Page 22 - my SUCCESS! my CHOICE

Deepak Gupta my SUCCESS! my CHOICE
- 21 -

There was a brief pause as Dan cherry-picked his words, “I am really sorry Michelle for missing

your email and keeping you awake so long. I was tied up last night and this morning with something

rather important and did not get a chance to look at the emails. Please brief me.” Dan was pleased

with his word choice.

Dan’s ‘polished’ response surprised Michelle even more, but she tried not to show. ‘I am sure

something is going on. This is not our dear Dan!’

“Over a million Evershine shampoo caps got rejected because of ‘flashing’ (rough edges). We have

no more caps; supplier also has no stock. The earliest we can get new supply is day after tomorrow.

So, we cannot produce and deliver Walmart order that our CEO has committed.”

‘This is not good.’ Thought Dan but made sure that his face stayed expressionless. They made coffee

in silence, both in their thoughts and walked back to Dan’s workstation.

Dan was dying to jump straight to the issue and find a solution but had to make enormous effort

to control his instinct. Instead, he said, “Let us get to the problem as soon as we finish coffee Michelle.

I suggest we walk to the shopfloor and see it firsthand. You may also want to call Purchase and Quality

Assurance people to join us.” “Hopefully, they will be in by then.”

A conflict was developing inside Dan between his ‘usual’ and ‘new’ self. And he kept reminding

himself, ‘I must try my best to use my new learnings and instead of giving the solution, I must encourage my people to

get to the solution through my questions.’

When Dan and Michelle reached the production line, Production Manager Rob O’Brien, QA

Manager Paula Williams, and Purchase Manager Chuck Walters were waiting for them.

“Hey Guys. Good Morning. Hope you had a good weekend. What do we have here?” asked Dan.