When superstars fade- A case for latent talent? (A true story)

As my friends from the consumer products industry know, the channel?of any organization has a life of its own that goes through cycles of inception, growth, maturity, disruption & course correction as the years go by. Every channel has its nuances that are?by-products of the industry, geography, organizational leadership at any given period & other broader market forces. Like the parent organization itself, the channel too has its share of laggards, also-rans, and superstars. And like all human groups, channels too undergo their churn over time as generations change and as new players step in, paving the way for new stars & the fading out of yesteryear stalwarts.

As the newly appointed state sales manager for Orissa, it was my first monthly debtors’ review at our eastern regional office. My?ledger showed a >365 days outstanding against the name of a firm in Cuttack , an overdue that had not moved in the past two years. My boss, a tad uncomfortable, asked me to ignore it & focus on the other accounts. But curiosity got the better of me, especially as the amount was quite high, and it was unlikely for our organization to write it off so conveniently. So, I probed. My boss let out an impatient sigh & gave me the story. That’s when I first heard of MM.

MM was, as they say, stuff that legends are made of. Based out of Buxi Bazaar in Cuttack, he was the king of our Eastern Region trade in the 90s, a feat that itself was noteworthy, considering that the regional wholesale market was in Calcutta and there were other markets in other parts of East that were larger than Orissa. And yet, MM would be putting in numbers that would eclipse all others in the region. And here’s the more interesting part. MM commanded an average of 8-9% less discount in all his institutional sales, meaning he was not just a topline champ, but was also earning healthy margins himself, besides maintaining a respectable price for the organization in the market. Not only was he our top dealer, but he was also doing more business than all our competitor dealers, all of whom were local and low priced.

I was hooked. I wanted to know more about this enigmatic guy.

MM, as my boss explained, was a flamboyant man who loved his Single Malt and his golf. He would also holiday in Europe once a year. Besides, he had a reputation of being a straight talker who would not mince words when it came to express his scorn towards other channel partners during dealer meets. He had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And as it happens in life, over time his detractors got the better of him. The company management changed, new dealers entered the good books of the managers, extracted better discounts from the company and started raiding MM’s customer base, eroding the market prices & gradually eating into his pie. By 1998, MM was at loggerheads with the company management and had given them an ultimatum to clean the market or he would retaliate. But knowing that he was a spent force now, nobody paid attention. Things got worse from there & finally MM held on to his last consignment & stopped paying. There were threats of litigation from both sides, but eventually things settled into a dull status quo. The company chose to ignore MM and his outstanding.

I didn’t. I wanted to know this guy better. If I wanted to double my sales?and increase my profitability, I needed MM back. I tracked his phone number & impulsively gave him a call. When he heard I was the new Sales Manager in town, he spoke to me in an impersonal tone for 2 mins and hung up. He was obviously done with the organization. The problem was, I wasn’t done with him.

The next morning, I parked my motorbike outside his office & walked in. Seated behind his desk, MM was a lean man in his mid-40s who had very sharp eyes that seemed to size me up in a quick 5 second glance. He offered me tea. We chatted. Then, we chatted some more. After two hours, he came out to see me off. That weekend, he called me and invited me to Bhubaneswar Club for a drink. Little by little, the hostility started peeling off. Here was a man who had been a loyal partner to the organization for years & who had been dealt an unfair hand. There was lot of residual hurt. But my persistence started winning him over. He seemed to like me.

Three weeks later, he picked me up from home & drove us to his warehouse. There was an empty lorry parked outside and I could see a segregated consignment laid aside, part of which seemed damaged due to being stored in a damp corner for a long period. MM asked his people to load the entire unpaid consignment into the truck & he sent it back to our company depot in the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack highway.?Just like that!?Over the next month, we liquidated part of that consignment & adjusted his ledger, writing off a very small amount for damages.

I re-opened MM’s dealer code.

There was an understandable unrest in the market. Many dealers protested, even threatened to boycott us. But my new boss was tough guy. He held his nerve and asked me to start working with MM.

We started with his erstwhile customers. We would do road trips for 3-4 days at a stretch, meeting people, combing far flung markets, making offers.

MM was stylish and he was good. But he had become rusty. He was also trapped in his own glorious past and wasn’t keen to play by the new rules of the game. He refused to go beyond 10% discount when the industries were now expecting 25%. One day he walked out in a huff after an argument with a GM of a mining organization. “This chap was just a materials manager few years back and would address me as ‘Sir’, and today he has the audacity to say ‘No’ to me!”?– MM growled over a beer that evening. Reminds me, his drinking too had gone up in the interim years, triggered either by shrinking business & more free time, or because of a depression born out of falling from the top. Or maybe both. By now, we had become good friends beyond business. I knew about his troubled finances and wanted to help him back on his feet. But somehow, he was on a road to self-destruction, like Martin Seligman’s subjects who give in to ‘learned helplessness’, or like Munshi Premchand’s phrase, ‘nirashaa janit akarmanyataa’. Despite all our efforts, MM barely managed to claw back to 30% of what he used to be at his prime.

Then one day, driving home from a party, MM met with an accident. He broke his leg badly and had to be operated upon. I stayed by him during his recovery phase. It was then that I saw how few friends he now had. All his fair-weather chums had deserted him. As he lay in bed during those weeks, his leg in a cast, we would have long conversations. About life, in general. I think it was during those few weeks that MM finally lost his spark, i.e., whatever was left in him. He never recovered thereafter. Yes, we stayed in touch over the years after I left Orissa and eventually also the Eastern Region, but more as friends rather than business associates. MM rebuilt a business of sorts, but nothing comparable to his enormous potential. Just some bits and pieces here and there.

We last met in 2009 during one my business trips to Bhubaneswar. He hugged me when we parted, his eyes staring at me as I got into the cab – the same bright eyes that had measured me so many years back & which had now become lifeless & dull. Something about that goodbye left me bereft in an inexplicable way.

So, what’s the point of this story, right?

As we go through our professional lives, we encounter a lot of talent. We also assimilate our share of folklore that forms our worldview about success, which in turn?subtly guides our decisions when we choose future bets. We often fail to realize that talent is a?perishable?commodity that wears off & dries up if not put to use. The leadership vacuum we often complain about is not merely about a lack of talent, but it is also because of talent that dies down quietly in obscure by-lanes because of not being picked up in time. Human potential needs new challenges to stay relevant and periodic upgrades to retain sharpness. Finally, talent needs sponsors. So, if you are in a position of power, remember to pull some of your latent talent out of the dark corners. Like Malcolm Gladwell wrote in?Outliers?as he narrated the heartbreaking story of Chris Langan, possibly the man with the highest IQ ever, who faded out into anonymity in a horse farm due to lack of a support system,?“No one-not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses-ever makes it alone”.

Today I grew a year older. These days I notice that I am becoming sentimental with each passing year. I tend to go back into my journey and think of people who joined me at different parts and who left me a little richer with their friendship & left me a little lonelier as we went about our lives ahead. So, if you are reading this MM, I know you will remember me fondly like I remember you.?You were awesome!

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(A chapter from my 2021 book, 'Life-ing it'. What's special about this, besides MM's amazing story, is that this helped me get reconnected with MM after so many years. Both his sons are doing so well today. MM is retired and living in Mumbai. His sons are on my LinkedIn & hopefully should read this again - a tribute to their superstar dad!

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