What Would Mr. G Do? : The plain sheet of paper.

This is a first of a tribute series to the man who held my hand when I started out on this journey about 35 years ago.

Mr Gadgil is no more. But the things he taught me have stayed, which is perhaps the best way a teacher’s work can live on.

Whatever I have achieved in my career is immaterial. How I did it is probably more relevant to my life.

I spent six years with Mr Gadgil, right at the very start of my career. It was the best of foundations one could have asked for.

This is a small attempt to tell some of his stories. Stories that had the power to alter the thinking of a young man like me, still finding his feet, as well as that of the senior managers who cared to listen when he spoke.

In those six years that he led the team, every single day was a learning experience. Every now and then, he would say something that would alter your thinking. Most of his messages were subtle and often delivered in jest. The words were lightly spoken, but they carried the weight of a universal truth.

Almost every word he spoke has remained with me and still guides me as I navigate this world. If my father had built the most solid of foundations, Mr Gadgil was the man who laid the bricks and plastered them into place.

Enough of the emotional blabber. Let me do what he used to do.

Get to the point.

This is the first of the stories. There will be a few more.

Let us crack on.

It was my sixth month of probation in Mr Gadgil’s team.

We were a team that sold large generator sets. While most of the company’s products were smaller in capacity and price, we had the job of handling the big-ticket ones. Each generator we sold cost at least ₹30 million.

One morning, an envelope arrived on my desk at the Pune headquarters. Inside was a cheque for ₹3 million. It was the first advance for an order and had been sent by the Hyderabad office. Those days that was a big amount for a single cheque.

Normally, these cheques would be deposited in our office in Hyderabad, as the client was in the same city and the cheque would be hand collected by someone. The gentleman in the Hyderabad office probably thought the amount was too hot to handle and promptly dispatched it to us in Pune.

I filled up the inward remittance sheet and headed to the Accounts department. A veteran of the company was to be the man who would have to accept the cheque and take care of the rest.

The moment he saw me, he raised his eyebrows.

On my part, I was acutely aware of the value of the cheque I was carrying. I extended it to him.

He took it, the eyebrows still raised.

He gave the cheque a good stare, raised his eyebrows even further and proceeded to give me a dressing down.

“Why in the world did you get the cheque here? It should have been deposited in Hyderabad. Are you guys dumb?”

I tried to explain that I was not the one who had called for it. It had simply been sent by someone else. I pointed out that sending it back would take another three days and that we could just as easily deposit it in Pune.

But he would not listen.

He was enjoying it. A rookie who had made a rookie-like error was a sitting duck.

He threw the cheque back at me.

“Send it to Hyderabad, and let me know when it is deposited.”

I was shaken. I hung my head, put my tail between my legs and scampered back.

Mr Gadgil was talking to someone on the desk phone when I limply drew up in front of him. When he heard the story, he gave me one of those smiles that told me something was coming.

He drew his chair back, pulled open a table drawer and took out a blank sheet of paper.

Still smiling, he handed it to me.

“Can you stand up?”

I did promptly.

“Now, can you draw yourself to your full height?”

I did that too, promptly.

I was now sure there was a show unfolding.

“Can you throw the sheet on my table with a flourish and say, ‘If you can’t accept the cheque, please write it down on this sheet and sign it’?”

I hesitated.

But, like a masterful director, he made me say the lines twice before I got the modulation just right.

“Go to the accounts department now and do this there.”

I meekly asked, “But why?”

He gave me that smile again.

“I really want to see how many buggers have the guts to write down what they say and sign it off.”

I was now all energy. I was young, loved a brawl and had got one.

I walked briskly across the lawn that separated our building from the accounts building, ran up the stairs and reached the first floor. I straightened myself and walked towards the veteran’s table, stiff and upright as a rod.

I played my part to perfection. The result was dramatic.

The ever-raised eyebrows dropped. They closed together and the eyes narrowed. The old man looked like a snake whose fangs had just been drawn.

He looked at me.

“Who sent you?”

“Mr Gadgil,” I said, from the heights of my newly acquired upright stance.

Rather curtly, the deflated balloon said, “Leave it here. I will take care of it.”

I walked back like a dog that had won the brawl, beaming to myself. I had just been taught a lesson I never forgot.

Before you react, before you speak with authority, before you take a decision, ask yourself a simple question:

Can I write it down on a sheet of paper and sign it?

If you can, say it. If you cannot, perhaps it is better to pause.

Thirty-five years later, I still find myself asking that question every time I need to take a decision. Doing it long enough has actually made it second nature.

That, perhaps, was Mr. Gadgil’s real gift.

He did not tell us what to think. He taught us how to think.

And for a young man just six months into his career, that was a foundation worth far more than the cheque.