Amazing Bosses 4 - Harish Gupta

With the project almost over I was in the mood for spring cleaning and stumbled upon one file that had many invoices of past projects with letters from various companies asking for their final payment. Intrigued I checked and found that payments had indeed not been made and these were significant values. The equipment’s seemed to be in regular working use. With newfound confidence, duly verifying that users had no issues with the equipment I sent off all the bills to the head office for releasing payments.

Suddenly a gent Mr. Kathawate who I knew as a fellow Kannadiga sent a message that his big boss Mr. Harish Gupta, the GM of a global organisation wanted to meet me. By then I had left on a vacation and missed the message. Finishing my vacation, I headed back to get a message from parents that a Mr. Harish Gupta wanted to meet me. Kathawate again chased me down and set up a meeting with Mr. Harish Gupta, who I had never heard of in my life, nor did I know his organisation except as general knowledge.  Yes, one of the pending invoices I had cleared was from this organisation. Kathawate did not tell me why and I was very curious for this kind of chasing.

I walked into a cabin to find a chubby, smiling face who was instantly likeable, who greeted me as if I was a long-lost friend. Made me very comfortable and soon the man was speaking nonstop with me getting a word in-between over a cup of tea.  After a while I still had no clue for this meeting and when he paused to take a sip I asked him why he wanted to meet me. He said something like – “I wanted to know when you can join my team”.  Being a dry state, middle of the day I wasn’t sure if his tea was laced with something or he liked playing pranks on strangers. I had not even applied for any job. Soon he convinced me that I must quit and join his organisation. Having done his background checks, he had decided he wanted me. That was the 1^st time I experienced his selling skills. The man could talk the hind leg off a donkey and without bringing politics into this I sometimes suspect if he is the secret speaking coach of Narendra Modi.  Now, about working with Mr. Gupta my boss.

Sitting with a client who was discussing a potential order which I would say was some time away he asked me during a break – “I think he is in the mood to take a decision and end the uncertainty on what to do”.  I said yes, feels so. Back with the customer Mr. Gupta went into a spin from selling to executing the job as if we had already got the order and soon had the client discussing implementation plans. While I watched mesmerised, he took the client through the project execution and even post order activities till I was confused myself. Were we discussing a potential order or a after sales service call? By this time, the customer was also likely confused. Mr. Gupta finished the long chat saying that he would immediately divert items ordered by someone else at a special price and get the job done. We walked out with the order. His first comment to me was “Never delay a decision when the other guy is ready to take it just because you think you can get a better price. Closing the deal is more important than best price”. Big lesson learnt.

Another occasion me and a colleague had spent days chasing a client for a new path breaking technology product where we had a gap of almost 20 lakhs in the price and the client wasn’t budging though keen to work with us. We were ready to bridge it by 10 lakhs and held our ground but late in the night we walked away and called up the business head about the outcome. He was in Mumbai sitting with Mr. Gupta and told him. Even as were in a train heading back, Mr. Gupta dropped all his plans, took an immediate flight, flew down to Hyderabad, took an overnight train and after getting freshened up in the train itself got down at a small station early in the morning and by 7 AM was at the factory which we had left earlier. He walked into the factory as if he owned it and asked the workmen to inform the MD of the factory that he was waiting for him.  While the MD arrived, he took a tour of the whole factory.

Completely confused & flummoxed the MD drove down to meet him and the first thing Mr. Gupta tells him is how he is a son of that state (because somebody in his family married someone from that state) and wants to ensure that the new technology is introduced there first. As the bewildered client looked on Mr. Gupta spoke for some hours in a monologue, talked of his plans for the factory, how his (the client’s) name would be written in golden letters as the new technology would make him the first in India and a pioneer in the industry and how history would credit him and so on. At some point during the day the client surrendered, agreed to the price, gave the order and advance and post-midnight Mr. Gupta was on another train, unreserved tickets heading back to Hyderabad and fly back home. Later when I met the client he grumbled about how he could have saved Rs. 10 lakhs by closing the deal with us and said rather “bitterly” – I paid Rs. 10 lakhs to listen to the costliest speech in my life. Mr. Gupta sent a letter to the whole organisation how me and my colleague had created history in the organisation and in India itself with this order, how it would change the industry itself in the future and made it seem we had done the job when I wasn’t even present at this meeting and it was his efforts that got us the business.

The lesson he gave me was – “As a leader if your junior fails, jump into the battle immediately and continue before its too late and the client has time to recharge his batteries. Surprise him with your presence just when he thinks it is over. He would have decided how to battle your junior and have no plans how to battle you, so speed & surprise is of the essence. Finally give the credit to your junior who fought the battle till the end and helped make your victory possible. That’s why it’s called teamwork.

On another occasion I was keen to promote a “worker” who had no formal education but was excellent in executing projects to the “managerial” cadre and Mr. Gupta absolutely refused. I was rather surprised because his advice to me was always to select someone who needed a job, help the underdog, less privileged and here he was refusing. He explained to me – “However capable he is brilliant because he has a manager who takes the responsibility of his actions. if you make him a manager, he has to take the responsibility, meet clients, take financial decisions, discuss issues with different departments and nobody in the company will hand hold him. They will expect him to take decisions and assume responsibility as a manager. Unable to operate in that setting you will do him a disservice and make him lose confidence. But having become a manager he will have aspirations for further growth, and you will end up with a frustrated human instead of a good supervisor. Give him extra salary hike, bonus, more projects to implement and treat him as a very important team member but don’t destroy his future”.

People can debate, disagree at an idealistic level but with time I have realised that owing to the hierarchical nature of our society what Mr. Gupta said is very practical. People need to be nurtured in their comfort zones and not pitchforked into other zones in the name of a false equality. What is more important is the respect, reward and acknowledgement of people as equals whatever their position in an org chart which is more crucial.

I can narrate many more learnings from Mr. Gupta but in the end what makes him an amazing boss was  he taught me with demonstration – 1) Leaders must demonstrate the credo “The credit is yours, the debit is mine” with juniors 2) Getting/taking a conclusive decision, is more important than the urge to win because the ideal decision is one where both sides feel that they could have done better 3) Grow people in jobs they are good at and reward them instead of promoting them to their level of incompetence 4) Understand and judge people by their background and exposure than what you think they should be