Learning Lessons From Early Career - Mukesh Pant
Learning Lessons From Early Career
In twenty-five years of corporate life, I have probably made twenty five hundred mistakes, and learnt maybe ten lessons. A true lesson is one from which you change your behaviour for the better. Three of these lessons were learnt early, when I was fresh out of IIT Kanpur, coping with the rigorous demands of Hindustan Lever's outstanding management training program.I was still a raw trainee in HLL 25 years ago when Pradeep Dutt, who then ran the Personal Products division, called me to his office late one evening and told me that I was being posted to Chennai as Area Manager for South India. The first few days at Chennai are still etched in my memory as though they were yesterday. My area steno was a wonderful man called A Srinivasan, whom everyone called AS. From the first day, AS and I developed a mutual liking and respect, and though he was old enough to be my father, he never resented me as a boss. But there was one area in which I constantly earned his wrath. AS had a fetish for keeping tabs on expenses. One day he got really upset when I didn't find time to file an expense report on time, refusing even to sit as he entered my office. He glowered at me, and said in a menacingly low voice " Sir, it isn't your money, it's the company's. If you can't file your expense reports on time, you will never make a good manager.", and he left the room. Eventually we made our peace, but only after I promised thenceforth to carry blank expense statements on tour, filling them out as I rode the train back to Chennai. It's a habit that has never left me, and to this day I have a compulsive desire to square up official expenses within a day of completing a trip. I have realised over the years that it was not so much about that little expense statement, but about the importance of personal integrity-make a fetish of this aspect of personal discipline, and the rest will follow. I have used AS's line on hundreds of rookies, 'If you can't file your expense reports on time, you will never make a good manager, I don't care how smart you are'.
Minoo Kalyaniwalla was a legendary HLL salesman in Secundarabad. He effortlessly beat his targets, and had an iron hold on the market. I was fascinated by his style from the time we first met, and I spent weeks with him travelling all over Telengana selling truckloads of Rin and Lifebuoy. He knew every shopkeeper personally, but the most amazing thing about him was that he spent very little time on actual sales talk: he had a fantastic sense of humour that he used to telling effect. I was fresh out of engineering college in those days, unfamiliar with the world of commerce, and tended to be awkward and analytical. Minoo was the polar opposite. To him selling soap was a by-product of entertaining his clients. For the most part the world of business is serious and somewhat tense. Humour can inject a doze of magic into any situation, and a witty remark or joke can defuse situations and provide a way forward, whether in the soap market in Begumpet or at a boardroom in New York. I will never forget Minoo and his disarming humour, and how he taught me that if you get a customer to laugh, you can get him to do pretty much anything.
One of the most difficult tasks in corporate life is to know when to keep your mouth shut. There are constant temptations in the office to gossip, moan and complain, particularly about people in senior positions. I am now convinced that if you say anything damaging about anybody, there is a better than even chance your comment will get back to that person, and damage your relationship. It doesn't matter how much you trust that person you are having the conversation with. I wish I could take this advice as strongly as I am giving it, because I still tend to make this fundamental mistake. I wish I could learn from CR Tilak, who in 1978 worked for me as a steno. We had a close working relationship, but in all that time I cannot recall him speak disparagingly about anyone. I can remember times when some of us would gossip about someone or other in Tilak's presence, but he never ever joined the fray, preferring to listen with a smile, or steering us away to another subject.
Personal discipline, humour and discretion are among the hallmarks of successful executives. That is why I will always remain grateful to my early mentors AS, Minoo and Tilak: the three may have retired in relatively humble positions in the Chennai branch of HLL, but they each taught lessons in management that are just not on the curriculum of any IIM.
(Muktesh Pant is the Chief Marketing Officer for Reebok International and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He can be contacted at mickypant@hotmail.com <mailto:mickypant@hotmail.com>)
In twenty-five years of corporate life, I have probably made twenty five hundred mistakes, and learnt maybe ten lessons. A true lesson is one from which you change your behaviour for the better. Three of these lessons were learnt early, when I was fresh out of IIT Kanpur, coping with the rigorous demands of Hindustan Lever's outstanding management training program.I was still a raw trainee in HLL 25 years ago when Pradeep Dutt, who then ran the Personal Products division, called me to his office late one evening and told me that I was being posted to Chennai as Area Manager for South India. The first few days at Chennai are still etched in my memory as though they were yesterday. My area steno was a wonderful man called A Srinivasan, whom everyone called AS. From the first day, AS and I developed a mutual liking and respect, and though he was old enough to be my father, he never resented me as a boss. But there was one area in which I constantly earned his wrath. AS had a fetish for keeping tabs on expenses. One day he got really upset when I didn't find time to file an expense report on time, refusing even to sit as he entered my office. He glowered at me, and said in a menacingly low voice " Sir, it isn't your money, it's the company's. If you can't file your expense reports on time, you will never make a good manager.", and he left the room. Eventually we made our peace, but only after I promised thenceforth to carry blank expense statements on tour, filling them out as I rode the train back to Chennai. It's a habit that has never left me, and to this day I have a compulsive desire to square up official expenses within a day of completing a trip. I have realised over the years that it was not so much about that little expense statement, but about the importance of personal integrity-make a fetish of this aspect of personal discipline, and the rest will follow. I have used AS's line on hundreds of rookies, 'If you can't file your expense reports on time, you will never make a good manager, I don't care how smart you are'.
Minoo Kalyaniwalla was a legendary HLL salesman in Secundarabad. He effortlessly beat his targets, and had an iron hold on the market. I was fascinated by his style from the time we first met, and I spent weeks with him travelling all over Telengana selling truckloads of Rin and Lifebuoy. He knew every shopkeeper personally, but the most amazing thing about him was that he spent very little time on actual sales talk: he had a fantastic sense of humour that he used to telling effect. I was fresh out of engineering college in those days, unfamiliar with the world of commerce, and tended to be awkward and analytical. Minoo was the polar opposite. To him selling soap was a by-product of entertaining his clients. For the most part the world of business is serious and somewhat tense. Humour can inject a doze of magic into any situation, and a witty remark or joke can defuse situations and provide a way forward, whether in the soap market in Begumpet or at a boardroom in New York. I will never forget Minoo and his disarming humour, and how he taught me that if you get a customer to laugh, you can get him to do pretty much anything.
One of the most difficult tasks in corporate life is to know when to keep your mouth shut. There are constant temptations in the office to gossip, moan and complain, particularly about people in senior positions. I am now convinced that if you say anything damaging about anybody, there is a better than even chance your comment will get back to that person, and damage your relationship. It doesn't matter how much you trust that person you are having the conversation with. I wish I could take this advice as strongly as I am giving it, because I still tend to make this fundamental mistake. I wish I could learn from CR Tilak, who in 1978 worked for me as a steno. We had a close working relationship, but in all that time I cannot recall him speak disparagingly about anyone. I can remember times when some of us would gossip about someone or other in Tilak's presence, but he never ever joined the fray, preferring to listen with a smile, or steering us away to another subject.
Personal discipline, humour and discretion are among the hallmarks of successful executives. That is why I will always remain grateful to my early mentors AS, Minoo and Tilak: the three may have retired in relatively humble positions in the Chennai branch of HLL, but they each taught lessons in management that are just not on the curriculum of any IIM.
(Muktesh Pant is the Chief Marketing Officer for Reebok International and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He can be contacted at mickypant@hotmail.com <mailto:mickypant@hotmail.com>)
