Experience sharing by R.Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons.

Experience sharing by R.Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons.

There is a Thai saying that experience is a comb which Nature gives to man

after he is bald. As I grow bald, I would like to share my comb with you

people, about their career ahead.

Seek out grassroots level experience

I studied Physics and Engineering at University. A few months before

graduation, I appeared for an HLL interview for Computer Traineeship.When

asked whether I would consider Marketing instead of Computers, I responded

negatively : an engineer to visit grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy?

Gosh, no way. After I joined the Company and a couple of comfortable weeks

in the swanky Head Office, I was given a train ticket to go to Nasik. Would

I please meet Mr. Kelkar to whom I would! be attached for the next two

months? He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which

included staying in Kopargaon and Pimpalgaon among other small towns. I was

most upset. In a town called Ozhar, I was moving around from shop to shop

with a bullock cart full of products and a salesman's folder in my hand.

Imagine my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front of me in

Ozhar, believe it or not! and exclaimed, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a

Management Trainee in Computers". !

I could have died a thousand deaths. After this leveling experience, I was

less embarrassed to work as a Despatch Clerk in the Company Depot and an

Invoice Clerk in the Accounts Department.

Several years later, I realised the value of such grassroots level

experience. It is fantastic. I would advise young people to seek out

nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks. That is how you learn

about organizations, about the true nature of work, and the dignity of the

many, many tasks that go into building great enterprises.

Deserve before you desire

At one stage, I was appointed as the Brand Manager for Lifebuoy and Pears

soap, the company's most popular-priced and most premium soaps. And what

was a Brand Manager? "A mini-businessman, responsible for the production,

sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term

growth,etc.,etc.

had read those statements, I believed them and here I was, at 27,"in charge

of everything". But very soon, I found I could not move a pin without

checking with my seniors. One evening, after turning the Facit machine

handle through various

calculations, I sat in front of the Marketing Director. I expressed my

frustration and gently asked whether I could not be given total charge.

He smiled benignly and said, "The perception and reality are both right.

You

will get total charge when you know more about the brand than anyone else

in

this company about its formulation, the raw materials, the production

costs,the consumer's perception, the distribution and so on. How long do

you think that it will take?"

"Maybe, ten years", I replied, "and I don'texpect to be the Lifebuoy and

Pears Brand Manager for so long"!

And then suddenly, the lesson was clear. I was desiring total control, long

before I deserved it. This happens to us all the time - in terms of

responsibilities, in terms of postings and promotions, it happens all the

time that there is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and the

reality of what we get.It helps to deserve before we desire.

Play to win but win with fairness

Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But think about the

balance. Will you do anything, to win? Perhaps not. Think deeply about how

and where you draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and in doing

so, it helps to think about values. Winning without values provides dubious

fulfillment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with a

set of universal values Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example.

Napoleon inspired a ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight and

seize power. This brought him name and fame for twenty years. But all the

while, he was driven forward by a selfish and evil ambition, and not in

pursuit of a great ideal. He finally fell because of his selfish ambition.

I am fond of referring to the Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was

instituted in 1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are

two examples of winners.A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the

umpire to give his opponent some more time to recover from a cramp. A

British kayak team who were trailing the Danish kayak team. They then

stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck. The Danes went onto

beat the British by one second in a three hour event!

What wonderful examples of sportsmanship! Play to Win, but with Fairness.

Enjoy whatever you do

Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun

than hard work". You usually excel in fields, which you truly enjoy. Ask

any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence. He

will say, "The struggle for life". What he probably means is the struggle

for success. Unless a person has learnt what to do with success after

getting it, the very achievement of it must lead him to unhappiness.

Aristotle wrote, "Humans seek happiness as an end in itself, not as a means

to something else". But if you think about it, we should not work for

happiness. We should work as happy people. In organisational life, people

get busy doing something to be happy. The more you try to be happy, the

unhappy you can get. Your work and career is all about your reaching your

full potential. Working at one's full potential, whether it is the office

boy or the Chairman, leads to enjoyment and fulfillment.

A last point about enjoyment. Keep a sense of humour about yourself

Too many people are in danger of taking themselves far too seriously. As

General Joe Stilwell is reported to have said, "Keep smiling. The higher

the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".

Be Passionate about your health

Of course, as you get older, you would have a slight paunch, greying of

hair or loss of it and so on. But it is in the first 5 - 7 years after the

working career begins that the greatest neglect of youthful health

occurs.Sportsmen stop playing sports, non drinkers drink alcohol, light

smokers smoke more, active people sit on chairs, starving inmates of

hostels eat rich food in good hotels and so on. These are the years to

watch. Do not, I repeat do not, convince yourself that you are too busy, or

that you do not have access to facilities, or worst of all, that you do

this to relieve the stresses of a professional career.

A professional career is indeed very stressful. There is only one person

who can help you to cope with the tension, avoid the doctor's scalpel, and

to feel good each morning - and that is ourself. God has given us as good a

health as He has, a bit like a credit balance in the bank. Grow it,

maintain it, but do not allow its value destruction. The penalty is very

high in later years.

Direction is more important than distance

Every golfer tries to drive the ball to a very long distance. In the

process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves the masterly

co-ordination of several movements simultaneously. The golf coach always

advises that direction is more important than distance. So it is with life.

Despite one's best attempts, there will be ups and downs. It is

relationships and friendships that enable a person to navigate the choppy

waters that the ship of life will encounter. When I was young, there was

a memorable film by Frank Capra,starring James Stewart and Dona Reed, and

named IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It is about a man who is about to commit

suicide because he thinks he is a failure. An angel is sent to rescue him.

The bottomline of the film is that "No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends".

Conclusion

My generation will never be twenty again, but when you are older, you can

and should be different from my generation. Ours is a great and wonderful

country, and realising her true potential in the global arena depends ever

so much on the quality and persistence of our young people. Good luck in

your journey, my young friends, and God be with you and our beloved Nation.