Jamsetji Tata: Powerful Lessons for Business Success

Extract published from Jamsetji Tata: Powerful Lessons for Business Successby R Gopalakrishnan and Harish Bhat. This excerpt is from the chapter titled ‘Tata: A Leader of Leaders.’

JRD Tata was an excellent leader of men. During his tenure as Chairman of the Tata Group, he built for the group the finest ensemble of corporate leadership that India has ever seen. So many members of his leadership team were legends in their own right, but JRD inspired them and earned their enduring respect and love.

Think of the stars who worked with JRD across two generations. In the 1940s, his leadership team at Tata Sons included towering stalwarts like Sir Homi Mody, AD Shroff, Dr John Mathai, Ardershir Dalal and Naval Tata. After the 1950s, a second generation of equally accomplished leaders formed part of JRD’s core team. They included the likes of Sumant Moolgaokar, Darbari Seth, Nani Palkhivala, Russi Mody, JJ Bhabha and Ratan Tata.

JRD led these successful people based on his principles, empowering them and building consensus where needed. Most importantly, he inspired these leaders to look beyond themselves and often achieve the impossible.

Speaking about how he did this, JRD himself once revealed his secret sauce of leadership: ‘If I have any merit, it is to deal with individuals, according to their manners and characteristics. Sometimes it means suppressing yourself. It is painful, but necessary. To be a leader, you have to lead people with affection.’

At the heart of JRD Tata’s ability to build and nurture a strong team was his eye for spotting exceptional talent and convincing them to join the Group.

Driving TELCO

Consider the story of Sumant Moolgaokar, the man who later built Tata Motors. In the 1940s, JRD Tata was on a learning mission to the UK and the US. He was accompanied by a young Moolgaokar, then a director of the Associated Cement Companies (ACC). During this visit, JRD saw how passionate this young man was about engineering and factories. He already knew of Moolgaokar’s brilliance in his current role. JRD felt increasingly confident that this was the man to head a new project the Tatas were about to launch, the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO).

When they got back to India, JRD asked him, ‘How long are you going to make the glue that sticks the bricks together?’ He then approached the Chairman of ACC, Sir Homi Mody, with a request to release Moolgaokar to TELCO. JRD’s request was initially rejected, as Sir Homi felt that ACC needed the man. But JRD kept insisting. He approached Sir Homi Mody again. Finally, Sir Homi agreed. How long could he keep saying no to the Chairman of the Tata Group!

JRD then brought on board Sumant Moolgaokar as Managing Director of TELCO. This was in 1949, when Moolgaokar was just 43 years old. For the next four decades, in most matters relating to TELCO, JRD relied on Sumant Moolgaokar’s expertise and judgement, while offering guidance where necessary. He did this because he quickly understood Moolgaokar’s leadership style. Many years later, JRD revealed this to his biographer RM Lala: ‘I realised early on that Sumant was a lone wolf. If I let him do his thing, he would deliver the goods. And he did.’

However, JRD was a constant source of motivation and support, keeping Moolgaokar cheerful even during difficult times.

Chemical excursions

A second story illustrates how JRD Tata discovered exceptional talent within the group and provided highly capable employees with a platform to make a big impact. In 1939, Tata Chemicals had been founded. The Tatas had acquired an existing soda ash business that had collapsed, because they felt there was a real opportunity to pioneer an inorganic chemical industry.

However, the production of soda ash was a closely guarded secret and consultants began advising JRD to get out of the business. They said that the location was not good and that the business was doomed to failure. The Tata Group was about to engage the services of a foreign company to help, when JRD Tata met a young chemical engineer named Darbari Seth during a review meeting. Seth debunked the foreign company’s proposal and enthusiastically presented his dream idea of ​​producing soda ash at Tata Chemicals and the details of how he would make it a reality.

His enthusiasm was infectious. JRD could feel the spark in this young man, although he could not understand all the technical details. Back at the office, JRD looked into Seth’s background and discovered that the young man was very well qualified. He had worked at Dow Chemicals in the US and had also previously designed a soda ash plant in the Netherlands. At Tata Chemicals, however, Seth was still in a relatively junior role and his managers did not want to listen to his ideas.

JRD came to the well-considered conclusion that Darbari Seth, with his deep expertise, unbridled enthusiasm and lateral thinking, could make Tata Chemicals a success. He immediately instructed the management to put Seth in charge of the soda ash plant, despite his youth. He then provided Seth with all the necessary support to navigate uncharted waters.

Darbari Seth went on to develop and implement the required technology and made Tata Chemicals a huge success. He led the company till his retirement in the 1990s and was recognised as a technocrat par excellence. Once again JRD’s eye for talent had paid off.

JRD was also keen to institutionalise the onboarding of exceptional leadership talent into the Tata group. To ensure this, he set up the Tata Administrative Service (TAS) in 1956.

Over the years, many TAS officers have held senior positions in the Tata group. Some of them were also pioneers. Two notable names from the early days of TAS are worth mentioning: Xerxes Desai, the man who created Titan, India’s most successful lifestyle company, and RK Krishna Kumar, the leader who built Tata Tea and led the acquisition of Tetley, the first-ever foreign brand to be acquired by an Indian company. JRD inspired both of them.

JRD Tata’s unwavering focus on talent not only strengthened the Tata Group but also transformed its fortunes. Like King Arthur and his valiant knights of the round table, JRD and his group of exceptional leaders will be talked about for a long time to come.

Title: Jamsetji Tata: Powerful Lessons for Business Success

Authors: Harish Bhat and R Gopalakrishnan

Publisher: Penguin

Reprinted with permission from Penguin