‘My extraordinary focus on HR issues was unconventional'

Dr Anil Khandelwal, who retired as Chairman and Managing Director of Bank of Baroda three years ago, has written Dare to Lead , an interesting autobiographical work. The book is a frank, passionate and often emotional account of all that transpired in his banking career over three decades.

There are a lot of things that Dr Khandelwal introduced during his stint in the bank that he can take pride in.

For instance, he introduced a helpline for distressed employees, provided counsellors for stressed staff, and instituted retail and SME loan factories to bring an assembly-line approach and focus to the retail banking segment.

He brought in Rahul Dravid as brand ambassador, introduced a new logo, executed a brand-building exercise, and launched 8 to 8 banking and a few 24-hour branches too. Certainly, he helped Bank of Baroda emerge from the shadows and gave it a good profile. For those who knew how Bank of Baroda used to be, that is really saying quite a lot.

The book makes for interesting reading and will be a useful material for researchers, fellow bankers and analysts.

In this interview, conducted over phone and e-mail, Dr Khandelwal answers a few questions on how he came to write this book and on how and why he took certain decisions.

Excerpts from the interview:

Please give us an idea of how you got down to writing this book — your writing process, the time it took and the schedule you had to follow. Did you have your business diaries to help you out with names/dates and events? Did you at any point have second thoughts?

The BOB transformation story and the many steps, such as re-branding, logo change and many customer-centric innovations — 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. banking, 24 hours human banking, retail loan factory and SME loan factory — had captured the attention of the customers, media, analysts and some leading management schools.

These initiatives, one after another, were considered rather unexpected from a public sector bank. A senior faculty at Wharton School, Prof. Peter Cappelli, who came to India sometime in 2006 for a research on leadership, met me and wrote a fascinating article covering these developments.

Various awards and accolades for our innovations and achievements in the shortest possible time convinced me that we had a good story to tell.

I had read Jack Welch's Straight from the Gut and Louis Gerstner's work in IBM. I felt quite inspired to write the BOB story, and sometime before leaving the bank in March 2008 I started thinking about it seriously. I made diary notes of important events.

Immediately after retirement, I started writing. I wrote almost daily. I largely relied on my memory and extensively used our house journal for timing and details of various events.

My Executive Secretary, Ms Usha Ananthsubramanian, always took copious notes of our discussions in the morning meetings and other meetings which she attended.

She had an elephantine memory and was a great help in recapitulating the events. Although it was tough to write about some events, once the project got started I never had any second thoughts.

I must, however, confess that I had not visualised initially a book of over 400 pages. As I started writing, the universe of my thought process expanded.

I notice that at many places in the book there is a reference to the fact that you were from the HR stream and, therefore, treated as an ‘outsider'. But once you had taken on operational roles in Meerut and Kolkata, didn't that feeling — in others as well as in you — disappear? Once you reach the DGM/GM level does it matter which stream you come from?

I came into mainstream banking after over two decades of working in specialised HR functions. Of this, about 13 years were spent in the bank's Staff College as core faculty in HR.

If you have not worked in the branches as Accountant, Manager, and in Administration as Regional Manager, you are not considered as a career banker.

A very long stint in training also contributed to the general perception that I was not a career banker.

Yes, my experience as Zonal Manager in Meerut and Kolkata inducted me into mainstream banking. Yet my approach and working style were quite different compared to a career banker.

For example, my focus was less commercial and more strategic. I always focussed on diagnosis of the problem and bringing solutions to these problems.

I did not postpone problem-solving for commercial considerations and tackled them head-on.

My extraordinary focus on human resource issues was unconventional and the amount of time that I spent on HR gave me the reputation of a HR man into the banking role. My focus on innovation, customer-centricity, revamping internal operating mechanisms, communication, leadership and people process issues were in sharp contrast to a typical banker's daily diary.

I also did my usual stuff in banking, but I was very clear in my mind that to build an organisation, you need to stretch to capacity the capability of people and continuously revamp the internal organisation to be more responsive to the changing requirements of the customers.

Is it possible that if there had been specially designed courses at staff colleges for people who are not from the mainstream, their integration in operational roles could have been better? Could people like you have benefited from that kind of training, especially when you had to take on operational roles?

Operationalising a specialist and specialising a generalist should be a core strategy of HRD.

Training alone does not help unless it is buttressed by relevant operational job rotations. Training at different stages of ones career is essential but often these remain unplanned interventions. Posting on a key position, especially at higher levels, is generally not preceded by any prior training.

Ideally, the process of identifying talent for the top must start as a systemic intervention in building large organisations, duly followed through a planned training and placement strategy.

I did not have the privilege of any classroom training in key aspects of banking at any stage of my career.

I had to learn on the job and largely through personal efforts with the help from many talented colleagues.

You made it to the top from the HR stream. Is this something that can happen again? Do those in the HR stream today have a chance to make it to the top? Or do they have to face a glass ceiling, and be seen only as a support function?

Why not? I sent two DGMs in HR to banking operations and they became General Managers. Any specialist in the bank, if rotated to the banking function at an appropriate time, has potential to go to the top. It has to be a conscious and guided decision.

Specialists bring in a different kind of knowledge and generally have a learning attitude. In the current situation, I do not think that there is any glass ceiling for any one from any function.

I also feel that HR is no more a support function. It is now a business function. If people are at the core of HR, how can it be only a support function?

There is a reference to the fact that before you were offered the CMD post at Dena Bank, you were offered another bank, which you refused. Later there is a reference to the fact that this bank is Allahabad Bank. You mention in the book that you turned down this offer because you felt injustice was meted out to you. Can you elaborate on this? Also, given your experience in Kolkata earlier, didn't you stand a better chance of succeeding? Moreover, Dena Bank was a much smaller bank than Allahabad Bank? So why did you feel like taking up this assignment?

Well, I felt discriminated against, and not accepting the CMD's position at Allahabad Bank was a personal decision.

The issue was not one of big or small bank, but a personal feeling.

What is the next book that you would like to write?

Well, I want to write another book, but right now I am in the process of thinking. An area that fascinates me is governance. It is also linked with issues of leadership.

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