DON’T jump to conclusions

Don’t jump to conclusions!!!

Mandar Chitre

First published in 2016 Second Edition published in 2017 by Becomeshakespeare.com Wordit Content Design & Editing Services Pvt Ltd Unit - 26, Building A-1, Nr Wadala RTO, Wadala (East), Mumbai 400037, India T:+91 8080226699 Copyright © 2017 by Mandar Chitre All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. © ISBN : 978-93-86487-10-0 Printed at Repro Knowledgecast Limited, Thane

Contents

1.  The Car

13

2.  The Real Risk

33

3.  Somebody Is Watching

54

4.  The New Dawn

77

5.  Run Boy, Run

101

6.  You Were Born To Do It

127

7.  Still Good

150

8.  Grand Leader Parents

178

9.  A Slap On Her Face

207

3

Foreword

I have read many books on leadership & management. It is certainly a vast subject which is continuously evolving for development of the human capital. Across the globe, authors are working on adding innovative ways of developing talent. ‘Don’t Jump To Conclusions’, is certainly a good read. I like the idea of learning through reflections, with the base of storytelling. The stories of this book are thought provoking. The idea of reading only one story at a time & getting into a thinking mode is certainly going to help the readers. It is difficult but not impossible to think positive during failures. It is a critical phase where you will need to take tough decisions. Life will always have challenges & you need to be strong enough to handle failures positively. The stories in this book have demonstrated some of these fundamentals very nicely. Mandar Chitre has been an old friend. I appreciate his noble attitude & innovative way of helping others. He is confident that the readers will be able to take benefit from this book in the business world. Not just business, but even in the personal life, Mandar’s book will help to develop, grow & spread happiness. I wish for success to all the readers of this book & to Mandar for achieving his mission. Manish Chopra Senior Vice President Global Risk Leader

5

Dear Reader,

The book ‘Don’t jump to conclusions’ is a book written for everybody. We all face difficult situations. Things don’t happen the way we want them to be. Life takes a turn & our plans get disturbed. At such times, we react. The reactions are strong. Then we pass judgements & reach a conclusion. All our further actions now are dictated by our conclusions. We forget our main path & divert to another road which is not to be taken or will never lead to the desired destination. When we don’t want to carry an umbrella, we look at the sky & conclude that it will not rain. In most such cases, we end up getting wet. The mood is spoilt. We curse ourselves. Anger leads to production of negative thoughts. They change our motivation levels. We then ensure that our work gets affected. Not just work, but even relationships get affected. Such examples are very common. Most of us are aware that such conclusions end up in problems. But as human beings we keep making mistakes. Though we may not become perfect but we can at least ensure that the major decisions of our life are not based on mistakes leading to wrong conclusions. Even when some good things happen, we pass judgements, leading to conclusions & start taking others for granted. This can sometimes lead to sorrow due to high expectations. Therefore in both good & bad situations jumping to conclusions may not be always the best thing to do. 7

Don’t jump to conclusions!!!

Leadership Stories I appreciate your interest in reading books about leadership. As the author of this book, I want to contribute in shaping your life & towards improving your thought process. With nearly two decades of corporate experience, I want to ensure that you do not make mistakes commonly made. If you read this book and follow a particular process, I am confident it will lead to a positive change in your life. I will also advise you to help others. This will certainly increase your learning, and that can be extremely helpful for self-improvement. It will give you a strong feeling of satisfaction as well as polish your skills and transform you into an inspirational leader. Good leaders do not create followers they only build more leaders. I have learnt this from my ex-boss and can never forget that after all we are remembered only for our good deeds. Designations, authorities and positions - all these are temporary. It is the relationship that remains for a longer period and helps you during a period of despondency and failures. The Story Learning Concept I thank you for choosing this book which contains fictional stories on leadership. It is about people who faced challenges. They suffered a bit, but had the capacities to come up with solutions & finally win the race. As children, all of us have learnt so much through stories. ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ is what you learnt from the story of the hare and the tortoise. ‘The Thirsty Crow’ taught you to add pebbles to the pot containing water at an unreachable level. We are sure that all those who are paying EMIs can relate to this story. Even a small mouse could help the lion go free from the hunter’s net. Each story had 8

Don’t jump to conclusions!!!

a moral for learning the fundamental lessons that experiences in life teach us. . My idea is to continue this effective childhood learning style. The concept is the same for my book. I suggest that you read each story and think about it. Try to relate it to your life. Check if you are currently facing a similar problem or have been in a similar situation in the past. The problems are not difficult, but people are unable to see light at the other end of the tunnel. If you just sit back, relax and let your thoughts follow, solutions are sure to surface. The trick is to ask the right questions after reading each story and be a good reader. It will open your mind with solutions automatically evolving. Solutions offered in my stories may not be the best and I am sure that you will come up with far better ones. But it is important to generate a thought process in the right direction. The Game of Life Sometimes I feel that life is a game of Snakes & Ladders. Nobody can ever remove the snakes. They will always be there. Try to stay away as much as possible, but a few of them will still do their job by pulling you down. The solution is very simple. You have to keep a close watch on them. My book does not provide solutions against the existence of snakes but it will certainly help you convert ladders into springs. The springs will help accelerate your growth and repair the harm done by the snakes. A few right springs can lead to a jumpstart. Once you get used to the springs, those snakes will no longer matter. I always wanted to write a book but couldn’t think of a good subject. While counselling others I realised that so 9

Don’t jump to conclusions!!!

many people in this corporate world are unable to see the dangers approaching and eventually end up wiping out their own existence from an organisation. In the current business scenario, all jobs are somewhat unsecured. If you say “no” to your boss, s/he will soon find somebody who will do it better than you and that too on a lower paypacket. Flow of information due to improved technology is faster. All businesses will need continuous improvements. This generates the need to make changes. Changes bring ups and downs that can lead to the addition or deletion of job profiles. A sudden shifting of gears in an organisation leads to instability, that employees find difficult to handle. This book is all about those leaders who faced difficulties, and managed to conquer them and then worked hard to succeed. The book has nine short stories. Each story contains a unique challenge and has a Lesson that can be carried forward. My Suggestions For the reader of this book, it is important to read only one story at a time. Then it is important to ponder and assess if the solution implied and suggested by the story’s Lesson can be utilized and applied. Make some notes on the end of each story. it is finally your decision to choose the best solution. All stories are fictional and resemblance of any kind would be sheer coincidence.

10

I dedicate this book to my bosses, friends, competitors and colleagues who taught me the good, the bad, the ugly and even some evil things. Their contribution to my life has been extremely important. Also special thanks to my wife, son, parents, sister, nephew and niece, to whom I could not give sufficient time. As part of the CKP Chamber of Commerce & Industries, I sincerely recommend this book to all budding businessmen and professionals. I thank the entire Wal-plast family for their significant contribution and for teaching me many important lessons.

Story 1 – The Car It was a happy Friday afternoon and everybody in the office was focused on making weekend plans. This usually happens in a well-established, technically advanced multinational , where people sometimes work if they get  time from gossiping and browsing the net. Highly overstaffed and well defined processes with customers coming back for superior technology makes life at the workplace easy and comfortable. Five-star stays, frequent flier miles, couple of training programs every year, luxury cars etc., are features common to top employees. Costcutting or cost-reduction is not in the picture at all. Life is a piece of cake for these employees. Most of them aren’t ambitious enough and happily participate in the low stress work activities followed by mouth-watering company lunches, desserts, tea breaks and a peaceful life. These people are are called “soft-toys of the corporate world.” Ravi was not a soft toy. He was extremely ambitious and gunning to move up towards the top-most chair. He took extra efforts to increase business. His energy and efforts were recognised by the bosses who had just 13

Don’t jump to conclusions!!!

promoted him from assistant sales manager to the head of the Logistics Department. Ravi was part of the ambitious cross functional job rotation project designed for specially chosen talented employees. He usually spent Friday afternoons in planning the next week. The trip to Delhi needed a lot of pre-work. The case was complicated and it would need lots of negotiations to convert the problem into an amicable solution. Dedication was his middle name and he always thought that nothing could change his attitude and ambition to reach the top. Sometimes the biggest boss of the world, the Almighty, plays a game with us just to check if we are strong or weak. This is exactly what happened to our story’s hero. “Ping” was the sound followed by an email from the HR department. It came with a special tag, which indicates the changes in policy and has reference to the HR manual. Friday afternoon was the best time to send critical emails on policies that may generate reactions from employees. They always believe that most of the employees do not check emails on Friday afternoons and even if they did, the effect could cool down a little over the weekend. For active employees, such emails are a “first to see” types. Ravi quickly went through it, read it carefully word by word and got a 440 volt shock that made him fall from his chair. ‘How can they do it?, are they idiots?’, he thought. As he read it once again, the picture became crystal clear. His mind turned blank. The whole world came to a stand-still. Sometimes it happens that tears roll, but only inside; the heart bleeds but blood doesn’t ooze outside. This email brought extreme pain to Ravi for whom life was over and he started to hate the company. It was a disaster and a 14

The car

decision taken by the HR and policy committee without giving any thought or consideration to repercussions. His next big worry was how to inform the family and would they be able to take the shock. “Will the son still respect his father? What will the mother-in-law say?” “His status in the housing society will dip very low,” so many thoughts started to run through his mind. For readers let me make it clear that Ravi had not been sacked. It was just a minor change in the car policy of the  company that did not affect more than 10% of the company’s employees. The ROCE was in trouble. ROCE is Return On Capital Employed by the promoters of the company based in Europe. Their expectations from India and China were very high. The pressure was to ensure better returns from these countries. This was a simple change which seemed to be logical and in line with industry norms. The company offered a vehicle to the top three levels of the managerial grade. Each level had been offered a car of a certain value. Once you got a company car, it was replaced with a new one every five years. During these five years, even if you were promoted to the next level, your car would be replaced only after five years. Then you could opt for the next level car as per the promotion. If not promoted and in the same grade, it was just a replacement of the same car model. The company’s managing director had a five year term and the new managing director decided that the car policy was important to retain the top performing employees but it was not necessary to spend more in the non-sales category. This would help ease pressure on the ROCE. The sales team travels more and visits customers, therefore it 15

‘Amazing & heart-warming stories which will lead to a positive change in your life’ This book contains nine stories. Each story could help you answer the following questions which are or could be bothering you. • Is the company policy unfair & possibly affecting your personal life ? • Are you facing difficulties while handling contract workers ? • How to expose a corrupt manager who is bleeding the company ? • How to win when you have lost your job, messed up family & no future ? • What to do when a crime syndicate is working close or parallel to your company ? • Have you recognised your core competence & tried to develop it ? • How to handle a horrible boss, tough market & win the game ? • How to grow in an organisation with dirty politics & win against the big guys ? • What are the effects of greed & how to break out of it ? A good read for getting some right thoughts in case these situations come up in the future.

Genre: Business & Economics : Management - General

260 $8