Ritu has been working as HR Head for Company ABC, a Indian-based manufacturing firm with global presence,

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Question:

Ritu has been working as HR Head for Company ABC, a Indian-based manufacturing firm with global presence, for over 30 years. ABC has a long-standing reputation as a company that stands by its core values (respect, integrity, and excellence). These values have defined how ABC works with its customers, have framed how staff members work with colleagues and have been a key part of the company's culture since its founding.

About three years ago, ABC was sold to private equity. Since then, there has been a significant restructuring and the acquisition of two smaller companies to help improve the balance sheet. Part of the prior leadership team remained, but some talent, including the CEO and COO, have been appointed by the new owners. It is understood that the new owners are preparing the company for an eventual IPO. Ram, the new COO's primary mission is to build ABC's value and prepare it to go public. He expects all functions, including corporate functions like HR, to focus on bottom-line performance, just as the profit centres of the business must do.

Ritu, along with her colleagues representing Finance, Accounting and IT have been invited to a meeting to discuss ways to cut costs and streamline processes in each of their respective areas. When the meeting agenda was communicated a few weeks ago, Ram stated that he was looking forward to lots of group interaction and innovative thinking. About 10 minutes into the meeting, Ritu realizes there will be little room for discussion.

In fact, she starts to feel that the meeting is aligned to re-affirming his pet projects and that he is not open to new ideas at all. Within 15-minutes of the meeting, the tone is set and it is clear Ram only wants to review the projects he has defined as being critical in each area, without much input. When the HR Department comes up, Ram mentions his plan to redistribute the workload and reduce reliance on contract work. Ritu interjects with a different idea and offers a new approach to contract negotiations allowing the in-house team to focus on higher-value work. Ram shoots down Ritus idea down with, "I wish we had time to vet these ideas more fully but I think you would all agree, we've already identified what needs to be accomplished by the end of this fiscal year." Ritu counters with some data she has collected and connects the projected cost savings on reducing contracting time to ABCs overall financial objectives. She can tell Ram is very unhappy with her interjection

Ritu notices her colleagues as all of this is happening and sees them shutting down too. One of them, her colleague in Ritus team, tries to support her idea and even mentions that he knows of several competitors who are moving towards using web-based systems with pre-defined work flows for standardized HR work - Shyam tries hard to influence Ram giving lots of relevant information. By this point, Ram becomes very quiet and just looks down - it is very uncomfortable for everybody. Shyam continues but Ram says "we need to table this until another time."

Based on your assessment of the above situation answer the following questions mentioned below:

Q (1). What aspects of Emotional Intelligence are not being used in this situation by Ram, Ritu or Shyam?

Q (2) What feedback would you give Ram and Ritu to strengthen their self-awareness? What precautions you need to take while giving a corrective feedback.?

Q (3). What would a display of empathy and of organizational awareness have looked like in this situation?