IS NOT LEARNING AS IMPORTANT AS LEARNING?

A person learns innumerable lessons as he or she goes through the corporate life. Most learnings are what we ought to do, such as work ethics, planning, man management, organizing your work life balance, project management, leadership and so on. But the biggest learning is what “not” to learn. I have been fortunate that I have worked with a couple of large organizations where most of my learning was “what not to do”. Successful organizations – giants in their space but where humans were treated more like slaves and the word culture was unheard of. What not to do defines your own work culture, working ethic and gives you insights and nudges at the right time. It also helps define your own entrepreneurial style.

Of course, there are elements of what not to do (WNTD) which is defined by your own upbringing and the environment in which you have been raised. Also there are some WNTD which need not necessarily mean something unethical or morally and socially wrong but could just be in conflict with your own principles. You will see some examples of this later in the article. But the biggest WNTD are elements that are or bordering crime – corporate or ethical.

Let me start on a positive note since I was fortunate that my first job was with an organization which was successful, morally sound, and principled and a fun place to work in. The people I interacted with – my peers, my seniors, my juniors (not many as I joined as a management trainee) and the top management were all top notch individuals in their field and my learning was not just limited to and related to my job per se but most of the learning covered life lessons. As an impressionable 23 year old, I was fortunate to have started working in such a work environment. I still remember on my first day at work straight out of business school, the Executive Director of Marketing at Ceat Tyres - Mr. Jal Khodaiji a gregarious Parsi gentleman with a sharp marketing mind (perhaps ahead of his time) asked me and the two other management trainees what the 3 key elements to succeed are?. Don’t remember who answered, but I still can see myself sitting across his huge office at Ceat Mahal in Mumbai and hearing those three words – hard work, an analytical mind and empathy. He especially emphasized on the word empathy making sure we understood its meaning. This for me was the beginning of a great journey with the RPG Group which lasted for almost 7 years. Also my first immediate boss played a key role in shaping my work ethics and man management skills be it with peers, subordinates, distributors big and small. Very little rhetoric but a lot of substance in action which I lapped up rapidly and happily.

The parent enterprise which used to be called RPG Enterprises was established on some strong principles where culture- both corporate and individual was given a lot of importance. It stemmed from the founder Shri R. P. Goenka’s style of management and of his elder son Harsh Goenka who led Ceat tyres. Hence I consider myself fortunate to have been able to start my corporate journey with such pedigree and upbringing. After more than 6 years with the group, I made a couple of errors – perhaps I missed the larger picture and jumped on to the bandwagon of largeness of both work and personal wealth. In hindsight this was the first of my two errors in judgment which I must confess I realized later in life. But I learnt some key lessons along the way which have played a part in shaping my management style. While I would not like to name the organization, it was here that I learnt what one must never do. Ethics was not a part of their work culture and the sole objective was how to dominate and make money…….tons of money. Some gestures were shocking where in consultants were invited and their intellectual property was stolen, copied, downloaded discreetly. Meetings started in the middle of the night and went on until the wee hours. While I learnt some key lessons in large scale project management, the cultural shock was too much for me to accept and fortunately I was able to get out of the mess without any downside. But I was left wondering if largeness coupled with success was perhaps the fiefdom of only the corrupt and unethical kind. Of course, there was the Tata Group, Wipro, Mahindra & Mahindra and many others who value ethics, culture and have a human face and yet have achieved success managing diverse and category dominating businesses. This stint was my first experience which taught me more in terms of WNTD rather than what to do.  

I would like to borrow a quote from Tommy Lasorda, Los Angeles Dodgers manager who said that managing players is like holding a bird in your hand; grip it too firmly and you crush it, too loosely and it escapes and flies away. Players and employees are interchangeable here for me. A facet that stifles employee growth, development, creativity and self-confidence is when one has to work with a boss who has a fetish for micromanagement. And this only gets worse when the boss also happens to be the owner of the enterprise. Now combine micromanagement with a crude, ruthless and control freak behavior and you are in deep trouble. All the other positives evaporate and the employees are mere puppets, robots who are expected to nod, work, stop thinking, and succumb to threats of termination and much worse. Yes there are owners who work as if it’s still the 18th century slave house. And they get away. As long as the employees can manage with their pride and mind intact it is fine, but when the employee’s wellbeing is secondary to the owners desire to accumulate personal wealth, then one needs to realize that one is in the wrong place. When the going is good, the country is on a fast trajectory and the organization is benefiting from this boom, all is well. When the going goes south all hell breaks loose. As Daniel Levitin has noted in his fantastic book – The organized mind, “Toxic leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce or unfairly punish others to get what they want for themselves. Prolonged use of these tactics undermines and erodes subordinates will, initiative and morale” – a principle stated by the US Army.

Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos were / are known to be difficult people to work, but they had to be difficult as they were creating something that the end user was unaware of and they had to get their vision across each and every stakeholder in their organization. Pressure was the norm and not micromanagement. The pressure to deliver which is a joy if given the right work environment and tools.

So as you work across various organizations and with different people and working styles, learn what helps build your character and work ethics ensuring that you do not compromise on your life principles. Because you will be remembered for not just the successes you achieved but also how you achieved them.