Individual & Group Dynamics Assignment

First Year at IOCL

Anubhav Nanda 2009-007A

Shreya Chadha 2009-047A

FIRST YEAR AT IOCL

It was May of 2008 that saw three young and energetic graduates pass out from XLRI and

enter into the corporate world. Ashray, Tanushka and Debanjan considered themselves very

lucky to have bagged a job at IOCL. In these recessionary times, landing in a public sector

firm was a dream for most MBA graduates.

Debanjan had done his bachelors in psychology and then specialised in IR at XLRI. He was

always full of new ideas during his MBA days. His friends loved him for the humane touché

that he always had for everyone. At IOCL he was offered a position in the HR department at

the Mathura refinery.

Tanushka had come to XLRI with an engineering degree in Chemical engineering. For her a

job at IOCL was god sent. Her acumen in the area of chemical engineering convinced her

recruiters that she would be an asset to the oil exploration group. She was made a part of the

team that went for oil exploration to various sites all over the world. Coming from an army

background, travelling was in her blood, and she looked forward to joining the department.

Ashray was a typical software engineer when he came to XLRI, but two years had

transformed him into an outgoing person. His analytical skills were married to his marketing

acumen and made him the topper of the marketing stream of his batch. He was looked upon

as one of the best marketing brains XLRI had produced. Selling a product profitably came

naturally to him, and it came as no surprise to see him in IOCL sales team for Tamil Nadu.

He was sure of bringing radical changes to the way petroleum products were sold in the

country.

One year had passed since their joining and all three of them had come to Mumbai for their

annual review meeting. After their review, they decided to spend some time together and

catch up. As they sat in Cafe Coffee Day, they couldn’t help but notice the way all of them

had started looking different. May be it was the work-life , maybe it was the work-pressure,

but whatever it was , it was definitely different from the totally carefree college life that they

had enjoyed, the life they wished that could have stretched till eternity . Debanjan was the

first one to speak. “You remember the birthday treat that Ashray had given us at this very

place last year”. And that suddenly brought out loads of memories in their minds and peals of

giggles on their faces. College life had suddenly transformed into a more organized and yet

so unpredictable course of “work-life” for Debanjan, Ashray and Tanushka.

After their usual chit-chat and recollection of the “good-old-times”, the conversation took a

sharp turn towards how life had changed over a year thanks to their work-life. They

recollected how happy all three had been, for getting placed in one of the coveted firms for

their college placement week – IOCL. And the fact that all three were placed in the same firm

had doubled the joy.

To their utter dismay, all three had got different locations of workplace. Debanjan was posted

in Mathura Oil refinery, whereas Tanushka and Ashray were posted at Delhi and Coimbatore

respectively.

Debanjan spoke first and told the others his story at IOCL.

“When I reached the Mathura Oil refinery I felt out of place like never before. All those

dreams that I had about sitting in a posh corporate office and handling the HR operations

came crashing. Here I was, in a firm where I was supposed to deal with the problems of the

lowest level of hierarchy of IOCL, their refinery workers. At the first day of work I got

introduced to the team of IR (Industry relationship team) that I was supposed to work with.

Being a mixed bag of both senior and middle-level managers, the team didn’t take it too well

that someone as novice and fresh out of college like me was placed at a higher position than

them. Thanks to XLRI in my resume!

After that mixed reaction from my team-mates I was inducted formally into IOCL through a

4-week training period. My work largely involved dealing with the trade unions and ensuring

an employee-friendly work environment for the workers. After some initial hiccups I

managed to gel well with the workers and despite being much younger than most of the

workers there, there was an amicable air between workers and me and they would easily open

up and share the issues that they faced. All was well at this front but in contrast to this, my

team members were giving me a tough time by giving a cold shoulder to me, since they were

unhappy with the fact that suddenly a young MBA graduate had come down in their

professional lives and who, by virtue of his degree and not experience, had been placed above

them in the hierarchy. They were having difficulty in accepting that they had to report to a

younger person.

After seven months in the Mathura Oil refinery , our department received a mail from the

head office IOCL, Delhi that an annual IOCL meet was to take place next month and two

representative from each department had to come down to Delhi and all the departments of

IOCL had to work together and jointly organize this great annual event. So, I and one of my

team-members went to Delhi and I was looking forward to interact and work with other

senior people in IOCL.

On the first day in Delhi headquarters, we had a general ice-breaking session where it was

more of an inter-departmental introduction since we had to work together for next six days

and organize the whole event. I and my team member (Harshal) were supposed to work with

the International Trade department people and the Sales team people. So we were a team of

six people and were assigned to arrange sponsors for the event. Since one week was too less

to arrange sponsors we decided to start working on it that very evening and hence had a

meeting. As soon as the meeting started , the International Trade Department person Mr.

Basin, started speaking and bombarded the whole meeting with his ideas, some feasible and

some highly impractical. After him, another senior person from Sales team Mr. Kankaria put

forth his point and didn’t let others speak. After repeated iterations of the same thing I

noticed that almost all the members present in our group were senior people in the

organization and were trying to impose their ideas on rest of us rather than letting us come up

with our own ideas. After much resistance when I was allowed to put forth my ideas for

generating sponsorship, it was blatantly rejected as “being unrealistic”. Even when I tried to

justify it and back it up with facts and figures, the idea wasn’t very well-appreciated and was

kept as a backup plan. I wanted a chance to prove myself but was snubbed as being the

typical “Gen-Y “hot-blooded guy who didn’t know how things work in real life. That came as

a rude shock to me since I had expected major support from my seniors and not this

indifference. I was surprisingly shocked after this negative attitude but still decided to give it

all a second chance and start afresh the next day. But the same thing awaited me the next day

also. Same coldness towards new ideas. I just couldn’t fathom why Mr. Bhasin was so

reluctant to even listen to new ideas, let alone follow it. After much coaxing I convinced

myself to work with the ideas that Mr. Bhasin had proposed in front of us and being the

senior most members in the team, had convinced all of us to work towards that only.

Each one of us had gathered here investing equal amount of time and effort towards the

same cause and here it was being reduced to a mere autocratic show. This incident left me

highly enervated towards thinking in new directions. I could almost feel a bit of apathy

towards IOCL.”

Tanushka could not help but relate to Debanjan’s woes and shared her bit of life at IOCL.

“My joining was in Delhi, and on reaching Delhi we were given accommodation at the IOCL

Guest house in Defence Colony. That’s where I first met the team I was supposed to work

with. I was to be a part of a team that consisted of 4 other men. They were pretty surprised to

see a female colleague among them. The first meeting with them was far from cordial; rather

I got a very cold reception while my other team mates were warmly accepted into the

department.

As the days progressed I always felt discriminated. The male officers in my department

would always leave me out of discussions. I felt they considered me as a liability to the

department rather than an asset. My job profile was divided into two main roles. One

involved staying in the head office and making reports on ongoing researches and compiling

data for future exploration sites and the financial research associated with each operation.

This was a complete desk job, with a lot of secondary research involved. I did not enjoy this

work, but had to do it as this formed the skeleton for the second role that I was assigned.

My second role involved visits to the exploration sites and finding areas of cost reduction.

This needed a very close observation into the processes involved. I also needed to talk to all

the workers working there. Little did I know that oil exploration was a completely male

dominated area. So much so that people working there were very annoyed at finding me

working amidst them. Rather than being helpful, they went out of their way to make things

tough for me.

After about a month of joining, I got my first opportunity to go on a field trip to Gujarat. I

was informed by my boss Mr Kumar that I will be travelling with my colleagues to the site in

Gujarat and that I should co-ordinate with them for the travel details. When I approached

them to find out about the travel details, I found them to be very uncooperative. My ticket

had been booked separately and I was not informed about anything in the itinerary. On the

day of the journey, I had to keep calling up my team mates to find out where they were. In the

train too none of other three team mate talked to me. They all kept to themselves and treated

me as I am an unnecessary burden on them. On reaching Jamnagar they told me that we had

to go to the IOCL guest house and gave me the address and went off on their own. I was

shocked at their behaviour. I had been told that life is tough for females treading in a

predominant male area but I had no idea about the nature of troubles for me, and this was just

the beginning. Next morning I reported at the exploration site. Our team was welcomed by

the head of the exploration team, Mr Gupta. We were briefed on the safety procedures and

given our safety kits. When I started wearing them, one of my team mates asked me why I am

wearing it. He did not expect me to be going down to the exploration area. When I told them

that I did intend to visit the site, they all laughed at me. Mr Gupta too came and told me girls

don’t go to the exploration area; rather I should sit in his office. I tried reasoning with Mr

Gupta, and told him my visit here would go waste if I didn’t see the process. He told me I

could sit in the office and go through the manuals, which would give me an idea into the

process. I was really angry by this time, but kept my cool and told them that I would go as it

was a part of my KRAs to audit the process. Finally they agreed and let me go to the

exploration site.

At the site I was subject to a lot of derogatory remarks by the people working there. Even my

team mates made sly comments on me. I ignored most of them and concentrated on my work.

In the evening after returning to my room, I got a call from my boss Mr Kumar. He asked me

how things were at the site, and after the initial formalities asked me what happened between

me and Mr Gupta. I told him all that had happened, to which he replied that I should not have

argued and told me to stay in the office and study the processes in the manuals. I thought to

myself, I could have done this at Delhi itself, what was the need to come all the way here.

The remaining two days I had to sit in the office and read the manuals. At the end of the trip,

Mr Gupta suggested that I change my department as it was not good for a girl to be working

in this department.

On returning to Delhi all of us had to make individual presentations about our findings. I had

very little findings all that I could get from the single visit that I was allowed. When I gave

my presentation, I was asked as to what I had done for the remaining one week. I told that I

was not allowed to go to the site. I was scolded at my lack of interest and that I should be

more daring from next time. They made comparisons with my other team mates and showed

how in depth their analysis was. I looked at Mr Kumar but he remained quiet and looked

away.

I discussed this with another girl in my department who seemed to have no problems in the

department. She advised me that on these trips, there is a lot of drinking and partying

involved. Initially she too faced similar problems, but once she started drinking and

socialising with the men, life had been easier for her. She told me that on such visits, she

never went even to the office, but never missed a night of partying. In the end she used to

have presentations mailed to her and she would present it at the Head Office. I could not

believe this was the way things worked here. Somehow I could not get myself to work in this

way, and continued working in my way. Every visit was nightmare for me but somehow I

persisted.

Today at the review I was told that my job involving my first KRA was excellent, but I had

failed miserably in executing the second KRA. My overall performance thus was satisfactory

and not as expected. I was told that my department will be changed and have asked me for

my preference. They have also asked to give a written report as to why my performance has

been miserable. Mr Kumar has told me specifically that I should not mention anything

negative about the department.”

“Oh God there is so much of corruption in this organisation”, commented Ashray. My life

was been no rosier. I had one of the toughest times trying to adjust to this company. In the

process my whole identity has been questioned. Ashray went on to elaborate his one year at

IOCL.

“My offer letter read: - “Ashray Jain – “Sales Management Trainee – Coimbatore, Tamil

Nadu”. Getting the sales department was a dream come true for me. And so the journey

began into the ups and downs of sales and the first taste of corporate life. As I reached

Coimbatore I was picked up from the station and directed towards the IOCL guesthouse. The

next day, a batch of 35 new recruits were inducted into the IOCL sales division, Coimbatore.

After a series of induction lectures and training sessions, we were allocated projects and sent

across to various cities in Tamil Nadu.

My first visit was to Vellore. It was a town 150 km from Chennai. On reaching Vellore I

found out that I had to meet three major dealers in the city. One of them was a son of the

local MP. As per protocols explained to us, all the dealers of the city had to come and meet

the Sales Manager at the IOCL depot. When I called Mr Velmurugan, I was in for a surprise.

I was told that Mr Velmurugan would be meeting me the next day and I should come to his

office at sharp 2 pm. I enquired about this reversal and found out that this was routine with

most high profile dealers. I had the day off and decided to utilize it by making visits to the

pumps in the city. I got an itinerary made and started off with a local employee. At the first

pump owned by Mr Velmurugan, the pump staffs were reluctant to let me in. They said they

haven’t been informed and hence cannot allow me to make any audits. On my insistence they

allowed me inside and I asked for the quality reports. To my horror, they did not maintain

any reports. I then asked my colleague to do the scheduled tests. All tests failed and there was

a very high level of impurity in the petrol sold at the outlet. This story was repeated at all the

outlets in the city. Tired and shocked I returned to my room at the hotel. In the night I got a

call from Mr Velmurugan asking me to come and meet him at the hotel lobby. He was sitting

with his local henchmen and told me in a no non sense way that I was not supposed to report

any of my findings. He told me I will be paid 15 percent of the money they make and if I

have any problems I should tell him. He said life will be smooth sailing if I collaborated with

him. He almost warned me of dire consequences. While leaving he offered me a bottle of

expensive alcohol. I returned to my room and called my boss Mr Sadanand. On hearing

Velmurugan’s name, he scolded me for having gone to audit his petrol pumps. He told me

from next time before conducting audits I should take his permission.

The next few months I learnt the way the oil industry worked and soon found myself a part of

the vicious circle. I could not keep myself away from all the corruption that had gripped

IOCL. This was something the Business Ethics classes at XLRI had not taught us. Gifts

poured on me from all quarters and I revelled in that luxury. Both my life and job would have

been at threat had I stuck to what ethics told us, I decided to dump ethics and do what others

were doing. A month back a high level team from the Head Office came on a surprise visit to

my area. They found a huge amount of discrepancies in our findings. We had to report to a

high level audit by the senior team. There were massive transfers after the audit and I was

sent to Trichur, where I spent the next 6 months of my life.

Life was very different in Trichur; I was no more a part of the audit team but a part of the

sales team.

As I moved to Trichur, a city 200kms from Coimbatore I had no idea what was coming

towards me. Trichur is in the interiors of Tamil Nadu and hence a majority of the population

didn’t know Hindi. And preferred to speak in Tamil only, let alone English or Hindi. Hence I

was having a tough time communicating with people there. However I thought I could learn

this language fast and hence be at par with other team-members. When I reached the Trichur

office, I was introduced to a 6- member team and the team-leader Mr. Prakashan. Ironically, I

was the only North-Indian in the entire team. I brushed off the thought aside thinking that

professionalism should not recognize state/culture, just work. In a meeting, all the team

members were explained which all areas had to be covered for the sales targets. The strange

fact was that a considerable part of meeting was taking place in Tamil, despite Mr.Prakashan

and others knowing very well that I didn’t know a word of Tamil. Despite my repeated

requests, they started talking in Tamil again and again between the meetings which irked me

to no end.

After the meeting, I personally talked to Mr. Prakashan and told him about my being a novice

in Tamil and not being able to understand a word in Tamil. Contrary to my expectation of any

support or help, he told me to learn Tamil first and then think of achieving any sales

targets. However, not withstanding this obstacle, I got down to work, and simultaneously

learning TAMIL. I had in mind a concrete plan to achieve my sales targets. Three months of

hardship, struggle and perseverance helped me achieve my sales targets and only I know how

much hard work went into it. But throughout these three months I had to take a lot of help

from Mr. Prakashan regarding my language problem. I used to call him pretty often and ask

him about Trichur and other details since he had stayed in this place for over 10 years. After

three months when we all assembled for a sales-figure review meeting, each of the 6 team

members had to present their sales target report to Mr. Prakashan. True to my belief, I was

the star-sales achiever amongst them all. All my hard work had paid off and I had achieved

my sales targets in an area which till three months back was totally unknown to me. True to

human nature, this also set expectations of a “good appraisal:” in me.

After 2 months, when the trainees’ review report discussion meeting was held in Coimbatore,

I was shocked to the core. What was written in my report was beyond my realm of

understanding. Mr.Prakashan had given me a 2.4 out of 5 and had specifically mentioned that

“Ashray needs to display more competencies by working independently. In the last project,

he required help at every stage. And it won’t be wrong to believe that without those inputs he

wouldn’t have been able to achieve those targets that he did. A strong recommendation would

be to give him another three months of training so that he ends up being an asset to his team

and not a liability.”

After listening to each other’s story and experiences throughout last one year, there was an

uncomfortable silence between the three. They wanted answers to the unending number of

questions that were crossing their minds and lives. But how and where? Then, suddenly a

though struck Ashray which brought about a smirk on his face. They knew whom to approach

just that it had taken them long to come up with his name. Prashant Dayal was the person

they were looking for. He was the HR head at IOCL, Delhi and had come down to XLRI for

their recruitments. Since their very first meeting, all three had developed an affinity towards

him .He possessed a certain aura that could have come only through knowledge and

experience in the industry. While handing over their offer letters, he had told them to

approach him anytime they faced a trouble in IOCL. They decided to approach Mr Prashant

Dayal with their experiences and look for a solution to the dilemmas they were facing.

Case Analysis

Debanjan

Debanjan, an XLRI graduate decides to join IOCL and was very excited to go for his new

job. His expectations from his job were that of a conventional HR Manager role in a plush

head office. What was assigned to him took him by utter surprise. He couldn’t imagine

himself dealing with workers in an oil refinery when all he had dreamt of was dealing with

HR issues of middle level management in a corporate office. But after overcoming this

hiccup, he decides to give this job his best shot and work towards the betterment of hr-

policies of IOCL. The two main core issues faced by Debanjan are:- (a)Refusal to be accepted as a senior employee (hierarchy wise) by his junior team members

(who are age-wise senior to him) (b) In the Delhi office, he faces stiff domination and his seniors dominate and impose their

ideas on the whole team instead of being flexible enough to listen to new ideas The first issue talks about a sensitive issue at work: - should seniority be age-wise or mettle-

wise? This is a typical issue faced by many public organisations and of late since a lot of

public sector units have been recruiting from major b-schools of the country, they generally

place these young mba graduates at a much higher level of responsibility and hierarchy.

Sometimes this breeds the feeling of resentment towards the senior members who feel they

have been surpassed by inexperienced youngsters. In this case, Debanjan should first and

foremost understand his team structure and core competency of each of them. This would

help him understand how to allocate work to each of them and extract the best possible output

from each member. Debanjan would also have to make an extra effort to break the ice

between his team members and showing due humbleness and respect towards the members’

experience. Rather than taking a hostile stand or reciprocating the cold-shoulder, he should

involve himself in more team building exercises so that his team members understand his

mettle and start believing in his abilities. In fact, Debanjan should feel lucky enough to start

with such a team which would help him build a very strong foundation towards a rewarding

career in IOCL. The second problem that he faces is of supreme dominance and suffocation of new ideas.

This issue is a particularly common problem faced in many organisations where seniors are

rigid and refuse to budge from their stand. If this attitude persists in an organisation, it not

only kills the enthusiasm spark in the new joinees but also forces them to leave that

organization and look for other options. This, in the long run, is not only a loss for the

employee but also the firm in consideration. In this case it is very important to understand

that working in a group rather than imposing one’s thoughts on the basis of seniority.

Listening to group members’ ideas not only increases the knowledge base of possible

solutions, but also increases the acceptance of and commitment towards the solution because

members had a voice in it. This also results in greater understanding of group decision

because group members were involved in all stages of decision process.

Tanushka

Tanushka after passing from XLRI joined IOCL as an operations manager. She had dreamt of

a job where she would be accountable for the work she did. She had thought that joining such

a huge organisation would mean there would be set guidelines for working. She had not

expected that the guidelines would be based on gender and not on the work content. In spite

of the discrimination against her, she decided to fight for her rights. Unfortunately the flaws

in the system were so deep rooted that she could barely manage to survive in the department,

let alone fight for her rights.

The major issue faced by Tanushka was that she was being discriminated on the basis of her

gender. There was no apparent reason for the discrimination. The only reason apparent was

that she had tread into an area which till then had been predominantly male dominated. This

is an issue faced by many women who are one of the path breakers in their fields. Here

discrimination is not confined to the work place. It crops in many small incidents where

mutual cooperation is needed among the team. Travel plans for the entire team excluded her

and she had to make her own travel plans. The organisation and the seniors in the

organisation should ensure that these problems are not faced by anyone. Moreover should

someone face such issues at workplace it should be handled in a very mature and professional

way. In Tanushka’s case however, her boss Mr Kumar considered Tanushka’s grievances

very lightly, rather he advised her to stay away from the exploration area. Yet when reports

were demanded she was compared on an equal footing. Tanushka compared herself to

another female in the same department and realised that to excel she had took the easy way

out of smart work rather than hard work. For Tanushka this was not an option, as she

believed in hard work. She strongly believed in her beliefs and values and could not let go of

them just for the sake of a good review in a department whose functioning style was gender

biased. Considering she was an achiever and she believed in her capabilities, and she could

have excelled and tapped her potential to the maximum in any department. Her capabilities

were underutilised in the department and hence she should try and move to another

department and not be disheartened at this failure.

Ashray Jain

Ashray Jain was one of the best marketing graduates from XLRI, and it was this competency

that landed him into the Sales and Marketing team of IOCL. Things at IOCL were very

different from what had been taught to him. Ashray faced questions regarding his integrity

and honesty.

On his first assignment, he met Mr Velmurugan, one of the dealers, who had been using his

power and influence to sell impure fuel. Ashray tried questioning this and wanted to report

this unfair practice to his superiors. To his dismay, not only did the superiors know about

this, they went on to support the activity as well. Mr Velmurugan used money as a power to

influence the officials at IOCL. Ashray faced a dilemma as to whether he should remain

honest, in the process probably lose his job, or worse, his life, or to accept the norms and do

what everyone was doing. Ashray chose the latter, for the first few months he had a

comfortable existence and it was only when the audit team came, that he had problems.

With the kind of beginning that Ashray got, it was very difficult for him to have any respect

for the company. There was wide scale corruption and every employee was involved in

fulfilling his needs; the company objectives had been sent for a toss. With this as a starting

point, life became much distorted for Ashray. It used to be the norm for public sector

companies, but off late things are changing and people like Ashray had to be the change

initiators. That was essentially why they had been brought into the company. For this to be

achieved, Ashray had to be kept immune from all the prevalent corruptions. In the end it was

Ashray who was the scapegoat while he should have been the prized employee for the

organization.

In the second assignment, the protagonist Ashray Jain had an uphill task of learning Tamil

and simultaneously achieving his sales target. The fact that he came up with the highest sales

figure is admirable. He initially brushed aside any pre-conceived notions about working in

Tamil Nadu which shows his professional attitude.

He used to take the help of his boss at many occasions which shows that rather than adopting

a laid-back approach he was trying his best to complete the sales target.

His boss, Mr Prakashan failed as a leader of the team on many fronts. To make a new

member comfortable and adjust within the group should be his prime motive. He should have

conducted the meetings in English and should have no qualms in solving Ashray’s problems.

Rather, he should have offered his help to him to overcome any troubles he was facing.

Giving the protagonist a bad appraisal shows his narrow sightedness in appreciating his

junior’s work and his insensitivity towards his junior’s problems.