Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Management lessons from Vasudeo – Part 4

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

My brother and me had got the news that my father would be given a car by his office. This was late 80s / early 90s and cars had still to become commodities. We already had a car and with the struggle that we had seen both our parents go through, second car in the house was a luxury. The reason for our excitement was different though – both of us were in college and if father has his own car – we would have one car to share between us – we already had marked the days of the week for the ownership of a car.


During these times, once I walked into my father’s office as I was loafing around that area. He used to head Legal & Personnel (there was no HR there). It was after office hours and he was writing some notes (yes there were offices without a computer on the table!). “So, when is our new car coming?” – my father looked at me and handed me over the note that he had just written for his next meetings with the directors – “Whats this?” “Read on” I read the note and his recommendation on the car policy and was shocked – “Are you alright?? You are recommending no car policy is necessary. Is this some kind of your idea of being a hero?” I was extremely upset as it meant for me and my brother to continue our fights on the time-share for our two-wheeler! “Just cool down – I don’t need to do these gimmicks to be a hero. Read the second page”. I read the second page which had some crap about the facts and figures and some analysis which supported his recommendation. “By the way I had written the second page first” – I had a suspicion that he was actually enjoying the conversation! I was in no mood to be logical. “You keep saying that you want to do an MBA in HR – please remember that job means that you are a trustee to the organization and some of the policies that you sign will also impact you adversely. If you are not ready for that – don’t bother” He got up to leave – I knew the meeting was over!


I will be dishonest if I say that I was enlightened and impressed with his thought process. On the contrary I was very upset and did not bother to speak much to him on the way back home. He was calm as usual and perhaps little relieved that I was not in my natural belligerent mood!


Over the years as I started working in the same profession I realized time and again the value of his words. There are many a times when there is conflict of interest when it comes to some policies – you may not be exactly at an advantage yourself due to some policies that you are custodian for. Well, that’s the interesting piece of my profession and as the years passed by, I understood what my father told me that evening little better!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Our own little corruption

One of the best phases of life is when you have girlfriend, pocket-money, a two-wheeler and no responsibilities. Roaming around the streets on a two-wheeler with your girlfriend sitting behind, you tend to think that you can do no wrong. Thankfully I had this phase for about four years in my life where the main agenda of the day for Pallavi and me used to be to roam around the streets of Mumbai on Kinetic Honda. We used to have roughly around a pool of 30-40 rupees between us (early nineties with petrol costing just 6 rupees it used to be a tidy sum).

One such day on a Sunday morning - traffic was easy and we were going past Dadar (can be called a center of the city). A traffic cop caught me jumping the signal. First thought in my mind was economic situation. Sunday used to be a day when both of us used to go to South Mumbai for a movie (an ultimate class act given our general economic condition!). If the traffic cop had charged me the regular penalty for jumping the signal, Sunday was gone! At the age of 22, this is equivalent to losing a million dollars!........... I parked my kinetic honda, asked Pallavi to be there and went on to negotiate with the cop ….. Finally we settled for Rs 10 (If I remember right the fine was Rs 20 then). The traffic cop pocketed the money and went away …… Sunday was saved ….. On the way back home I proudly told Pallavi about how I saved the Sunday …. As she got down at her place she told me, “Your value system is saleable for 10 rupees, so next time I don’t want you to tom-tom about your value system and integrity” I was furious and we argued about the how she lacks maturity and does not understand the value of money (after all I was three years older than her!) “Anyway, right now you are capable of only 10 rupees corruption …. Who knows what you would do when you are capable of more?” and she walked away ….. Her sense of timing in terms of walking away from arguments in style has remained intact all these years! I was so furious that I reached from Worli to Vile Parle in less than 20 minutes (usually a distance of 30 minutes those days) ………… I couldn’t think of anything else the whole night ……

next day when we met, both of us had calmed down
“Perhaps I was little harsh yesterday but I get bugged with any form of corruption but I guess I stretched a little too far” ….

“No you were right. I agree with your last statement about my ability limited to only 10 rupees now. If just for having a Sunday my way, I could do this, god knows what I would do in future”…

“Don’t be a fool, I really did not mean it that bad!”….

“No you were right and be that way so that I can reserve my rights to tom-tom about my integrity and values in front of you whether I achieve anything in life or not!” and we both had a hearty laugh…..


This happened about 18/19 years back ….. till date, I have not bribed anyone in any form though life has seen some tough moments …. If a cop catches me I apologize, plead guilty and pay the fine if he demands so!