Lessons from my grandmother

It was early morning. My brother and I were enjoying the peace and the aroma of our first cup of coffee. We were reminiscing about our childhood and the happy times we had as part of a wonderful joint family in Madras, as it then was called. During summer vacations when outstation members also joined the family, we used to have more than 50 people living in the same house. Given my interest in writing about management practices, my brother told me that one of the best managers he had ever seen was our widowed grandmother and he went on to explain why .

Planning: It is an abiding mystery even today as to how she managed the meals for the household which had varying populations at different times of the day. It was also a time when the men felt no need to inform anyone if they would be home for a meal or not - they just expected to be fed whenever they put in an appearance! To complicate matters, there would be a rotating cast of those temporarily staying with us. We do not recall a single occasion when our grandmother did not have enough for everyone.

Budget and Cash Flow: As children those days, we had no clue about money and its power; very simply put, we had none and did not seem to be the worse for it. Managing the household must have been horrendously tough. What made it even more challenging was the blithe assumption by the earning members that our grandmother would somehow manage.

Resource Utilisation: She hated wasting anything and was a past master at extracting the most out of material resources and the best out of people. Her favourite weapons were stories of goodness and achievements from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. If all that did not work, she would shame us into doing what was needed.

Prioritisation: She had a wonderful capacity to dynamically prioritise things that needed to get done. She was like a juggler with a number of balls in the air but with the added twist that numbers would change suddenly and without notice. She managed everything calmly and rarely showed her irritation at the constant chopping and changing she had to do.

Dealing with crises: As a family we seemed to lurch from one minor crisis to another regularly; and some major ones from time to time – pretty much par for the course for most families, I guess. The problem here was that all these crises had to be handled in an environment where responsibilities seemed to devolve only on a couple of people but the rights to create the problems seemed to be all pervasive! Our grandmother would be sure to tell those who should have shouldered more responsibility in a nice way if they were adults and would frighten the daylights out of us children, if we were the culprits.

Fairness and Equity: One thing that invariably shone through was her scrupulous fairness and equity. She made no differentiation in judging infractions — a mistake was a mistake. Her punishments really hurt our feelings but she would soon soothe us with love and explain why she acted the way she did. She was instilling in us a sense of responsibility and the need to take ownership of mistakes.

Inclusivity: She had neither travelled widely nor met a lot of people outside the family. Yet, she had an unerring sense of inclusivity which came to the fore, especially at festival times. She insisted that the children in the house share some part of their gifts and goodies with the less privileged. She encouraged the household help to give their children a good education. Surely CSR, circa 1950!

Our grandmother, who had learnt from the school of hard knocks in her life, had a caring heart and a steely resolve to make the best of the resources at her command. My business school training has certainly helped but I know who has largely shaped my managerial instincts and my personal attributes. You did, Patti ; you also taught me that wisdom can be found anywhere and with anyone and it is for me to imbibe it.

M. Chandrasekaran is advisor to 3i Infotech, Manipal Education & Medical Group and IDFC Pvt Equity.