Dilemma of a CEO!!!

I have been meaning to write this for so long.

A new CEO was appointed for a 70 years old company. The company had always been a very profitable venture. 

However, off late, several troubles had been brewing. The year on year growth in the revenue has been below the estimated numbers. Management decisions have been questionable at best. Different employee unions were always at war with each other. Several departments have started to operate as an independent entity with no concern whatsoever to the well being of the parent company. Some employees have also been rumored to sell confidential internal information to competitive companies for various incentives. One particular manager even had the audacity to have his wife fill in for him, while he was incarcerated on a scam.

The past three CEOs have been from the same family. Hence, a lot of key management personnel were from within their family. In fact, a lot of subsidiaries were being held by various persons loyal to the previous CEOs. Various key decision-making persons from different departments were appointed by, and hence loyal to them. Several loss-making companies were inorganically absorbed, and the corrupt officers taken in good position or offered a hefty severance package!

The stakeholders, several lakhs, were ill-informed about the internal politics but displeased with the general state of the affairs of the company.

Furthermore, the structure of the company was indecipherable with no accounting for who is responsible for whom. In addition to the direct reporting structure, because of different loyalties, there were several indirect reporting structures as well.

And the best part? Nothing properly documented. Blatant scams going on in different subsidiaries, in different departments, across various levels of management. Several fake employee IDs withdrawing salaries for several decades. Some fake IDs even collected their retirements benefits as well. :)

Now the task facing the new CEO was:

A) How to put a new structure in place?

B) How to get everyone to accept the proposed new changes?

C) How to trim the un-necessary manpower placed by the previous CEOs without creating a mass hysteria? How to let go of Non-Performing Assets?

D) How to reduce the dependence on the majority of components being outsourced and how to inculcate internal problem-solving abilities?

E) How to combat the internal friction between the different departments and unions and to impress on them the need to follow a similar set of rules and regulations?

The major challenge being, how to do all of that when the internal structure has become so corrupt. Any new change introduced is met with a vehement disapproval from the employee unions, even if it were a change for their benefit. All because, the loyalists to previous CEOs were so deeply interspersed within the ranks.

The choices with the new CEO are simple:

A) Brave all the odds and the shouts from the unions. Be prepared to get hated but take the moral high road and think of the benefits to the company masses and shareholders.

B) Let the things continue as before, and accept own kickbacks.

If you were in the shoes of the new CEO, what would you have done?

Anna Hazare - A beacon of hope or A mirage of desperation?

In light of recent events, with Anna 'ji' Hazare fasting unto death (I hope not!); I started googling to get a view on what the blogosphere thinks about the God Man.

Following are some of the snippets of the articles which I got from the net and their links have been provided alongside for purview of the complete article.

1) A Request to Anna Hazare from a Corrupt Indian

As a Corrupt Indian, who has got Driving License, Passport, Registered sale deeds, Registered FIRs with police for accident insurance etc, I make this request to Anna Hazare.

Sir, Look around you. Every one around you is corrupt or have been tolerant of corrupton in their own way. Don't fast unto death for creating one more institution, one more policeman. We cannot keep monitoring ourselves. Our institutions need to be transparent and people need to be honest to some extent. That's the only way we can fight corruption. Let's all fight for it.

2) Anna Hazare – An Indian Hitler Or Don Quixote?

If Cervantes, the Spanish author who created Don Quixote four hundred years ago visits India today, he would be amused to see the ruckus being created by Anna Hazare. However, he will be aghast how his character could go out of control and create the current mass hysteria sweeping the Indian continent, unless he digs up why Adolph Hitler could whip up something similar in the pre war Germany.

3) Why Anna Hazare Is Not India’s Arab Spring

If the government gives way on the ambit of the anticorruption bill, chances are Hazare will, too, and his planned hunger strike that is the focal point for the marching thousands will not proceed. It is all significant, to be sure, but these are not demands or differences that are going to change how most people in India are governed, regardless of how it turns out. Whether Hazare or the government prevails, the result should still be a positive for the transparency of Indian democracy though perhaps with a slight difference of degree.

4) Why I’d rather be Anna than Arundhati

There was an article in The Hindu today by Arundhati against the movement for Janlokpal, she’s eloquent as usual, and she misses the point, pretty much as usual. In this article I am trying to talk about the points she raised and hopefully when we are done we might have a broader perspective of this movement than what Arundhati has projected.

Arundhati’s most important gripe seems to be that the people in the movement are raising slogans like – (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hindi. Would she prefer if they said (a) India Hai Hai (b) Indian govt murdabad (c) Jeeve-jeeve Pakistan, when they come out on the streets to demand that the Indian government creates a better system for our people?

5) Why Some Are Not Anna

If there is anyone in today’s India that would receive more scorn than the pedophile and the baby-murderer, it is he who does not provide the fullest support to Anna Hazare and his Jan Lok Pal campaign. So much as express a smidgen of doubt about the “Second Independence Struggle” and be prepared to be digitally and socially mauled, unfriended, unfollowed, drawn, quartered and subject to death by a thousand cuts. “Congress agent” “Traitor” “Jealous of Anna Hazare’s success” “I cannot believe you are the same person I once respected” and “What have you done for the country? I am bunking work and sending SMS and have you done that?” are just some of the more polite responses you should expect to encounter should you not be a member of “100000 Indians in support of Anna Hazare”. This invective is ironic considering that Team Anna and its supporters, being so zealously possessive of their rights of dissent (and rightfully too), would be expected to give others the right to disagree without making them run the gauntlet.

PS: I will keep on updating this post as and when I get newer ideas or images on the topic.