Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Profit in Taking the Blame

Profit in Taking the Blame

Funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh became a big affair- beyond anyone’s imagination. He had died while in office of the biggest unit of the conglomerate called Brite Corporation International Limited. Brite Corporation International Limited was still like a family owned organization despite its phenomenal growth and size. When Hoshiyar Sinh died, he held the position of the president of the unit of Brite Corporation and also held an additional responsibility of the department of corporate affairs of the head quarters of the company. The chairman of the company Dhanichand Boman and his son Ajinkya Boman who was the managing director of the company decided to join the funeral procession of Hoshiyar Sinh.

This was seen quite a departure from the usual protocol. And that’s what made funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh a big affair. Normally the family members who promoted and literally owned the company never attended the funeral of any professional employee of the company howsoever highly placed the dead person might have been in the company. Now, Dhanichand Boman and his son Ajinkya Boman who were the senior most members of Boman family- the promoters of the company, were themselves attending the funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh and it was absolutely unusual. Hoshiyar Sinh was a professional manager and had no relationship with Boman family. Therefore, everyone in the company was astonished.

But one employee named Tariq Doshi- an old employee of the unit was not at all surprised. While majority of the employees were new and young in this unit and almost everyone of the old employees had either retired or died, Tariq Doshi had been with the company for past more than thirty years. He had joined the company when the company had just started and had just about one small manufacturing unit. At that time he was working in company’s headquarters. After the company grew and had launched this second and the biggest unit of the company he was transferred. He claimed to have seen the entire history of the ups and ups of the company. And he also knew a few inner secrets. And one of them was the reason why Dhanichand Boman and his son Ajinkya Boman had attended Hoshiyar Sinh’s funeral.

When Tariq Doshi returned to his home after attending the funeral, he was in a very pensive mood. It did not go un-noticed by his wife. She coaxed him to release his tension by sharing his worries with her. And Tariq Doshi finally shared with his wife that one secret that was disturbing him throughout the day and even during the past many years.

He said to his wife, “I have been carrying a huge burden on my mind all these years. But with the death of Hoshiyar Sinh, I can share it with someone and unburden myself so that when the death comes to me, I can die peacefully. But, please keep this to yourself and only if you promise to do so, I will tell you, otherwise not.”

His wife was very worried about her husband particularly after listening to what her husband had just told her. So she assured him, “I promise not to divulge a word of what you are about to tell me. But do tell me everything so that you are free of your worries.”

Then Tariq Doshi narrated the following story to his wife:

Dhanichand Boman was a highly ambitious person despite the fact that he could not go past the primary school education because of the dire poverty of his father. He needed to work and earn money. So he left studying at school. Since he was educated only till primary school, it was impossible for him to get any decent employment other than that of a menial laborer. A few times he suffered utter humiliation while on the job. And when he could not bear anymore humiliation, he decided to start his own business howsoever small it might be. He thought, “After all in my own business I would be my own master and will save myself of any humiliation from any Tom, Dick and Harry.”

He also thought, “I will get more opportunities for business in a city rather than in my own village. So I must move to a big city.” So, he moved to the nearest city from his village along with his wife, his small son Ajinkya and Hoshiyar Sinh- his best friend in the village. Hoshiyar Sinh was also a dropout of the primary school just like Dhanichand.

After going to the city, Dhanichand tried his hand at many types of small businesses using his native wisdom. He knew how to count money and how to count the profits. He also took risks; he had nothing to lose since he was already at the bottom most levels of life. And yes, Dhanichand was a very hard-working man and soon he also learnt the street smartness while doing many odd businesses. With this kind of combination of his traits, he met with success in every business he took up. It took him some ten to twelve years before he could save enough money. On the strength of the saved money, he borrowed more money and built up his first unit- a small manufacturing unit.

Soon his first unit made him a mini industrialist in his own right. He thought of becoming a bigger industrialist and soon he expanded the operations and his products became very popular with the customers. He soon developed the brand name and listed his company as a limited company. The share value of the stocks of his company in the stock market was progressively going up.

On the home front too Dhanichand was quite successful. With the newfound wealth, he was providing his son and his wife all the comforts of life. He enrolled his son Ajinkya in city’s most reputed school and then in the most reputed college. He pampered his son like nobody’s business. Now, his son was almost getting ready to join his business. And one fine morning Ajinkya Boman was installed as the managing director of the company.

Hoshiyar Sinh, Dhanichand’s friend from the village who accompanied him to the city proved to be great help to him in his various businesses. Hoshiyar Sinh was like his man Friday. He was there everywhere with Dhanichand, doing all kinds of odd jobs for him. However, as Dhanichand started flourishing in his business he started keeping distance from Hoshiyar Sinh. Though he still used him for all the odd jobs, his friendship became lukewarm. Hoshiyar Sinh sensed this change. While Dhanichand started becoming richer and richer and prided himself as the chairman of the company, Hoshiyar Singh was given just about a decent salary without any particular title in the company. Hoshiyar Sinh felt hurt by this treatment.

And then that incident took place that catapulted Hoshiyar Sinh’s life and the lives of Dhanichand and Ajinkya topsy-turvy. I know it because I was the only eye witness to the entire happening. I was watching through the peephole of the room where the incident took place.

It took place in Ajinkya Boman’s cabin. Since I had joined the company at its inception, the Bomans knew me quite well and I had an easy access to their offices. So, for some official work I had gone to Ajinkya Boman’s office. When I reached the door of the cabin of Ajinkya Boman, I heard heated exchange of words between some people inside the cabin. My curiosity got aroused and I looked through the peephole.

The overdose of pampering of Ajinkya by his father Dhanichand had made him a spoilt brat. In the process, Ajinkya had become an angry young man- he was short-tempered and shouted and insulted the employees for their small little mistakes. He used to throw the files or anything that was handy at them in the rage of anger. He was a poor listener and non-tolerant of people in general.

Knowing this weakness of his son, Dhanichand had deputed his mature friend Hoshiyar Sinh as his son’s assistant like a private secretary to him. But Ajinkya would not spare Hoshiyar Sinh also. Getting insults from Ajinkya and feeling distanced from Dhanichand, Hoshiyar Sinh was a very unhappy man.

Yes, coming back to what I saw through the peephole. I saw Ajinkya shouting at an employee, “Your irresponsible actions have resulted in loss by millions to the company, do you understand? You must die in shame.”

The employee being shouted upon protested, “Sir, you cannot blame me. You only instructed me to do what I did.”

Ajinkya got wild on him, “Hey, you liar. Don’t say that again. I can even kill you for that.”

And then Ajinkya was groping to search something that he wanted to throw at the employee. He did not realize that what came in his hand was a knife and he threw it at the employee with great force. It hit the employee at some delicate part of the body and the employee fell down and soon breathed his last.

That startled Ajinkya and Hoshiyar Sinh and me. Then I heard the voice of Hoshiyar Sinh. Hoshiyar Sinh was present in Ajinkya's office when this mishap took place.

Hoshiyar Sinh took the lead and said, “Ajinkya, just sit down. Don’t move. Let us sort this thing out with a cool mind. First of all I am the only witness to this bloody affair. I can ruin your and your father’s life just the way you have ruined mine by neglecting me and insulting me. You guys have become rich by my support and hard work at all the odd jobs that your father and you could not have done. But what did I get in return- a meager salary and no designation. Now is the time to strike a deal. I am used to all the odd jobs and I will do this last one too. But on my terms and conditions. You guys are going to launch the new unit in the near future, your big second manufacturing unit. You must make me incharge of that unit as its president after I come out of the jail. I am willing to take the blame of what happened in this room. You will be a witness in the court proceedings to say that it was an accident in the self-defense. To save ourselves from the insane employee who wanted to hurt us, I intervened and by sheer accident the knife went through the body of the employee causing him instant death. For that I will get the jail sentence of not more than couple of years. After I am released from the jail, you and your father will install me as the president of the new unit with all the powers bestowed in me. If you agree, I will call the police and surrender myself and you and your father will make sure that the best lawyer is recruited to handle the case and I get the minimum sentence. If you do not agree with this proposal of mine, I will still call the police and charge you with the murder.”

And then the rest we know. Hoshiyar Sinh made sure that he became the president of the biggest unit of the company. Many more units were added to the company later on but Hoshiyar Sinh took care to see that his unit remained the biggest and he had a say in the corporate affairs of the company by becoming head of corporate affairs department in the head quarters in addition to becoming the president of the biggest unit.

His death took away with him the secret that Dhanichand and Ajinkya think only Hoshiyar Sinh knew. So, Dhanichand and Ajinkya wanted to be sure that Hoshiyar Sinh really got cremated in front of their eyes along with that secret and that’s why they attended the funeral of Hoshiyar Sinh.

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: What Is the Limit?

What Is the Limit?

Ambalal Patel owned a moderate size business. He had approached his middle age and yet had not struck gold. His only ambition in life was to make money and that too lots of money and that too quickly. He was supplier of a few materials that were required in the chemical industry. He was struggling hard for past fifteen years but till date did not get a good break in his business.

Then one evening while he was attending a social get together, he met one of his old friends after several years. They celebrated their meeting. They had drinks together and started catching up with the events of intervening period. When both of them consumed a good amount of hard liquor, they started talking more intimately and about the secrets of business.

In the process of this exchange, Ambalal Patel opened up his heart and shared with his friend about his disappointment in not doing the kind of big business that would bring him enormous money. He said, “Despite my best efforts I am not getting any sizable order for supply of my materials. For some reason or the other, the competing suppliers walk away with the plum orders from my clients and I am left high and dry.”

On the other hand, his friend declared, “I was also struggling for a good number of years like you. But now I am very successful after painful initial twelve years. I have earned more money in just past two years- much more than what I could not earn even in the first twelve years of business”.

When Ambalal Patel got curious to know the secrets of his sudden success, his friend assigned it to joining Regent Club whose members mostly consisted of corporate executives and businessmen. He advised boastfully like a big brother, “Ambalal, you must have the right contacts. Regent Club is the answer.” Then after blurting out this much involuntarily in his intoxicated state, he stopped this topic here itself and turned to other gossips. He soon realized that he was making mistake by giving out his secrets of business to Ambalal Patel on the platter. Possibly, Ambalal Patel might become his competitor if he knew more about his business secrets. And he would not like it.

However, Ambalal Patel was quick to retain in his memory the name Regent Club. Next morning, past last night’s hangover, Ambalal Patel developed a terrific craving to visit Regent Club that brought money to his friend. He wanted to explore the possibilities for himself by knowing more about the club.

He met the manager of Regent Club. Ambalal asked him, “Is the membership in the club open? And if yes, what will be the membership fee?”

Manager gave him all the information of the club and also emphasized, “Mr Patel, people like you and many corporate managers primarily are the constituent members of the club.” Then, he gave the details of one time entry fee and other annual fees of the club.

Ambalal Patel was shocked to hear the astronomical fees of the club. He mumbled, “I say, the fees are too steep, far higher than many other clubs of the city. Its an unaffordable expenditure even for a businessman like me.”

To which the manager replied, “Mr Patel, do not call this as expenditure. Call it investment instead. You will recover the entire fee of the club in just about an year or little over the year and after that, its all profit. This is not my version; this is the version of the members of this club. I hear many of them say so from time to time. I understand from them that the club provides an excellent meeting point to develop business and social networks.”

Ambalal Patel remembered what his friend had mentioned the previous evening. This Regent Club was responsible for his sudden prosperity. Ambalal Patel did not wish to waste a minute; he was in a real hurry to make lots of money. He joined the club by taking loan from his bank and giving the membership fees to Regent Club.

To start with, Ambalal was not quite comfortable with the secretive environment of the club. But soon he got introduced to a senior purchasing executive of a fairly big chemical company. The senior purchasing manager’s name was Partho Dey. They struck chords with each other since both were having one thing in common in a big way. Both had insatiable capacity to hold the drinks. Soon they became company to each other, though most of the time Ambalal paid the bills for their drinks and dinner. He remembered the club manager’s words, “Mr Patel, perceive this expenditure as an investment.”

And soon it worked. Ambalal Patel found an occasion to offer to supply to Partho Dey’s company. When one day, during their drinking time conversation, Partho mentioned that his company was looking out for a reliable source to buy a particular type of chemical material, Ambalal Patel spoke without wasting a minute, “Sir, why do you have to search for a source? The source is sitting right in front of you. I am in the business of supplying the very material you mentioned. I am capable of supplying any amount of it regularly and with 100% reliability.” Partho Dey nodded. Patel thought that to be a good sign. He worked out in his mind, “If Partho Dey places this order on me, it would mean a huge order in terms of volumes and money. And that’s what I need at this point of time.”

Why was Partho Dey willing to consider Ambalal Patel’s offer? The reason was that Partho Dey was not very happy with his existing supplier since the existing supplier was not meeting the terms and conditions set out by Partho Dey. The existing supplier was not willing to increase the bribe percentage that Partho was demanding now. Partho had raised his expectation of bribe from his current rate of 15% to 25% which the supplier thought was obnoxiously high. He mentioned to Partho that he was willing to stretch up to a cut of maximum of 20%- the going rate with many of the purchase managers of many of the other companies where he was the supplier.

Now Partho Dey was not much worried about losing his current supplier of many years since he had in front of him a new and hungry supplier- Ambalal Patel who, in his assessment, would be more than willing to grab that huge order on the terms and conditions of 25% bribe amount set out by him. He had gathered that Ambalal Patel was in a hurry to become rich overnight. So, he opened up his cards in front of Ambalal Patel and as expected, Patel readily agreed for 25% kick back demanded by Partho.

All of this happened over the sixth peg of whisky in the company of Partho Dey that night; Ambalal Patel got the much needed break. He had finally bagged a very big order from a big chemical company. Silently, he thanked his friend who gave him the tip to join Regent Club. He thanked the club manager for sharing his wisdom with him. He thanked Partho for giving the order at 25% kickback (he calculated quickly that despite this kickback he could still make lots of money for himself). He thanked Regent Club.

He started supplying the material.

An year went by.

During this period Ambalal as well as Partho made lots of money.

Partho and Ambalal also continued maintaining their team spirit over the spirits they consumed together at Regent Club regularly. Of course, Ambalal continued booting the bill.

And one night, after they had several pegs of whisky, Partho opened up his heart. He put up his cards in front of Ambalal, “Ambalal, you will appreciate that the year went by smoothly for you because of me.”

Ambalal nodded in affirmation.

Partho continued, “I wish to further add to your kitty and this time at a very fast rate. You had mentioned to me on several occasions that your main aim in life has been to make huge amounts of money real quickly. Now I wish to help you once more to fulfill that dream of yours. Are you with me?”

Ambalal Patel was like a mouse in front of the cat. He mumbled, “Sir, can I ever dare to go against your wishes? Please tell me what do you have in mind?”

Partho said, “To start with, for the next six months, my cut will be raised to50%. We need more material in the company and so the quantity on order for you will be doubled. After six months we will review and work out suitable terms and conditions. Is that OK with you?”

Ambalal was puzzled. He thought how he could make money if he had to give away 50% of his earnings to Partho. But he did not wish to contradict Partho and annoy him. He remained silent.

Partho watched Ambalal keenly and patronized by saying, “Look, we are onto experimenting a new thing as a part of our association. That will make you very rich in just about six months. You must be wondering how it can happen when you have to shell out your 50%. I will tell you how. In reality, you will not supply the quantity of material on order. You will physically supply only 50% of the ordered material and yet bill the company for the full amount. I have my boys in the stores department trained in taking care of all of this. So don’t you worry at all and just do as I told you. OK?”

Ambalal had become a past master in bribing by now but this new proposal coming from Partho was quite startling for his brains. A shiver of great fear ran through his spine. His mind and heart and conscious (?) were not allowing him to go along with Partho on this.

Partho was an intelligent man. He could sense the legitimate hesitation of Ambalal. He said, “Ambalal, I cannot wait for long but you being my drinking partner, I will give you time to think till tomorrow evening. Give me your consent by tomorrow evening here in the club. Then we will drink to our continued business association. But if you are not willing to be a part of my proposal, do not fear that we will break our drinking association. It will still continue but for the next six months at least, you will not be in a position to be a supplier to my company. You will definitely lose a lot. Also, I cannot guarantee what will happen after six months. I have spotted a new supplier who has just joined our Regent Club and who seems pretty much promising to me. He needs some business urgently. You know that I am willing to help such people.”

Ambalal Patel tossed and turned in his bed the whole night without getting a single wink of much needed sleep. He was still very afraid to say “yes” to Partho’s proposal.

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Three Drawer Management

Three Drawer Management

Victor Benjee got an offer of appointment from Traditions Galore Ltd. The offer was undeniably very attractive in terms of money and position offered. He started contemplating in terms of the change. However he was not very sure whether the change would be a right move in his career growth.

He was quite in friendly terms with his existing boss Jawahar Kurios in his present company Genuine Systemic Ltd. So he could discuss his personal matters with Jawahar Kurios. While generally changing a job is kept quite a secret by almost all the people, Victor found it OK to confide such things in Jawahar. He trusted Jawahar fully in such matters too.

Therefore, one evening when Jawahar was quite free from his work and was resting in his cabin, Victor dropped in.

He asked, “Jawahar, do you have about an hour to spend with me? I wish to discuss something personal. Do you remember that you had given me a good reference while I was applying for a senior position in your previous company Traditions Galore? I want your advice in that connection?”

Jawahar got curious, “Can I congratulate you? I guess they have offered you a job.”

Victor said, “Yes, they have. And the offer is brilliant. I will get some 55% more money than what you give me here. The designation is more appealing and I stand to get a bigger house, car and cabin.”

Jawahar laughed, “Then where is the problem? Jump in.”

Victor said, “But I am not sure about the culture of Traditions Galore Ltd. They say that it’s quite different from Genuine Systemic Ltd. One could find it difficult to work in this new company after having worked for a more professional company like Genuine Systemic. Now you have worked for Traditions Galore for quite some years and you have the first hand information about it. Then who could be a better person than you to guide me on this change?”

Jawahar replied, “OK. OK. I will tell you all. But that’s based purely on my observations and experience. I will not tell you whether you should leave Genuine Systemic and join Traditions Galore. That will be strictly your decision. But surely, I will fill you with some data.”

Then Jawahar went on to elaborate, “What you heard is correct. Though it’s huge company by all standards but it is one of those family owned types where family members or their inner circle people have strict controls over all the company activities. In nutshell, Traditions Galore’s Culture is almost opposite of what we do here. For example, our company believes lots in processes and systems where as in Traditions Galore most of the decisions are discretionary. While we have at least some semblance of delegation of power and one can take decisions at different levels, in Traditions Galore the decision making is highly centralized. We are more transparent here but Traditions Galore is full of secrecy. Yet let me hurriedly say that they have their own brand of systems too and they too make huge profits.”

Victor interrupted, “Jawahar, can you give me some examples from your own experience?”

Jawahar said, “OK. I will tell you this one experience and you may get a lot of insight. I had joined Traditions Galore after working for a good length of time in a professional multinational company. This multinational company had everything defined on paper and things went strictly in accordance with those things. For example, if I wanted to buy some material or some equipment, the system was very transparent. If I gave convincing justifications for the purchase, I was sure to get it or the sanctioning authority will seek further clarifications from me. And timeline for this type of decision-making and execution was clearly defined. So it was that simple and straight forward.”

Jawahar took a pause and then continued, “So after joining Traditions Galore, I tried to follow the same system in absence of any systems manual telling me what to do. The CEO of the company had given me a mandate to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing departments by a certain percentage within an year’s period. For achieving this, I needed to induct some specific equipment of the latest technology in the organization. So I made a justification note, attached it to the purchase requisition form and sent it to the CEO. After a week or so, the justification note with the purchase requisition was returned to me via company’s finance department.”

Victor asked, “Why, did not you have an approved budget for it?”

Jawahar replied, “I had made provision for it in my budget but finance people used to revisit the budget provision once more on case to case basis when the actual purchase was about to be made. As per them the budget was just a rough guideline. Now this was quite different from my previous organization. In my previous company once a budget was sanctioned, it became sacrosanct for all purposes. But here the CEO passed on my requisition to finance department without even informing me. It was quite strange for me. I had to spend many hours spread over many days to satisfy finance chief. Finally he signed on the dotted line. After this I sent the whole thing once again to my CEO. I waited for almost two weeks but I did not get any approval of the CEO.”

Victor was surprised, “Then, when did you get the approval?”

Jawahar replied, “I did not get it. Couple of times I reminded him about my requisition but he posed very busy. Then after repeated follow up from me, he asked me to meet him and explain my plans on how I aimed at increasing the plant efficiency with the new equipment. But every time I requested for his time to do so, he made some excuse or the other and kept on postponing our meeting. Then I got fed up. I was already running out of time and being the first year of my employment I could not risk not achieving the mandate given to me. So I worked out some alternate plans without this technologically advanced equipment and somehow started implementing efficiency improvements.

Victor got puzzled, “You mean to say that you stopped sending all of your proposal to your CEO and still worked.”

Jawahar replied, “No, later on I knew the trick of how to get my proposals passed. Somehow with my keen observations I came to know about my CEO’s "Three Drawer System" which in fact was a top secret. Only intelligent people like me could decipher it. I told you earlier that even companies like Traditions Galore have their own brand of systems. My CEO there had a system which I branded as “Three Drawer System”.

Victor mentioned, “Jawahar, can you throw light on this ‘Three Drawer System’ please?”

Jawahar said, “I am coming to that. After getting clearance from finance your proposal goes to CEO. The scrutiny by finance itself is the first step of control on the expenditure proposed by you and wasting a couple of weeks. You have to explain a lot to finance people. Only if you are serious about your plan, you will take pains to convince finance department or else you will give up. So finance tests your patience and your seriousness about your proposal. Then your proposal goes to the CEO. Immediately on receiving the proposal, without even looking at it (forget about reading it), he shoves it into the top drawer of his table. Then as I did in my first encounter, you start reminding him about it. He tells you to meet him and explain the whole thing but for a few weeks or sometimes even for a few months he does not give you any time slot for the meeting. At this stage if you go slow on seeking his appointment, then after a few days he transfers your proposal papers to the second drawer (the middle drawer). Then he waits for you to push him for a meeting with him or convince him to give approval without the meeting. For some reason if you shy away from meeting him or you are incompetent to get his ears and convince him, he transfers your proposal to the third drawer (the bottom most one). In fact, since you have already waited all these days, weeks and months getting nothing, most people may totally give up. However few people still may try hard with him and in such a case the proposal papers may start a reverse journey through the drawers. However if you are not able to achieve this, you papers stay in the third drawer and soon find a way in the waste paper basket or the trash bin.”

Victor was amazed to hear this story, “My god, what an amazing control system! I could have never believed it unless it came from you. So, should I drop the idea of joining them?”

Jawahar said, “Why, are not they offering you 55% more salary; it’s quite high, one cannot ignore it. And what about the lucrative designation and bigger house, car and cabin? If you refuse, your wife and kids will miss all the fun. You already tasted this culture, why not taste the other culture too? Won’t it be fun for you too?”

Victor threw up his hands in desperation, “Jawahar, aren’t you joking? Damn it, I am totally confused.”

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Fifty Percent Cutter

Fifty Percent Cutter

Babu Kutter got the fame as “50% cutter” in the new unit of Famous Expo Industry. The new unit of this company was in its project stage and obviously it had yet to breakeven and to start making profits.

The President of the unit was indoctrinated into Famous Expo’s very important dogma of thrift. Famous Expo was famous for its economy initiatives and managers of other organizations were deputed to Famous Expo to learn those tricks of the trade which saved enormous money for Famous Expo and earned for it one of the best profit figures in the industry.

The President of the unit had come up from the ranks in the company and swore by its principles of frugality. The motto of the company was, “Save wherever and whenever even remotely possible”.

The new unit of Famous Expo which was in its commissioning phase had employed people from various outside organizations. Therefore, they were yet not so conscious about the economy principles of the company.

Being a new unit, the activity of purchasing this thing or that thing was one of the highest order activities. All kinds of employees from all kinds of departments of the unit used to raise purchase requisitions for various materials required for the completion of the project. Absence of a budgeting system (the unit being new, this system was yet to be formulated for implementation) and absence of consumption norms (again, the unit being new) made it difficult to find out a basis for approval or disapproval of the quantities of materials requisitioned.

Yet, the President found out a way of controlling the incessant purchases by installing Babu Kutter in the unit’s budget control department. Babu Kutter was a carbon copy of the President at least in the matters of respecting money. He had earlier worked under the shadow of the President in company’s other units. The President was confident that Babu Kutter was a system in himself and that system had a way of controlling the expenses. The President himself did not know exactly how Babu Kutter used to control expenditure in the company; but he knew for sure that it worked thoroughly though it always remained an enigma to him. Yet…….

As soon as Babu Kutter was brought in the saddle, all the purchase requisitions started getting routed through Babu Kutter before they landed on the desks of the buyers of the unit. Babu Kutter invariably slashed down the quantities on the requisitions. For example, if a user department’s manager asked for purchase of say 100 kilograms of some material, he invariably was made to get a surprise by receiving only say sometimes 70 kilograms or other times say 65 kilograms. When enquired about the short purchases, the buyers would direct their fingers at Babu Kutter of budget control. When they asked Babu Kutter about it, he simply used to say, “Start working with 70 kilograms. Right now the funds are a bit of a problem. Whenever and if you feel the necessity for the rest 30 kilograms, you can always raise a supplementary purchase requisition.”

The user department’s initial reaction to this was, “Fair enough.” But soon they realized that this story of Babu Kutter was going on and on; short purchases became a rule. Short purchases were creating problems in the expeditious completion of their work. On the other hand constant pressure was created by the President all the time to expedite the project.

Whenever, the user managers took up this case of short purchases pointing out to Babu Kutter as the reason, the President used to laugh out and say, “Come on. He is doing his job. You should do yours.” And the matter died there.

Soon user departments learnt a new trick. They would inflate the figures of materials to be purchased by around 25% to 30% over and above what was actually needed, on the purchase requisition slips. And after the cut by Babu Kutter, they would finally receive exactly the quantities of materials they needed. Soon, people stopped complaining to Babu Kutter or the President.

Babu Kutter and the President were no fools. Stoppage of complaints from user managers alarmed them. They conferred with each other and secretly worked out a new system of budget control.

From that day onwards, Babu Kutter started cutting the quantities on the purchase requisitions by exactly half. He started applying his well tested formula of 50% cut. Babu Kutter’s job became simpler and more effective. He did not have to think about whether to cut 20% or 25% or 30% or any other percent, he had just one figure to apply i.e. 50%.

It created havoc amongst the user managers. But they could not do much about it. They had played a trick and now Babu Kutter played a trick. Tit for tat- nothing wrong about it. So, they ganged together to teach Babu Kutter a lesson. And soon an opportunity came their way.

The President had decided to shift from his make shift city project office to his new permanent factory office. The office needed furnishing and decoration befitting a president of a highly reputed and huge organization of the scale of Famous Expo. Unit’s administrative manager was in charge of this.

Administrative manager performed his job of furnishing the new factory office of the president meticulously.

And one fine day, the President wanted to inspect his new factory office and also inaugurate it formally before physically shifting there. All the heads of the departments of the unit along with their key subordinates including the administrative manager and Babu Kutter were invited to attend this inaugural ceremony.

The president cut the ribbon. Everyone present clapped. And the president entered the office along with all the invitees. The curtains in the office attracted his attention first before he could look at anything else. He noticed that all the curtains were half in length of the standard length really required of those curtains. All the curtains started from the ceiling alright but invariably abruptly ended somewhere in the middle of the window or middle of the wall. They looked like rags and incomplete.

He was furious. He was fretting and fuming. He looked at the administrative manager accusing him with his eyes gone red and watery, “What’s this joke?” He could not speak any more; he was feeling so very humiliated in front of so many of his subordinate employees.

The administrative manager said with a calm and quiet disposition, “Sir, I had asked for the full length curtains on my purchase requisition alright but I understand that Mr Babu Kutter cut it by 50% as an economy measure. That’s why.”

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Cool Initiative

Cool Initiative

During the worst worldwide recessionary time, lots of pain was felt by lots of people though some rich and famous were unaffected by it as usual since they had already transferred lots of money from others in their coffers through various creative means.

And in the plethora of pains among majority of people, the specks of funny absurdities could surely make one laugh occasionally and forget the pain momentarily.

This is what exactly happened in the Ultimo Efficacy Inc.

Ultimo Efficacy was doing pretty well and making good amount of money even in recession. But recession provided a great and valid excuse to many companies including Ultimo Efficacy to cut out even on the otherwise normal expenses of the corporation and get the employees at various levels to work in highly constrained conditions. Idea was that they would easily accept such a thing under the hoax of recession. Rather they would be happy doing it, feeling all the way like martyrs and would soon get habituated to it. That way even after the recession was over; they would not grudge the absence of perquisites, facilities and money withdrawn from them during recession.

So, Ultimo Efficacy which was already adept at converting threats into opportunities, used recession to suddenly impose one of the most important management principles i.e. cost reduction or cost control. Though they could have very well used cost reduction to their advantage even in non-recessionary or normal times of business but did not do it because at that time they were soaked in unimaginably high profits and cost control was thrown out of the windows as an obsolete management principle or unnecessary distraction.

They got reminded of cost control mainly to achieve the objectives enumerated in one of the earlier paragraphs. So, top management of the company issued out a circular to each and every employee which read as follows. The measures contained therein were addendum to the cost control that was already being exercised by the company through the customary layoff of employees practiced as a part of recession time ritual. The contents of cost control circular issued in Ultimo Efficacy are given below:

• Under compulsions of difficult circumstances of recession, all the employees at all the levels are requested to concentrate on cost reduction throughout the organization.
• In view of this company has decided to go slow on promotions and salary raises for the next two years; the budgets on this count are being slashed by 75%. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management got away with bigger packets of fat (underserved) salaries and obscenely high bonuses during these two years later on).
• Avoid travel. All the employees will travel by the cheapest modes of travel if travel is at all essential. It will be in the interest of the employees to walk if the distance travelled is at least 5 miles or below as you may be aware that walking is the best exercise to keep oneself fit and healthy. If any employee wishes to walk for over 5 miles, it will be highly appreciated. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management continued with their earlier habits of traveling by private or chartered aero planes or by the first class in commercial airlines and using limousines).
• Everyone will start using both the sides of the paper for writing. Pencils should be used to write rather than pens. The advantage of using pencil is that you can erase what is written by it and thus use the paper again and again. Company is glad to provide a pool of erasers for this purpose as an extra facility.

And the instructions in the circular went on and on.

Employees had a fun-day reading the circular and savoring its contents. It brought to them some momentary pleasure amidst the pain created due to bleak recessionary environment.

A particular junior officer Simple Simpson in company’s purchase department got hyper after reading the circular. He decided to contribute his might to the laudable company wide cost control efforts.

It was summer time and the region where Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s offices and factory were located; the summer could be very severe. So the employees were provided cool water to quench their thirst in such severe summer. The company used to provide many water coolers at different locations in the offices and factory premises. Every year company used to replace the worn out water coolers with the new ones. The purchase requisitions for replacement water coolers were made by the user departments and sent to purchase department. Simple Simpson in purchase department used to process the purchase requisitions of water coolers, contact the water cooler manufacturers and buy them.

However, in view of the cost control measures, Simple Simpson suggested to the user departments that instead of water coolers he proposed to buy the earthen pots. He had seen such earthen pots being used by the people who could not afford to buy refrigerators or water coolers, particularly in the poorer countries. The water filled in the earthen pots got cooled pretty fast and remained cool for unlimited period.

User departments were too happy to go along with this proposal of Simple Simpson. They thought that in doing so they too would thus contribute towards top management’s cost reduction plan. If price of a water cooler was equivalent of $350 to $400, price of an earthen pot would be mere $1 or so. The proposal had tremendous potential of cost reduction.

A total of 100 earthen pots were requisitioned. Simple Simpson started processing this requisition for purchase of earthen pots. He sent out enquiries, got the commercial terms from the makers of earthen pots, compared various quotes thus received and finally zeroed in on one supplier who offered the minimum price per earthen pot.

As per the formal authority delegation chart of the company, a junior officer at Simple Simpson’s level was not authorized to negotiate with the suppliers. Only his boss was authorized to do so. But Simple Simpson wanted to be true to his salt at least on this occasion. He wanted to respond to the call of cost reduction of top management all by himself. After all it was his suggestion to buy earthen pots in place of water coolers and save for company thousands of equivalent dollars. So, he decided to stick his neck out and decided to negotiate with the shortlisted supplier of earthen pots to get a still better deal from him.

The maker of the earthen pots did not reduce the price further but agreed to give away 20 earthen pots over and above the 100 on the purchase order. He mentioned that he had no use of those 20 pots and could as well give them away to Simple Simpson. Simple Simpson was mighty happy with his first stint at negotiations.

The 120 earthen pots were received by Simple Simpson and he got them positioned inside Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s premises. People liked the cool water of these earthen pots and employees at grass root levels appreciated the creative brains and efforts of Simple Simpson and the resultant enormous savings. Simple Simpson became a hero for the time being.

But his glory did not last long. The period during which these 120 earthen pots were purchased was the physical inventory checking period of the company as per its laid down systems. A sharp young auditor did an audit on the earthen pots. He had the numbers on the earthen pots on the material requisition slip reading at 100 and the same 100 number was found on the purchase order. But despite physically counting a number of times the physical inventory of earthen pots came to 120 on every count. Several hours over a few days were spent by the auditor in counting the earthen pots again and again because the physical count was not tallying with the numbers mentioned in the documents and he thought that he was making some mistake in counting. Finally he decided that the physical count did give him a figure of 120 earthen pots and he was not making any mistake in counting. As per him it was a serious audit discrepancy- how the company could have more material than what was ordered? That showed slack internal controls. Then after doing a detailed research on the causes of this discrepancy, he ultimately stumbled on the fact that the discrepancy was the outcome of the negotiations carried out by Simple Simpson. And that was another serious violation of internal controls since Simple Simpson had no business to negotiate with the suppliers as per company’s policies.

As per the auditor a number of violations of systems and procedures of the company were found in the transactions of earthen pots. He documented them in his formal written report as follows:

• As per the company requirements and budgets approved, water coolers were to be purchased and not the earthen pots. No approved or otherwise budget was available to purchase earthen pots. And there was no written authorization of any competent authority to authorize the purchase of earthen pots.
• Discrepancy was found in the number of earthen pots actually physically found in the company’s premises as against the ones requisitioned and ordered. It was a grave violation of the internal controls.
• On enquiry we found that Mr Simple Simpson who was in charge of processing the requisition insisted that he took all these actions as per the management’s directive of cost reduction. Therefore, he took initiative even to negotiate. This again is another violation. Company’s formal delegation of authority does not permit employees at Simpson’s level to take such decisions of purchase of earthen pots in place of water coolers on their own and also to negotiate, all by themselves, with the suppliers.

The audit observations were forwarded to the top management of the company. Top management was not used to getting such sort of audit reports.

Top management of the company felt terribly offended by such irregularities committed by its employee and ordered an enquiry against Simple Simpson. He was wondering as to what wrong did he do in saving such a lot of money for the company- he did not commit a fraud, he did not commit a crime, he did not squander company’s money, he did not take bribe- all he did was to take initiative and save money. And for this was he being pushed in front of the firing squad?

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Screwed-up Thinking Patterns

Screwed-up Thinking Patterns

(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

Mahima Styler was excessively high in her ambitions to become rich and famous in a very short time. Her formula to achieve her objectives was: “do it by hook or by crook”. She had very low opinion of the people who advocated the so called “value based” life and she hated them. For her, the new mindset was “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life”.

Her new mindset started getting firmed up when she did not get the grades she deserved in her undergraduate school days despite her being the most intelligent and diligent student in the class. Another classmate of hers who was definitely inferior to her in studies and intelligence overtook her when it came to getting awarded the final grades by the professors. This classmate of hers knew how to impress the professors by other means; she had a way to charm the professors who were mainly of male category of human species. And so, Mahima experienced this kind of failure in her undergraduate school time repeatedly. And then she migrated from “value based” paradigm to the new paradigms of “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life” and “do it by hook or by crook”.

Intelligent and hardworking she already was and now coupled this, were her new mindsets in action. She felt that now with her new approach towards life, she had started meeting successes after successes, pretty easily and with more surety. She had learnt the art of charming the male population around her in different ways and reaching her destinations faster than anyone else. And she was intelligent and hardworking, no doubt.

Her excessive ambitions did not allow her to start her professional career in a normal way, i.e. starting at a lower rung and then stepping up the higher rungs gradually. She wanted to reach the top of the ladder in just one high jump and sit there and rule.

So she took the route of doing MBA from a famous management institute whose ex-students were holding powerful positions in various reputed companies. She took a huge loan from a bank and sought admission by paying a very heavy sum towards the capitation fee required by the institute for the out of turn admissions. She did not want to go to a run of the mill school. She knew that an MBA from only such a famous institute would land her in a very high profile job with very handsome salary and she could pay off the loan in no time.

With her newly acquired beliefs, she could work out her charms and made sure that she topped her MBA batch leaving behind a large numbers of better than her students. While doing her MBA, rather than just wasting her time only on curriculum, she used her time networking with professors and ex-students of the college who were now the powerful men of various industries. That helped her in getting the highest grade in MBA and also bagging a prestigious job with an extraordinarily high designation and salary in a company of high repute.

People around her congratulated her on getting such a lucrative offer. She joined her new employer immediately after completion of her MBA course. Her very first job gave her a spacious cabin type office and even a personal assistant of her own. She was definitely an upstart the way she had dreamt of it all along. She got on famously with her boss who was an ex-student of her MBA school. He had also interviewed her in the school campus and apart from professional relationship, soon they developed an intimate personal relationship too.

However this association did not continue for a long period because her boss got transferred to an overseas assignment. That put a stop to their personally intimate association but they kept in touch via other communication channels .

A new boss took over. His name- Tez Dev. Well equipped with engineering and MBA degrees from moderately well known institutes, not necessarily the most reputed ones, he had climbed up the hierarchical ladder in the company starting as a junior manager and working his way pretty rapidly by his sheer intelligence, smart and hard work and value based working. He was a no-nonsense manager, quite demanding as far as the results were concerned and appreciated people if they followed value based clean business processes. He could not be easily tricked by sycophancy or by street smartness.

Mahima Styler found her new boss Tez Dev quite interesting and set out to win him more with her charms and also with her sharp mind though to a limited degree.

Tez Dev assessed Mahima to be a very capable lady. However, it did not take him many days to realize that Mahima was spending too much of her time in trying to please him by many other ways which could not be strictly called the professional ways. In the process, she was slipping on the work targets given to her.

As per her own assessment Mahima thought that she was progressing towards putting Tez in her pockets but the progress was far slower than what she had achieved with her earlier boss.

Days, weeks and months passed and Tez was pushing Mahima to the deadlines and results and Mahima was pushing him to start liking her as a person more than as a professional. Both were finding it hard to move forward in their efforts. Two years passed.

The promotion time came and Mahima was not promoted by Tez Dev. She was highly disappointed. Yet she continued with her efforts to please Tez Dev in her own ways. Tez Dev did not buy that nonsense.

Another promotion time came and Mahima lost out again. She was furious with Dev this time. People who she thought were inferior to her were getting promotions and she did not get any. She felt humiliated. How come Tez was ignoring her when every other male was always influenced by her positively? She decided to teach Tez Dev a lesson of his life.

Two years went by and this morning the police were handcuffing her in her own apartment. They had a warrant to arrest her for committing industrial espionage.

In these two years many significant events took place which finally led to the arrest of Mahima. Her earlier boss had joined the competitor company whose line of business was the same as his earlier company where Mahima Styler continued working. Rejected by Tez Dev, Mahima set out her new mission of teaching him a lesson. She wanted to destroy Tez professionally and personally. She needed to work closely with her previous ex-boss to achieve this. So she met her ex-boss and started intimate association with him once more.

Of late Dev was working on a top secret project of the company. It was related to the product development of a revolutionary new product from the company. Mahima got the hang of it. And soon she started passing on all the secret information to her ex-boss with whom she had re-established her personal intimate relationship. Her ex-boss was mighty happy- he was getting very valuable information from the competitor company and he would use it to his professional advantage in his new company plus he had Mahima for the bonus; he was a much married man though. So, he went along with Mahima; he had nothing to lose. This continued for nearly two years. The company secrets were being transferred to the competitor by Mahima Styler.

Tez Dev was a very observant person. He felt that someone was shuffling the papers in his office in his absence from the office though very carefully so as not to leave any trace of it. So, his sharp mind made him to probe into it further. He alarmed the senior company security officers to be on the alert twenty four hours. And one night when Mahima was going through the secret papers in the cabin of Tez, she was caught red-handed by the security chief. With adequate proof of charge of industrial espionage against Mahima, the company lodged a complaint with the police authorities.

And this morning Mahima Styler was arrested.

Related Book

"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

Other Related Reading

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Novels and Stories

Novel "The Peace Crusaders" http://peacecrusaders.blogspot.com

Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://funny-shortstories.blogspot.com/

Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/

Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories: Grandeur of a Strategic Plan (The Sabotage)

Grandeur of a Strategic Plan (The Sabotage)

(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

It’s about Youngistan. It’s around the time when Youngistan- a developing nation- was making remarkable progress economically. Eyes of the whole world got focused on this country. It was fast emerging as the new and dominant player in the world economy.

The country had the highest population of young people on the earth, percentage wise (though the name Youngistan was given to this country hundreds of years before this phenomenon actually took place). The new generation people of the country were enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and creative. They desired to conquer the world. They were setting up for themselves lofty ideals to achieve.

One such young generation leader and dreamer was Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation, one of the few automotive companies of Youngistan. The company was engaged in manufacturing and selling various variants of cars and trucks. He set out a brand new vision for his organization. He wanted the company to design a people’s car that everyone on the earth could afford. As per him every family on earth should possess a car just like everyone should possess a graduate degree and a mobile phone.

With the existing designs of cars and the price tags on them, it felt as if cars were meant only for some limited classes of human beings. And others who were not a part of those classes of human beings should not be able to afford to buy and maintain a car. It was one important strategy adopted by those shrewd people of the world who wanted to make sure that the class differences are maintained so that one class of people always remained superior to others and always ruled the inferior ones.

But CEO Yul Bright was made of different and brand new cerebral material. As soon as he took over the reins of Auto Delight Corporation, he started using his unique cerebral elements. He put forth his ideas to the heads of the departments of his company, “Our company will do a great service to the entire humanity of this earth if we can give to each family on the earth a right to buy a four wheeler which can be used for the entire family. That will increase the safe and fast mobility and therefore, comfort, effectiveness and efficiency of each family. It will also give them a sense of moving to places together as a family. It will facilitate growth of those people who are deprived of all of this because they cannot afford to buy and maintain the existing types of cars. If you agree with me, put together your minds to conceptualize, design, develop, manufacture and sell such a car. It should be damn good in efficiency, functionality, looks and most important- it should be easy on pocket- it should be dirt cheap. We will meet here in this conference room at the same time exactly after a week. Please share your ideas with me then.”

And then they met and set out the objective of giving such a gift to the people of the world. They set out a period of three years to achieve it.

Within one year, the blue prints of the wonder car were already shaped into a prototype. The prototype was thoroughly tested for all the standard and mandatory parameters in the company’s test laboratories and test tracks and also on the real roads against all types of terrains, loads and distances etc. The prototype was certified as fully capable and successful. It was ready to be mass manufactured.

Under the guidance of Yul Bright, the company decided to set up a brand new factory to roll out these cars. Around this time Bright made the formal announcements about bringing out such a car in the world market within next eighteen months. The press lapped up the news and it spread as breaking news in all kinds of media all over the world. The car’s price was fixed marginally more than a two wheeler’s price. It was declared as the cheapest car of the world that every family on the earth could afford to possess. It was termed as “car revolution” by the automobile experts.

That evening four sets of people got busy.

First set of people, obviously, consisted of the potential customers of the cheapest car and their families who got busy dreaming about possessing the car. Otherwise, they could have never dreamt of possessing a car in their life.

Second set of people were the politicians in power in each state of Youngistan. They started working out strategies to woo this project for their states. They were busy working out the allotment of land for this project in their state and offering various attractive business incentives to Auto Delight Corporation. Each head of the state wanted to have this new factory of the cheapest car of the world in his state. It would definitely benefit the people of that state and more important- also the politician and his political party.

Third set of people were the local automotive companies of Youngistan- the local competitors of Auto Delight Corporation. Their top bosses’ first thought was how to meet the competition thrown up by the people’s small car project and the second thought was soaked with sinister intentions of how to sabotage the project of Auto Delight Corporation.

Fourth set of people were the international players in the world’s automobile business. They too were busy thinking seriously. Their smooth sailing dominance of so many years was suddenly threatened by the advent of this cheapest car of the people. They were quite disappointed with themselves realizing why they could not think of such a project beforehand? And their line of thinking of how to meet the competition and how to sabotage Auto Delight’s plan was no different than the line of thinking of Youngistan’s other local auto manufacturers.

And the most sinister plan developed.

A smart top level executive of one of the local competitor companies started coordinating with all the interested agencies. We will call this smart top level executive “Mr X” in order to keep the secrecy. Willy-nilly, Mr X also became the leader of the crusade whose objective was to stall the cheapest car of Auto Delight Corporation. He contacted many multinational automobile company CEOs and also the CEOs of the local automobile manufacturers. Likeminded they already were and so, it was easy to form a cartel between them. A huge pool of money was created by the contribution of all the members of this crusade. There would be heavy expenses involved in this kind of sabotage and they soon got ready with the required finances. Mr X was also coordinating in a very secret manner with the political chiefs of various political parties of Youngistan. The plan could not have been executed without the active support and involvement of local politicians.

The central theme of the plan to be developed by the cartel was that every member of the plan as well as the participating politicians must get benefitted in enormous proportions either in kind or in cash. And the entire plan must be kept a top level secret.

The plan worked out with finesse and perfection.

As per the plan, the chief of one political party had a meeting with Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation and invited him to commission his new factory in his state. He offered him as much land as he needed for the factory and also extremely attractive business incentives that no other state could even think of offering. In turn, the political chief of the state was enormously compensated in cash and kind for his this act of benevolence from the cartel’s common finance pool.

The construction of the factory started and was completed within fourteen months.

In this intervening period local and international automobile companies of the cartel had aligned themselves with each other to form alliances and collaborations and thus they got themselves organized to bring out their own small and cheap cars of the people. The competition among them was kept to the barest minimum. But they needed some more time to design and manufacture their respective wonder cars.

So around the time Yul Bright was ready to start rolling out the small cars from his newly commissioned factory, as per the master plan of the cartel, Mr X got the chief of the opposition political party in the state to start and lead an agitation against the production of the cars from the factory. The chief of the opposition political party was enormously compensated in cash and kind for leading the agitation from the cartel’s common finance pool. The opposition leader alleged that the land was forcibly grabbed from the residents of that place and allotted to Auto Delight Corporation under false promises of good amount of compensation against their lots of land and an assured employment to the members of the families who originally owned the lots of land. However, in reality none of this was happening; none of the promises were being executed. What was being offered to the local residents in lieu of the lots of their land was pittance. They wanted much more. Massive support to this agitation was bought by Mr X by paying very decent amounts to each of the thousands of agitators. Agitators under the leadership of the political chief of the opposition party became violent and physically manhandled many of the executives of the factory and made sure that they could not enter the factory premises. The work inside the factory came to a complete halt. Not a single car got produced.

Yul Bright got a shock of his life. He conferred with the political chief of the state to solve the issues and problems. It was state’s responsibility to deal with the local residents as per the agreement between the state government and Auto Delight Corporation. But Yul Bright found out soon that the state’s political chief’s approach towards solving this suddenly created problem became quite lukewarm; now he was not demonstrating the kind enthusiasm that he had displayed while inviting Bright to build his factory in the state. Yul Bright was highly disappointed by his reactions. The chief of the state said, “I am really very sorry Mr Bright. Someone in my administration has goofed up badly. In the larger interest of my state now, I may not be in a position to intervene as forcefully as I would have done otherwise.”

The agitation continued for two long months. Factory remained closed. Life of the executives of the factory was constantly under threat from the local residents- the agitators. Not a single car got assembled.

Having waited for two months without getting any satisfactory solution, finally Yul Bright took the toughest decision of his life- close this plant in this state and look out for another venue either in other states of Youngistan or even in any other country. He mentioned that it would mean delaying the project of the cheap wonder car by some eighteen months. He announced it formally. It was breaking news in the entire media of the world.

That evening members of the cartel were enjoying a gala party in a seven star hotel with abundance of finest wines flowing recklessly. Now they would be in position to roll out their versions of the cheap cars ahead of the cheap car of Auto Delight Corporation. They had bought sufficient time for it. Their businesses were saved; nah, their businesses would now flourish like nobody’s business.

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"Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online)

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