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Managing Your Boss, Coca Cola

Group: Anem Abbas, Fahad Ali, Hamza Muhammed, M. Mobeen, Punel & Zara Saeed

The dilemmas and intricacies of employee-boss relationship are not the externalities of the modern age

corporate life. Instead, we find that throughout history the same dynamics existed between leaders and

followers, tyrants and oppressed, prophets and believers, humans and god himself. The gamut of

influence one carries with the superior in question has, however, considerably varied depending mostly

on the situation; one moment man puts his trust in the leader, the next he patiently perseveres under

the tyrant, he submits to the sermons of the prophet and lastly, kneels and prays to god to win his favor.

Such convoluted practices to influence made Baltasar Gracian remark:

Many people spend time studying the properties of animals or herbs; how much more important it

would be to study those of people, with whom we must live or die!

Never Outshine the Boss

In 1661, Nicolas Fouquet, King Louis XIVs Finance Minister, felt he was falling out of favor with the king

and needed to ingratiate himself quick. Nicolas was a man who loved lavish parties, pretty women,

poetry and money. He had recently gotten his chateau, Vaux le Vicomte, completed and decided to

throw a grand party ostensibly celebrating its completion but in reality to pay tribute to the King, the

Guest of honor.

The party guest list consisted of the most brilliant nobility and some of the greatest minds of Europe.

Nicolas wanted to show the king, how well connected he was in order to prove his resourcefulness. The

party had a seven course meal which consisted of food never tasted before in Europe. The gardens were

designed and built by the worlds best architects and designer. A special play written especially by

Moliere for the occasion was performed after the dinner and spectacular fireworks were held to end theevening. Every guest agreed it was the most amazing affair they had ever attended.

Next day Nicolas was arrested by the Kings guard, sent on trial for stealing from Countrys treasury and

was imprisoned for life. This goes without saying that most of the stealing had been done on the Kings

behalf and with his permission.

Louis then chose Jean Colbert as his finance minister who was renowned for hosting the dullest parties

and being a miser. Colbert made sure all the money liberated from the treasury went straight to Louis

and with that money Louis built his own magnificent palace at Versailles. He used the same architects,

designers and decorators, and eventually, hosted parties even more extravagant than Nicolass.

Moral of the story: With each new spectacle Nicolas thought he was showing the King his good taste,

connections and resourcefulness and thereby, making himself indispensable to the king. When in reality

the king kept feeling that his own friends and subjects were being more charmed by Nicolas than by

him. It offended his vanity.

When the evening began, Fouquet was at the top of the world. By the time it had ended, he was at the

bottom.- Voltaire, 1694-1778

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Keep Bosss Goals before Your Own!

Galileo, the Italian Astronomer and Mathematician, was always dependent on some rich persons

patronage. He would often present his inventions and discoveries to various patrons in order to sustain

his research. However, this was not a stable source of income and he constantly felt insecure.

When Galileo discovered the four moons of Jupiter he decided to try a different strategy. He focused

solely on the Medicis, ruling family of Italy. The Medici dynasty was established by Cosimo I, who

established Jupiter as the Medici symbol. It was a symbol that went beyond politics and banking, and

linked to ancient Rome and divinities.

Recently, Cosimo II, one of the four sons of Cosimo I, had been enthroned. Galileo, coincided his

discoverys announcement with the Kings enthronement saying that it was Devine sign, as even the

heavens reflected this ascendancy as Jupiter was Cosimo I, surrounded by the four moons which were

the four sons. Galileo, then presented an emblem which showed Jupiter surrounded by four stars to

Cosimo II. The King was so pleased that he made Galileo his courts official philosopher and

mathematician, with a full salary. For a scientist this was a coup of a lifetime, and Galileos days of

begging for patronage were over.

Moral of the Story: When dealing with the powerful patrons of his time, Galileo learnt from his mistake

of asking for help and thinking only about his own self-interest. In dealing with the Medici family, he

thought about their goals and needs instead of his own. He gave the Cosimo II, a Divine Sign to back

his claim to the throne and the familys legitimacy as rulers. In that way he ma naged to get what he

wanted too; a patron who provided a stable income for Galileo to continue his research.

Coming towards the more modern day corporate examples, we visited Coca Cola offices in Lahore to

find out its employees experience with their bosses.

Alis relationship with his boss took a turn for the worse due to their differences in working styles. Hefelt his ideas were what should matter instead of how colorfully they were presented to the audience,

whereas the boss rewarded presentation more than substance. Ali knew the bosss boss had the final

say when it came to approving the project and hence, devoted all his attention in selling his ideas to him

instead of his immediate boss. He was tactful not to alarm his immediate boss and was encouraged by

the senior bosss positive response. Eventually, the project got the approval and the Ali actually got a

promotion. Sometimes, its okay to outshine the boss if it results in getting noticed by the higher ups.

In another incident, Ahmed had a terrible time coping with his boss. In the first six months on the job,

his boss ensured that he was constantly working under pressure and being pushed to his limits. He kept

striving to deliver the output but in his heart he became discontent and started avoiding his boss. Soonhe became fed up of the work load and demotivating attitude of the boss and resigned. Only to his

surprise, he was later told that the boss was in fact very pleased with his performance and was

deliberately pushing him to excel so that he could achieve enough to build his case for a solid

promotion. Sometimes, its very important to press the pause button, observe whats really going on

and communicate with your boss in order to understand his point of view. Dont be too quick to judge

the boss.