My Tyrant Boss and Lessons for Life !!

No this is not a rant. Neither is it a sob story. It’s a story about those moments in life when you think it’s tough when actually it is your character building in progress. This is a story of one such phase in my life. 

My first job. My first day at work. Excitement writ across my face replete with a beaming smile. A twinkle in my eyes. A spring in my step. Adrenaline rush in anticipation of a new beginning. A rainbow of dreams and ambitions on my mind. It was a huge moment. An emotional one and of Financial independence. I would finally be able to stand on my own two feet. 

As me and my other trainee colleagues were ushered in the work area, Head of Technology Center - R&D Department came to address us. An extremely suave and articulate leader. He laid great emphasis on learning, on innovation and out of box thinking. Explaining in detail the DNA of R&D department we were going to be part of. Post his address we all new joinees were given a small diary by his executive assistant. To note down what new we learnt that day and submit it for his review next day morning. New learning could be something from work or in personal time. But it had to be a something we learnt new each day. This exercise we had to do every day till we completed one year. Everyday. 

It sounded audacious. While I was naturally someone who would be curious and ask questions aplenty, but then this compulsion to learn and note down each day was overbearing. We were hurt. Come on we were not students anymore to submit homework for correction. But then there was no escape route. We were forced to learn something new each day. All that build up of being a professional now crashing down, literally.

And then began the frenzy. Each day we would submit the diary and would receive by noon duly signed with date from him. Initial few days I had plenty to write about. Then on 8th day I wrote about one of the difficult test equipment for which I was given a demo on the previous day. And this time I wrote in one sentence. 

Pat came the reply on my diary from him “Great! Pl. explain to me in person”. 

I went over the details once again, explained my understanding to him and also got more KT in return where despite his busy schedule he took time to actually run me through this state of art equipment they had recently purchased. That was my lesson no.1

Lesson no 1. Don’t skim the surface, get into details. 

Slowly I discovered he didn’t treat us trainees any differently than seniors. He always treated us all equally irrespective of gender and experience. We were all subjected to same colorful language and temperament as others :-)

He didn’t treat us as inexperienced associates. When he took me and another of my colleague to visit the manufacturing plant and asked us to spend 3 days with the engineers and workers on the shop floor to learn how the designs we make actually gets manufactured. You don’t learn sitting in your ivory towers (read AC rooms) he said. Sweating it out on the shop floor you will understand that design which you make on computers, how it actually transforms into an end product!

It was slightly awkward initially….not for me ..but for the men on the shop floor to see a lone female in the plant !! Even though I can’t say if I actually enjoyed all the attention, However I did get learn so much as I didn’t hesitate to ask questions much to the amusement of the engineers there. 

Lesson no 2: Understand the domain end to end. Having a holistic functional understanding will help you design better. 

So each day the learning continued. And so did his colorful comments. 

1.“Great.Pl.tell me about this” . (When I had mentioned I learnt how to write MoMs). Always curious to know what we had learnt.

2.Oh! The simplicity of this world! (When I had written about a design in an overtly simple manner without getting into details) 

3.Have you seen this yourself? (When I wrote about a complex component and how it works) 

4.WHY? HOW? (When I made a statement about what I had read for a type of component used. But what I had missed was the Whys and Hows through which we can arrive at the above conclusion)

The message was clear. 

Lesson no 3: Get your hands dirty. Do it yourself. Anything which we just read but actually don’t see it ourselves or practice it ourselves is not enough. Hands on experience a must. Bookish knowledge or hearsay not enough. 

Into the second month I got the hang of it. It built a strong sense of curiosity and I didn’t hesitate to interact or ask questions to my seniors, peers, plant engineers, anybody and everybody in the technology center who could catch hold of and who could teach me something me new. I recall 3 idiot’s movie dialogue. “Jahan bhi gyaan baat rahe the..I just went and soaked it all up”. 

Then around mid second month across few days I saw below comments. 

1.“WHO TOLD YOU THIS”. 

2.“Pl see me”. 

What irritated him most is if you learn something wrong or incorrect. Even if it is slightly incorrect. So looked like I had goofed on some concepts. He took it upon himself to ensure I learnt it correctly. This dedication to ensure his team learns and learns correctly was astonishing. In the hindsight of course. I never imagined I would be singing paeans about him. Then we thought of him as a tyrant who would get upset on small things. But now I realized they were not small. Learning is never small. 

Lesson no 4: Learn. But learn correctly. Check your facts properly. Incorrect knowledge is more dangerous than not knowing at all. 

Almost after a month and a half, I was shunted out from Design lab to the Testing lab. I was shattered. And mentioned so in my diary. Next day instead of getting angry on my naivete or ridiculing my immaturity he gently explained why I was chosen for that role and how important it was. Someone who comes across as an authoritarian took the pain of listening to me and explaining me the expectations of a role, an associate who was way junior to him and 3 levels below in hierarchy was surprising at the same time made me feel important. That one gesture meant the world to me. That was the turning point, I decided I never let him down and gave my everything to my work.

Lesson no 5: Listen and give time to all your team members, irrespective of their experience. You never whom you may inspire or motivate.

It saga continued. Every line we wrote in the diary was read and commented upon wherever he felt or learning was incorrect or inadequate. We were expected to work on our assignments end to end. Understanding each department. Procurement. Marketing. Finance. Design. Product Development. Testing. Vendor management. For a trainee to understand and manage this all on our own for one cycle of testing or development was tremendous. But glad we persisted as he was persistent. He insisted we need to know ever facet of the work we do and not work in silos.

He also encouraged us and took us on field trips where our designed/tested products were actually used. Think from the end user perspective, he said.

He introduced us to the concepts of Six Sigma and Lean. Taking the entire team offsite for a day long workshop and exercise on to learn this concept. 

Lesson no 6: Understanding of all facets, departments, roles, tools, competitors and concepts is crucial to our all round development. Don't restrict yourself to one particular role or department.

It became a habit for us, to seek out and learn something new each day. Even when I took a 5-day vacation I had to come back and write what I learnt. For that I HAD to learn something new. And I did. Rock climbing!! 

He was three levels senior to us, but at team gatherings, offsite’s etc he interacted with all of us. Listened to our stories, thoughts, ideas and anything we wanted to share with him , he was always ears. Being a well read and well traveled person that he was, he always shared interesting anecdotes and stories. It was such a huge learning every time we interacted with him.

 He genuinely appreciated our achievements as well. When my Engineering results were announced me and one more of my colleague featured on our respective university merit list, He shot off an email to MD of the company mentioning about our achievements. We even had a party.

Now more than a decade and a half later I realized that constantly keeping an eye for learning something new each day has become a habit. Thanks to this tyrant boss of mine. Any source, Any person - Junior or senior, Any place there is no one who can stop you from learning something new. If you want to learn. If you wish to learn. Now you know why I am hooked onto LinkedIn, blogging, reading and generally open to any conversation that will help me learn something new. There is so much to learn something new each day!!

This diary since then has always been my constant companion reminding me each day to learn. A constant reminder that there is no other way to succeed or achieve without learning each day. Thanks to that Tyrant boss of mine who taught me some very important lessons for life, which are holding me in good stead to this day.

Are you learning something new each day?