Glimpse of the life of a new manager

This is a story of two young women Parul Maini and Anjana Maheshwari. Parul and Anjana joined
as Management Trainees in NaturalHub India Ltd one of the leading FMCG headquartered in
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is one of the biggest Indian-owned consumer goods companies with
the largest Herbal and Natural product portfolio in the world. NaturalHub India Ltd includes
flagship brands with distinct brand identities. They are into: Natural healthcare products, Premium
personal care, Fruit based beverages, Hair and skin care.
The Marketing & Sales department is headed by the Vice President (VP) Mr. Shushant Chandra. Mr.
Kapoor DGM handles the Marketing department and Mr. Mehta DGM handles the Sales
department. The entry for MBA graduates into NaturalHub India Ltd begins at the level of
Management Trainee.
An individual after working as a trainee for a year is evaluated on several dimensions such as clients
approached, accounts handled, ability to work in a team, innovation, and initiative, critical and
analytical skills and ability to take leadership roles in future in Organization. These two competent
young women joined the organization as trainees a year back with an aim to rise up the hierarchy.
Parul was a graduate from IMT Ghaziabad and Anjana from FMS Delhi.
On 31st July, 2015 the DGM Sales Mr. Mehta met DGM Marketing Mr. Kapoor and Mr. Chandra
Vice President along with Mr. Shreenivas, Head of Human Resource Management of the
Organization. The meeting was scheduled to discuss the performance of trainees in the department
and to decide on the promotion for two of the coveted posts Marketing Manager and Sales Analyst in
the Marketing and Sales department respectively. Since Parul and Anjana had joined at the same
time and had proved to be outstanding trainees, both were due for promotion out of six trainees.
After a long discussion, the team of four Mr. Mehta, Mr. Kapoor, Mr. Chandra and Mr. Shreenivas
had decided to promote Anjana to become Sales Analyst and Parul to become Marketing Manager.
The decision about the promotion was communicated to Parul and Anjana through an official letter
handed over by Mr. Shreenivas. The promotion letter had very different impact on the two ladies.
After the results became known publicly Parul Mainis eyes were gleaming with joy. Parul was
convinced that she deserved to be recognized as the best trainee amongst all six. Parul felt like the
star performer of the organization. Today she got the recognition she had dreamt of. She was very
happy to be selected as a Marketing Manager . She was on her desk receiving congratulatory wishes
from different people.
Mr. Mehta and Mr. Kapoor also congratulated her.
Congratulations Parul said Mr. Mehta who was going to be his immediate reporting authority
congratulated her. She heard her excited voice replying, Thank you so much Sir. I am very happy
and satisfied that my hard work and efforts are being appreciated by all of you. I will make sure to
Dr. Shubhra P Gaur This case has been prepared by Dr Shubhra P Gaur for teaching purpose and class discussion.
The is based on real life events. The names of characters, names of the organizations and dates mentioned in the
case have been changed to protect the identities of the people and organizations.

maintain the performance and make it even better. I will constantly be in need of your guidance and
counselling.

He replied encouragingly If you will keep working hard Parul, I am confident you will have a great
future and it will bring value to this company too.
She walked especially to greet Mr Kapoor and thanked him. Later she went into his office to seek
advice on how she could improve further.
On the other hand, Anjana after receiving the letter from Mr Shreenivas pretended to be busy in her
work. When Mr Mehta came to congratulate her, he remarked, "Is everything Ok? Are you well? Or
are you not happy with the news?" She smiled, denied but immediately got back to work.
After receiving one or two more people to congratulate her, she left for the canteen. A little later,
Abhinav a colleague from the finance department of the organization walked in. He was her senior
from college and thus they had a continued to share college bond. She looked sad and dejected.
Something was disturbing Anjana and Abhinav realised this.
Is everything all right? he asked further, would you like to talk to me?
We had our performance appraisals recently and today was the results day. Anjana replied.
So you got a bad appraisal? Abhinav inquired.
No! My appraisal was good. I come from a middle class family and the job I have is extremely
important for me. I could not have ruined it so I have worked hard and showed the results. You tell
me where I could have gone wrong, I have worked very sincerely throughout. You know me from
college and have seen me put my heart and soul into any responsibility given to me.
I know that you really wanted to do well and that you have put your heart into the work. But then I
do not see any problem if you got a good appraisal. No Abhinav, there is more to it. Its true that
I got a positive appraisal but I had worked even better than that. Better than Parul I just dont
understand how my efforts got overlooked. Instead of me being recognized for my contribution to
the organization, Mr. Kapoor and Mr. Mehta put Parul in the limelight.
Abhinav didnt quite understand. But there must be some valid reason for the DGMs and VP to
favour Parul. They couldnt simply praise her just like that.
Anjana tried to explain the situation to Abhinav as best as she could
The fact was that Parul for the past few months had been meeting the DGMs almost every day after
office hours. She was using my ideas to make an impression on Mr Mehta, Mr. Kapoor, Mr Chandra
and other people in the organization. Therefore, she kept adding on to her list of admirers in the
organization and the VP was also impressed with her and decided to declare her as the star performer

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

and Marketing Manager. She was always showing off and making sure that her work got
everybodys attention."
Anjana was extremely dejected. She shared more things with Abhinav
"I had joined the organization with such high hopes of getting success, of being promoted based on
my merit to work from the head office. I had given my best, but all this for what? After a year of
hard work someone else walked off with the prize. I am feeling cheated. The ideal image of
NaturalHub India ltd. being fair to the employees was an illusion. The promise of professionalism
Mr. Kapoor, Mr. Chandra and Mr. Mehta made at the time of my joining was to fool me. I am
actually thinking of quitting the job."
Abhinav heard her story patiently and was perturbed at the state of affairs. He couldnt understand
why Anjana was actually thinking of leaving the job and that too without even trying for a fairer
deal. Knowing Anjana since college, he was aware of how sensitive an individual she was, and he
could not let this incident just pass without bringing it to the notice of the concerned people. He
could vouch for the fact that Anjana was a sincere and hardworking individual, though she needed to
be more vocal about her concerns.
Although Abhinav hadnt interacted with Parul during the past year, he had heard quite a bit about
her being an overambitious person. She was driven about her work, to the point of being restless and
always handling more than one thing at a time. However, this did not usually come into the way of
her performance. From what he knew about her one thing was clear. She did not have too many
friends. There had been one or two instances of tiffs between her and her colleagues, and she had
come across as an egoistic person to Abhinav.
Abhinav thought deeply about the whole situation, thinking about how he could possibly help
Anjana. He had made up his mind that the situation needed to be communicated to Mr. Kapoor, even
if this meant him routing the message through Mr. Shreenivas. Abhinav was sure he would
understand and do something about it. Abhinav was a star performer during his training days and he
shared a good rapport with Mr. Shreenivas so he decided to speak to him first.
Mr. Shreenivas was in his early 50s, he had been with the NaturalHub India Ltd for almost 28 years.
He was liked by all in the organization, and was very approachable, no matter what the issue. He was
genuinely concerned about the welfare of all, irrespective of the individuals position in the
organization.
Abhinav met Mr. Shreenivas during lunch the next day. He described the situation to him in clear
and objective terms and waited for his response.
Hmmm... Well, Mr Kapoor, Mr. Mehta, Mr. Chandra and I had a long discussion on the issue of
promotion to these two positions. We took the decision of promoting Parul to become Marketing
Manager and Anjana to become Sales Analyst after carefully considering all the aspects.

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

Mr. Shreenivas informed Abhinav that Parul had emerged as second most important person after Mr.
Kapoor in the team and also helped other team members in managing and learning how to approach
clients etc in the absence of Mr Kapoor. All the other team members were very comfortable with her
and had given a very positive feedback to Parul. He also shared an incident with Abhinav when Parul
was approached by a client for some information and understanding the value of that clients
association with NaturalHub India Ltd, Parul connected the person with DGM immediately. This
was a key client of NaturalHub India Ltd and had been associated with the organization since past
10 years. At the same time he praised Anjana as well. He said that Anjana was an extremely
hardworking employee. She was best suited for back-office job/desk job as she had very good
analytical skills. Mr Mehta had praised her diligence and sincerity and that he found her a keen
learner who would often come to him with questions.
Mr. Shreenivas also added,
Let me look into what you have said regarding Parul using Anjanas ideas - if it is true it is serious
matter.
Abhinav was greatly relieved. He was optimistic and believed that something good would definitely
come out of the whole thing.
Mr. Shreenivas met Mr. Kapoor the next day and brought to his notice. Mr. Kapoor was a much
respected person, so Mr. Shreenivas was assured that he would immediately look into the matter. Mr.
Kapoor called for Parul and they had an informal meeting. He asked her if the matter was really like
what Mr. Shreenivas had explained to him.
Parul immediately stood up in defence,
Not at all sir, the truth is actually that Anjana was very apprehensive about contacting the
prospective clients. I even made a few calls to clients for her. I dont know why she is complaining. I
think that Anjana is very unsure about her abilities and that prevents her from trying out new things
and reaching out to clients.
Parul went to explain how she often helps her fellow trainees learn the correct way of approaching
clients and was always willing to cooperate.
Mr. Kapoor listened, his anger and inquisitiveness about the situation slowly disappeared.
Well, is that the situation? asked Mr. Kapoor. Parul nodded.
Parul, I understand what you are trying to explain. I shall talk to her and see what could be done.
Now that you have been inducted as Marketing Manager, it is important that you do not let such
problems hamper your performance.
Mr Kapoor had observed both of them.
According to him, Parul was not only a very good at approaching clients but she was a good team
player too; Kapoor was convinced that Parul was the best candidate to become the Marketing
Manager.

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

He had mixed observations about Anjana. Anjana was a very good analyst and apprehensive about
meeting new people and also colleagues from the team and other departments of the organization.
Anjana according to him was an introverted person and therefore not much suited to become part of
the Marketing Team which requires working with colleagues and guiding them. She was, however
excellent at analyzing data and hence ideal for becoming Sales Analyst where an individual has to
work alone for long hours.

Abhinav too had asked informal meeting with Mr. Shreenivas and discussed the matter further. He
found that once Anjana had been asked to take inputs informally from other trainees before finalizing
the report. However, she contacted only Shashi. Incidentally, Mr. Kapoor and Shashi shared notes
and Mr Kapoor was not very happy about this.
On the other hand Sonu (another trainee) had some very positive things to say about Anjana- "I had
approached Anjana for a minor problem I was facing and she went out of the way to solve it and
shared some great insights from the data she was analyzing."
Abhinav saw the rationale behind the decision taken. When he went around specifically looking for
information, he found that another trainee Girish in the organization confirmed what others were
saying.
In Girish's words- "Anjana is under confident and that prevents her from interacting freely with
others in the team. She is excellent in analysis but she keeps her mind on her work and does not
interact with anyone. She has her lunch alone on most days. Once in a while she is seen interacting
with Abhinav." AND Parul is a good fit for managers role as she often helps other trainees to learn
the correct way of approaching the clients. She was always willing to cooperate."
Next day, Anjana & Abhinav were sitting in a cafe near Gateway of India. Abhinav too had been
promoted to become a Manager in the Accounts Department and was delighted. But he knew that
Anjana was unhappy with the job she had got.
Abhinav was concerned and thus started a conversation, Are you not happy that you have been
promoted to become Sales Analyst and will closely work with Mr. Mehta? It is the fruit of all your
education and a year full of hard work you have put in here.
Yes, Im happy that now I have got a promotion and my pay-scale has also risen and Im happy for
you also." said Anjana
Anjana, we should start a new journey from here and we need to work hard. So cheer up! said
Abhinav.
But it could have been better, Abhinav. I know I am good at leading but nobody recognizes it. I did
not want Parul to get the dream job. She will be the Marketing Manager and her work will be noticed
by all the big people. Oh! The recognition and the opportunities... I have got such a monotonous job
of analyzing data in spite of having worked the hardest throughout the year. The truth is that
exaggerating your performance is what works here. Nobody respects true hard work. You are correct

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

that we ought to work hard from now on, but how can I be sure that it will pay off? The drive is no
longer there and I hope that I can just stick to the job. said Anjana sadly.
Both of them walked by the sea near the Gateway of India without speaking.
Anjana looked at the sea and like the permanent job, she could see the waves coming towards her.
The sea was meeting the sky at the horizon. But Anjana could not see how reality would ever meet
what she had desired.

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

Exhibit -1 : Performance Appraisals

Performance Appraisal Sheet
31st July,2015
Employee Name: Parul Maini
Department: Marketing
th
Joining Date: 15 June,2014
Designation: Management trainee
Performance during training: Very Good, Complete understanding of the company policies
and structure.
Goal Achievement: highest sales leads achieved in the team. Stuck to deadlines
Behaviour & Discipline: Good
Comments from mentor: High drive to achieve results. Excellent communication skills.
High respect shown towards seniors. Presentation skills are commendable

Performance Appraisal Sheet

31st July,2015
Employee Name: Anjana Maheshwari
Department: Marketing
th
Joining Date: 15 June,2014
Designation: Management trainee
Performance during training: Very Good, Worked sincerely
Goal Achievement: Average sales leads achieved. Stuck to deadlines
Behaviour & Discipline: Good
Comments from mentor: Sincere with her work. Keen learner. But lacks initiative and
needs to be more forthcoming. Very good analytical skills.

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

Annexure 1: Brief reporting structure in the Organization

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

Performance Rating
Excellent
Attributes

Very

Average

Poor

Good

1.

Willingness to take Initiative

Parul

2.

Regularity / Punctuality

Both

3.

Flexibility/Adaptability

Parul

4.

Dependability / Reliability

Both

5.

Integrity / Honesty

Both

6.

Team Spirit & Co Operation

Parul

7.

Efficiency / Competency

Both

8.

Quality Orientation

Both

9.

Innovativeness

Both

Anjana

Anjana

Anjana

10. Willingness to accept responsibility

Parul

11. Writing Skills

Anjana

Parul

12. Analytical Skills

Anjana

Parul

Dr. Shubhra Gaur

Good

Anjana