Day One as CEO- continuation from previous post

He could make out Chitra and Rajesh from the people who had gathered in the auditorium. Vaibhav had chosen to stay away... It irked him but he quickly wiped away that feeling. He was brimming with positive energy. He had given the final touches to his speech the previous evening. It had taken a whole of two days to prepare it. He didn't want it to be like the endless drones he had sat through on his way to the top. Each of those killer bores had only firmed his resolution on speeches. So he had spent those two days on a speech that wasn't to be more than half an hour.

Now has he faced them he felt really confident and happy. They were all looking very smart and really sincere. As he went through his plans for the Engineering dept., his heart lifted as he saw David nod in appreciation. Manufacturing and Finance too looked mighty pleased with his organisation announcement. It was not like these were bolts from the blue. He had made sure that itsy bits of the changes to come had been appropriately leaked. It was his ploy to test the waters before deploying policies full fledged. After the vote of thanks - the Marketing team sans Manisha came upto him and congratulated him.

After the speech and everybody's personal greetings he walked to his cabin. He had to speak to Abhishek and ask him to clean out his old cabin and transfer some of his old stationery to the new cabin.Then there were all the graphs to look into generated by their own market research. He had data collected from six of the market reviews posted by three independent telco-watchdog/news commitees . Then there was the culture survey results from Sales dept.He knew he had to hit the ground running. They handed the plum post to him not because they thought it was cakewalk - oh! it would never have gone to the youngest executive in senior management, if it had been a cake walk-no they had a standard dialogue for the high-paying cakewalk jobs- "you know efficiency is important but you have to have someone with experience!"

Oh yes Sir! They-(board of directors) needed all his energy and dynamism and had they
wooed him or what! He had played hard to get- but only after making sure he was their only choice. Oh the mean mean tricks he had played-He had killed a little of the old Vinish. But this was not the time to think about that!

As he scanned the email about curbing bottomline that Mark had sent a week back, he noticed why Mark had told him his assesment of coach travel not being added to the final draft had been wrong. It was not right in your eyes-but it was there - a subtler message than Vinish would have preferred. But Mark sometimes took the "Easy way out".After all it's easier to admonish thousands of employees you never come face-to face with than those you have lunch with.

After Mark's email he went through the Culture Survey results and noted the following.

1. Sales was definetly not on a roll

2. "Innovation" was just an empty buzzword to most of the sales team.
-hmmm tough one to crack!

3. "Freedom to quote within a flexible range" was what most of them were asking for-
Negotiate with marketing

4. At least two days advance notice on road trips- Road trip Calender

5. They all hated the marketing department and thought that R&D was filled with "idiots"
-sales R&D interaction meet

6. Compensation-Keep paying them as before, they like it

He had just about completed his note taking when Vaibhav came in. Boss! we're going out to celebrate - The Lounge- Mark and Vishnu are waiting in the lawn - Shall we join them? Vinish wondered that he could address him without a grimace. He skipped the oppurtunity to reprimand him on his absence at the "General Address".It was thoughtless enough for the board to have asked Vaibhav to arrange for the celebration party. "Sometimes you just wince at the cruelty your enemies have to suffer for your success!"