Case Study: Dilemma Of An MD

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Shabbar Suterwala.

I my journey of Corporate Training, I have come across many small time organization who are no longer small. Here is an interesting case study of an organization and the Dilemma of the MD.



The organization which started as a proprietory concern is now Pvt. Ltd. organization, started in a small 10 x 10 office, now with a workforce of 150+ people. The organization and the people with it have grown. The Proprietor has now become the MD and so on the others into senior management who have been here since past 12 to 15 years.

This is where the bottle neck has started. The MD has high aspirations, knows the potential of its products and services and its core competencies in the global market. There is tremendous growth potential from a 100 Million to 1000 Million in the next 2 years.

The MD's question is:

How will you motivate your senior people? The lot of people who have been with the organization right from the inception who have been loyal since 12 to 15 years.

What style – skills of management should be used to motivate them so that they can be at par with the current Young Management breed who are out to prove themselves. There is always a conflict when these young ones are paid more for higher performance, faster and accelerated growth as compared to the older lot.

How can the older lot be brought to par with this young lot? They are loyal; mind you but performance and productivity as compared to the global standards do not match.

At times the Proactiveness - taking initiative and ownership is missing?

A lot of Ego and Blame game is played?


The organization works more as Department and groups then as a Team.

How can this Traditional style working be turn around into Professionally runned organization.

The MD is concerned because the counterparts in other countries are growing tremendously, if we do not perform we will perish.


Any suggestions for the MD............?

Thanks and Regards

Shabbar Suterwala
Corporate Soft Skills Trainer
Ph: +91 989 222 5864
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Case Study: Dilemma of an MD

This is a typical dilemma across organizations. The fact that the MD is aware of this and wants to take corrective action is a welcome step.

Any such dilemma can be resolved only when proper study is conducted. The MD should first understand what the needs of the organization is, and then understand the needs of the employees (Senior management) in this case and then try to map both the needs in such a way that it is beneficial for the company.

There can be one case where the senior management is very stable and is not taking risks or bottomline. They are bogged down by the ego clashes and have very little impetus to grow further. And there can be another case where the senior management wants to grow further but just the incentives at the organization is less and hence it is not nutritious enough to grow. Understanding the nature of the employees will give the clue on how the MD should behave.

Approach#1: If the senior management needs change or is looking for challenges
· Performance based Incentive system over the regular salary.
This would bring about competition among the senior management in each of their roles to outshine in their respective areas. The incentive system need not be only monetary, it can be growth in career roles too. This will help each of the senior management try to gain the maximum benefit for themselves and drive the growth of the company.
· Employees should be encouraged and directed to attend conferences and symposiums in related fields of business where younger dynamic managers do take part. This would help the senior management in the company understand how fiercely competitive younger managers are. This will help them gain confidence in themselves and give them a chance to prove that tey are much better than the younger ones.
· Reshuffling exercises should be taken up. This is particularly helpful if the employees are keen on taking up challenges and if there are frequent ego clashes. In such a scenario, the employees can be re-shuffled and given incentives and opportunity to prove themselves better than the person earlier handling the job. This will boost their egos and not only that, it will help getting together these power centres as a team in the long run.
Approach#2: if the senior management is not looking to change
· In this case, younger generation of managers need to be brought into the system and based on performance, they need to be promoted. This would take time but the company can take the decision to hire managers at all levels which would give the senior management a shock initially but eventually they will recover to compete with the new ones.
MD’s intention is not to harass the old loyal employees but to stimulate them so that all drive the growth of the company faster. This way is one of the way in which without laying them off, or putting them in a harsh position, introduce competition so that they themselves gear up.