SUSWASA AND THE TELEPHONE -2

?[You can read the first part of the series Suswasa and the Telephone - 1 here! ]

Suswasa now firmly believed that the dream will turn real as he was able to spot the black telephone seen in his noontime dream. He was determined to bring the black telephone and install it in the northeast portion of his living room so that he can enjoy the fortune that is going to follow.

So, the next day morning Suswasa went back to the junkyard at Telepuram. Suswasa found the black telephone exactly at the same location from where he had picked it up earlier.

As Suswasa started driving back home, there was a loud ringing sound from the telephone. Suswasa picked up the receiver and listened to the deep voice.

“Suswasa thank you for coming back and picking me up. I hope you will succeed in installing me at your home this time. However, you will have to fulfil the condition of sending the message ‘NATURE’ to 7NL from your mobile and selecting option 4 upon receiving the confirmation message. Then do not speak until you reach home” said the deep voice and continued “now you know that I will vanish and go back to junkyard, if you do not fulfil my condition, so be careful.”

Suswasa pulled out his mobile and composed the message ‘NATURE’ and sent it to 7NL. Immediately he got the following confirmation message:

“Thanks for registering with us. Now press 1 for dating services, 2 for astrology services, 3 for health tips and 4 for a story.

Suswasa pressed 4 without any further thought. The deep voice of the telephone said, “Good, now put on your blue tooth earphone and enjoy the story.”

Suswasa started listening to the story:

B.A.B.A. is a multibillion company having an interest in manufacturing, food, energy, finance, retail chains, consulting and so on. The CEO of the company is people centric and a firm believer in ethical practices. He was worried about the future of the company. He needed to build a pool of leaders who are capable of steering the ever-expanding business units in an efficient and productive way. And it has to happen fast, within the next ten years. Recruiting candidates from top grade B-schools alone was not enough. The melt down of financial sector giants in the recent past, who had employed them in hundreds, was a clear reminder of that fact.

?So he wanted to identify the future leaders during the entry-level recruitment stage itself. So that it helps grooming them to shoulder the enormous responsibility from the very beginning. The chairman wanted a new procedure to be developed for recruitment to identify a proper set of traits.?

When the CEO conveyed this to his Human Resources Director, the director said he is ready with a plan and will be implemented from the very next batch of the selection process.

So, about 250 candidates selected after the initial written test, were called to attend the new selection process. All candidates were required to stay for 5 days at the world-class training centre of the company. The candidates were asked to report at the centre on Sunday morning.

There was a customary welcome session. All the members of the company management attended the session to drive home the point that the specially devised selection process is to pick the future leaders and not just the employees. It was also made clear that the selected candidates will be leading the various business units in 10 years’ time.

After the welcome session, the HR manager started briefing the candidates assembled at the convention hall of the training centre.

The training centre has all the facilities you can think of. It has a variety of restaurants for food, Malls with all sorts of shops, beauty salons for men and women, laundry services, cinema halls, sports centre, swimming pool, gym, book shops. The computer centre is specially set up for you. It has inter-active gaming stations.?Upon login, you can learn a lot about the company - the vision of the company, the challenges ahead, opportunities and processes employed – through various games.

So you can enjoy the next five days over here. Each one of you will be given a cash card, which you need to preserve carefully. The cash card enables you to access and avail of the facilities on this premise. The cash card will have ? 2,400 at the beginning of each day. You can use this amount for availing of any facility. However, the balance amount if any will not be carried over. The cash card will be loaded with ? 2,400 again on the first swipe the next day. In effect, the maximum limit that you can spend each day is ? 2,400 only.

The cash card will become operational from tomorrow, i.e., Monday morning. For the purpose of familiarisation, all the facilities except shopping can be accessed / availed for free today. So go around the campus and swipe the card to avail any facility and to login into gaming station at the computer centre. In case of difficulty approach the help centres.?

We wish you a memorable stay over here and the selected candidates will be notified on Saturday evening.

All the candidates dispersed and checked in to their allotted rooms. Then they were all over the campus. They went to restaurants, swiped the cash card and enjoyed a variety of food. They went to the swimming pool. Swiping the cash card enabled them to use swimsuits, towels, locker and obviously the pool. Some of them even went to Malls and tried to shop but the cash card was not operational as instructed earlier and so instead they went to watch a cinema.

By the end of the day, the HR department was pleased with the performance of cash cards as all of them were working as designed and there were no complaints at any of the help centres except for one. That complaint was also resolved immediately by replacing the cash card. The faulty card had been twisted and so was not working.

Next five days were hectic for the HR department. They were keeping a tab on each candidate’s use of cash card using a specially designed database.

The candidates were overwhelmed by the royal treatment extended to them. It never occurred to them even one bit that they were undergoing a selection process. For five days, the candidates used their cash cards to shop at malls, grooming at salons, splashing in pools, gaming station and even laundry services. Some candidates were so indulgent that they emptied their cash card by noon itself. This was despite the fact that the display panel at each swiping point was flashing the balance amount left in the cash card and the amount deductible for the service requested.?Fortunately, there were some good Samaritans who spared the amount out of their cash cards for lunch and dinner of such candidates.

Those five days were like dream for the candidates. On Saturday morning all were wondering why the selection process is not initiated so far. As there were no interviews, discussions, personality assessment tests.

Meanwhile, the CEO with other functional heads was in a meeting discussing the report on the short listed candidates.

The report indicated that each candidate had ?12,000 at his disposal over a period of five days. Candidates who have spent a minimum of ? 3,600 for logging in gaming station and a minimum of ?1,200 each for (1) food and laundry, (2) Gym, swimming pool and sporting facilities (3) buying books and (4) Malls, movies and salons. So the minimum amount spent during five-day period totalled up to ? 8,400. The spending pattern of balance ?3,600 was not considered.

Based on the above criteria, 62 candidates were short-listed.

Then CEO asked to find out the candidates who have spent the balance ? 3,600 for buying food and medicine for others, for helping others to log into gaming station. When the query was run on the database, 23 candidates among the initial 62 were found to be satisfying the additional criteria.

CEO wound up the meeting declaring that these 23 candidates are to be notified about their selection.

That evening all the 250 candidates were eagerly waiting for the results at the conference hall, the venue of the farewell meeting.

When the names of 23 selected candidates were announced, all the candidates were astonished and confused about the selection procedure.

After telling this story, the voice in the Suswasa’s earphone continued, “Suswasa, I am also confused about the selection method. I know you are good at applying common sense to unravel life truths. So tell me quickly the logic behind the selection process otherwise you will be blown up and reduced to ashes like an ammunition laden terrorist car on a suicide mission!”

Suswasa with his application of common sense grasped things immediately and started to speak out his mind.

“The recent events in the global financial sector suggest that they could not prevent the meltdown even with hordes of top grade B-school recruits. The educational qualification alone cannot make a person, a true leader. Moreover, the highly qualified person will have the knowledge of methods used to analyse the overall personality during recruitments. So such person can work through the methods and present himself/herself as a suitable candidate.

CEO and management of B.A.B.A. group of companies were aware of these facts and hence devised a novel method to find a true leader, which they were looking for.

A true leader is one who balances his/her professional interest and personal interest within the available resources and yet strives for progress. True leaders also facilitate the progress and development of other people. They are always aware of troubles and have the ability to spot and resolve them.

The philosophy of the test was simple. It analysed how each candidate utilises the most precious resource available to everyone – TIME. Every ?100 represented one hour and thus ?2,400 being given to each candidate amounted to a day. Since time cannot be saved and carried over to the next day, the cash card was programmed to allow spending a maximum of ? 2,400 a day and did not allow carrying over any leftover amount to the next day.?

The report presented by HR clearly indicates that the 62 candidates on the first list are those, who have spent minimum of 30% on using gaming station, and 10% each on food, sports facility, books and entertainment. That means these people will manage to put in about 30-40% of time for the work and another 30-40% time for their personal wellbeing on a consistent basis. Further short listing was done by analysing whether the balance 20-30% is spent on food and medicine, gaming station and entertainment for others, especially those who ran out of cash. This shows the person’s ability to spot the trouble and be ready to help. The 23 candidates who passed these criteria were selected. Since these people have the traits of true leaders such as balancing the work and family life, taking time for self and care for the people around them.”

As soon as Suswasa finished speaking his mind, there was loud laughter from the black telephone. The deep voice followed the laughter saying, “Suswasa, you spoke before reaching home and so I am off to the junkyard. You can find me there only after the sunrise tomorrow” and vanished.