INTRODUCTION

This group behavior in organization case study is about power tactics & politics. How one can use it in right manner and how can the whole thing backfire with politics. Power is the capacity of a person,team,organization to influence others.Political behavior involves activities that are not required as part of a persons formal role, but that influences (or attempt) the distribution of advantages & disadvantages within the organization.

SUMMARY
Poornima Ltd. is a company based in Calcutta. It is a holding company which has 3 fully owned subsidiaries of which motor India is one. Mr. Chopra with his friends as a group has 26% of the capital, while bank and financial institutions own 14%, the rest was distributed among many investors. 7 years ago Mr.Chopra transferred Mr.Talwar out of the head office at Calcutta to motors India Limited in Bombay. Chopra and Talwar had many differences. So everybody thought that by sending Talwar to Mumbai Chopra has killed two birds with one stone. Motor India has been in red for last 4 years. So Chopra thought that if Talwar fails then he will be out of the company, and if he succeeds then the profit would be useful to Poornima in Calcutta. But Talwar surprised everyone by engineering a turn round of Motor India in a little over a year. He used his motivational skills for this. It took only 15 months for Motor India to contribute a profit of Rs 20crore. The clash between Talwar and Chopra again intensified. Chopra used Motor Indias profit for funding acquisitions in unrelated areas where as Talwar wanted to reinvest it. Finally one day Talwar came in Chopras office with two offer for him. The first offer was to sell Motor India to Talwar and his four friends. Second offer was to surrender his controlling stake in the holding company. Some of Talwars supporters has been purchasing

Poornimas shares for the past few dont give into the first offer then those individuals supporters will declare themselves as group officially and will be set to acquire the controlling stake at Poornima. Chopra was startled by all these and could not believe Talwar. When Chairman Mishra called up Chopra, he told that five individuals have expressed interest to buy the institutional stake in Poornima. And as these five are acting in consort as soon as they declare themselves as group they have to be given the institutional stake and also that Talwar was put up by them for management. Talwar left Chopra with two alternatives, either to sell the subsidiary or to sell his stake in the holding company.

QUESTIONS

1) Delineate the role of power and politics in this case. The influence of power & politics is present all through out the case. ROLE OF LEGITIMATE POWER: It represents the formal authority to control and use organizational resources. In the case, the legitimate power of Prem Chopra (executive vice-chairman, Poornima Ltd) gives him the authority to transfer Mr. Talwar to the Motor India Ltd, which was then running on huge loss. POWER TACTICS 1) PRESSURE, AS POWER TACTICS: Talwar uses the pressure tactics over

Mr.chopra, after Motor India Ltd became the highest profit generating subsidiary of Poornima Ltd. He threatens Mr. Chopra to either sell off the Motor India Ltd. or to sell his controlling stake in the holding company. He uses the individual investors of the company to threaten Mr.Chopra.

2) COALITION TACTICS BY TALWAR: Talwar is also using coalition tactics to persuade the target (Chopra) to agree to his demand. For this he uses the aid of investors, who are on his side. Other than the power tactics, the contingencies of power also play a role in the case. 1)NON SUBSTITUTABILITY & VISIBILITY: The contingencies like nonsubstitutability & visibility obtained by Mr.Talwar, by his success story in Motor India Ltd, helps him to evolve as more powerful at the end scenarios. Because of the success of Mr. Talwar, he becomes able to perform even counter power on Mr. Chopra. Case can also be related to the power dynamics. 1) ZERO-SUM-GAME: Those in power try to grab it more, even in the expense of others. This is clearly shown by Mr. Chopra, by keeping Talwar away from the holding company, & also by Talwar by trying to take the power from Chopra at the end. 2) DEPENDANCY ON TALWAR: As a person responsible for the success of Motor India Ltd, dependency of the organization on him is huge. This is clear from the words of the Chairman itself. This helps him to grab more power. Use of politics: Action of Mr. Chopra, to unnecessarily transfer Talwar, can be related to the political behavior of acting against a particular individual.

2.) Do you think Talwar has played politics? If yes, how? The power in politics can be mentioned as the ability or the capacity of the person to influence members of an organization to achieve a pre-determined goal. Yes I think Mr. Talwar has played politics Motors India which was in a great loss witnessed a marginal profit after being led by Mr. Talwar. His main strength was his extraordinary ability to motivate individuals through focusing on their strengths thereby influence them and made a team out of them which he used as an instrument of change. Legitimate kind of power was practiced by him.

As the Motors India rise into level of making profits Mr. Chopra started to use the profits generated from Motors India to fund into areas outside Motors India. Mr. Talwar wanted to retain the profit within the company. As he himself knew that the company was in a good position than the other subsidiary companies and that he had a great influence over his team, he was in a position to run the company along with his team members and being separated from the main organization. Expert power made him to create such a stand. He along with his core management team understanding that there was a crisis in fund at the organization and that Mr. Chopra faced pressure in dealing with the fund crisis, Mr. Talwar decided to take advantage of the situation by giving Mr. Chopra an option to sell the Motor India so that it will enable him to rise fund for his diversification. As Mr. Chopra denied the proposal Mr. Talwar gave him a second choice to surrender his controlling stake in the holding company. Mr. Talwar forced Mr. Chopra to decide on choosing any of the options by stating that the 10 percent of the Poornimas capital belong to investors of his support and that they will be officially declaring themselves as a group with a common intent and set the ball rolling to acquire the controlling stake at Poornima. The coercive power in the political behavior has been shown by this situation. Mr. Talwar in

3. Do you think Chopra has misused power when he killed two birds with one stone? If yes, how? Yes, I think Chopra has misused his legislative power. As the vice-chairman of the Company he is suppose to be a motivating figure, someone whom the subordinates may look up to. In this case Chopra has misused his power to satisfy his personal vendetta. As the president of corporate planning of Poornima Ltd, Talwar had been reporting to Chopra on various matters. During this period they disagreed on various issues including the company policies. They seldom met eye to eye on these matters. The two birds emphasised here were to move, Talwar out of Calcutta and to place Talwar as managing director of Motors India ltd, and with a motive that if it become a failure, responsibility would entirely fall on Talwars head else,it was a success then he could take the advantage.

CONCLUSION

The case highlights the ways through which power & politics plays its role in organizations. It depicts how the power bases like legitimate power are used to make decisions by corporates.The case also shows that a person need not have the authority to be more powerful than the others. In the case, though Mr.Chopra has more authority, eventually Talwar emerge as more powerful. Also it has been a practical study of relating contingencies & dynamics of power.