Grassroots level experience
After graduation, during an interview with HLL for computer traineeship, I was asked whether I would consider marketing instead of computers. An engineer visiting grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy? No way. After joining the company and spending a couple of comfortable weeks in the swanky head office, a train ticket for Nashik was handed to me. "Would you please meet Mr Kelkar, to whom you will be attached for the next two months?" He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which included Kopargaon, Pimpalgaon and other small towns.

In a town called Ozhar, I was moving around from shop to shop with a bullock cart full of products and a salesman’s folder in my hand. Imagine my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front of me, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a management trainee in computers". After this levelling experience, I was less embarrassed to work as a despatch clerk in the company depot and as invoice clerk in the accounts department. But, looking back after all these years, I would advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks. That is how you learn about organisations, the true nature of work, and the dignity of the many tasks that go into building great enterprises.

Deserve before you desire
Appointed as the brand manager for Lifebuoy and Pears, the company’s most popular-priced and most premium soaps, I was "a mini-businessman, responsible for the production, sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term growth, etc". I had read those statements and believed them, and here, at 27, was "in charge of everything". But very soon it became evident that I could not move a pin without checking with my seniors.

One evening, I expressed my frustration to the marketing director and gently asked whether I could not be given total charge. He smiled benignly and said, "The perception and reality are both right. You will get total charge when you know more about the brand than anyone else in this company — about its formulation, the raw materials, the production costs, the consumer’s perception, the distribution, and so on. How long do you think that it will take?" And then, suddenly, the lesson was clear. I was desiring total control long before I deserved it. This happens to us all the time — in terms of responsibilities, posting and promotions. There is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and what we get. It helps to deserve before we desire!

Play to win, but with fairness
Life is competitive and, of course, you play to win. But will you do anything to win? Perhaps not. Winning without values provides dubious fulfilment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with universal values — Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for example.

I am fond of referring to the ‘Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy’. It was instituted by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are two examples of its winners.

• A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent more time to recover from a cramp.
  
• A British kayak team was trailing the Danish team. They then stopped to help the Danish team, whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three-hour event!

Enjoy what you do
Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun than hard work". You usually excel in fields you truly enjoy. Ask any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence and he will say, "The struggle for life". What he probably means is the struggle for success. Unless a person has learnt what to do with success after getting it, the very achievement of it will lead him to unhappiness.

According to Aristotle, "Humans seek happiness as an end, not as a means to something else". But if you think about it, we should not work for happiness. We should work as happy people. And working at one’s full potential, whether it is the office boy or the chairman, leads to enjoyment and fulfilment.

A last point about enjoyment. Learn to laugh at yourself. As General Joe Stilwell reportedly said, "Keep smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".

Direction is more important than distance
Every golfer tries to drive the ball the farthest. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves masterly coordination of several movements. The golf coach always advises that direction is more important than distance. So it is with life. Despite one’s best attempts, there will be ups and downs. It is relationships and friendships that enable a person to navigate the choppy waters that the ship of life encounters. In that memorable film by Frank Capra, It’s a wonderful life, a man is about to commit suicide because he thinks he is a failure. But an angel is sent to rescue him. The bottom line of the film is: "No man who has friends is a failure."

My generation will never be 20 again, but when you are older, you can and should be different.

*Mr Gopalakrishnan, the executive director of Tata Sons, delivered this speech to a forum of ‘young leaders’ at the Nehru Centre in Mumbai. Excerpts from the speech were carried in the January 21, 2002, edition of The Economic Times, from where this article has been taken.