The Foot Soldier and the Captain
A short story on charisma and its limitations
Bharat Computers Limited (BCL) recruited me out of business school for my first full-time job at the tender age of 22. After a one-year stint as Installation Coordinator (IC), I was to become a sales executive.
I reported for training to New Delhi along with about 40 new recruits from all over India. BCL’s Marketing Manager, Ashok Kumar Gupta (AKG), delivered one of the training sessions in Delhi. In his mid-thirties, he had been with BCL for about 5 years, after a 7-year stint at Coca Cola. The BCL print ad campaign with the slogan, “Even your typist can operate it” was his brainchild. In his session, AKG gave us foot soldiers the responsibility of bringing the computer revolution to small businesses in India. He was articulate and charming. I came away impressed that marketing was in good hands at BCL.
Upon returning to Bombay after training, I was assigned to report to a young Area Sales Manager, Ajay Daswani. Ajay assigned Satyen Parikh and me, the two ICs in the Bombay office, to different territories. We were provided lists of customers that had not taken deliveries after paying an initial deposit. Our job was to expedite delivery and bring in payments. Deliveries required customers to have an air-conditioned dust-free room for computer installation.
I started making appointments and visiting customers. A few were interested in the product and cooperated in getting their computer rooms prepared. My job for these customers was to coordinate delivery schedules with the NOIDA factory near Delhi. There were other customers who had taken deliveries and begun to use the product. They had some outstanding issues, like undelivered application packages. For these customers, I had to contact BCL’s software engineers and get them to prioritize the customer’s project for completion.
We cultivated customers as reference sites to bring prospects there for product demonstrations. The vast majority of undelivered cases were of disgruntled customers. They had paid their initial deposit, not received any follow-up from BCL, and wanted their deposits back. These were the most difficult customers because they did not want to take delivery, were anti-BCL, and vocal in their expression.
The factory in Noida shipped products to Bombay by truck. When the truck crossed into Bombay city limits, a local Octroi tax had to be paid to the city based on the value of the product. The value was the invoiced price to the customer. The BCL Accountant prepared the invoice and a bundle of cash for the Octroi payment. The Administrative Manager took these to the Octroi authorities to clear the packages. Cleared packages were delivered to the customer site or brought to the BCL office.
One day there was a buzz in the office. The Accountant and the Administrative Manager had not come to work. The buzz was that the Delhi Head Office had found out they had committed Octroi fraud and fired them. Allegedly they split the cash with Octroi officials while clearing the packages instead of paying the city. What a disappointment it was for me to learn I had been working aside colleagues who were thieves!
The office was in disarray and morale was low. After a few days, we got a telex from Head Office. It said that Mr. Ashok Kumar Gupta, AKG, would be coming on deputation to the Bombay office as Regional Manager. AKG was being sent to turnaround the regional office operations as a trusted captain of the CEO general. After two months of discomfort from hassled customers and internal turmoil, I liked the news. A new captain was to take the helm and steer the ship towards calmer waters.
AKG came to Bombay. Since Satyen and I were the newest kids on the block and had met him during our training, we hit it off well with him from day one. AKG took it upon himself to mentor us. We were starstruck by his knowledge and influence within the company. He impressed us with his work ethic, communication skills, attention to detail, and his smile even under stress. He led by example. No task was beneath his title.
I learned some neat things from AKG. One, he taught me to be more self-confident in front of customers. He made it clear he was there to back me up in front of customers. Further, there was an entire national organization of competent people to back up our products and services. I learned to tell customers pushing back on preparing an air-conditioned room that they were being penny wise and pound foolish. A dusty environment would harm the machine in the long run.
There were no next-day courier services, or the threat of terrorism, back in those days. AKG taught me how to transfer urgent documents to the Head Office. The fastest way was to take them to the Bombay airport before a Delhi flight departure. I would talk to a friendly passenger in the check-in line and request him or her to carry the envelope to Delhi airport. I would get the name and telephone number of this individual and have it telexed to a BCL employee in the Delhi office. That employee would get to the airport and stand at the terminal exit with a sign bearing the name of the friendly passenger. Upon seeing the sign the friendly passenger would hand the envelope over.
AKG worked long hours into the evening. Satyen and I also stayed late because we could have interesting learning sessions with him during those times. Some days, he would invite us to join him for dinner accompanied by a beer or Old Monk rum. I took him to some of my favorite spots around the city including Samovar Cafe. We discussed art, music, literature. He was a true Renaissance man, with a knack for telling stories that had lessons for life or business.
Soon after AKG’s arrival in Bombay, BCL’s founder and CEO came to Bombay to get a feel for the regional office after the Octroi fraud. He wanted to meet every executive individually. I was to bring all the active customer files I was working on for the meeting. I went into the conference room with the files at the appointed time. I saw the dour-faced CEO for the first time. In his early forties, balding and with a beard, his scowl made me nervous.
The CEO asked me to brief him about each customer and why were they not taking delivery of their order. I told him candidly what I had learned in the field. Sales executives (many of whom had left BCL) had not informed customers of the need for an air-conditioned computer room during the sale. Either the customer did not have space or it was taking time to prepare the room. I even told him about several customers who were asking to have their deposits refunded. He listened to me for the first three files, then he blurted out, “You are from one of the best management institutes in the country. Are you telling me you cannot persuade these customers to take delivery?” AKG came to my rescue and said I was one of the better employees in the office. I was abruptly dismissed from the meeting and went back to my desk, disheartened.
Some good things did come out of those meetings. AKG was able to hire a new Administrative Manager, Accountant, Area Sales Manager, and Installation Coordination Manager. We also saw faster replies to our telexes from the Head office. Things did turn around in the Bombay office soon thereafter. AKG was firmly in charge.
I managed to get a few quick wins in my work. I developed good relations with a multinational consumer packaged foods company to serve as a reference site. An important trade show was scheduled in a hotel where local businesses would come to see a demo of our computer. The demo computer had not arrived from the factory. AKG asked me to arrange for another computer at short notice. One of my customers had recently got their delivery but the machine wasn’t installed yet. I pleaded with him to let me borrow his machine for a couple of days for the trade show. I promised to return it in pristine condition. He agreed, the trade show was a success and I was able to return the machine to the customer as promised.
AKG’s confidence in me grew. Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) in Nagpur had installed a BCL computer and a large number of data entry machines before I joined BCL. They had not paid for the equipment for more than 6 months. AKG called me into his office one day and explained that the outstanding payment was so large that BCL was losing interest alone of Rs. 100,000 per day.
He asked me, “What do you think it will cost you to stay in a hotel and have 3 meals a day in Nagpur”? I guessed about Rs. 300 per day. He gave me a folder containing the outstanding invoices and correspondence with CCL and said, “I want you to take the next flight to Nagpur tomorrow. Go to the Accounts Department at CCL, get to know who is holding up our payment. Come back to Bombay only when you have the check in hand.”
I took the next flight to Nagpur and checked in at the local Blue Moon Hotel. I called the CCL Chief Accountant whose name was on the invoice and the correspondence. I told him I had come all the way from BCL’s Bombay office and wanted to know how everything was running with our equipment. Could I come and see the installation? He gave me an appointment for the next day. He was happy to show me around and proud of the payroll and financial accounting applications that they were running at CCL. I said how happy I was to see everything is going well with our equipment. I asked him if we could tell people about his successful installation and bring prospective customers there as a reference site. He agreed.
Then I told him, “Sir, there is one problem. We have not received any payments for the equipment we have supplied for over 6 months”. He showed surprise, then made a call from his office to one of his subordinates. He said go and see Mr. Gokhale, he will help you.
I went to Mr. Gokhale, who looked up some files and said he had authorized the payment three months ago. He referred me to another of his colleagues, who referred me to someone else. By the end of the day, I knew I was being given the runaround. The next day I went back to Mr. Gokhale and told him I had met all the people he referred me to the previous day. But I still couldn’t figure out who was responsible for releasing the check.
I told him how my boss in Bombay had told me that BCL was losing Rs. 1,00,000 interest on the payment every day and I was not to come back from Nagpur without the check. I said, “I will come and see you every day until you are able to solve my problem”.
He asked, “Which hotel are you staying in”? When I said Hotel Blue Moon, he said, “Do one thing. There are eight of my colleagues in the Accounting department. You invite us all to your hotel for a nice dinner along with drinks tonight. You will have the check tomorrow”. I said, “Sure, please come around 7:30 PM”.
Mr. Gokhale and his seven colleagues showed up at the hotel at 7:30 PM. I had arranged for the hotel to serve us a delicious meal with the best available whiskey and rum. The CCL employees treated me as if I was an old friend, cracking jokes and telling stories. They left the hotel after 11 PM singing songs in the street. The next morning, I had the CCL check and came back to Bombay victorious.
AKG was three months into his Bombay assignment as Regional Manager. One day the extension phone in his cabin wasn’t working so he came to the reception to take a long-distance call. I could hear him talking with his father in Bengali, with a beaming smile, “Yes Dad, when did it happen? Is it a boy or a girl? Glad mother and baby are doing well”. I understood that AKG’s wife had given birth to their first-born child, a boy.
After the call, I congratulated AKG for becoming a new father. I asked when he would be going home to see his wife and newborn son. He said he would go around Christmas which was still three weeks away. This made me feel sorry for him. AKG worked very hard for BCL. With his seniority and closeness to the MD, couldn’t he have asked for one week of vacation when his child was born? I felt AKG’s dedication to the company was somewhat misplaced.
One Friday evening, around 5 PM, we were chatting in the office with a hardware maintenance engineer, Joseph. Maintenance engineers installed new machines at customer sites and also attended to repair calls. AKG came out of his cabin to our office area and asked, “Joseph are you doing anything right now”? Joseph replied that he had done his work for the day and would be leaving for home soon. AKG said he was on the phone with a hassled customer. The customer had his machine delivered a few days earlier but no engineer had gone out to install it. The customer was irate so AKG had promised to send an engineer right away late on a Friday afternoon.
Joseph told AKG that he had an out-of-town friend visiting for one evening and he needed to go see him. AKG tried to cajole Joseph into giving up his social plans for the evening but Joseph was adamant. Then I saw AKG lose his cool. He said, “Joseph if you will not do as I ask, you can leave the office. But only after you place your resignation letter on my desk”. With that, he turned around and walked back to his cabin. This altercation happened in full view of many employees.
I was shocked to see AKG’s behavior. Joseph resigned after 4 years with BCL. It was a loss for everyone involved. Joseph lost his job, and the customer did not get the promised service. AKG lost face with the customer, and the company lost a well-trained and respected engineer. The balloon of esteem I held AKG in got deflated with a pinprick.
The foot soldier realized that even the most charismatic of captains have their limitations.
Acknowledgment: I would like to thank my fellow foot soldier, Satyen Parikh, for comments on an earlier draft of this story and for the times we spent together at BCL.
