New Book Alert: The Unexpected Leader by Joel Sadhanad; Inside Look at Corporation, Leadership, Rivalries, and Artificial Intelligence

 New Book Alert: The Unexpected Leader by Joel Sadhanad; Inside Look at Corporation, Leadership, Rivalries, and Artificial Intelligence

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It's an understatement to say the the corporate business world as we know it is dealing with great change. With a global pandemic putting jobs and lives at risk, automation and remote working making offices superfluous even unnecessary, even well known brands struggling to find consumers, and changes in regulations, standards, sustainability, goals, and structures that affect everyone from the highest CEO to the lowest level worker, businesses are at a level of uncertainty on how to look towards their future.

Joel Sadhanad's novel, The Unexpected Leader, looks at the changing look at businesses in this transition period. Sadhanad expertly gives us an insider look at the world inside these corporations and the strategies, rivalries, leadership, and wide reaching decisions that affect businesses and the people that work within them on the eve of a certain pandemic.

The book is set in 2019 as WHO is murmuring warnings about the potential for a global pandemic and the need for emergency preparedness. The plot involves various characters throughout India who intersect through their involvement in the business world, showing that despite jokes and assumptions, corporations are not soulless entities. They are made of people, people who distribute, sell, and provide goods and services and others who purchase and rely on them.

There is Bhagwan Das, a senior editor and journalist is keeping one eye on this potential pandemic crisis and one eye on the business world around him. Aryan Rajput, a sales associate attends a demonstration of frighteningly human androids and learns a new trendy buzz word "leadfluencer" (achieving results through relationships and removing the problems that prevent team members from performing their jobs effectively.)

 Ajith Ramprasand,CEO of Good Morning, a fictitious coffee empire,  contemplates placing automation in his coffee shops instead of "burning money" by hiring inefficient middle managers. Anil Ramprasand, Ajith's younger brother doesn't mind engineering Big Brother's removal from Good Morning and taking his place.

Neha Singh, an ambitious young assistant regional manager, dreams of getting promoted, owning her own franchise of coffee shops, and getting married in that order. 

Sadhanad does an excellent job of humanizing these characters and offering their alternative points of view. No one is necessarily seen as right or wrong in their views and the majority of the characters make valid points with their words and are completely understandable within the context of their background and personalities. The Ramprasand Brothers for example differ on the directions that they want to take Good Morning. Anil is somewhat avaricious and duplicitous in his methods (like poaching Ajith's entire management team) but he doesn't want to ignore the human elements towards business. Ajith is fascinated with Artificial Intelligence, partly because of the cost in hiring and firing human employees, but he is a benevolent employer. He trains Neha to head a new franchise and personally walks her through a speech.

Aryan and Neha are the two most interesting characters in the book. Aryan tries to implement many of the leadership goals into his daily life and notices when others,like the Prime Minister, seem to lack them. He is fascinated by how AI has evolved to the point that a neural network can be created of a person's personality and mindsets. He is also understandably nervous about the implications of humans being replaced. He is also a family man who is protective of his daughter who has Wilson's Disease.

By far the standout character in this ensemble is Neha. A feminist whose fiance has very backwards views towards women, Neha is determined to do her best at her job. When she is given her own franchise, later dubbed Warm Hugs, she is naturally excited about the prospect but nervous about the new responsibilities. She and Ajith have a sweet mentor-protegee relationship as he helps her prepare for her first meeting. She is the voice of any job seeker who is waiting for that big break and becomes a bundle of nerves when they receive it. However when given the chance, she brims with confidence and bright ideas that cause her to excel.

Of course The Unexpected Leader opens up about the terrifying clouds on the horizon including the possibility of artificial intelligence replacing everyone even those on the top administrative positions. If they get replaced, then there is no hope for the people on the bottom level. Then the whispers of a virus from China get louder, especially when some of the characters take a trip there and Aryan's daughter develops a troubling fever.

The Unexpected Leader shows the Reader the crossroads which businesses found themselves and are still inside. Sadhanad shows a world that is in the process of great change and will probably never be the same again.