As a part of “Ribandar Talks – A lecture series by eminent personalities” (a student driven initiative), Goa Institute of Management, Goa organized a talk by
Mr. R. Gopalkrishnan
Executive Director, TATA SONS
Chairman, Rallis India
Ex Vice-Chairman, Hindustan Lever Limited

“The Man Who Became A Bonsai”

Mr. Gopalkrishnan sees a typical manager as a “Bonsai” whose growth has been restricted by undertaking stereotype tasks without much challenge. He feels management is all about instincts. There is no definite protocol which can be followed in management.

A typical manager becomes a “Bonsai Manager” by the age of thirty unless he/she chooses to look out for grass root experience and be ready to sweat out on the shop floor. There is a need to increase one’s span of mind, go for healthy mental food and accelerate one’s growth by following his/her instincts.
He cites his example and attributes his success to his days in Hindustan Lever wherein after graduating from IIT Kharagpur in Computer Science he joined HLL and was asked to go out and sell soaps in markets of Nashik (he fancied of sitting in an air-conditioned cabin punching keys). According to him there is a need to understand the product and the consumer, failing which one can never be a good manager.
He feels management education does not guide us to take instinctive decisions. It just provides us with knowledge required to follow our “Gut Feeling” to take such decisions. In the world of management there are no proven managers because management is all about instincts.

When one rises in management one should rely on his instinctive decisions since there are no prescriptive solutions. “Managers should be implementers rather than mere planners.”
Management is an art which cannot be taught unlike subjects like marketing, finance, etc. Subjects like HR and OB only help in providing an insight to management and those who learn what is not taught grow to become Top Class Managers.

According to him, the human brain structure consists of three layers*:
1. Pea – This part controls the basic life functions and co-ordinates the physical activities.
2. Lemon – This part is capable of basic emotions.
3. Cabbage – This part makes us diplomatic, and this is what differentiates the humans from animals.
Most of the mistakes made by the top managers are elementary in nature. At such crucial moments one should rely on their instinctive Brain (pea and lemon) rather than on their top quality brain (cabbage).
He also talked about BRIM (Brain Remote Instinctive Memory). It consist of two parts
Short term & Long term memory (Explicit memory)
Remote Memory (Implicit memory, emotional events)
He stresses the need to rely on the “remote memory” as that regulates one’s instincts and things stored here are indestructible.

Every individual in an organization has a different perspective and level of thinking and a manager would be successful only if he is able to connect with each individual at the right time. He should be able to motivate people and get the best out of them by engaging their emotions. This needs to be done at times when they are least motivated.

The first ten years are crucial in shaping the future of a successful manager, since it is in these ten years that one would be exposed to grass-root experiences and gain by the challenges he comes across.

* Cabbage, the largest part of the brain is supposedly in the head. Lemon is in the centre and the pea is at the bottom near the neck.