Boiling Point

This would have been sometime in 1993 when I was working in the Computer Services Department of Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. We had, after considerable effort, finally developed and delivered the rather unimaginatively named Jamshedpur Information System. This was a fairly comprehensive and integrated computer system that stored and processed commercial information  --  Maintenance, Accounts, Marketing, Production/Operations, HR  --  in a DB2 database on an IBM ES/9000 system running MVS. In hindsight, we might have been better off implementing SAP, but that is hindsight  --  and SAP was hardly known in India then.

I had been very closely associated with the design and development of this system as the head of the database administration function  --  one of the elite corps of systems programmers  --  and had even travelled to the IBM training facility in Sydney, where I spent seven weeks learning about this new platform.

Unfortunately, the system we developed was not as fault-free as management would have liked and was occasionally quite slow. This meant we were often fire-fighting to ensure that the critical operations of the plant weren’t too adversely affected. At some point, things got so bad that our Divisional Manager, Akhil Pandey, was effectively humiliated by having our department merged with another  --  Automation  --  led by Dipankar Sengupta, a favourite of the Managing Director, Dr. J.J. Irani. Just before or after the merger, Dr. Irani called a meeting of all CSD officers to understand what had gone wrong. Mr. Pandey was specifically debarred from attending, as the general view was that he was the one who had messed things up  --  which, to be fair, was not entirely accurate. Yes, he had his coterie of sycophants, but such politics existed in every department. Dr. Irani had been told that without Mr. Pandey’s presence, the junior engineers would speak more candidly.

The meeting was well attended by all CSD officers. I won’t go into all that transpired  --  mostly because I’ve forgotten much of it  --  but I do remember that Dr. Irani was quite critical of our work and said so bluntly, to our discomfort and dismay. Then he said  --  and I quote from memory  --  “I thought I was hiring racehorses in this department, but now I see I have donkeys.”

Though I doubt he meant it personally, I felt that this was directed at me, since Dr. Irani had personally intervened to get me employed at Tata Steel (that’s another story). My blood boiled. My anger surged.

And then I did something unthinkable in Tata Steel’s rigid hierarchy. I stood up from my seat and publicly asked him to take back his words.

There was pin-drop silence. No one could believe a junior officer had spoken so directly to the Managing Director  --  and in public. But to everyone’s amazement, and to Dr. Irani’s eternal credit, he actually did.

Dr. J.J. Irani, the MD and highest-ranking executive of Tata Steel, publicly apologized for calling us donkeys and took back his words. He remained highly critical of our work  --  but now used more polite language.

After the meeting, our department was split in two. A handful of my colleagues quietly congratulated me for taking a stand, but most kept their distance, wary of repercussions and eager to remain uninvolved. But the outcome was both unexpected and dramatic.

Soon after, I was promoted to Assistant Divisional Manager and given a plum assignment as Executive Assistant to Dr. C.V. Kamath, AGM (Scientific Services), in the office of Mr. K.C. Mehra, the Executive Director (Operations). One of my jobs? Writing speeches for  --  guess who  --  Mr. J.J. Irani!

1999 or 2000. A luxurious Taj resort in Goa.

I had just been admitted to the partnership at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and we were attending a Partner-Managers meeting in Goa. It was great fun. Partners and senior managers gave presentations on various topics, and I  --  as the leader of the e-Business group  --  spoke about this new, fast-growing domain. Globally, PwC was making major strides in e-Business, and my presentation was well received. Many senior partners  --  for whom this technology was still quite new  --  complimented me.

Beyond the presentations, there was amazing food  --  Taj hospitality at its best  --  and on the beach, under the moonlight, there was beer, music, and more, all to the tune of Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water.

While e-Business was the hot topic, our core revenue came from the SAP practice, where PwC was the clear national and global leader. In India, our biggest client was ONGC, the public-sector giant. As part of our “keep the client happy” ritual, Roopen Roy, head of the Management Consulting practice, had invited Subir Raha, the Chairman and Managing Director of ONGC, to speak on “anything appropriate”  --  and of course enjoy the hospitality.

So, one evening  --  post-dinner but pre-Bacchanalia  --  the one-and-only Subir Raha took the podium to share his wisdom on “what it means to be a consultant.”

Frankly, aside from Roopen and a few partners directly involved with the ONGC project, most of us had little interest in his remarks. Still, professional courtesy required us to attend in full strength and listen politely.

I don’t remember much of what he said. What I do remember is that he was extremely  --  and brutally  --  critical of consultants in general and, by clear implication, of PwC consultants in particular. According to him, consultants knew nothing. They learned from the client’s staff, repackaged that knowledge, and sold it back as “advice.” It was damning stuff. What surprised me more was how my senior partners quietly absorbed the tirade like it was a Kishore Kumar song.

But I was different. Once again, a direct insult to me, my colleagues, and my profession sent my blood boiling. I was seated in the front row, flanked by two senior colleagues. I stood up. One of them gasped. The other tried to pull me down  --  but I was already on my feet.

“Mr. Raha, may I interrupt you for a second?”

A PSU CMD isn’t used to being interrupted, so despite his arrogance, he didn’t quite know how to respond. Had it been me, I would have politely asked to be allowed to finish  --  but he simply grunted something like “OK.” That was all the opening I needed.

To my immense surprise, I didn’t raise my voice.

“Mr. Raha, before becoming a consultant at PwC, I worked at Tata Steel,”  --  though I didn’t say that I was in the Computer Services department; I let him remain unsure. “There, I had the opportunity to visit the collieries in Jamadoba and West Bokaro.” The exact names cemented my credibility with the audience. I continued, “And there, sir, a mine sardar once gave me a great piece of advice. Would you like to hear what he said?”

He was too stunned to respond, so I pressed on.

“साहब, कोयला जब तक ज़मीन के नीचे दबा रहता है, तब तक उसकी कोई क़ीमत नहीं होती। लेकिन वही कोयला जब हम लोग जान तोड़ मेहनत करके बाहर निकालते हैं, तब वो बहुत महँगा बिकता है।”

(No one had actually said this to me. My Hindi was weak, but the line came to me on the spot. The message was clear: knowledge buried in an organisation is worthless until we  --  the consultants  --  extract it and turn it into something valuable.)

I didn’t need to explain further. PwC partners and managers are all very smart people. They got the point. The room erupted in a loud round of applause and cheers.

One of their own had just delivered a solid punch to the arrogant nose of someone who had been insulting them all evening  --  and they loved it.

Raha, of course, was stunned  --  not just by my words, but by the enthusiastic support I received. He had nothing meaningful to say in response. He mumbled something like “I dig it”  --  an awkward attempt to be clever  --  and quickly ended his speech.

He skipped the late-night festivities, citing an early morning flight  --  a clear excuse to avoid further contact with us.

As for ONGC, they did give us a very hard time on the contract. But none of my senior partners ever blamed me for confronting him  --  because everyone knew that our own team had, in fact, messed up on the project.

But that, as they say, could be another story.