My father was an entrepreneur and this always made me believe that entrepreneurship would be my way too. However by the time I finished my diploma engineering, I had no option but to take up a job, may be I could've still tried to start something but then entrepreneurship was not my priority, there were many other important things for me in life. So instead I took up a job.
One of the biggest problems in a jobs is that one is controlled by another human being. However intelligent or smart a boss is, unless he behaves as a human being instead of the artificially created "boss" character, it is difficult to work under one. Fortunately I ended up with some very good human beings as bosses, except the second one who was too caught up with being a boss.
The risk reward equation for me so far as an employee goes like this - you give your best, you may (70 - 90% of the time) get the best, you be mediocre and you'll get the average (90 - 100% of the time), you do mistakes and errors, intentional or unintentional and you'll get fired (0 - 20% of the time) but then when a bolt strikes in some form you can get fired (0 - 100% of the time) and when you want something to happen,it rarely happens( happens only 0-10% of the time). So you've to be patient enough to make things happen and persistent enough with your effort to reap the reward but you can surely laze around and stay far from the firing line in a job.
But the biggest risk of factors that you have no control over affecting your fate is the biggest risk. You feel I've given my best but why has this happened and sometimes I am ready to give my best but then would it be enough.
I joined Bakelite in a very interesting way. After losing my first job, I was desperately trying to get a full-time job and doing everything that I could think of. But then, back in 1994, there were few job advertisements forget about job-sites to post your resume. On one such day, I received a letter forwarded from my village that was sent by Bakelite, Nacharam unit asking me to attend an interview in week. I never knew Bakelite has some openings nor I sent my resume to them, later I learnt that Bakelite guys have picked up addresses of the top to students from our college and sent us interview letters. After two rounds of interviews I managed to get that job.
I finished 14 months of the 24 months training period, during which time my immediate boss and his manager were both impressed with my performance. Around this time there was a change in the management and there was a directive reduce costs. The HR manager also had a target, he could do nothing with the unionized staff so he decided to transfer or throw out the trainees and newly joined supervisors. And this news leaked out to us. For the first I experience the risk associated with a job and how one's life is in control of someone else. I was very frustrated, I questioned the HR manager - why he couldn't foresee this and why did he recruit us.
You trust someone in good faith and if he happens to be not in control of events but his actions/inactions affect your future; this is what is happening at Satyam with all the employees, I feel.
One thing I learned from the Bakelite episode was that there is always a risk of loosing your job due to a reason that you have no clue or control about. And due to this you may end up in a very bad position even if for a short while. Even though the probability of such thing happening is close to zero (not zero actually), as one wouldn't like to go through the distress situation and wants to keep that probability to zero (not close to but actually and firmly to zero), everyone who is taking up an employment must be prepared to face this risk.
Some risk mitigation measures would be actively pruning your Resume, having savings worth 6 months expenses all the time and actively maintaining relationships.
As human beings, the worst thing to happen for us is to live in uncertainty. We would like to know what is happening, if not about the next 100 years, atleast about the next 100 days.
"This too shall surely pass," however I wish that every Satyamite (not just employees) is favorably blessed by the God.
Showing posts with label Satyam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Satyam. Show all posts
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Management and Handling Ambiguity
Before I joined ISB, I received feedback from my Manager (s) that I need to improve my ability to handle ambiguity. They even said that as you go up there will be more and more ambiguity and that one has to learn to handle it.
I could understand that ambiguity increases as you go up, I never really understood how they were handling ambiguity and how their actions were improving the situation. Everytime a unexplainable decision was taken, they blamed "Management."
It is very interesting to note that this is the same thing I observed even in the old economy firm that I first worked with. Everything was blamed on the elusive and invisible "Management." At that point I was in the junior cadre and thought that the senior managers formed the Management and used to get little surprised when the senior managers themselves blamed "Management." But then when I saw the CXO level also blame the "Management" I couldn't stop myself from wondering where/who the hell is this "Management." But Mr. Ramalinga Raju of Satyam, by taking complete blame on himself has kind of answered my question that the "Management" lies at the top and now where else.
How foolish does he expect the shareholders by stating that he and he alone was responsible for all the non-sense. He may have given the okay for all the decisions but then every other top manager must have known what was happening and had all the opportunities to raise alarm. To this a classmate of mine said that who knows if someone has raised an alarm and he was stopped. But then raising alarm is to get attention and unless you get enough attention and thereby some action, you shouldn't stop.
May be this is a reflection of our behavior. As someone said, we are ready to fire anything as long as it is over someone else's shoulder; we will never take responsibility and I think this explains why the "Management" Devil never dies - it doesn't matter if it is old economy or new economy. We have so much pressure to comply with the boss that we are afraid to talk against the decisions that may harm the company forget about taking decisions.
In my view handling ambiguity is not sitting there and waiting for ambiguity to get cleared; instead everyone in the management has to work to reduce ambiguity at each level and give decisive direction to lower levels. I had seen that very few managers actually accept ambiguity and talk about it lest try to reduce it. In fact their behavior adds to the ambiguity.
What I would like to say is that every employee at every level is part of Management and that they have take responsibility to the possible level and reduce ambiguity in company's business and take decisive action towards performing company's business. This is what would benefit all the stakeholders not the shareholders who just give the money. Only then can we expect to rise against the tide not just along with it.
It is a day of great importance to India and to all the so-called Corporate Managers and Leaders. When I read Mr. Raju's letter, it appeared to me like a suicide note acquitting everyone else from any responsibility.
I must share this small discussion I had with my colleague who is active in the stock market the day-before-yesterday about Satyam. He was saying that since the company had cash, he would buy the stock if it falls to Rs.100/- as at that price it would be lucrative for other companies to takeover; my comment was that one cannot be sure how the money would be used and that may be the reason no one is yet making a serious effort to takeover and now that whole cash has vanished in to the past. We can only wait and watch what happens to MAYTAS (reverse of SATYAM)
I could understand that ambiguity increases as you go up, I never really understood how they were handling ambiguity and how their actions were improving the situation. Everytime a unexplainable decision was taken, they blamed "Management."
It is very interesting to note that this is the same thing I observed even in the old economy firm that I first worked with. Everything was blamed on the elusive and invisible "Management." At that point I was in the junior cadre and thought that the senior managers formed the Management and used to get little surprised when the senior managers themselves blamed "Management." But then when I saw the CXO level also blame the "Management" I couldn't stop myself from wondering where/who the hell is this "Management." But Mr. Ramalinga Raju of Satyam, by taking complete blame on himself has kind of answered my question that the "Management" lies at the top and now where else.
How foolish does he expect the shareholders by stating that he and he alone was responsible for all the non-sense. He may have given the okay for all the decisions but then every other top manager must have known what was happening and had all the opportunities to raise alarm. To this a classmate of mine said that who knows if someone has raised an alarm and he was stopped. But then raising alarm is to get attention and unless you get enough attention and thereby some action, you shouldn't stop.
May be this is a reflection of our behavior. As someone said, we are ready to fire anything as long as it is over someone else's shoulder; we will never take responsibility and I think this explains why the "Management" Devil never dies - it doesn't matter if it is old economy or new economy. We have so much pressure to comply with the boss that we are afraid to talk against the decisions that may harm the company forget about taking decisions.
In my view handling ambiguity is not sitting there and waiting for ambiguity to get cleared; instead everyone in the management has to work to reduce ambiguity at each level and give decisive direction to lower levels. I had seen that very few managers actually accept ambiguity and talk about it lest try to reduce it. In fact their behavior adds to the ambiguity.
What I would like to say is that every employee at every level is part of Management and that they have take responsibility to the possible level and reduce ambiguity in company's business and take decisive action towards performing company's business. This is what would benefit all the stakeholders not the shareholders who just give the money. Only then can we expect to rise against the tide not just along with it.
It is a day of great importance to India and to all the so-called Corporate Managers and Leaders. When I read Mr. Raju's letter, it appeared to me like a suicide note acquitting everyone else from any responsibility.
I must share this small discussion I had with my colleague who is active in the stock market the day-before-yesterday about Satyam. He was saying that since the company had cash, he would buy the stock if it falls to Rs.100/- as at that price it would be lucrative for other companies to takeover; my comment was that one cannot be sure how the money would be used and that may be the reason no one is yet making a serious effort to takeover and now that whole cash has vanished in to the past. We can only wait and watch what happens to MAYTAS (reverse of SATYAM)
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