Lounging on his green lawn in a lazy summer evening, Mr. Ranjit Sen, a prominent immigrant scientist was drinking a cup of Darjeeling tea. He had brought back his favorite brand from a recent trip to motherland. A cool breeze was blowing, chirping birds were returning to their nests and a few fireflies were occasionally flickering at distant. Slowly, his mind drifted into a sea of memories.
After earning a PhD in chemical sciences three decades ago, he joined a start-up biotechnology company to discover new medicines for several life-threating diseases. Majority of the personnel then were top level scientists, highly spirited and motivated to their causes. But as their years of successful research efforts started to bear fruits and the organization began to expand, the mission of the place started to change. More monetary profit from innovative applications of past successes with less funding for new research, became the new mantra. And that’s when they hired Mr. John Wills, PhD, DSc, as the VP of Operation, all of his degrees being earned in prestigious overseas universities. One of his stated primary goals was to steer the organization towards this new direction.
Though his CV mentioned that he had retired from a similar role from a larger pharmaceutical company, words got around that Mr. Wills was forced to resign from his post. This was due to his dictatorial nature of leadership, arising from his narcissism as well as arrogance, being the only holder of two highest degrees in sciences within the organization, and thus making him smarter than anyone else. In addition, he instituted the destructive divide and rule policy along with personal attack in a very public humiliation fashion to anyone whoever opposed to his views.
Soon, he started to display the same qualities in Mr. Sen’s workplace, destroying the free-wheeling atmosphere and collegiality that existed there before. His immediate subordinates formed various subgroups to gain his favorable attraction. The practice of ground-breaking original research started to suffer, while top-notched scientists began to leave the organization disrupting ongoing research. A few good ones were forced out due to their scientific disagreement with Mr. Wills, while infighting among his henchmen escalated. The organization started to lose its scientific reputation along with its market value, eventually being forced to be taken over by a rival farm.
The last sip from his cup brought Mr. Sen back to present time and reflect on last few days’ developments. This nation’s top leader went to a boy scouts’ gathering and lectured them on political issues, while disparaging his opponents. The historians saw a frightening resemblance of Third Reich’s preaching to the brown shirts. In addition, he urged the military to lobby congress for more funding, thus dangerously politicizing that branch. The infighting among his henchmen exploded in public views with utterance of vulgarity and threatening words.
Then, Mr. Sen remembered a wry humorous quote from Late Yogi Berra, once country’s famous baseball player and coach: “It is déjà vu, all over again!”
After earning a PhD in chemical sciences three decades ago, he joined a start-up biotechnology company to discover new medicines for several life-threating diseases. Majority of the personnel then were top level scientists, highly spirited and motivated to their causes. But as their years of successful research efforts started to bear fruits and the organization began to expand, the mission of the place started to change. More monetary profit from innovative applications of past successes with less funding for new research, became the new mantra. And that’s when they hired Mr. John Wills, PhD, DSc, as the VP of Operation, all of his degrees being earned in prestigious overseas universities. One of his stated primary goals was to steer the organization towards this new direction.
Though his CV mentioned that he had retired from a similar role from a larger pharmaceutical company, words got around that Mr. Wills was forced to resign from his post. This was due to his dictatorial nature of leadership, arising from his narcissism as well as arrogance, being the only holder of two highest degrees in sciences within the organization, and thus making him smarter than anyone else. In addition, he instituted the destructive divide and rule policy along with personal attack in a very public humiliation fashion to anyone whoever opposed to his views.
Soon, he started to display the same qualities in Mr. Sen’s workplace, destroying the free-wheeling atmosphere and collegiality that existed there before. His immediate subordinates formed various subgroups to gain his favorable attraction. The practice of ground-breaking original research started to suffer, while top-notched scientists began to leave the organization disrupting ongoing research. A few good ones were forced out due to their scientific disagreement with Mr. Wills, while infighting among his henchmen escalated. The organization started to lose its scientific reputation along with its market value, eventually being forced to be taken over by a rival farm.
The last sip from his cup brought Mr. Sen back to present time and reflect on last few days’ developments. This nation’s top leader went to a boy scouts’ gathering and lectured them on political issues, while disparaging his opponents. The historians saw a frightening resemblance of Third Reich’s preaching to the brown shirts. In addition, he urged the military to lobby congress for more funding, thus dangerously politicizing that branch. The infighting among his henchmen exploded in public views with utterance of vulgarity and threatening words.
Then, Mr. Sen remembered a wry humorous quote from Late Yogi Berra, once country’s famous baseball player and coach: “It is déjà vu, all over again!”
