Its really quite funny. The head of marketing in a 250 man
company is different from the head of marketing in a 4,500 man company. I have
been head of marketing for a long time now. The roles kept expanding and now in
my current division which has around 4,500 employees, I am the head of a
department. And here I am being made to feel like one. If you have read some of
the old blogs you would know that here I have a largish cabin to sit in. I think
the visibility that it gives others about me is something very very different. Like
I was telling someone, this can get to your head. It can bloat your already expanded
ego. It takes effort to be level headed.
Simple stuff can be seen. People look with some amazement that I drive only a
hatchback. Now that can mean two things, either I am a really simple humble guy
or I am a stingy miser. I guess I must be getting equal measure of both. The
other day, I did not get my car. I was about to catch a taxi to go home, when I
saw a colleague of mine leaving at the same time. So I offered him a lift. He pointed
to the company bus which takes people back to the train station in the evening
from the office. Ok, what the hell, let me hop on to it today. The station is
on the way home. I was the last one in climbing the bus while it left. As soon I
boarded it, I felt a silence. For a few seconds all eyes were on me and the bus
fell quite. The receptionist who was sitting at the front, looked at me and
remarked “sir, the first time some senior person like you has come on our bus”.
I just smiled, shrugged and walked on. Two three remarks “you, sir, are in this
bus?”. “err, ya”. I just took the seat at the end and felt like a Chinese doll
at an exhibition.
I must be the only hatch back to be given a designated
parking slot in the company. For an overcrowded place like Mumbai, I must have
really achieved in life to get this slot. So when I once got my sedan, which
normally Jasmine uses to office, the watch man loved it and even remarked “Sir,
nice, this car is good. It suits you”. I could only smile back in response.
I think we humans area
show off society. We like segregation. We like us and them. We like to
show off our feathers and mane and other forms of success.
All this can get to you if you are not careful. In one of my
earlier avatar, I was easily one of the most powerful people in the mutual fund
industry in India. It was because of a default. My business head who was really
the most powerful man (because his decisions could swing the future of the fund
houses) would refuse to meet any one from the industry. SO the only way to him
was to convince me and everyone in the industry would meet me. The same guys
would get their CEO’s as well as their fund managers to meet me and try their
best to talk to me. I would have meetings lined up, one after the other meeting
these guys. It was tough but I think I never managed to get heady. My immediate
boss Prakash Dalal and my colleague Suman who taught me about the industry,
always maintained a level head and I , I think, followed in their footsteps. So
I tried to remain level headed. I always maintained, that they are not here to
meet me or respect me. They are here to meet and respect the chair I have, I sit
on and that is not mine. It belongs to the company and I am nothing compared to
it. This attitude kept me level then and it keeps me level now. When the bust
followed the boom and slowly that job lost its importance, fewer and fewer
people came to meet me. Slowly the role got swept into oblivion and I moved on.
I was right. They only wanted to meet the chair.
Sure enough I must have gained some respect. I treated people
right. I never kept them waiting and I tried to be honest with them. At the same
time, I was a tough negotiator and I extracted every penny till the very end. They
probably realized that as well. I have many acquaintances from that period but
almost no friends. A sales guy who has come to pitch to you is not likely to be
friends with you for life. He is focused on the job and his smile, manners,
discussion is focused. I don’t think he has the time or the inclination to
court you beyond his scope of work.
I have had friends from my marketing side of my work.
Agencies, vendors etc. Some people for whom immediate sale was not the
priority. Slow happy relations that translate into sales, perhaps.
So here I am sitting on my chair with hope that I never lose
sight of it. I should never ever think that this is my ass doing things. The sun
doesn’t shine off my ass. It shines off my chair and that my ass is on it is
just a coincidence. It fools most people. They think it’s their ass. But no,
believe me, it’s almost always the chair.
