The ‘Hat’ Headed manager
Rajan had been working in the PMD group of the Finacle IBU of Infosys for the past 4 years and was a lateral joinee. Rajan was well known in his group for his quick bursts of temper. People reporting to him were frequently shouted at whenever there were any slippages of deadlines on their part. He was therefore nicknamed the ‘Hat Headed Manager’. But why was he nicknamed a ‘Hat Headed Manager’ and not ‘Hot Headed Manager’? It was because of Rajan’s comical dressing style which was well known all over his IBU. He had the practice of always wearing a hat at the workplace. The hat was seated on Rajan’s head even when he was in his cubicle. The hat was adorned with plumage and Rajan looked like a hunter with it. Whom he hunted was everybody’s guess. It was rumored that the hat was Rajan’s lucky charm and he had got an exception from the HR for wearing it by giving a reason that he was suffering from Migraine and the hat was designed in such a way to cure the ailment. People were scared of asking him about the reason for wearing the hat given his short temper.
Rajan was currently managing the Beta support project for the 10.3 version of the Finacle CRM product and the work involved in the project was quite hectic. The current status of the project was not good. The number of issues that needed to be addressed were huge and the SLA had been breached for most of the issues. Rajan had tried out many approaches and strategies to improve the status of the project but in vain. He had followed up constantly with people working on issues raised as part of the project on their status, made his team work for extended hours, took proactive measures like getting people trained on modules and menus that they were not very familiar. But still there were huge slippages in the deadlines for his project. He was not able to deliver service packs and releases on time in this project. Rajan’s seniors were very worried about the direction in which the project was heading. Once Rajan’s reporting manager, Ramesh, summoned him and told him that there were several escalations from the client regarding his work and all this was bringing the unit a very bad name. He told Rajan, “You are given 2 weeks time to set things right. If you do not get things in order in 2 weeks time, you would be replaced by another manager for this project. That doesn’t mean that you can get away with your bad work. Your being replaced by another person would mean that you have badly failed to meet the expectations that were set for you. It would severely impact your forthcoming appraisal”. Rajan tried to explain the poor progress of the project by giving several reasons. But Ramesh was not convinced. He felt that when other managers were able to manage similar projects well, Rajan should be able to do well too. Rajan was an academically well qualified person, so his manager felt he should be able to perform well. As Ramesh had heard many accounts about Rajan yelling at his team mates, he told Rajan that the issue could get to do with the low motivation levels of his reportees. So he asked Rajan to try to motivate his team mates better. The ‘Hat’ headed manager was in a fix. He too felt his team was not very enthusiastic about the project work. He had never really tried motivating his team much as he felt that he was weighed down too much with work. “People are grown up, so they should be able to motivate themselves”, he used to tell himself. A main reason for Rajan’s team not feeling very enthusiastic about work was they felt their concerns and inputs regarding work were never taken up. They felt they only had to follow Rajan’s ideas, approaches and directions at work and they therefore felt very low.
Rajan decided to follow a simple rewards scheme to motivate his team to perform better. He told his team that people who finish of all their backlog issues in the next 2 weeks and resolve all their newly assigned issues in the coming weeks would be a awarded a prize. When he announced this to his team he was met with bored looks. His motivation technique had failed to enthuse anyone. He felt as though their bemused looks were conveying the message, “Oh No! Not one of those coffee mugs once again”. The image of Ramesh warning him about his poor performance and him being replaced by somebody else came before him and that gave him rumblings within his stomach. He immediately decided to motivate his team with a better proposition. He announced to his team, “Ok come on. I am giving you a better deal. The person who fixes all his backlog defects and fixes all his new issues within the SLA would get any gift of his or her choice. Please make a note of the words ‘any gift of his choice’. I mean it very much. I will send out a mail on this shortly and loop Ramesh also about it so that he stands as a witness to this prize scheme”. Now this scheme of Mr. Hat was interesting to the team and Ramesh standing as a witness to the scheme made them trust Mr. Hat.
Rajan’s team was greatly enthused about the prize scheme. They now had a drive to work even though they knew it would be a temporary excitement and would die down once the project is over, given Rajan’s poor managerial skills. They started to concentrate more on their work, put in more of effort for completing their work. Although the quantum of the work that was pending was huge, they all made a very sincere effort towards achieving the target set by Rajan. Rajan could clearly notice the change in the way his team was going about their work. The team was feverishly excited about their work now. There was very good improvement on the status of the project even though a large amount of work still needed to be completed. Many members in the team had already thought about the gifts that they would ask for from Rajan in case they met the target. Sam and Varun, the geeks of the team had thought of asking for Lenovo notebooks, whereas Saritha and Lakshmi the music maniacs wanted the latest IPhones. There was also the body builder Tarun who was planning to ask for a stylish bike.
The deadline given by Ramesh was coming to an end. As usual, Rajan was checking the status of the project at the end of the day. The team as a whole could not meet the target but there was a huge improvement in their productivity. Most of them had shown more than 50 % improvement in their productivity. Although the team could not meet the target, the project was in much better shape now. Ramesh walked in to Rajan’s cubicle the next day. To Rajan’s surprise he was smiling. He said that he was very happy with the current status of the project and so were the other senior managers. The team had performed very well in the past 2 weeks and if they continued to perform in a similar way, they could go on to win laurels. He told Rajan that he could continue as manager for the team and also told him that he would be nominating the team for a ‘GEM’ award. The ‘Hat Headed Manager’ was on Cloud Nine now. Immediately after Ramesh left, he called for a meeting of the team and he told them that even though the team had not met the target, everybody was very happy with the way the team had ramped up in the past week. Rajan then remembered about his offer of prize and told them that even though none of the members in the team had met the target exactly, there was one person who had almost achieved the target and that was Vidya. Rajan very graciously offered the prize that he had initially promised, to Vidya. He asked Vidya as to which gift she wanted.
Vidya said “Rajan, I need your hat”. The entire team was puzzled about her request. Rajan was surprised and at the same time shocked. He was surprised as he expected her to ask for an expensive gift and he was shocked for a different reason. Rajan thought that maybe he had misheard something and asked Vidya “Are you sure? You need my hat?” to which she replied smiling “Yes Sir, very much.” “But why on earth do you need my hat? Couldn’t you think of anything else?” he asked with his hands sweating. He nervously touched his hat to see if it was in place. Vidya had decided to ask for Rajan’s hat as he she felt she would earn a name as the person who had won the ‘Hat’ headed manager’s hat and the person who had made Rajan to never ever wear a hat again at the workplace. It was like defeating Rajan and taking away his crown as booty.
The reasons for Rajan’s hesitation were something very different and something which no one knew. It had got to do with Rajan’s head which was completely bald. He had an inferiority complex that he looked very bad with his bald head and did not want his looks to interfere with his career. Now if he acceded to Vidya’s request, the secret that he was guarding all these days would be out. His bald head would be fully exposed at office. He thought he would become the laughing stock at his office. He hesitated and stood quietly in the conference room for Vidya to change her mind. He offered her a few other choices of gifts but Vidya was adamant and she wanted the hat. She told him that he had made a commitment and he had to honor it. Now others in the team too started to ask Rajan to honour his promise and they said that it seemed to be a much less expensive gift compared to others. Rajan felt he had no other option left. He felt as though he was at the foot of the gallows. He lowered his head and removed his hat and gave it to Vidya. Everybody in the room gasped. Now they all understood the real reason of his wearing a hat all the time. Some people started giggling while others were still looking at him with a shocked expression. Rajan explained to the team at how he had hated being bald at college and how he was teased by some of his college mates for it and how he did not want his looks to affect his career.
Vidya was amused. Holding Rajan’s hat in her hat she started smiling and said ‘Rajan, you are clearly mistaken. You actually look very good without your hat and actually much better than with a hat. Also, having a completely shaven head is considered fashionable today. All these days you were under the misconception that you did not look good with a bald head. You should have checked with some of your true friends about how you look with a bald head. Some people might have teased you at college for fun. You shouldn’t have taken it so seriously. And moreover don’t you think one should love oneself. If one doesn’t love oneself, how can he expect others to love him? The root cause for this issue and your other issues in Finacle CRM is that you do not interact much with others and are not ready to accept others opinions. Please interact more with others and ask for and be receptive to their opinions. Notice the change that this attitude brings about in your life. And last but not the least please remember ‘Bald is Beautiful’”. Many in the room agreed with Vidya and were nodding their heads. Some even remarked that Rajan looked more professional and scholarly now. Rajan smiled sheepishly. He decided to follow Vidya’s advice and never wore a hat to conceal his bald head again. He also interacted more with people at his work place and accepted their points of view on various topics graciously. As Vidya had predicted, Rajan was more successful at work now.
Since the day Rajan handed over his hat to Vidya they both bonded as good friends and soon the friendship blossomed to love. In a year’s time they both were wedded to each other. Everybody was very happy for the Finacle couple. As for the hat, Vidya never gave it back to Rajan. It was her prized possession, the one that had brought herself and Rajan together.
