It was a regular Tuesday afternoon of November, 2003. A smoking-room of the Insurance Ltd headquarters was full of people. It was nothing unusual - sunny weather outside and extremely good end-of-the-year results of all the departments (the latter meaning good individual bonuses to be expected very soon), had been bringing together lots of Insurance Ltd employees, even those who did not smoke at all, making the atmosphere of the smoking room in that hour full of talking and laughter. It had been like that only a week before, when everybody was sharing impressions on the CEO’s birthday party and was looking forward trying to guess what surprises to expect at a big Christmas party in December. However, that Tuesday everybody looked quiet and lost, occasionally having short conversations about urgent work routines and recent tasks… …Finally, the silence in the smoking-room was broken by one of the secretaries, who with tears in her voice asked the people around her: “How could he do that to us? What are we going to do now?” Everybody kept quiet. Nobody knew the answer…
One week before:
CEO’s birthday, like all the social events in the Insurance Ltd, was celebrated very informally with all the headquarters’ employees collecting their own money to have an additional surprise for him - that year they invited a belly dancer. Mr. Xi, CEO of the Insurance Ltd, was considered a real leader of the company with a true respect from all the employees. Having managed in three years to transfer a weak niche insurance company into the one with a strong team of specialists, the most developed information systems and very rapidly growing market share with the company’s image being changed from “a small neglected market player” into the one with a strong bargaining power in the insurance association and respect and good reputation in the eyes of customers. However, the biggest competitive advantage of Insurance Ltd ensuring good sales results, stable growth and high quality of client service, regardless any possible hardships or moves of competitors, was a strong internal culture and team spirit created and maintained by Mr. X, under which all of the company’s 70 employees felt like a big family ready to work hard together and able to enjoy social activities of all kinds outside of work. No doubt, he was a local hero, the one whose charisma kept many employees working there regardless any problems they might have encountered.…
