Master of Cats

Dear The-Girl-I-Have-Never-Met,

I hope your boss is not as unhappy with you as you are with yourself. As always, my advice is the same, don't be too hard on yourself.

Being an Ivy League college and one of the best if not 'The Best' hospitality colleges in the world we tend to attract some pretty big names to deliver guest lectures on leadership. I had the opportunity to listen to Lee Pilsbury, a hugely successful entrepreneur with an empire worth billions of dollars. I like Mr. Pilsbury, he is a old tough cookie, extremely successful, single minded and above all arrogant as hell. I like arrogant ones. But the ones who have made it on their own. He was talking about managing people and how he used to be called the 'Golden Hammer' that the whole of Marriott used to know him by ( he loves that name ). How he would be harsh on the people around him, How he would weed out the non performers and make the ones willing to take the humiliation in their own stride to move up the corporate ladder. But when he became an entrepreneur, something dawned upon him. He was no longer leading a multi-national with almost unlimited resources. He had to make do with what he had. He had months of frustration trying to manage the non-motivated, under-payed and nearly talent or ambition less workforce he had in his small company.

One day, he went to visit his father in law ( a very successful corporate honcho himself.) They were sitting in their comfortable living room with Mr. Father-In-Law's pet cats swarming around the whole place. Apparently he had a lot of them. A cat hater himself Mr. Pilsbury was amused to see so many of them in one house. If you know anything about cats, they are not really the most obedient domestic animals around, something that drives a number of people up the wall. So looking at his son in laws expression the father-in-law says," Hey I love cats, they are the best pets to have around and I have the most obedient bunch around. Thats what makes them awesome." so young Lee goes,: Are you outta your mind? Cats ? Obedient ? Old age seems to be catching up with you."

The father in law chuckles expecting this exact reaction and says," Look here Lee," walks over to the door where a cat is just about to leap out of the cat door into the front lawn and says," Getta here you bitch." walks over to the food bowl left for the cats and there is another vicious black cat approaching it," Eat that!!!', Walks back to the front door where one of his favorite cat is scratching the door, opens the door and says." Where have you been? Get in here right now!!!'

All the cats had done exactly what he told them right? Thus the old man walks up to Lee and says," See, what did I tell ya!!!. They all follow my orders!!" The point of the whole story was. People act most of the times in a consistent way. Even inconsistent ones are consistent their inconsistencies. People do what they like to do. And people can only be pushed so far to do things that are not in their nature to do. Or sometimes people just don't see the world the way you do. But one has to live in a society that requires these people interaction on different levels, be it an organisation, a tiny office, your innocuous bhaji wala or your family. One needs to understand what people around him/her are going to do.

Coming back to the conversation on Whatsapp, your junior is incompetent, she does not take initiative. You have already tried to coach her and make her a better professional. If all else fails and her under-performance in consistent, it means she is just not cut out to make it big. I have no doubt that she can change her ways. But its a difficult task. As far as you are concerned, sometimes your harshness comes from a incompetencies, sometimes its just a magnified reflection of your own state of mind. If she can't perform don't expect her to. Just assign her work in small loads. Places where we work with people, our performance is judged on the performance of our teams. So tell the cat exactly what is in her nature to do. I hope this cheers you up a bit. You just need to believe in yourself.

Cheers

Nutee's