Management Lessons learnt from Vasudeo – Part 1

Vasudeo is my father’s name. In a normal middle class Indian family of 70’s and 80’s me and my siblings grew up enjoying the freedom of calling him by first name within the four walls of our house. While we enjoy his friendship - his status for us is nothing less than that of a god…. This in fact is a first lesson… you need not follow any rituals to get your natural respect….. He being a man of few words, I learnt innumerable lessons through his simple actions…though the meaning of many I was to understand much later…..these are the few moments that have always stayed with me …..management lessons learnt from Vasudeo

Dusshera is a festival where we follow a tradition of giving gold to each other…well not the real gold, but the leaves of a particular tree that is accepted as symbol of gold in this part of the country. As a part of this tradition, younger ones visit the elders and give them gold while touching their feet.

On one occasion on a Dusshera day, my father and I went to Dadar (a central suburb of Mumbai) near the famous Shivaji Park. One of my father’s colleagues – Mr Bapat used to stay there so we stopped by. My father was a senior government officer with central government and worked long years with BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Center). Mr Bapat worked under him….in today’s parlance may be my father was equivalent to his two-up manager. If I remember it right, Mr Bapat was a Sanskrit scholar. He was also elder to my father in age.

As Mr Bapat and my father sat chatting, the tea and refreshments were served. My father got up, took out the gold (the leaves of course!) from his bag, offered it to Mr Bapat and touched his feet…. The most natural Dusshera ritual ,which no one ,except me, felt odd. Well, I knew my father’s rank and I was not sure I exactly agreed with what I saw. As we walked out, I couldn’t resist asking, “you are his boss, right?” “Yes” he smiled, “that’s in office”….nothing more was said or discussed but this incident stayed with me since then for some reason (I was just a High school kid then)

Later on when I witnessed a lot of debate around the stuff like protocols, whether to call your boss by his name, how friendly you can be as a boss and still be effective in the results…. I could somewhat understand the significance of what I witnessed as a schoolboy

You have a position in an organization for a specific goal…your designation is not really your identity that is meant to separate you from the rest… can we ever keep it aside when we are not interacting for a task?....do we really have to carry our corporate identity all the time….

Though these things sound idealistic, they are actually more pragmatic….

My father was known to be an absolute no-nonsense manager, but whenever as an individual he took any risks, people working under him could go and tell him exactly what they felt….please remember this was Government environment in 70’s and early 80’s….even at home as kids we could always speak up if we thought he made a mistake…

Segregating you from your designation is meritorious in more than one ways:
you always know who is interacting with you as a person and who is interacting with your designation
You are not slave of any pattern that your designation can beautifully weave around you
You can enjoy simple pleasures of life

Some of these lessons helped me a great deal, when for a part of my life I was an entrepreneur – I neither had a corporate logo, nor a designation on my visiting card….after a few initial nervous days I must say it was a very powerful experience!

Well, can I do what my father did on that Dusshera day? I’m not very sure… But then I am not Vasudeo… hopefully I’m learning!!!