Learning

Learning

From my experience I can say that learning has no age and no teacher, one learns practically from everyone irrespective of his or her status. Here I am not articulating on learning from parents and teachers, apart from them the other tools of life we pick up by our observation and adopt by the flexibility of our intent to learn.

Yesterday I got the idea of writing this blog when I was posting obituary for my friend Arun Mathur who left for his heavenly abode on 6^th October. What did I learn from Arun? He was incharge boiler erection and I was incharge commissioning in Singrauli Super Thermal Power Station from BHEL way back in 1981. As commissioning activities were yet to start so I used to follow boiler erection jobs closely by going to field with Arun. He used to evaluate the resources of the subcontractor first thing in the morning and would prioritize those as per immediate and long term milestones and allocate accordingly. Having done that in the morning the rest of the day he and his erection engineers would keep close watch on each work spot by visiting those spots periodically. In my later years when I was made site incharge which was in Vizag Steel Plant in 1988 I adopted his style of monitoring of erection work , may not be to the last dot but the core issue was resource planning, which could be skilled man power, consumables ,hand tools or heavy duty cranes.

As a matter of fact, my first learning of BHEL make boiler was from Late Kandaswamy who was my boiler commissioning engineer. He would methodically take me through that mammoth structure which gets assembled in the field. I had earlier handled smaller boilers prior to joining BHEL but not of this kind of heavy duty. This learning was in Panipt.

I came across L D Nagpal in Singrauli sometimes in 1981 when he was posted as site incharge. There were many issues where we differed and which was an open secret with BHEL and NTPC engineers but then admired some of his managerial qualities which were like my first teacher Hajela of Indian Oil Corporation. In case of any kind of emergency Nagpal would be there, be it work related or personal issues. There was no day and night for him, he was available 24 hours. In a remote site like Singrauli knowing that there is someone to look after you was big thing, people were giving their best without any tension. So taking care of juniors in every way was the way to the heart of people. I am a people person so will not hesitate to admit that I added some tricks learnt from Nagpal in my management arsenal.

M Jagannathan was my boiler commissioning engineer in Vizag Steel Plant in 1986, he introduced me to management book by gifting me a copy of One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. After that there was no stopping me from acquiring other serious books of Drucker,Ghosal,Goldratt etc. So my reading horizon expanded from reading thriller,crime,adventure, romance etc to serious subjects. Thanks to Jagannathan.

Late G S Sohol was GM of NTPC in Farakka when I was posted there in 1991 as Incharge BHEL to complete 2x500 MW plants. I was moved overnight from Vizag to Farakka as NTPC had complained that BHEL was failing, the progress of work in 2 years was less than 7 percent. This was my first posting in Bengal when Left Unionism was in it’s peak. I consider this posting as the toughest, I was given a ramshackle team with key experts visiting from other regions. It was Sohol’s unstinted support and his handling of union deftly gave me strength to face the challenge. I learnt a trick or two in handling militant union from him which came handy while heading eastern region of BHEL ffrom 1996 to 2000.

Late S N Bose was my PA in Kolkata from 1994 to 2000, because of him around I could survive in that region. He not only kept me informed about various activities going on but often he would act in my absence and resolve issues beyond his power. He would only use my name for entry. This trick of acting beyond one’s power I learnt from him. I would jokingly tell our then CMD late RKD Sah that I freely use his name while dealing with various manufacturing units of BHEL. He would laughingly tell me , “ Don’t borrow money in my name!’’

In Bhopal my GM, G G Subhedhar guided me in material management. In any manufacturing plant controlling input cost of material is the key to control of operation. So he would guide in judicious buying and controlling the wastages. We all aimed to reduce so called technical wastages and succeeded to some extent.

I was not much in spiritual thing prior to my posting in BHEL,Bhopal in 2000. It was Vijay Joshi, GM (turbines) introduced me to spiritual lectures of various spiritual Gurus who often give prabachan in our cultural hall. He introduced me to Rajeswaranand who was Muslim converted to Hindu. These were no religious discourse but articulating incidences from the epic while comparing with our daily life, these discourses were more of stress reliever. This great man would quote from Koran and Ramayan in same breath leading to logical conclusion.

Then there is B L Choksi who would egg me to hold quality classes in shops and which we started with due seriouness. He had earned all possible Shram award in India and finally government conferred him Padamshree in 2004.

Finally I must mention about Vipin Rawat who was my TA in BHEL,Bhopal a MBA from IIM,Kolkata. During my frustrating hours of work, he would give calm advise of cooling down. He is much younger than me but his cool outlook would help me to cool down.

Well these are a few of my teachers who helped me during my service life in BHEL.

I am on learning trajectory as usual. Hyder, a caddy who was Amateur Golf Champion of India in 80s is my golf guru. His often used word “Eajy eajy” reverberates in my ears when I take a shot.

Finally the Guru of all Gurus is Google which is teaching me to paint and advising me not to cram when it is available there in the cloud.