by Anil Chawla
When Sammy returned to the office, he was greeted by all but soon realized that the management team had become cooler to him. Having been in the United States for many years and knowing the way Americans worked, it did not take long for Sammy to grasp the ground reality. He was smart and bold enough to walk into his CEO’s office and ask if he should move on. The CEO said it might be wise to do so. Sammy asked how much time he had. The CEO patted his shoulder and said, ‘Normally, in such situations, employment is concluded on the same day, but you’ve done some extraordinary work for the company and you can choose your last day.’
Sammy thanked him and said that he would leave in a month’s time.
That day, when Sammy was driving home, his thoughts went back a few years to the time he had casually told Roma about his decision to quit his job while bringing her home from the airport. He laughed aloud. Then he started thinking of the future. Koel was not even two months old. He had a family to support. Although he had enough savings to last a couple of years, he knew that his market value would go down if he did not find work fast. And then he recalled a conversation he’d had on a flight on his way back from a client presentation. It was with a co-passenger in business class, Rajkumar G, the CEO of a mid-sized Indian IT company named STM, based out of Hyderabad.
‘Call me RG. Are you the one who made the presentation to Cyger?’ Sammy was surprised he knew about it, but RG broke the suspense and said, ‘We also bid for the same deal, and I know we’ve lost it.’
RG made an instant offer to him, saying that if Sammy, at any point of time, considered joining STM, he had an open offer and they would more than match his current package. Sammy had kept the card offered to him as a courtesy, but now he knew it was time to use it. He got home, kissed Roma and Koel, and located the card. He called the number on it but the phone was answered by a secretary. She asked for his name and some other details, then said she would pass them on to the CEO. To Sammy’s great surprise, RG called him back within a few minutes. ‘So how are you doing, young man? And how is your wife and the little one?’ Sammy was astonished at his memory and intelligence. He told RG that he needed to talk to him about something particular. RG interrupted and said, ‘You don’t have to give any prelude to the conversation. I know that your turn at SVT is over. How much time have they given you?’
‘One month,’ said Sammy.
‘Do you want to join us?’ RG came straight to the point. Sammy meekly said he did. While he was one of the smartest guys in the sales circuit in his industry, this man had floored him completely. ‘Write down your employment terms and send them to me. My email address is on my business card. And next week, I’m going to be in Silicon Valley again. So we can meet up if you want.’
‘Sure, sir,’ replied Sammy.
The conversation, brief as it was, left him flabbergasted. He was thoroughly impressed by RG. Working with such a man would be professionally enriching and rewarding. Sammy made up his mind quickly: he would join STM. He didn’t even wait to discuss it with Roma. To ensure that he did not appear too pricey in writing his employment terms, he put a rather modest number as his CTC. By the end of the day, he had sent them to RG. Within minutes, he got a one-word response.
‘Okay.’
Sammy was confused about how to interpret this. Did it mean that his mail had been read? Did it mean that his expected package had been approved? Did it mean that RG would ask HR to handle this? Or was it his secretary who had responded?
But the next week, the situation became clear when he got a call from RG’s office saying that his plans had changed: he’d be going to New Jersey instead, and a ticket had been arranged for Sammy to go and meet him there.
By this time, Roma had started wondering about Sammy because he was quite casual towards his work at SVT. One day, she cornered him and asked what was going on. Sammy pleaded with her to give him two days to explain things fully, after he returned from a trip he was making the next day. He hugged her, gave a flying kiss to Koel, and left hurriedly. He wanted the winding-up process at SVT to be quick and smooth. As such, he had asked SVT to identify his replacement so that he could start the handover process in earnest. SVT’s management was a bit surprised by Sammy’s keenness; they had expected him to procrastinate, to secure a job first and then agree to move out. So they told Sammy that he could take his own sweet time to move out. In response, Sammy, being a risk-taker by nature, sent in his formal resignation a day before his meeting with RG.
At the time he left home for the airport, Roma still knew nothing. Sammy wanted to present her with a fait accompli.
The NJ meeting went fantastically well. RG gave him as much time as he wanted. He took pains to give an elaborate overview of STM’s working, its philosophy, vision, values, and anything else Sammy wanted to know. Sammy was most impressed.
Then RG handed over a sealed envelope to Sammy. ‘I saw your expected CTC. I believe you’re worth more than that. When you see the contents of the packet, you won’t be able to refuse my offer. But I must tell you one key thing about STM. We want to be among the top five IT services companies operating from India and there is no gain without pain. We want leadership that can take calculated risks and expand the business. So our CTC has a fair proportion of the company’s stock. STM’s stock has risen at such a scorching pace that people are dying to get their hands on some. Think about the offer and let me know if it meets your expectations.’
Sammy thanked him and assured him of a quick response. He was eager to read the offer letter, but thought it would look bad to open the envelope in the STM office. He walked into a nearby pizza outlet, ordered one, then sat down and tore open the envelope.
The contents were mind-blowing. STM’s offer far exceeded what he had asked for. The difference was a sizeable portion of the package being STM stock. A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed him that the offered CTC was 30 per cent more than his expected CTC. STM had offered him the equivalent of nearly 350,000 US dollars plus stock options worth a whopping 150,000 US dollars on the basis of the last closing rate. The offer was irresistible. His first impulse was to call RG immediately and say yes, but Sammy held himself back. He went to the airport although his flight was hours later. He checked for an earlier flight, and luckily got one which was just about to leave. He rushed through the formalities and was soon on board.
The Tyranny of ‘We’ and ‘Almost’
The conference room on the ninth floor of ITS’ NJ office looked like a war-front. Although it was a late Sunday evening, there were at least a dozen people in the room, some punching keys on their laptops, some going through a heap of papers lying near the walls of the room. Crisscrossing network and charging cables made the room look like a powerhouse. If one word could describe the situation in the room, it was ‘CONFUSION’.
The team, comprising people from pre-sales, architecture, business, and technology, was trying to put together a large upcoming bid. As always, they were nowhere near completion even though it was to be submitted on Monday by 11:00 a.m. Multiple conversations were happening simultaneously. There was also a sense of panic in the room because they were expecting the unit head, Goky, to come into the room at any moment. Some of them were vividly visualizing the scene when he’d come in and find the bid far from ready for him to sign. Sundar, the head of the architecture team, excitedly announced, ‘I’m done with my part. We’re ready with the proposed architecture.’
All heads looked up. Somebody asked if his section was ‘good to go’. He mumbled inaudibly, but what emerged when asked to speak up was ‘almost done’. The heads went down. There was a feeling of helplessness in the room. People seemed to be going through the motions without knowing what they were doing. And this had been going on for quite a few days.
The door flung open and Goky entered the room, which went absolutely quiet. His piercing gaze moved across the room, pausing at each person for a second. He had an air of ease about him as he asked, ‘So guys, are we ready? Bring the final bid for my
signature.’ Nobody answered. Either they did not hear him or were pretending not to. His voice became louder and harsher and he asked the same question again. There was still pin-drop silence in the room.
Then the head of architecture opened his mouth. ‘Actually, we’ve finalized the technical architecture and we’re almost ready.’
‘But you were “almost ready” when I reviewed the status three days ago!’ Goky thundered.
Over the next few minutes, Goky blasted everybody in the room, sometimes using expletives, which the team had grown used to. They did not mind at all. Over the years, Goky’s team had learnt that it was better if he used expletives when he was angry instead of going quiet. When Goky went quiet, it was a sure indicator of an impending tornado, sometimes involving the loss of jobs. Nobody was answering any of Goky’s questions and all were pretending to listen attentively.
After the verbal firing, Goky went about taking stock of where they were and how much time was left. Over the next few hours, everybody did exactly what Goky told them to and by around eight in the morning, they were in far better shape. Goky announced that they’d all go for breakfast together and on their return, he’d go through the bid once again before signing it. After that, the sales guy could go and submit it to the client. Goky had formed a habit: when he was intensely involved in a piece of work, he always took a small break and revisited it with a fresh mind before the final delivery. He did the same thing this time and in fact, found some errors. Some of these errors were as serious as the name of a previous prospect on one page—a result of somebody in the team pressing Ctrl+C followed by Ctrl+V. He asked the team which template had been used to begin with. He hit Ctrl+F to find the name of that prospect and found it at another place. He went back to an even earlier prospect and repeated the same process but, this time, did not find the name. Weirdly, the team knew Goky was going to do this ritual, and yet hadn’t been careful enough.
‘At least,’ Goky thought with grim humour, ‘they are consistent in their mistakes.’
Anyway, the errors were promptly corrected. He signed the bid and handed it over to the sales person. It was around 10:00 a.m. when he headed home to freshen up. He was a little tired, having worked through the night, but it was a routine affair at the time of large bids. He got into his car, switched on some music, and his fingers started tapping the steering wheel randomly. This was his way to relax.
But today he was not able to relax.
A question kept coming to him repeatedly: Why was it that every time they had to submit a bid, they ended up in the same situation, and then had to work on war footing till they had smoothed out all the glitches?
He had no answer. His phone rang and he yelled into it, ‘Hello, Goky here.’ His secretary was on the line to remind him that he was to attend a half-day programme which was being organized by a leading management institute in the area. The topic was ‘Situational Leadership’. He had almost forgotten about this. He reached home, where Varsha was waiting for him. The kids had gone to school.
***
Goky and Varsha had been married for twelve years. They had twins, a boy and a girl. Although Varsha was a qualified engineer and had worked in IT for several years, she gave up her rather lucrative job after about two years of marriage.
They first met at an industry gathering in Mumbai during Goky’s early stay in the city. They liked each other but fell out of touch when Goky went to New Jersey. A couple of years later, they ran into each other at JFK. Goky was coming to Mumbai for a client visit; Varsha was returning from a client presentation in NJ. They discovered they were boarding the same flight. This meeting rekindled their chemistry. During the long journey, they opened up to each other.
Once in Mumbai, Goky took the time to drop her home— where he met her parents as well. After this, they met each other whenever Varsha was in NJ or Goky was in Mumbai. They got serious when Goky moved back to Mumbai a few months after his mother’s death. Several months later, Goky told his brother of his intent to marry Varsha. Vinod wanted the wedding to be at their parental home in Sojat. Goky gently explained to him that Varsha’s family had no link with Sojat, and the two had decided to have a registered marriage with a simple, small ceremony afterwards. He convinced Vinod and his family to come over to Mumbai.
For the first couple of years of marriage, they worked for rival IT companies in Mumbai and were mostly a weekend couple. Then Goky got another chance to move to NJ. Initially, Varsha took a break from work to go with him, but then decided to resign and move to NJ with him. Many IT companies had offices in the area and soon, they made many friends and acquaintances. Varsha was an excellent hostess and a fantastic cook. Their friends often came over for parties and meals.
At one such get-together, one of their friends, Ramki, who claimed to be a numerologist, was looking at people’s horoscopes. He looked at Varsha’s, and asked for Goky’s as well, but Goky didn’t have one. Ramki made Goky phone his folks in India to get his date, time, and place of birth, and constructed Goky’s horoscope himself. After a detailed look at their horoscopes, he declared that they were destined to have twins.
When Varsha conceived a couple of years later, they had almost forgotten the horoscope story. Varsha’s first ultrasound scan revealed twins. The news took them back in time when their friend Ramki had predicted this. It also reminded them how Ramki, despite reservations from some people, openly talked about his interpretation of horoscopes, his palm-reading, and his knowledge of numerology. An ugly argument arose which went from bad to worse, with guests shouting at Ramki. To avoid any fistfights, Ramki was convinced to leave the party, and they never met after that. Goky and Varsha were keen to call Ramki and make up.
That same weekend they threw a party and invited many of their old friends, including Ramki. Twins were the most important topic of discussion that evening. Strangely, Ramki was a different person this time—quiet, grave, and withdrawn all the time. He responded to things said to him in monosyllables. When some guests asked him about his interest in looking into the future, he haltingly said, ‘I stopped doing that a long time ago.’ Most people there had no clue as to why. But Goky and Varsha knew. Ramki’s fascination with foretelling the future became so strong that he started experimenting on everybody for his own study and knowledge. On a visit to India, he got hold of his father’s horoscope, read his palm, did some number-crunching on his date and time of birth, and said, ‘Appa, you will live till you are fifty-seven years old.’ There was a deathly silence in the room at first, and then all hell broke loose. Each member of his family rebuked him in turn, and threatened to ostracize him. His words had evoked a very strong emotional reaction from the family. For the next few days, no one spoke to him.
However, nobody really thought about the fact that his father was almost fifty-seven. After his holiday, Ramki returned to the US. The very next month, he got an urgent message asking him to come to Chennai immediately as his father was in the hospital. Ramki took the first available flight, but by the time he reached Chennai, his father was no more. He had had a massive heart attack and never recovered. This shattered Ramki completely. He never thought of forecasting the future again.
***
Goky returned to the office to work for a couple of hours, and then packed up and left for the workshop venue. Clark Small, a management guru and a specialist in situational leadership, was conducting the workshop, which was to be followed by a networking dinner. Goky always participated keenly in such workshops as they offered a tremendous opportunity to learn and make connections. While driving to the venue, the questions kept coming back to him: Why do we always work on a ‘retrieval paradigm’—don’t do it right the first time but retrieve the situation at the last moment? Is it a deliberate or sub-conscious attempt to become ‘the hero of the moment’?
At the venue, he joined the registration queue, showed his nomination details, dropped his business card in a jar on the table, and took the conference docket. He was a bit early for the
event. He got himself a black coffee and looked around. Many of the other delegates coming in were known to Goky as they often met at social gatherings, conferences and, of course, as rivals at client presentations. They exchanged pleasantries and seated themselves around the twelve tables placed in the hall, each with six chairs arranged in a semicircle facing the dais.
Clark Small strode in, shouting a loud ‘Good afternoon to all!’ The audience responded, but feebly. Clark put a hand to his ear, and repeated, ‘GOOD AFTERNOON!’ This time, the response was loud and clear. Goky smiled to himself. This had become management fashion and many speakers resorted to the same method to get attention. Some did it well but some made a mess of it. As the seminar proceeded, the audience’s participation increased, and many participants shared their experiences of leadership. While Goky was physically in the room, his mind was elsewhere, again recalling those questions. Suddenly, Clark looked straight at Goky and asked, ‘Would you like to share your experience?’
It took Goky a few seconds to gather his thoughts and say, ‘A question has been bothering me for a while, because I can’t find an answer. I have a fantastic team at my company, and we’re doing very well. But almost without fail, we end up playing catch-up at the last minute every time. We start in earnest but, somewhere along the way, we lose track and things go astray. When we take stock of our progress, it’s scary—a deadline staring us in the face and our work not completed. But almost always, we end up retrieving the situation and delivering on time. This has been happening for years.’
When Goky finished his question, there were murmurs from practically every table. It emerged that many participants had faced the same problem but were reluctant to admit it. Some of them opened up and honestly admitted that they actually put up a façade of perfect planning and execution which was far from reality. Soon, this became the topic of discussion in the hall.
