The Hindu Business Line : Advice to a young manager

Occasionally, along with work related comments and feedback they would pass on general words of wisdom, which they in turn no doubt received from their own mentors and seniors. Some advice was a casual throw-away and seldom underlined with emphasis.

Yet, the meaning and worth of the words grew within over a period until you found yourself repeating them, in due course, as if to the manner born. At times the counsel came with a swift metaphorical rap over the knuckles. "We don't expect you to be error-free; of course you would make a few mistakes; but we hope you'll learn from them. The important thing is not to make the same mistake again." This was one of the earliest cautionary words I received.

Mr R. Ramaswami, no less than the Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever nearly 50 years ago, was this: Never hesitate to point out something wrong or ineffective in the system and don't hesitate to make your suggestions.

Once the correction is made, make sure everybody knows about it.

This is a big company, so it's quite possible others might be making the same mistakes, it's good to let them learn in advance. Otherwise your job isn't over. And to be heard in a large company you must shout from the rooftops.

Another phrase dinned into our ears (which unfortunately I didn't always observe) was to never take anything for granted, but always ask someone to explain if you didn't follow what was said or couldn't appreciate why it was done in a particular way. But this did mean asking inconvenient questions, exposing one's genuine ignorance; you risked being laughed at or thought to be slightly dim and slow on the uptake.

A young manager was always naturally eager to do the opposite. He wanted to impress upon his seniors at every opportunity how smart and intelligent he was; so asking questions seemed to run contrary to the grain.

Nevertheless, it was true that one could make dangerous assumptions — which could be easily exposed if one committed an avoidable faux pas later.

So here was the first tight rope one walked, wanting to show one's capabilities and intelligence while learning everything from first principles.

On balance I think the fresh and enthusiastic manager tended to err on the side of preserving his amour propre and not ask for a much needed and relevant clarification.

Some real street smart ones could mask the question as an informed comment, with "Well, yes of course I knew that, but I thought I'd just make sure" and propose something else that would leave an impression of profundity and an incisive mind!

These were the guys who rose fast in large organisations because they had what Professor John Reynolds of Harvard used to tell us was the survivor's hall mark, a kind of `maze-brightness': being bright enough to look at an organisation's network of relationships as a maze puzzle and quickly work out which were the dead ends and which the promising avenues. This meant basically a higher level of political savvy than I ever managed to acquire all my life.

The key question was who was in with whom and whose star was on the rise and whose in decline. The wise guy always hitched his wagon to the right one.

Some of these smart ones were later found out when past middle management, and they went off to pastures new to be on their own or run much smaller organisations in their own whimsical ways.

If they however genuinely combined the political sharpness with people skills and competence as managers and delivered results, well then they went on to become Chairmen and Managing Directors. That's how some nice guys finished first as well.

(Feedback can be sent to srchander23@netscape.net)