Some more musings on ICF and our path to manufacture of Train 18

Trade Unions, like them or not, act as the proverbial bridge between the management and the workers on IR. Without undermining their role, direct interaction with a genuine model of workers’ participation in management is equally important. On IR, however, some sporadic ornamental machineries and instruments masquerade as workers’ participation measures; all make-believe and sham, with the same union leaders turning it into just another PNM (Permanent Negotiating Meeting, a structured format of meetings with recognized labour unions). One such machinery is called PREM (Participation of Railway Employees in Management); prem means love in Hindi. But it is nothing about love, it is precisely no more than more of the same. Once as a middle-level branch officer, I went to my DRM with some ideas about PREM. The DRM liked me but threw my suggestions in the trash. He added for good measure with some choicest expletives, “Prem nahin  &$&$&. Yahan sale afsar to itne kaddu hain, ab  staff batayega ki divison kaise chalega?” (What Prem! The officers here are so bootless, now the staff will teach how to run the division?) That sums it up.

You cannot controvert the simple fact that in IR, and perhaps most organizations, the fountainhead of new thinking and transformational changes emanate from the leadership. But a host of significant ideas and innovations must be tapped from the bottom to top or otherwise these would remain underground, never coming to fore for actual implementation. We made some serious attempts to involve all levels of ICF personnel in the functioning of our organization. Without dismantling any of the decorative committees and machinery already in place, we devised some more effective and participative methods. We set up a simple mechanism of monthly meetings inviting suggestions from all. The suggestions would be received till a couple of hours before the meeting and all the individuals who took the trouble of forwarding any idea were invited to present their proposal. All key executives would be present. The response ran to some 20 to 25 new ideas and Babu would take them up one by one. Nothing was discouraged or disparaged, everyone was thanked, albeit some humour was always a part of the interaction. The ideas would usually be accepted either for implementation or examination and rarely dropped summarily. The idea would then be a part of successive discussions till its implementation or exclusion. During a wrap review, I was astonished to see that more than a hundred ideas were actually implemented and some were under various stages of implementation in the last two years or so. 

Meeting of the innovators

Keynes, the famous economist has said somewhere that the difficulty lied not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones; he has also said that ideas shaped the course of history. Spot on, sir!

Another very fruitful exercise that we initiated was the one month one idea (name coined by Srinivas). It was something which I would always do in my earlier postings as well. What it involved was that every single officer of ICF must conceive an idea for an improvement in any area of ICF; the only caveat was that this could not be an idle ideation rhetoric but the implementation was also going to be the baby of the officer who extended the idea. They had to own it in toto. Typically, I would sit with the officers of one group, say Design or Shell Factory, with their boss and the officers would present their ideas. After a free discussion, the idea would be either accepted or discarded. If accepted, the officer concerned had three months to fully implement it, with the onus resting squarely upon her or him. If discarded, the officer concerned had to come with two ideas in the next monthly meeting. At first look, this may appear to be rather far-fetched. Not at all. Most of the officers rose to the occasion and would at times bring two ideas so they were ready with an alternate idea if one was not accepted. Some officers did not fully comprehend the concept of ideation to implementation through a single window; they tended to pass on the blame to some other individual or agency. After some meetings it was clear that excuses would not work. Simple. Because the choice of the idea as well as the responsibility of its implementation was theirs; of course, it being known that the magnitude of the idea was not important with even a small new modification in design, process or upkeep being welcome. If some officers still had excuses, the bard came to my help, through Pembroke in King John, “And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.” 

There were only a handful of officers who were bereft of ideas at all and cut a sorry figure in the meetings. By the way, what do you do with an officer who has no new ideas? In my opinion, such officers were those who would contribute nothing towards progress and transformation; they were consciously consigned to some insignificant work. And why should we carry the burden of suchlike? I also initiated a process to actually get rid of them. I would, however, have loved to consult Ghalib,

Hai   aadmi     bajai    khud    ik   mahshar-e-khayal,

ham anjuman samajhte hain khalvat hi kyun na ho 

(A man himself is a bedlam of thoughts and ideas, I think of solitude as a party)

Was the experiment successful? Immensely, without any doubt. ICF has some 165 officers. Some group of officers with daily involvement with me were excused; some other less intense groups were required to have an idea only once every three months. But at any rate, some 75 to 100 ideas would be generated, on average, every month making it some 3000 ideas in my tenure. Taking an average strike rate of about 70%, some 2000 ideas got converted to a solid new work in this period. All these works would not have been done but for the one month one idea activity and you can imagine the impact. Two thousand kickers! Some of these ideas, particularly from Furnishing shops were not only adopted for regular coaches but also adapted for Train 18.

After every meeting, I along with the boss of the group, would quickly choose the best 2 or 3 ideas. Those who forwarded these ideas were then presented with a certificate. I was told that the snaps of these officers receiving certificates would be promptly posted on ICF social media (and beyond). To my mind, this itself was a good measure of the success of the exercise.

A typical One Month One Idea meeting

We followed up all these changes and their clear acceptability and popularity with creation of ICF icons: three of them, the Integral Man, the father of coaches, the Integral Mahila, the new ICF shakti (power) and the Integral Environmentalist, the embodiment of our green consciousness. These icons which we created as a tribute to the spirits of ICF can be seen adorning the ICF premises today at all strategic corners in the premises. They continue to enthuse the workers towards purposeful action in building coaches, empowering women and improving our environment.

The Integral Man, the Integral Mahila and the Integral Environmentalist icons of ICF

Constant interaction with staff had its lighter moments too. Once Trivedi refused tea in my room, telling me unabashedly that the tea served in my room was the worst in all ICF. To a person like me, perhaps lamentably, tea in office is just tea, it can neither be good nor bad. But I could not let the affront go unaddressed. I interviewed the tea maker of my secretariat and Suresh and I had some fun at his expense. He was then politely asked to carry a poster with the legend, “I make the worst tea in ICF” to Trivedi’s room and everyone had some more light-hearted banter. Soon thereafter, I dumped the doctor’s advice and switched back to coffee instead of tea. And voila! I was once chatting with K.S.Asla, our thinking Finance officer, the 2 IC of Finance, a very pro-active advisor and certainly not a pushover by a mile. Asla told me that although meeting me in my room was not a boring exercise, yet, the primary reason that he liked to meet me was that the filter coffee in my room was one of the best in the whole of Chennai. Really? The tea maker soon had another poster to carry:

The tea and coffee man

As the excitable struggles to start manufacture were on almost on daily basis, I had to contend with another nagging problem. Success of any major project is an aggregation of the efforts at various level of the team. The team is of paramount importance. A GM of IR is perhaps more empowered today as compared to a CEO of a private company. In private sector, however, whenever a new leader takes over a challenging job, he is free to build his own team. No such extravagance, if may say so, is available to a GM of IR; his core team comprises officers posted under him by the Board. As GM of ICF I was fortunate that a great team was already in place and I have already named most of the top level officers of the team. But the good fortune was not going to last. Some key officers would come up for promotion or some other consideration and the threat of their transfer would loom large. Some myopic officer in Board was sure to look at the number of years some officer had done in ICF declare that it was time to move him. The accomplishments of the officer and the importance of the work he had in hand would be of no consequence. I doubt if these hidebound officers had heard of Bassanio saying, “Wrest once the law to your authority. To do a great right, do a little wrong,” in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. A common refrain would be that no one was indispensable. They would ignore that there was something like a good fit for a job. If everyone could fit everywhere, evaluating any merit in officers was meaningless. This by the way is one of the reasons why the government of the day goes through the 360 degree feedback before an important appointment. If something meaningful has to be achieved, it has to be done by showing a special consideration towards competent officers; lack of recognition of this principle just to satisfy some rigid and dogmatic sense of justice to all is definitely one of the reasons of the mediocrity and pedestrian performance that prevails.

I did not let go and kept beseeching and cajoling the Board, trying to ensure that key officers of the team were not disturbed and mostly succeeded with some exceptions. For example, I had to let Vavre leave in the middle of the most crucial part of the project. He had to go on promotion and the Board member concerned was hardly going to find a way to accommodate his promotion at ICF itself. Similarly, Trivedi, an officer with unique capabilities, would leave us midway as he was slated to go places, beginning with his posting as GM of East Central Railway. While losing Vavre was a big blow, his replacement was not very difficult with Dash being available close at hand, getting the right replacement for Trivedi was not easy. I know nearly all the officers of that level in Mechanical department of IR and not many fitted the role. I thought of Shubhranshu, then working as Chief Safety Officer in Central Railway. I had worked with on earlier and knew his effectiveness and potential. To my mind, the best man for the job, given the complexities of the job, which included adjusting to and adopting the convoluted ways required frequently on IR to keep moving towards your objectives. I had to plead with Ashwani Lohani, who had recently take over as CRB. As most people know, Lohani is one of the most level-headed leaders IR ever produced. He understood our predicament. I seized the opportunity. Before anyone could react, Lohani agreed and that was that. 

As for the team at lower level, it was within my competence. Ensuring that was neither a piece of cake nor so difficult and we did manage continuity of the team of middle level officers and supervisors. Eventually, and thankfully too, we did not suffer any major rupture in the entire team Train 18 and it indubitably was one of the reasons of the success of the project.

God for Christians and Muslims and gods for Hindus are omnipresent, literally in work places on IR workshops and factories. In ICF, however, it has been taken to another level. Every single shop, section or office has presence of Hindu gods and goddesses in a separate large pedestal, which, per se, was understandable given the demography. In any case, many work places were more secular with representation of all major religions. As an atheist, I was somewhat flustered by it but could approach the issue very cautiously, what with the sentiments involved. In a lighter vein, I would summarize it as:

Yahan khuda, wahan khuda hai, idhar khuda, udhar khuda  hai,

Aur jahan abhi tak nahin khuda hai, wahan bhi kal ko khudega!

(I see God here, I see God there, I see God everywhere. And where I do not see God today, would be dug up to accept God tomorrow)

February 9^th was fixed as the day of the commencement of manufacture. The jigs were ready and the input components were checked for accuracy meticulously. There would be a pooja, I was told. No pooja please, I told Babu. Trivedi would have none of this. One man’s sense of propriety borne out of atheism could not hold the sentiments of entire ICF to ransom; I was told that I not only had to permit the pooja, I would ruddy well take part in it. There I was, totally stymied. I had to bow down to the popular sentiment, fully aware that there could never be any salvation in it for me as God, or gods, would not be kind to an argumentative and reluctant worshipper:

Na  khuda hi  mila na  visal-e-sanam na idhar ke hue na udhar ke hue

rahe dil mein hamare ye ranj-o-alam na idhar ke hue na udhar ke hue 

(I gained neither the love of God nor the beloved, now go subsist with this regret and sorrow!)

The team had all lined up as we arrived for the simple ceremony. I did what the punditji directed me to do. All senior officers met the nominated manufacturing and coordinating design team one by one; the pride and excitement was writ large on their faces. I did a small weld myself which, unfortunately, had to be fettled and redone later. 

Thankfully, no one told me that I had made a great weld; in railways we can go to ridiculous extents to please and indulge senior people. I remember once in a rifle shooting competition, we had a bull’s eye paper pierced and kept hidden just near the eye; once the chief guest fired the inaugurating shot, which obviously went over the target board by a mile, someone ran from the other end with the pre-pierced paper, shouting “bull’s eye missed by a whisker”, causing the chief guest to start beaming expansively, being oh so happy with his rifle shooting skills. Hundreds of hands were put together although the ruse we used was known to everyone. 

Ravichandran had a tale to tell about the challenges which we listened to patiently. That is a small price to pay when you engage someone to do a seemingly impossible job. This was a happy moment. A big round of claps by all to a crescendo and there it was, manufacture of Train 18 had started.

Pooja done, flag raised and manufacture starts

Train 18 had to be out 2018 and we were in February already. We knew that that the prototypes would need extensive rework and reapplications as the jig saw puzzle hardly ever fitted well in the first go; and remember, with nearly every coach being different from the other, we had sixteen prototypes to handle. Time was of essence and we had no time to lose. 

During a talk on the cultural changes at IC and the development of Train 18, a question put to me was whether the HR initiatives that we took made Train 18 possible or whether these HR initiatives were undertaken to realize the Train 18 goal. To me it sounded like the cliché: first the chicken or the egg? Well, the question was settled, or so they thought in the Christian world, because in the biblical story of origin describing the creation of animals, it allowed for a first chicken that did not come from an egg. In case of ICF, however, just the reverse was true and my reply was rather simple. We would certainly have taken these HR initiatives to bring about cultural changes with a view to improving productivity and performance of ICF in all fields, Train 18 or not. Albeit, Train 18 would not have been possible had these measures not been in place.

I have talked of many soft initiatives already. Some more, inter alia, as we moved on were: socializing with staff with abundance, inculcating pride in the organization by wearing uniforms with imprint of ICF and creation of inspiring icons, art and sculpture competitions etc. On another plane, it included huge investments. Investments into improvement of workplace environment by upgradation of protective gear and clothing, lockers, drinking water outlets, canteens, toilets and rest rooms as also investments in renovation of and facilities in staff colonies, community halls, parks and sporting facilities and so on. 

Labour unions are a necessity. The problem starts when the management is too docile and weak, giving upper hand to unions who then interfere in day to day working to keep their supremacy intact. On the other hand, any tendency of management to deal with unions in a supercilious manner, treating them merely as necessary evils without any sensitivity and empathy towards them, leads to a situation simmering for industrial unrest.

Whether dealing with such men or their organized unions, it is all about the value you put on your human capital. As long as you recognize the primacy of human resource over all other resources and you deal with them sensitivity, warmth and empathy, half the battle is won. The above example was only one of the few exceptions where you have to show extra firmness but otherwise this simple mantra would always work. Time to digress a little for this universal truth, on to the superior intelligence of Shakespeare in Macbeth when the lady was dead and the lord was nearing his end:  

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

When uncontrolled ambition and berserk ego take over, the end is not far. When ego rides roughshod over respect and goodness, when a selfish and self-centred ethos is the guiding light into a world of self-serving, all meaning begins to be drained out of the human story: “Life’s but a walking shadow...”. We must devise a counterweight to the force of ego and resist the seduction of misplaced ambition and false ego, especially when it seeks the destruction of others, and in this action lies salvation for self, people and organizations. Be it egoistic leaders of management or unions, the story is the same. While such egoistic management leaders I have met many, I encountered such union leaders rarely. Even the protagonist of the brouhaha at Bangalore continues to be a good friend as we had recognised the compulsions of each other. Treating this rendezvous as an aberration, let me come to the story of the unions at ICF. 

I was fortunate that our HR management, incidentally called rather poorly as the Personnel department, was headed by a very calm and composed officer Mohan Raja, the Principal Chief Personnel Officer (PCPO). He had an excellent connect to the ground realities of ICF and his judgement never went wrong. He could be very assertive but at the same time he was not lacking in sensitivity and compassion. It made my job very easy. No industrial situation, howsoever precarious and touchy, ever turned into a crisis. There were some top leaders who had disciplinary proceedings going on against them for some earlier incidences. While the cases were pursued on fast track and brought to the logical conclusion, we did not act on them as these leaders, to their credit, were playing a mostly constructive role in our progress. My intuition in the issue was that if I went the way of a copybook disciplinarian and took strong action, we would lose the bond with unions and the men at large. While it may seem like a deviation from our policy, it was not so. It felt that recognizing the leaders who actually led your men with some indulgence, like it or not, would be beneficial in keeping the work force aligned with our larger goals. All other key officers were also on board with the way we handled the unions. The bottom line was that throughout my tenure, we were happy that there was hardly any incidence of industrial unrest in ICF. 

Be that as it may, things worked wonderfully, with a very active role played by Mohan Raja. The ability to stand up for what is right and to be able to correct what is wrong is usually amiss, almost everywhere. This quality is what defines an individual and all other traits are borne out of this singular attribute only. Everything else is secondary. Mohan Raja had this quality and he moulded his team accordingly.

While the mild-mannered but assertive Mohan Raja was the fulcrum in all our endeavours towards exploiting our human resources to their full potential, he was going to be the mainstay when we decided that the time was ripe for ICF to adopt a universal biometric attendance system in ICF. Biometrics for attendance for all factory workers? Simple yet complicated, both at once. 

So what could be so complicated about a system which should have been in place to begin with. All the workshops, factories and even maintenance depots/sheds of IR work on what is informally called a contract system between the shop floor management and workers. The work content for a day is informally, and at times formally in incentive-based units, is fixed and workers tend to complete the work in less than the duty hours, and having completed the task, they leave the work place. So the units in IR have workers on duty from as low as three hours to six hours per day; a unit with assembly line type working would have them working for six hours but in others it would be usually three to five hours. ICF, although not as bad a as certain units in Punjab and Bengal, was no exception and the norm was about four hours of solid work and then home. This was an open secret for decades and when IR started introducing biometrics for attendance, they limited it to office and other desk staff who did not have the nuisssance value to stop core work. Feeble attempts to introduce biometrics for shop floor workers became a victim of status quoism, driven by convenience of comfort zone and timidity. Another chalta hai for you. I was always bitterly critical of our forefathers in IR who allowed the system to degenerate to this level. But here I was, the GM of ICF and now left with no alibi to point fingers at others while doing nothing to rectify this stark dereliction. I had to act. 

Yes, I had to act. But I was conscious, like Falstaff in Henry IV, that the better part of valour was discretion. This was no time to be foolishly wise, just as one would in the footsteps of Touchstone. This was not something you tackle by bulldozing; all those who made such attempts in the past at large workshops or factories cut a sorry figure with nothing except commotion to show for in the end. My message to Raja and all other senior officers, particularly Manish Pradhan and Shashi Bhushan was simple. We had to do it but gradually, without inviting a precipitative situation which would tend to derail the larger things we had on the anvil, like enhanced production, new models and of course, Train 18.

Raja along with both the CWEs was doing a fine job. We were in no hurry but the key members were very firm that it was now or never. The more docile office and desk staff were already in the biometric regime and they were happy that it would be made universal. Our target was to start it latest early 2018 but the unions would come up with some objection or the other. Trivedi was all for it albeit with a caveat; this should not cause an unnecessary drop in outturn. By the way, he had earlier tried some novel ways of admonishing the staff who turned up late. A large group of scouts and guides would gather at the factory main gate with placards saying, “Dear parent, Why do you ask us to go to school in time when you yourself do not report to work in time?” It did not help in getting the biometrics going, for sure, but certainly helped in setting the agenda loud and clear. 

The contract for capturing the finger scans and photographs was already finalized, waiting for our go ahead. Meanwhile, I learnt informally that there were nearly two hundred employees who never turned up for work and their attendance was marked through proxy. They had some business or other engagements and their job at ICF was merely like an additional insurance. They would settle with the lower level supervisors and colleagues to give up their incentive earnings to them and perhaps some occasional goodies. Having manipulated the system this way, they would simply absent themselves with impunity I made a note of this valuable information and instead of going straightaway after it, which would not have been difficult, waited for the right time.

The right time soon came. Raja told me that a final strong push was required to go ahead with biometrics. I met the union representatives and they asked me, quite disarmingly, “1) Why go for this system when there was no stress on this from the Board? 2) Why only at ICF when no other unit is planning for it? 3) With increasing production and good industrial relation prevailing in ICF, why introduce a coercive system?” And so on. 

I told them that our workers should have the pride of being the first unit on IR to implement it. The discussions meandered along the expected lines till I threw in the clincher, “1) We would have some flexibility in the entry time to keep it in line with the current practice 2) We would do it for recording presence and not insist on out attendance 3) We would inform the Board of our initiative and ask them to introduce it in at least two other large units on IR and once they do so, we would go for a comprehensive system including out attendance.” I then asked them if they knew of some two hundred fellows who never turned up for work. As they huffed and hawed, I threw the poet Kabir at them and explained the meaning:

Bakri paati khat hai,  taki kheenchi khal

Je nar bakri khat hain, tinka kaun hawal

(The poor goat eats leaves and we end up skinning it but the men who eat the goat itself, what should you do to them?)

What I conveyed was that biometrics was not for all the sincere leaves-eating staff who came to work, albeit a bit late, but for those who did not come at all, the men who ate goat. This worked and the meeting was concluded with a clear mandate to start universal biometrics. Scanning work was started within days and biometric attendance at entry time introduced soon after. There were some hiccups like some senior supervisors complaining that they found it embarrassing, or even infra dig, to record attendance along with the staff; they said that since they, in any case, worked extra hours, they should be exempted from this ignominy. I thought about it, called two senior principal chief offciers, got ourselves photographed registering our attendance and put banners all across the factories with these photos and the legend, “The biometrics system is for one and all, do not forget to register your attendance”. 

Biometrics for all, GM downwards

But what has the revival of a dying lake got to do with making of Train 18? Everything. Restoration of this lake embodied the resolve of the members of ICF. And when migratory and roving birds descended in its waters for the first time in decades, they represented the vibes of vitality inherent in ICF; after all, you can fool people through some hard sell but can you deceive a flock of birds who soar high to come down to earth only at a beseeming spot?

My salutation to Allama Iqbal who explained to us the meaning of flight. As these migratory birds flew around the lake, the human resource of ICF got a new slogan:

Ai tair-e-lahauti us rizq se maut achchi 

jis  rizq se aati  ho parvaz mein  kotahi

(O Gabriel, death is better than that existence which prevents flight.)

These birds had discovered ICF and ICF had discovered itself. We were ready to fly high, with not just with Train 18, but many Train 18s to come.

(to be continued...)