An Apple Pudding

It was 5 in the morning; Ranjan was in deep sleep when the phone bell rang. It wasn’t unusual to receive a call early morning, but what disturbed his wife Priya was, the continuous ringing of bell in spite of being a Sunday. She noticed it was his RM Kumar, and tried waking up Ranjan but she could not. Ranjan came in late night, being a Saturday it’s normally a hectic day with meetings, schedules, commitments, he was drained out.

Priya was busy in her kitchen preparing breakfast for their two kids, in-law’s, it was 8.00 in the morning the phone bell rang again, it was Kumar, she could understand it looked like something very urgent, hence woke up Ranjan and informed him of the call. Ranjan spoke to Kumar for more than half hour, exhausted he dragged himself to the bed murmuring to him.

Ranjan was the team head of a restaurant chain in the region, he called up his team for an urgent meeting at 11.00 am in the office on Monday and discussed about the call he had received and instructed them to get in action, he wanted a new dish to be created and it had to be ready by 30th as Kumar was to fly on 1st for a meeting with GM who would then be meeting the board of directors on 2nd of the coming month.

Once a flourishing and highly competitive unit, the team was going through hard times and this was their last opportunity, if they could not make it by 30th this month the unit will be shut down forever. The closing down of unit send shivers to all 50 member team. Each and every team member was doing his / her R & D for the best recipe and ingredients for an Apple Pudding as instructed by Ranjan. They searched for the ingredients within their locality, region, states, but it was as though the apples had vanished from the market. Ranjan kept his team on their toes, every day he spent almost 12 to 14 hrs in the office calling up, following but the prime ingredient required for the pudding was missing.

It was 29th and the team were looking towards Ranjan to bail them out, Ranjan himself had no clue but he did not give up, he kept on motivating his team and instructed them to keep trying new places, upcoming markets, to extend beyond their existing market, to use non-conventional ways to search and find the apples. Kumar too had lost his sleep, because the branch use to be the best when it comes to the output and this was going to hit his productivity graphs too, the directors were in no mood to accommodate citing reasons.

It was 30th and Kumar wasn’t too pleased with the discussion he had with Ranjan the previous night, his mind was already working on the presentation day with the GM. Heading towards for the scheduled meeting with Ranjan and his team, his mind was racing of what could be the plausible way out if things did not work well today. His presence in the organization would be a question mark for the BOD. He parked his car below the posh building of one of the prime commercial estate in the region. He walked through the long corridor towards the lift, reached office at sharp 3.00 pm, the meeting was scheduled for 4.00 pm, the other branches were doing fairly well, and as usual his hopes were high from Ranjan and his team. At 3.45 pm Kumar received a call from Ranjan stating that he will be delayed by an hour and to excuse him for the same. Kumar was pacing left to right in his cabin dialling, as well attending calls intermittently; he remembered his last call with the GM couple of days before and had committed about the results going to be good. It was 5.00 pm and he was about to call Ranjan, when Ranjan appeared at his cabin door requesting him towards the conference room.

Kumar stepped inside the conference room which was already packed with the team members, he took his seat and on the table in front of him was the package with a tag “Tang Apple Pudding”. Kumar couldn’t believe himself and was pleased to see the smiling faces around; Ranjan was sitting next to him with a beaming face. The meeting ended up on a fine note while Kumar promised them with a treat when he returns after the meeting with GM. Ranjan and his team had saved the day… or perhaps prolonged the D Day.

Kumar had a wonderful day with GM who congratulated him and asked him to wait for his call after the BOD meeting, as was his way of convincing the impossible, he served the “Tang Apple Pudding” to BOD members, and happy they were and appreciated the hard work he had put in. Immediately the recipes & preparation techs where copied to each of the CEO’s offices by BOD and had instructed all the teams in the regional offices to replicate similar experiences and to take it as the benchmark. The recipe for Tang Apple Pudding had reached each and every branch and SBU’s of the organization.

The team member of regional units scoffed at the new laid benchmark, but was left with no choice. Few tough guys could come close to the benchmark; it was hard time for all. While the entire country units where being targeted and scorned at, Kumar’s team where being appreciated.

Kumar congratulated his team on his return and as promised gave them a wonderful treat, all his team members were glad to have Ranjan as their team leader as he was the one who bailed them out from a near collapse or shut down, all of them partied until early morning hours. Kumar did not get an opportunity to speak to Ranjan, during the end of party Kumar spoke to Ranjan alone and asked him the secret of “Tang Apple Pudding”.

Ranjan hesitated initially and said "Tang” apple never existed and that there was no apple in the pudding".

Kumar wasn’t sure of what hit him.