This is a series of blogs on Amazing bosses I have had the privilege of working with and all blogs are linked for serial reading.
In practical terms my first formal job and as I was going through the “fun” of training I was summoned and told that I had been posted to be the “Site In-charge” of a prestigious project which was the first of its kind in India and I was taking over in absentia from the previous manager who had disappeared. At that age who thinks much. I reported and had a colleague Dinesh equally a green horn like me. The location was a crucible of new technology, products, processes for the dairy industry and the latest project was the first aseptic packaging plant in India.
Soon I was aware of the challenges of this particular posting – I essentially reported to 2 plant heads, 2 Directors and the CEO of the organisation itself. Remember this was the crucible of new stuff and everybody had their finger in the pie. The level of responsibility, scope of work was far beyond our managerial capabilities and we were still wet behind the ear’s youngsters. The 4 seniormost management personnel of the organisation played tennis, football with us with their own ideas, plans, priorities, and our ability to please any one was zero and nothing. You then had contractors; suppliers who had to be managed and pacified amidst this managerial chaos.
The stress was well, sky high to put it mildly and if there is a definition for baptism by fire this was it. Newly married there were many a late night that my wife spent dozing on the campus lawn, afraid to be alone at home, while we ran around chasing some impossible target given to us each day. We faced crazy “hazards” in our job. The European engineers on site wanted mineral water – a rare unknown commodity those days and supplied in plastic bottles. This was the easy part. The wives of the senior management, colleagues, friends’ others started demanding that the empty bottles be given to them for use at home. Since showing off these bottles at home became a style statement, in the midst of our actual job, we had to collect empty bottles, rationing and prioritising distribution. That we ended up making everybody unhappy is a no brainer.
In this chaos running away without leaving a forwarding address was tempting but my reporting manager Yogesh Bhat – made all the difference. No, he did not solve any problem, he could not, but he convinced us that nothing was a problem. His constant mantra was – “Nothing will happen”. You could tell him that a bomb was about to go off and he would simply dismiss it with a – “Nothing will happen” (Kya Hoga? Kuch nahin hoga!!). He would dismiss everything with a wave of the hand as if it were insignificant. When I was really upset he would just not be listening and come out with crazy comments like – “I love to kiss my wife” as if he was dreaming of his wife instead of listening to me and I would be like – WTH.
But soon I realised that he was destressing me and the situation and helping us face every crisis as if it was not a crisis. He simply made us believe that whatever maybe happening – nothing would happen. Once we had crossed that “fear & anxiety” phase, calmed down, he would say – “OK tell me what you want to do”. We could now think better, perform better. He taught me “Crisis Management” in a way by staying calm.
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