From the Mouths of Babes

Pawan Verma

There are many advantages of having children. They are a great help in old age and they help you attain it faster as well. Quite often, they help you learn the virtues of patience. They also help you realise that obedience to children is the best insurance against developing insanity.

Any experienced parent will tell you that there are two difficult periods during the parenthood. First, when your children start asking questions that have answers. The second period comes even earlier: when your children start asking questions that have no answers. In the search for an answer, you certainly can’t draw from your realm of reasoning.

As a parent, I realised this fact of life when our second child was born. It was one of those intimate family moments when myself, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Shweta, and my wife Neelima with new born baby in her lap, were sitting together choosing a name for the newborn.

As we were rejecting one name after the other, my wife came out with the name ’Harsh’. But before I could endorse the suggestion I discovered the horror and disbeliefs in my daughter’s face. As a sweet little girl who had started going to school and had just added up a few English words to her vocabulary, she instantly protested, “Dad, shall we call him horse?” No amount of reasoning would convince her, for the simple reason that this new word was just not there in her dictionary.

Years later, when the infant baby had grown into a cute little three-year-old, my reasoning was put to test once again. One evening, as the entire family was sitting around the study table, this young man suddenly startled up.

As I lifted my eyes from the book, I saw a twinkle in his eyes. Excited, he announced in the ‘Eureka’ style, “You know, I can switch off the lights sitting right here.” Amused I asked him to show me how. He closed his eyes and said, “See, now the lights are off.” I told him that I could also do the same, and closing my eyes I announced that the lights were off. But the young man, with his eyes wide open protested vehemently that they were not.

As he was quick to take the confirmation of those around him, I only realised what a fool I was making of myself in the eyes of my son. Once again, no amount of reasoning could convince him that by closing his eyes he could not put off the lights.

These small incidents in life have given me a lot of belated wisdom to face the world. For, as a public sector executive, when I am faced with a similar kind of logic and perception coming from my unions, I do not get agitated. I do not get perplexed when they open the windows and yet do not see the light outside. Their demands on the management quite often remind me of the story of the old man who was reading a newspaper in a park. A young man came up and sat near him for a while.

Moments later, the young man asked him if he could lend his specs for a while. After the old man had parted with the specs, the young man came out with another request, “I don’t think without the specs the newspaper has any utility for you. Can you give it to me?”

Managing the Boss

Pawan Verma

IT COULD very well have been a scene from an Amitabh Bachchan movie – the big droning fly moving from one bald executive head to the other, and everyone patting his head turn by turn in the process of swatting at the fly. The only difference was that it was happening live during a high-profile business conference being attended by the Chairman and the Managing Director of a big Japanese company. The Chairman and other senior executives of an Indian public sector undertaking were the hosts. Moments after the conference had begun, and the guest chairman had started addressing the audience, the big droning fly got into its act. Possibly, it was imported on to the dais through the bouquets of flowers presented to the guests. As it continued squatting from one bald head to the other, it was providing enough entertainment to the audience. In between, it would hide behind the bouquets, restoring peace and order on the dais. And again, it would come out of its hiding with its resonant music and declare its preference for the execute heads.

Possibly emboldened by its short-duration successes, the fly this time had decided to take a longer flight. But obviously it had run out of luck – as it elicited an urgent chorus from the executives present on the dais, calling the waiter for help. But before the waiter could come to their rescue, the lone Japanese got up, took out his handkerchief, caught the fly in his third attempt and handed it over to the waiter.

There was one more small little thing that caught people’s attention during the conference. As the managing director of the Japanese company was delivering his speech, his chairman got up, came to the audience and took a photograph of his managing director. The incidents reveal a lot about the way the Japanese management system functions. Not only are they less cadre-conscious, but they take pride in doing things themselves rather than merely ordering others about the same. A closer look demonstrates that hard work and quality of results are the hallmark of their system.

It is not that our own system of management here in India is less demanding, although in a different way. Here you must treat your boss as god, although you may treat a subordinate like a dog. The system, however, is so that it helps you develop an instant liking for your boss: if you don’t, you get fired. But having said that, it needs to be acknowledged that within the system, it is easy to manage the boss – just listen to him. You must not talk while he is interrupting you and if he needs your opinion, rest assured, he will not hesitate in giving it to you.

I remember the story of a friend of mine who was not fully initiated into the system yet. As he seemed to raise an eyebrow during one of the regular counselling sessions, his boss shouted at him,

“How dare you argue with me, young man”?

"I haven’t said a word, sir,”  the young man protested.

“You were listening in a very aggressive manner”, said the boss in the final judgement.

(First Published in Hindustan Times Edit Page dated 05.10.1999)