A good friend had an interesting story to recount. One day, frustrated, he went to his colleague in charge of HR ranting about some co-worker he simply could not work with. The co-worker although very competent professionally was a personality mismatch, and as a team they were disaster.
The HR head said (something along the lines of this)
‘Dude, I am hoping when you move out of this company, there is one thing you would have learnt if nothing else. There are many types of people in this world. Each having unique characteristics. The challenge is not looking for the ones that match your requirements, but dealing with the ones that don’t. I can easily fire this guy, but you will be left with a new guy, with a host of problems you have not yet identified.’
Very wise.
I was talking to a friend who runs a seed-marketing firm. Her company got into a joint venture with a RnD firm. Both invested the same amount of money, one’s role was to develop and manufacture seeds; the other’s to sell. The RnD firm (based out of Hydrabad) is now playing Chinese whispers. My friend doesn’t know what’s happened with the money invested, where the manufacturing plant is being built, and if they will really get the seeds produced.
We do business with people not agreements, but how do we hold people accountable?
