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Vikas had developed notoriety for being
"impossible to work with". His staff, if they stayed on beyond
probation, dreaded him. He was a slave driver who refused to understand
a person’s intrinsic shortcomings. His expectations from people were
unrealistic and when he found they had not delivered, he humiliated them
in public.Stories of his high handedness, bad mouthing and arrogance
were beginning to spill over to areas beyond the confines of the office.
The scene was worse at
home. His children and wife could only be seen, never heard. They moved
about zombie-like, taking his verbal tongue lashings. Since he was a
performer who managed to turn in good results for the company, his
services were not terminated. It was impossible to have a functional
working relationship with him.
While transiting through
Chennai, Bharat happened to meet some common friends and heard
unbelievable horror stories about his old friend. He decided to extend
his stay and meet him. He could understand that Vikas, inspite of
wanting to, could not extricate himself from the "truckloads"
of work. On his suggestion, he decided to join and sit in through a full
working day and snatch time in between to chat. This presented Bharat an
opportunity to watch his friend at work. He could see how he had changed
over the years. He also noticed though Vikas was blissfully unaware of
being on a self- created disaster route, results of which would soon be
coming. If he carried on he would soon be without a job, friends and
social respect. Bharat was worried about the kind of personal life his
friend had and knew it couldn’t be happy. Yet, there was hope if he a
few fundamental things could be set right. Like a chain reaction
everything else would begin to heal and get better.
What were the issues which
Vikas felt were critical to his existence ? According to him, "I am
surrounded by nincompoops. I pay them salaries which are better than the
prevailing market rate and yet have to suffer their foolishness and
inefficiency. They gang up and unionise themselves so that they can
bluff me. All they need is a regular danda. That is the only way
to get them to work". To Bharat, his staff seemed sincere and
genuinely involved. There was no reason why any self respecting person
would take Vikas’s bullying.
Although Vikas’s life
seemed a mess, Bharat could see a clear pattern. It was basically his
inability to acknowledge people’s strengths and to realistically
assess their limitations. As a leader he had to not just see their
qualities but position them in areas which exploited them. Shortcomings
could be overcome by training or counselling. He should have capitalised
on their strong traits and thus kept their morale, motivation and
performance at peak levels. What he had done was only to step up their
frustration.
For example, he refused to
see that his secretary was actually not a public relations person. She
was good with correspondence, phone and administration. Her
English-speaking skills were not polished but written English was
strong. By putting her in a position where she was upfront with
dignitaries and delegations, pushing her to put up a bright and
energetic front for the company he was asking her to do what she was
intrinsically incapable of. He should have used her for documentation or
groomed her for research since she had a Masters in Biotechnology, an
allied area of his business. By discarding her trained and inherent
skills he also lost out on what she could have offered.
He obviously did this at
home and with his friends too which is why he had isolated himself from
people. He was out of touch with all that it took to be a gentle,
compassionate, understanding human being. When people could not deal
with him, he felt they were challenging his authority, when they left
him, he felt they were thankless, and when they got together to say
something to him collectively, he felt they had turned against him. All
of this was made him extremely difficult to work and live with. He had
to re-learn the art of living, trusting and believing in himself and in
others. Unless he wanted to turn into a lonely, unloved wreck.
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