Kaviraj Dani was displeased. And he made that clear with his demeanour. All the people who reported to him were either ‘officers’ or ‘general managers’ (GM). These GMs, with over 25 years of experience, were resigned to work at Ahora Products. Ahora was family — the only one. Their emotional submission worked for Ahora. Kaviraj believed in one master, many serfs. That gave him control over the business conduct. And he used that effectively.

“This arrangement is not acceptable to me,” he told the family Board of Ahora India. I cannot have a reportee who is called a vice-president (V-P). He can be a GM, at best.” Chairman Gaurilal was perplexed. “Oh, I did not think Robin was going to report to anyone here,” he said referring to Robin Kamat, the V-P of Coral India, who would enable the integration process of Ahora with Coral. Recently, Ahora had sold its confectionery business to Coral — a company which manufactured sugar, fruit-based beverages and milk products. It saw opportunity in candy via the offer from Ahora. The arrangement was to facilitate the takeover and absorption of the brands in a phased manner over three years. During this period, Coral would manage the brands and gently enable their absorption into its portfolio while Ahora would continue managing production and operations. This also fell in line with Gaurilal’s wishes that the process should not be an exaggerated takeover, but one where Ahora would continue to be seen as the company in control; anything more abrupt would make him lose face in his social circles. So, a parallel management arrangement would let him keep his dignity and not seem as if he had made a distress sale.

Coral was comfortable with this plan but requested that its V-P Robin Kamat would work at Ahora over this three-year period, integrating the two business portfolios. Robin was excited too. At Ahora, he would be free from the shackles of regional and global controls and test his entrepreneurial skills.

Contending all this was CEO Kaviraj of Ahora, a cost accountant and company secretary who worked his way up the ladder and had been made the CEO a year ago. He knew the business inside out, was high strung in energy but conservative in his business approach. Kaviraj saw everything in money terms, including people and brands, and often saw woods for trees. Robin, for his part, did not mind being called GM and gave up his V-P identity for three years, since as he reasoned that his job content was that of a V-P. Besides, he was eagerly waiting to test his mettle at turning the business at Ahora into world class.

In one of his initial meetings with Gaurilal, the ageing chairman had asked: “When you decide whom to keep back and whom to retire, please be sensitive to the ones who are trying hard to make a difference... What attributes will you be looking at anyway?” Robin had replied, “I will hold on to people with passion. Passion and love for the work — so often undervalued, attitude and, more importantly, passion. It endures and stands the test of time. It gives a person tenacity to face the most trying of situations positively.” Gaurilal had looked him through his myopic yet challenging eyes, “Do you have that passion? I will watch for it!”

Despite his views on passion and his mental preparedness for an Indian entrepreneurial FMC setup, he was surprised and later shocked by what unfolded, especially Kaviraj, who was a rude surprise. He got into frequent arguments with Robin, which later degenerated into fights, often in full view of the staff and management. Robin found himself fighting for budgets for the brands rejuvenation, better front-end systems for sales force, more branch offices, etc., and to do some of this, he wanted to undo the old systems at Ahora set up by Kaviraj. Robin had unleashed a crusade of changes, he was dreaming of a transformed company within 12 months, wherefrom he expected to move into phase 2.

Robin had agreed to a number of minute changes to his environment purely out of an inner call to make this integration a successful one. While he had prepared for intellectual warfare, he had not bargained for a cultural attack arising out of cast-in-stone logic, defended by Kaviraj’s unbreachable ego. Of course, egos abounded at Coral too, but they were mostly impersonal and hedged around systems, theory, market forces. So, arguments at Coral were flavoured with logic and reason, steering clear of reckless emotion. Not that the management at Coral was emotionless; it only reined it in, in deference to educated principles of professional management. Whereas now, in his adopted home at Ahora, with Kaviraj calling the shots, the latter argued loudly and most illogically, most of the times deliberately dragging the argument from strategic logic to small operational details with which he would often confront and attack Robin in front of his juniors with a view to humiliating him. Robin, new to the ways of power at Ahora and not fully informed about these details, remained focused on strategic debates and their results.

Ahora’s product category was new to Robin, but not its business or market demands. He had honed this ability to climb quickly to the top and get an aerial view of a business. As for the nitty gritty, he had assumed that with so many subordinates in his turf, the hows and whys could be quickly grasped in three months. On the other hand, Kaviraj had spent 35 years in the same company. So, he knew everything and he was quick to home in on Robin’s weak areas. While Robin would be arguing about sub-brands Kaviraj would drag him into SKU-led costing and third party contractor manufacturing details... this path to the debates was designed to plug Robin and make him lose the argument. And Robin would leave the room frustrated, annoyed and often unable to wrest the information from Kaviraj who had his favourite finance/ costing guys plying him with the micro details, which were not a part of any organised MIS but were scattered all over the organisation. Worse, he cast such a spell on his staff, that none was comfortable passing information to Robin.

One evening after one such power play with Kaviraj in front of the chairman, Robin left the office boiling with anger, rage and frustration. After 20 minutes of simmering inner conflict, Robin battled a series of rhetorics: “Where have I come? What kind of a CEO is Kaviraj? What have I got myself into? Why isn’t the chairman intervening on my behalf? Why is he resorting to diplomacy? Have I made a mistake in coming here?” Robin realised with alarm, he was never like this before.

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