CAPT RAGHU RAMAN
CEO, MAHINDRA SPECIAL SERVICES GROUP

A summary of the talk delivered by Capt Raghu Raman, CEO, Mahindra Special Services Group under Leaders Speak series held on 21st December 2006.

This is the story of 100s and thousands of soldiers all across army and defence sources. I have just managed to capture a little bit of this and show it to you.
What is the most difficult thing you have had to face in your life?
Do you believe your efforts have been rewarded?
Has life been fair to you?
Right now what is the most pressing problem facing you?
Do you think you are happy? Do you think you are a good leader? If a crisis happens do you think you can pull yourself and your people out of that crisis?
Just mentally answer these questions to yourself.
This presentation is designed as a workshop in the Indian armed forces, where we teach this to junior leaders. In the army the norm is the officers who train their youngsters on operational battles are instructors who have been there. So jungle warfare would be taught by someone who has been in northeast etc. This was a piece which was taken from there and taught to junior officers.
There are six lessons in this entire workshop, which is getting a perspective, decision making and what is burden of command. Let me start by asking a question, how do you define experience? To me experience is not repeating the same thing ten times. Experience is trauma. If there is no trauma in a set of events, there is no experience. I can ask someone in Mumbai, where were you the day the bomb blast took place and he will tell exactly where he was, even if he was not in the bomb blast, because there is a trauma connected with the event. In many ways experience is not about the length of number of years you live or don’t live, it is the traumas you suffer during that period. These are moments which you learn from. In some sense if you are able to encompass huge trauma in a short time, it is a very experiential learning. Siachen in some sense provides that. It is one of the toughest battle grounds in the world. Temperatures there are minus 40. People just die of exhaustion. There are people who have lived out there for years, kids out there who are guarding the borders. May be there are other toughers areas, but I haven’t been there. So I am using this as the backdrop to talk about some lessons of leadership both strategic and tactical.
The coffin, Bofors scam, troops shooting each other notwithstanding, if there is one organization in this country which has delivered time and time again it is the Indian army is supposed to have three tasks – defence against external aggression, internal security duties and aid to civil authorities. Aid to civil authorities means when the civilian administrative infra collapses then the district magistrate or judiciary or the law calls the army to come and take over. In 2005, how many times the army was called out. 332 odd times last year. Virtually every day army was called whether it was helping a kid out of a hole or preserving law and order. My question to you is, what motivates these troops to sacrifice their lives in Kargil, to die on the basis of an order, to not care about their wives and kids and go and lay down the most supreme sacrifices which is leaving your child an orphan. So what motivates that troop? Out of the 350 of the cream of society, when I ask them to step there and tell me where on the map Siachen Glacier is? Not very many know. So how do you expect these Javans to have a national spirit, to have a national pride when the nation does not know where he is? Patriotism cannot be outsourced. My point is to simply drive home that the soldiers do not fight for the country as they have no concept of the country. A jawan who comes out of the Desert of Thar does not know what water looks like, a boy who comes out of Andamans does not know what a mountain looks like, they do not see the map of India beyond something that they have seen in school. They are not doing it for the country. Just like you and I don’t go to work everyday in the morning at 9 AM for the country. What do we go to work for?
The troops don’t give their lives for the nation or for the country; they give it for their leaders – the people who are leading them. The officers who actually take them into battle. The ones who deal with them on a daily basis. Their way of thinking, their dimensions of thinking, probably does not go beyond a unit, their own unit. They have no concept of the nation.
There is a book called “First Break All the Rules” which says basically people quit or join jobs because of their immediate bosses and that is essentially the point which is trying to come over here.
At the Siachen base camp where soldiers are trained before induction-it is considered one of the toughest training schools anywhere in the world-five percent causalities are accepted. The soldiers are trained here for ultra high altitude warfare skills. Some of them are transported there by heavy helicopters to a point from where they have to walk up. The Siachen glazier is about 4kms at its widest point and 70 kms long. It is rock, snow, sand and a river, and as we go north the river becomes more solid until it is plain ice, and the entire landscape becomes totally white. There are centuries of sedimentation of snow. It is an isolated place, nothing lives there, nothing grows there. Glacier is slowly moving all the time. When it moves it creates huge crevasses. Because of snow fall, these crevasses are covered. When a patrol is crossing it sometimes a person steps in to the crevasse and straight away goes down. Invariably it is either the first or last guy who goes down.
For days there would be no movements into or out of this area. There was a battalion which had gone in and a position was held by 30 odd soldiers. On the second day of the arrival of the troops one of the soldiers died and they had to keep the body of the soldier inside the posts for almost five months and 25 days. They could not throw away the body, one of their own. Nothing was going to happen to the body, it is minus 40. Can you imagine the leadership quality required by the lieutenant to command the remaining people and take them through six months of this kind of trauma, when one of the comrades lie dead there. That’s leadership, 22 year old kids do it.
To give you a scale of the post that we are going to talk about subsequently and also to give you an overview, the ridge we hold is a long ridge line. The camp houses about 180 people. From here the positions held on the ridge are serviced. All their ration, food, ammunition are carried on man pack. At some places landing pad had to be cut from ice rock for the helicopter to land. Patrolling one of the most physically exhausting is what takes most of the time of the day activity. Those of you who have had jaundice do you remember how much of an effort it was to move from one location to another. These people are operating in that physical state for almost a year. This is a ultra high altitude patrol. Every soldier has to carry a stove. Many times this is taught in the drill, when you come back from patrol, you have to get circulation in hands. Out of sheer exhaustion they try to warm it over the fire and get frost bite.
There are prayer flags. There is a pressure cooker baba temple. The legend is some years back. Pakis had fired a heat seeking missile, that had hit the pressure cooker of this camp. Thus saving all the people inside the bunker. The pieces of pressure cooker had been taken and kept in a shrine and people pray. When was the last time you were inside a flight and it went into a bump, and your heart came into your mouth. That is the state in which these people live for one year. And when you are in that state, you will pray to everybody. End of the day both sides of link up patrol go back, take their ration back in. The only thing which bring smile to the face of the soldier who is posted in the glacier is letters from home which at times can take weeks to arrive, if not months. And when they arrive they are all censored. No bad news, if there is bad news then that letter is not given to the soldier because once you are inducted into the glacier you will not be deinducted until your tenure is over. Once a captain, who is the commander in charge knows that the wife of a Jawan has died, but can’t tell him. The captain knows his wife has died but he has to look him in the eye everyday, and everyday take work out of him. Takes a lot of burden on your shoulders. The man is standing here and saying “today you can sleep peacefully. Nothing is going to happen to you, not during my watch”. The question that I ask how much these guys get paid? There are three issues. One is, of course, the factual data of how much he gets paid, second is how much he should get paid. But the real question I want to ask is, how much he gets paid more than a soldier who gets posted here at OTA Chennai or in Delhi Rashtrapathy Bhavan or in a peace area? Lets start with how much he gets paid actually? Jawan over here is paid around Rs.5000 – Rs.6000, which is roughly what your phone bill? So definitely he is not doing it for the money. Because his brother who works for the Mumbai police gets Rs.50,000 as a hawaldar. Second questions, how much he should be paid. We will leave that, that is an arbitrary question and the nation has to answer that. And the nation is by the way paying a price for not having answered the question which is why you have got more than 50 to 60 percent deficiency in the officer rank, the OTA here goes vacant. The question I really want to ask was, how much more he gets paid? In Siachen there is a line which has been drawn by some IAS officer who says everything over that is the Siachen line, anyone who lives on the north of the line for 90 days gets the Siachen medal with that medal there is an allowance that comes which used to be Rs.12.50 in 1993 which is now upgraded to Rs.70 and a couple of years ago the government decided that they must double it to Rs.140 per month. The issue that I wanted to talk about was one, we established upfront that the soldiers are not doing it for the nation, and now, also not for the money.
Why does he do it for the leader if he does it for the leader. Then what are the traits of a leader which can make this happen. What is good leadership? There is no definition. The concept of leadership defies definition as does the concept of a leader. We are not talking of global large leaders. In my mind Saddam Hussain is a leader, if he has run a country, taken on the biggest super power with people hostile to him. Prabhakaran is a leader. Let’s not talk about the exercise of the leadership skills, whether that was right or wrong. That is not the issue. The issue is, is there something to be learnt from them as a leader, how does he lead people, how does he amass people around them. I want to talk about one of the basic lessons which is taught at the academy from day one. I had the occasion to se it upfront, in the Siachen glacier, I mentioned to you there are three divisions. It is southern, central and northern glacier and we had two army units. One unit was doing great guns. Every day citations were being given, captured new territories. And in the other unit everyday there were casualties. There are occasions of people putting their hands inside snow waiting for it get chill and to be evacuated from there. Interestingly they are the same troops, same caliber, same enemy, same pay, same temperature. Then why does one bunch of 800 people do exceedingly well and the other bunch do exceedingly poor. We are taught when we leave the academy that there are no good units and bad units, there are only good and bad officers. I work with the mahindra group and am in a position to see problems of several other companies. So many times have heard this term my department is bad, my shift is bad, my factory location is bad, my territory is bad, it is not possible. There is no such concept as my people are bad. There is only an officer or a leader who is good or bad. So what is a good leader, what makes a good leader. Movie Laksh was shot in the chetwood hall of IMA where you have this statement written by Philip Chetwood in 1932, the safety honour, welfare of your country comes first every time. Safety well being honor of your men and their comfort comes second, your own comfort, safety and ease comes last always and everytime. This sounds too much like high flung philosophy to really work. Actually it is very effective and it really works. I remember when I was posted to the glacier there was a jeep which had come to pick me up. The nearest airport from our base is about 70 to 80 kms from the unit location, there was a hawaldar who was driving this jeep, we came through a small village. There was electric cable which was strewn across the road. So we stopped the jeep and he did not know if it was a live cable or not. So he got down and I started going towards the cable. As I was nearing the cable he shouted. Then he goes ahead and he touches this cable with his hand and puts it aside. I was shocked. I asked him “you told me not to touch the cable and you have done it. Why?” He says, “you are my responsibility. I have been tasked to bring you back to the unit in one piece.” So someone before me followed this, and it is incredible. During my career of about 11 years, the phase when I was facing worst personal problems, I went through traumatic situation, my company rallied around me and made sure that our company was doing well. In my mind, this philosophy works. But strangely many years later, I read a book which is called Good to Great. If talks about sign of leadership, if you just change the word country and put company, he talks exactly the same thing and he calls it level 5 leadership. One of the reasons why the forces continued to be the backbone of the country despite the kind of material and all of the negatives is because it follows the level 5 leadership where the unit is put ahead of the personal comfort of the individual, and which is why the individual is also taken care of by the unit and organization.
I will now take you back to Iqbal post and we will do a small exercise for five minutes which will put you through of what an army officer goes through under fire. The reason why I put this is to understand and have a good and cool perspective. The Iqbal post, every post in the Indian army whether field or peace location, has a system called daily situation report which ultimately goes to the Defence Minister on a daily basis. One other organization - Railways - does this exercise of checking every track once 24 hours. Typically this is at a certain time. Sometimes the commanding officer will call for a surprise all ok report. On one of these surprise all ok reports Iqbal does not response. Two things could have happened – one, line communication could have broken, rare but it happens. If line communication is broken then you cannot use the radio due to radio security. Defensibility of this post against a concentrated attack from Pakistanis is their ability to call artillery fire, if that ability is taken away, then these 20 odd people can incur huge causalities on enemy, though enemy will take over.
Two Pakis could have mounted a stealth attack. They could have infiltrated and captured the post, we have done it to them, and they have done it to us. And if that happens, then they will induct more troops here to cut off the southern glacier. If this position is cut off, then we are finished. Each minute that you are delaying the Pakistanis are building up on the posts. Now, this is the situation at 9:30 Iqbal has not responded. You are the company commander and you have been told that Iqbal is out of communication. Brigade wants to know when was the last time you spoke to them etc. First thing you will want to do is go to the location, but to go to that place, it will take one night. Besides if pakis had indeed taken over that place, it is required to coordinate the reinforcement troops. Another position called ‘hoshiyar’ manned by 10 to 15 soldiers, was given instruction to gather men and go on top to check what is going on. He asks whether the move will be administrative or tactical. Tactical movement assumes that the enemy is on top. So you will move under the intention that if you encounter anyone it is the enemy. You will move and fire at anybody. In Administrative move he will just swing the rifle behind and move up. Do you see the problem here? You are in the cacophony of information being asked from various directions. No Mckinsey report, no Gartner survey, no numbers to crunch, no projections. If you don’t take a call right now means that the Pakis are building up, each build up means casualties to recapture will be that much higher. You are the man who is sitting there who has to take a call right now. This is the burden of command. Like many other things this is difficult to define, From experience I will explain what this means. I am from Delhi, Venkateshwara college. When you pass out from the college and go and join IMA, they try to push you out of the academy in the first few months. The 18months there are very hard. But at the end of 18 months, when you get the star on the shoulder, the instructor who put the boot at the back, will stand in front of you and salute you, because now you are an officer. So you feel like god, until the day you lose a jawan in your command. The day you lose him, if you are from the good unit as I was, you have to go to the widow and tell her that I was the officer in command when her husband died. When she tries to claw your face and asks you what happens to these three girls, then you realize the weight of this star on your shoulders for the first time. That is called burden of command.
There is an interesting story of how an instructor teaches in the academy. He has the students who are assembled standing in front of him. He calls one of them and tells him to get inside the body bag and asks another one to zip it up. And then he tells the rest, your mistakes go inside this. Not only this body but his future generation, his widow who will be ripped to pieces, if she is from Haryana or one of these states, where a woman-alone-will not have a chance of survival. That’s what will happen if you make a single mistake in your decision.
What really happened that night at Iqbal was-this phone which is used there is made of ceramic, therefore it becomes really cold at night and what most local commanders do is they put it inside the sleeping bag- and while doing that the wire had come out of the instrument. So the calls were not going in. Suddenly about 11 – 11:30 seeing the activity of firing, the centries came running back and woke up the commander. He tries to ring the base, when he realizes that the wire is out and puts it back. Then suddenly at about 12, I get a call that Iqbal is back online. And the moment you get that call you are in a panic. You have given a set of instructions which is happening and you start shouting at these guys who are in a daze as it is. He is hearing his boss screaming at the other end. Then you say in measured clipped voice, ask them to drop weapons. That’s where the discipline of the army comes in, then he runs out and says drop the weapons. And at that instant there are two soldiers who have pulled out grenade pins and they are waiting. I had ordered for a tactical move to go up. So pins were put back in to the grenade. The situation was diffused there. And then one grew five years, ten years in one night.
My first job was with a company called Automart India. It is wholly owned company of M&M. During one of the initial press conferences, year 2000, the press asked me, “where have you done your MBA”, and I told them that it was from Siachen glacier because I have taken men in to battle without ESOPs, pay hikes, without paid vacations in Hawaii. Ofcourse we had some advantages there that our soldiers will not quit us and join Pakistani army. And most of the time we know which side the enemy is.
Do we want to be good managers or good leaders? They are two different animals. A good manager can organize very well, but a good leader can inspire. What does inspiration mean, again hard to describe.
The interesting thing is you don’t have to hear the siachen story to realize where you are in life. When you go back from here, you just have to roll down your windows to take a look at the people, at the kids begging, who are at the streets. You realize you are way on the right side of the fence. You are here inside this room by a series of miracles which is incredibly miraculous. If you have to look at the number of people who are not here and are way below you in any which way, and you are here, healthy, blessed enough to be sitting here, I think we have a lot to be thankful for. You will get that reality check in every day of your life.
This is a speech which is given by a NCO, a hawaldar, who are talking to officers passing out from the academy. It is meant for an audience of officers who are passing out. He has been there, done it, medals, UN mission, overseas operations etc. He is reading this. “I feel a tinge of regret that I am not young enough to be sitting out there with all of you. You have so many years of challenges and adventure to look forward to and so many of these years are behind me. Soon you will meet your platoon sergeants, and other non commissioned officers and your troops. What do we expect from you as officers, commanders and leaders. We expect of you personal integrity and the highest of morals; maintain highest state of personal experience, be fair and consistent, to have dignity but not aloofness; to have compassion and understanding and to treat each soldier as an individual with individual problems. We expect you to have courage, courage of your convictions, courage to stand up and be counted to defend your men when they have followed your orders, even when it is your orders which have been in wrong; to assume the blame when you were in the wrong. We expect you to stick out your chin and say, this man is not qualified and therefore he will be promoted only over my dead body.
Gentlemen I implore you, do not promote a man because he is a nice man, he has wife and kids or because he has many problems, because you are under pressure to promote him. If he is not capable of performing his duties of his grade do not do him and us the injustice of advancing him a grade because when he leaves you or when you leave him, he will become someone else’s problem. Gentlemen, we expect you to have courage in the face of danger. Many of you will soon be in operations where there are no safe launches. During your tenure opportunity will arise to display personal courage and leadership. Opportunity could arise from which you may emerge as heroes. Hero is an individual who is faced with undesirable situation and employs means at his disposal to make that situation tenable or to nullify that situation. Do not display recklessness and expose yourself and your men to take unnecessary risks that will reduce their normal chance of survival. This will only shake their confidence in your judgement.
Gentlemen you know what we expect from you. What can you expect from us? From a few of us who had the opportunity to be officers but didn’t have motivation to accept the challenge, you can expect resentment. From a few of us you can expect antagonism or approve your self first. From a few old veterans you can expect tolerance, but most of us you can expect loyalty to your position, devotion for the cause and admiration for your honest effort, courage to match courage, guts to match guts, endurance to match endurance, motivation to match your motivation and desire for achievement to match yours. We wont mind the heat if you sweat with us, we wont mind the cold if you shiver with us. And if the mission requires we will storm the very gates of hell right behind you. Gentlemen, you don’t accept us. We were here first, we accept you. And when we do, you will know. We won’t beat drums, or carry you on our shoulders, one day in a party one of us will pick up a glass of rum and say you are ok. Your orders appointing you as officers in the armed forces appointed you to command, no order, no insignia, no letter of rank can appoint you as leaders. Leadership is an intangible thing. Leaders are made, not born. It is developed within yourself. You are a leader in the army that we have served for so many years. I wish you happiness, luck, success in the exciting challenges that lie ahead of you”?