Leading from the Front - Col.S.P. Wahi (Retd.)

Motivation:

An organization can ill afford too many square pegs in round holes. Negative attributes are like parasitic weeds – they demand continuous attention to remain controlled. It is our responsibility to learn from the observations of senior leaders from our own organization who walked their talk and more so when such chronicles are few. This is an attempt to provide interesting lines verbatim from ‘Leading from the Front – from army to corporate world’, by Col. S.P. Wahi (Feb. 13th, 2019 – 2 years in memoriam). This is the result of a chance encounter of a copy supplied by Corporate communications lying on my senior’s desk. Most of the book surprisingly rings true to this day though contains thoughts from early 90’s. A well written Appendix- B is a must read to every ONGCian.

• In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice, they aren’t. (Foreword)

• “The buck stops here”-it takes a truly great leader to make the tough decisions and even greater leader to not begrudge those who opposed him after they are proven to be wrong. (Foreword)

• Human relation problems are the root cause of low performance of the enterprises.(Preface)

• A control room to document all decisions and the authority taking such decisions, does help to identify leaders with character and courage. (Preface)

• ‘The honour and safety of the country comes first, always and every time, the welfare safety and comfort of people under your charge comes next and your own self comes last, always and every time’.(p.7)

• The philosophy is that anyone who ceases to improve ceases to be good.(p.8)

• Leaders have to know their people well to inspire and motivate them to put their best. (p.8)

• Common uniform creates a sense of belonging to the group.(p.8)

• One can delegate responsibility and authority but never accountability. (p.10)

• Individuals who had to achieve quantifiable results in a limited time had more onerous tasks than those occupying staff positions either in field or peace stations. (p.11)

• The executives/ managers remained out of touch with the practical problems and realities on the shop floor. A culture of confrontation instead of collaboration with the workers was prevalent which caused low productivity. (p.12)

• Concept of Officiating pay in army! (p.13)

• Learning the ‘don’ts’ of working! (p.14)

• Perseverance pays and never allow your rights to be curbed. (p.15)

• “I will not allow this gear box on any tank to endanger the life of my son who may be on this tank during war”- lesson on quality. (p.22)

• I have never bowed down to anyone and have learnt to stand on my own legs and fight my own battles. (p.23)

• One should never volunteer, but also never refuse when some task/responsibility is given. It is a golden principle. (p.25)

• Know how to assert yourself. (p.26)

• Follow up peoples activities meticulously without breathing down their necks. (p.29)

• Any organization which does not grow will stagnate and perish. (p.33)

• Ownership concept for Operational managers is essential for quick decision making and accountability. (p.39)

• Once senior executives identify themselves with work, no matter how small it may look, it raises the morale and motivation of the workers. (p.40)

• A culture for concern for employees to meet their needs, dreams and welfare, needs to be created. (p.42)

• Latecomers are never allowed to enter during the meeting. (p.43)

• To keep the overall objective of the enterprise in view and the functional group loyalties subordinated, avoid conflicting instructions. (p.44)

• Those who collect salary without adding any value are worse than beggars. (p.44)

• The head of the department is mostly busy in meetings, leaving no time for decision-making in the department. (p.44)

• Labour problems need to be resolved on the spot, otherwise they escalate into major problems resulting in loss of time, money and faith. (p.44)

• The benefit gained by the organization as a result of individual innovative action must be shared to sustain the interest of employees. (p.45)

• In critical situations one cannot afford to wait for information; one has to take the risk to move to the spot of the crisis. (p.45)

• People can perform even beyond their normal potential, if provided with proper work environment to ensure high morale and motivation. (p.51)

• Management through wandering ensures involvement of rank and file and fast feedback for corrective measures – those responsible for decision making were encouraged to move out of their offices and interact with the men on sites. (p.54)

• No forum for formal identification of employee problems except through unions results in confrontations. (p.56)

• Higher rungs of management were only busy in purchases and sales. Executives were stagnating in their existing positions for years. (p.57)

• Employees should experience their own growth with the growth of the organization. (p.57)

• Productivity linked incentive scheme for increased commitment. (p.60)

• Most of the technical problems are man-made due to human relation issues –either ego or greed. (p.60)

• The seventh five year plan of the country was publicly acknowledged as the ONGC plan. (p.62)

• Exploration is a scientific gamble where input is deterministic but output is probabilistic. (p.63)

• LOB (left out of battle), state of R&D – no sense of involvement, lack of discipline and freedom from accountability. (p.66)

• Culture of ‘do it yourself’ gave way to ‘get it done’. (p.67)

• Bombay High structure was delineated with the help of Russian ship ‘Academic Arkhangelisky’ and first well drilled by Sagar Samrat. Field discovered on 19.02.1974. (p.70)

• In the Siberian basin, they had explored for almost 40 years and drilled 90 dry wells before discovering the huge reserves – determination and perseverance. (p.73)

• Business is like a battle front – read Art of War by Sun Tzu. (p.83)

• 3F for man management – Friendliness, Fairness and Firmness. (p.84)

• It is not enough to do good work but people should know about it, to establish credibility and name for the organization. (p.85)

• Consultants never accept responsibility, but only diffuse accountability. (p.96)

• A ‘Yes’ culture, stifled initiative and compelled one to respect rules and procedures rather than focusing on performance, had crept in. a culture subservient to the consultants and contractors had developed. (p.97)

• All those who aspired to be leaders had to continuously update the knowledge to remain effective. In the annual appraisal forms, the executives were required to list the publications they had read. (p.103)

• Every decision has a risk element, otherwise all decision-making could be taken over by the computers. An average manager would hate to take a decision, unless ordered from the top or pushed from below. (p.138)

• Review and control cannot be so detailed that initiative is stifled, freedom to perform is throttled, and flexibility in approach subordinated to regimentation. (p.140)

• ‘Blame Game’ is our national hobby. (p.146)

• Management of business involves perspective planning, quick decisions and risk taking. (p.147)

• There is a need to ensure integration of the oil sector through a holding company or supervisory board, preventing multiplicity of efforts on the same subject. (p.158)

• A man ahead of his time and who tells the truth first has to be necessarily hanged as per a French song, or at least be attempted to be hanged. (p.162)

• Saudi oil minister to OPEC – “Stone age did not come to an end due to shortage of stones.” (p.164)

• Inefficiency is very infectious. (p.172)

• ONGC does not manufacture oil but locates it – in a response to media. (p.174)

• Ensure that long-range objectives are not sacrificed for short-term gains. (p.175)

• Leadership is an ability to inspire a group of people to move willingly and enthusiastically towards a common group objective in a synergetic manner. To inspire, the leader has to be a role model. For this the leader has to have character, competence, concern for the organization and the people, commitment to achieve results, courage to take decisions and lead from the front, the ability to conceptualize so that woods are not missed for the tress, and the attitude and ability to communicate. (p.180)

• There is an urge in every individual to be accepted as competent. (p.180)

• It is better to get 90 per cent of a high target than get 110 per cent of low target. (p.181)

• There is no shortage of managers, but managers with leadership are in short supply. (p.182)

• Leadership to inspire cannot be outsourced and had to be developed. Leadership calls for personal sacrifice to lead from the front. They have to have character and courage to act and not miss opportunities. (p.183)

• Responsibility accounting – every executive may be asked to identify his objective and accountability as perceived by him. (p.184)

• The Zero defect concept to do everything right the first time has to be our second nature. (p.187)

• There is knowledge explosion – each one of us has to catch up with this race and remain updated otherwise we would get obsolete. (p.187)

• The welfare measures need equal attention to make sure that individual problems are tackled without any loss of time. It would be desirable that inventory of personal grievances is maintained at all projects. (p.189)

• We must have ‘Millionaires mentality’. The work has to be done at a given cost and not at any cost. (p.194)

• ‘Monuments of inefficiency’- on the civil construction of our buildings/assets. (p.195)

• We continue to follow bureaucratic culture of ‘speaking’ on the files. A participative culture must prevail. Those involved in decision making should get together, discuss, finalise and record a common note. We should not stand on formalities or have any false vanity and avoid going to each other’s offices for this purpose. (p.195)

• We have not only to be honest but look to be honest. (p.196)

• Knowledge obsolescence is worse than equipment obsolescence. (p.200)

• The people are our greatest asset. Each one has to be treated as a ‘Gentleman’ till he proves otherwise. (p.201)

• To have a baby without any labour pains? Our boys have built up these assets by their sweat and toil – on gifting away ONGC fields to third parties.(p.214)