Meeting with MD or Yam Raj!

Despite the daily onslaughts of e-mails, phone calls, and memos and the recent invention of WhatsApp – where the data and images are quickly transferred within a fraction of a second subject to the availability of the network – meetings are still one of the most effective ways that people share and exchange information, get feedback, plan, collaborate and make important decisions for their organizations. The meetings at the root as well as top level are more important and if done well, they can also be great for building morale and sales in production houses. I had observed that meetings are part of the service for discussions over finalizing the plans. Sometimes, these are called with lengthy agendas that could never be discussed in two to three-hour meetings. Moreover, the information asked is already with the headquarters office but they hardly take any trouble to tabulate them to update the data.

I recollect that once a meeting was arranged to discuss the issue of providing more staff to the Reconciliation Cell established in the Accounts Department. To my surprise, the head of the department before allowing to have discussions over the issue over a meeting, asked the officer to first come up with a note that the existing staff was inefficient which required the creation of a Reconciliation Cell so that we may first initiate action against them. And the meeting was never organized during my more than decades stay at the headquarters. But the incident of attending an emergent meeting in the 80s is unforgettable. The issue of disposal of damaged wheat stocks stored on the open plinths, due to shortage of covered cap storage, was so sensitive when I happened to accompany my boss to attend the meeting at Chandigarh at dot ten in the morning. In those days, the technology was not so advanced that the information could be tabulated and prints taken out. Each ‘babu’ has to update the data manually and get it typed for presentation. Anyhow, all the required information and data were made available by using the pressure tactics of attending the meeting.

Each district was provided with a jeep for touring and attending meetings with a driver. The driver was told about attending the meeting on time. But on the way to the journey, I observed that the driver was a little more conscious than our journeys in the past. He was driving at high speed and we had been saved twice hitting the opposite vehicle.

Frankly speaking, regardless of having read that defensive driving might seem dull safety should be a paramount consideration on the road but reaching on time at the meeting by us was also equally important. I too had told the driver that driving in the queue and driving at a distance is the only road safety mantra as the accident takes place with a decision in a fraction of a second. Anyhow, we arrived on time for the meeting and back home safely. I cannot forget the words of the boss advising the driver in a casual talk so that he may not mind – “Data Ram, drive carefully, I had to attend the meeting with the Managing Director (MD) and not Yam Raj (YR)”. But the words of my boss have been ringing in my ears for years.