Everybody in the organization knows except the organization itself!
There is what can be called the myopia of the organisation : the collective inability to see what everybody in the organisation knows . How that happens is a big mystery. How is it possible for the organization not to know what everybody knows? For example , in a hierarchical organization made up by several layers of functionaries a particular decision is taken by the top management of the organization on a business strategy to be adopted by it. This particular business strategy might already have been tried in the past and found not to be working. This is known to everybody except the organization. It tries out the same once again and wastes its resources – a very costly experiment which takes a lot of time to be reversed in an ethos where no ongoing evaluation of the strategies takes place. The placements and promotions to some positions too often arouse mirth in the general populace often leading to the suspicion that the organization has failed to take into account the empirical evidence already available indicating the unsuitability of the individuals considered for the positions.
But that brings us to another question. Is the view of the general populace dependable ? The management claims to have the “the big picture” and hence their decisions are more dependable , so goes the argument. There is no doubt some truth in this . The general populace is guided by narrow partisan considerations often bordering on malice towards good performers. But the ‘big picture’ is a much touted word in the echelons of the top management used to justify most of the disastrous decisions of the management. More particularly when the top management consists of seasoned bureaucrats who have come up because they have all those qualities which ensure a safe climb to the top , not because they have displayed exemplary leadership qualities .Which big picture these luminaries claim to possess is not clear because they continue to suffer from the same myopic vision they had displayed when they were at a lower level of hierarchy. The biggest joke is that the top view they claim to possess encompasses only the bald pates of the lower levels of functionaries preventing them from viewing them as whole individuals as in a peer level view !
Coming back to the organizational myopia , how often do we hear, both within and outside, that a certain individual has been promoted to so-and-so cadre although the whole organization knows that he is not fit enough to be a clerk in the same department. We cannot say that those who speak that way do so out of jealousy because 1)there is near unanimity in the view 2) these people, at least many of them, are harmless guys who do not arouse strong feelings of hatred in their colleagues. There is a case of a chairman of a public sector organization who went to the branch office he had headed some years ago only to be reminded by his erstwhile colleagues as to how much he had once floundered in affixing the right postal stamps on envelops.
That brings us to the question of how these organizations promote their people to the higher levels . Two broad yardsticks may be in place :their performance in the past and their potential for future . The performance is a very nebulous criterion as , reduced to quantitative parameters , anybody’s business figures look just like those of anybody else’s because in such organizations performance cannot be delinked from the enabling or disabling factors afforded by the environment and the organisation’s own strength in the market. Just look at the budgets given to individual branch managers of banks for resource mobilization. An aggregate figure is arrived at in the corporate center for the deposit growth for the current financial year which roughly corresponds to the increase in monetary resources (usually 15% per annum ) which is the most logical thing to happen because all the expansion must naturally be reflected in the banking assets. The resources come to the banking system because they have nowhere else to go ! In any case the customer has to come to the banks because they are there , as one would say about why people would climb Mt. Everest !
How does one distinguish one performer from another ? Clearly the performance , if any, is the result of the banks being there , not because somebody or other is there ! In the matter of deployment of funds our managers need not strain themselves too much because there is a time-tested method of cash credit which , supposedly being for financing for working capital needs of the units, continues for decades without any need for our manager to find fresh assets every year ! In such a scenario where is the scope for proactive canvassing for new business ?
It therefore follows that performance cannot be the single largest criterion for promotions. Supposing a good performance in the previous 2 or 3 assignments is taken to be the only criterion then a disaster would befall on the organization because all those who have done extremely well in utility departments or back office departments would soon be promoted as regional managers in charge of 25 to 30 business units ! For example an office manager who has done an exemplary job as an in-charge of the premises and gets “excellent” ratings and is promoted as the regional manager . What would he do as a regional manager except to ensure that the premises of his branch offices are well-kept ? A logical thing therefore would be to consider potential for future promotion .This is what actually happens ,in reality. You will see everywhere that the top management of these organizations have reached those positions not because of their performance but because of the potential as gauged by the people in charge at that time .
Now the question arises as to how potential is judged by the people in charge . In a vast organization the bosses can judge the potential of only those who are in physical proximity with them. The people who are therefore eminently suitable for future promotions are :
People who are the personal secretaries or administrative secretaries and the like
People who are posted in departments directly working under the big bosses
People who cross their paths every now and then in some capacity or other
People who are highly visible and rarely go out of their radar-views
People who have done a good turn to them somewhere by organizing public functions where the bosses have received good publicity.
These are only some of the possible candidates ideal for promotions. The important thing is what the bosses calculate from the sum total of the impressions they gather about you. The greater you are within their visibility range the higher the chances of promotions . No wonder the organization does not seem to know many things which everybody in the organization knows !
Not For Me [Edit]
Some time ago I was talking to a senior bureaucrat in a public sector organization. I had gone to meet him in connection with some banking transaction. He had put in long years of service in the organization and by virtue of his many years of experience considered himself an indispensable part of the organization. It was another thing that the top management did not appear to share the same enthusiasm about him. He had risen from the ranks to the present position purely on the basis of so many years of seniority and not because of any scintillating performance. Any way, out of politeness I asked him what he considered to be the biggest single contribution by him to the organization during all these years. The reply was very interesting.
According to him his single biggest achievement lay in his disposal of "NOT FOR ME'' letters/memoranda. By way of elaboration he stated that the finance department had 27 finance controllers, 25 joint finance controllers, 55 deputy finance controllers and an equal number of desk officers. Every morning the letters received register would do the rounds among these officials and letters on all clearly delineated subjects would be taken delivery of against the initials of the official concerned. The problem lay in receipt and disposal of letters dealing with subjects not falling into any of the above categories. These letters would do the rounds along with others and each of the officials would mark in bold letters NOT FOR ME on the face of the letter or the NOT FOR ME notation. It was a big headache to get rid of these letters as each day would add a few more such letters and memoranda.
Our friend took special interest in these unclaimed letters. He saw to it that every such letter was allotted to a proper official after deciding who should deal with the subject. Naturally he became very unpopular among the staff who resented extra work on their tables. He carried on regardless and was proud of the fact that he could achieve the impossible feat of ensuring that the letters received register carried NIL unclaimed letters.
A very impressive achievement indeed.
The story is apocryphal . The public sector unit has a battery of controllers, finance and otherwise, who have to be fed some work to keep them going. Elaborate systems are therefore laid down prescribing systems for receipt and disposal of letters received from customers and internal departments . Letters are important and each letter has to be accounted in such a way that it is possible to fix accountability for individual nonperformance later should the occasion arise.
Banking Blues
The other day a pot-bellied banker knocked at the door of a H.N.W.I. (High Net Worth Individual) to canvass business for his bank. The H.N.W.I. got the shock of his life for he never expected a blue-blooded public sector banker to approach him for business. Hardly an hour ago a suited and booted new-generation banker had approached him with a similar business proposition. After recovering from the shock our H.N.W.I. asked the public sector banker what brought about the transformation from a staid pen-pushing, rule-quoting old-timer into an aggressive customer-oriented wannabe banking professional. "Our spreads are fast disappearing ,sir ", our banker friend said ," Unless we build up volumes, we will soon be dead as dodos". The H.N.W.I. took a hard look at the banker's prosperous figure wondering if it is really true that spreads have been fast disappearing .The H.N.W.I. asked him if he was really serious about the business proposition .The banker replied in gushing enthusiasm that his bank would be happy to clinch the deal .He reeled out the merits of his proposition and apparently convinced the potential customer that his deal was certainly better than the other banker's.
The customer was thrilled .He told the banker that the deal was on. He asked him when he could draw the money. The banker hemmed and hawed and told him that he had to comply with a few minimum requirements before sanction. The requirements are as under:
Income-tax and wealth tax assessment orders for the previous three years
Profit and loss and balance sheets for the last three years
Funds flow statements for the last three years
Projected cash flow statements for the next 5years
Age-wise list of sundry creditors and sundry debtors
Details of the net worth of the guarantors with survey numbers etc. of the properties
Such other data as may be called by the bank during processing of the loan proposal
The customer queried as to the time by which money will be in his hand .The banker replied that subject to the receipt of all the requisite data and satisfactory replies to all the queries to be raised by the appraising officer the loan would take approximately 15 days .That is, after the date on which all the data are received.
Enquiries later revealed that the suited and booted gentleman had clinched the deal on the following day.
A Master of Queries
Mr. Deshpande, a middle-level officer of a public sector bank, had a formidable reputation as a master of queries. It was believed that no loan proposal would get past him without a slew of tough queries. His subordinates would shudder to submit any loan proposal to him for sanction as that would mean months of back-breaking work trying to answer his all-encompassing queries. At the end of it all no sanctions take place, for Mr. Deshpande would raise further installments of even tougher queries. The staff as well as the Bank's borrowers would curse their fate if the loan amounts fall under his discretionary powers. A few intrepid borrowers had tried their luck with him but found to their dismay that they had lost their precious time in chasing the loan proposal with him which they could have profitably utilized in running their businesses.
The appraising officers tried to build up a whole body of literature covering all types of queries that could be raised by him so that these could be taken care of at the time of the appraisal. This had not helped them one wee bit because no matter what queries one would anticipate from him he would come out with absolutely new queries. The better the quality of the appraisal ,the greater would be the number of the queries and tougher it would be to answer them. The borrowers tried to build up a personal rapport with him with the hope that this would ease their problems a bit. Little did they realize that Mr. Deshpande would raise his famous queries even to his mother. Querying was in his blood and there was nothing one could do about it except give up the proposal and go to another bank which was what they eventually did.
A formidable scholar, Mr. Deshpande had an inexhaustible supply of queries. He knew everything about the industry and there was no way of preempting his queries on any subject. If the loan proposal related to exports of castor seeds he would ask for detailed estimates of the global prospects of castor cultivation for the next five years. If it was an agricultural loan you had to satisfy him on the likely rainfall prospects and the availability of minor irrigation facilities backed up by expert studies on the subject. Despite all this data Mr. Deshpande would not sanction the proposal if he was not satisfied about the end-use of the credit facilities. He frowned upon the existence of multiple associate concerns and insisted that the balance sheets of all these concerns AS ON A COMMON DATE should be submitted in order to rule out the possibility of inter-locking of funds. The last-named was one of his favorite queries which would virtually mean the death-knell of the loan proposal. Everyone knew that no businessman would ever prepare balance sheets of all his concerns as on a common date.
Mr. Deshpande retired from the Bank's service recently .In the farewell speech rich tributes were paid to him extolling his contribution to the bank. Somebody remarked that his contribution to the Bank lay in the fact that during his long years of service he had not sanctioned a single loan thereby saving the Bank from the hassles of recovering them. The crowning glory was that he retired with a query – somebody raised a mischievous query on his pension papers thereby delaying the settlement of his pension.
Office Entertainment
A senior bureaucrat in a public sector organization was asked if he was willing to take the very attractive V.R.S. option as he had just 5 years to go for retirement. He thought about it for a day and returned the next day to tell that he would certainly not go in for it. It did not seem to make sense because the money was extremely attractive and the gentleman had absolutely no familial responsibilities which would come in the way of his hanging the boots, so to speak. Then what made him decide in favor of continuing to stay in the organization? The reason he gave was that if he were to leave the organization where else would he get such free entertainment, on tap ?
This particular gentleman, with a puckish sense of humor, would pull everybody’s legs and in the process derive enormous amount of job satisfaction. He has of course rubbed many on the wrong side, especially those who were once his peer level people who have now got up several levels above him in the organization because they had their sights set clearly without distractions and did exactly what was expected of them in order to qualify for higher positions. As a junior level officer he was putting up long-winded notes to the General Manager which would be signed by his immediate boss who had not the foggiest notion of what these notes contained. His immediate boss was certainly not known for his original ideas nor for his contribution to decision-making; he has become the boss because, as the gossip goes, he was bringing the freshest sabzi in the town for his boss’s wife.
Our man would fully take advantage of the simplicity of the boss and make him signatory to some very hilarious gaffes tucked away somewhere in the penultimate paragraph of the note about whose existence his boss had absolutely no inkling. The result was for everybody to see. The G.M. would not fail to see the gaffes and consequently “hit the ceiling” and throw the impugned folder at the signatory. The upshot of all this was some mirth in the department but certainly no full marks for our man in his Annual Performance Reviews.
Once the big boss in H.O. wrote a query in the margin on one of his notes on the business potential available to the organization at one of the shopping complexes .A mischievous reply was written just below the comments that out of the 1500 shops only 250 shops were occupied. The big boss queried again as to what happened to the balance 1250 shops. Our man wrote a reply in the margin that pigeons were roosting in the remaining shops! Our man’s boss saw the reply and developed cold feet while lending signature to the flippant reply. He then forced the officer to erase the comments using the white fluid and write a more “serious “ reply. This was duly done. When the note went to the G.M. he saw the use of the white fluid and asked for the desk officer. He asked him what had been there which was erased . The reply he gave was :“pigeons, sir”. When asked what the white fluid was for he replied with a smirk: “These are the droppings , sir.”
At everybody's call
A typical p.s.u. cant decide independently what it wants to do. Every other chap in the world can decide what a p.s.u. should do. Every twopenny politician of any hue can decide what a p.s.u. should do. At a public meeting the local politician can set targets for the managers of the local banks and pull them up for nonperformance.The District Collector can decide what the banker in the area is supposed to do. The local manager is totally confused as to whose instructions he has to follow.The p.s.u. is like a prostitute who is available for anybody to molest as he pleases.
It is virtually outsiders who decide what activity a p.s.u. has to pursue at any point of time.Thus a peon who has worked for 241 days in a temporary capacity in a p.s.u. can sue the latter claiming permanent employment. It is for the p.s.u. to prove in the court through protracted and expensive litigation that the chap cannot be legally entitled to employment..Every p.s.u. has a battery of legal officers and a well-stocked legal library to enable them to fight all the cases effectively. Besides every p.s.u. employs the best legal brains of the country to fight its cases. Thus a public sector unit whose core activity is either manufacturing something or provision of some service has to divert its entire time and resources fighting a few trivial cases over long periods of time abandoning what it has set out to do as mentioned in the memorandum of association.An airline company cannot get rid of its ageing airhostesses but has necessarily to absorb them in its ground staff notwithstanding the surplus of staff already staring them in the face. The nationalization of banks and insurance companies cannot be abandoned merely because the politicians say so .Nor can the main agenda of the p.s.u. be set by the insiders of the unit itself . There are a host of committees consisting of people who have nothing to do with the p.s.u. who preside over the activities of the unit. The subjects of the committees even remotely do not have anything to do with the main activity of the unit.There are Boards of Directors presiding over the day to day running of the unit , consisting of people who are not even remotely connected with the unit but are there merely because of their political clout. Actually the p.s.u.s do not belong to anyone in particular but to anyone who can lay his claim to them !
The Railways for instance belong entirely to the politicians and their hangers-on who people a host of committees who “regulate” their working. Their system of working is entirely geared towards vesting in the politicians the powers to grab for themselves or for their hangers-on seats in trains anytime of the day despite any amount of demand from public .The consideration for laying a new railwayline is not whether it is a viable proposition for the Railways but whether it is serving the constituency of a politician.Likewise the consideration for locating an oil refinery in a particular area is not its proximity to the oilfields but its situation in a certain constituency belonging to a vocal politician. Acquisition of helicopters by a p.s.u. is dictated not so much by their need for the p.s.u. itself but by their usefulness to powerful politicians .
Talking of litigation it is only a matter of surmise how many suits filed by the public a p.s.u. has to fight for decades. Roughly 40% of the suits relate to activities not related to the core activity of the P.S.U. .Thus it is understandable if a public sector bank fights legal cases for recovery of its moneys.It fights innumerable cases involving what are called industrial disputes .The industrial disputes settlement makes it appear that the p.s.u. has to devote fulltime to fighting these cases abandoning its main line of activity .The lawyers flourish . P.s.u. s are the apples eye of the lawyers. .The lawyers have been living off these p.s.u.s for decades. They have grown fatter through the years .Litigation goes on for decades uninterrupted.All the daughters of the lawyers have been duly married off with fat dowries .Their children have paid huge capitation fee at the engineering colleges .In bigger cities the high court lawyers who fight lawsuits for the p.s.u.s have acquired huge farmhouses and their children are seen roaming around in the upmarket areas in B.M.W. s.
With heavy expectations from all sections of the society the P.S.U.s are expected to make profits and do the country proud. Just imagine what would happen to our lawyer-friends if P.S.U.s don’t exist . Imagine what would happen to our judicial system if the lakhs of civil suits pending for decades are suddenly taken away from their system using the simple expedient of withdrawing all the cases and waiving all their claims with the stroke of a pen ! Imagine what would happen to the p.s.u. airlines if other p.s.u.s have withdrawn the fiat making it mandatory for their officers to travel only by the public sector airline ! If you study what they all do very closely you would notice that at least 40% of their activity , irrespective of their main line of activity , revolves around provision of employee welfare measures , besides fighting several industrial disputes taking up a major part of their time and resources. Their multifarious activities include provision of large canteens , fully- equipped hospitals along with diagnostic centres, educational institutions etc. They have long forgotten their core activity, either the basic manufacturing activity or service which they are supposed to be selling . In a public sector company they have a whole range of diagnostic and superspeciality medical facilities and dispensaries stocked with tons of medicines . They also have sports facilities , which are the envy of the best sports academies of the country .They also boast of producing the best sportsmen of the country who have been given special leave to attend coaching camps in order to brush up their sporting skills. In short the public sector units do everything except what is their core activity . In terms of the use of its resources the main line of activity occupies only a very tiny place in the public sector scheme of things ! Even the chief executive officer is appointed not so much for his proven managerial skills but merely because he happens to be the seniormost officer in the company .Which means that it is the employee-satisfaction that matters most , not share-holder value !
Audit travails
Every year the auditors arrive punctually like swallows in summer.The green ink in their pens flows freely unless the manager keeps them 'busy' with a series of well-sponsored visits to the nearby places of tourist interest. Which is what they meticulously do. The manager loves to show off .After all it is only once in a while he gets the opportunity to prove the greatness of our rich heritage to visitors from other places.
In the few hours that the auditors do manage to spend at the unit doing the 'green ticking' they put together a nicely bound volume containing their profound observations .The manager is supposed to deal with these observations with the utmost reverence. In doing so he is supposed to deal with these remarks point by point and confirm to his controller , in a space of three months, that every single one of them has been properly attended to.This is called 'compliance' in the audit parlance .Based upon the confirmation by the manager , the controller , in turn, frames his compliance remarks for the information of the higherups.
The compliance remarks sometimes make hilarious reading.A sample set of compliances is given below:
Observation: The tapal register does not contain disposal particulars of letters received.
B.M.'comment:A column has now been introduced in the tapal register for marking the date of disposal.
Truth : The column has no doubt been introduced , as was the case the last season .The question is whether the column will be filled in at all .
Observation: There is no system of the complaints box being regularly opened to ascertain if any complaints have been dropped in it.
B.M.'s comment : The box has been opened and it has been found that there are no complaints in it.
Truth : The fact is that nobody knew where the keys of the box were.The last time it was opened was at the time the last audit remarks were being replied to.One could observe , through the seethrough glass ,several small bits of paper lying in the box .These were the handiwork of some disguntled members of public.
Observation: The trunk call register is not in use.
B.M.'s comment: The register has now been introduced.
Truth: The register was introduced in the last audit , as had also been in the several audits of the earlier years .As an act of tokenism there will be one entry each time in the register .
Observation: The branch management committee meetings are not being held regularly.
B.M.'s comment: These meetings are being held with the utmost regularity as can be evident from the record of the minutes .
Truth : All the minutes of the previous meetings were written up just before the audit.
Observation :Proper tendering procedure is not being followed in respect of large purchases .
B.M.'s comment : Competitive quotations are being called in respect of purchases of above Rs.10000 and the vendor is selected on the basis of the L-1 status in terms of the current guidelines of the central vigilance commission.
Truth : Three quotations are no doubt being called but from one genuine supplier and two of his own paper companies in different names quoting slightly higher than his own company.
The Manager has devised , over the years, his own system of anticipating the audit queries and preparing his staff for them .He is sure that many of them could not be resolved in his lifetime .He has therefore learned to live with them like some Pacific islanders have learned to live with live volcanoes .A seasoned Manager is usually skilled enough to ward off the more difficult queries but , as a matter of give-and-take , agrees willingly to submit to a few not-so-harmful queries from the auditor. He knows that he can skilfully get around them during compliance.This is what usually happens .He has his answers ready, for most of these queries , which usually are an exercise in verbal pyrotechnics .
Some of these techniques are very interesting.
(1) Straight ducking
-------------------------
This technique involves disowning directly whatever irregularity has been pointed out. The service record of an employee is in a mess .Not because of his default but because of the ineptitude of the branch where the employee had previously worked.He however notes to rectify the position .
(2) Roundaboutation
--------------------------
The reply is couched in such 'round and round ' language that by the time the reader comes to the end of the sentence he has forgotten what the first part of the sentence says.A typical sentence will run thus:
While it is true that there were occasions when discretion had to be exceeded keeping in view the peculiar circumstances obtaining at the material time a detailed scrutiny will reveal that instances of such excercise of powers in excess of the discretion have been few and far between -blah blah blah
(3)Promise of activity
--------------------------
Here the manager promises activity rather than action.A typical sentence would run thus:
We are arranging to instruct the staff concerned to do the needful at the earliest.
Here he is promising nothing except instructing somebody .God knows when the latter will do it .At the earliest , one hopes.
(4)Expert referrals
-----------------------
The Manager deftly deflects the barb of the auditor by recommending a reference to the expert. A typical reply would be as under:
While it is true that the document concerned suffers from some serious legal infirmities we feel that it is necessary to have the document properly vetted by the Law Officer taking into account some of the legal issues raised in the recent Gujarat High Court judgement in Chaganlal vs.Maganlal (A.I.R.2000)
(5)Plain verbiage
----------------------
Sometimes the Manager counters the audit query with a lot of 'bull' .That is , he will write pages in reply containing some of the finest prose without touching on the basic issue.The reader does not have the patience to go through the contents and usually accepts the answer as settled.
The techniques the Manager uses of course vary with the type of the auditor. It takes several hues to make a full-fledged auditor .The Manager has an instinctive grasp of the personality of the auditor and modulates his interactions with him accordingly.
Broadly the auditors can be classified as under:
Greenhorns
--------------
These are the fresh ones with plenty of green ink on their palms.They are full of enthusiasm and have a strong desire to reform the institution and rid it of its evils.
The Manager is very careful in dealing with these guys as they have a nasty tendency to probe into the smallest of the issues. They have no time for fun.
Pokerfaces
--------------
These are the most experienced people who have seen it all and have no enthusiasm to go after trivial issues. The Manger knows how to take care of these veterans who generally put on a serious countenance and have no time for fun.
The K.P.M.K.'s
-------------------
These are the fun-loving auditors whose idea of audit is a 'khao-pio-maja-karo' assigment. They take their pleasures seriously and the Manager better take note of this.Many times the auditor has no time to compile the report .He therefore uses what is called a pastiche approach which basically consists in assembly of what all the other auditors have previously compiled.
Swollenheads
-----------------
These are the tough guys who believe that there is only one way of doing things and that is the way they had done when they were in operations. They would always quote instances from their careers and insist that the Manager has no choice other than to adopt the same methods .The clever Manager would make some motions of adopting these methods but would never actually implement them.
The familiar refrain of the swollenheads would be "when I was in such and such branch--"
The Manager has many weapons in his armoury .The techniques mentioned above are only illustrative .A successful Manager is one who can brave through at least three annual audits and face auditors of all types and hues without a blemish on his career.
Best returns of the day
The public sector runs on returns , those small pieces of quantitative data which are supposed to give the top management the M.I.S. stuff which is supposed to provide an ongoing evaluation of the performance of the organization.You swear by returns . The returns clerk is the central character. Nobody has ,however, yet read a return in order to draw any meaningful conclusions. Returns are made because somebody up there wants them. And why does somebody up there want them? Because the Manual says so. And the Manual is all-important.
What does a public sector manager do most of his wakeful hours? He compiles returns. Returns of all sizes and shapes – attractive ,well-cooked and quantitative. "Well-cooked " is the right word. With all these tons of information what do these guys finally do? The top management or the Government authorities or whoever is supposed to be receiving these well-documented pieces – what do they do finally? Decisions, decisions, decisions – a fat lot of them must be coming out of them. After all returns are the instruments through which the top management should be gauging the market. Every operating functionary is told that he is a non-performer because he is not submitting his returns promptly. You achieve all your budgets but if you don't submit your returns, you are a black sheep.
Returns are the be-all and end-all of a public sector manager’s existence. Submit your returns promptly and nobody will bother you. If you don't, you are in for trouble. You see the top management has to take decisions and cannot therefore brook delays .The top man is impatiently waiting for your blessed returns. The guy who does not submit his returns is effectively blocking the management process. He will be dealt with severely. In all cases the submitter is clearly visible for he is the guy who toils. The recipient is seldom visible; he is one of the numerous entities who are part of the amorphous structure called Head Office/ Corporate office. Everybody seems to be submitting – at the operating unit, at the regional office, at the Head Office. The submitter is seldom aware of who actually benefits from the information or where the statement finally ends up. He does not know what happens to the mountains of information he has assiduously built up. He is a Sthitha Prajna; it does not really matter what good will come out of his labors. He must perform his Dharma. Has not Lord Krishna told Arjuna that it is not for him to start worrying about the fruits of his actions?
Let us understand the personality of the submitter. First of all, who is the submitter? The lowly officer at the administrative office is usually the submitter. On the face of it the regional manager or the zonal manager or the general manager or some other functionary are the actual submitters for it is they who lend their signatures to them. Are they the real submitters? In a hierrarchical setup it is the lowliest of the lowly who is the real submitter. It is he who is the chef, who adds spice to the dish. In culinary terms he takes the dough received from the oprating managers (who themselves are not submitters but lend signatures to them), processes the stuff and makes it into palatable stuff.
Talking of culinary skills, this gentleman is a seasoned cook, who can produce some delectable stuff out of incomplete data. The raw -material is itself half-cooked and it is left to the culinary skills of this person to make it into an acceptable dish. How well does he do his job? Perfectly is the word.The beauty of the stuff is that it lends iself to any interpretation . The data could be rightly used to discontinue an unpopular scheme or to continue it as it is or even modify it with some peripheral corrections. It can even be used for the purpose of rewarding a few operating functionaries who are on the right side of the powers that be or for taking the severest disciplinary action against those who have rubbed them on the wrong side. The finished product is so versatile and so much useful to the top management in the taking of important decisions.
Considering the tight time-frame within which he is supposed to achieve this near-impossible task he can be considered a wizard who has a way with statistics. Too often he gets 'crisis' calls – somebody up there orders that the dish be ready within 24 hours. He rises to the occasion albeit grouching; dishes out the stuff and the crisis duly passes. An able submitter is an indispensable ingredient in the management process. He alone can take the organization forward on its march to growth and prosperity.
The mind of the Rule-maker
The bureaucrat makes the Rules. I mean he drafts them while legislation gives them their enforceability . The legislators would find themselves at sea without the master draughtsmen helping them in drafting the Rules. Effectively it is the bureaucrats who therefore make them . Of course the broad framework is decided by a few thinking politicians but which politician has the time or inclination to spend so much time on the actual nitty-gritty of this whole rule-making business ? So it is settled that by and large it is the bureaucrats who make Rules.
A desire to make rules foolproof is the single factor that operates in the minds of the bureaucrats making the rules. These guys take genuine pleasure in ensuring that the rules are made so iron-clad that nobody can break them. They must be feeling almost a creative satisfaction in framing these rules .So many old-timers drool over the fact that the systems and procedures of the Indian public sector organisations are made so perfect that virtually no situation of any type is left uncovered. The only amusing thing is that while the private sector guys are making profits , we , in the public sector , are making Rules ! On the Continent people have sex; in England we have hot water bottles !
A case in point is the income tax rules which affect the citizenry as a whole. Of all the inscrutable things in the world the most difficult and incomprehensible is the income tax system.The rules are so difficult to comprehend and lend themselves to so much divergent interpretation that the so-called tax consultants have a field day making pots of money clarifying things to the hapless public. There is big money in all this. Why would anybody dodge tax and then live in perpetual tension waiting for the midnight knocks ? It is certainly not because people are trying to make their nestegg stashing away what should rightfully belong to the exchequer. It is merely because it is so complicated and so convoluted that people begin to think that it does not really matter if the calculations , being so complex, can go off the mark any way and the income tax officer alone has the final word on the subject .
The beauty of the Rules can be found in the tangled web of the Income tax rules which are interpreted in the most hilariously different ways each time and by each interpreter.There is a thing called perquisites ,the value of which is supposed to be added to the taxable income in order to arrive at the tax payable .No two minds have ever agreed on what is the value of these perquisites which can be added to the income. Thus according to one interpretation if a conveyance allowance is paid to an employee it is a part of the taxable income .According to another interpretation , inasmuch as it is only a reimbursement of the expenditure already inurred by the employee it is not a part of the taxable income because it is considered as a part of the business expenditure of the employer and deductible as chargeable under p&l. Now how do we know that the employee has indeed expended so much ? Simple. he gives a certificate that he has spent a specified amount , admissible under the employment contract, every month . A few creative minds have questioned this on the ground that the expenditure on conveyance of the employees cannot be treated as business expenditure because it is not incumbent upon the employer to enable the employee to come to the workplace and it is for the employee to devise some way of coming to the workplace.
The rules can be twisted and mangled beyond their original shape. In some cities if you go into the various housing societies you will find a few run-down cars standing parked in a corner of the street some times under a tarpaulin and sometimes without it.You begin to wonder whether these cars are ,in fact, being used by their owners. The answer you get is stunning . The cars dont run ! They are acquired by their owners , employees of some p.s.us , and kept near their houses merely because they have to incorporate the car number in the monthly conveyance bill they submit to their employers for reimbursement. The most interesting thing is that three months' conveyance bills together add up the cost of a rundown car! Thus if the employee acquires a run-down car for Rs 5000 and recoups the amount in three months .After the first three months everything is profit.
Because of the complexity of the Rules and the variety of interpretations the socalled experts flourish .The tax consultants are there to do your job of filing the returns and getting refunds .The efficiency of the tax consultant is judged by the amount of refund that he can get for you. This guy has a glib tongue and may be in a position to satisfy the income tax officer better than when you yourself go to him .The income tax officer is all-powerful and can land you in such a jam that you will find it preferable to deal with him through the practised ways of the tax consultant.
For example , if you think you know the answer to the question "who is a resident in India ?'' you are mistaken . It is only the tax consultant and the income tax officer who probably know the answer. Even this is doubtful because the moment you raise this question to these experts they will go into deep philosophical contemplation as if it is a metaphysical issue something like What is Life ? This is the most debated question in the income tax corridors . Nobody has conclusively said anything on the subject yet. We are fairly clear on the subject of who is a nonresident .But who is a resident is a matter of speculation. Of course if you have not yet set foot on the shores of a foreign soil then mercifully you are treated as a resident in the strict sense of the term . But if you are the jetsetting type your status is a matter of intense speculation because the rules governing this are so complicated that only a handful of I.T. experts have been able to decipher their meaning so far. The search is on and hopefully they will come up with an answer soon. In the meantime if you want to enter the complexity of the rules you are welcome to do so but be prepared to come out losing whatever hair you may still be having .
If you are one of the indefatigable types not easily giving up here is a fairly approximate answer to the question “ who is a resident in India?”.You must have stayed in India at least for 240 days in the preceding four assessment years of 365 days each with a proviso that in the previous assessment year you stayed at least for a period of sixty days then you can aspire to be one .Of course in in the previous assessment year if you stayed for a period of more than 182 days you are liable to be treated as a resident and taxed as such.Your head is spinning? I cant help it .Mine has just stopped after a real toss. The question you will ask me is why the hell does anyone want to be treated as a resident and then get taxed as one , as if it is some kind of a privilege ? I dont know.
Climbing the ladder of hierarchy
Climbing the ladder is relatively easier after a certain stage . You must have your sights set clearly and with focus. The initial climbing , which is in fact very hard , is over several rough and tough assignments which may some times leave you by the wayside . You may, for instance, get into the worst possible vigilance cases unwittingly . You could ,of course, with some difficulty manage to wriggle out of it by precisely identifying the exact pressure points and applying the required amount of pressure . A cleverer and more focussed climber would have ensured that he would not get into those assignments where there is a greater likelihood of falling into any of the gaping vigilance manholes.
How does anyone steer clear of these assignments ? In all organizations you can achieve this by actively working for it . You may ask how . It is difficult to narrate the process . But imagine you are in the midst of a three-year assignment , which is not in some wilderness far away from the seat of the powerful decision-makers but within their visibility-range , so indispensable that the boss would automatically issue orders for your extension in the same assignment for a further period of three years. Surely this is a better option because you can continue to stay at the same place without inconvenience and in an administrative position where the vigilance angle does not seem to be working in all that you do .You have to plan for the next assignment . If you sit quiet and do nothing , at the end of the the present assignment you will find yourself cooling your heels in some backwoods location doing an assignment bristling with a thousand vigilance possibilities . If you are an active type you would make yourself indispensable for the bosses , so indispensable that the boss would automatically issue orders for your extension in the same assignment for a further period of three years. Surely this is a better option because you can continue to stay at the same place without inconvenience and in an administrative position where the vigilance angle does not seem to be working in all that you do .
But one has to build up the indispensabilty story assiduously . This is not something done overnight . You have to be continuously visible to the powers that be . This does not mean that you have to do some brazen sycophancy to play upon the affections of the boss.The process is much more subtle .You have to work your way .You have to be hovering around the boss all the time , never once getting out of his sight . Physical proximity is not , however , enough .You have to be appearing to be doing something all the time .There is an overwhelming need to appear to be doing something or other so that the boss feels that it is only you who can deliver the goods .It is not enough if you work effectively. .It is necessary to prove to whole world that you are such a fine worker .The bosses must perceive you doing something or other important all the time .You have to leave a trail of whatever you are supposed to be doing for the world to notice and appreciate.You have to look busy all the time . In the inhouse meetings the bosses must get an impression that the future of the organization hangs by a slender thread – the thread being in your capable hands.
Once the indispensability myth is built up it is necessary to keep it alive , because for the sake of a few mandatory requirements you may have to go out for a while but will soon come back to your old assignment on a much higher level, this time on promotion. You are supposed to be a resident expert whose services are in great demand all the time , whoever may be the bosses. The aura of indispensability is sustained by cultivating a particular brand of specialist jargon which few outsiders understand although the experts are in fact talking about the most commonplace thing which anybody could understand ,when laid bare in plain English.
All this while we have forgotten the basic plank on which our climber works: Avoid assignments , far removed from the seat of power, so that you are at once immune to the vigilance problems and at the same time ensure utmost visibility so necessary for cultivating the myth of indispensability which alone can ensure your career progression. In addition to the immunity such an approach gives to the climber to vigilance problems he is also on the bosses’ radar for any special assignments or creamy positions like foreign postings or
foreign junkets . The climber actually manages his career with a clear goal in mind and absolutely no confusion about what he would like to do.
The more intrepid climbers gravitate towards the positions of personal secretaries of the chief executives. The pay-off is rich in terms of the ablility to manage your career without much hassles.Nobody sends you to an out-of-the-way place or insists on operational experience . Your career is well-set and poised for a big leap. In that crucial position you become important to all the other decision-makers who have a hand in shaping your career and naturally you become automatically qualified for all the goodies available in the organization .The personal secretaries are endowed with a tremendous amount of energy in the discharge of their duties .Their bosses depend upon them for everything and they seldom shrink from delivering what the boss wants .It is a beautiful relationship which is valued by both . It is the dream of every boss to see their secretaries reach their own positions .They will do everything in their power to see that this dream is accomplished .
