If TAS wants a brand ambassador, it need look no further than the Tata Sons board: RK Krishna Kumar, director, and member of the Group Corporate Centre, is a shining exemplar of TAS's success

RK Krishna Kumar, who joined the elite Tata Administrative Services (TAS) in 1963 after completing a master’s degree from the University of Madras, is perhaps the senior-most TAS cadre in the Tata Group. Of the 50 years TAS has been in existence, he has
seen 44!

In this period, his rise in the Group hierarchy has been meteoric — from a TAS trainee to the top of the corporate ladder as a director on the Tata Sons Board. RKK, as he is popularly known, is also a member of the Group Corporate Centre (GCC), chairman of Tata Coffee, vice chairman of Tata Tea and Indian Hotels, and a director in several other Tata enterprises.

Under his leadership, Tata Tea moved from commodity to branded business, and then into audacious acquisitions like Tetley, Good Earth Tea, Eight O’ Clock Coffee and Glaceau, which have catapulted the company to the global centre-stage.

Taking charge of the Taj group in 1997, RKK repositioned, contemporised and revitalised the chain with new business practices, orienting it towards the business traveller. The new thrust of setting up Taj Hotels in the gateway cities of the world, as well as the ‘smart basics’ Ginger hotels, were some of the outstanding initiatives launched during his time at the helm.

In many ways, RKK is the quintessential TAS-man, and is a living example of the value it brings to the Group. He spoke with Christabelle Noronha about TAS’s half century and what it means to be a part of this elite service. Excerpts from the interview:

In 1963, why did you choose to join TAS at a time when most bright students wanted to join the IAS or IFS?
My father, who had retired from the police, called me one day and said there was an envelope for me from the Tatas. It had a blue application form and a
covering letter, which said my name had been recommended by the University of Madras for the Tata Administrative Service.

I had no idea what TAS was, but I respected the Tatas, so I filled up the form and sent it. I was then called for an interview at Bombay House, where a gentleman called Dinshaw Malegamwala, who went on to become quite an institution for the TAS, briefed me. The interview process went on for
three days.

Most of the interviews took place in the Tata Sons boardroom. The chairman of the committee was Prof Rustom Choksi, and I was impressed with the intellectual gravitas of the people there. Although I was raw and inexperienced and conscious of being in an august presence, they treated me as an equal, which was very gratifying.

One of my strongest memories is of the final full board interview, when I got involved in a debate about Bertrand Russell. Both Colonel Sawhney and Dr JJ Bhabha thought Russell was an iconoclast, as he was then leading the campaign for nuclear disarmament. But I defended him, and there was a bit of a heated argument. A couple of weeks later, I got a telegram asking me to report to Bombay House. I started my TAS training at Tata Industries.

What is unique to TAS is the comprehensive, crosssectoral training it gives you. Trainees serve on several Tata companies and get the unique opportunity of acquiring a wide-angle view of business.

When I look back over my 44 years with the Tatas, I don’t feel I was working with just one company, but with an organisation that encompasses a spectrum of companies. I think I felt this most strongly when I moved, towards the end of my executive career, from Tata Tea to Indian Hotels. I was not familiar with the hotel industry at all, but I still had no problem in responding to the challenges of that company at a critical time. The wholeness of the TAS experience is one of the most precious things.

Have things changed over the years?
Let me tell you what I would like to see improved. In those days, there were no IIMs. Functional specialisation is much more pronounced today, and there is a significant difference between the ‘specialist’ and ‘generalist’ view of running a big organisation. I think we must seek a better balance between functional excellence and general excellence. The big challenge is to blend vision with details.

Besides, the ratio of those inducted into TAS from within the ranks of the organisation has dwindled to almost zero. Earlier many were selected from within the different companies to join TAS. We should revive the practice of bringing in more people from within the Group.

How do you identify leadership qualities in a young TAS officer?
When you put a person in the middle of a situation where there are very strong conflicting views, a leader should be able to galvanise a common platform. There is a lot of give and take in that process, but at some point, if there is an inflection in the debate, he or she should be able to align the forces that are pulling in different directions, and get them to move together. Everyone does not necessarily have the same view, but they should work towards a coherent central focus to get things done.

Leaders should have the ability to bring coherence to different views, focus on the task that needs to be done and take it forward as a team. That vital ability — to bring about correlation — is a leadership quality. It demonstrates a longer term vision and a capacity to form and lead a team. More important, a leader should be selfless and not have a personal agenda. You will always find some amount of detachment and selflessness in true leaders; they are people who deny themselves.

How are these qualities developed?
We must start with the best people. They must have the courage, the capacity to visualise the future, and the ability to lead people. I think we need to nurture that.

During and immediately after their probation, all TAS officers should be attached as executive assistants and staff officers to the senior-most people in the Group. They will get a broad perspective of our companies. The Group, as articulated by Mr Tata, has a truly renaissance frame of mind; it’s not just functional excellence. At the very highest levels, our people have such diverse interests. They can talk about so many subjects.

We often ask, why can’t we harvest a whole generation of ‘CEOs’ from within the Group. The Tata Group is growing so dramatically worldwide that we will need to speed up this process. We should be able to pick someone and say, you will be based, for example, in Brazil, not for a particular functional specialisation but to lead a company we have acquired that is taking a new direction. That is the characteristic of a growing organisation.

What message do you have for students who aspire to join TAS?
Two or three things come to my mind:

• If you are looking for a professional environment that can give you latitude and freedom to grow your skills and reach fulfilment, I don’t think there is a better place than the House of Tatas.
• If you are idealistic and you want to do the right things by your conscience; if you want to help improve the lives of those who are worse off and get professional satisfaction, I don’t think there is a
  parallel in the corporate sector to the House of Tatas.
• If you want to become a global professional, again, I don’t think any corporate group in India offers the diversity of experience — from auto to chemicals to steel to beverages — that the Tatas offer.

From the founder and his successors, right down to Mr Ratan Tata, the people at the helm have been selfless and committed to ethics and values in business. Many people do not even know that the Tata family does not have any significant holding in the Group; that it’s a completely professional set-up. The Tata name only exists as an overarching entity, unlike most other groups in the country, where the family controls the operation.

What would you like to say to young TAS officers who are already part of the Group?
Struggle and work very hard to find out what kind of role model you want to be for others. Once you have crystallised this in your mind, live it. If you decide you want to be socially sensitive, to be professionally excellent, you must have a code of conduct that is impeccable and inviolable.

When you become a TAS executive, your role is not company-specific, it is Group generic. I have many friends in other companies, and I don’t think they have the spirit of freedom we get in the Tata Group.

I can give you an example. I had a friend in TAS who had an exceptionally fine mind. He was a very motivated environmental activist. He fought many battles to protect the environment, operating from his office, next to the office of Tata Sons director, Adi Billimoria. Some of the companies he challenged included Tata companies, but he fought them even as a Tata employee. That is the kind of freedom no other group gives.

When I moved to Indian Hotels in 1997, there were a lot of problems; serious violations that I traced back to some senior Taj executives. The first three individuals who were asked to leave were TAS executives. That is because TAS officers are a Group resource and need to uphold Tata values. If you find something that is not acceptable, you have to fight it. If you lose in one company, you can move to another Tata company.

I believe our real legacy is the great Tata Trusts which really own the Group. They are like a sacred covenant. I think it’s important for all TAS probationary officers to do a stint in the Trusts. They support many programmes across the country — self-help groups, poverty eradication programmes, schools, hospitals. Understanding the seminal work that the Trusts are doing will help TAS trainees to understand how the Group recycles the wealth it generates back into the Trusts and from them to society.

Uploaded on July 12, 2007