Contents

Passive Officers
What should Assistant Commissioner do, to motivate his officers?

Two Superintendents
What should Assistant Commissioner do, to wrest the power from the two senior
superintendents and yet ensure that they extend their support to his ideas?

Rewards
Was the Assistant Commissioner right in holding on to the rewards till the completion of the
posting of the officers or should he have used the incentive of the rewards to further
motivate his officers?

CISF - Identifying the Key Persons and Direct Communication

What could be the reason why the direction of the Deputy Commandant was lost on his
subordinates even in a disciplined organization like CISF? What should Assistant
Commissioner do, to ensure complete co-operation from CISF?

The Lady Officer issue

How do you think should the Assistant Commissioner deal with the lady officer?

Petty conflicts
How should the Assistant Commissioner resolve this conflict? How can he ensure that both
the officers continued to trust him?
Passive Officers
What should Assistant Commissioner do, to motivate his officers?

For the initial few days, the new assistant commissioner sailed along with the established informal rules of Pune
airport customs. He did not try to bring about any change in the working style and give time to the officers to
observe him. He gave time to his staff to accept him and understand that he was willing to listen to their problems
and would be available all the time.

The Assistant Commissioner waited patiently and made a gold case about 12 days after he was given the airport
posting. Soon after the case was made the limitations of his officers became clear. The Customs officers’ lack of
knowledge of the procedures and after arrest processes that have to be performed by the officers came out into
the open. The officers of Excise never arrested anyone before and hence did not have the practical training about
the procedures that have to be followed before and after the arrest of a person. This is where Manaylak swung
into action and started giving out directions to the staff and guided them in the step-by-step procedures to be
followed by them. Since the arrest of a person took away the fundamental rights of a person, it is treated very
seriously by law and hence required a lot of diligence on the part of the officers involved. Any negligence would
entail serious consequences to the officer found wanting.

By the time all the arrest proceedings were performed and the person arrested was produced before the court, the
power dynamics in the airport have completely changed. The officers and staff began to accept the new Assistant
Commissioner as their leader.

The officers have also gained a new sense of self-respect and self-importance after the catch had made news in the
local newspapers. Rather than feeling punished for being posted in the airport, the officers began to feel proud
about their airport posting.

The new assistant commissioner realized that it was time for him to introduce his style of focused and goal-
oriented working to his team. The Assistant Commissioner started taking regular training classes for his officers. He
made it clear to his officers that confidence came only from clarity and clarity comes from knowledge and
knowledge comes from reading. Further, he explained to them that they were indeed very powerful but rendered
themselves powerless because of their lack of knowledge in the application of all Customs provisions.

The Assistant Commissioner also tried to instill a spirit of camaraderie and teamwork among the officers. Manaylak
spelled out the new rules of the game where the entire department spoke in one voice with the international
passengers. The new rules included that the entire department talks to the passenger only through a single officer.
All the other offices would back the officer interacting with the passenger in case of any dispute. He also
introduced the idea that there would not be any hierarchy while dealing with the passengers. When the officers
knew that they had the full backing of their seniors and other officers, they spoke to the passengers with a sense of
authority and confidence. This has in turn changed the attitude of the passengers towards the customs officers.
The passengers too realized that the customs officers were there only to help them and any duty that has been
imposed on them was being done fairly and transparently.

The Assistant Commissioner introduced many informal signaling between the officers whereby they would target
only certain segments of passengers who were more likely to evade duty.
Few of the other changes that the assistant commissioner tried to bring about were-

Spic And Span Uniform

When the Assistant Commissioner took charge at Pune airport, he realized that many officers were not wearing
proper uniforms. He instructed that the uniform worn by the officers should be clean and properly pressed.

One Passenger One Officer Policy

The Assistant Commissioner introduced many more informal rules like - One passenger will be dealt with by only
one officer. Manaylak believed that one officer speaking with the full authority of law would have a greater impact
than two officers simultaneously talking to a passenger and convincing him of the need to pay the customs duty.

Graded Reaction to Trouble Makers

One another area where the new Assistant Commissioner noticed required improvement was in handling rude and
trouble-making passengers. Manaylak made it a policy of Pune airport customs that not a single passenger should
clear customs unnoticed. In other words, every passenger should be observed and cleared in the mind of the
customs officer or should be detained for further scrutiny. However once in a while, the customs officers had to
face rude passengers who would not cooperate and divert away from their attention from performing their regular
duties.

Manaylak realized that few of the rude passengers were very successful in evoking strong emotions and strong
reactions from his officers. In a few cases, his officers got into loud verbal duels with the rude passengers. This not
only created a very bad image of customs in the eyes of other passengers but it also distracted other officers from
performing their regular work.

Manaylak worked out a scheme of graded reaction. In the new scheme whenever a senior officer of customs saw
that one of his juniors was about to get into a verbal duel with a passenger and about to lose his cool, the junior
was immediately moved out of the situation and the new officer was sent to handle the rude passenger. This tactic
worked almost all the time as the rude passenger had to start a duel afresh with the new officer which tired him
and brought him back to his senses.

Crowd Handling

Mental screening (Each passenger is observed and cleared by the customs officer in his mind) of all the passengers
by customs officers required that too many passengers do not walk through the green channel at the same time.
For this, they needed the cooperation of the immigration officials. If during certain peak times the immigration
officials slowed down their screening of the passports and Visas of the inbound passengers - this would lead to
more uniform clearance of passengers from the customs. This gives sufficient time for the officers to observe all
the passengers. Hence one of the first things done by the new assistant commissioner was a meeting with the
Chief of Immigration. The new Assistant Commissioner proactively went and met the chief of immigration though
the chief of immigration was junior in rank to him. The Assistant Commissioner requested the Chief of Immigration
for a joint meeting between immigration and customs officers. The cooperation of the immigration officers was all
the more important because many times the screening of passengers by customs was done during the immigration
clearance stage itself.
Two Superintendents
What should Assistant Commissioner do, to wrest the power from the two senior
superintendents and yet ensure that they extend their cooperation to his ideas?

The sudden change in the power dynamics of the office has left the two senior superintendents seething
for an opportunity to establish their importance in the office dynamics.

Manaylak was aware of this and tried to diffuse the situation by giving a lot of importance to the views
of these two superintendents during officers' meetings. The Assistant Commissioner tried to
communicate that he was not there to disturb the established power structure of the airport but was
only a humble servant who was trying to suggest a few improvements here and there. The Assistant
Commissioner tried his best to make it appear that most of the new suggestions that he thought of and
introduced were the ideas of these senior superintendents.

Rewards
Was the Assistant Commissioner right in holding on to the rewards till the completion of the
posting of the officers or should he have used the incentive of the rewards to further
motivate his officers?

CISF - Identifying the Key Persons and Direct Communication

What could be the reason why the direction of the Deputy Commandant was lost on his
subordinates even in a disciplined organization like CISF? What should Assistant
Commissioner do, to ensure complete co-operation from CISF?

The Assistant Commissioner realized that it was the two sub-inspectors who worked on the ground,
shoulder to shoulder with the jawans, and handled all problems were the real troubleshooters. Further,
these inspectors had discretionary powers, unlike the jawans. The jawans were trained not to think but
only to follow orders. A general message like – 'Cooperate with the Customs' was not actionable for
them. Hence a swift response from jawans can be elicited only if it were communicated to them in the
form of specific directions from the sub-inspectors. Hence the Assistant Commissioner directed his
officers to develop rapport with the sub-inspectors and contact them directly in case of any emergency.
This effort of the Assistant Commissioner in identifying the key persons has resulted in swift cooperation
from CISF on all subsequent occasions.

The second thing the Assistant Commissioner did was to request the Deputy Commandant to call for a
meeting of all the jawans and screeners on one Saturday morning (the only time when there were no
flights). The Assistant Commissioner then addressed the jawans and screeners directly and tried to
sensitize them about the importance of customs surveillance and the role that they could play in
assisting the customs officers without any extra effort or without going out of the way.

This one-to-one direct talk had a good impact on the jawans and screeners. It has resulted in two
smuggling cases being detected on the departure side based on the inputs given by CISF screeners.

The Lady Officer issue

How do you think should the Assistant Commissioner deal with the lady officer?

To handle the situation deftly and without any adverse fallout, the Assistant Commissioner followed
certain precautions.

He made it a point to never call the lady officer alone to his room to discuss anything of importance.
Further on all occasions where he had to point out the lapses on the part of the lady officer, he called for
a short review meeting of all officers. All he had to do in such meetings was to merely get an update
about the work done. He made it a point never to upbraid or point fingers at the lady officer for her
lapses at such meetings. And yet, these meetings served the purpose of bringing to the notice of all
other officers that the lady officer was not performing her functions properly.

After a couple of such meetings, a few of the other offices started openly demanding that the Assistant
Commissioner take action against the lady officer. The Assistant Commissioner then communicated to
the lady officer through other superintendents that if she did not pull up her socks strict action would be
taken against her. The lady officer then soon realized that she would not be able to play a victim card
and also realized that she does not have the support of any of her colleagues.

Petty conflicts
How should the Assistant Commissioner resolve this conflict? How can he ensure that both
the officers continued to trust him?

Manaylak spoke to each officer separately. He told both the officers that he agreed with that officer's
point of view. He also explained to both officers that he cannot take action against the other officer over
such silly matters. He requested both of them to make an effort to be cordial to the other officer and
requested each of them to avoid the other person as far as possible. Manaylak also had a confidential
word with the officer who prepares the roster to avoid putting both Munnu Kumar and Anand Kumar in
the same batch.