A Corporate Chinese whisper

While I was analyzing this , I thought it was a good idea to open this post to the group to receive individual's views on this :

In a Multinational Organization, A cross functional (a team of mostly Junior Managers representing various departments) group from across the country had worked hard on few projects. This group is encouraged and mentored for future Senior positions. They achieved really outstanding results and were rewarded by the global organization. The award was supposed to be collected from the Top Boss at the Global Headquarters by one from the group on behalf of the group.

Generally whenever team award is announced, the practice of organisation is that any local employee who is visiting the global headquarters at that time will represent and receive it on behalf of the local team here. This helps to reduce the travel hassles and saves cost. This time the local Chief made an exception and said he will sponsor the visit of one of team member travel to collect the award. His main purpose was to encourage people’s work. The date of receiving award was just 15 days ahead when this decision was taken.

So the senior team members arrived at a practical approach. They realized as there were 3 top performers who could travel to receive the award, the logistics involved visa and overseas travel. Now the issue was to select one of them who possess all requirements of travel. Bottom line is do this without disappointing others. Hence the senior members assigned their confidant to speak to all three of them and understand their schedule, their status on passport and visa. The caveat was not to build expectations and refrain from sharing information about the travel and the award.

Now the confidant spoke to the first performer and inadvertently spilled the beans of the travel and award. As the first performer did not possess the passport, hence he was ruled out. However the first performer presumed that he has been selected to go for the award and started the process of tatkal passport ( emergency process of obtaining the passport). In the excitement he also shot a mail with full emotions to the top leadership thanking for his nomination  

In the meantime, the confidant spoke to the second performer and understood that he has his passport and visa in place. Hence the senior team decided that the second performer will travel and collect the award. Usually a formal invite is sent to the nominee from the Global Management. The information about this person representing the group was conveyed in a confidential mail to the Global Management. In this mail they also conveyed the reason of selection. The second performer’s Manager was also marked on the mail as his team member was selected. Now this Manager in excitement forwards that mail to the second performer. When the second performer reads the mails, he is disappointed as the criteria of selection was not his ability but the passport and moreover he was not the first person chosen to receive this award. The senior leadership now have ended up discouraging both of them.

Though the second  peformer went on to receive the award, he did so reluctantly.

In the end the senior management had an uphill task managing both the high performers and pacifying them. Ultimately the end goal for which this exercise started was far away from being achieved.

i will be glad to receive your thoughts on this.

Mahesh