An HR Manager Dreams As the safety drill ended, and the seat belts were fastened, I tilted my head toward my right. Our discussion on the socio-economic uplift of the middle class was yet incomplete. And I realized this conversation so far was from my side alone. I looked again. Still reading. How can they read while the plane is taking off? This was not for the first time that I had been ignored. That´s life. I tapered my eyes and tried to read the title of the novel: "The Prince".
"How pragmatic approach towards life. True, this is a Machiavellian world."
The lessons I refused to learn in the early days of my life were yet to be learnt. I placed my hand on my heart. It was content. I could survive without "The Prince". I deemed myself lucky.
"Better to be serene than to be a cynical Machiavellian." I was a bit loud this time.
I was still being ignored. Nobody was listening to me.
"Excuse me, I think I am talking to you. I guess you owe me an apology." The very sight of the earphones drove me insane.
"Enough is enough" . All of a sudden my thinking became very loud.
"Why are you ignoring me? I have something to share with you. My experiences. My knowledge. My wisdom. Why don´t you listen to me?... Oh, please." My voice grew louder and louder as I was overcome by a sudden outburst of self pity.
I could see mouths gasped wide open around me in awe and disbelief. There was an uproar down in the alley. Something was burning. All of a sudden I saw a fire vehicle coming towards me. I was yet delivering my lecture with full throttles. I looked at my companion once again. The earphone was on fire. I was yelling at strength five. Nobody was paying any heed. All I could listen to was the fire alarms. Tring... Tring......Tring......
"It´s quarter past, Mister. Time to go to office, you lazy guy. " I heard my wife yelling at me as she turned off the alarm on my bedside table.
A Typical Day, Senior Management Decrees a Need for "Training" What a spiteful dream. How so real. I shrugged my shoulders and headed for the bathroom. Breakfast was ready as I buckled my trousers and by the time I drove into my office, I had completely forgotten what I had seen in my dream. Not for long though.
First thing the receptionist told me as she saw my face, was a meanish, "DG wants to see you, sir". I collected my office notebook from my desk and dragged myself to Director General´s office. I was welcome with a stark smile and was asked to "be seated please".
"Jawad," DG started off as I sat down.
"Employees´ motivation and morale... That is still a question mark in my mind. Competitive dynamics. I know you think it is one of the jargons I often use but........ You know, I can see them working, but lets be honest. Are they delivering their best?...... I have my reservations." (According to his favorite routine, he was himself answering his own questions).
"I think there is something deep inside, which is barring them from producing their best. Perhaps something linked to motivation and self-actualization. Last Thursday, as I visited flow no. 4 of Unit no. 1-A, I saw a supervisor who was indifferently overseeing an operator replacing needle in the lockstitch machine. You know we use schmertz needles for lightweight fabric to avoid needle holes, and we prefer them to lemertz ones; and if the fabric is single jersey, we use 9 number ones instead of 14 number ones. Everyone knows that. Yes, I was telling you about that supervisor. What was his name..."
My boss continued with his story as I continued with my yawning. Finally he stopped and looked into my eyes with disbelief.
"I guess you had a rough night." We both burst into laughter as I said, "I wish I am not going to have a rough day."
"You won´t. All I want from you is to call a meeting of all the managers after lunch break and deliver a lecture on the role of motivation in the productivity and quality of work." As I left his office, I knew another rough day was all set for me.
How Staff Reacts to Being Sent to Class I never wanted to be a schoolteacher in my college days. I graduated as a professional engineer, did my masters in international business and ended up with my career in human resource development. New name for a schoolteacher in the stylish organizations. Being ultimately responsible for all the training and development activities in the factory, my boss assigned to me the task of teaching, training and grooming of all the ranks and files in our organization. In my view the most uphill task was to teach my own boss that was still my utmost priority. Nevertheless I tried to cope with the challenging role life had put forth to me as my livelihood. C´est la vie. Patience and conviction is the answer, my friends.
As my assistant got me the printed names and portfolios of the managers, I had written a circular inviting them to attend a seminar on "Role of Motivation in Production and Quality". First response that I received was a telephone call from one of our senior production managers, a close friend of mine.
"I always knew that the HR guy is the sparest in this organization. What do you want to prove to us this time? Why not let us work in peace instead of wasting our time in useless discussions. "
My response was automatic: "I hundred percent agree with you, but unfortunately boss´s views are somewhat different. Better pull up your socks, mister. I guess re-work is touching the dangerous twenty percent mark in your department and better find out the reasons instead of seeing your unit closed."
Another response was in the form of a much-expected email from our administrative manager that he was unable to attend the seminar because of an imminent shape audit preparations. "He always hates to attend training sessions" , I thought. Ever since the formation of HRD in this factory, it was getting difficult for the admin guys to get along with HR syndrome and to see their so called powers go into immature and idealistic hands. During lunch break, many managers kept asking about the purpose and utility of this meeting. I knew that over the period of time, they had lost their confidence in such exercises as they thought these meetings lacked a necessary follow up. By the time I stood up at the podium, my mind was blowing with the madcap opinions of our managers about the topic.
The Class Begins "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with a short speech recently made by US General Tommy Franks to a gathering in New York. He said and I quote: "I recall as a student in the fourth grade learning about Roman leader Julius Caesar. He was a general, he made long speeches and they killed him. I recognize that I''m the only thing standing between you, a drink and dinner." With these words General Tommy Franks left the dais. However I am not a general. I am an HR manager and hence there is no chance that I should leave the dais unless I have said all that I am supposed to say today". (At this, I could see countless yawning and raised eyebrows.)
I successfully ignored their discomfort and carried on with my oration. Lecture was supposed to end in thirty minutes time as we had dedicated 10 minutes for general discussion. But not to my surprise there were no questions. Actually two of the officers kept drawing cartoons during the session, and as I looked towards the head chair, I saw my boss snoring. I raised the pitch of my voice until it brought him back into the meeting. Hurrah! I felt myself motivated enough to repeat my arguments before he plunges into sleep again. By the time, my lecture ended, the audience was too tired to ask any questions and I was too discomfited to discuss any thing about motivation.
Lecture was concluded with the mechanical remarks by the DG in the appreciation of the topic and the role of motivation to achieve our mission. Tea was served in the end, and all of a sudden everyone was full of zip in discussion about new work orders by Nike and CK, bonus speculation at the year-end and the probable outcome of the next parliamentary elections in the country. I couldn´t believe that the same people were acting like the mad tea party´s dar-mouse only a few minutes ago.
I tried to audit myself. Something was missing in my lecture. Perhaps I had failed to engage my audience into the topic. At the same time I guess, our organization had failed to invite serious interest of our managers into such discussions, and over the period of time, they had lost their concern. The attendance in today´s seminar was only 70% and that too because of the DG´s presence. I was sure that in the absence of DG´s personal availability, this meeting would not have attracted more than one fourth of the managers. I put a part of the blame on my shoulders. I attributed an equal half of this blame to my organizational culture. And then I realized that in my capacity as Manager HRD it was again my failure.
End of the Day Here I was at the end of another day fully responsible for the futility of an exercise that was unable to bring about desired results. I placed my hand on my heart. It was not content. And I knew I would not give in, because my heart won´t let me give in. That gave me a ray of hope. I needed to review my strategy in order to bring about a healthy change in the organization. This needed vision as well as conviction to be a real HRD guy.
As I lay on my bed to sleep that night, my mind and body felt extremely tired.
"How was the day?" My wife asked tenderly.
Suddenly my boss´s remarks about a rough night flashed to my mind and I could not help smiling, as she looked at me in surprise.
"Not any different from the night", I rejoined.
