Behaviour Study

THE CASE OF NIRAV AND GAJENDRA

16th May, 2009 was a busy day for project managers at Infosystems Limited. The mid-year appraisal cycle was in full swing. It was 11:00 AM and Akshat (Project Manager, Infosystems Limited) sat in a conference room waiting to give mid-year appraisal feedback to his subordinates.

Nirav entered the conference room, sat down and saw his scores. He was shocked to see that his scores were lower than he had expected. According to him, he had done excellent work in the appraisal cycle and deserved better scores. After arguing with Akshat for several minutes he left the room - Confused, disappointed, and angry.

Now it was Gajendra’s turn to meet Akshat. The meeting started and much to his surprise he too had received an average score. However, he did not argue with Akshat, and had no question to ask. He too left the room –disappointed, sad and drained. Akshat sat there with worrying thoughts in his head. Several questions came to his mind but the most important one was – “What can be done to make Nirav and Gajendra work together as a team?” Nirav and Gajendra had got very low scores in “team work” parameter.

Nirav (26 years) had been working with Infosystems for the past 4 years. He belonged to an upper middle class family from a small town. He was put in a boarding school at a very young age and had been away from his family for a long time. He was very good at studies and scored consistently well during his schooling. He did his engineering in Computer Science from a reputed college and was recruited by Infosystems Limited. He prided on his knowledge of Computer Science and thought that he was better than his co-workers from other engineering backgrounds. He often said to his co-workers – “Unlike you all, I did justice to my engineering degree by joining an IT company. Therefore I will end up doing justice to my work.” He was short-tempered in nature and often ended up arguing with others over small matters. During meetings, it was...