Good manager or bad...what do you think?

LinkedIn has become a great source of positive reading and professional anecdotes. You get to read experiences and incidents from across the globe. Most of the times, however, stories seem one dimensional and I know they never are. There are positive and negative aspects of most actions and at least from the point of the perpetrators, there is a perceived goodness about them. Thinking back, I realize I have been privy to many events that require an analysis. So, sharing one such story I came across in the year 2005.

Story that I am about to share is practically a hearsay. I only knew the manager and not the subordinate involved in this and manager never discussed it with me. But the office gossip brought this into my notice. In 2005, I was horrified and practically hated that manager for what I was told he did and it affected my relationship with that gentleman. He is one of the only managers whom I chose to not to be in touch with. However, after fourteen years and having seen so many different kinds of people, I don't know if my judgement of that person was right or not. So, sending this story and inviting you to share your point of view.

Telecom industry was undergoing tremendous changes in 2002, especially since AirTel had launched cost effective outgoing and free incoming calling services. It took four months for AirTel to print their first set of post-paid services’ invoices and a cycle of collection process was initiated. In simplest form, collection process is straight forward. You send bill to customer with 21 days to pay. After 21 days and a grace period depending on your process gets over, you restrict outgoing facilities for the customer which is called barring or dunning. Practically, there are a lots of data preparations and checks that take place before even a message intimating service barring is sent. A team of executives usually work on preparing the data, take required approvals and then initiate dunning.

This happened in 2003 or 2004, I am not certain of the year. But the process for collection was set as described above and one executive was assigned the responsibility for dunning. The structure in AirTel was very elaborate with COO heading circle and managing heads of HR, Admin, IT, Finance and Customer Service (CSD). CSD Head would supervise heads for Contact Centre, Service Assurance, Audit & compliance and Service Management Group (SMG). SMG head was responsible for all activities in collection process including dunning.

On that fateful day, dunning executive made an error in preparing the file and customers who had already paid were included in it. Now, process was set long back and he had been doing this every week so naturally he had developed a routine and a level of confidence. Apparently, the approving authorities also had enough confidence on this guy that they failed to check and validate the data. Result was that thousands of regularly paying customers were barred. A chaos ensued with customers shouting at call centre and front-end service executives. Lots of apologies and war like actions took place before the issue was managed, customers were pacified and their services restored. Punishment however was pending.

Next day, SMG head called entire service delivery team at their floor which included front end and call centre executives who had handled the crisis. The dunning executive was summoned too and he was chastised in front of everyone. SMG head then announced that this dunning executive would be summarily sacked. Only way he would be allowed to stay on job was if he took out his own shoe and put it on his head in front of everyone. I am assuming lots of shocked whispers and requests would've passed around however SMG head did not relent. Dunning executive had to put his shoe on his head in order to survive that day. Soon, he left the company for another.

I joined in 2005, and this story was regaled to me as an introduction of the SMG head and was advised to keep safe from him. I did not get any details of punishment directed towards the approving authority. I practically avoided this gentleman as much as I could and as a result failed to get in his good books even after exceptional performance. Only after he had resigned and left, I started to get praises and ratings that I deserved.

After all this time, having encountered my share of 'Horrible Bosses' and survived them; I am not convinced if what happened then was in any ways tolerable. I still feel what our SMG head did back then was wrong but over the years many of my colleagues had defended his actions to me. They say, it was required that dunning executive is punished because he was making errors regularly. Some say, SMG head was directed by his superiors to sack the executive but he chose to save his job by humiliating him thus. Many have asked me what I would've done if I was in either of their places.

I would like to think I won't make such an error however no matter what the situation might be, I would never take steps that both the gentlemen above did. What do you think? Do you have any opinion on this?