IMR JAN 2013 - Indira Institutes

Seth Consultantsvouch for from my personal experience; Imyself have conducted a number ofrefresher courses for various corporateclients. Since all of us, or at least most of you,have qualified, passed and obtained variousproject management certifications, we maybe able to become a certifying agencyourselves or failing that we can at leastfacilitate people who want to obtain thesame – for a fee of course. Now if we considerthe number of persons who might needthese types of certifications, I am sure thatyou can estimate for yourselves that themarket size is potentially hundreds or eventhousands of crores. I want each and everybusiness and department at each of ourlocations to develop and run at least onesuch certification programme in the nextone year, preferably during the lean seasonnext year."Predictably the MD's announcements led tosome furore among employees even thoughthey were careful to discuss these mattersonly in private.Conversations (Cont'd)GY: What a joker. Saw the presentation hemade? He can't make a decent set of slidesand he claims to have run certificationprogrammes?L: (Hesitantly) Maybe someone else madethe slides for him.Y: That is alright. That is what W says. Hesays that he doesn't make slides. He evensays that he has other people to do suchthings. But just look at the quality of his(W's) slides. If other people make the slidesyou should at least check before using theslides, and I remember that he (MD) saidthat he had made the slides himself.L: Fair enough. (Sighs)Y: (sarcastically) What? Lost yourenthusiasm?L: Remember what he said? “Some points youmight want to consider during your leave”.You know what the translation is? “Some ofyou might want to start searching for a newjob!”V: That is a good input!L: And that's not all. Did either of you get theunderlying message?Y: The stated message was enough for us!L: This is worse than you think. All the time hewas saying everything is our responsibility,meaning what? Everything is our fault! Theyhave done whatever they could and sonothing is their fault, but everything dependson us and therefore if things turn out badly,everything will be our fault!HL: I had a really interesting experience justnow.Y: Calm down, calm down.V: Yes, have a seat, calm down and then tell us.L: Oh there's no problem in telling. Sometimeback we managed to develop a new productconcept. So I took it up to my DepartmentHead – you know him – excessively careful notto cause even the smallest wave. Surprisinglyenough he seemed to think it would bepossible to take it forward. So I wrote it up andoff it went to the PM. So more queries, morefunny questions, but he too seemed to think itwould pass. Then it went to the Business Headwho took it to the DCEO. Now the BusinessHead has sent a mail, which was eventuallyforwarded to me that the DCEO says it shouldbe discussed with the CEO, the MD and theother DCEOs. He even wants to know whetherwe have discussed this with our counterpartsIndira Management Review - Jan 2013 77