Page 241 - DCOM102_DMGT101_PRINCIPLES_AND_PRACTICES_OF_MANAGEMENT

Unit 13: Motivation and Leadership

Notes

Case Study Employee Motivation

ohit Narang joined Apex Computers (Apex) in November after a successful stint at
Zen Computers (Zen), where he had worked as an assistant programmer. Rohit
Rfelt that Apex offered better career prospects, as it was growing much faster than
Zen, which was a relatively small company. Although Rohit had enjoyed working there,
he realized that to grow further in his field, he would have to join a bigger company, and
preferably one that handled international projects. He was sure he would excel in his new
position at Apex, just as he had done in his old job at Zen.
Rohit joined as a Senior Programmer at Apex, with a handsome pay hike. Apex had
international operations and there was more than a slim chance that he would be sent to
USA or the UK on a project. Knowing that this would give him a lot of exposure, besides
looking good on his resume, Rohit was quite excited about his new job.
Rohit joined Aparna Mehta's five-member team at Apex. He had met Aparna during the
orientation sessions, and was looking forward to working under her. His team members
seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. He introduced himself to
the team members and got to know more about each of them.
Wanting to know more about his boss, he casually asked Dipti, one of the team members,
about Aparna. Dipti said, "Aparna does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could
even say that she tries to ignore us as much as she can."
Rohit was surprised by the comment but decided that Aparna was probably leaving them
alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize their full
potential.
At Zen, Rohit had worked under Suresh Reddy and had looked up to him as a guide and
mentor - always guiding, but never interfering. Suresh had let Rohit make his own mistakes
and learn from them. He had always encouraged individual ideas, and let the team discover
the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience.
He rarely held an individual member of his team responsible if the team as a whole failed
to deliver - for him the responsibility for any failure was collective. Rohit remembered
telling his colleagues at Zen that the ideal boss would be someone who did not interfere
with his/her subordinate's work.
Rohit wanted to believe that Aparna too was the non-interfering type. If that was the case,
surely her non-interference would only help him to grow.
In his first week at work, Rohit found the atmosphere at the office a bit dull. However, he
was quite excited. His team had been assigned a new project and was facing a few glitches
with the new software. He had thought about the problem till late in the night and had
come up with several possible solutions.
He could not wait to discuss them with his team and Aparna. He smiled to himself when
he thought of how Aparna would react when he told her that he had come up with several
possible solutions to the problem. He was sure she would be happy with his having put in
so much effort into the project, right from day one.

Contd...

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