Absorb the rejection
Take the loss fully and without denial, and resist the urge to strike back.
In practice: After a major rejection, the CEO holds the public response and meets the affected team in person first.
The 27 models
WCRC-GLC-11 — The Bhakti Saints
Sant Tukaram
The WCRC Indrayani Resilience Model
When your work is sunk, hold steady and let it resurface.
THE MODEL
The WCRC Indrayani Resilience Model
The Indrayani Resilience Model is a playbook for dignified resilience when work is rejected or devalued. The leader absorbs the blow without bitterness, keeps integrity intact and stays close to the people who are suffering, while the quality of the work makes its case over time. Rank and status carry no weight in deciding who deserves care.
Anchor teaching: जे का रंजले गांजले । त्यासि म्हणे जो आपुले ... तोचि साधु ओळखावा । देव तेथेचि जाणावा (Whoever calls the troubled and oppressed his own, know him as a true saint; know that God is right there), Tukaram Gatha, abhang 204
This is a selection of teachers linked with the Hindu tradition, not a ranking. The models offer management reflection, not religious instruction.
WCRC is not affiliated with or endorsed by any teacher or organisation discussed.
MODEL STRUCTURE
How it works
Hold integrity
Stay true to the work and to your own conduct, with no bitterness towards critics.
In practice: The leader refuses shortcuts or attacks on critics to regain favour, and records honestly what was right and wrong in the work.
Stay close to those who suffer
Je ka ranjale ganjaleTreat the troubled and oppressed as your own; that is where the leader belongs during a setback.
In practice: When cuts or rejections land, the leader spends time with the most affected people and funds their recovery.
No high and low
Unch nichCare and voice do not depend on rank or status.
In practice: Recovery plans take input from every level, and frontline people get the same hearing as senior ones.
Let the work resurface
Sound work proves itself in time if it is kept and kept ready; tradition holds that Santaji Jagnade preserved Tukaram's abhangs.
In practice: Rejected work is documented and preserved, and brought back when conditions change.
TEACHING AND CONTEXT
The thinking behind it
Devotees recount that when orthodox critics objected that he had no right to explain scripture, Tukaram was made to sink his abhang notebooks in the Indrayani. He sat fasting and praying for 13 days on a stone at Dehu, and tradition holds that the notebooks floated up unharmed. Varkaris still bow to that stone, and the Shila Mandir built around it was dedicated in 2022.
God lives where the suffering are cared for: a true sadhu is one who treats the troubled as his own.
Tukaram Gatha, abhang 204 (Warkari Rojnishi edition)God knows nothing of high and low; only devotion counts.
Abhang 'उंच नीच काही नेणे भगवंत', cited in the Prime Minister's address at Dehu, 2022 (abhang number to be checked)A householder's daily life, lived truthfully and with kindness, can be bhakti.
New World Encyclopedia; Sadanand More (as given in brief)OPERATING MODEL
From principle to practice
Inputs
- Work rejected, devalued or cut
- An honest record of the work's quality
- People hurt by the setback
Practices
- Pause, then respond without blaming critics
- Spend leadership time with affected people
- Hear every level equally in recovery
- Preserve rejected work for later revival
Outputs
- A composed public response
- Key people retained
- An archive of reusable work
Outcomes
- Trust that survives the setback
- Faster recovery when conditions turn
- Reputation for integrity under pressure
BENEFIT MODEL
Who it is for
leader
The leader comes through rejection with credibility intact and without carrying bitterness into the next decision.
employees
People see that leaders stand beside them when work is lost, whatever their rank.
customers
Customers deal with a company that keeps its standards when under attack and does not cut corners to recover.
investors
Setbacks are handled calmly and valuable work is preserved, so recovery does not start from zero.
society
The model shows that people whose work is devalued can respond with dignity, and that care should not follow status.
WCRC MODEL PARAMETERS
Model emphasis
The scores describe this model's emphasis on each parameter. They are not scores for a person or organisation.
Vision Quotient2 / 5
Impact Index3 / 5
Innovation Score2 / 5
People Leadership4 / 5
Stakeholder Trust5 / 5
Resilience Factor5 / 5
Global Mindset1 / 5
THE AI AGE
Why it matters now
Automation can devalue skilled work almost overnight; Acemoglu and Restrepo argue it always reduces the labour share in value added [1], and the WEF expects 39% of existing skill sets to be transformed or outdated by 2030 [2]. Professionals, creators and whole teams will see their work sunk, and they need a dignified way through. Heifetz and Laurie's advice to regulate distress and protect voices of leadership from below [3] fits Tukaram's refusal to rank people. A CEO who stays close to those affected keeps the trust needed for the work, and the people, to resurface.
EXECUTION
Put the model to work
Pick the most recent piece of work that was rejected or cut, meet the people who built it in person, and ask what they need before saying anything in public.
Founder and CEO
- Hold the public response: When a major rejection lands, wait before any outside statement and meet the affected team face to face first, within the same week. In a small company that is the whole team; in a large one it is the unit that carried the loss.
- Write an honest record: Within a fortnight of the setback, write down plainly what was right and wrong in the work, with no blame for critics. Share it with the core team and keep it on file.
- Refuse shortcuts to regain favour: Each time pressure builds to win back approval with a cut corner or an attack on a critic, say no and explain why to the people around you. Hold integrity as a personal rule, not a team policy.
- Sit with the most affected: Block time every week during a setback to be with the people hit hardest, at whatever rank, and fund what they need to recover. A founder does this directly; a group CEO visits the worst-hit sites in person.
- Revisit shelved work quarterly: Once a quarter, review the archive of rejected work with the relevant heads and ask whether conditions have changed enough to bring any of it back. Let the work resurface on its merit.
Company
- Map recent setbacks and fallout (CEO office with CHRO): List the rejections, cuts and devalued projects of the past year and check who left, how fast leaders reached those affected and what was kept. This sets the baseline for regretted attrition and time to leadership contact.
- Pilot on the next setback (Head of the affected business unit): Run the full sequence on the next real setback in one unit: absorb the rejection, hold integrity, stay close to those who suffer, hear every level, archive the work. Review what held and what did not within 30 days.
- Write a setback protocol (CEO office and communications): Make it policy that after a major rejection a senior leader meets the affected teams before any public response, and that recovery plans collect input from every level. Add an archive step so rejected work is documented and stored for revival.
- Train managers in equal hearing (CHRO and all people managers): Teach managers to run recovery sessions where frontline people get the same hearing as senior ones, and to respond to valid criticism without self-righteousness. Use real past setbacks as the case material.
- Track the five setback KPIs (CHRO with finance): Report regretted attrition after setbacks, time to leadership contact, frontline voice in recovery, revival of shelved work and the trust survey after each major event. Review them with the leadership team every quarter.
- Scale and guard against passivity (CEO and board): Extend the protocol to every unit once the pilot shows retention and trust holding, and check each year that holding steady has not become waiting for vindication. Make sure the load is shared so no single leader absorbs every blow.
Readiness check
Before starting
- Do our senior leaders meet the people hit by a setback before they speak to the outside world?
- Do we keep an honest written record of rejected work and the reasons it failed?
- Do frontline people get the same hearing as senior ones when we plan a recovery?
Phase 1 · Diagnose and commit
Find out how the company has treated people and work after recent setbacks, and commit the leadership team to a different response.
- List every rejection, cut and devalued project of the past year, and record who left afterwards and how many days passed before a senior leader met the affected team.
- Run the trust survey on leaders' ability, benevolence and integrity now, so there is a pre-event reading before the next setback lands.
- Open the archive of rejected work: for each shelved project, write an honest record of what was right and wrong in it, with no blame for critics.
- Agree a one-page setback charter in the leadership team: absorb the rejection, meet the affected team before any public response, and never attack critics to regain favour.
Deliverable: A setback baseline covering the past year, the first entries in the archive of rejected work, and a signed setback charter.
Gate: Baseline recorded for all five KPIs, and every member of the leadership team has signed the setback charter.
Phase 2 · Pilot and prove
Prove the full sequence on one real setback in one business unit.
- On the next rejection or cut in the pilot unit, the unit head meets the affected team in person before any outside statement is made.
- Run a recovery session under the 'No high and low' rule, logging every suggestion by the level it came from and which ones are adopted.
- The unit head blocks weekly time with the people hit hardest and funds what they need to recover, to stay close to those who suffer.
- Within a fortnight, write the honest record of the work that was sunk and file it in the archive so it can resurface later.
Deliverable: A pilot review covering what held and what did not, with the honest record, the suggestion log and the archive entry attached.
Gate: In the pilot setback, leadership contact came before any public response, frontline suggestions were logged and some adopted, and regretted attrition in the pilot team is no worse than the baseline.
Phase 3 · Embed and scale
Make the setback protocol the standard way every unit responds to rejection.
- Write the setback protocol into policy: a senior leader meets the affected teams before any public response, and recovery plans take input from every level.
- Train all people managers in equal hearing, using the company's own past setbacks as case material.
- Start a quarterly review of the archive with the relevant heads, so shelved work has an owner and a decision date.
- Set up a rota so that no single leader absorbs every blow, and the load of staying close to affected teams is shared.
Deliverable: An approved setback protocol, a trained manager group and an archive register with an owner for each item.
Gate: Every unit has either handled a real setback under the protocol or rehearsed it on a past case, and time to leadership contact is reported for each unit.
Phase 4 · Sustain and renew
Keep resilience honest over years, so holding steady never turns into waiting for vindication.
- Once a year, check each archived item: is the work being improved, or only waiting for critics to change their minds?
- Track revival of shelved work over a two to three year horizon and report it with the other setback KPIs.
- Repeat the trust survey after every major setback and compare it with the reading taken before.
- Rotate the setback lead role so the practice does not depend on one person's temperament.
Deliverable: An annual resilience review to the board covering the five setback KPIs and the state of the archive.
Gate: Trust after setbacks holds at or above the pre-event reading, and every archived item has had a revive, rework or close decision within the year.
Governance
sponsor: The CEO, because the model depends on the most senior person holding back the public response and being seen with the people who carried the loss.
lead: The CHRO, who owns the setback protocol, the archive register and the five KPIs.
forum: The leadership meeting reviews any active setback every month and the archive every quarter; the board receives an annual resilience review.
decision_rights: The lead can trigger the protocol, convene recovery sessions and add work to the archive; any public statement, recovery funding or decision to revive shelved work goes to the sponsor.
Cadence
Weekly: During any active setback, the responsible leader spends time with the most affected team and records what they asked for.
Monthly: Recovery sessions report which frontline suggestions were adopted and which were declined, with reasons given back to the people who made them.
Quarterly: The archive review: heads go through shelved work and decide whether conditions have changed enough to bring any of it back.
Annually: The passivity check and trust comparison: archived items are tested for real improvement, and survey readings before and after each setback are compared.
By company stage
startup
The founder meets the whole team the day a major pitch, deal or product is rejected, and keeps one shared folder of shelved work with a short honest note on each item. Recovery input comes from everyone in a single open meeting.
scaleup
The setback protocol is written down, the CHRO owns it, and managers are trained to run recovery sessions where every level gets the same hearing. The archive becomes a register with owners and a quarterly review.
enterprise
Every business unit runs the protocol, group leaders visit the worst-hit sites in person, and the trust survey runs before and after each major event. The board receives an annual resilience review and checks that no single leader is absorbing every setback.
Success looks like
- After a major rejection, affected teams hear from a senior leader in person before they read about it outside.
- Frontline people say their ideas shaped the recovery plan and can name ones that were adopted.
- Work shelved during a setback has been revived, reworked or deliberately closed, rather than forgotten in a folder.
MEASUREMENT AND LIMITS
What to watch
Regretted attrition after setbacks
Departures of staff the company wanted to keep in the six months after a major rejection or cut, compared with the baseline.
Time to leadership contact
Days from a setback being announced to a senior leader meeting the most affected teams in person.
Frontline voice in recovery
Share of recovery-plan suggestions that came from non-managers, and share of those adopted.
Revival of shelved work
Share of archived projects or assets later reused or relaunched, tracked over two to three years.
Trust after setbacks
Survey items on leaders' ability, benevolence and integrity (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman), compared before and after the event.
Failure modes
- Holding steady becomes passivity: waiting for vindication instead of improving the work.
- Integrity hardens into self-righteousness that dismisses criticism that is valid.
- The leader absorbs every blow alone and wears out, with no one sharing the load.
Execution risks
- Leaders speak to the press or investors before meeting the team, because the urge to defend the work is strong.: Public statements are dated earlier than the first meeting with the affected team. Mitigation: Communications sign-off requires written confirmation that the in-person meeting has already taken place.
- Staff read leadership visits as theatre while cuts continue around them.: Pulse comments mention visits with no follow-through, and logged frontline suggestions show none adopted. Mitigation: Publish which suggestions were adopted and why others were not, and fund the recovery items leaders promised in those visits.
- Managers game regretted attrition by relabelling departures as unregretted after the event.: The share of exits classed as unregretted rises sharply after setbacks. Mitigation: Fix who counts as a regretted loss in the talent review before any setback, and audit the labels afterwards.
- Integrity hardens into self-righteousness, and valid criticism of the sunk work is dismissed.: Honest records list only what was right in the work, and critics' points are absent from recovery plans. Mitigation: Require each honest record to state at least the strongest criticism received and the response to it, reviewed by someone outside the unit.
RESEARCH SOURCES
Sources and notes
- Acemoglu, D., & Restrepo, P. (2019). Automation and new tasks: How technology displaces and reinstates labor. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(2), 3–30.
- World Economic Forum. (2025, January). The Future of Jobs Report 2025. Geneva: WEF.
- Heifetz, R. A., & Laurie, D. L. (1997). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 75(1), 124–134 (HBR 'Best of' reprint, December 2001).
- Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734.
The WCRC Guru Management Codex and its 27 models are proprietary WCRC models. © WCRC. All rights reserved.