Unmasking The Corporate Avatars

A review of Disha Chhabra’s new book ‘Corporate Avatars’ 

- Jayadev Menon

These days, most offices and spaces of work are filled with more characters of people than people with character. We’ve all dealt with one of these characters at some point in our careers and have our fair share of experiences to recount. No matter where you work, be it a Government Department or a PSU or a Private Sector Company, one has to deal with people. Of these, in the private sector one would see a greater level of goal orientation given the direct linkage between performance and recognition and the limited number of rewards available in the form of incentives and promotions. Corporate Avatars was born out Disha’s need to share with the world what she’d learned from her eleven years in the corporate world.

One can even call it a dog-eat-dog race because the winner takes it all. As unpleasant as it sounds the resultant outcome is a mad rush to highlight one’s own performance, degrade the co-worker’s achievements and curry favor with the bosses to win brownie points. It goes without saying that survival in today’s corporate world hinges more on people skills than just being good at functional skills. It becomes supremely important to know how to deal with people and be adept at differentiating between friend and foe.