B – School teaches you a lot of things, but probably the most interesting ones don’t really hit you in the face until they actually happen to you. Management by exception is a concept that we learnt as a part of strategic management, Operations management and even in HR way back in the first semester.
To be honest, most of us didn’t exactly take that concept very seriously. All we did was cram the flowchart that explained the process and regurgitated it in the exam. Case closed. I mean who actually cares about that kind of stuff?
But then life has a very funny way of making things come full circle. The other day I was faced with a rather peculiar problem that came up. I was going through my inbox when I came across a rather offensive mail from a short listed candidate marked as ‘Polite Reminder.’ Needless to say that since he’s been kept waiting for eons by the organization he was anything but polite.
Just to clarify, he’s been sending me mails regularly and I’ve been responding as nicely as I can while all the time sending frantic mails to my superiors asking for advice on what to say to him. I mean you can’t tell a short listed candidate who’s already qualified the first round of interview to fob off now can you?
When I got the ‘Polite Reminder’ I simply responded with a polite thank you and a smiley at the end. Two words and one emoticon. Not much right? Wrong. Especially since I’d marked a CC to my superiors.
My superiors swooped down on me like a pack of vultures on a dead carcass. I got a verbal dressing down for being, can you believe it, RUDE. I’m still not sure what was so rude but I sure as hell know what the management by exception means now. As far as I can tell, it means that as long as you are following “procedures” and not doing anything its okay, the minute you do something that looks remotely like you’re not following either “Procedures” or “Policies” you get a swift kick in the butt. Period. That’s management by exception for you!
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