Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Introduction:

Ulaganath Madan was the Sales and Commercial Manager of the Bombay region when he had put in his papers. The reason owing to
this was the lack of understanding that Mr. Madan had in the Commercial side of the business. Things were getting heated up between
him and the management. He could not accept the way the management was treating him.

Ulaganath Madan was the only son in his family. His father was Technical Advisor to the South Indian Coconut Crushers’ Association
who later retired as the Secretary of that body. From his childhood Ulaganath had shown his acumen in academics. He received many
proficiencies for his studies. Not only was he good in academics, he was a good debater and good sports man too. Overall he was a very
lively person and was liked by people around him.

His desire to continue with his studies and to pursue legal profession could not be met as his father wanted him to join a reputed foreign
company. As per his father’s wishes he joined a leading business conglomerate, but he soon got frustrated in the company as he could
not cope up with this work. Soon he made his way through to join Imperial Glory Engineering Works Ltd.

As a trainee in Imperial Glory Engineering Works Ltd. he performed exceptionally well and was soon in the good books of top level
management of the company. There was no turning back after that. Soon he got promoted as the Assistant Sales Manager of Madras.
His efficiency with people and performance in his job soon got him promoted as the Sales Manager of Delhi. After completing a
Management trailing program, he was promoted to Bombay as Sales & Commercial Manager.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Problems slowly started creeping in between Mr. Madan and the management at this point. Meanwhile Mr. Balesar was transferred to
Bombay, and Ulaganath was supposed to report to him. Ulaganath had a long history of tussle with Mr. Balesar. He did not want to work
under Mr. Balesar and soon asked for a transfer to Calcutta. However, the report by the Resident Director made Ulaganath furious.
One thing lead to another and soon he put in his papers.

The case study on Ulaganath Madan, could be a good example of how a talented and competent person can lose out when it comes to
be a manager. A manager is one who should have a broad perspective towards his responsibilities and duties. A single minded
perspective would spoil the game for him as well as for his company.

This case is analysed with the help of the tool Fish bone Analysis. Here, the company and Mr. Madan have been compared to find out
who is in greater fault for the unfortunate event of Mr. Madan’s resignation.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Fish Bone Analysis

Internal The Company
Environment.

Good Salary

Good
Facilities
Tension with Mr.
Balesar.
Initiatives to develop
Mr.Madan.

Commmunication .

Re- organization. Supported Mr.Madan.

Mr. Madan
frustrated.
Egoistic. Single minded

Adamant
Poor Learner.
Aggressive.

Poor planner.
Impatient.
Networking.

Peoples Person.
Passionate.

Leader.
Dedicated

Mr. Madan – Mr. Madan –

Personality traits. Professional.
Benoy Paul Jose,
BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Analysis.
Ulaganath Madan – the person:

Ulaganath Madan has many personality traits which we have to consider while probing for the reason behind his resignation.
From the ‘fish bone’ diagram, Mr. Madan’s personality traits are classified into two categories – Professional and Personal.
These are explained below.

Mr. Madan as professional-

Mr. Madan has the following traits as a professional;

1. Dedicated –
Mr. Madan is very dedicated towards his duties and responsibilities. His dedication is evident from the sales figures he has done
for the company right from when he was a trainee. He even went to the extent of using his father’s contacts to build up business
for his company.

2. Passionate –
He is very passionate about his work. From the case we can understand that he know perfectly how to do his trade. He was so
passionate that he did not like people questioning his way of doing things.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

3. Good in networking –
Though this would be one quality every sales person should have, Mr. Madan excelled in this. He made friends very fast and he
builds up a rapport with them easily. His pleasing personality and intelligence made him very likable.

4. Poor Planner -
Mr. Madan was a poor planner. His Resident Director’s report states that he is more a hands on than a planner and thinker.

5. Poor Learner –
Even though he was given the feedbacks on his performance, he did not try to improve his weaknesses. This could also be
because he was more an adamant character.

6. Single Minded –
He was very single minded in his outlook. He did not consider other factors which have to be taken care in a business. He just
wanted his sales to happen at any cost. He did not care for the commercial side of it, nor did he care for the profitability of the
company.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Mr. Madan’s personality traits-

He has the following personality traits:

1. People’s Person –
He was a people’s person. He was very likable and people enjoyed his company. This trait helped him make good contacts and
people who worked with him and worked for him liked him very much.

2. Leader –
He had leadership qualities in him. The management found this out quite early in Mr. Madan’s career. However this quality
needed to be polished, which he did look into.

3. Impatient –
There was a special mention by the Personnel manager that Mr. Madan was impatient with his subordinates.

4. Aggressive –
This quality helped him in his sales; however he was a bit aggressive towards his colleagues too. This the management had noted
but found it to be a healthy one.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

5. Adamant –
He does not give any room for others to guide him nor does he listen to them. Whenever he was asked to attend a training
programme, he used to get annoyed by it. This invariably affected his performance too.

6. Egoistic –
Mr. Madan was very egoistic. He did not like someone performing or someone who’s better than him. He had a tussle with Mr.
Balesar, his colleague in the company, due to the same. This was one major reason why his relationship with the company got a
hit.

ULAGANATH MADAN AS A MANAGER.

A manager has to have many qualities in him, so that he does not fail in his duties. Following are some of the characteristics a manager
should have –

a. Leadership qualities.
b. Empathy.
c. Integrity and honesty.
d. Communication skills – both inter and intra group.
Benoy Paul Jose,
BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

e. Broad outlook towards business and people.

f. Open minded.
g. Accommodating and accepting.
h. Good negotiator.
i. Patience.

Ulaganath Madan did have some of these characteristics, however he did not posses most of the qualities. In fact he did lack some
crucial qualities like – broad outlook, patience and an open mind. Also, he did not accept the mistakes he had done; rather he was not
ready to accept that he could go wrong.
Although the management had initially recognized leadership qualities in Mr. Madan, he did not reflect it later in his carrier.

Qualities of a leader –

A leader should possess the following qualities –

i. Adaptable to situations.
ii. Ambitious and achievement oriented.
iii. Assertive.
iv. Cooperative.
v. Good working relationship.
vi. Dominant (desire to influence others)
Benoy Paul Jose,
BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

vii. Persistent.
viii. Tolerant of stress.
ix. Diplomatic and tactful.
x. Persuasive. et al…

When the Personnel Manager recommended accepting Mr. Madan’s resignation, he had mentioned that Mr. Madan was not competent
to make a Resident Director. This shows that the Personnel Manager did not find necessary qualities in him to be in a leadership
position.
Ulaganath did not posses qualities like – Assertiveness, cooperation, good working relation and toleration of stress.
He was not assertive, but was aggressive. He did not cooperate with the top management when it was necessary. He had reservations
when it came to maintaining working relationship with people. His relationship with Mr. Balesar is a good example. When it came to
stress, he could not take it. The case says that he left the first job because he was frustrated and his manager was very dominant and
aggressive. Also, it is stated that his academics took a hit when he was put to a school in Delhi. This shows that from early stages he could
not take stress.

The theory of Performance-Maintenance says that a leader should perform two functions. They are – Performance function and the
Maintenance function. The performance function deals with task accomplishments, while the maintenance function deals with
maintenance of good working relationship among those who are engaged in the task. According to this theory, there could be different
levels of combinations of both the characteristics. However, an ideal leader will possess a high level of both the characteristics.
The theory substantiates the Personnel Managers statement.
Benoy Paul Jose,
BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Managerial Skills at Different management levels:

The chart below shows the skills required by managers at different levels of management.

Conceptual Skills
Human Skills
Technical Skils

Top Managers Middle Managers Low-Level Managers

We can infer that for top level managers, the level of conceptual skills is very high. Mr. Madan had skills more on the technical part; he
is a good sales man. His human skills also would not be at par for a middle level manager. Considering this, it is debatable whether he
can be promoted to higher level managerial positions.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

The Company:

It is necessary that we look into how the company treated Ulaganath Madan in order to come to a conclusion.
On a whole the company was very good to Mr. Madhan. The management accommodated him and understood him. However they
failed when it came to make him understand.
The company gave him opportunity and room to improve as a person as well as a manger. They sent him for a management training
programme and constantly recommended him to take part in team building sessions.
The company paid a very competent salary right from the beginning of Mr. Madan’s career. He was also given good facilities like
company owned car etc.
The management gave heed to his constant recommendations of transfers. Although they really wanted their star performer to perform,
they accommodated his unreasonable transfer request from Bombay to Calcutta, just because he did not want to work under Mr.
Balesar.
However, the company was at fault here. Ulaganath had more experience in the company than Mr. Balesar. Inspite of that, Mr. Balesar
was promoted to a post where Ulagannath would be his subordinate. It was natural that a performer like Ulaganath would react to it.

There are some internal factors which the company could have taken care of, such as –

i. The strained relationship between Ulaganath and Mr. Balesar.

As both of them were equally important to the company, there should have been initiatives from the company to diffuse this
tension.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

ii. Communication.
Although there were high rated feedback about him, towards the end there was no proper communication on the feedbacks to
Mr. Madan. By look of it, from the case it can be inferred that Ulaganath has a ‘People oriented personality’. When there was a
negative feedback formed about him, the management should have made it a point to convey it to him in a manner which he
would not get agitated. It was when the management gave him a negative feedback that Ulaganath started developing the thought
that he had been neglected in the company despite performing.

iii. Re-organization of the company.

When the company was re-organized, Ulaganath was send to Delhi. And yet again he was shifted to Bombay soon. This
continues shift of place could have aggravated the stress levels for Mr. Madan.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

The company’s performance with regard to Ulagnath as an employee can be justified when comparing it with Maslow’s Theory.

Maslow’s model-

Self
Actualization

Esteem Needs

Acceptance Needs

Safety Needs

Physiological Needs

Maslow’s theory of needs hierarchy is explained below, with respect to this case;

A. Physiological Needs –
These are the basic needs with regard to an employee, such as – food, shelter and sleep. This states that an organization should
provide its employees the basic amenities for life.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

B. Safety Needs –
These are the needs to be free of fear of losing a job, property or shelter. The company provided Ulaganath with job security till
he decided to resign.

C. Acceptance Needs –
This deals with the need to be socially accepted and recognized by others. The company recognized and accepted Ulaganath and
gave him many accolades for his performance.

D. Esteem Needs –
Once employees begin to satisfy their need to belong, they want to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others. This
kind of need produces such satisfactions as power, prestige, status and self-confidence. Ulaganath was promoted to Sales and
Commercial Manager when he was posted to Bombay.

E. Self-Actualization –
It is the desire to become what one is capable of becoming – to maximize one’s potential and to accomplish something. Though
there is no mention of Ulaganath’s ambitions and aspirations in the case study, it is evident from the aggressive outlook of
Ulaganath that he wanted to scale greater heights. There is no other mention of anything that Ulaganath wanted to achieve or do.
So there cannot be any comments made on this front.

It is evident from these that the company did support and motivate Ulaganath.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.
 Ulaganath Madan _Case study.

Conclusion.
To conclude, the decision by the Personnel Manager can be justified. It is evident from the personality traits that Ulaganath Madan was
not eligible for further growth in the organization. Also, he was not ready to correct himself. Referring to the Fish Bone analysis, it is
understood that Mr. Madan was at fault because of his flaws. The reason for him to get frustrated and eventually resign was himself and
not the company. Also, his managerial skill set did not match that of top level managers. This would be a crucial factor to be taken into
consideration for his promotion, if at all.

However Ulaganath Madan’s resignation would be a huge loss for the company, as he was a star performer when it came to sales. As
Ulaganath says, the customer is the God and he gives the profit the company wants. And it is Ulaganath who brought in God by
numbers! Although, according to him, he is the bread winner for the company looking at a larger and long term perspective the
resignation can be accepted.

PS: This is a case study by the IIM-Ahmedabad. This analysis was done as part of my Principles of Management assignment.
Any violation caused is totally unintentional and lack of knowledge of the same.
Regards,
Benoy Paul Jose.

Benoy Paul Jose,

BFS-033,
Chennai Business School,
17th Oct, 2009.