The Ratna that Ratan was!

October 9th 2024, will go down in Indian Industry as not a day of mourning but one of immortalizing a legend who was an embodiment of humility, business acumen, philanthropy and integrity. As soon as the news was broken at around midnight there was a huge out pouring of emotions on the social media leaving many Indians with welled up eyes and lump throats across generations from boomers to Gen Alpha! Such emotions are normally reserved for celluloid heroes and politicians in India.

This is not a requiem to the great Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, as the Social media is flooded with tributes by people who have worked for / with / along him and also people who have met him in an elevator, hotels, airports, events, exhibitions etc. I don’t fall under any of the above categories. I felt I should write this from a common man’s perspective growing up hearing this household name the last 50 odd years. Salt to Steel conglomerate they call the empire, that’s how a Gen X would remember and also, for Titan that replaced the boring HMT’s on the wrists of the bride and bridegrooms of the 90’s, the Gen Z would remember them for the jewelry and sarees from Tanishq and Taniera, while Gen Alpha would remember them for Starbucks and Jaguar.

The story of Ratan Tata is not one of rags to riches, but one of humility in entitlement. He was handed over the baton of a thriving century old empire and one in which the surname was a household brand, what more could one ask for, taking over a business. Many a brands and great business surnames have fallen by the wayside while Tata remained and continued to make an impact on the common man’s lives across generations. That is not just due to the brand recognition / recall value the name carried but solely due to the bearer of the baton who carried that brand name, in this case, the man, Ratan Naval Tata. The timing was also right for him as he took over the reins of the Tata group in 1991, a significant year in Indian corporate history as that was the year the seeds of liberalization was sown by the Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. P V Narasimha Rao and yours truly was in the sophomore year in Engineering hoping for a better future is a few years. TELCO / TISCO / TCS / TCE where the names that did rounds in any aspiring Mechanical Engineer’s minds in the 90’s.

India is a country where sycophancy rules the roost and paid mourners and crowds are mobilized for the final journey of a politician or a celluloid celebrity, and the journey to the final resting place takes multiple detours and is delayed by several hours and even days to gain maximum public empathy. However, this was not the case with Mr. Ratan Tata’s final journey.  He was laid to rest within 18 hours of his breathing his last breath. But the crowd that lined his final journey route and the millions watching it on television or on social media sites with moist eyes were a testimony to the man he was, and the culture he had created in an organization.

Tatas were an epitome of corporate culture and the words that are used these days more as fad or simply for ticking the governance boxes were the bywords at the Tatas. The emphasis on Compliance, Ethics, Integrity, Equality etc. look good on governance posters in canteens and board rooms in corporates these days, but that was the way of life and business that Ratan Tata preached and practiced.

Many stories on Ratan Tata’s benevolence to the society has been written about in the last couple of days, I would like to highlight one from my side too. Tata Chemicals dropped a 500 Mio USD (in 2008) Soda Ash Plant close to a potentially large soda ash reserve in Lake Natron in Tanzania which was a popular breeding ground for Flamingos, on the instructions of Ratan Tata, yes, there were a few objections raised by environmental activists, but Ratan Tata was willing to give an ear and react.  I cannot imagine any of the present-day industrial power houses willing to lend a ear or compromise on a 750 Mio USD deal today to save a breeding ground for flamingos.

The political parties were up in arms even before he was laid to rest on who will be the first to recommend a Bharat Ratna (the highest Indian Civilian award) for him. The same award was given to a cricketer who is just as old as Mr. Ratan Tata’s contribution to the Indian society at large and yet politicians are debating on if and when one should bestow him with this honor. He definitely would not be turning in his graves thinking of this, as his very name embodies the most precious gem and for his work, 1.3 Billion people of Bharath have already adopted him as their RATNA.

Ratan was well and truly the Ratna that Bharath had or will ever have and for optimism sake, wish more Ratans come up in corporate India following his legacy of humility in governance which is lacking in the new age valuation driven business leaders

Veni!, Vidi!, Vici! without any Ad ostentationem!

Yusuf Dikec is a household name today, thanks to social media that made him viral. The ‘virality’ on social media eclipses the essence of the coveted silver medal at the Olympics 'he' won, that every sports person aspires for in life.

But wait a minute… Did he win this medal alone? No! He was a part of the mixed team 10-meter air pistol shooting event. This was a Team sport and only his image & name went this viral, I wish to present before you the name of his team mate no one knows, or rather the less 'virtually' popular,  Sevval Ilayda Tarhan who is nonexistent in the entire narrative. Had Sevval performed badly would he have been on the Silver podium? NO! is my emphatic answer, and had he not been part of the silver winning team, would his image have gone viral with messages of motivation like ‘Success doesn’t come with your hands in your pockets’ tagged along with it? That’s another emphatic NO!!! Incidentally, Sevval also shot with her hand in her pocket!!!!

This image for me gives multiple messages of relevance to each and every one of us, be it in our personal or professional lives. Social Media takes bits and pieces of the life around us that we project and amplifies to an extent that people around get mesmerized by the ‘now’ image and do not look into the so called behind the scenes or do a fact check on those events or images. This is a rather dangerous trend irrespective of the context we apply it in.

In the professional context this is akin to a Manager over shadowing his best performing employee from being part of the success story, also from the now all-important inclusivity angle, was that not a sidelining of the contribution of a woman in the success that got them the silver? Her only fault was, Unlike Dikec, she was competing with large ear defenders, a visor, as well as braids in the red and white colors of the Turkish flag. She was shooting with one hand in her pocket, too.

His one hand in pocket image portrayed nonchalance and confidence and inspired people the world over to be like him, while her show of patriotism towards the country with braided hair in Turkeye’s national flag colours and her large ear defenders (Dikec was wearing ear plugs) and a protective visor (Dikec was wearing a glass, the power of which we know not) cost her the moment of glory in the virtual world of virality even though she was an equal contributor to the first ever silver medal in Shooting for Turkiye. Sadly, Sevval Ilayda Tarhan’s hand in pocket image did not gain the same traction, the male shooter got? Wasn’t that nonchalance? Was that not Confidence? Dikec has been competing in the Olympics since 2008 and has never won a medal, so where was his nonchalance then? Where was his confidence then?

In the Corporate world too, akin to a team sport, the main contributor / player, Manager or even the team / company is only as good as his / her / its team.  In the personal world the so-called influencers send a multitude of naïve children, youth and even grown-ups to pursue the path of attaining virality on social media without really understanding the real not reel story behind the scene. The story is always longer than a scene or the reel and unfortunately given the pandemic like attention deficit all possess today it is very difficult to inculcate the virtues of patience in people to understand the essence or the real story behind the events happening around us.

Talking about inclusivity when you google up Yusuf’s name most of the searches return questions like Did “he” win a medal?  And the results that throw up are “He” won a medal when the actual reply should have been “They” won a medal, as it was mixed sport and he won it because of her! In this era of pronoun sensitive prose this is an unpardonable and glaring error.

Dekic might have Veni! Vidi! Vici! the virtual world!

Sevval not only Veni! Vidi! Vici! but also helped her country in walking away with the silver medal without any Ad ostentationem!