: It had to be much more to knock him out for good.But they sat alone in their work stations after the lights on their laptops had been shut… each one roasting in the confusion of John’s sudden passing. What the hell, they thought. It is not that they did not know of life’s unpredictablility but they knew that some things were so easily predicted. Such as their own product sales. Such as stress and the heart’s response. Then what was a company like theirs, that was known the world over for its technological greatness, limply falling prey to a cardiac arrest? This was immensely stupid.Jaffer called his doctor Dr Nathani, “Doc saab, our boss who was to move to Asia and who has been in touch with us almost round the clock, just died of a massive heart attack. Are these things so silent and secretive?”Dr Nathani: In today’s day and age to die of cardiac conditions is easy and difficult as well. Easy, if you are a careless idiot. Difficult if you know the simple rules of the game. There are rules of diet and discipline and respect for the body machinery. It is as simple as that. But it demands discipline.Jaffer: That is what is tough. Work keeps me till 9, 10 p.m.… I eat dinner at 11… what should I do?Dr Nathani: I can tell you, but will you do it? Quit your job!But John had instead quit life ….. no, this was not as simple as that, felt Jaffer. To be continued...casestudymeera@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)
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“So there’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s work, and there’s life, and there’s no balance.” — Sheryl SandbergBy Meera SethJanki Vallabh sat in her car looking devastated. She had been so lost in her world of workshops and training and support and schedules and rearranging and rescheduling and teaching and discussing... even arbitrating... that she had clean missed an SMS that had been coming to her day after day after day. Her batchmate from B-school, Raghu Mani had been struggling with his mother’s ailment and had been messaging her daily in a manner of reaching out. Janki had read them and tried to remember to call but her memory eluded her and she ended up remembering them late. Finally, in two of his recent SMS-es he had mentioned the prayer meeting for his departed mother, asking Janki to be present. “She was your music teacher and she remembered you a lot during her last days...”Janki had not meant for things to come to such a pass. Never, never at all. She was being bounced from wall to wall without a moment to inhale. And being in sessions almost all day she had left her phone with Mercy, her assistant, in case Ma called. And by the end of the day, another 100 SMS-es (of which at least 40-60 would be idiotic offers to lose weight or speak in public fearlessly or buy property at rock bottom prices in Noida or Nellikupam ... these idiotic messages had buried Raghu’s reminders.How was she to face Raghu? Would she tell him, ‘Gosh Raghu, I have been so busy...?’ This was precisely the kind of moment that told her the foolishness of a life like hers. Often, when she dozed off in her car driving interstate, she would surface during her semi-aware state and remember Wilfred Owen ask, ‘Was it for this the clay grew tall?’(‘Futility’)Yet she had been so charged and driven by doing all that her work demanded, work that brought meaning to the lives of so many at Teffer, who wished to get ahead as career people, as functionaries, as managers, as leaders... their needs spurred her into more action, not out of a sense of wanting to glow in their darkness — not at all; but to see them climb out of various states of ‘I cannot’ to ‘Oh, I can do it!’ and in the process, make Teffer a far more efficient place.Someone had once accused her of lacking a life... that maybe there was something missing which she was trying to fill with work... Janki had nodded then and said that it was possible. And it was all right to fill gaps with work you enjoy, and everyone who lacked something should fill the gap with that which fills the gap and not wallow in the empty spot....but Janki was devastated that Raghu’s mother, ‘Music maami’ as she was always known, had been ill and then passed away and then she had missed the prayer meeting.She had met Raghu and his wife just now and they had been very affectionate and understanding. Raghu had quit corporate life six years ago to set up a music studio, and in his words, ‘a pony tail and long beard later, without the artifice of an organisation, I am more free and happy...’ She too was. Except her brand of ‘happy’ was different.... As she started to reach out to her various groups in the UK, Europe, US, China, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Middle East, she felt she was building good relationships, and the odd hours of day and night didn’t matter...for performance was improving, people were feeling fuller and happier and line managers were more deeply concerned with the needs of their staff.Janki had a number of self-doubts that rose during moments when she missed a social or family event. She had begun to notice that her day started at 8 a.m. and often ended at 10 p.m., only to resume at 10.30 p.m. again. True, she found no time to connect with friends and family or external networks or even herself... her mother remained her biggest most preoccupation outside work.Yet, she felt aware that she had missed Raghu’s grievance, missed being with her music maami during her last moments. Much as she hurt, she also knew her life pattern was fixed. Ma had chided her lightly for being so immersed in work. But Janki had reacted, “Ma, I don’t want this to have happened; your getting annoyed is not making it any easy, my work has consumed my life, I am almost on auto pilot, what should I do, quit?”Today, she visited Raghu and was embarrassed to see herself fret as her schedules fell like dominoes, as a result. She was telling Ahmedbhai every 10 minutes, jaldi chalte hain, ok? Jaldi wapas aanaa hai, do meeting hain, Ma ka programme hai nau baje, record karna hai... and she was taking calls on the drive, so people wouldn’t get nose out of joint!At work, she was forever caught between the US and the UK, both being different in attitude and organisational needs. At one level, it could be because UK was head office and dominating came naturally to them therefore. But Janki also felt it was because culturally they were very conscious of personal time and therefore unwilling to bend their norms. Her team in India argued that only Indians were happy being transferred left, right and centre. As Abhilash Kannuga, the HR head for the western region, said, “ This is why Indians are so versatile and capable, adaptable, agile, and very easy to accept challenges. In the UK very few have lived and worked outside home country and are perhaps not as culturally diverse or malleable!”But what made being global director worse, was the need to be inclusive, which meant: being available round the clock or late evening India time. And on such days, she ended up being up till early morning.Some days things drained her, some days she felt gung-ho. Teffer was very supportive. Janki’s boss allowed her all the flexibility she needed, saying ‘do what it takes’, but it was easily said than done. Because Asia Pacific was equally important and it had five distinct countries with very distinct cultural needs, which also determined their product mix. So, when she got out of the West, she fell straight into the Eastern time zone; then, when does Janki get thinking time? Her role was also about thought leadership and influence — that meant reading a lot, talking a lot, getting information, and of course answering a barrage of e-mails. How often she would be talking to a team at 2 in the morning and saying, “I will send the stuff to you in the morning,” and she would be crawling into bed at 4 a.m. after a marathon with Australia, promising to remember the promise made, only to wake up at 6 and be buried under another frantic 100 mails.Talking of broken promises, a few days ago Peter Fowler (Succession Academy in Singapore) had called, wanting two 90-minute slots with her. Just as she agreed to 4-5.30 with Peter, for a different day, and sent off the confirmation e-mail with Mercy in the CC, in flew Mercy.Mercy: Oh, Janki! Not that time slot! You have a dentist appointment that day, and we have rescheduled this at least four times, Jan!Janki: Oh, heck. Let us postpone it.Mercy: No Jan, don’t do that! And after that you also have to go to the prayer meeting at 8 p.m. (referring to Music Maami’s prayer meeting, which she ended up forgetting).Janki stared at all the dates that stared back at her. Blinking within each were a zillion time slots cramped with another zillion tasks to be accomplished. She got the feeling her life was unusual. Maybe abnormal too. Some day she must poke her head out the window and see what other lives were like. ...Mercy: Janki, take 3-4.30 IST and meet the dentist at 5.30.Janki: Oh, but you forget there is this Beijing briefing happening at 3 ... how are we to fit all this? Move the dentist appointment ahead, na? Ask Dr Mistry if he will see me at 6.30 p.m.?Mercy: Ok, I will try but let me also keep a plan B. If he says he is occupied at 6.30, then when?dr mistry said 7 p.m., adding, “I hope you have some teeth left for me to work with by then!” Janki cursed him (he was an old friend too) and turned to Mercy, “Ok, 7 p.m.” But Mercy flipped the page right before Janki and tapping the diary (knowing the doctor was on the line), she whispered: 7 p.m. you have a catch up team session. What about that? Shall I cancel it?” And that was how both of them lost sight of the prayer meeting.Janki was devastated. Uncovering the mouthpiece she said, “Pervez, if 7 is good, can 8 p.m. also be good?”But Mercy was already shaking her head briskly to say ‘That won’t work!’ but Dr Mistry was talking ...”You are lucky I am in the same building. Those teeth need care, Janki, what is wrong with you corporate sorts? We have rescheduled you so many times. Please find a convenient slot and call me, I have a patient on the chair,” he said and hung up.But despite all the breakdowns and chaos, it seemed as if what kept her from crumbling was more work. But it also kept her from doing all those things that were necessary on her personal front.Meanwhile elsewhere in the world an unexpected glitch happened. A tech filter in the system resulted in a leadership course invitation going to grade 3 managers as well so that enrolments began to pour in and Janki woke up the next morning to a barrage of 20 e-mails asking her to sort it out before it got out of hand.The whole day was spent sorting this out including answering many angry line managers who were completely bereft of script when their grade 3s announced they were off on a leadership programme.When she got home, it was 8.40 p.m. She was so relieved that the day was over and she has no US call today. As she let herself in, she saw her mother sitting at the head of the table the way she did, solving her Sudoku. The light on in the dining room meant she had not eaten her dinner. Janki was angry. “You know you are not supposed to delay your dinner beyond 6.45 or 7 and I have told you that if I am reaching home by 7, I will call you. So, why did you wait?Mother: But you didn’t call.Janki: Ma! I didn’t call you, but you could see that 7 o’clock came and 7 o’clock was going. You could have started eating!Mother: No, but you always call me and you didn’t call me.Janki was despairing. If Mom did not eat in time, her gastric problem would act up, then her hypertension too could, and then, she would have to take her to the doctor. And all this could well happen at 12 in the night. Ma was getting very old she felt. She really, really wished Ma would not lose her wisdom in this manner. Suddenly, her eyes filled over and she was crying. Was she not seeing her mother growing older everyday? Both of them had been comforting each other since her father died many years ago...Just then her phone beeped an incoming message. It was Hector Norkay from the New Jersey office. “Need to talk to you, will call 10 p.m. IST.” Janki decided not to reply as she was now feeling bad for Mum and sniffing too. Hector was the HRD for one of the businesses and she knew he was grappling with a legal situation on hand. There had been some audit, which team was now saying that as part of your process, you said these people will be trained in security and safety. And I know that you were to do this. But we have found that this never happened. And I have no idea why that programme did not happen.Janki recalled having done all that was needed for the programme and asked them if they were good to go with it and they had mumbled something and she knew they would run with that plan.It was now a crisis and she had to deal with it. Or did she? It bothered her that local teams threw up their hands sometimes rather easily. And did he need to call her? Would not an e-mail been enough? And he had the gall to say he would call at 10 p.m. IST.Teffer was very process driven and there was as an internal audit process around how you are building internal capability. This was part of their performance efficiency audit. Hector had told her yesterday, “Many sessions have not happened despite our committing to it. Against 12, only seven have been done. How do I explain why the remaining is not done yet?”Seeing the message, Janki called up the US and as Hector complained it was too inconvenient for him to take the call, she said, “It will be more inconvenient for me to have an argument with you at my 10 p.m. because my mother is not doing too well. So, I thought I would tell you that the agreement we had between us was this: I would do a handful of sessions —and I did seven, not just a handful. You guys were supposed to run the rest. Why are you now asking me?”A semi-heated discussion broke out. Just then Janki felt she heard her mother groan. Stepping out of her room she went towards mom’s room, pushed the door open and saw her doubled up, holding her chest as she normally did when she had a gastric chest pain. Janki thought, if I hang up now, this guy is going to think I am rude. And it was an important call. Janki was also annoyed with her mother. “She does these things for no reason! This is a critical call, now let her deal with it... I will keep an eye on her and ...ok, let me get her a Pudin Hara...” And as she handled the chest of drawers and dug out the medicine tin box, the lid fell and made a horrific sound. Hector from the other side, already irritated, said, “Why is there so much noise?”Within minutes the watchman was at the door saying, “Woh neechey wale madam keh rehe hain ki awaaz aa raha ahi...”(the lady in the flat below is complaining that your home is noisy.)And Hector was saying, “What’s going on, Jan? We can’t seem to have a conversation in peace!”Janki: At 9.30 p.m. in the night, peace is what I want. So, I suggest you call me at 11 a.m. tomorrow, when I am awake and bright. I have had a very tough day.Hector: Who doesn’t have a tough day?bidding him a Good Night, Janki went to her mother’s room. She had skipped dinner and was eating Threptin biscuits. Janki refused to take note. But she sat by her side and began talking about their holiday next week. As things warmed between them, Mother said, “Bhairavi is getting married in Chennai. I want to attend that wedding.” After a round of ‘Who is Bhairavi’, Janki said, “Ma, you have not met them in years!’ But mom suddenly chose to wear her halo and said, ‘But I have to represent Daddy.’Janki: Daddy? Ma, dad left 25 years ago. It is not making sense.Ma: You have hurt my feelings by being rude.Janki sighed and said, “Sorry, Ma. Ok, we will go. In that case let’s do this, we will leave for our holiday out of Chennai. And she put that into her phone reminder for 8 a.m. next day. The next morning she called Sumati in Chennai and asked her to book two tickets to Chennai-Jaipur on x date.The next five days were a blur of workshops and ‘Meeting my Boss’. This was the funniest because somewhere through all the communication that flew at her was this one that told her she needed to meet her new boss. Ava Norman, the boss was new to the system and she was doing her orientation conferences. Even if Janki only had to meet her virtually, she could not see one sensible gap in her diary. This was overwhelming.Mercy had been yo-yo-ing between Norman’s office in Manila and Janki’s diary for a ‘Get-to-know-you’ video-call. “ I can’t just do this blind,” said Janki, “ I have to prepare for my getting-to-know-you session; I have to think through what I want to tell her. What I think she needs to know about my priorities, needs, focus points; I have had no time to work on this or plan this!”Rushing as she was between events, Mercy told her there were two days left to leave on her holiday to Jaipur and would she like to set up her call while on vacation as Norman’s would be the only ‘work-related’ call?Janki was delighted silly. “But of course! What a grand idea! Please let Norman’s office know ASAP I am embarrassed that I have not been able to meet my own boss!”One day to go and Janki was already feeling good. She popped into Mother’s room when she got back from work, and saw that mother had been packing and almost everything she owned was strewn on the bed. Janki saw a set of three Kanjeevaram sarees waiting to be packed. “Ma, Kanjeevaram sarees to Jaipur?”Ma said, “We have Bhairavi’s wedding...no? Now, you please give me the Mumbai-Chennai tickets, I have taken out the new handbag and I am going to carry the tickets and do the boarding pass and all that myself.”Bombay Chennai? Janki’s heart sank. What Bombay-Chennai? Good Lord... She had not booked it! She had done Chennai-Jaipur through Sumati, she had cancelled Mumbai-Jaipur... but “.... oh, no!”Rushing to her room, she put the “I am on a call” placard on her table so that Ma may not rush in with a bowl of something, and chased every travel agent on her iPad to find tickets for Chennai. Every site returned her a regret. No tickets. It was the wedding season. Janki got on the phone to Mercy: “I have goofed so badly. Please call the head of MakeMyTrip and tell him it is me, that I need two tickets Mumbai-Chennai for day after... for any price, Mercy! casestudymeera@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 10-08-2015)
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“I don’t believe we have a professional self from Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time” — Sheryl SandbergJanki vallabh raced to the door calling out instructions to the housekeeper, to her mother, to the dhobhi — as her heels went clickety-clack and her driver carrying a pile of folders and whatnot preceded her into the lift ... her mother glided noiselessly behind her with a long list, gently muttering, “And Nikki, have you bought the tickets for Shankar Mahadevan’s show? Now you promised you would...”Mom was 81 and had a parallel to-do list for Janki as she was convinced that otherwise nothing would ever get done. Daily, she would run through her long list and ask, “What can I strike off this list today?”Janki: Ma, you forget your list, I have mine and I am working according to that....and for God’s sake Ma, Mercy is my assistant, not my handy maid. She does not cut fruit for me, please don’t ask her to cut fruit for me ... it is so embarrassing... Ok, Ma, sorry, Ma, love you, Ma...The lift shut and Ma walked back to the apartment muttering, ‘She has not done anything even today....’It was 8.30 a.m. and Janki prayed the snarl points would be easy today. She had a training session with New Zealand at 10:00 a.m. IST and needed to get to her desk by 9.30.Even as she got into the car, Mercy was on the phone. Janki cut her short and said, “Drop everything and call Genelia at ITC. There is a Shankar Mahadevan show next weekend. Tell her she has to send me two passes for the show, no matter what. My sanity depends on getting those tickets.”Janki’s life had been turned upside down the previous day consequent to which she was to have an unscheduled, hastily put together online workshop with her New Zealand team.Last year, Janki’s role as HR director had been broadened. But as her role unfolded she was beginning to see what they meant by ‘infinity’.A global role was what everyone aspired to. Very broad, very wide, very far reaching ... What fired her spirit was a feeling that she could influence the broader organisation with improvements in performance. While it was a role of a lifetime, she did not realise it would be a life without time. Janki had been so furiously busy with training and mediating and arbitrating and talking and monitoring and... that the quality of her life had changed to something she did not even find easy to describe.As the traffic choked ahead of her, Janki found herself inching closer to her seat’s edge till she was practically leaning over her driver Ahmed’s shoulder saying, “Jaldi karo, Ahmed bhai, der ho rahi hai....” And Ahmed said, “Ji Madam, bas pahunch gaye....”Janki was restless. She needed to get to the office 30 minutes before the workshop began as she would have to do a sound check, make sure the bandwidth is ok, and because there were 3-4 different locations in NZ from where people would log in, hence she would need to be there before they arrive. On this occasion, she had a co-facilitator from the UK. And this is how it all came to be so chaotic.The New Zealand business had gone through a lot of transformation and providing them with coaching skills was identified as a critical need, so that line managers could effectively manage the change and enable the transformation. What was meant to be a two-day face-to-face programme had to be reworked, rescheduled and rehashed overnight. As dynamism goes, Janki was to fly that same morning to Sydney via Airline Exx which had developed bad press since some repeated technical snags had resulted in two of their flights crashing. The previous evening, three hours before she could leave for the airport, the management of Teffer Worldwide sent out a red alert saying managers should not fly Airline Exx.Janki groaned. This programme was so critical to not just Teffer as a whole but it was crucial to Asia Pacific which had been trying to build skills to win a new project from Europe and she had promised Derek Banner, HR for Asia, that she would prepare his region. Using technology, she decided to convert the same session into an online one and move on seamlessly with her goals. So, when the circular went out last evening, it was 7 p.m. IST and, of course, 1 a.m. the next day in Sydney and Auckland.At 10 p.m. last night, she had to first call and wake up her HR counterpart in Auckland, Abid Latif, apologise and explain that she was not coming but the session would happen at 10 a.m. IST or 4 p.m. Sydney/Auckland time. Abid, in turn, called his assistant Lynn Burke and asked her to call Janki and take instructions. So, at her 4 a.m., Lynn was talking with great clarity to Janki. You would if it was the HR director you were talking to.Lynn would thus have time to prepare the teams for an online session, but she, in turn, would have to organise for the six of them to sit in the conference room and hook up the big screen for them to jointly be in session with Janki, but, she would also now speak with Cora in Melbourne to have her three HR personnel to dial in and Darwin would be told in the morning.Janki had been exhausted. Managing the detail was going to be far more exhausting than anything else. She had been up until 3 a.m. sorting, rearranging, rescheduling...On the other side, NZ had to post haste rearrange a lot. The teams would now meet four days at 4 p.m. their time and reallocate their other meetings differently.Janki also had to rearrange with Jeff, her UK co-facilitator. At 2 a.m. last night (UK time 10 p.m.) she had messaged him frantically: “Jeff! The NZ trip has been called off owing to some internal ruling on some airlines. But the session has to happen and I will need your help to facilitate this since the dynamics of the session will now change. Can you be online UK time 6 a.m?Jeff who was to facilitate at NZ, was also caught in the travel rule and had to go back. Now, he needed to be with her at an ungodly 6 a.m. Jeff hated early mornings.Janki was quickly calculating her day that had been derailed rather badly. At 11.30, while the session would conclude, there would follow a debrief. She would need to work with Abid in NZ to evaluate how the new format went, and if the teams got what they needed.So, when the teams logged off and their HR head Latif took over, it was 5.30 p.m. in NZ.Janki: What worked for you Abid? Is there anything we need to do differently tomorrow?”Abid: I think it was grand that everything happened seamlessly and without any hiccup despite such a huge change! The teams were already sympathetic to the change, and it is laudable that they adjusted their schedule really cheerfully.But one thing Janki, tomorrow you will need to spend more time as people have not read up.What happened was, after her chat with Lynn, she had hastily sent some reading references for the teams overnight, to catch up as she would now have to do less online than she would have face to face. So, she had sent page numbers of some work manual and told them to read up and be ready. But the people were not prepared for a sudden change of plans and thus a demand to also read up. As a result, many were unable to read.Even as Abid said that, Janki realised that at the end of today’s session, she had also given them 2-3 videos to watch and make notes.Janki tossed the time zones around her head. Teffer Worldwide worked seamlessly but moments like these did challenge the senior managers and put them under a lot of strain. For example. Janki realised that when she finished at 11.30 a.m., it was 4.30 or 5 in Auckland. If now they had to read pages and watch videos, that would impinge their family time. Some managers also had kids in day care and out there these timings were non-negotiable unlike in India where you said, ‘Please aunty, keep her till 8 p.m.’ and aunty did so for an extra Rs 500. In most countries, respect for family time was paramount because people also valued family time.The next day, one of the team suggested to her to put a gap between sessions... “Why don’t we have these sessions every alternate day?”Janki’s HR manager in India, Aman Bakshi, who assisted her, said, “Doing a two-day continuous session has a certain synergy and ends up being more productive than a five-day, 90-minute deal. Because everyday has a set up time and a debrief time and a recap time and there is a certain exiting from one mode and entering the workshop mode then exiting that to enter the local India mode.... We will lose more than gain, so, please say ‘No’ to gaps between sessions.”But Auckland was keen to get the most out of this. Abid messaged her, “The teams are very clear that 90 minutes is not helping. They want to take it up to 150 minutes for it to make sense. Let us start at 9 a.m. IST.”There were nine line managers across Sydney and Auckland on this session. And the NZ business was critical business. Janki looked at her clock and thought about it. How was this going to work?If she started one hour earlier at 9 a.m. IST — then that meant Jeff in the UK would have to come online at 4.30 a.m.; or she extends it until 12.30 IST, which meant the teams in ANZ would work till 6.30 p.m. which would not be doable. And even if Jeff agreed, the IT guy in India Sudip Rao would have to come in advance to set up her IT environment.Sudip now stood before her listening to her and checking his phone notebook to see what time slot suited him. If Auckland wanted 9 a.m. IST, Sudip would have to reach the office at 8 a.m. “I live very far away, at Badlapur,” he said to Janki. That meant he would have to leave home at 5.30 a.m.This was not looking good. Even Janki disliked the idea. Amiable as he was, Sudip said, “Actually family problems... ,” rather eloquently. When Janki encouraged him to elaborate, he said, “ I have to pack my kids lunch boxes and drop them at school as my wife works the night shift at an IT firm. And I have to drop my daughter to school myself.Janki could not understand at all. Either she was tired or dull after the day. She looked at him quizzically and said, “Can’t she go with someone else for a week?”Sudip: Oh, no, not anymore. Times have changed, girls, why even boys are unsafe. That is why my wife chose a night shift job so that she is available to pick them up from school at 2 p.m. In fact, her working night shift actually helps keep the kids safe. We don’t use maids, we mind the kids ourselves....janki realised she was behind the times. The difficulties of the younger folk these days was far different she mused.The more she thought about it, the worse it seemed because creating chaos in her own life was one thing but she saw that every change will have a ripple effect on many more lives. This cross country marathon that she ran everyday was beginning to get to her.Janki verily lived a 24-hour day without a break, available to the phone when it beeped, to the computer when it delivered mail, to the world clock for any of her constituents to call and confer with her as they wished.Janki slept on an average three hours in every 24-hour cycle. It usually got to her when she could see everything falling apart. As long as everything went on fine, she did not notice the difficulties.There will be more lives that will get affected, she mused thinking about Auckland. Thinking over it through lunch, Janki told Abid in Auckland, “We can do three more days if you wish to give your teams more time.”Just as Abid said he would check his diary and see if that worked,and signed off, Peter Fowler from the Succession Academy in Singapore, called.The Succession Academy was another of Teffer’s HR initiative located out of Singapore, which helped plan successions, leadership issues and related workshops. Janki was yet eating her lunch and cursed the mobile phone for the intrusion.“Hey, Jan, we need to have a call to discuss a leadership survey in North America. And we need to do this soon. “ Janki flipped the pages of her diary even as he rattled choices of dates. Oh, but the time slots and the dates were terribly inconvenient! The dates he was giving her were precisely when her session with ANZ would get over. So, he wanted 1 p.m. IST when it will be 3.30 p.m. in Singapore. Janki: Peter, that time slot does not work. We have just had a reschedule of NZ’s coaching skills module. And we are doing it as a series of webinars.And Janki explained to him that she was just about to confirm to them three extra days.Peter: I don’t see why. The four you are doing is just right. They should learn to extrapolate. Did you get a sign off from the head of the function?Janki: I don’t care about all that, Peter. This is about the learning.Peter: I thought you were completing on Monday but now you have no time! Ok, why don’t we work during your afternoon? 3 p.m. IST? My 5.30? I just need 90 min on two days.Janki: That is not ‘just 90 min’, but 90 min over and above all else. I think if you must get value as I must give value, then we must move this to September.Janki was exhausted juggling time, she couldn’t say a ‘no’ to Peter because he too needed that session. She couldn’t say a ‘yes’ to him either because there seemed to be no time to do anything else. And that was the most inopportune moment she remembered Shankar Mahadevan and the passes.Tearing out of her room she caught Mercy eating fruit. “You are eating fruit? Get me those tickets from Genelia, my dear! The fruit must wait!” And Mercy nodded vigorously through her fruit-filled mouth.Back at her window, Janki thought, but a 24-hour day cannot be made into 40 hours nor can 3 p.m. be shifted to pre-lunch, just as Shankar Mahadevan cannot perform on a different day for Ma.When she got a chance to look up, Janki went to the washroom to escape. Taking the green and mauve sofa, she curled up and shut her eyes. The cleaning lady who was shining the mirrors was alarmed at what the mirror showed her. Rushing to Janki she said, “Is madam ok?’Janki smiled, “Thank you, Latha. Just need to hide for 10 minutes. Very tired.”Meanwhile, the rest of Janki’s life was gathering girth. The foods business had gone through a leadership transition. Rahul Khurana, the HR head for foods, had called Janki last week just as her Auckland trip was in the throes of being cancelled. He wanted Janki to come up with a design for a one-and-a-half day workshop. He also said that the head of that business, CEO Joydeep Basu had it all planned out.Basu wanted a transition programme for his 18 managers. Most were assuming new roles and some had their responsibilities widened. But their direct reports remained the same which meant those teams also needed to be helped with assuming newer responsibilities and managing their bosses.HR also had a Transformation Director who had already e-mailed Janki saying, ‘ I need to talk to you and figure out what is possible.’Janki found there was no space between events. In a distant way, you could say they were all business related or people related, but a pause would help wrap up events, put a label on them, assess if what was sought was being accomplished...So, line managers had a vision and they were asking Janki to deliver it for their teams , even as other teams sent SOS messages — And oh, btw, several members of the leadership team are going off on a holiday and therefore if there is any pre-work that you need to do, you got to tell me fast. And oh, btw, I will have to source an external facilitator because I can’t go anywhere, he will have to do all this....Troubleshooting, handholding — all that happened. But more than that what happened was people development, which she completely enjoyed — imparting skills, reassuring them, showing them the way, pointing out the goal to them, encouraging people, giving them everything they needed to evolve. Some days when she dozed off in the car, in her half awake state, she felt happy to have got this role.As for Ma who she doted on, Ma got her joys seeing her return from work early in order to beat the traffic so that she could get on to a conference call or a telepresence. Ma had her little measuring device and she slipped in portions of protein on to the table in the study, which she would then slide into vantage point using a long handled ladle, to avoid being spotted on the screen by the caller from Hong Kong or wherever!Other times, it would be a bowl of ragi mousse as Ma tried to call porridge, to make it look attractive, but Janki called it Ragi mess, because of how it behaved. “Calcium calcium... good for those bones that you overwork...” Ma would whisper pushing the bowl closer to her computer, and Janki, armed for these intrusions with flash cards, pulled any one at random and waved it at her away from the screen. Usually her flash cards read, “Leave the room, Ma!”To be continued...casestudymeera@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 27-07-2015)
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The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down — Stephen RichardsArvind warrier was in tears. His EMI was due at the end of the month. Rumours of ‘No salary’ combined with the lending bank’s fame for using debt collecting thugs had cost him his sleep.Arvind worked at Beta Advertising. As a busybody in the media buying department, there never was time to think. Going to work also meant not being able to even remember home — that was how intense work was. And now he had heard that only 40 per cent of the salaries were being paid and to rein in costs, the company was also retrenching staff. Arvind lost all concentration as his heart thudded and mind broke into chaos.Beta was a fairly successful agency for over 40 years until the owner Vidyadhar Desai decided to shift his business to film making and, thus, to sell the agency. The buyer was an ex-creative director, Arth Munim.Arth’s return to the agency after eight years was received with mixed feelings. He had been a good creative director but could he run an agency? Management was different from writing copy, some felt.With the coming of Arth, a major facelift was expected at Beta. Arth was well known in advertising circles hence the feeling was he would be good for business.The first year was business as usual. In fact, it was a year of hope as Beta, which had struggled with some creditors and poor collections in the previous two years, began to see a systematic cleansing and tidying up. Arth was very sincere in putting a new system in place. He hired a consulting firm at a huge price to revamp payroll and accounting, create more dependable debtors’ warning systems, collection systems and even an incentive system for faster collections.Only one major change was visibly felt: Beta was in a leased office and the lease was in the personal name of the previous chairman-owner. Arth decided to give up a part of the lease that was on the 7th floor and keep only the office on the 8th. Consequently, all departments moved to the same floor. But for this, Year One was as if nothing had changed. There was an air of freshness, but there was also doubt.Then the inevitable began as the new broom swept. A deo spray client wanted a new campaign and Arth clashed with creative director Omana George who went for the intellectual while Arth wanted a competitive (hence provocative) appeal.Something snapped rather badly and no one could tell what it was. Omana who was always known for her poise and grace and intelligence clashed rather sonorously with Arth: “It is my client and I know what their brand needs. I will appreciate it if you kept out.”Arth said, “It is my agency and I know what we need for our revenue and bottom line.” Daksh Vaidya, the Account Group Head, shook his head. Omana who also directed the creative for his client Noryk, an online fashion store, was growing increasingly bristly and defensive at client meetings.Daksh did not know about her flare-up with Arth until someone else told him. But sadly, when they were presenting to Noryk, Omana told the client that they needed to be clear as to her directorship on the account.Daksh was alarmed. He did not wish to ask her anything just then.But later, Omana said to him, “I saw your stricken look. Arth has been messing with my clients and this is the best way to ensure purity of purpose by talking to the client directly.”Within days, Daksh began to see a slow crumbling of the dependable edifice at Beta. The first was Sabari Dalal, the payroll accountant. When he went to settle some allowances, she said in a whisper, “All hell is breaking loose. Not enough money in the payroll account.”Arth had not been transferring money, she said. “I went to him twice in the last 24 hours, as salaries have to be credited and he told me to come later. This is serious. Naik (production head) also spoke to me. The artists have not been paid. I believe four have stopped work — but they are freelancers and they don’t care. But who will do their work?”Was the edifice cracking? But he tried to comfort Sabari saying it was just a phase, and she said, “No, no phase-wayz. Dinoo Daftary has not been paid for his film — Rs 48 lakh. Arth told him he had over charged — something nobody tells Dinoo... there was a messy yelling match I believe.”One story unravelled more stories. One after another, the dark stories came out from different people who each believed in a variation of: “we thought it was temporary, we thought he was joking, we thought, new management... he must have changed systems....”. The sorrow was spreading.Daksh picked up his mug of coffee and went to meet Nana Naik as they called him. Nana was a consultant art director and much loved at Beta. Last year, he had been made the production head. He was in his mid-60s and retained by Beta because they loved his work far too much. Nana looked at Daksh and said, “Kay re bala, there is a storm brewing on your face?Daksh said, “I hear not very encouraging talk around the office....”Nana Naik: One person is having a bad time which he piles onto another fellow. That fellow on another fellow. Soon the whole home has too much tension. Find the culprit.Daksh: Nana! Not joking, yaar. Serious stuff....Arth is not paying... he is interfering as well. Yesterday Omana gave the client a bad time. Dinoo has not been paid, he is refusing to part with the film...Nana, it is my client finally! If Omana gives Arobindo (another of Daksh’s star clients) a bad time, he will walk out. I cannot afford it.Naik: I think, Omana also cannot afford it. But she is reacting to her immediate feelings.... Omana bai changli bai aahe... but stressed. Too much on her plate. Bubble Khanna, her counterpart, is in hospital, she is handling his work as well. Her day has become very, very long and she has a father-in-law who is unwell...Daksh: Nana, we all have some difficulty or the other, yaar. It can’t become an excuse.As Daksh stood at the door talking to Nana, looking grim and worried, Ajay Soman, one of the senior group heads was walking past. Seeing Daksh, he said, “Yaar, you are here? And I have been looking for you. Bad news. Omana just quit, we are up the sewers without a paddle...!”Daksh went white. No Bubbles, now, no Omana... He cursed under his breath as Ajay said to Nana, “I too would not say die, but now I see we are far gone. Arth has told Omana, Beta can work without her and thereby driven the last nail into the coffin. And here is worse news: Arth says he will work on all the accounts! How can he?”Daksh: He can if he chooses to, but question is do we want him to be interfering? I don’t!Nana: Omana going is sad. But she has made a choice. Nobody asked her to leave...Ajay: No, Nana, that is wrong. She has been pushed to the wall...Nana: Then, you push the wall, don’t cave in. If you cave in, it is again a choice you make to not fight. To not negotiate. To not arbitrate. Socho zara, we cannot go about using our emotions like bird feed. If she has chosen to quit, we are still holding on to theorganisation and its clients. We have to find solutions. But look at your condition, Ajay! You are senior. Where isyour kshatriya sense? In a war, if a soldier falls or is felled, do the others stop the fight and grieve or get on with the battle? A soldier may fall for various reasons including for having made the wrong move. Grief has no place in life. Omana has breached the battle rules for her reasons. What is your battle? Or just warming up to rumours?I fear the bitterness of the news channels has gotten to everyone. Being angry all the time, blaming anyone, blaming without researching facts ... why do you believe the worst?And that was when Arvind appeared at Nana’s door looking unsure. Seeing Daksh and an extreme senior like Ajay, he withdrew his steps gingerly, when Nana called out, “ Arvinda! ye re bala...! You want something?”Arvind: Sir, I will come later, I just remembered something..Nana: Come come, I also remembered something, to make my tulsi tea for everyone, help me with the cups, can you?Arvind smiled as Ajay put an arm around him and teased, “Come, bala, I need that tea..” Then as Arvind helped out, Nana said, “Arvind, are you sensing there is trouble in the organisation? Any problem?”Arvind was embarrassed. He said, “Nana my work in media buying is small. I actually have a different problem ... maybe we can talk later, I also have a presentation to work on ...And then, as if fearful of letting the moment go, all too suddenly Arvind said, “Nana, salary has not come last month. EMI ...” and without warning Arvind began to sob. Everyone in the room was taken aback. Nana seated Arvind and said, “Arre, did you ask Sabari?”No, Arvind had not. He was scared to find out a truth that he would not be able to hear.Daksh: I told you, Nana, there is no money and Arth is not transferring anything.Nana: But you got your salary last month? Ajay did, and I too got my fees. Then the real question is: Why Arvind?Arvind: If my EMI does not go on the 24th they will harass my parents. That bank is known to do unscrupulous things. They use debt collectors.Nana: We will sort out your EMI and your salary in a second. But tell me, when you knew that bank was of questionable character, why did you take a loan from them?Arvind: I needed to buy a treadmill for my dad and mom. They needed to exercise and they cannot go out for walks, because the building compound is filled with cars and outside the building all the pavements are dug up and have remained like that for two years. So many problems....Nana: You did a very good thing for them. But my question remains. If the lender was a known crook why did you engage with him? Bala, there is an old saying, ‘He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon...’ you shouldn’t have engaged with the devilish bank! Now see your condition!Has anyone asked Arth about all this? Ajay, you are senior; meet Arth, tell him there are doubts filling the air. If he does not address them more people will believe the rumours. Morale is getting affected.Ajay: And what if he does not wish to talk to me?Daksh: I know... he has not taken Sabari’s calls either! He does not speak to vendors. He rarely comes to work and when he does he stays in his room.Arvind: There has been a huge default on paying Doordarshan. This is what has scared me more. You think when he has not paid DD, he is going to pay my salary? Or even keep me in the job?Ajay was stunned. He did not know about the DD default. As he made a few quick calls, Nana pondered. Sure Arth was a year old at Beta. But he had an industry history which did not look bad. Yes, all through that Arth had been an employee, not an entrepreneur. Nana bought the peace of the men for the time being, but he also now connected all this with a piece of conversation he was privy to: Nana had been with Arth last month in his vast office. Arth was talking to Bharatbhai, the chief accountant who had come in to show him a statement he was sending the banks. At one stage, Arth had taken his pen and cancelled a whole line from the ‘statement of revenue and profits’ and said, “No bonus this year. We will have to sacrifice that. That will release Rs 1.5 crore.”Nana knew there was difficulty. The year-end bonus was a practise that had been in place for last 12 years. Taking that away would hack at the root of faith and trust. But he could not mention this to Arth without also telling him, ‘I overheard you.’ If he added the facts they did speak of a financial difficulty. But he had thought that with the giving up of one of the offices, revenue was better.Now when he heard about Arvind’s EMI and that he was borrowing from friends, Nana went to Sabari’s office and said, “I am wondering who should shoulder a part of this responsibility to ensure that salaries are paid in time. These are days of EMIs, young boys and girls sincerely trying to look after family and giving them the best... I am wondering if there is not a responsibility devolving on us as employers to pay employees on time?”Sabari: Nana, where am I stopping the payment?Nana: Ah... now we can ask that question differently. ‘How may I ensure that payment does not stop?’ Sabari, bosses sometimes get very immersed in the complexities of business and their minds can slip, leading to neglect. Payroll being with you, you must point out these issues to Arth.Sabari: Is that my job?Nana met Arth that week. “A lot of people are thinking a lot of confused thoughts about this organisation and their career. People are anxious and worried. When a workplace is filled with restlessness, it will affect the product it produces, Arth. And the workplace is a part of the total society. Grief here will impact the society.“I am sure you as the MD are dealing with a lot. But you also owe it to the people to tell them some things they need to know, some things they need to do, some things they need not worry about. I quote the Ramayan to you Arth, ‘A servant depends on his master for his needs and a child on its mother and both remain free from anxiety; for a master needs must take care of his servant....’ And these words are spoken by the servant of the Lord beseeching Him to not forsake him. As an employer, there is upon us a moral responsibility to ensure that the faith the employee vests in us is respected and honored.”Arth: I understand you are trying to be the old Beta company. I have nothing to say right now, save this: I am trying very hard to make sense out of a bad acquisition. A lot of mess lay under the woodwork, so to say. I expect to do a good job of managing this organisation. I have nothing to say to those living in fear. As for what God says or does not say, the workplace is no place for spirituality, religion, God and such like. So, I would urge you to not waste my time.Nana did not report what Arth said. Or if Arth responded at all. When Ajay asked him, “Nana, I hear you met Arth ... did you talk?” Nana only shook his head.casestudymeera@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 13-07-2015)
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