Another lesson from Mr Gadgil
It was a late November evening in the 1990s, and the century was already sliding towards its close.
I was in the office working away on a project that promised to be a disaster. We were to supply a new greenfield project with two standby generators. The schedule was tight, and there were ominous signs that we would miss our delivery deadlines.
After a series of meetings across various departments, we arrived at the undeniable conclusion that the delay would be at least two months. Our most critical supplier from Germany was having an issue in his supply chain and was going to let us down.
Most people in the meeting could state the facts with studied detachment and shrug, as if to say, what can be done? That was a luxury we did not have. We had the job of delivering the bad news. We were to walk into the client’s office and tell him that we were going to throw his million-dollar greenfield project off schedule by two months.
I was called in by my boss Mr Gadgil. He was speaking to someone on the phone when I walked in. As I sat opposite him, he finished his call, looked up at me and, rather nonchalantly, said, “Sudhir, can you hop over to Bombay next Monday and have a project review?”
I narrowed my eyes. I was good at expressing myself through facial expressions, and he was good at reading them. We made a pair in those days: a seasoned vice president and a young, foolhardy junior. I had spent some years with him and was now comfortable speaking my mind.
“I know what that expression means, Sudhir,” he said. “Yes, you will probably be slaughtered by the bigwigs there. You will probably have to take it on the chin. Go speak the truth and take it.” Before I could raise an eyebrow, he continued, “I could have come, but I won’t. Trust me, I have a plan. Just make sure that you speak the truth and nothing else.”
I trusted him. I never asked about the plan and walked off. I knew he would tell me when the time was right.
The following Monday, at ten in the morning, I walked into the client’s office, an elegant one on the second floor of a building in Worli. I was escorted in, and as I slid into the conference room, I realised what I had walked into. There was a huge square table, with about eight people seated around it.
One glance and I shuddered. Almost every one of them was my father’s age. Some had white hair, some a mixture of black and white, and a few had seriously receding hairlines. They all looked like monsters to me.
They kept asking questions about what had happened, why it had happened, and what we had done to recover the lost time. The questions came fast and furious, and I struggled to keep up. But I had prepared myself. I had listed the facts in my mind and stuck to them. Whenever I did not know the answer to a question, I said so.
The delay was not something we could control. Our supplier had run into a raw material problem and was unable to meet not just our requirements but those of his other customers around the world.
The questions kept coming. Then I noticed something. After one or two tough questions, a short, wizened man who looked like a schoolteacher would ask me a seemingly easy, leading question. He was one of the vice presidents. I would steady myself and answer the next few questions with greater assurance. This cycle repeated itself over the next hour. The gentleman, whose name was Mr Kulshreshtha, kept breaking the tension with an easy question.
He offered me coffee every now and then. He walked me to lunch and spoke in gentle tones, without a rough edge to his manner. I wondered what was going on. Why had this man taken it upon himself to shield me and give me breathing space?
After a few hours, the meeting ended. The customer had understood the situation and accepted the inevitable. I suspect they had some timeline issues of their own, and the delay in the delivery of our generators was, after all, not a real showstopper.
As I left the room, a Sikh gentleman who was the CEO walked in and spoke to me. “I heard you did a great job, young man.”
I said nothing, and he continued, “Truth is powerful. Very few can speak it, and even fewer can hear it. Stick to it, and you will always be happy.”
I said goodbye to Mr Kulshreshtha. As I was leaving, he said, “Good job, beta. Will you pass on my regards to Mr Gadgil, please?”
I nodded and left. I now had a suspicion about what had been going on.
First thing the next morning, I walked into Mr Gadgil’s office and confronted him. I told him I had had a tough but good meeting. He nodded. I pressed on. “What happened there in Bombay? I know you did something, but I can’t make out what.”
He smiled, realising that I was almost onto him and was not going to leave without getting to the bottom of the Kulshreshtha mystery.
He explained casually. “I spoke to Mr Kulshreshtha before you left Pune. I told him I was sending a young man who needed to learn how to deal with difficult situations and stand his ground against senior professionals. I asked him to look after you by softening things when they got tough.”
I was stunned. I had not expected this. I could never have imagined that someone would come up with something so brilliant. If I had not questioned him, I would probably never have found out the whole story.
A year later, I had a young team member going to a meeting when the project was about to be handed over. I sat in Mr Gadgil’s cabin and called Mr Kulshreshtha again.
A soft voice answered the phone. He recognised my voice and said, “Bolo, beta.”
“Sir, I am sending a young man to close out the last few pending points. There are a few more issues that need discussion. He is new. Can you take care of him like you did for me?”
There was a pause at the other end, and I could almost picture him breaking into a pleasant smile.
“Oh, so you know about it, do you?” he said. “I will do it, beta. Don’t worry.”
I looked up, the phone still pressed to my ear.
Mr Gadgil sat there with almost the same smile, but a little more mischievous and self-satisfied, I would say.
Some other stories
What Would Mr. G Do? : The plain sheet of paper.
From Panic to Clarity: A Corporate Lesson in Smart Decisions
