[Originally published on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/office-diaries-when-analogy-marriage-ceremony-saved-day-srivastava/
Some 16 years back, I retired after 34 years of service. During my career, after spending about a quarter of professional-life in Research & Development, I opted to be transferred to the Business Development wing. Here, I headed business operations of a division which was a pioneer in development of indigenous know-how and production and marketing of a group of 8 speciality-chemicals called catalysts and other chemicals which were widely used in the Industry. I will be describing real-life situations and what lessons future managers may learn.
Every organization has a typical working culture, operating system, ethos and conventions. Many times things are not properly defined and discretion plays an important role, by both seniors and juniors, to a lesser extent. It gives birth to an unfair playing field for too ambitious and smart players…. generally called office-politics.
This is the 5th article in the series. See others at:
Not giving up till the last (Nov 18, 2020)
Excess of everything is back (Nov 24, 2020)
What all is written in the equipment-manuals, take it with a pinch of Salt ! (December 4, 2020)
The Need for Common Sense (Dec 14, 2020)
When I was still in service, I had a close friend and batch-mate, whom I would like to call Mr. “ A “), who was a very senior professional and acknowledged in the process industries as an expert in Non Destructive Testing (NDT). He was heading the Inspection Department, which was responsible for quality assurance and certification of all equipment , high pressure vessels, static and moving equipment etc. for multi- stage and final-stage inspection, for all purchases for the clients and for our company’s own supplies for turn-key projects , worth hundreds of thousands of Crores of Indian rupees’ supplies.
He was supported, in his department, by a team of dozens of professionals and specialists drawn from various streams of engineering, materials’ scientists, physicists, chemists and others. Some had doctorate and masters degrees from reputed institutions, while the freshers had graduate degrees and some had diploma in engineering, with 2-3 years of experience in the trade. Many diploma holders were trying to up-grade their qualification by taking higher courses in evening classes or postal or online courses. During their struggle to balance the office-duty and higher-studies sometimes they fumbled. These junior field-workers had a routine of daily client’s floor-visits to witness the tests performed in the first half of the day and report to the department in the second half, about the jobs completed, failures observed, schedule of next day or other urgent affairs. Only the head of the department was authorized to sign the final inspection-report and certification as per the relevant standards of the Organization / Indian/ British or any other International standards. Mr. A was a known task-master, thorough of the ins and out of the trade and hard-administrator. He also had an ASNT (American Society of Non-destructive Testing) certified level III professional Certificate, a coveted honor which very few had in India at that period of time.
On one fine afternoon, just after lunch, Mr. A rushed to me and asked me to plead his case. He was accused of passing an official and important secret document to an unauthorized person without prior permission of the Management. His case was before the Disciplinary Committee set-up by the Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) to probe the case and recommend penalty to be imposed, if found at fault. In serious cases, it may lead to termination of the job, leave aside the loss of name and reputation in the organization and the Industry.
The first meeting of the Disciplinary Committee was to be held the next day in the late morning hours. I asked Mr. A to describe to me the full and true story. In this case, certain documents had been seized by office security from an outsider who was a proprietor of a medium sized reputed technology company supplying equipment to some major projects and had close working professional link with A..The documents were seized by the security at the ‘out-gate’ , without a gate-pass and the out-sider had, during the interrogation, took the name of Mr. A as a source of obtaining it.
It so happened that a group of 4 or 5 low-ranked freshers of Mr. A’s department, who had a running-tiff with him, because of his admonishing them on professional-counts or dereliction of duty, had found an opportunity to settle the scores with Mr A. They smelled of the visit of the outsider to Mr A and had seen him taking-out the documents from steel-almirah in the department and also the outsider carrying the document out from the department. Some of them tipped the security and the documents were seized. These freshers also offered to serve as a witness from prosecuter’s side, before the committee against Mr. A.
I did my thorough home-work. In the Inspection Department, the sitting arrangement was such that the seniors and juniors - all would sit in an open big hall. Junior’s seats were in the front rows and the seniors in the back rows. The head of the department sat in the last row, just before the wall and storage steel-almirah. What I observed was that the sight between the seats of two freshers (who were prosecutor witnesses) and that of Mr. A was not clear since it had a concrete-pillar in between. To see something happening at Mr. A’s seat, they were required to move a minimum of 2-3 feet in either of the directions and look back. The other remaining two had seats with a clear view but they must swing and look backward 180 degree to witness the dealings between Mr. A and the visiting outsider. In an ordinary situation, it was not possible by any of them to see and figure-out what was happening at Mr. A’s table, as the crow-flying distance must be 25-30 feet. It was possible only in the situation when every witness was pre-informed about what was going to happen next moment and they were all prepared to witness looking at the back of their head simultaneously, as is normally done during Indian marriage ceremonies of ‘Jaimaal’, when the bride and the groom exchange the garlands.
When I pleaded with my above said arguments before the disciplinary committee next day, it cracked the prosecution’s theory and my friend Mr. A was set free of all charges but with a formal warning to be more cautious in future in his dealings with outsiders.
In office-politics, pull your strings with most care and caution as nobody is a permanent friend.