God’s Management
Ravikumar Jeevarathinam
Copyright 2014 by Ravikumar Jeevarathinam
This short story attempts to convey simple management concepts through a humorous way. A newly appointed manager realises on the first day of his job that he is not getting into a cakewalk rather he has thrown himself into a fire walk. The concept of this story is born from the creation of the financial crisis by the few greedy fund managers. Simple management tips are conveyed through an interaction with the sheer imagination of GOD's appearance. It is depicted through an interaction between GOD and a manager in a crisis.
This story is meant for all ages and it is no way related to any religion or a religious story.
All the characters and the situational scenes are purely imaginary.
All rights reserved.
Acknowledgements
I thank GOD for giving me the courage to write this short story;
I thank my parents to educate me to lead my life;
I thank my wife and son to encourage me to continue to excel;
I thank my mentors, bosses, colleagues and friends to teach me gaining the experience to present myself in this world.
Table of Contents
1. Warmth of Light
2. Creation of a Crisis
3. Periyasamy on board at Imagination Unlimited
4. Crisis Calling GOD
5. GOD’s SLA
6. Human Realization Management
7. Managing Competency
8. Triple R analysis – Motivation behind the bitten apple
9. First result of GOD’s Management
1. Warmth of the Sunlight
Periyasamy enters his cabin with a least hope after meeting with the project team. Fully dejected and having a strange feeling of being close to giving up. But he still believes, there is a thin ray of hope to get an extension to bid for the prestigious project. Looking slightly upward towards the wall, reading,
‘Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.’ - Thomas Alva Edison
Friday early morning of office hours, Periyasamy sitting in his revolving chair at his 50th floor office tower feeling the warmth of the sunlight in spite of his chilled air conditioned room. Spinning his branded (the only one proudly owned) pen between his fingers as usual with not much of balance to show off. His mind is revolving around how to win the prestigious animation project with a comprehensive design on time.
Golden rays emerging from the sun, piercing through the thick dark clouds as if God is trying to peek into this world. Periyasamy whispers himself, “How to manage the world better”.
Scratches his head, closes his eyes and moving forward to his spastic stone - GaneshJi (Elephant-Headed Hindu God - God of Success). He then touches the feet of Lord Ganesh statue and starts chanting the Ganesh Mantra,
“Oh Almighty GOD, I pray for success in all the work I start;All your blessings pour upon me to be motivated always;no obstructions that can delay or stop my work;empower me with all the knowledge;bless me with all the success”
As the chanting ends, Periyasamy closes his eyes and whispers himself “Oh God, give me all the confidence, power and strength to make this project a big success and take this company forward”
2. Creation of a Crisis
It is Sunday night, the beautiful skyline of Singapore visible from the 58th floor of Marina Bay Sands (MBS). MBS, an iconic building of Singapore is one of the most beautiful structures in Asia. MBS facing the sea on one side and the rich financial district on the other side boasts with one of the largest casinos in the region.
In the corner of the rooftop bar, there are four gentle men well dressed in their suit sipping the most expensive wine after a tiring day.
The four gentlemen are from Funds Unlimited Inc (FUI). FUI is backed by public funds from Europe. Two years ago it invested USD25M to set up an animation factory. But they did all that intelligence search and finally managed to headhunt a young Lehyen Juhmani, referred by one of the board members. They appointed him in a hurried fashion as the CEO of Imagination Unlimited, Asia. Two years passed and all the investments dried up. Young Lehyen had best of his time with free funds from FUI and returned back home after the tiring two years of enjoyment in Asia.
Fund managers coming under pressure and trying to fix up the mess and finding a way to resolve the crisis they created. Deeply engaged in the discussion is interrupted by a waiter, “Gentlemen, would you like to order your food please?”
One of the fund managers, John said, “Well, we would like to taste the best of the menu here” and he started ordering the food.
“Hey Mathew, what is the plan for tomorrow, we need to discuss in convincing the final candidate for Imagination Unlimited”, John said.
“Well, we have the first preferred candidate shortlisted arriving at 8.30AM and if he accepts the offer, we will go ahead with it”, Mathew said
“Do you think, will this guy accept our offer of a purely performance based payout?”, Philip intervened
“Hmm… that is what we need to convince, we should better manage to instill confidence in this guy that…all is well!”, Mathew replied
“Yeap, but as we all know that the deal is in a such a crisis, do you think he is capable of turning around?” John said
“No option though..that is what we as fund managers have to convince as we have already drained all our funds into this for the past two years….”, Mathew answered
“Well said”, all of them chorused together, “ Let us convince him as we don’t get a better candidate than him.”
“Gone are those days, we were at ease to hire Lehyen and gave away more than he could imagine with such a huge expat package”, John recalled
The same four gentlemen, two years ago hired Lehyen who has never had any business exposure in Asia except for the fact that he had been to South East Asia (SEA) on a backpack trip during his high school years. They were intelligent enough to envisage that the backpack touring experience backed with his Food & Beverages (F&B) expertise can do magic. Above all, the fund managers impressed with Lehyen’s baking creativities and convinced themselves that should be sufficient enough for Lehyen to meet the qualifications and requirements to setup and run the high-tech business of animation startup in Asia.
“Well, it is still in front of my eyes that Lehyen was in a shock when we put the package across the table. He could not take off his eyes from the offer and sort of drooling…” Philip took a long breath and continued,
“In fact Lehyen could not believe that he will get that offer and I could clearly see that embarrassment in him whether he really deserved the offer….” Philip paused,
“In fact, we over did it; frankly speaking.. we had too much of funds to invest and our budget allocation was too high; we over estimated the returns and we sink the funds so much into the expat package” Mathew continued, “ I still wonder why we offered a hardship allowance in Singapore, one of the most developed and well governed state in the world”
“We were showing our generosity of public funds by giving more money to attract Lehyen though he was not having the right experience…except for the fact that he demonstrated his creativity in baking! Ofcourse, above all he had the best qualification of the reference from one of our influential board members”, John said
“Well we did a miscalculation on our ROI (Return on Investment) and we assumed we can continue to tap into the public funds”, Philip said
FUI was generous enough to give Lehyen sufficient time to understand the business and culture in Asia given his short stint of backpack exposure in Asia. FUI made an irresistible offer with huge base salary, guaranteed bonus, all kind of allowances a
nd retention award etc as Asia has been seen as a place of hardship. Fund Managers of FUI also didn’t see any urgency on ROI (Return on Investment) as public funds are after all meant for long term investment.
Lehyen tired of his F&B job in the past was so proud of himself with the new high-tech assignment vouch to treat himself in Asia. He leisurely took a year to set up his family, flying around everywhere in the region, playing golf every day, enjoy tasting all types of PisaGoreng/Nasi goreng/Laksa/Singapore Sling. On top of all, he was overwhelmed by the nightlife offered in the region.
He satisfied the investors that he could fulfill the first milestone of understanding the region after a tiring one year of exposing himself to Asia. Turning into the second year, he was responsible enough to get onto his job to set up the team. The team is supposed to realize the animation modules that can be of plug and play nature for marketing to the whole world to make the animation movies the easiest ever.
“Gentlemen, if we have to assess our performance on this investment, how do we rate…” Mathew said,
“It is better not to discuss this, we should be happy we have our jobs and bonuses, let us forget the past and enjoy the present and the best on the menu!”, all said in a synchronized
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