The Manager

I saw this woman in a flight to Mumbai. One look at her and anyone can make out that she is on a mission. Set jaws, eyes straight ahead and a powerful projection of persona. She is out to prove to the world and the flight’s destination is what she is looking forward to right now.

Sure enough, no sooner did the aircraft’s tires hit the ground, she hit the ground running by switching on her mobile. She called someone – perhaps, her junior one of the hundreds of people working for her. Immediately she started shooting her bullets.

“Ok. Give me the status update’. She said already calculating the number of problems she needs to resolve.

The other person must have told something like, “Let me first get the update so that I can give you.”

“I need to know now. I do not wish to be kept waiting for problems to be resolved on their own. It doesn’t matter if they are bad. Please give me straight”. She said expecting the worst.

This could have been the response from the other end, “Well, the work is going on and nothing to report at this juncture. I shall report once we achieve a milestone" – or something to that effect.

She was actually irritated now. She said, “No. This will not do. I exactly need to know what is happening. It is straight in the line of your duty.” I got even more curious with the tone of the conversation. She must be handling something really grave – perhaps very sensitive and of national significance.

Perhaps, the other guy was a smart Alec. He must have given a vague reply like, “I am under control and you do not have to be bothered with such mundane stuff.”

She must be a very powerful person – she would not give up so easily. I wonder if she is a top governmental official who gets her work done or someone who has been a boss all her life. She said, “Please do not give me such pedantic replies. I know that you know and I need to know what you know”.

The guy is caught – I sensed that he had no choice now and must have given some facts. She retorted immediately, “This is not what I was looking for. There are responsibilities clearly drawn up – who will do what and when. I am not looking for daily reporting – I need hourly updates; clear and unambiguous. You are the person who shall ensure that each hour the progress is monitored, measured and updates given to me. I want the activities tracked against the plan. I need them now. I already missed two hours this morning.” She seemed extremely impatient with that seemingly inefficient manager.

I am not sure what the next piece of conversation was but sure she did fly off the handle. Her eyes dilated and she kept shouting in a muffled tone, hardly being able to control herself. The way she seemed excited, I was sure the nation is going to endure the worst of this failure of her manager. The plane still had not come to a stop now - ignoring all announcements to keep the mobiles switched off until the aircraft comes to a complete halt, she retorted, “What do you mean – he hasn’t reported yet. It is ten in the morning. You just cannot say, if he has not come, he has not come. This is grave injustice. I need the work done now. And there are dependencies. What about the risks involved. Who is going to bear the cost?” She seemed to think miles ahead – I felt she is planning for the future generations’ prosperity with such zeal.

When the full import of the message sunk into her – she moved away from the panic mode and switched into her solution mode. You can expect these only from the real mature visionaries. Those who have been in the line day in and day out of their lives solving complex issues of the society and the country at large. I was amazed at her tenacity and judgment.

"Ok. Let me quickly think. Please take notes even as I talk to you. Once this call is over, I will give you his number. His name is Selvam. He is from Tamil Nadu and you need to find someone who can talk to him in Tamil. Tell him that the work is waiting for him. He has exactly two days to complete the job. You need to talk to the architect who can specify what the problem is.” No wonder, I thought she is a person of great repute – who else but an enterprise architect would have such insight into explaining what the problem is. And she must be even greater to have an enterprise architect working for her.

Even as I was admiring her immense aspirations she has for her country – the next sentence she uttered felt like cold water thrown on my face.

She said,”Selvam is the plumber. He can know what the problem is from our architect. On my instruction, you have taken leave just to take care of this plumber and you tell me he has not shown up. I do not care what you do – get the plumber resolve the issue and let me know. Call him. Take your car to wherever he is and bring him. Give me a call half an hour later. Now I need to rush to office work.” That must have been her husband. God save him, at least from the plumbers of India.

I felt relieved. For a moment I thought IT people have really started showing concern for their work. Of course they do - for all their personal work. But this one took the cake. The language sounded so familiar even I was fooled by her.

This was not the first time where I came across people using their project management tactics in real like - it works very rarely. And even rarely still in IT.

I just smiled, switched on the mobile, took the incoming call from my boss and said. “I am still stuck in the plane. I will give you an update when I check out of the airport.”