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>These are the personal view of Mr. R.
Gopalakrishnan,
>Director - Tata Sons and an ex-HLL manager.
>
>A Story on how to manage your career & your
>expectations by R.Gopalakrishnan
>
>There is a Thai saying that experience is a comb which
>Nature gives to man after he is bald. As I grow bald,
>I would like to share my comb with your people, about
>their career ahead.
>
>1. Seek out grassroots level experience
>
>I studied Physics and Engineering at University. A few
>months before graduation, I appeared for an HLL
>interview for Computer Traineeship.When
>asked whether I would consider Marketing instead of
>Computers, I responded negatively : an engineer to
>visit grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy?
>Gosh, no way. After I joined the Company and a couple
>of comfortable weeks in the swanky Head Office, I was
>given a train ticket to go to Nasik.Would I please
>meet Mr. Kelkar to whom I would be attached for
>the next two months? He would teach me to work as a
>salesman in his territory, which included staying in
>Kopargaon and Pimpalgaon among other small towns.I
>was most upset. In a town called Ozhar, I was moving
>around from shop to shop with a bullock cart full of
>products and a salesman's folder in my >hand. Imagine
>my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front
>of me in Ozhar, believe it or not! and exclaimed,
>"Gopal, I thought you joined as a Management Trainee
>in Computers". I could have died a thousand deaths.
>After this leveling experience, I was less embarrassed
>to work as a Despatch Clerk in the Company Depot and
>an Invoice Clerk in the Accounts Department.
>Several years later, I realised the value of such
>grassroots level experience. It is fantastic. I would
>advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying,
>collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks. That is how you
>learn about organizations, about the true nature of
>work, and the dignity of the many, many tasks that go
>into building great enterprises.
>
>
>2. Deserve before you desire
>
>At one stage, I was appointed as the Brand Manager for
>Lifebuoy and Pears soap, the company's most
>popular-priced and most premium soaps. And what was a
>Brand Manager? "A mini-businessman, responsible for
>the production, sales and profits of the brand,
>accountable for its long-term growth,etc.,etc. I
>had read those statements, I believed them and here I
>was, at 27,"in charge of everything". But very soon, I
>found I could not move a pin without checking with my
>seniors. One evening, after turning the Facit machine
>handle through various calculations, I sat in front of
>the Marketing Director. I expressed my frustration and
>gently asked whether I could not be given total
>charge. He smiled benignly and said, "The perception
>and reality are both right. You will get total charge
>when you know more about the brand than anyone else in
>this company about its formulation, the raw materials,
>the production costs, the consumer's perception, the
>distribution and so on.
>How long do you think that it will take?"
>"Maybe, ten years", I replied, "and I don't expect to
>be the Lifebuoy and >Pears Brand Manager for so long"!
>And then suddenly, the lesson was clear.
>I was desiring total control, long before I deserved
>it. This happens to us all the time - in terms of
>responsibilities, in terms of postings and promotions,
>it happens all the time that there is a gap between
>our
>perception of what we deserve and the reality of what
>we get.It helps to deserve before we desire.
>
>3 Play to win but win with fairness
>Life is competitive and of course, you play to win.
>But think about the balance. Will you do anything, to
>win? Perhaps not. Think deeply about how and where you
>draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and
>in doing so, it helps to think about values. Winning
>without values provides dubious fulfillment. The
>leaders who have contributed the most are the ones
>with a set of universal values ?V Mahatma Gandhi and
>Martin Luther King for example. Napoleon inspired a
>ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight
>and seize power. This brought him name and fame for
>twenty years.But all the while, he was driven forward
>by a selfish and evil ambition,and not in pursuit of a
>great ideal. He finally fell because of his
>selfish ambition. I am fond of referring to the Pierre
>de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was instituted in
>1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games
>and here are two examples of winners.A Hungarian
>tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his
>opponent some more time to recover from a cramp.
>A British kayak team who were trailing the Danish
>kayak team. They then stopped to help the Danish team
>whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the
>British by one second in a three hour event! What
>wonderful examples of sportsmanship! Play to Win, but
>with Fairness.
>
>4 Enjoy whatever you do
>
>Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement,
>"There is no greater fun than hard work". You usually
>excel in fields, which you truly enjoy.
>Ask any person what it is that interferes with his
>enjoyment of existence. He will say, "The struggle for
>life". What he probably means is the struggle
>for success. Unless a person has learnt what to do
>with success after getting it, the very achievement of
>it must lead him to unhappiness. Aristotle wrote,
>"Humans seek happiness as an end in itself, not as a
>means to something else". But if you think about it,
>we should not work for happiness. We should work as
>happy people. In organisational life, people get busy
>doing something to be happy. The more you try to be
>happy, the more unhappy you can get. Your work and
>career is all about your reaching your full potential.
>Working at one's full potential, whether it is the
>office boy or the Chairman, leads to enjoyment and
>fulfillment. A last point about enjoyment. Keep a
>sense of humour about yourself. Too many people are in
>danger of taking themselves far too seriously. As
>General Joe Stilwell is reported to have said, "Keep
>smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you
>can see of his backside".
>
>5 Be Passionate about your health
>
>Of course, as you get older, you would have a slight
>paunch, greying of hair or loss of it and so on. But
>it is in the first 5 - 7 years after the
>working career begins that the greatest neglect of
>youthful health occurs.Sportsmen stop playing sports,
>non drinkers drink alcohol, light smokers smoke more,
>active people sit on chairs, starving inmates of
>hostels eat rich food in good hotels and so on. These
>are the years to watch. Do not, I repeat do not,
>convince yourself that you are too busy, or that you
>do not have access to facilities, or worst of all,
>that you do this to relieve the stresses of a
>professional career.
>
>A professional career is indeed very stressful. There
>is only one person who can help you to cope with the
>tension, avoid the doctor's scalpel,and to feel good
>each morning - and that is yourself. God has given us
>as good a health as He has, a bit like a credit
>balance in the bank. Grow it,maintain it, but do not
>allow its value destruction. The penalty is very
>high in later years.
>
>6 Direction is more important than distance
>Every golfer tries to drive the ball to a very long
>distance. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur
>because the game involves the masterly
>co-ordination of several movements simultaneously. The
>golf coach always advises that direction is more
>important than distance. So it is with life.
>
>Despite one??s best attempts, there will be ups and
>downs. It is relationships and friendships that enable
>a person to navigate the choppy waters that the ship
>of life will encounter. When I was young, there
>was a memorable film by Frank Capra, starring James
>Stewart and Dona Reed, and named IT'S A WONDERFUL
>LIFE. It is about a man who is about to commit
>suicide because he thinks he is a failure. An angel is
>sent to rescue him. The bottomline of the film is that
>"No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends".
>
>Conclusion
>My generation will never be twenty again, but when you
>are older, you can and should be different from my
>generation. Ours is a great and wonderful
>country, and realising her true potential in the
>global arena depends ever so much on the quality and
>persistence of our young people. Good luck
>in your journey, my young friends, and God be with you
>and our beloved Nation.
>
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