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Ramblings of a citizen and experiences of an entreuprener

This is about my way of life. It has two parts, one is related to the world around me and the other part is my experiences as an entrepreneur. Check out our website www.shaktiindia.com

Saturday, July 26, 2014

The Reluctant Entrepreneur: The cookie Jar


Congratulations to Business Goa for completing a milestone 5th year. Every year adds to the wealth of experience and strengthens the magazine for another year ahead. All the very best to Team BG. Even as this is written “SHAKTI” enters its 20th year.

A cookie jar is more western in usage. It usually denotes an easily accessible jar in the kitchen which anyone can put their hands in and get a cookie (reward). In our companies we usually make policies and systems which unknowingly create cookie jars. Related or unrelated stake holders, find them and help themselves. When it is discovered, it leaves a bad taste as it implies the Company was short changed.

When sitting late into the night in Shanghai and catching up with a junior from the Asian Institute of Management, he told me a story. He was a senior expat manager at an FMCG company. They had faced a peculiar problem, sales to a nearby district (X) were almost zero. While sales to another district (Y) a few 100 kms away were flourishing. Yet, when the marketing team visited the district X, the market was flooded with the product. Surprised and perplexed, they did a quick survey and found out that they were being supplied by the Company distributor itself. The catch was in the freight factor. Freight to the X was far less than freight to Y. So the salesmen decided to book all orders on District Y, claim higher freight, but ship to product to X. The difference was split between the transporter, distributor and salesmen.

Closer home, we noticed that it was difficult to get our workers to agree to an hour of OT, however if we asked for 4 hours there was less resistance. This was becoming cumbersome. After a little study the reasons became apparent. We used to offer an incentive with 4 hrs, a food allowance and somewhere along the line an additional transport allowance got added. This was in addition to the statutory double salary for OT. All this was not available for 1-3 hours. So our workers adapted to the situation and either did 4 hrs OT or nothing. We had made the rules, the employees were only tweaking them to their advantage. It took us some effort to correct the situation.

Another common use of this cookie jar phenomena is leave, not much can be done to stop employees from clubbing sick or casual leave with a long stretch of public holidays and making it even longer for themselves at the cost of productivity and customer service.

The above clearly demonstrates that management policy defines and guides behaviour. This can be positive or negative from the Companies point of view. Another word which describes the cookie jar syndrome is “loop holes”. People are always looking for loop holes to exploit and get a better deal for themselves Not wrong in itself but when the other persons perspective is taken, it is wrong. Take any situation mentioned above or look at some of your own and you will notice it is not fair to all.

One way of avoiding such situations to to think thru your decision making process to include checking if COOKIE JAR situations are possible. This is easier said than done as decisions are taken on the run. The other way is networking, where you meet other owners & managers and discuss situations and avoid the same in your organisation. If, despite all your precautions, you do end up with a cookie jar situation, be sure to take immediate corrective action. All the best.



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