tone.
“Well, let us not to embarrass ourselves, we still have sufficient funds to manage our salaries and bonuses; let us just to worry about how to write off this loss and move forward; we need someone to clean up the mess and ease us from this investment!” Mathew continued
“My slight concern is that the team set up by Lehyen; it is going to be difficult for the new guy to take control as they were hired according to Lehyen’s expertise”, Mathew further continued.
Lehyen with his no knowledge on Animation quickly started hiring the people whoever he came across to fill up the large office he has leased. Finally another good year elapsed by hiring the people and getting them a nice artistic table and chair to warm up. Happy fund managers awarded with enormous bonuses in turn awarded Lehyen with huge bonus sum, encouraging him to go on a family holiday for a month recognizing his accomplishment in setting up the team in two short years.
Approaching the third year, nothing to show to the Board of FUI, Lehyen has happily expressed to end the contract. With the huge exit package offered by his contract, he happily got engaged in settling his family out of the region back home. Happy journey to Imagination unlimited, Asia is ended for Lehyen after the tiring two years. He finally concluded with the perception that the creativity is more required in F&B than in animation. Lehyen had earned enough funds to set up his own F&B back home to leverage his expertise.
“Guys, let us celebrate that Lehyen’s chapter is over; think of how to get a guy who can do the real thing; Lehyen had enough of his lifetime happiness under our leadership; well… we still need to continue our happiness and let us focus on how can we continue our happiness by hiring a guy who can manage our crisis without any complaints”, John Said
“and ofcourse we need to identify a guy who can happily manage the crisis but not asking for funds anymore” John continued.
Hit by huge financial crisis, Governments waking up to the facts to start intervening over the fat bonus payouts to better manage public funds, pressure starts mounting. FUI fund managers have enjoyed enough for many years with big chunk of bonus payouts for investing in innovative and creative companies all over the world. Realising the facts of the current situation, they have now taken the huge challenge of seriously looking into ROI (Return on Investment) than ROB (Retreat Only with Bonus) of the past.
“Well, no more ROB, it is all ROI, we need to instill the ROI with the new candidate”, Philip said
“hmm… let us hunt the finest candidate who can help us continue our jobs for another couple of years; gentlemen, time to go to bed and let us target the first candidate to be hired”, Philip said with a big yawning.
All left for their rooms to start a better tomorrow.
Among many other companies, the fund managers finally facing the fact that there is another twenty five Million dollars of investment in Imagination unlimited is going down the drain in Asia. Reviewing the situation, they are envy of their flamboyant creative CEO, Lehyen who has left them after having pocketed the huge retention bonus for going through two years of hardship in Asia.
With pressure mounting, financial crisis taking a toll, fund managers started seriously looking for a scapegoat in the name of restructuring. They want someone who can immediately acquire the mess left behind by Lehyen and take the company forward by scrubbing the losses.
It is a real prestigious issue for FUI to show the world that the public funds can be better managed by writing off the losses and can start a new chapter in fund management.
Monday morning over the breakfast table, the only thought among the four gentlemen is to hire the most brave candidate, preferably a local but with full of high ambitions.
Sharp 8.30AM, Periyasamy, the star candidate knocks at the cabin “ May I come in Sir”,
“ Priyaa..saeme..”, Philip try to pronounce his name in full,
“Sir, Periya Samy”, Periyasamy sounded proud with the clear strong tone,
“Well Priya… happy to have you here again and we hope we can get you on board soon”, Mathew said,
“Sir, I am here to sign the deal!”, Periyasamy sounded with excitement,
“Excellent, unfortunately our previous CEO, the most creative personnel has left the organization due to family reasons; wee have already discussed the details of this project and it is ofcoures at the end stage to bid for” all said in a synchronized voice without blinking their eyes.
“So…., we decided to offer this position more on a bonus basis than on a fixed salary; because it is a cake walk for the candidate who assume this position and will sure to get the full bonus”, continued in the same synchronized voice looking at each other.
“ofcourse, the project design is almost at the final stages and you should be lucky if you opt to take up this position”, Philip intervened and added the confidence
“Yes Sirs, I am excited, I am ready to sign the contract and take over the office from this Wednesday,” Periyasamy said with full of excitement
“Fantastic,” all four breathe a sigh of relief.
“We got this guy hunted and trapped to our tune”, all four mumbled among themselves.
Periyasamy is finally headhunted by the pressure-ridden fund managers and awarded with no cash remuneration. Intelligent managers have convinced him for a bundled salary and perks in to stocks. He has been given the challenge of successfully winning the prestigious US50 Million dollars animation project offered by Creative Animation Corp. Board of FUI instilled confidence that the project is more than halfway through and Periyasamy needs to do only cosmetic changes followed by loud selling.
3. Periyasamy on board at Imagination Unlimited
Periyasamy who has been heavily inspired by the vibrant management of Singapore is always aspiring to be a leader by example. Waiting for years for this kind of opportunity, he happily accepted the challenge of turning around Imagination Unlimited into a successful corporation. After all, he has been always boasting himself of being heavily successful by managing the crisis for smaller to larger companies in the region.
He immediately took charge of Imagination Unlimited without knowing the facts behind the scene.
He has been completely blind folded of the facts that he is actually thrown to face huge challenges on the ground. On the first day of his office, he immediately senses the huge baggage left behind by his predecessor and he realises there is no time left to clean up the mess. He has a short time frame to get the company on track as animation design submission date is nearing the deadline.
He has taken the major challenge of coming on board as CEO with majority of his salary in stocks and performance based bonuses. But to his surprise, he is left behind with the animation expert team with no imagination and the coding team struggling to practice the design tool. In nutshell, the team is still wondering how the animation movies are made in this world.
Called for the first office meeting, Periyasamy faces with a shock of himself with half the employees showing up, few of them on sick leave, few of them on leisurely leave and few of them with the luxury of half day work habit. Office record shows all of them for the past two years uniquely enjoyed guaranteed full time pay of course with full performance bonus. Obviously, they have been lead by example by their previous boss.
Thanks to Lehyen whose face is not much remembered by the employees, as he has always been busy not coming to office but touring all the time to learn creativity by seeing the places. But the employees are overwhelmed by the management expertise of Lehyen that the salary cheques, entertainment expenses and any other expenses as enjoyed by the employees have been promptly paid.
Lehyen had been extremely disciplined to step into his office once in a month to collect his cheques and sign all the papers and cheques meant for his beloved staff and vendors. He kept himself away from the office, as he believed the Fengshui is not right in the office as it was seriously advised by one of his loyal staff. Thus Lehyen has been popular with his invisible management style and t
he staffs are mentored and well versed with management by absence.
Physical presence of Periyasamy with his strong features of asian physique, the employees in the office felt odd and uncomfortable as if an alien has taken over the office. Periyasamy who has been boasting himself as one of the greatest crisis managers has been caught with an additional challenge of changing the Fengshui in the office to his favour.
He decorated his office by placing spastic-stone Ganeshji statue on his table and hanging the powerful picturesque Haji Ali on the wall, which gave warmth feeling whenever he entered and exited his office.
He immediately sensed on the first day itself that the Imagination Unlimited is filled with people of no imagination, no passion, no motivation and no innovation. Suddenly posed with a serious setback, Periyasamy feels it is impossible to submit a winning design for the Animation project in a shorter time frame. After all he has made a huge promise to his wife that the fat performance bonus he would get out of this deal can pay half of his mortgage. Periyasamy recalls the fund managers’ boasting “..the project is a cakewalk”. He tells himself, “ oh my