The Hindu Business Line : Banking on her `people skills'

ON June 29, 2000, when Ranjana Kumar became the first woman chairperson of a public sector bank — Indian Bank — it was "a great feeling". But naturally her thoughts went back to February 1966 when she had joined the Bank of India as a probationary officer.

"Little did I know that I would come this far. So when you ask me, what next, I'd say that I'm happy to be in the present. I'm not an ambitious person at all. Giving my best to the assignment on hand gives a good feeling."

A year-and-a-half down the line she has done well for herself and the bank (till Q3, the bank had made an operating profit of Rs 102 crore) and collected quite a few awards in the process, the latest being the Golden Peacock Award, presented on Jan. 18 by the Institute of Directors for leadership in business.

Her present assignment came to her when the Indian Bank was going through rough times. She had been posed at the Canara Bank as Executive Director — another first for a woman in a nationalised bank — but within a month, the chairman retired and she held charge for 12 months. When it was time for change initially she was chosen to head another bank, which she refuses to name, but suddenly there was a change. "That came as a surprise but I went back to my core philosophy which is take what comes your way. So I accepted."

The daughter of a senior Air Force officer, this senior banker had no initial training in finance, which she considers no handicap. "A non-finance person can make as good, if not better, a banker; you need an analytical mind more than anything else."

She majored in public administration, sociology and history from the Osmania University in 1965, with a gold medal, and was invited by the BoI to join its staff. "Of course later there were two rigorous interviews before I got the job."

From February 1966 to the present has been a long journey and has included heading the BoI's operations in the US in 1995. She attributes her success to hard work ("I revised my syllabus for graduation 15 times!") and focus on the assignment on hand. "I was lucky to go through the rigours of banking it before it was nationalised. Those were tough days; you started your day around 8.30 a.m. and worked till the stars were out."

Marriage — an arranged match between this Kashmiri Pundit and her Punjabi husband — came in 1970. The "big joint family" was a huge advantage in giving her best to her job. "But it has been very tough. You have to have your priorities very clear. The job was very important to me and at times I thought it would be difficult to continue but then something pulled me along. As you get over each crisis you get more strength and get better equipped to face the next crisis."

Clearly the most difficult part was the bringing up of her two children; today both are in the US; the daughter, a financial analyst and the son working with Microsoft.

Success and senior positions brought transfers and "that was the difficult part. My husband (a businessman in Hyderabad) and I have been living apart from 1987, but we meet as often as possible. It is lonely of course but at this level there has to be total focus on the job... you wake up with the bank and sleep with the bank," she says with a twinkle in her eye!

Her first priority at the Indian Bank was handling the "sagging morale of the workforce. When you call an organisation weak or sick... once upon a time this bank was one of the top six. There were s lot of people who had seen it in its heyday and were seeing it now. So the main thing was to examine ways to regenerate the enthusiasm and optimism that things would go well."

What helped her in her task was her firm belief that in the entire public banking sector there was no dearth of talent and the challenge was to find and enthuse it to achieve goals. Putting both her HR and communication skills to optimum use, Ranjana started regular meetings with different tiers of her staff — right from the top management downwards, a chore which is normally conducted by circle heads.

"I felt this was important in two ways; they needed to know me as I was a stranger from outside. And I needed to know them as well because they were the people from whom I had to get the work done. Their responses to my plans were very important."

Also, she realised that as an outsider, it would not pay to be very critical. "After all they were a part of the bank and I was the outsider. The task given to me, and the picture before my mind, was to strengthen this bank and that wouldn't come from just criticising things. You have to pick up the threats from the strong points and try to work on them."

Picking up the positives like its loyal clientele and its brand equity, the chairman began to build up confidence levels. Next came the announcement of simple projects, like retail lending schemes, which proved to be a big hit. Here the focus was on service through fast processing of applications. Internally too, some restructuring was done through merging of loss making branches.

A major problem was that thanks to turbulent times and bad loans "the decision making in the bank had been very badly affected and we had stopped lending almost for three years. A bank is a financial organisation and you have to lend. You take money from your customers; give customers money and make money; that is the simple three-line definition of a bank."

To trigger lending and get interest she initiated simple retail schemes. "I found that the response in the bank was very enthusiastic. Who doesn't want importance? Who doesn't want to be recognized? They were people were talent."

Along with these schemes came those on housing. "With attractive interest rates, up to December 2001, we had disbursed Rs. 400 crore only on housing."

Interestingly enough, she has never experienced either resentment or condescension from her male colleagues during any senior position she held. "This question on gender is often asked, but I never faced this problem. A lot depends on acting like a professional; also not bringing your personal problems into play. More than a man-woman thing I feel that when you come from outside you need to do a lot of convincing or cajoling to make people responsive to what needs to be done."

Along with "people skills" Ranjana feels transparency in your work and decisions is also important. "Whatever is discussed at our managerial meetings percolates down to all levels through e-mail as I do believe people should know what is happening in this bank."

A good manager also has to take some tough decisions. "You can't do soft-pedalling all the time; often for the good of the institution tough decisions have to be taken. I've done that, here and elsewhere too."

Generating confidence in your colleagues is important too. "Today each of my branch mangers knows what is the cost of my deposits; what is the return on my assets, total expenses and income and finally the likely slippage I may have on the NPAs. Armed with such information he is in control of the situation. The branch manager should know the cost of business. A bank like ours, that has to come back to profitability has to not only earn more income but also reduce expenditure. This awareness, I say in all humility, I have tried to create in this bank," she says.

Coming to her personal life, she is both a musician as well a Kathak dancer. And the posting in Chennai has given her the opportunity to pursue another interest — attend seminars on Vedanta.

"I love music, particularly bhajans and ghazals. Music, I believe helps develop your personality, lessen your load and improve your communication skills".

Like many successful family women, Ranjana carries some guilt within that there were times she was not able to attend "adequately to my family's needs". So recently when it was time to become a grandma, she took four weeks off to be with her daughter in California, "but I was in touch with the bank all the time."

On whether the women working under her expect some concessions or "special treatment" from a woman boss, Ranjana says, "They feel at least as a woman you should understand their problems. I would say that when you accept women in the workforce, you should not transfer women until the children come at least to the level of high school. I feel very strongly about this and I've advocated this in whichever position I've held. You can't expect a five-year-old to stay away from the mother. It can be different when he/she is 14. Also, we have to remember that the joint family system is breaking up. I can't imagine how I would have managed without family support."

She mirrors her own situation rather honestly when she says, "Even today society looks at you strangely if you are staying separately from your husband. Of course they get used to it gradually!"

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Banking on her `people skills'