Synopsis

The case briefs us with the situation faced by Anuj Pathak who has returned home to India after
working many years overseas. He is trying to settle into his new workplace. He has been trying
to drive the new team in the way that has worked for him in the past. However, the HR Head
has advised him to reflect on his style because there have been numerous complaints about him
being unfriendly, arrogant and overly critical. He is quite shocked because he cannot understand
how despite him being courteous and treating everyone with respect, they have still complained
about him. He is afraid he will not be able to fit in the new organization and the overall work
environment in India.

Situation Analysis
Anuj Pathak, an expat living and working abroad for nearly 20 years decided to return
home back to India due to professional and personal reasons, which are surmised below
Professional reasons:

• The western economy was stagnating as compared to previous decades and

Asia was witnessing a huge economic boom, especially India and China.
• Rapid transformation of the Indian economic sector motivated Pathak to shift
his base to India and in doing so, he wanted to try to ride the new economic
wave generated by the economic boom.
• Having been motivated by Chandrashekhar, an old friend since his college years,
about the vast potential and possible growth opportunities in the private financial
services sector only added fuel to the fire of his long time want to return back
home.
Personal reasons:

• Aging parents coupled with Pathak’s mother having being diagnosed with a
serious Medical condition made his financial support and infrequent visits
inadequate. The guilt of living a comfortable life in the west only made
things worse.
• living and working overseas for nearly 20 years and being an “Indian” at heart,
Pathak was motivated by the idea of being home amongst his fellow Indians.

However, after eventually shifting back to India Anuj Pathak found relocating might not have
been as easy as he had thought it to be and began facing quite a few challenges both
professionally and personally, which he was not accustomed to.
Problem identification and analysis

Anuj Pathak after relocating back home faced a host of challenges in settling to his new life
which some would attribute as ‘culture shock’. Some major familial issues faced by him
are further elaborated below.

Family issues

• Both of his daughters were having a hard time in adjusting to changes in their everyday
life particularly after the initial “holiday” period was over. The regular tantrums,
whining and atypical behavior proved quite a shock to Pathak as he had hoped enrolling
his daughters in an expensive private school would have made the transition easier.
• Pathak’s wife too was stressed with challenges in handling the domestic front but was
optimistic about getting things back in order before eventually resuming her career in the
near future.
• Both his and wife’s unfamiliarity with the Indian medical system and its procedures
made it quite difficult in managing his mother’s illness.

Professional issues
After joining Impact Finance Ltd, one of the top twenty financial consulting firms in India, as a
senior VP and head of Housing Finance division. Pathak was faced with an uphill task of
overhauling the business strategy and reinvigorating the team to drive results and increase
performance and efficiency. The case mentions the following key problems faced by Pathak in
his professional life.

• People did not question his ideas and inputs to drive the discussion forward and he felt
there was a lack of participation from the team when it came to challenge either him
or being critical of each other’s ideas.
• His meetings with senior management too seemed quite bland with very few
disagreements and dissenting points of view, both of which he felt absolutely necessary
to get the most out of meetings and discussions. This apparent lack of effective
communication made him feel helpless in bringing about robust changes in the work
environment to improve its efficacy.
 • His way of initiating a turnaround of his team performance by implementing, according
to some employees, a ‘tough and aggressive plan’ proved inefficient, as there was no
tangible evidence whether it actually helped the organization. On the other hand, all
team members did not actually welcome this plan.
• Upon witnessing slower progress, Pathak due to his past experience of working abroad
stepped up the critical assessment of his subordinates performance in the hopes of his
team picking up the pace and executing his plan effectively.
• Pathak’s way of dealing with lack of clear and concise communication and
unsatisfactory results of the employees backfired on him eventually after members of his
team decided to file for transfers to other departments and reported to the HR of
Pathak’s style of management. His style, which involved clear and direct
communication, objective handling of issues and providing critical feedback on
employee performance proved inefficient in bringing about results in the organization.

Decision analysis
Anuj Pathak had quite a few options at his disposal in handling his situation while settling in to
the new work environment.

• He could try to experiment molding his team/division to what he experienced while

working abroad in different parts of the world. Which could have initiated sweeping
changes to his department and increase productivity if implemented correctly. However,
it would require considerable time and effort on his part.
• Pathak could try to change himself to better adapt to the Indian corporate setting and
provide encouraging positive feedback to his employees.
• He could organize with the help of HR, certain team building exercises to help build
trust and loyalty amongst his subordinates and him.

Plan of action
Anuj Pathak should try to be considerate and change his personality and outlook first to build trust and
faith in his style of leadership amongst his junior employees. He then, should make it clear to both the
HR department as well as his subordinates to come up with a clear and concise communication plan for
the team/division. He should try socializing with his team and management to better understand their
points of view and after getting to know them better lay out his style of management, which involves
cross-questioning, dissenting with and dissecting ideas to come up with robust plans and decisions to
increase performance. Regarding his daughters, Pathak could ask the school management to give extra
focus on his daughters to help them settle in and make new friends.