Amazing Bosses 8 - Mr. Gordon Lankton

 

The toughest one to write – Where do you start and how do you write about a man who travelled the world on a motorcycle 5 years before I was even born and my father was still a student, who built a Billion dollar business empire that covered 17 countries, 4 business segments and 43 manufacturing locations and ran it as Chairman and CEO, Distributed his entire ownership of the company amongst the company employees in a unique ESOP that wasn’t traded publicly and in a profit sharing scheme paid out profit share to employees on a weekly basis thanks to a daily profit and loss performance report.

That man was the legendary businessman, philanthropist, collector, amazing human being, Manager par excellence and my boss as a member of the company board – Mr. Gordon Lankton. For those who wish to know more, please do read the various links I have shared below.

When I first met him, it was like meeting your friendly grandfather and within seconds the chasm that I had created in my mind about how significant he was and insignificant I was, was bridged so close that I could behave with him how a teenager would. That was the kind of man he was.

But let me first clear the mystery of the picture above. One morning as he stepped out of the car at the office he was dapperly dressed in dark glasses and instinctively I said – “Gordon, you are looking like James Bond” and we kidded around a bit. Inspired I had his photo morphed into various James Bond posters and as the official meeting was ending, I decided to put them on the screen for all to see. Everybody laughed, teased him and the first thing he said – “I hope you will not send it to Sharon (his executive assistant)” And even as he said it, said “Oops I think I should not have said that because you will now send it to Sharon”. I quipped – “You bet” and minutes later the photos were on their way to Sharon.

At best I imagined Sharon teasing him, maybe showing it to his wife. On my next visit to USA, I was told that by the time Gordon returned from the trip Sharon had printed these pictures out and hung them up in the reception of the corporate office on either side of the door leading to the Chairman’s office. I was mortified beyond belief, but everybody loved seeing those pictures and Gordon I know enjoyed the fun. His impish sense of humour and mischief was well, interesting. Here begins my first close encounter with him.

My first visit to USA and it also happened to be my birthday and he sent for me to meet him in his office. I went with great trepidation expecting to see some grand office and was surprised at having stepped into a room that would put a teenager’s room to shame. It was cluttered with plastic parts from all over the world and even if there was method in the chaos, it was still chaos. As we spoke, he wished me and insisted that I sit in his chair and get photographed. I refused because culturally to me the chair needs to be respected whosoever it may belong to. But he insisted and I sat uncomfortably as he clicked my picture in his chair/office and had it ready for me as a gift. A memorable picture for me always.

Very funnily he was at that time scouting for a new CEO to take over from him and he was putting up pictures of all his senior management, other employees on the company intranet and seeking votes on who should be the next CEO. No prizes for guessing who led the ballot results – one of the most attractive lady employees in the company.

We spent little time and he was very apologetic as he said – “Jack wants me to meet Jeff and I can’t say no. I wanted to spend time with you, but I need to go”. Thinking they were some friends or colleagues I was supposed to know I enquired after he left only to be told that he was referring to Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. That was the kind of person he was genuinely.

On this my first visit to USA I had booked my ticket to USA to land at New York at around 4 PM and a night flight at around 8 PM to Boston. Just before I left India, I got an email from Sharon that Mr. Lankton had booked me on a Boston flight around 5.30 PM and the ticket was attached. Found this rather strange and on arrival  I literally ran like in a race in New York airport (luckily those were the pre 9/11 days since today I would have been shot without a warning) to make the 530 PM flight that was luckily delayed. In bitter cold I managed to reach my hotel around midnight. When I went to the office the next day Sharon told me that upon being informed of my travel plans Mr. Lankton had correctly predicted that my 8 PM flight could get cancelled due to bad weather but in any case, I would spend half the night trying to reach my hotel given it was my first visit to USA and so had booked me on the 530 PM flight.

On one occasion I went for a sales conference and as I checked in at the hotel given a handwritten fax from Mr. Lankton saying that they expected snow that night, that I would be exposed to snow for the first time in my life and hoping that I could cope with the cold.  Sitting wherever he was in the world he had remembered about a conference, my attending and exposure to extreme cold and worried, sent a note. Later Sharon told me that the previous week he was worried how I would cope in the Boston cold.   

It is not that I had some special relationship with him, but that was who he was in terms of thinking this way about each employee he knew. That someone would think so deeply, care enough and then act upon it was unique to Mr. Lankton. Lots of bosses, friends, family, even myself may care, may help but only when asked or deeply involved in a situation. I have never met any human in my life who thought things through in this manner, predicted situations and acted upon them especially given that he was running a global company with over 10,000 employees. Who would have the time to think of one insignificant employee in far away India? But that was Mr. Gordon Lankton - an amazing human being.

The ability of Mr. Lankton to talk his way out of situations was incredible and he was not a talkative person at all. On the contrary a silent sphinx but like Hercule Poirot/Sherlock Holmes combined he observed, listened and acted. Other board members would say in jest and “frustration” – Gordon always has his way.

On one occasion he landed in India without a visa. I was to pick him up at the Bengaluru airport and received a terse message that he was held up in Delhi. Upon realising that he had no visa he had called the American embassy only to be told by the officer there that the officer’s father had previously arrived without a visa and the embassy was unable to help. So Mr. Lankton needed to go back.

He landed by a later flight and told us that he had made friends with someone on the flight who was an important person (no idea who he was) but that person had stood personal guarantee for Mr. Lankton.  He would inform the local police station and would fly back within 3 days after attending the board meeting. He simply refused to take “no” for an answer with British Airways and Indian Immigration and charmed them no end over day long negotiations. They finally gave him a special approval to enter India. Gordon once again had his way. 

When board members joked about his having his way all the time, I realised it to be true after attending several such meetings. He rarely spoke but sat with his chair pushed back such that he was “not” at the table. The board would be debating some contentious issue and discussions would go on for long unresolved. Finally, when everyone had exhausted whatever they wanted to say Mr. Lankton having heard various differing views for so long would come up with a suggestion and everyone would say – “Hey that’s a good idea” – and everybody would be happy and crib again – “Gordon always has his way”. He listened to everyone for long patiently before having his say.

On one occasion I accompanied Mr. Lankton to a potential client who had a simple condition. Invest, take the risk and if he succeeded, we succeeded.  If we failed, we failed. Nobody including me was willing to touch this project without some assurances. The investment in those days was around Rs. 2.5 Million or around 50,000 US $ a large sum of money. The board debated this and with no assurance from the customer, 100% risk to the company and with no future opportunity for the investment made the board very rightly decided against moving forward. But the upside was that if we both succeeded, the business opportunity was humungous. A high-risk high returns game.

Mr. Lankton did not say a word beyond suggesting that the board consider the project as a potential. Late in the evening before he left for the airport, as we all had dinner together, the issue forgotten, he came up to me and putting his arms around my shoulders asked – Do you want to do this project? I said yes. Are you afraid that you may fail? I said yes. What if the risk of failure was taken by somebody else? I did not know where this conversation was going. I stayed silent. He said – unless you try, you can never win. Let me see what I can do.

About two or three days later I received a handwritten fax from him where he said something like – “I am personally giving you a gift of 50,000 $ and good luck for the project”. This note literally lit a fire within all of us. Have no idea what thoughts went in each mind but finally in an emergency decision of the board,  this gift was graciously accepted by the company on the condition that it would be returned. We received the money, we did the project, we failed.  Even today this remains my worst disappointment in my career as I had personally let down someone who had bet so much personal money on us.

The last time I met him he gave me a personal tour of his new passion, a museum of Russian icons that he had set up. His 21 guidelines on how to lead life and do business is given here and I can vouch that he lived by them at every step. 

Truly the most amazing human, the most amazing boss ever.

https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/entertainment/arts/2020/07/28/take-the-long-way-home-with-museum-of-russian-icons-founder-gordon-lankton/113868432/

https://www.telegram.com/news/20170414/guest-column-happy-birthday-to-special-man-gordon-lankton

https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20060619/NEWS/306199972/welch-remembers-his-roots-in-plastics

https://www.plasticshof.org/members/gordon-b-lankton/

https://beyondsuccessonlinebyedith.com/2018/06/12/gordon-b-lankton-chairman-of-the-board-of-nypro-inc/

https://web.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/Alumni/glankton.pdf

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/Stock-option-holds-no-water-for-Nypro-chief/articleshow/1515104453.cms?from=mdr

https://www.wbjournal.com/article/legacy-of-nypros-lankton-is-one-of-hard-work-generosity

http://archive.boston.com/business/articles/2005/12/25/from_worker_to_owner/