Big Picture Managers

In the history of applied management,genius is altogether a rare thing. Rarer still are meticulous records of the manifestation of managerial genius and its impact on the lives of individuals and organizations.This piece is an attempt to place before you my experiences of managerial genius, direct as well as indirect. Compared to some of my earlier articles this one is admittedly lengthy.Given the nature of the subject this was however unavoidable.

There are managers and there are Big Picture Managers or simply 'BPM’s'. It goes without saying that this piece focuses on BPM’s – I won’t name the BPM’s with whom I had the great good fortune of working directly for obvious reasons but I will take the liberty to name some BPM’s whose managerial genius I have had the opportunity to study from a great distance and apply it to my work life as much as was possible under the then prevailing circumstances. For the sake of orderliness ( and not relative comparison of any kind) , I am naming these BPM's BPM 1, BPM 2 and so on.

It was on a monsoon day that I had my first casual conversation with BPM 1. He said to me in rather a grave, matter of fact tone ,“Sarang,organizations have no souls. Remember this.” I looked at him somewhat non-plussed and asked , “What do you mean ? Why did you say that?” He replied, “Always remember what I said.”

BPM 1 then elaborated saying, ''Write down on a piece of paper, ‘This team that I am presently building and mentoring will one day be taken away from me.’Keep that paper in your pocket and read it once a day .” I asked him ,"Why ?” He replied saying, “ Teams get taken away from managers during periodic ‘re-orgs’. Do as I say. You will be none the worse for it.You won’t feel bad while letting go of a team that you built." Great advice it was, I followed it to the letter and it never ever hurt me. It fell to my lot to build 3 teams in 5 years between 2007 and 2012 and sure enough, I had to let go of the teams each time. I felt absolutely nothing on each of those three occasions ,thanks to BPM1.

Then, there was BPM 2 who said to me, “ Don’t be black and white all the time. If you want to remain a ‘black and white person’ then remain that way without losing sight of the bigger picture. This way you will find shades of grey merging in to your reactions spontaneously without hurting anyone.” That was pragmatic advice but easier said than done and I never did manage to get rid of the ‘black and white’ tendency altogether – this is black and that is white, this is milk and that is water…that sort of thing. BPM 2 was a past master at maintaining 'BPA' – Big Picture Awareness. His favorite one liner was ,''Don’t ever run away. If you must leave, then leave as a winner on your own terms.” I remembered that all the time.

However, the most important thing BPM 2 ever shared with me was a sombre one liner which went something like this - " As managers ,we evolve mostly through hard , sometimes bitter experience. I have evolved that way , so will you, so will we all.There is really no other way. That is the plain truth."

BPM 3 was an altogether different kettle of fish – the rarest of rare souls who spotted talent,then went out of his way to nurture it. He hired me as a banking Domain Trainer to begin with, then sent me for a 3 month French class and followed it up by spending two hours at a stretch with me ,making me practice a soft skill training because he thought I had a gift for it ! Looking back I am flabbergasted he actually did all that. Sadly, he left within six months of me joining the organization - an absolute gem of a mentor if ever there was one. He saw the big picture all the time and felt that exposure to a foreign language and soft skills would help me in the long run. So it proved when I moved to business analysis a year later.

BPM 4 makes an interesting study. This was a Manager to whom was entrusted the mission of finding ways of bringing a talented but grumpy associate back on track.The associate was excellent at his job but would deliberately come to office 30 minutes late every day. BPM 4 took our hero in his stride, allowed him to continue with his grumpy ways , made friends with him over a 3 month period and managed to extract from him the root cause of his disenchantment . Apparently, a singing competition had been organized in the office a year earlier and this associate had not been allowed to showcase his singing skills by the selection panel. Peeved with their ‘partiality’, he had been reporting to office late daily since , finishing his work by 6 PM and clearing out.

BPM 4 actually organized a singing competition, ensured that Mr Grumpy got to participate in it and had the satisfaction of watching him win first prize on merit .The employee lost his grumpiness for good and the organization retained a talented associate.This may sound like a stupid episode and a complete waste of time to some people who would prefer to let the associate find his own way in life (as well as another organization that puts up with his deliberate late coming) but it actually happened in the manner mentioned above.BPM’s are known to take a genuine interest in people.

BPM’s tend to be great talent spotters as well. The story goes that Guru Dutt , India’s famed classical film maker of the 1950’s spotted a bus conductor named Badruddin Kazi mimicking a drunkard and offered him a bit role in his movie giving him a unique screen name – 'Johnny Walker'. The rest as they say is history and Johnny Walker went on to become one of India’s all time great comedians.Dutt and Kazi have both passed in to history but Dutt ,BPM 5 of a bygone age has left a priceless managerial legacy for us to imbibe - talent can be spotted anywhere, even on a bus. All you need to do is be observant, keeping your eyes and ears open.

BPM’s believe in the possibility of the improbable. Varghese Kurien spearheaded ‘Operation Flood’ and transformed India from a milk deficient nation to one of the world’s largest milk producers with his ‘billion–litre’ idea. He had his detractors at the time but he pushed forward regardless.We grew up eating toasted bread with Amul butter on it for the most part. Kurien, now sadly no more with us, is BPM 6.Milk flows all over India today, much like her many rivers , accompanied by butter, cheese and ice cream. Kurien saw the the big picture vividly enough when 'Operation Flood' was initiated.

BPM’s are quick to spot opportunities when confronted with disturbing facts. Anant Pai launched ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ (ACK) when he realized during a train journey that youngsters in India in the late 1960's and early 1970's thought the world of the United States and indeed all things foreign, additionally believing in all sincerity that India didn’t really have a past worth studying ! That is how 'Amar Chitra Katha' (and later 'Tinkle') came to see light of day.

Today these books ( comics literature would be a better term for them) are exported world wide. Pai aptly gave the series a meaty one liner – ‘Amar Chitra Katha – The Route To Your Roots’. Pai ,also sadly no more with us is BPM 7. They used to endearingly call him ‘Uncle Pai’. I don’t think I would have known as much about India as I do today if ACK had not happened in the early 1970's. History, mythology, fables, folklore,modern India - ACK covered it all in more than 400 titles.Pai visualized the big picture and set to work with a dedicated team ,eventually launching ACK with that most magnetic of punch lines - 'the route to your roots'. As per latest statistics, more than 90 million copies have been sold in 20 Indian languages.It doesn't get any better in terms of the impact BPM's can generate.

BPM’s are also timely motivators – when they say something, they will time it to perfection with great results.Jambavan, mythical bear of the Indian epic ‘Ramayana’ is BPM 8,motivating Hanuman the hero to leap over the ocean to Lanka in search of Sita by reminding him of his immense abilities at an opportune moment. It takes a sagely manager to bring the best out of a talented associate who appears to have momentarily forgotten his real nature and abilities.

BPM’s have been known to protect talent they have once unearthed. Clive Lloyd’s handling of Viv Richards and Michael Holding on the 1975-76 tour of Australia is a case in point. Holding, on his first overseas tour was timed faster than Australian pace aces Lillee and Thomson but was reduced to tears when an appeal for caught behind was disallowed by the umpire during one of the Test matches, the batsman in question being Ian Chappell, a die-hard non –walker. It was hardly the kind of reaction that would please a Test captain but Lloyd understood Holding's frame of mind - after all, the edge to the wicket keeper had been loud enough for the entire ground to hear.Then,there was Richards, the most talented young batsman in the West Indies team at that time who was having a bad tour with nothing to showcase his talent at the end of the fourth of six Test matches. Lloyd, BPM 9 , decided to keep the faith with both youngsters despite being at the receiving end of a 5-1 overseas thrashing.

Holding’s temperament apparently needed to be worked on and Lloyd did that beautifully motivating the naturally gifted Jamaican to bowl even faster. What he did with Richards was even more unique – he made Richards ( a middle order batsman) open the innings temporarily, the likely logic being that Richards would be better off being his own man going in first rather than sit in the pavilion watching others struggle or get hit by the speeding ball. Basically,he would have less to brood over and if he regained his touch as a makeshift opener, he could then be returned to the middle order. Others would additionally take heart from his success - this ,to my mind appears to have been Lloyd's line of thinking at the time.

What ever the logic , it worked like magic. Richards struck a rich vein of form as a makeshift opener and Lloyd did move him back to the middle order subsequently. In the year that followed (1976) Richards made a staggering 1710 runs in Test cricket at an average of 90. He had only Lloyd to thank for that purple patch. Holding did just as well , blowing away England that same year with frightening speed through the air during an abnormally dry season when the rains decided to give England the miss for the most part. Holding missed nothing though,taking 28 wickets in 4 Tests at less than 13 runs apiece – phenomenal figures by any standards and he too had only BPM 9 to thank , hitting either the batsman's stumps or pads with the loveliest of bowling actions.

I don't think Lloyd was plain lucky that both youngsters came good subsequently. He was demonstrating vision. A lesser captain would likely have dumped both Holding and Richards ,blaming their lack of maturity and inconsistency ( among other things) for the 5-1 debacle in Australia but Lloyd, BPM par excellence did nothing of the sort. West Indies ruled international cricket for 20 years thereafter.Lloyd in retrospect,didn't restrict himself to only the big picture - he preferred to look over the entire horizon.

In my experience, few if any have had the good fortune to work with BPM's all the time or even most of the time - I have personally worked directly with no more than 4 BPM's in 20 years which works out to 1 BPM every 5 years. They are a rare breed, possess a degree in people, are seldom if ever unsettled by the success of their team members, can switch to being 'hands -on' as and when required and never ever lose sight of the big picture even in the midst of the minutest of tasks.

I have found them to be high on emotional intelligence - they understand and are able to interpret organizational politics correctly without actually taking part in any of it. Their passion for excellence ensures that they will never have the time nor the inclination to play political games - those games being 'the special domain of people who have neither knowledge nor skill nor values ', to quote one BPM. All of this makes them absolutely priceless.Moreover,they tend to have a collaborative rather than competitive mindset towards work,will say what they have to upfront and generally live by the philosophy that man is an evolving being and that mistakes will happen - as long as they are not repeated, its fine. They are surrounded by a positive aura and generate good vibes.

BPM’s come across as being unique, delightful and precious for what they have to tell us of the spirit of innovative talent development and sustained organizational growth in the context of the big picture.Working with them directly and studying their ways from a distance was as much a joy as it was a privilege.

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