Prashant Lakhera free essay sample

The case revolves around these three individuals, Prashant Lakhera (senior analyst at Credit Rating Agency Limited), Gagan Vedi (analyst at Construction Development Board) and Deepak Ghosh (project manager at CDB) who had to finish a credit rating report by December 27, 2006 for their client, Continent Construction Limited. The objective of CDB is to provide a forum for all parties involved in construction and CRB deals in providing investment information and credit rating services. CRB and CDB had an agreement to work together on credit rating, where CDB would provide technical expertise and CDA would provide two analysts and its expertise in rating methodology. These grading were done to increase the confidence of the bank in the construction sector. The CRB-CDB team that consisted of Prashant Lakhera, Gagan Vedi, and Deepak Ghosh were given the task to grade Continent Construction limited. During the task, the team visited two CCL sites where they were relying on Ghosh’s expertise on construction as he has been in this business for more than two decades. We will write a custom essay sample on Prashant Lakhera or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Contrary to that Ghosh cted very immature and didn’t work as a team member. He used local language to talk to the construction workers and site engineers instead of English which was not appreciated by the other two members of the team. He even didn’t record anything in his diary which could bring a lot to the tables during the team meetings. Even after constant reminders for Lakhera, he kept the same attitude and didn’t comply with the team’s rules. This behaviour of Ghosh’s created a lag between him and the other two members of the team and the team didn’t meet after the two construction site visit till their meeting with CCL. During the meeting with CCL in Mumbai, a question of unaccounted money was raised by Ghosh which left the other team members and the financial manager of CCL shocked but the situation was very well handled by Prashant Lakhera. Ghosh was asked to be quiet during the whole meeting which did make him really frustrated and angry. Post this event, when the team met in Hotel to finalize the report Ghosh didn’t gave any operational analysis and walked off on Prashant Lakhera and Gagan Vedi asking them to finish the report on their own. Background: Credit Rating  Agency Limited (CRA), a leading provider of  investment information and credit rating services in India, had two divisions- Credit Rating and Industry Research. In order to extend its product offering to include grading services for construction entities CRA’s Industry Research division had a tie-up with Construction development Board (CDB) in November 2006. CDB was a Government of India undertaking with an objective of providing a forum for all parties involved in construction to express their concerns and study various problems of the sector. As per  the agreement  between CRA and CDB, the latter would provide technical expertise and network of construction entities and former would provide two analysts along with its rating methodology to analyze the financial statement of construction activities. Their recent but extremely important assignment was for Continent Construction Limited (CCL), with project sites at Nashik and Jalgaon. Prashant Lakhera and Gagan Vedi are the two  financial analysts from the CRA, and Deepak Ghosh is the project manager from CDB. Learning Objectives: ) Team spirit and Group Dynamics. 2) Managing others and understanding the difference between personal and positional power. 3) To understand the responsibilities of a manager how to get things done on time by the people assigned to a particular task. 4) Dynamics of relationship management with colleagues and between organization and also the impact of this dynamic on work performance.. 5) Tackling an unwanted situation where sensitive questi ons are put forward by a subordinate to a Senior Official in an organization. Discussion Questions: Question 1: What has happened so far in the CRA-CDB project? Has Lakhera missed opportunities to manage Ghosh? What could Lakhera have done? Overview of the Project Journey so far: Although the two companies namely Credit Rating Agency (CRA) and Construction Development Board (CDB) had been in contract for grading Continent Construction Limited (CCL) for a long time no efforts were made by the executives of both companies in getting to know each other. It has been mentioned that Ghosh and Lakhera had not met and had been communication over mails or telephone. The first meeting of Lakhera, Vedi and Ghosh which happened in Chennai in the month of November, was spent mostly in Ghosh briefing them about the CRA rating methodology. Instead they could have utilised the time to get to know each other and breaking the ice and develop a more personal rapport and friendship. The team flew to their respective destinations after that and did not get in touch until the day they started working on the CCL assignment. Site Visits by the team: It was decided that the team would visit the two construction sites of CCL to gauge their work and give a realistic picture of the company’s operational strengths. 1) Nashik Visit: The team first decided to visit the construction site at Nashik where CCL was building a bridge. They decided to have a random inspection of the site alongwith a CCL site engineer. Instead of working together as a team, Ghosh started talking to the local workers in their native language which was unknown to both Lakhera and Vedi. When they both tried to intervene Ghosh replied by saying that he would manage and since they did not want to create a scene in front of their clients Lakhera and Vedi quietly followed the site engineer and Ghosh not understanding of what was happening around. After reaching the hotel when asked for details Ghosh did not divulge into anything and mostly kept all the information to himself. Instead he told Lakhera and Vedi to concentrate on the financial aspects of the company and leave the construction part to him as construction was his forte. ) Jalgaon Visit: The second visit was planned to Jalgaon where CCL had undertaken a road construction project. The whole process that happened in Nashik was repeated in Jalgaon with Ghosh taking in-charge of things and making individual visits all over the site leaving Vedi and Lakhera as mere passive analysts of the whole situation. Also Lakhera and Vedi avoided asking any questions since asking the same questions would have made the situation awkward for them and the firm (CDB and CRA) would also lose credibility in front of its clients. Frustration kept in day after day since Ghosh was being uncooperative and not giving any details to them and instead had briefed his boss at CDB about both the sites and given updates to him. After this incident the team stopped exchanging any notes and attempts were made to reconcile the situation. No fixed timeline was decided for completion of grading report and communication stopped completely between Lakhera, Vedi and Ghosh. On the night of dinner meeting with client Ghosh failed to show up on time and on his arrival greeted only the client without even acknowledging his team members. ) Mumbai Meeting: The team of CRA-CDB was meeting its client CCL in Mumbai to update them on the grading progress. The team had decided that Ghosh would only be a mute spectator of the meeting not providing any inputs. But after the financial analysis when the finance manager of CCL asked for operational details Ghosh coluld not take it anymore and asked whether the team had taken into consideration the costs that wouold be incurred in paying bribes to union leaders to ensure smooth work. This outraged the CCL manager but somehow Lakhera and Vedi were able to manage the situation and did not let it go out of hand. 4) Hotel Incident: After the meeting with the finance manager of CCL, later that night the three of them decided to meet at 8pm and discuss notes. When Ghosh was asked to incorporate his operational analysis following the two site visits, he just stormed out of the room shouting â€Å"Do what you want to do, I don’t care anymore†, leaving Lakhera and Vedi shocked. Missed Opportunities and Steps Lakhera could have taken: Lakhera at the beginning should have made an attempt in Chennai itself in getting to know Ghosh personally. Since both he and Vedi belonged to same organization Ghosh could have felt out of place and it was the responsibility of both Lakhera and Vedi to have made him feel more comfortable. If Ghosh was not taking an initiative they both could have started an informal conversation and involved Ghosh into it making the surroundings more familiar to Ghosh which would have helped in the future. After the Nashik incident Lakhera should have spoken to Ghosh and made it clear to him that since all of them were supposed to be working together as a team it was essential for Ghosh to give them details of the meeting or converse in a language that was known to all. He could not have worked alone as it was a joint venture of CRA and CDB. Also after the Jalgaon incident communication went completely for a toss and everyone was working alone. Lakhera should have realized that Ghosh was never an initiator of conversation and whatever may be happening he could ave taken an initiative to talk to him instead of just stopping the communications completely. Also they refrained themselves from asking any questions at client sites considering that repetition of same questions would be a cause of embarrassment for them. Instead they should have lingered around Ghosh and asked questions in Hindi since English would be an unknown language to the site workers which would have made Ghosh stopped asking questions in native language and would have given Lakhera and Vedi an insight into the construction aspect of CCL. Question 2: Evaluate Lakhera’s options. 1) The first option available with Lakhera is to reconcile his differences with Ghosh since all the operational details of the construction site are known to him only. And plus the deadline is just four hours away not leaving much time with Lakhera to do any research on his own. 2) Other option could be to have a conversation with Ghosh’s boss and giving him details of what has happened so far and asked him to intervene in the matter. His boss might be able to get Ghosh on line and make him help Lakhera and Vedi to complete the grading report in time. ) Also Mr. Phadnis, the boss of Lakhera and Vedi could be brought into the loop of all the things and he could help in things by talking to higher management at CDB to make Ghosh work atleast cordially on this project. 4) The least feasible option for Lakhera and his company would be to approach the clients CCL and ask for more time to complete the grading report without the involvement of Ghosh or CBD at all. But this could lead to embarrassment in front of clients and they might lose the project entirely. Also it would mean more costs to CRA since they would have to begin everything from scratch. Also they would need to hire some construction expert from outside since Lakhera nd Vedi have limited knowledge of operational facts of construction business. Question 3: What would you do if you were in Lakhera’s shoes? The best option would be to try and reconcile differences with Ghosh as there is little time to do anything else. Also for future decide on a particular framework within which things would be done. Guidelines on involvement of everyone on the project would be devised. Ghosh would be updated on financial aspects by Lakhera and Vedi and he would update them on operational aspects of the business. Since not much time is there for the project to get over cordial relations would be maintained for next week till the presentation on December 27th is made. Managerial Learning: 1) Personality Conflict: The case presented above was typical example of how people with different educational backgrounds and different work areas thus having developed a very different personality would function in team setting resulting in conflicts. ) Interpersonal Relations: The case also shows the importance of communication and having good inter personal skills so that no gaps arise between the team members. 3) Crisis Prevention: the case also shows how important it is to be pro active so that whatever crisis arises can be handled in time without letting them escalate to a level where the consequences become difficult for the firm to handle. ) Conflict Management: If Lakhera, Vedi and Ghosh had sat down and spoken about the differences that arose during the course of their meetings the situation would not have become this worse and conflicts could have been resolved amicably. 5) Conflict Resolution: the case also shows how we can employ different strategies to resolve conflicts arising between the team members working together towards the same goal.