People Who Matter - HR Venkatesh

5th in a series of articles to acknowledge great people who helped shape my professional journey. At times, we miss out on acknowledging the degree of impact some people have on our lives. This is a small attempt to correct that.

After Mr Premji, I talked about people who influenced my Sales and Marketing career. I also talked about three senior leaders, who had a deep influence on me. But software services business is never complete without the delivery team. It's the delivery team, which helps us with ideas to pitch for possible projects, they are the one's who create the 100-150 page proposal from single line requirement of the client. When it comes to project review meetings, again, its the delivery team which are right up there in the field with us, facing the wrath (or graciously accepting the compliment) from the customer. And on successful completion of the project, again its the delivery team, which proactively works out proposals for project extension, making proactive plan to address the bugs and change requests in the output, even after the product is released into the market.

And when I think about my experiences with the delivery team @ Wipro, it was the story of the two Vs, VRV and HRV (VR Venkatesh and HR Venkatesh). As the senior among the two, VRV's contribution was definitely significant. What I remember the most about him was his astute knowledge of technology, ability to cite numerous examples of what we had done for other customers and extremely sharp and witty sense of humour. VRV was extremely adept at managing his schedule and I was never refused a meeting with him, despite his busy workload.

However, it was the younger HRV, who worked closely with the Japan team and we had numerous memorable experiences with him. Interestingly, though he was engaged with Japan for more than ten years, he really did not need to make a serious effort to learn the language. Apart from the solid support of our Japanese speaking engineers and yours truly, to a limited extent, it was the technical and managerial excellence of HRV, that he commanded so much respect among the customers, that they would patiently discuss with him, even in English, if need be.

Delivery in software services is more about man-management more than tech acumen. And from that perspective, HRV was (and is) a people's man. Very quick to understand the idiosyncrasies and style of the developer community. Some time back, I talked about an interesting episode involving HRV in one of my previous posts also: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/stop-expecting-hetal-sonpal/?published=t

An astute observer and quick learner, he would not let us sales people 'try to act smart' and put pressure to speed-up delivery schedule. He was the perfect balancing cog between the customer and the delivery team, brave enough to take responsibility for the misses and ensuring that the client acknowledges the hits as well.

What worked between HRV and myself, was his candid feedback on my work and sharing his own wit and wisdom.

" Once we accept the mistake, in any conflict, it's easier to move forward." - HRV would often cite this line and I still use this, at work and at home, to great effect.

"Put the warring parties face to face, instead of doing piecemeal negotiations with both of them." - Though not very common for me, but there this one instance where I had issues with a delivery managers, who, in-turn had his own opinion of me. Instead of taking up my issue with the manager, during one of my visits, HRV forced me to have a 1:1 with the manager, telling me that I had to deal with it directly. Conflict that had been lingering for two months, was resolved in 20 mins of face to face confrontation.

HRV was equally at ease with customers, going on to build a strong bond with customers at Toshiba, Canon, Nissan, etc. The consistency of his visits to Japan, ensured that customers would hold back issues for weeks and wait for his trip to Japan for a detailed discussion.

I remember he had a very strict regiment on food, fitness and sleep. Among the string of teetotaller managers we had in Wipro, he had limited food items to choose from when travelling to Japan. I so well remember one of the dinner meetings we had with a customer, where the three client managers were having beer and HRV and myself were just happy with Orange juice and Coke. After almost two hours, the client jokingly remarked "HRV-san, this is a bit unfair. We are drinking and not sure what all we might tell you, under the influence of alcohol. As you both are sober, you may not reveal anything in return to us."

Totally a team player, HRV had strong bondages with young and old alike; from the senior-most to the youngest members in the company. Proud to have had such a long association with him and glad to say that we have stayed in touch even 15 year after we last worked together. Thanks a lot HRV, for everything.