Empowerment – Empowerment is a strong word and we talk in
today’s world with respect to Women Empowerment, Employee Empowerment…. Empowerment
is what young job aspirants are looking for in organizations. More than
monetary rewards, it is the feeling that employee “owns” the job that motivates
him or her nowadays. Empowered employees are energetic and passionate, however
in a middle level position when “Boss” empowers the subordinate, it always
doesn’t mean that “Boss” is doing to make the subordinate feel empowered but it can also mean that he is incapable of handling
the work and has chosen the best brain to help him so that he can show his work
to seniors by simply erasing the employee name from the document .
So how to handle such Idiotic, mad boss… here presenting the
story of Saamna a middle level manager.
One fine day Saamna got a call from an HR firm stating “
Will you be interested in joining ABC company” ? She said “ No” because she had
heard that Women are not treated well by ABC company. After few days she was
surprised to get call from the Head marketing of the same organization called
“ Nilesh Kumar”. First of all she was shocked and taken aback that how
“Nilesh” got her number and secondly Why is he calling her… This was the first
time in her life when Head marketing was calling her directly without any
appointment. However she gave him ear… Nilesh tried to persuade her to join
the organization and ensured her that she will be treated well.
After the call he started texting her. She was shocked and
didn’t know how to handle the person like him…. So she gave it a thought and
tried to ignore the messages. However she had a strong feeling that someone
else is controlling this entire act ( The stupid act of Head marketing) so to
get into deeper she also got friendly on sms but things were still not clear as
whose brain is behind all this activity.
One day she got the
call from HR that she has been finalized and she had to join on x day. So
finally she joined. Nilesh tried to get close to her and shared his personal
life. She easily could have said “ FO” but he was her boss and she had to think
smartly so she hatched the plan in her mind.
Problem statement – Nilesh was mentally sick and needed a
shoulder to cry as he was undergoing Divorce in his personal life.
To know about the person who is asking him to get friendly
with Saamna.
Solution : For problem statement 1 she needed someone who
can become Nilesh friend so she zeroed in on a girl who was always checking
guys and was known as “Saana” by some of her friends. So this “Saana” was best mach for him as there
was lot of similarity between Nilesh and “Saana”.
1. Both of them can't stick to one person.
2. Both of them had the habit to show off and were masters
in manipulating the situation. Both of them were born liars. Lie was in their
blood. Both had the bad family background.
3. Both of them had little brain and were divorced. Nilesh
was divorced twice whereas “Saana” was divorced once.
So she thought of introducing them to each other because by
doing that she will be at peace and Nilesh will stop harassing her and both Nilesh & Saamna will be able to concentrate on work and will have peaceful professional life. Sammna was professional enough to handle the work and she just wished that Nilesh let her work peacefully which was beneficial for the organisation as well as for her. It would have been the WIN WIN situation for both the organisation and for her. She once thought of sharing this with senior
management of the organization but she
was told that senior management doesn’t hold good opinion about her, however
she tried once sharing with senior management but got cold vibes. One of the option
was to tell his wife but she was shocked to hear Nilesh opinion about his
wife. He told her that she had cancer once and she goes out with guys. Her
English is poor. She drinks and smokes. She is on depression pills. Saamna
thought the person who had no respect for his wife will never make her life
happy. In fact she will become more depressed if she stays with person like
Nilesh.
So in front of her there was only one option which was good
for the organization as well as for her that she get him friendly with that “Saana” so
that he remains busy with her and she gets peace in life and they as team were able to deliver the project on time. So she introduced him
to her . Life was going good till the time Nilesh behavior became worse ( A man ego that how a woman can say no to him). One day when Nilesh misbehaved with her she thought of teaching him
lesson for life because there is saying “When we ignore a wrong, we also become
part of the wrong” so she decided that she will leave that organization only
after teaching him lesson for life.
She took the matter to HR and she moved on in life. One
month later she got call from a lady stating that “Saana” was sleeping with her
husband and she needed Saamna’s help in meeting “Saana” as “Saana” was ignoring
her calls. She mailed her the videos of her husband and Saana in a compromising
position. She also got the shock of her life when she was told that Saamna
account was hacked and few mails were sent using her account to show the world
the different story. Saamna could have gone to the police but she thought this
situation was like mud, if one throws a stone then some mud will be on her as
well. So like a sensible girl she thought of ignoring everything. Time will
tell who is what and you can't hide the truth for long.
So finally her plan worked. Both got together, the
organization came to know the real Nilesh, and she saved his wife life as
well.
When the life showed her right vs. wrong , she chose the right
even for that her image was at stake and she had to leave the organization on a
bad note. Leaving on a bad note was less painful
than to suffer from daily harassment. One mistake which Saamna made that she heard the personal story of Nilesh. According to me she should not have given the ear to Nilesh story but her inquisitive nature and a thought that someone is behind her stupid boss action and her thinking that the organisation is like family, made her hear the story. She learned a big lesson that the Organisation is not family and one should never hear the personal story of anyone or never try to help anyone.
When I heard the above story I was moved and proud of being a
woman and only a woman can make such sensible judgment . Hope you all agree that Saamna was a good
decision maker and did the best in that particular situation. There is lot to learn from the above story and the fact that empowerment always doesn't mean that Boss is empowering subordinate to give him/her the power of decision making and allowing the employees to say on how things are to be done.... Empowerment needs to be implemented with caution and senior management should be able to differentiate between empowerment and Bosses non performance. Empowerment doesnt work at the place where boss have highly inflated egos and are self centered. When boss look for secured but not challenging jobs, empowerment sounds hollow.
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