The Self Esteem Resurrection

It was my third week in the new office and the same time in the country. Things seemed to be a little awkward because of the lack of processes and systematic approach to work. I was however, enthusiastic about my role in the office. We had a relatively small team. The Partner was the head and we had an experienced senior leading our corporate finance division. I was next only to these two people. And there were four staff in our division. The team had a multi cultural composition, the Partner a Kuwaiti, the experienced senior an Indian Tamil, I a north Indian with Nepalese connections, and the staff of two Egyptians, one Malayali born and brought up in Kuwait and one Yemanese born in Kuwait and brought up in Pakistan. The guys were good to work with. I felt home and was comfortable doing my job. Girish, the experienced senior, had left for India for his marriage just two days after my arrival. That left me the in-charge of everything when I was completely new. But I was game for this kind of an opportunity. If I succeeded I won and if I failed, I broke. There was nothing in between. And I liked that since I thought I could win.

I was summoned by my Partner. Nayef was known to be strong headed and very meticulous. I liked his way of doing business. He was compassionate and did business with a clear vision of value for the clients and for the firm. A certified public accountant and a certified valuation analyst, he had all the qualification, backed by good decade long experience in the US and Kuwait. I liked the placard at his desk that read, “If we don’t take care of clients, somebody else will.” And then there was this wall hanging showing the importance of perseverance. His office was a small and simple one but carried his strong message of client relationship and hard work.

He was sitting on his chair and was working on his laptop computer. I knocked the door and went in. He turned and looked at me. He looked sullen and I could feel the coldness. I wasn’t sure what was there in store for me. He kept working without looking at me for next five minutes or so. When he finally finished with his mail, he raised his eyes from the laptop monitor and said that he wanted to draft a questionnaire for an engagement with me. This questionnaire had been a pain in my neck for the last week. I didn’t know what exactly was in his mind from the questionnaire.

Last week he had explained in brief about a consortium being awarded a real estate development project by the government. We were appointed the financial advisor for the consortium and had to prepare a business feasibility study on behalf of the consortium. This questionnaire was directed at the government to elicit information from them. But all these pieces of information were given to me one after the other when I went with a new edition of the questionnaire. At first my assignment was to draft a general questionnaire for any kind of feasibility studies. I did that painstakingly looking into numerous books and several other resources. At the end of the exercise, I was happy that I could put up such a detailed questionnaire, which upon answering sincerely, a client could develop a good business plan even without any assistance from advisors. Nayef did not like it as much and gave me some instructions. And that followed a series of modifications. He would give me numerous but confusing instructions and would not divulge what exactly he wanted from me. The questionnaire that initially ran into 20 pages was still as much voluminous, but the structure was changing with my every visit to his office. But every visit made me more and more intrigued about his intent and the type of response he wanted from me.

That day when he told me that he wanted to draft the questionnaire with me, I was relieved that finally the work would be over. But the events took an ugly turn. He started typing and with every sentence his words to me became harsher. I had not expected that from him. I had hardly believed that he was capable of such tough talk. He went on and on about what he expected of me and how I had let him down. He didn’t expect me to pull him down in his pursuit and he was not impressed by my work. He felt that I didn’t take initiative and lacked responsibility. He went on and on, sometimes giving me the details of how he brought the firm to where it was from the downfall of Arthur Andersen and sometimes giving aspects of his personal life and his beliefs of success and failure. I was bamboozled. I was tired of being brave at being criticized and my smiles lost their sincerity. I was perturbed. Finally when I emerged from his office, I was downsized just like the questionnaire which now ran to less than two pages. It was like a letter asking a few details.

I realized that it was my mistake that I didn’t ask him what exactly he wanted and how he wanted to present the questions. Had I known that it would be a letter, I sure could have done this job well. But communication was not just my responsibility. It was as much his responsibility too. When he could spend so much time editing the previous versions of the questionnaire running into twenty pages, he could have as well told me in clearer terms of his expectations. But I was not his boss, he was my boss, and hence, I was in deep soup, not him. I began to think whether it was the end of my Kuwait misadventure. Nayef looked very judgmental and it seemed that he had made up his opinion of my capabilities. That was made more and more obvious with every subsequent meeting with him for the next two days. Meetings began to shape up like encounters wherein he would attempt an ambush and I would go to the battle thoroughly prepared.

I decided to call it quits. I was not accustomed to be in such tight spot. All through my life I had enjoyed the limelight as destiny’s blue eyed boy. I had no qualms about my abilities. And that saddened the matter. I didn’t want to retreat like a loser. But I could not think of how to continue being boiled alive everyday. My attitude changed so swiftly that I could not even realize it. I had initially thought of taking up the challenge of a developing market and now the same challenge looked like an impediment to my personal development. I had thought that my absence would give my wife breathing space in her studies, and now, I could not tolerate her absence and was desperate to go back to her and seek shelter in her arms. I used to tell her everything that ever happened in my life, but now I could not tell her about this for the fear that my failure would shake her faith in me. I was my wife’s hero and I wanted to protect my terrain. It was a mess. I did not have the patience to continue and I did not have any other recourse but to have patience.

It paid off in the end. I worked at my pace but tried to innovate. Nayef liked his style of writing the report, he was systematic in his work, he wanted work control sheets and he intended to be informed of everything. He was the Partner but wanted to micro-manage as well. I gave him all that although I never compromised at my own style of doing my work. I would not jump the gun and fire fax messages to the clients for every detail I needed, instead I would call them and talk and ask the details. I would not impose my own ideas of the economy or the industry but would rely on external sources of repute so as to emphatically support my assumptions and manage risks. And as I had always been, I was very efficient with my work. I changed my outlook as well to accommodate his traditional ways of thinking. I got my hair cut short and colored them black from a stylized burgundy. I started to walk freely into his office asking straighter questions as to what he wanted. It helped.

Two days ago I finished the full appraisal including the report in about two weeks time, by hammering the clients for information by calling them and visiting them, by doing extensive research and by being impeccable in financial modeling. And I had no difficulty in his approval for the numbers.

After his review, he asked me how I felt about his harsh behavior. I played down my anguish. He apologized for his words and said he was impressed with my work. He explained in great detail his expectations from me and how I fit in his scheme of development of our division. My self worth was salvaged and my self esteemed was resurrected. With my head held high, I could walk out of this office with pride intact. It was a boon and also a relief of as much the same significance.

Pray Lord.