case study

Mr. K.P Bakophaid, 69, a high profile investor who during his lifetime had

accumulated millions in investments, particularly in the Microsoft shares in the 80s

and then in a repeat of his talent to spot the gold brought Google shares cheap at $1 a

share with now the shares quoting $563 per share and his long time friend Mr. j k

sinha, 65 just retired CEO of the famed PELIANCE group had been for a while

contemplating for a move to establish a start up in IT sector as both the gentlemen

were very bullish about the sector in the Indian space.

Their thoughts were put down to work as with favorable developments at the

macroeconomic level both pledged their funds together to start a IT start up

MACROHARD INDIA LTD, a BPO film having primary applications in the back

office jobs of banking and investment banking sector of the US and EUROPE.

With this they appointed Mr. Rajiv Negad, 39 and IIM-A pass out. He had till that

time established himself as an expert in system analysis with a prime acumen of

business networks having earlier worked with Goldman sacs in its Hong Kong

division. He jumped at the opportunity to be the CEO of the start up.

1 YEAR LATER

MACROHARD had notched up a reasonable success in its limited space and were

looking like they were heading in the right directions.

In the mean time they hired Ms Neha Kakkar, an attractive 25 year old who was also

like the CEO, a pass out of IIM-A. She was a hard working employee and a really
bright prospect who had the right ideas and confidence. Also her most important asset

was her ability to gel with her colleges well.

Over time there developed goof professional repot between Mr.Rajiv and Neha as it

was evident with the fact that Mr.Rajiv was really impressed with the work ethics of

his new employee. In the company there also worked adebayor, a hard working

employee. Originally from Nigeria he also was a good disciplined worker who did his

job well. Neha kakkar was really rising through the ranks of her job fast.

Once Neha had this really bright idea of taking the company to the next level with her

idea of venturing in to the credit card processing in the US and also she was quick to

spot a potential threat in the form of a competitor taking away their business and for

that she wanted to discuss with Rajiv, her boss, for which he asked her to come to the

canteen to discuss this issue over a cup of coffee.

Apparently this discussion now happened quite frequently and because the issue was a

bit negative with the news of falling profits and competitors, Rajiv asked Neha not to

discuss it now with her coworkers as he felt it might have negative repercussion. 3

weeks into this discussion Neda was again promoted as there was an urgent need to

do it.

This wasn’t taken well by her co workers who thought that she was rather using her

good looks in making Rajiv do as she wished. This was apparently being discussed

and spread around as rumors by 3 people in particular nitin, venkat, and karan who

were spreading all sorts of rumors around. There was this further issue that adebayor

an equally hard working candidate wasn’t promoted when Neha was. In this regard
adebayor was apparently miffed and sought an explanation from Rajiv who responded

that he didn’t had that charisma and forward looking skills and therefore he will have

to wait a little bit more time for his promotion. But in this regard an argument ensured

between the two, the news of which spread around the workplace.

There was now an open talk that Rajiv was showing favoritism toward Neha and

everyone wasn’t being treated well. Initially Rajiv ignored this talk. Being a proud

manager who thought that since he was not actually doing anything wrong, that

should be enough-people will recognize it. Or since he wasn’t actually guilty, he

believed that he just doesn’t need to defend himself further. Lastly, he also thought

that since he was the boss people will anyway come to respect his decisions.

But then in the mean time situations worsened. There was a gradual loss of

productivity. Resentment built quickly with favoritism being suspected. Resentment

quickly become bitterness and bitterness lead to all sort of behavior which created

problems for company.

Rajiv now really disturbed with the recent developments in the company, quickly

sought advice from his Human Resource manager Mr. Sachintendulkar to get the

situation back to normal as quickly as possible as in the highly competitive IT

industry he didn’t want his company to miss out on potential opportunities just

because of a simple perception problem.