There are only 1411 or less tigers in India (watch the clipping). Unpardonable poaching for their beautiful skins brought this species to the verge of extinction. As all our holy books proclaim, God made man to protect other living beings, we need to join hands to save them. Let’s act together!

From those massacres to corporate employee firings are under scrutiny this time. Call it lay off or end of service or separation, in the end, all serves the same purpose.

BBC’s ‘the Pointy Man’s Business Pointers’ is hilarious but guides modern workplaces to success, one point elaborated at a time. Here is the funny sequence on firing an employee.

Employee terminations would be the outcome of a previous hiring mistake or an offshoot of some management blunders, which led to the downfall of the company, or an error in the manpower planning or sometimes even bad ego of the supervisor or the employee. If none of the above, then definitely, poor performance by the employees also results in terminations.

In smaller organizations, news of firing creates havoc among the employees, especially, if blue-collars dominate the company’s workforce. In Dubai, during the recession days, the construction workers felt terrible pressure when the HR representative visits their labor camp to announce the ‘hit list’ and that too on a daily basis. Everyday, 100s of employees, especially construction workers were laid down and the ‘firing ceremony’ reminds you of the agony of those four-legged livestock in a slaughterhouse.   

As the company had decided to fire, then why should HR follow any best practice? This is the vicious thinking of companies these days. Don’t you think it’s wrong and we’re not in the age of Hitler? Since termination is a very sensitive issue and it affects human lives, (especially, when it comes to blue collar expatriates and their families,) it should be handled in a civilized manner. I wonder, why those HR practitioners in these companies, most of them holding MBA’s in HR and that too from elite B Schools in India or abroad, handling these separations like those heartless hunters, poaching tigers?

Such bad treatment happened even before the recession days and that too in those so-called ‘most favored’ or ‘employee friendly’ environments. If such companies dare to publish the unedited exit interview forms or the exited employees go public with their narrations, then the public image of those ‘award winners’ would get badly hit.

A Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a recycling plant in GCC was once served the termination notice, while he was climbing the stairs to his office. The business owner verbally conveyed him to pack his belongings and clear the office within 10 minutes. Even though the COO was under-performing, still terminating an executive of his stature should have been handled with much more professionalism. To add to the insult, someone from HR was instructed to stay at COO’s office to make sure he ‘collects’ only his valuables and not company’s property.  

The big boss of a garment factory decided the fate of an HR professional not due to her performance. The big boss felt that the ‘HR lady’ was purposely avoiding the female CEO in the company foyer and elevator. The CEO got annoyed and felt that the young lady is not giving the main boss ‘importance’ and ‘admiration’ which the other employees at least pretends. CEO started complaining about the employee’s attitude to the employee’s direct supervisor and many silly reasons were cited to serve the termination notice. The termination notice signed by the big boss was delivered to the employee that left her guessing for the rest of her life, the reasons behind this termination.

In another instance, a fresher was forced to submit resignation (similar to termination) in a most humiliating manner in one of the service delivery companies in the GCC. The employee was under-performing and did not make any conscious effort to improve even after couple of counseling sessions. Even though termination was the only solution for the management, it was difficult as the appointment was a ‘forced one’ or rather this employee was hired to ‘please’ a business tycoon. The company management planned the exit through a series of ‘offensive’ and mortifying episodes and systematically made the employee frustrated so that she would submit her resignation. The tactics included completely alienating the employee from work, assigning her with menial tasks and the like. But the employee either did not understand the ‘plot’ or pretended that it is not meant for her, stayed and continued to ‘pester’ the management. But the poor soul succumbed to the pressure, when the management relocated her desk twice in a week to different corners in the floor! Finally, she submitted her resignation. HR was made a spectator because of the direct intervention of management.

Some employees are very smart, as they prefer the termination route rather than the resignation mode (in GCC, if terminated,  (reasons other than felony or criminal acts), employees are entitled for their end-of-service benefits (other conditions do apply based on the labor law of the land). To achieve this objective, employees try all ‘tactics’ like sick leave abuse, tardiness, late submission of assignments and the like. If the HR department is genuine and not ‘decorated’ with unqualified HR professionals (the only background being that her/his uncle has some exposure in HR), then such ‘smart’ employees should be handled professionally.

We all agree that terminations are very painful events and always will be assigned to the HR in companies to handle the situation. Some employees may overreact when they are told to leave. Some may take it as vindictive against the person serving the notice and may spread rumors and some may be frigid and accept the verdict. We need qualified, trained and mature HR professionals to handle the separations (be it a resignation or termination) in a professional and humane manner. It should be noted that the person leaving the company, whatever reasons it be, terminated or resigned, that person served the company till that very moment and was part of the company’s team, so s/he deserves some decent treatment. Unprofessional companies apply tactics like withholding or delaying employee’s end of service benefits and that reflects the culture of the decision maker and not the company. In the long run, this practice will be ‘incorporated’ into the process and all employees are ‘vulnerable’ to pass through a similar discomfiture.

Exit interviews should be done by the HR, so that the separated employee be given a fair platform to comment or recommend or react on the company or his/her colleagues or supervisors or the facilities. The HR should show some courage and should not shy off from this practice fearing negative comments. 

Decision to terminate usually (7 out of 10 times) comes from a reaction as against a well-thought decision with a genuine reason. The paradox is that the 360-degree change in treatment by the management and even the colleagues towards the employee who is ‘marked’ for termination or an employee who is serving the notice period needs a psychology expert’s intervention.

Kindly post your valuable comments.

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

For older posts and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/!

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2010

Here is the funny clipping depicting the interview scene from the movie, Step Brothers. Well! That’s satire, but it’s time to go for a reality check out there in our corporate world! 

Every year, one of the public transport companies from the Persian Gulf heads to the northern part of Kerala to recruit ‘skilled’ heavy-duty drivers for their workforce.

What are the key ‘driving forces’ behind this hiring where it’s not left hand traffic (driving) as well as the automatic, low-floor buses just made the entry in our roads needs a debate. The daring attitude of our bus drivers, their maneuvering skills to drive through the narrow, pot-holed roads in Kerala or may be their ‘competitive’ spirit while chasing another vehicle to ‘serve’ the public, may be the few notable ‘USPs’. We need to appreciate the guts of the hiring company to recruit our drivers who will be ‘tamed’ and ‘fit’ into a working culture entirely different from the one they are used to. The adjustments they make in spite of hailing from a 100% literate and highly politically enlightened state, they can’t ‘react’ like they used to do like calling for ad-hoc strikes against silly issues is highly appreciable.

Anyway, what amused me most are the interview techniques, the interview team resort to source the best talent. The recruitment team from the transport company is led by one of the managers, citizen of that country along with an Indian supervisor. So, when you recruit heavy-duty drivers, you expect to conduct a driving test with an oral session, to test whether the candidate could apprehend the traffic basics and also able to read the signboards and write the trip sheets. You are mistaken. The only criteria, the interview team would be looking for in this ‘reality show’ is that how the candidate holds the steering wheel. What is required is to hold the steering wheel in a ‘perfect’ stance, or to be more specific it should be as per the industry standard, the 10 minutes to 2 ‘O’ clock position. The candidate is selected, if he succeeds in this ‘acid test’. Rest is left for the Almighty to take control!

Let us move on to another scenario that is happening in our neighborhoods every year. Months of March and April are the time when our local private schools hire teachers to replenish their human ‘stock’. Most of our schools lack a proper HR department or someone handling the recruitment needs. As the business owners of these schools, be a trust or a group, put their heart for recruiting senior academics to script credibility for their school (if it is a new born school, then real ‘man hunting’ happens as they all go for well known, retired old horses from the education sector and the auction would resemble our IPL player auctions) and generally, less attention will be given for non academic staff. Even if they hire non-academic support staff they would fill in those positions i.e. receptionists, accountants or other office staff. Such hiring normally would be ‘political’ based on recommendations or may be ‘imposed’ by the trust or by the owner of the school. In such a scenario, who will argue or request for an additional HR person in the school. As the demand for teachers are high in different formats like part time, full time or sometimes substitutes, you cant expect the Principal or the Academic Head to conduct interviews every time.

Most schools would utilize their current teachers to act as subject matter expert (SME) and be part of the interview team. The irony is that, these subject matter experts would flex their muscles during these interviews and utilize the occasion to ‘impress’ their Academic Head or the Principal or the management representative with their ‘in-depth’ knowledge. They fail to understand that they need not do that, as they are already part of the team. They deliberately forget the objective of the interview is to hire, good and caring teachers. This happens mainly, when ‘young blood’ meets the ‘old horses’ during such job interviews. These ‘naïve’ subject matter experts would spoil the entire mission and most likely, qualified and talented teachers would be eliminated from the list citing ridiculous reasons. In the long run, the school’s reputation will definitely get hit if similar episodes continue to happen.

In the age of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), it is natural that the recruitment processes are also outsourced to save time and money. RPO is the technical term for this process. Professional companies handle the RPO without any issues or complaints. However, selecting the right RPO provider is a challenge. Like any other industry, some ‘adjustments’ may happen with the internal skill sets of few RPO providers. As demand for such services started flooding, many new entrants in this field started engaging ‘novices’ for handling the initial telephone screening of the candidates. Without any practical or hands-on experience or expertise to do such interviews, they conduct interviews in the most amateur fashion. Many candidates complained to the hiring companies that these callers, just ‘interrogate’ without even reading their CVs and many times, they fumble when the candidate ask them about the job description. Again, such acts would tarnish the hiring company’s image and future recruitment initiatives may get hit, badly.

Similarly, hiring company’s reputation is at risk when the engaged recruitment firm or the executive search consultants engage junior employees to interview senior candidates. I have seen many experienced candidates getting irritated, when they realize at the interview room, the person sitting in front of him is very junior and do not know the abc’s of conducting job interviews. In such cases, it will end up as the candidate interviewing the interviewer. What a shame?

Another precedent that comes to my mind at this juncture is about the bogus advertisements placed by recruitment companies these days just to populate their databanks. Candidates, without knowing this hoax would apply and expect interview calls. The height of this fraud is when such firms’ even conduct fake interviews.

Some hiring managers as mentioned in one of my articles on the leadership styles, only ‘hunt’ for mediocre candidates just because they hate to see smart and ‘intelligent’ candidates. Most probably, they don’t want someone to question their skills or their   business conduct. So please don’t be surprised, if a highly recommended candidate was turned down on  ‘technical’ grounds.

Recently, one of the youngsters from my neighborhood joined the NRI club by accepting a job in Dubai. Let me give a little insight. The young, well-built macho was working in a government project as tech support. He is trained in Trouble Shooting and networking. For better life and due to the influence of his neighbor to ‘go and see the world’, he applied for a similar job in Dubai. A company representative interviewed him in the garden city of Bangalore and the ‘deal’ was fixed for a very low compensation. This always happen to our Indian techies pursuing a career beyond the boundaries of India, because the picture our ‘IT stalwarts’ and ‘IT missions’ in the state portrays that India is a cheap IT destination. This prejudice price tag is harming our youngsters. Yes, when you are trying to attract US or European IT projects you have the right to use such ‘catchy’ marketing slogans. But you should consider the other side of the coin. When our IT-ians were hired for Middle East or other places, the same logic is seen applied by the hiring companies, which the candidate could not question as the hiring official always quote what our so-called ‘IT guardian angels’ and their websites ‘brag’. This is unfair is what I would say as I have witnessed this phenomenon many times.

Anyway, the other day, the youngster called me from Dubai to share his anguish about his career. He was hired as tech support, but the job right now is totally different as he was assigned with the task of maintenance of office automation equipment. Like his fellow NRI’s nurturing ‘Gulf Dreams’, he accepted the task, as life had to go on.

During the job interview, the company representative never conveyed with clarity the job description. Either the interviewer did not understand the nature of the job or the candidate failed to ask more details about the job before signing for the ‘mission abroad’.

Interviewing is a skill. Whether it be soft skills or technical skills the interviewer is probing for, it’s important that the interviewer should possess common sense, ‘people handling’ skills and good communication skills. HR should be given more active role in job interviews, as both the hiring institution’s name and the candidate’s career are at stake.

Kindly post your valuable comments.

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

For older posts and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/!

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2010

Couple of months back, there was a news item in our local dailies about discovery of civilian ration cards recycled as paper plates. Even if the authorities had discarded them due to some typo errors or were damaged it was supposed to be shredded.  Then how those pages reached the recycle market is still a big question mark.

Leakages happen everywhere! Question paper leakages are now becoming a part of every examination, whether it is a state board exam or are a job test. More than the system errors, the culprit mostly is the two-leggies operating those systems, as it is very easy to ‘lure’ them to unethical ‘adventures’.

In our modern offices, much was talked about records management (archiving) in late 80s. Expensive systems and software have been implemented to manage the repositories since then. Still, there are many unplugged areas for information ‘leakage’ backed up by human beings either by error or with purpose. Records management or in simpler terms filing is an art and unfortunately, most of our offices are not blessed with that.

How safe is your company records? What I am trying to examine is about the physical, paper records that includes the official correspondences, deeds, contracts, employee records, accounts related and the like.

How many companies have even a safety vault is a question to ponder. Even if they have a fire-proof safe (locker), many companies lack a clear direction regarding which documents should go inside the locker and who should be the custodian of the keys and the like. This warrants for a clearly spelled policy with a group of employees assigned with the responsibility at different levels to ensure that one or two can’t jeopardize the business continuity.  Such policies should be re-visited periodically to ensure that they make sense and everyone in the cycle complies.

If document filing is an art, copying is a bane. Also, I would say that photocopier is a curse in any office environment. Many of the official files are vested with the secretaries or the office support staff. Even if the company were having a records room or a repository, zillions of copies of the one document would be outside this ‘chamber of secrets’. 

I know the personnel assistant of a high profile executive, having 3 different clones of a very important file. The ‘original’ is kept under the executive’s ‘safe custody’ in his room, which may not be accessible when he is entertaining visitors or guests. So that prompted the PA to have the second clone on her desk for easy access, as the executive does not have the patience or courtesy to wait till the information is retrieved from his room. Believe it or not, the third copy of the file is always in transit between the office and the home of the PA. When asked why you need the official file at home too, the reply was so reasonable. The executive is notorious for his low tolerance and patience sometimes asks for details from the file off office hours and even during holidays. Whom to be blamed for having many copies of an important file thus opening avenues for secrecy to be compromised? What would happen if a visitor at the PA’s house may have a look at it and by chance he is from a competitor? Or in another scenario, what would happen to that file, if the PA ends up in a road traffic accident where there is a chance of other people handling it during the commotion? Is it the PA who is working her heart out to provide exemplary service, even after office hours or is the executive who should be blamed for being impatient and forcing the PA to have the info at her finger tips? You decide!

What to store and what not to store is another dilemma many managers face these days. Insensible employees don’t know what to discard and what to store. They need professional advice/training or well-crafted corporate policies implemented, regularly evaluated and updated.

Amassing papers in the offices reach other dimensions that promote the records room custodians to fight for more storage space. I know a secretary who files even the flyers and brochures regarding junior level training programs received by snail mail, as they are addressed to her manager. There are others, who take printouts of emails received and sent and file them, as they don’t trust any network or cyberspace storage.

The important point employees miss in this filing exercise is how fast the required data could be retrieved. There were incidents where after having all these state-of-the-art systems to manage records, when the executive is in need of something important, it took ages to locate.  The idea while filing was just to file the paper and keep the desk clean. Once filed, if there is no unique identification code or a bar code or even a tag, then only the supreme power could locate it. The things get worse when an office secretary falls sick or resigns. Whatever handover sessions were done, still the new incumbent would definitely go wrong from the word go when it comes to retrieval of an old file from the time of the previous ‘regime’.

Even in companies where industry certified quality systems are in place, I have witnessed secretaries struggling to locate the documents requested by their managers. The amount of time lost in the ‘treasure hunt” is a criminal offence.

This is where the importance of a filing policy comes in handy. A clear guideline is required to clarify what is important and what is sensitive. This should be conveyed at least to the executive’s office staff, where vulnerable info is always floating and the retrieval time is less.

I have mentioned about the photocopier as a curse at the start of this article. I am sure that comment might have raised some eyebrows. Leakage from copy rooms is another area we should be aware of. An extra copy would do the trick or rather serve the purpose. Sometimes, absent minded or irresponsible employees leave the place by just collecting the copies from the tray of the machine, forgetting to collect the originals from the copying surface. The next user of the machine will definitely have a look at it and it may trigger the ‘radio waves’ inside the company. Also, the literate office boy becomes a ‘news channel reporter’ in many cases. I know an office boy who reads each and every memo while the machine copies. Depending on the sensitivity or ‘news value’ of the content, distorted versions will spread throughout the company often causing problems for other employees or even jeopardizing the business.

To prevent such infringements some companies went ahead and bought copiers for each department or at least separate copier machines for the senior level. In such cases, the ‘cost-cutting’ or austerity norms are kept on hold as the company deviated from their centralized copying policy. Still, nobody can guarantee the secrecy of the data, as probability of all the above-mentioned possibilities remains high. 

It’s important to inculcate a culture for using copier machines, as many companies are moving towards 100% paper-less environments. Is it possible to adhere to 100% paperless is another question. Employees should refrain from keeping copies of emails and control the compulsion to make more and more copies of the same document to reduce the chance of info leakage. In addition, employees must shred excessive copies and make sure that the important files are kept under safe custody. Even if you would not achieve a paperless Utopia, try not to be useless for the company and the society. Your thoughts are welcome!

Kindly post your valuable comments.

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

For older posts and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/ !

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2010

“Do you believe in Ghosts?” this question was asked by a group of students to me in an open-house session in one of the prestigious colleges in the city. “Well! Yes, I do believe in “Corporate Ghosts’” I replied. The inquisitive minds could not comprehend my answer and they started quizzing me. My reply to them was elaborate and following is the reproduction of that conversation.

As we witnessed many companies and businesses going down the drain recently, may be or may not be due to the economic tsunami that hit the business harbors of many countries. Those companies shuttered not because of the crisis or those companies locked out in the recent past or those which are getting ready to be closed may have other ‘hidden’ or ‘invisible’ factors behind them is what I am trying to summarize.

I would say that many of these companies or businesses actually are/were haunted by the different variants of the ‘corporate ghost’. These ghosts not necessarily are possessed individuals, but could be a group of people that contribute to the cause the saga.

In addition, ghosts may not always be possessed ‘living beings’, but sometimes, certain corporate policies, company culture.  Even the location of the business would act as a ghost and contribute to the downfall of the business. Let us explore few examples of such ‘corporate poltergeists’.

I had mentioned in many of my previous articles about immaturity or immature minds. This would be one of the important reasons that would qualify an individual as a great candidate for possession. Frenzied emotions or hysterical feelings like hunger for fame, hankering for exposure and illogical competition would easily possess such immature minds and control them. Such possessed at the expense of the company’s coffers would try to reach out to the masses, against the will of supporters and sometimes even their own inner voice. Accordingly, they execute superfluous marketing initiatives, without even calculating or understanding what would be the return or benefit for the company, either in the form of business or goodwill. The possessed would seek the feedback from such ‘events’ just to quench their ego. Any negative remark would trigger retaliation from such manifestations.

‘Challenger Ghosts’ will try to reach out by entering into unhealthy challenges or competitions. While in business competition, as a general rule, to script a victory, these ghosts would try to pick on someone inferior in position and status, rather challenging someone superior or equal. In cases where the ‘challenger ghost’ underestimates the might of the ‘opponent’ it is seen that the possessed may stoop to all levels to tarnish the public image of the challenger, be in business or in personal life.

‘Love ghosts’ that possess some executives, would trap both the clients and partners in romantic charades.  As the relationship prospers, such ghosts will definitely bring in conditions for both the parties that would jeopardize the company’s resources, policies, and sometimes money. The employees wedged in the love web will be tormented if they try to raise red flags regarding the limitations, risks and the issues that would affect the company if such eerie promises were upheld. 

Many who may get possessed with control ghost are capable of sabotaging a business. The employees will be the major victims for such ghosts. Instead of being a participative and understanding executive or manager or leader, such ghosts will ravish the employees’ individuality just to show the repugnant face of power. They destroy the very fabric of trust, honesty and integrity of the employees and devour the good spirit in the Company, i.e. the team spirit. Slowly, the ‘control ghost’ will attenuate the human capital of the company itself.  The ‘control ghost is seen active in family-owned businesses. They express their ‘nazi’ traits not only towards the employees but also towards their own family members.

Another ‘corporate ghost’ that haunts many of our neighborhood companies is the ‘complicating ghost’. Such ghosts complicates each and every issue or ideas or initiatives faced by the company, its’ employees, or sometimes even their clients. This may be through nonsense policies, procedures or even in combination with any of the ghosts mentioned above.  These negative fellows would also destroy the relationships, enthusiasms and make life difficult for the employees and many times embarrass the investors too.

‘Impossible ghost’ is a dormant variant of ‘complicating ghost’. This ghost will always strive to dump all good ideas at the primordial stage itself stating that it is impossible or tag anything and everything “not possible”. They are the sticks in the wheel that slow down progress.

The ‘big daddy or uncle ghost’ dominates all other family members and always resists change. In fact, this ghost is a hybrid of ‘control ghost’, ‘complicating ghost’ and ‘impossible ghost’. If they are at the helm of business, they will create havoc for the second generation and always try to find fault with those coming up with alternate or diversification plans. The ‘triumph card’ of these ghosts is their acting skills. They play well with the emotions and always win at family discussions.

Another ghost that is seen mostly in Gulf companies, especially, where Indians or Egyptians dominate the workforce and at higher positions is the ‘yes boss ghost’. This ghost in their appearances pretends to be innocent and harmless, but when in combination of a ‘control ghost’ or a ‘complicating ghost’ or a ‘big daddy or uncle ghost’ or a ‘impossible ghost’ becomes deadly. Such ‘yes boss ghost’ without grunt always nods in agreement with what the other dominant ghost dictates and in the long run, would manipulate employees’ genuine entitlements (per diems, end of service, vacations, promotions, training), manipulates the financials and thereby deceive investors and shareholders.

Watch out for the type of Ghost or Ghosts that haunt you or your department or your company and be a Ghost buster to expertly ‘exorcise’ them!  May God Bless you and such haunted companies!

Your thoughts are welcome!

Kindly post your valuable comments.

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

For older posts and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/ !

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2010

“Anakoduthaalum Asha Kodukkaruthe” is a popular proverb in Malayalam regarding hope giving; the literal translation is “Even if you gift an elephant, don’t give vain hope to someone!”  Giving false promises (hopes) and not been able to deliver those promises will cause havoc in all relationships including the corporate scenario. To get business, suppliers or service providers always endeavor to such strategies like promising the best service or product or after sale support. Once the ‘deal’ is through, seldom these promises are upheld or simply overlooked.

In the long run, such failures in delivering promises may hurt not only the business, but also the relationships. Once the confidence in the company or it’s services is marred, later, whatever the company does good, will be viewed, evaluated or judged from that single episode of failed delivery. Paradoxically, the business owners or the chief executives make such unrealistic promises than low rank employees.

Why do we need to promise, if we know very well from the onset that we would never be able to deliver is the question that needs pondering. There would be many reasons like lack of confidence in the product or service or the team or even thy self that ‘push’ the business owners to opt for false promising.

Internally, when the employees discover that their team leader or supervisor is a ‘promise breaker’, then in the short run, both the confidence in the supervisor and the employees’ productivity will go for a spin. As team dynamics is constituted of lots of such important components, the dent in the confidence as a result of a non-delivery or no fulfillment will have a huge detrimental impact as mentioned above.

General Manager of a bakery in one of the Gulf countries used to promise good bonuses for the production departments, if the target is met during the festive season. The question that beats me is that why you need to have incentives during a festive season, even otherwise the sales will go up, right? Every year, he used to fulfill without failure the promise even though not in the quantity as promised. The GM thought that the little ‘bread crumbs’ would shut the employees or make them happy and motivated. On the contrary, the employees took this as a game to fool them and considered this as a betrayal. As employees tend to have an attitude of ‘you scratch, I bite’ slowly frustration started to take control over their emotions and loyalty. The failure in keeping the promise was not because the team did not achieve their targets, but due to the change in attitude of the business owner, who started enjoying the taste of success in business recently only. As mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, it is not a great idea to have frustrated and irritated employees especially in an eatery. Such a group would deliberately compromise on quality, quantity and even creativity (required for designer cakes & other similar products to meet the market trends) to jeopardize the business. Hope the business owner would not make more promises, which he is not planning to fulfill in the future at least, if the shop is still open!

Another example of a failed promise is from an electronic after sale company owned by one of the renowned families in Gulf. Employees used to enjoy annual bonuses based on company’s performances from the early 80s. As the new generation took over the reigns, all sorts of incentives, including bonuses were stopped without informing the employees.  At the start of the year, the employees as usual expected their bonus. Many planned their vacations, shopping, children’s education etc. based on their expected extra income. The employees were kept guessing as the management did not have the courtesy to inform them about the new decision. Needless to say the employees who used to work their heart out in expectation of the year-end ‘carrot’, started collective grunt. The company started losing quality and skilled workers within a span of 15 – 30 days, with whom the company spent their time and effort to give training during those 10 – 12 years of their service with the company. Among the reasons quoted for their resignation, non-disbursement of bonuses stood tall. Further, they disclosed during their exit interviews that even though the bonus amount many used to get was very meager, still they would have welcomed it as a gesture from the new generation owners. So who is the loser here? I would say the company, which lost their talent, that was nurtured all through these years just because of some thickheaded or immature or unskilled decision-makers who were trying to prove to their visionary dad that they achieved cost cutting the moment they assumed office. This is ridiculous!

In the same company, an HR professional who was instrumental in establishing the company’s human resources department resigned due to a similar ‘promise issue’. The General Manager made the promise, that once the HR department is established, the HR executive’s package will be revised. But the GM failed to uphold that and the employee walked off, jeopardizing the HR initiatives in that family owned firm. This created more chaos as this coincided with the attrition of the technical staff due to the bonus issue. These kinds of promise breaking episodes are seen mainly in the Gulf businesses and the high rate of prevalence among the family owned or non-listed companies where immature decision-makers are at the helm.

Delaying or withholding promises is seen in all walks of our lives. We see the politicians failing to deliver what they promised during their election campaigns, governments failing to create employment opportunities in countries like India, failure in controlling the price rise, failure in delivering the projects related to infrastructure development etc are few examples. The voters don’t have much choice like employees in a company!

It’s fair to look at the other side as well, where promise breaking sometimes is beyond an individual’s control.  The circumstances when the promise was made may not be the same at the time of realization. Such as, the company making losses or on the verge of bankruptcy, inflation or recession or economic condition of the nation, those may propel them to change their word. Whatever the reason be, if you had promised and now reached a situation where you can’t uphold, then explain or talk to the other party and explain the situation. People will respect and appreciate your openness and honesty. What people hate is silence. Silence can lead to many rumors and fabrication of stories and later people will resort to extreme actions like resignation, termination of payment and deceit. So you decide, which is better!

Your thoughts are welcome!

Kindly post your valuable comments.

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

For older posts and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/ !

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2010

The word ‘No’ is definitely the most reviled word to hear when you were a toddler. Nowadays, as parents this is the word which we use zillions of times a day at home when our 4+ year old son, ‘invents’, ‘discovers’, ‘nags’, ‘screams’ and so on.

I think too much ‘No’s’ in childhood might have created an aversion towards the word ‘No’ in me. Whenever, my team members say something is impossible, my reply would be, “the word No’ is not in my vocabulary”. Everything is possible is what I used to say to my team when we were stuck with either a challenging task or a nonsense request from the client or occasionally a situation arising from stupidity of others or due to a false assurance made by someone who do not understand how things are accomplished professionally. On a scale of 1 –10, I was right 9 times, that “it’s possible”, I should say with pride.

However, may be due to my workaholic nature, many occasions, where I should have said ‘No’, I either forgot to tell or I avoided telling ‘No’ or I simply accepted the tasks or mediocre orders and later regretted. Some people used to take ‘advantage’ of my only ‘Achilles’ heel’ and most of them benefited from it mostly in the form of ‘fame’, ‘status’, ‘money’ and other material benefits.

Why I didn’t say ‘No’ needs research! I may blame it on our great Indian culture that teaches or preaches the disciples to make the life meaningful through our actions. Through metaphors from our epics and holy books we, Indians are ‘programmed’ to be tolerant, dutiful, respectful and to have all the good virtues depicted in our holy books.

When I was a kid, I used to quiz why the great Asura King, Mahabali, agreed to give the three paces (steps) of land for ‘Vamana’, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Why he didn’t say ‘No’? The King ignored the warning even from his guru. The story goes on as Vamana measured all the worlds and the sky with just two paces. Then, Mahabali offered himself as the third pace and was thus banished to the Patala, the nether world.

Anyway, my guru enlightened me that always the ‘good will triumph over evil’. But the irony is that we are not ‘Saints’ or can’t expect incarnations of the supreme to appear like those days to slay the evildoers. The only certainty is to learn how to say ‘No’, in situations, where our conscience disagrees with what you were asked to do by someone, even if s/he is your superior or elder to you. You need to be the judge of your actions and decline accordingly.

The best seller “The Book of NO” (250 ways to say it – and mean it and stop People Pleasing Forever) by Susan Newman illustrates plethora of situations that we may face both at the workplace and private life and guides you how to say ‘No’.

Have you ever counted the number of times you said ‘No’ while at work? It would be very rare or nil, if the requester always is your boss, right?

Recently, a legal officer in one of the UAE banks was asked by his supervisor to perform a diligence exercise on a proposed merger of two banks. On a closer look, the employee realized that the task has nothing related to the bank where he is working and on further quizzing the ‘boss’ agreed that this is his personal work and what he was asking is a ‘personal favor’. The irritated employee said ‘No’ as this was not part of his job and also has nothing to do with the employer, the bank. 

In the corporate world too much such personal favors or unethical job requests like changing of HR records, manipulation of data and the like from unprofessional and callous bosses come on a daily basis and the unfortunate subordinate employees, most of the time, do not have much choice except to say ‘Yes’ instead of ‘No’. 

Similarly, using the employee as a Trojan and compelling him/her to reply emails to clients or suppliers with the text dictated by the supervisor, just to create friction or to convey to the Client or the Supplier what the supervisor wanted to say is also not uncommon these days.

In such situations, the employee should be saying ‘No’. However, if the employee is “weak” or is a “saint”, then there will not be any end to it, as s/he will be taken for granted incessantly.

The moment you say ‘No’ to an insipid supervisor, we can expect the countdown for employee’s exit soon. Recently, I received an email from one of my female friends working in a bSME (below the SME category business) explaining the reasons that triggered her resignation. The major reason was the attitude of her female toxic boss (trying to emulate the female CEO in the 2006 movie, ‘ The Devil wears Prada’; please click the link to watch the clipping) who used to hate this female employee since the day the employee defied Boss’s pressure to manipulate the core data ‘black box’ database of the company. Since then, boss catches my friend for wrong or fictitious or unreasonable reasons such as not complying with the dress code, not carrying boss’s luggage during one of the business travels, her personal hygiene etc. Even after the employee submitted her resignation, the harassment continued in the form of delaying the resignation acceptance and withholding of her end of service entitlements. Sometimes, the ‘No’ bears a mega price tag!

An employee should master the art of saying ‘No’ in  very diplomatic ways if the situations demand such diplomacy. But diplomacy should not to be the criteria, if someone is using you as a ‘tool’ to do bad or inappropriate tasks. Remember, the requester may not have a conscience but you may be having one!

Even though I preached diplomacy, but in circumstances where the employee feels that s/he has been ‘used’ or the request is unethical and against all known norms, then definitely the employee with no hesitation should turn it down with a ‘big No’ giving diplomacy a vacation.  The power of this two-letter word (‘No’) is amazing, ‘yes’, if aptly used!

Please keep visiting http://stateoftheartconsulting.blogspot.com/  (every week) for more on the series “Fearless or Shameless”.

Kindly post your valuable comments.

stateoftheartconsulting@gmail.com
© stateoftheartconsulting 2009

For this post and other top-rated articles, please visit http://www.yourlegormine.com/