K K Was Here
R K Krishna Kumar, my boss of eight long years when I worked at what was then Tata Tea Limited & Consolidated Coffee Limited, passed away on the 1st day of January 2023. As I key this in, there is a strange and surreal feeling of loss, mixed with the thought of being left without a mentor. For long many years, I have always considered RKKM my boss, philosopher and guide. A person who has had a profound and strong influence on thousands of lives (mine included) that made careers out of a corporate existence.
As a working person, I think you are a function of the bosses you have worked under. The more you work under bosses of different leadership styles, work ethos and temperament alike, the more you become like them. At times you become a motley mix.
Think. If you have worked under just one boss all your life, don’t you quite look like him or her or them? Or think alike? Talk alike? Dress alike? Eat alike? Smoke alike? And sadly say “yes” to the same things and “no” to the same things alike?
And if you have worked under a whole set of bosses of different kinds, in many ways you are an amalgam of all those you have worked with or under. A boss is therefore something each one of us must choose with care. Most of us don’t get the luxury of choice. But some of us do. And take it.
I am grateful for this luxury of choice for sure. I have largely worked with bosses who have added some dimension or the other to my persona. Some good, some bad, and some hopefully not ugly.
As luck would have it, I was blessed with a boss for 8 long years I can be truly gushy about. In the days I worked at Tata Tea and Consolidated Coffee Limited, KK (as he was fondly and bravely called behind his back) was a name that would have every one on their toes. The repeat alphabets meant being totally on your toes. If you weren’t , it was at your peril. KK was man who loved numbers. He loved ideas. He loved work. He loved progress. He loved the idea of Tata itself.
If there is one man I have met who has embodied every positive trait of being a Tata person, it sure was RKKM. The pride was evident in everything he spoke. Everything he did. Everything he represented. And when KK left the room, it was quite the calm after the storm. Whatever he did, he left an impression. A long lasting positive impression that said clearly, “KK was here”!
In many ways, every interaction with him was a learning exercise of great impact. I remember the time he walked into the premises of a Taj property and yanked out neatly laid out beds to show imperfection that a Taj property could not afford. His standards were high. Platinum standards. Not gold. Pillows and sheets would fly. And they did, in the presence of many of us. His eye for detail, eye for design and indeed an eye for perfection was a trait for sure. A trait many feared.
I have been at on-site meetings where he suddenly decided that cutting an old tree that came in the way of building a neatly laid out corporate office was being considered. He flew into a bout of passion. At the end of the meeting it was decided that the office complex would be built around the tree. No tree could be touched. And these are the type of stories that define the complete persona of RKKM. He thought. And he thought differently. He acted. And he acted fast. He did. And he did big. And right. There was a Tata way of thinking that RKKM brought to the business at hand. And every time he did right, he taught every one of us to do the right thing as well. Not that one time. But time after time. Repeatedly.
And this is one out of the many things I will be grateful to you for sir. We will miss you. But will we really? Aren’t you a part of many of us already by now?
Om Shanti.
Harish Bijoor is a Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults
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