Managing Career & Expectations (Talk at one of the IIMs)

R Gopalakrishnan

Executive Director of 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”.

1. Seek out grassroots level experience

Grassroots level experience: After graduation, during an interview with HLL for computer traineeship, I was asked whether I would consider marketing instead of computers. An engineer visiting grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy? No way.

After joining the company and spending a couple of comfortable weeks in the swanky head office, a train ticket for Nasik was handed to me. Would you please meet Mr Kelkar to whom you would be attached for the next two months?

He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which included Kopargaon, Pimpalgaon and other small towns.

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, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a management trainee in computers".

After this leveling experience, I was less embarrassed to work as a dispatch clerk in the company depot and as invoice clerk in the accounts department. But looking back after all these years, I would advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks.

That is how you learn about organizations, the true nature of work, and the dignity of the many tasks that go into building great enterprises.

2. Deserve before you desire

Appointed as the brand manager for Lifebuoy and Pears, the company's most popular-priced and most premium soaps, I was "a mini-businessman, responsible for the production, sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term growth, etc".

I had read those statements and believed them, and here at 27, was "in charge of everything". But very soon, it became evident that I could not move a pin without checking with my seniors.

One evening, I expressed my frustration to the marketing director 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?"

And then suddenly, the lesson was clear. I desired total control, long before I deserved it. This happens to us all the time in terms of responsibilities, posting and promotions. There is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and what we get. It helps to deserve before we desire!

3. Play to win, but with fairness

Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But will you do anything to win? Perhaps not. Winning without values provides dubious fulfillment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with universal values Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example.

I am fond of referring to the Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was instituted in 64 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are examples of winners.

• A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent more time to recover from a cramp.
• A British kayak team was trailing the Danish team. They then stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three-hour event!

4. Enjoy what you do

Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun than hard work". You usually excel in fields you truly enjoy. Ask any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence and 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 will lead him to unhappiness.

According to Aristotle, "Humans seek happiness as an end, 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. And 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, Learn to laugh about yourself. As General Joe Stilwell reportedly has said, "Keep smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".

5. Be Passionate about your health

Of course, as you get older, you would have a slight paunch, graying 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, and 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 yourself. 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.

6. Direction is more important than distance

Every golfer tries to drive the ball the farthest. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves masterly coordination of several movements.

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 encounters.

In a memorable film by Frank Capra, It's a Wonderful Life, a man is about to commit suicide because he thinks he is a failure. But an angel is sent to rescue him. The bottom-line of the film is No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends'.

My generation will never be 20 again, but when you are older, you can and should be different. Ours is a great and wonderful country, and realizing 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.

Regards,

Anish.