PARTNERSHIP 2000
-- Phiroze Lam, Executive Director, interviewed by B. K. Karanjia

"I feel that there is a future for this Company which is bright, and which must be pursued at all cost, irrespective of any sacrifice. Today, Godrej enjoys a high sense of loyalty from its employees, a trait which is rare and precious. While nurturing this quality on one side, the Company must also have its own quid pro quo. We have embarked on this journey under Partnership 2000 and we will get there, however long it takes and whatever it costs."

P.D. Lam

Partnership 2000 was an exercise which was undertaken by Godrej, as Godrej was conscious of the need to effect change, in order to survive in a fiercely competitive business environment. Godrej saw, that if it was not prepared to change, and change adequately and fast, it would cease to be a dominant reckoning factor, in the lines of businesses which it was currently ensuing. Whatever actions the Company had taken, were grossly inadequate to equip it for what the future held in store. It was, therefore, absolutely imperative to create a vibrant human culture, which was capable of sustaining the growth and profitability which the Company badly required.

My earlier interview with Phiroze Lam some years ago was at 7.30 in the morning. Entering his small but elegantly appointed study, I saw him at his desk winding a rectangular-shaped clock. The benign look on his face arrested me. The sort of look first-time fathers have when holding the baby in their arms. A look I was to understand much later.

Putting the clock away, he greeted me. Often I had watched him at a distance, smartly dressed, a brisk businesslike walk. A broad open face, dark brown thinning hair brushed tightly across, no sign of stress from the gruelling 6.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. schedule, a warm smile, calm, poised. But his eyes rivet you, small, jewelly eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses, measuring you up.

This was my second interview with the man recognised as a powerful motivator. Like his great mentor and dear friend, the late Naval Godrej (who is still living for him and with whom he often converses), Lam sets higher and yet higher targets for his managers and salesmen, cajoling, driving them to the limits of achievement.

And his rewards too are magnanimously proportionate. People in Pirojshanagar talk to this day how when the Office Equipment Division exceeded its target, Lam wangled from Jamshyd Godrej a free trip to Australia, all expenses paid, for as many as 70 belonging to the Division.

A no-nonsense-man, Lam can be most genial once you win his confidence. Move away from the Executive Directorship in which he has made a distinctive mark, ask him how he relaxes, he opens up and you get a glimpse into the inner recesses of a cultivated man, more intricate than a watch’s mechanism.

His voice softens to a mumble, lilts into dreamy cadences, as he recounts how he loves travelling, exploring new places, making new acquaintances, and doing things he’s never done before. How he loves Western classical music, good books, sculpture, but finds so little time to indulge. Inevitably he reverts to his watches and clocks of which he has a sizeable collection, a hobby that in the course of 30 years has grown into a passion, a means of sustenance in the heavy hours. Symbolic of the man who sets great value on time and extracts the utmost out of it. A measure of time.

The collection is exclusive, also exclusively his. Nobody is allowed to touch it. On a Sunday he takes each piece down, gently wipes off the dust, puts it back on the shelf, ensures it is at the right angle to give an aesthetically perfect appearance. Then he sits back and contemplates his collection, lost to the world.

What must this collection be worth, the inquisitive enquire? But they’re using the wrong measure. Its worth isn’t in what it cost, but in the love he showers on it and the joy he derives from it.

In a swift change of mood, he looks at the book I’ve just gifted him. Sohrab Godrej’s Memoirs. You know, he remarks, Sohrabji is the only man in the entire world I’ve seen with a darned tie! Once, prior to visiting Russia, Sohrab enquired of his friends what the Russians truly liked. Chewing gums and ball-point pens, he was told. So, while other industrialists gave expensive gifts to the Russian President, Sohrab presented a package containing lots of chewing gum and ball point pens. Brezhnev looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything. Behind Sohrab’s eccentricities, Lam avers, lay a shrewd calculating mind.

Lam is a proud man. When he does something, he does it without expecting anything in return. He demands the same respect from his superiors as he gives them. His sense of obligation is keen. If there’s one thing he dislikes more than anything in the world, it’s being taken for granted.

A self-contained, fulfilled, complete man, who still has so many promises to keep--and so little time.

Once again, as I get up to leave, he picks up Sohrab’s Memoirs. Rapidly glances through its pages. The same benign look comes over his face. “Reading this is also going to relax me,” he says. I thank him for the compliment.

- P.D.M