One memory I had as a child growing up was how CBN turned around Singareni Collieries. It had racked up losses amount to 1200 crores. BIFR declared it sick and bankrupt in 1992 and 1996. There were over a 100 unions with several strikes that hurt production (1/n)
CBN appointed an all-star team of bureaucrats known for a clean track record: A P V N Sarma (MD) and Venkateshwar Akella (CFO). One of the first things CBN did was to call the unions to a meeting. Ahead of the meeting, all unions were asked to send their demands in writing (2/n)
The management along with CBN agreed to whatever demands were financially viable. Then they flatly declined to even consider demands that were not viable given the company's financial situation. As substitution, they proposed performance-based incentives (3/n)
By late 1997, the results were beginning to show. The performance-based incentives were modest at the start, but they were hugely successful. Cycles, wrist-watches for 90 days of service without leaves etc. Remember the underground staff was notorious for its truancy (3/n)
The company worked off the losses and had recorded a net profit by 2001. During the same time, a lot of reforms were done to minimise safety accidents, improve automation, complete ERP implementation and move to bank-based salaries. All-round transformation really (4/n)
Years later, I asked Akella Venkateswar his experience of working with CBN and why he was successful? What he said sounded simple: He backs up a good team and follows up rigorously. Like CEOs today, CBN believed in having good teams and following up frequently (5/n)
At Singareni and later at AP Trasnco, Akella shared how he noticed CBN's obsession for dashboards. Not the glossy digital ones, but even paper-based MIS reports. The teams being reviewed used to come prepared with detailed reports and key numbers a rare thing in those days (6/n)
All this was a HBS case study: hbsp.harvard.edu/product/W11553…
The lesson is simple. CBN had intent and a bias to action. He gets up at 3 in the morning and sends follow up notes to CMDs and principal secretaries. Only such people get things done (7/n)
The lesson is simple. CBN had intent and a bias to action. He gets up at 3 in the morning and sends follow up notes to CMDs and principal secretaries. Only such people get things done (7/n)
Today, KCR, Jagan and Modi talk big game. But, they can't deliver. Why? They have neither the intent nor the ability to put in the hours patiently. All they know is how to bluster and slander their way to power and hang on to it with more bluster and slander (8/n)
By the way, Singareni had over a 1,00,000 employees in 1996. CBN did not have to fire them. If he looked the other way, the company would have crumbled under its own weight. But he took responsibility and turned it around taking the unions along with him (9/n)
All pundits praising the sacking of 48,000 employees as a bold decision should contemplate how much bolder was the decision to turnaround a sick company with 1,00,000 employees. It required CBN to stand up to unions, banks and market forces. He did it so well that ... (10/n)
...23 years later, Singareni Collieries has paid its employees over 1 lac in bonus for the festival. That's one happy Dussehra for those families. Meanwhile, some are praising Lord KCR for imperiously firing 48,000 RTC employees. These are strange times (11/n)
